CAT LADY

 

 

I used to be able to hear her through the walls. You’d hear her talking to them: “What are you doing? What have you got there? Are you being good?” You know, like they were her kids or something.

Used to get on my nerves. When I’m working, I’m up at around five or six. When I’m not working, I still usually wake up same time – can’t help it. I’d try going back to sleep but she’d keep me awake talking to the cats. I dunno what was up with that downstairs bedroom. Soon as Chelle moved out I took her room upstairs. It was smaller but at least it was quiet up there.

I dunno how many of them she had. At least three; I mean, there was definitely a black one, a ginger one and a brown one, but I swear they weren’t all the same cats – they had different spots and marks on their fur. Used to shit in the back yard. She had no one else living there and I don’t think she ever had friends over. Least I never heard them.

Then he showed up. I’d met him a few times down the road in The Lion. He was a cocky prick from the start. All swanky suits and sunglasses, and car keys – he always used to come marching in and slam his keys down on the table like he was cock of the walk just getting home. Tosser.

He was an estate agent or developer or something. Buying up all the derelict and shitty council houses and doing them up to sell on. Mostly for student landlords. You didn’t need do anything fancy for the student houses; just paint the walls and put locks on the doors, that’s what he used to tell me.

He used to talk to me cos no one else in The Lion wanted to have anything to do with him. Not exactly the most open-minded mob in there; they’re the kind of thick-skinned old bastards who think giving women the vote was too much of a fucking liberty. They see a big black guy walk in, flashing his cash, and, well… if he hadn’t have been built like a brick-shithouse’s dad then they’d have glassed him and kicked his ribs in. Instead they just kept their distance and called him a nigger when his back was turned.

Me, I’ll talk to anyone. In my business it’s mostly Poles and Russian’s these days anyway; they’re the only ones desperate enough to do the work. Doesn’t pay to be having a problem with where someone’s from. Wouldn’t get any work if I did. Anyway, what’s so great about England anyway that makes us so high and bloody mighty?

Couldn’t stand the bastard, but he’d talk to me anyway. I put up with it because I hoped he might throw us a bit of work, us both being in the same sort of business. And when you’re out of work, it’s not like you got much else to do. Believe it or not, there is only so much Sky Sports that you can watch before you start to go a bit mental.

I think he already knew me from somewhere. But he was like that anyway; he always acted as if he was your best mate, even if you hardly knew him.

So after seeing him down there a few times, suddenly he starts turning up next door. I thought at first that he was the new landlord and wondered whether he’d be paying me a visit too. But the old cat lady turned out to be his aunt; first we’d heard about her having any relatives. Me and Gregg had never seen anyone show up there before except for the postman or when her shopping would get delivered – they’d bring the cat food in on huge trays. I swear that’s all they ever brought her; we thought that’s what she lived on as well.

He showed up there a few times. It was a bad summer for me, recession and all. I was having to sign on and just had to sit around doing nothing, and it really drives me up the wall. Always like to be busy, you know? And you can’t afford owt when you’re skint. You search for pennies just to have a pint.

But he’d show up there every so often and a couple of times they’d have a row. You couldn’t usually hear her talking to the cats, not in the living room during the day. But you could hear them two going at it. Dunno what about, I used to turn the volume right up. But it didn’t take a rocket scientist to guess. And then when he was gone, she’d carry on with the cats. Telling them how she wasn’t going to be turfed out of her own home.

After a couple of rows, he didn’t show up for a while and he wasn’t down The Lion either. Then one day – close to the end of summer I think, cos I had a couple of weeks working for me cousin Nick doing house clearances, but I was back on the dole – I came home and there was an ambulance parked outside our house. I was a bit worried at first; thought Gregg had maybe larged it too much once and for all. But it was outside her house, the cat lady. And I walked to the door, my door, just as they were wheeling her out.

She was zipped up in a bag – finally kicked it. The neighbours had found her – Polish couple. They’d heard the cats making a racket and had gone round to complain. They saw her lying face down in the hallway. Weren’t sure how long she’d been there.

Sad way to go, on your own like that. I mean, if those two nosy buggers hadn’t looked in she might’ve laid there for weeks.

You know it was only then that I realised that I had no idea what she looked like. Two years I’d been there. Didn’t know what she looked like. Never looked her in the face once in all that time. Pretty sad really, but I suppose that’s just what folks are like these days. I only know the Polish pair cos they’re always complaining to someone about the bloody noise.

Anyway, he didn’t waste his time. They were round there in days clearing the place out, loaded a couple of vans up with junk and then came over to renovate the place. I used to chat to the guy in charge when I saw him; still trying to find work. Apparently the place was covered in cat shit, took ’em days to scrape it all out. The cats were gone though, no sign of them unless Mr Flash took them away. I could imagine him going down the canal in his BMW to drop off a few sacks. He was a caring kind of guy.

Yeah, we all thought he might’ve had something to do with it. I mean, you’re never sure and the police never came round and looked the place over. But he wanted the house, and he got it. And we all thought it was all just a bit of a coincidence, him showing up just a bit before she died. And what happened next… I don’t believe in ghosts or any of that shit but that was pretty fucking fucked up.

The house was done-up, the builders had gone and not been back for a couple of days and I’d looked in and the place looked pretty cleaned-up. I was in The Lion and he was there having a drink with some guys who were trying to pretend he wasn’t there. He came to talk to me as usual and he started talking about the place. They’d done a really good job getting it ready. No mention of his aunt or anything, nothing said about how devastated he was or anything like that.

He said I should go around and see it. He was pissed and I wasn’t interested. But he wanted to go around there and he wanted me to go with him. So just then he starts talking about what I’m up to, what work I’m doing. And he knows full well I ain’t up to shit. But he keeps on, there’s some stuff I might be able to help him out with up at the house and he could use a guy like me to help him. I’m desperate so I end up going along with it.

He drives me there in his BMW, even though he’s drunk. He leads us up the path and steps, keeps going on about how his guys are the best and that’s why he pays ’em more. Seemed like the usual bunch of fuckwits to me, but what do I know?

He lets me in and goes on about how the house was in a terrible mess and they’d had to tear up the carpets and rewire the place. Just showing off. First thing I noticed was he’d put in panel flooring, which was going to mean shit loads of noise complaints. He showed me the front room; he wasn’t sure whether it was going to be a student house or whether he was going to sell it as normal. So it was just empty, could be a bedroom or a dining room.

It was exactly the same house as ours, just the other way around. Fair play, they’d done a decent job of it mind. But it wasn’t anything special. Attic conversion was quite good, and he’d redone the bathroom, new fittings and all. Nice enough – I didn’t care, but nice enough.

Living room and kitchen were all right. He laughed about having found that the outhouse was still working, so he’d cleaned it up so they had a second toilet.

The last thing he wanted to show me was the basement. All these old town houses have basements; we had one – dark and filthy without a proper floor and a low ceiling. You couldn’t do much with it except dump stuff down there. And the light didn’t work, and it was too dark down there to find out where the light was without a torch, so me and Gregg we never went down there. No one ever did – they were all the same in all the houses we went to. The basement was just a dirty room you stored your crap in.

But his house was different. He’d lowered the floor, tiled it up, made it a proper laundry room with a chest freezer and shelves. It was going to be a proper room you could use. He was very proud of this for some reason – I suppose it makes the difference when you’ve got hundreds of houses that all look the same.

So he opened up the door and took me down the steps in the dark. It was late, so there wasn’t much light from outside and the light cord was down at the bottom of the stairs.

He waited till I was at the bottom so he could have his taa-dah moment. He pulled the cord and the light came on.

And yeah, he’d done it up nice: tiled the floor, painted the walls, put in a separate washer and dryer, and the chest freezer like he said. He’d put up shelving units – but the thing we both noticed, the thing we noticed first, is that they were all covered in cats.

They were everywhere, hundreds of ’em; every colour and breed you can think off. They were lined up like a flock of birds, all perched along the tops of the washing machine, dryer and freezer, lined up on all the shelves, one on top of the other. And they were all looking at us, staring right at us.

“What the fuck?” he said, just before I could say it. They were all across the floor too.

They were hissing, baring their teeth. And then one walked slowly up to him, this big fat ginger one. The cat looked up at him for just a moment – then he went straight for his balls.

He screamed and he fell backwards. He grabbed the light cord as he went down and the lights went out – he tore the cord right out. He fell back in to me, pushing me and I sort of fell onto my side, down against the stairs.

They all went for him, hundreds of them – I could feel them crawling over my legs to get at him. It was too dark, I couldn’t see much but I could see him throwing his arms about trying to push them off. But there were just too many of them – they were like a living blanket; he tried to throw it off but it just fell back over him. He was grabbing them and sweeping them away but they just came back, climbing over each other to scratch and claw at him.

This one cat – scruffy and mangy – it stood on his shoulders, belly over his face and sank its claws into his head. Went at it like a scratching post; tore up his scalp and drew blood. He shook his head, tried to roll over and then tried to pull it off. Its claws were dug in so far it took flesh off when he threw it away. But as soon as his face was clear, four more cats climbed over the cats on his chest and went over his head and face, covering him. He probably couldn’t breathe from under them.

I got my senses back and tried to help him. He was lying across my legs, I couldn’t quite stand up. Cats were falling into my lap, but they weren’t interested in me; it was as if I wasn’t even there.

I put my hands under his shoulders and tried to pull him up. He was screaming like a girl, he was out of his mind with fear, terror. I was able to push myself up the stairs on my heels; I pulled myself from under him and was able to get him part way up.

But the cats didn’t give up easy. I could feel ‘em moving around my legs, scrambling and jumping up, trying to claw him any place they could. I stumbled most of the way up, but before I got to the top I almost dropped him. They were still climbing all over him and he was still screaming, but he got one hand on the hand rail to stop himself from falling. And they went for it; straight away they tried to loosen his grip, bit and scratched his hand and arm. But I got my footing back and got him back onto the landing and pulled him into the living room.

When we were in the light, the cats made a run for it and all piled towards the back door. I dropped him on the carpet – they’d done him up pretty bad; his shirt all torn, with blood soaking through. And his arms were pretty shredded as well. He only had one shoe on – there was just a torn sock with blood stains on it.

It was pretty horrific, but you know, I thought for a moment it wasn’t that bad. I mean bad, but not like being cut with a knife, they were all small shallow cuts.

But that’s before I saw his face. He had both his hands clutched over it, and you could see the blood running between his fingers. I called an ambulance while he rolled around in agony; he couldn’t even speak, he was that traumatised.

They operated as soon as they could, but in the end they couldn’t save his eye. He had to have a glass one put in; and you could tell as well, it didn’t look very good. And the scars on his forehead didn’t heal either, you could see them the last time I saw him. He wasn’t driving his BMW then, I can tell you. He avoided me; he’s not his confident old self anymore.

I suppose he got what he deserved. If he did what we think he did, that is. The cats certainly thought so.

I was always a dog person anyway. We’ve got one at home now. You know, just in case.