Chapter Twenty-Nine
There’s a terrible noise. Did Luca belch? That’s not sexy! I snap open my eyes, sit up, dragging the rug around me. I’m alone, an empty teacup beside me, and…that noise. What is that?
“Lucas?” I actually say his name, blinking, putting my hand on the hard bench where there’s not a lace-trimmed cushion to be seen. Lucas?
Bleaagh.
Is it a bird? I look out to sea, across the lawn. Can I can really see the curvature of the earth, or is it an optical illusion—
Bleaagh.
—and if it is, why doesn’t it bend the other way, like a wide, shallow, blue bowl? There are white sails in the bay, spinnakers out like balloons—blue, red and yellow.
Bleaagh.
I wonder if I could learn to sail? This would be as good a place as any. The best. How amazing to feel the sails fill with fast-moving air, to be powered by the wind like the ancient explorers—
Bleaagh. Bleaagh. Bleaaaaaagh.
I throw the rug aside and get up. Leaning over the porch rail I see the cause of the commotion.
“Buster! What are you doing?”
He’s crouched to the side of the steps, in long grass, head extended, convulsing. He’s choking. He’s choking on Agat’s duck! I creep down the steps without much of a plan in my head. All I know is, one, Buster needs to be okay by the time Alice gets home and, two, Agat will not get the better of me. Not even now, when she is, apparently, beyond capable of stalking this family. I will pick Buster up quickly and hold him tight, because he’s bound to struggle. I’ll rush him inside, close the doors to confine him, call the vet on her emergency number, and race to the clinic. That’s the only thing to do, so that’s what’s going to happen.
“For God’s sake, Buster, work with me,” I plead, under my breath. He glances at me, terror in his yellow eyes, and chokes again. “Nice kitty, beautiful kitty, clever kitty, Buster,” I say, soothing him. “Who’s the handsomest kitty in the world? Who? Good kitty, shhhh.”
Buster relaxes a little. Here’s my chance. I bend, taking care not to make any quick movements, and stretching out my hands, slowly, I grip him around his middle. He’s going to bolt; I know it.
A head-splitting uproar rips the air. The explosion of an erupting volcano, a bomb blast, eight trucks colliding with an express train, a chainsaw, a jackhammer, and washing machine full of tin cans. Buster ejects my grasp, leaving a trail of lacerated flesh—mine!—and turbo-boosts to the far side of the garden.
I race after him. A glance in the direction of the din reveals Buck, pushing an ancient lawnmower on a mighty steel roller over the stony ground to the side of the house.
“Buster!” I yell. “Buster, come here.” He’s not going to, is he? He’s in self-preservation mode and terrified. What cat ever hung out around a lawnmower? “Shut the fuck up!” I scream at Buck, waving my arms like a madwoman. Buster dives into thick bush, squeezing between the gnarled and twisted stems of plants bowed over by decades of easterly gales, and disappears. I go after him.
“Fuck you, Buster,” I mutter, taking care not to scream, but what’s the point? Nothing will placate a cat choking to death while scared to death!
I’m in, pushing my way through the tightly woven undergrowth, thick with rotten leaves, going after him on hands and knees. I can’t let Buster die. I can’t heal Lucas, I can’t protect Alice forever, but I can stop Buster dying, or die trying myself. My pullover hooks on a branch and I have to pull my arm out of the sleeve to free myself. It doesn’t work. Now my arm’s stuck and my head. I squirm free, leaving the pullover behind, knotted in the branches, reminding myself that I am a cat person, I am. Just not today.
For a moment, I stop scrambling about in the undergrowth, to listen. A mournful yowl drives me on. Please God, let Buster be stuck, so I can reach him. I jam myself between sticks and stalks, and solid, old, uncooperative deadwood. My jeans rip and the offending sharp, splintery point rams my thigh. I crawl on, knees mashed by old broken shells and salty grit, breaking nails, eyes stinging with sand and slapping twigs. I lose a clump of hair on one of a million protruding branches and bash my knees on rocks. Covered in muck, eyes streaming, I barely register the shredding of my shirt.
I pause. “Buster? Buster, kitty?”
No lawnmower at least, only the loud grunt of the nearby surf, and a shrieking seagull. I’m stuck. That saying dragged through a bush backwards—it’s the same forwards, trust me. I’m up against a wall of vegetation and there’s one thing to do: force my way. I push, grunting, and the wood bends, only to bend back and hit me in the face. I can’t let Buster die. I can’t go through another blue-pyjamas cataclysm. The blue pyjamas aren’t even alive, for crying out.
“Buster!” I’m desperate, breathless, panting, so panicked that I don’t hear it at first. I barely see it; it’s that stealthy.
What—?
Oh God, an alligator! I swallow my heart. No, it’s not an alligator. Like the bear wasn’t a bear, but merely a moose out and about in the wilds of Maine. Dead still, sensible and calm, I swivel my eyes.
An alligator.
A long, wide, brown thing, a stealthy killing machine, slithering on its fat belly three yards to my left. Buster’s dead for sure because this mean beast has his eyes straight ahead. Please, please, please, I pray, take Buster. Eyes squeezed shut, I offer Buster, will him to be eaten instead of me.
But alligators are restricted to Florida, aren’t they? Or haven’t I concentrated properly on the National Geographic Channel that forms the greater part of my knowledge bank of the Great Outdoors? Maine is not swampy right here on the coast. How come there’s an alligator? Didn’t I hear they’ve existed on planet earth for ninety million years? Or is that sharks? Or crocodiles? Aren’t alligators and crocodiles fundamentally one and the same? Cold blooded killing machines, perfectly honed for survival? Whatever, there’s one in the underbrush, here and now.
And me? I lick my sandy lips. What if he smells me? Perhaps if I freeze he’ll keep going and pass me by. I stay completely still and the alligator slides past. On my stomach, head down on my arms, nose full of sand I wait for the alligator to smell me, and turn. I wait to die.
“Fuck,” the alligator says.
I lift my head, blinking. In front of me, wreathed about with leaves, two feet ahead of my nose I see the worn soles of a pair of size twenty boots. “Buck?”
“Shaddap you.” He crawls forward on his elbows, hardly making a sound. I stay where I am, spent. Buster must choose now. Life or death. He might well choose death with Buck looming, the peak of his battered, brown baseball cap penetrating the vegetation like the muzzle of some prehistoric reptile. I wait for Buster to die of fright while I try not to do the same. There’s more creeping from Buck, some waiting, leopard crawling, and then a pounce, “Goddamn,” and a scuffle. I drag myself upright, pushing upward through the bushes, to see Buck dragging Buster out of the thicket in some kind of sack. I reverse, scrabble, trip and stumble back to the entry point, but it’s no good. I have to go back the way I came, crawling. On the ground again, in the composted slushy sand that’s never seen the light of day, all the twigs and branches I’ve pushed forward, snap back and scratch and tear me, like I’m not scratched and torn enough. A big branch jumps back and knocks me sideways. Eew! My hand’s on something cold. Is it a glob of cat sick? I’m not looking.
Clink.
I look. To be frank, there’s not much space in the dingly dell to look, but I twist my head sideways and see, out of the corner of my eye that it’s a key. Here’s a bit of luck, to find something you didn’t even know you’d lost. It’s my key, the sea horse-shaped one Lucas told me never to lose! OMG, close call. I grab the key and reach behind me—more scratches—to shove everything into the torn pocket of my jeans. Determined, eyes squeezed shut against the whip of the retaliating branches, I reverse the way I came, surprised, actually to see how little progress I made. Whatever. In my memory, this misadventure will lodge as ten miles’ worth of hacking through the barbed and stinging plants of the Amazon jungle, at its impenetrable heart.
Buck and I emerge from the jungle in different places. He sets off immediately across the lawn, gripping the thrashing fur bomb in a bag that is Buster. I chase them around the side of the house.
“In the truck,” Buck barks. “Quick!”
I jump in and grapple for the seatbelt, somehow knowing we’re in for a wild ride. There’s no seatbelt, only a terse “Hold tight!” instruction from Buck, who wrangles the reluctant ignition with gritted teeth, rams the truck into gear, spinning the wheels as we rocket down the drive. By the time we get to Jay’s Automotive, Buck is driving foot flat, and talking on the phone. Somehow, he also has a hand on the horn, due—I suppose—to the lack of hazard lights on this rusting wreck.
“Tell Doc Foster to stand by,” Buck roars over the noise of the engine. “Operation Black Cat Down. I’m on my way with Buster Dalton. He’s in a bad way.”
We’re gunning down Main, when we’re stopped by a tour group crossing the road to the fish market. There’s too much of a crowd for Buck—even Buck—to take a gap. Nate Harris pulls up alongside and eyeballs me through the open window.
“Excuse me, Uncle Buck, sir.” He leans forward to speak to Buck. “Would you pull over, please, so we can—”
“Nah! This here ain’t a tea party. This here is an emergency situation. Buster ain’t breathin’. I need an escort to Old Mill Veterinary, boy, not a friggin’ tail. Get your fancy ass out in front of me and step on it. We’ll talk after.”
Now there’s traffic. Nate eases the police car forward, siren on and blue lights flashing. Buck lurches into his slipstream, and we scream off. I close my eyes, waiting for the smash.
As for Buster, he’s completely limp. I’m terrified he’s dead.