Care of Wooden Floors (19 page)

Neither of us moved. How much had she seen? Her expression made it clear that she believed she had seen something bad. But was there time to see anything with any certainty? Could I simply deny everything? Scant seconds had elapsed – it had all been over very quickly, she had definitely not been there when I emerged from the flat, and her vantage point wasn’t good enough to see much more than my back. There was no way that she
could have caught more than a glimpse, a blur, and surely it would be simple to claim (to whom?) that all she had seen was a plastic bag, not...what she was alleging...to whom? To the
police
? It’s...it was only a
cat
, and it died in an accident...she had seen nothing, this was an outrage, she was in no position to accuse, to judge...

She was still looking at me, and her mouth opened and closed like a goldfish. Then, she took a step towards me, onto the stairs, and I instinctively flinched back. She raised her hand; she was pointing at me, eyes wide and mad, as she ascended the stairs. Her mouth opened and closed again, formed a word, and she was still pointing at me, or past me, transfixed in some sort of visceral, muscular motion of accusation and condemnation. I thought of Donald Sutherland in the final scene of the 1970s remake of
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
, arm raised like a rifle, face contorted with hatred, alien and loathsome. I thought of the ghost advancing on Don Juan at the end of the opera. She was approaching.

‘What’s the matter?’ I stammered, attempting nonchalance. I was frozen to the core; no part of my body could make a movement that did not seem like an admission of some kind of guilt. And yet standing here in this spell seemed to be the guiltiest act of all. I did not know what an innocent action would look like, or what an innocent word might sound like. ‘Is there a problem?’ I asked.

The cleaner was nearing the top of the stairs now, almost on the landing with me, still pointing, still staring, still mouthing something. She was, I realised, surprisingly intimidating, wrapped in a protective binding of gristle
and rind and ancient artificial fibres, an armoured hulk in a headscarf, especially with that stumpy, meaty arm stretched out towards me. Except that it wasn’t really pointed at me at all. As she drew closer, it became obvious that she was pointing past me, to something behind me, towards the chute.

Reluctantly, I looked over my shoulder. It was obvious what had caught her attention. Protruding from the closed hatch, caught in its metal grip, was a four-inch length of white-tipped tail. The rest of the cat was, presumably, hanging on the other side of the door, suspended in limbo without completing its final descent. With the limp mass of the rest of the body out of sight, this little cigar of fur looked faintly comical, a prop for a violent cartoon or something that should be dangling from a car aerial. I thought for an instant of the terrible plastic fingers that made it appear as though someone was trapped in your car’s boot, a novelty that was briefly popular in the 1980s.

Quickly, surprising myself with my own decisiveness, I tugged on the hatch handle, opening it a little, and the black and white sausage of tail disappeared like a startled rodent, accompanied by the receding slither of the dead cat falling down the chute.

The cleaner stopped only a couple of steps from the top of the stairs. She said something loud and accusatory, and then repeated it, this time labouring its syllables. I had no way of knowing what she meant, but her body language was unequivocally angry and she clearly had a low opinion of me. Her pose was stiff, tense, and her face had
flushed an unhealthy red, with the nostrils of that ugly batlike nose flushed wide.

‘It died,’ I said, doing my best to seem calm and serious. It didn’t really matter what I said, as far as I could see, but my tone and bearing did count for something. Whatever I said, she had obviously already formed a very comprehensive version of what had happened and who was to blame. ‘It was an accident,’ I continued. ‘I was out, there was an accident, and it died. I didn’t...’

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t kill it.

She had, at least, closed her mouth; indeed, it was clamped shut, as if she was fighting the urge to vomit. Her eyes bulged like ping-pong balls.

Then, abruptly, she made a dismissive gesture, waving both her hands at me and turning away to stamp angrily back down the stairs, muttering to herself.

I didn’t move for a little while. It felt as if I hadn’t taken a breath in several minutes, so I took one, suddenly cold and shaky. Clear, chilly fluid sloshed against my insides. I bolted for Oskar’s door, and slammed it behind me.

A tram rumbled by in the street as I leaned against the door, gulping in breaths and listening for sounds from the other side. There was nothing. The word ‘deniability’ bumped around inside my head, then inflated emptily until it filled the space between my ears, pushing out everything else. Deniability. I needed deniability. The word buzzed and multiplied. What did it even mean? I had heard it in a political context, attached to some controversy or other. The precise definition escaped me but I grasped the basic inner meaning of it. It had to do with the command of
truth – the understanding that objective reality is never wholly seen by anyone, and around it we weave our own subjective and false stories. What had actually happened was irrelevant and unknowable – what was important was the construction of a compelling story that could shoulder aside competing versions. After all, I had little doubt that the cleaner had by now concocted her own completely false version of events: that I had killed the cat and then disposed of its remains in a disrespectful, indeed outright inept, fashion. This was a flotilla of untruths, so what did it matter if I too tailored the historical record a little in order to sink it? I would be working in the service of a greater truth, even if it appeared to some that I was doing everything in my power to thwart genuine understanding of the events. I was certain that wrongdoing on my part was completely deniable, and deny it I certainly would.

I took another deep breath and looked back over my last train of thought. I was panicking. There was, at that moment, no need to deny anything or enter into any kind of torrid threesome with reality and falsity. At that moment, what I needed was a drink and a sit down.

Back in the kitchen, I poured a glass of water and drained it in two gulps. It was not very refreshing, room temperature and curiously un-watery. Just liquid, nothing else, with none of water’s clarifying and revitalising properties. I did not feel like one of the flawless models in the adverts, blissfully receiving a bucketful of crystalline refreshment right in the chops.

Maybe what was needed was not water but a glass of wine. The thought provoked a sullen eddy of nausea from
my innards and a dull throb from the polluted liquid in which my brain swam, but no real protest. I opened a bottle and prepared a glass. As I did this, one of the cats – that is,
the
cat, the remaining cat – pushed up against my legs, rubbing its back up and down on my calf and meowing persistently.

‘You’re still hungry, aren’t you?’ I asked it. ‘I’m sorry, I’ll get your food.’

I set the glass down on the kitchen counter – far from the edge, up against the wall – and went into the little utility room for the cat food.

The little room smelled wholesome and comforting. Nothing identifiable predominated in this subtle aroma, but it was so pleasing and homely that it enticed me to pause, testing the air to see if I could anatomise it. Dry food certainly contributed a large share, and so did cleaning products; unlikely conspirators, but here successful. They shared ground on the spectrum of the nose: there was a certain note that was just right, natural and savoury, with a hint of purifying astringency. It was all very domestic and reassuring, but there was also something about that space that strummed on my anxieties. It spoke clearly of a well-run household – supplies built up and maintained, shortages guarded against, needs anticipated and met. As Oskar’s notes made clear, nearly all contingencies had been accounted for. I had no doubt that if, for instance, the power went out, I would find candles and matches. The air was pregnant with admirable qualities such as diligence, self-discipline, organisation, planning – in short, the sort of qualities that I lacked. I did not have a career to
speak of, just a succession of freelance assignments. I was single. I had neglected to buy a flat or save anything. And here I was, in the realm of all the tedious self-satisfied animals that came out on top in the fables – assiduous ants, industrious squirrels, tenacious tortoises.

But...the thought of Oskar’s notes lingered with me. He had anticipated a large number of potential foul-ups on my part. Of everything that had gone wrong over the past few days, I thought only the death of the cat might surprise him. And he certainly saw the potential for a floor-related disaster. Wouldn’t he have a supply of cleaning products suited to his floors? An insurance policy, a safety net, perhaps even something potent enough to undo epic damage of the kind that I had wrought?

Yes. That sounded like Oskar. That sounded
exactly
like Oskar. That was precisely the sort of precaution that Oskar would have made sure to take.

I surveyed the areas underneath the shelves on each side of the little room and saw, with a rush of hope, a corner of dusty yellow cloth hanging from a beige plastic basket between a box of light bulbs, a shrink-wrapped cube of washing-up sponges, and a jug of white spirit. This basket slid out with a waft of a pungent, spicy smell, laced with sweetness, complicated solvents and other chemicals. Chief in the bouquet was a strong, natural smell that was both sweet and savoury and it dominated the showier artificial scents of the modern products in a convincing blast of seniority. It was old, older than most household chemicals, and curiously like the ancient, indescribable smell that follows a sneeze. The smell was natural, unrefined
honey, the beehive, and its source was clear: a dull, softedged moulded block, the shape of a gold ingot from a heist movie. A word was printed on it in recessed letters:
Bienenwachs
. It was a chunk of beeswax, as used for repairing scratches in wooden furniture and floors. It was anchoring a note.

CLEANING PRODUCTS. These are cleaning products for the flat and for the floor. If something has dropped on the floor, or the floor is damaged, speed is important. There is a book,
Care of Wooden Floors
, on the shelf with the architecture. It is more detailed with instructions to put right minor damage to the floor. If there is damage to the floor, you must also call me! At any time! Let me know! – Oskar

He would want to know, of course. He would want all the details – the ruined floor, the torn sofa, the dead cat. He would be interested in the welfare of the surviving cat, as well. I picked up a can of cat food and returned to the kitchen.

The cat was clearly famished. It threaded itself through my legs, rose up against me, and kept up a monologue of insistent meowing. When I put the can down and took the tin-opener out of the drawer, it cottoned on to the imminent feeding and hopped up onto the counter. I shooed it back down, carefully. When there had been two cats, they had seemed as unbreakable as rubber balls. Now, this remnant seemed desperately fragile. The opener completed its circuit of the can and the top rose up, revealing
a jellied gleam. One of these cans had fed both cats – would it be best to only fork out half a can, now there was only one cat left? And throw away the rest? Or keep it in the fridge, under a miserable, wrinkled square of bachelor cling film? If I gave it the full can, could it be harmed by over-eating? I would normally have thought it incapable of reckless overindulgence, but in the light of what had happened to its friend...Was it aware of this change in circumstances? Was it grieving? What if I was misinterpreting shock and disbelief at bereavement as hunger? Would it be lonely?

As I forked the whole contents of the can onto a plate, my vision dissolved, and I realised that I was crying.

When I returned to our table with two fresh pints, I wondered again if Oskar might cry. Rather than contemplative, or irate, he now seemed wholly desolate. It was a risk, feeding him more beer – it could push him either way. My main concern was, however, that he might be lonely. I wondered how much support he was getting, how many friends he had.

‘Where are you planning to stay in LA?’ I asked. ‘Do you know people out there?’

‘A hotel,’ Oskar said. ‘Laura has a very large house, but it would not be appropriate. And the people I know there are her friends. It’s not bad, I like hotels. There are some very good hotels in LA.’

‘Look,’ I said, trying to sound supportive, ‘if you want to talk while you’re out there, just call me, at any time. I want to help.’

‘You will be helping just by looking after the flat,’ Oskar said. He squeezed out a formal smile. ‘All the talking is done, I think. It does not work, so we have to put an end to it. It is just a legal procedure now. You did not like her, did you?’

I paused. The road ahead was strewn with landmines. I would have to proceed very carefully. ‘She was very different to you,’ I said. ‘Your relationship came as a surprise to me, and I was even more surprised when you got married. Sometimes those things work, and sometimes they don’t.’

‘But you did not like her.’

I edged forward with as much care as possible. ‘I thought she was very rude to me.’

‘Yes, she was,’ Oskar said. ‘It cannot be denied now. She did not often worry about what other people thought.’

This made me chuckle. ‘Well, Oskar, you can be pretty direct yourself. Sometimes you’re not very concerned with other people’s feelings.’

Oskar stared into his pint. He did not look angry. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I like to be honest. There is too much bullshit. Maybe I am being a hypocrite. I set a very high standard for myself in my life, in my work. And I set high standards for other people. But not too high, I think.’

‘Your standards are very high indeed, Oskar,’ I said. ‘About people, about life. That’s not a bad thing in itself, I suppose, but it seems to make you so unhappy. Maybe you should consider lowering them a bit.’ I paused to sip. Oskar was not looking at me. ‘Anyway,’ I continued, ‘my offer
stands. If you ever want to talk, just call me. You’ll know where I am.’