Perfect Skin (24 page)

She has so lost it,
Wendy says in a low voice, her hand to her face as she struggles to stop a laugh breaking through, a battle that Katie interprets as emotion.

See? She cares, you bastard,
she shouts.
And you're not a kleptomaniac at all. You're just a straightforward psychopath, like the rest of them.

Katie, it was an accident, I try. It was just an accident. The hole was there already.

Oh yeah? Holes don't dig themselves.

The gardener next door did it.

He likes Flag. He'd never touch him.

No, that was me, but it was an accident. Honestly. But for now the main thing is getting Flag some help, isn't it?

Wendy and I both look down at the slumped bundle
of fur, and Flag looks back up at us, glassy-eyed and panting noisily.

How is he, like, neurologically?
Wendy says, again keeping it at murmur level.
Are those back legs doing much? If you've transected his spinal cord the vet's probably not going to be too interested, and we might as well head back next door
. . .

Don't. Don't even say that quietly.

It might be an idea to check, though.

Okay.

I kneel down next to Flag, and Katie screams. I look up and her face, and the knife, are pressed against the glass.

Just a quick medical check, Katie. I asked Jon to do it,
Wendy says, and then she whispers to me,
I'd skip checking sphincter tone if I were you. She'd be likely to take it the wrong way.

Don't make me laugh, Wend. I'm going nowhere near his sphincter and you know it. Okay, his lower limbs withdraw from pain, so that's good enough for me. His tail moves. I figure it's the fractured ribs and the possible pneumothorax we've got to deal with.

Possible pneumothorax?

Yeah. Flag is in trouble here. I have done a bad thing. We've got to try and fix it.

Yes. Sorry, it's just . . . not what I was expecting to be doing tonight. And Katie's so . . . worked up about it. Where did she get that knife?
She raises her eyebrows, sighs.
Okay, Katie, I'm coming in,
she says, like a person who's watched far too many cop shows.
Push the sideboard away and put down the knife.

But what about
. . .

Katie, it's all okay. It's a misunderstanding. It's an
accident. Flag was playing and got tangled in Jon's feet, and the hole next door was already there. Jon was just . . . protecting Flag's spine by keeping him on the shovel. That's what you saw.
The sideboard starts scraping back along the hall, Wendy eases the door open.
We've got to go, now. We've got to get Flag some help.

Are you sure?

Yes, I'm sure.

Katie puts the knife down next to the phone and comes closer to the door.

I'm sorry, Jon,
she says.
I
just saw what I saw, and I didn't react very well.

Perfectly understandable.

I'm a single woman. I live alone in a dangerous world
.

And now,
Wendy says,
you two can take Flag to the vet hospital,
so
you can finish sorting this out.

We'll go in my car, I tell Katie. You can look after Flag on the way and I'll drive.

And look, Katie,
Wendy says, pointing.
Jon came over here to bring you flowers. That's why he was here.

Yes, yes, that's why I came over. See? To give you flowers. Nothing to do with Flag.

You were bringing me flowers?

Yes.

And that's when I start to remember what the flowers were about.

Um, yes. Let's get Flag sorted out now though. That's the important thing at the moment.

You were bringing me flowers and just leaving them on my doorstep? That's sweet.

This could be a tension pneumothorax here, Katie. Do you know what a tension pneumothorax is?

I'll put the flowers in water,
Wendy says, starting to beam misguidedly, like someone who's stumbled upon something rather nice, as opposed to a dumping-by-gutless-bouquet plus cat-trampling event.
Why don't the two of you go and get Flag sorted out?

I'll get his blanket,
Katie says.
He'll be better wrapped in his blanket.

She runs down the hall and Wendy keeps looking at the flowers and maintaining the low-key beaming.

Flowers are a nice thought, Jon. I wouldn't have picked you as being that kind of guy.

Actually . . .

Then Katie's back.
Okay. Let's go.
She crouches down, wraps Flag up delicately.
Flaggy, it's your blanket. It's your favourite, sweetie. The one Mummy got you from Acapulco. You're going to be okay.
He makes a spluttering noise, but keeps breathing.
And I might have mentioned the missing towels again back there. In the heat of the moment
. . .

It's no problem.

I'll get some water for the flowers,
Wendy says.
You can leave me to lock up.

No, it's okay. We'll take the flowers with us. Flaggy likes flowers.

We turn to go to the car, and I wonder how the situation can be saved from here. I'm not in a strong position, having crushed her cat in a way that may yet prove fatal. The flowers are sending entirely the wrong signal right now, and the only thing that will send the right signal is the card that's tucked in there somewhere – among the stems and near the wheezing, gurgling cat – but it somehow has to disappear before Katie sees it tonight.

Shit, Lily, I realise, and say it aloud. I've left her in the car all this time.

You were just leaving the flowers on the doorstep
. . .

I run down the path and jump the steps at the bottom. I get to the car door and pull it open. And Lily looks at me. I think I've woken her. I think it's okay.

I'm sorry, I say to her. I'm sorry. I was only going to be a minute. I can't believe I left you here.

I'm sure it's okay, Jon,
Katie says.
It really wasn't long.
She lowers herself into the passenger seat, cradles Flag like a baby.
And there was the knife. I think that had you distracted for a while. I'm really sorry about the knife . . . See Flaggy? It's all a mistake. Just an accident in a game.
Her voice, in its attempt to reassure, is taking on more of the tone of a mad person than I'd like it to.
You'll have to be more careful in the dark, won't you?

Wheeze wheeze, gurgle gurgle. I'm reckoning Flaggy's chances of seeing any more dark beyond this night are fifty-fifty, at best.

Where should we go? I ask her. Is that one near the PA Hospital the nearest one that'd be open?

That's where Flag always goes,
she says, and strokes his head.
Poor little guy. We don't have your very clever night vision, do we? Not enough carrots, hey Flaggy, that's us humans. Jon brought us some nice flowers, though. We like flowers, don't we? We sometimes wait years between bunches of flowers, don't we, Flaggy? And there's a nice card to cheer us up.

She pulls the card out, whips it out of the envelope and snaps the passenger-seat reading light on before I can even think about how to stop her.

Um, Flag's eyes . . . the light might not be a good idea at the moment.

The vet's not going to examine him in the dark, Jon. Now don't be embarrassed. I know you wanted to leave this on the step and drive away, but
. . . She stops talking, reads the card, smiling. Then goes completely still, and the smile freeze-frames itself on her face, flickers like an old video. There's a sharp intake of breath.

Um . . .

Oh, I thought that'd make me feel better.
Another sharp breath in.
Oh, you bastard. You maybe kill my cat, and then you give me this to read.

I didn't . . . I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

You hurt my cat. And you did that wee on him.
Sob.
It changed him, you know. And you
. . . Sob.
I thought we were getting on
so
well.

Sorry. I'm really sorry.

She says nothing, wipes her face with the corner of the blanket, the ‘O' in Acapulco, and stares grimly at the back of the car in front of us.

Look, you know it's about me at the moment, don't you?

But the card
. . .

I know. I know what I said in the card. I just don't want to mislead you. It's too easy to give people the wrong idea and cause harm, and that's not what I want to do. Really.

Yeah.
There's a pause, and I mistakenly take it to mean that she's absorbing what I've just said.
Um, everyone tells me you make jokes about my hair.

What?

Eighties hair.

What?

It's only cause my ears stick out a bit. I wanted to cover them,
she says, in a wobbly, quivery voice as we drive into the vet hospital and park.

Why don't you take Flag? I suggest, and I'll carry Lily. And we'll leave the flowers in the car for now.

She sniffs loudly and takes a final, firm wipe at her face with the blanket.

I'm not desperate, you know,
she says, as we go through the sliding doors and into the bright fluoro lights of the reception area.
I might have turned thirty and be single almost all the time, but I'm not desperate. And we can't all be as together as bloody Wendy.

Yeah, I know.

So
you didn't say the eighties hair stuff?

I think we've got to focus on Flag tonight, Katie. I don't think it's a night to get too deep into the personal issues.

Eighties hair,
she says, and starts to sob again.

No one's as together as bloody Wendy. Certainly not me. So don't worry about that. And I know you're not desperate. Katie, your hair's fine.

Really?

Yeah, it's fine. I like your hair.

Do
you like the eighties?
she says, totally pushing the friendship.

And she looks at me in a way that says she really needs me to like the eighties, just for now, just to get through this moment, so I have to say, Sure.

Good,
she says.
Cause I think they're pretty good too.

So that's one of the high points of our evening behind us, this flimsy agreement about a decade best forgotten, and after that reality cuts in all too often.

The vet doesn't like the look of Flag at all. She agrees it's probably a pneumothorax, and she works quickly to get a tube in there. The emergency X-rays confirm the diagnosis, the second set of X-rays show that the tube's in the right position. My Visa Card gets a good working over. Flag gets wheeled to Intensive Care.

The vet talks about Flag's ribs, and assumes there was a car involved. This makes no-one feel better. She points to the fractures on the X-ray, and I tell her it's what we'd call, in humans, a flail segment, where you've broken enough ribs in two places that there's a section of the rib cage that doesn't work in the normal way. She tells me it's the same deal in animals, unfortunately.

There is more sobbing from Katie, several more outbreaks of sobbing. Sometimes linked to particular increments of bad news, sometimes out of the blue. Her eyes go red and stay that way. Her nose starts to run and, with all the wailing going on and Katie oblivious to most things, I take to it instinctively with tissues. She keeps talking without making much sense, her nose steps its contribution up a notch and I find myself saying, Come on, give it a good blow, before I realise that the vet is staring at us like we're one fucked-up family.

Lily is wailing too, with all the distress around and the shambles this has made of mealtimes, and the vet fetches more tissues so that I can get to her nose before major problems start.

They're glad when we leave.

There's not much talk in the car on the way back to Katie's. When we get there she tells me she'd rather not take the flowers, and she runs inside.

I drive back onto the freeway, and Lily keeps up the
wailing. And we might have got through the recent teething intact, but tonight I've shut her in a car, deprived her of dinner and exposed her to way too much unhinged human emotion. The concept of basic mistrust should be kicking in right now, just as Erikson knew it would, and it'll be years before I'll get to explain any notion as sophisticated as extenuating circumstances.

And the vet said she'd do her best, but she could make no promises. Katie let go a lot of facial fluid at that point.

Soon, very soon, I say to Lily, but it does no good.

The wailing is with us the whole way home, and all the music and soothing talk only adds to the noise. And I think back to the occasional emails Katie and I exchanged until not long ago, and how simple it seemed. And now I think I might have killed half her email address.

I get to work early on Tuesday, and put in some quality time with the pathology reports and build-up of junk in my in-tray. The sensation of cat thorax underfoot is hard to keep out of my mind, though. It's hard not to feel awful about Katie and Flag, ktnflag, the whole email address.

Other people start to arrive. Lift doors start pinging open and the phone starts ringing. I hear conversation in the corridor, Wendy laughing.

George comes to my door and says in a deeper-than-usual, CNN-newsreader voice,
It's Flag, Jon. Katie just called to say he could still
go
either way.

Look . . . Quit the voice, okay? It was an accident.

Yeah, I'm sure it was. Gotta hand it to you. You know how to turn 'em down. You've got this dating thing 
so
under control, haven't you?

It wasn't a date. And I've got to get to work now. I've got to make some positive contribution to the world.