Sticks and Stones 17

Tonight, not only did I change the litter tray but I wiped up Minx’s shit from the upstairs bathroom. Suzie raged like a madwoman for a whole five minutes when I announced that Minx and Princess were in the middle of eating the meal I’d cooked her and that Poppy was eyeing up Clara’s plate as we spoke. I was in a rush to get back downstairs because I feared Minx was probably stealing from mine as well as Clara’s plate, but it was too much for Suzie.
She raged on about not being told off about the cats because that was what her mother did when she was young. I tried telling her that Minx was ruining my life and that I wanted to kill her and asked her if she preferred having Minx to having healthy children who didn’t have to check towels for shit after a bath.
Throughout the day, I had to push Poppy and Princess off the kitchen tops every time I entered the room. I have seen their cat litter and there’s no one on earth who can tell me that cats are clean. OK, they lick themselves, but they stand no chance of wading through that box and not getting shit all over them on the way out. They even run about inside it, kicking their own shit balls around to cover them in litter. Cats are disgusting when you get to the nitty-gritty.
Suzie announced that she couldn’t clear up cat litter or any shit because of the baby inside her. Apparently, if she takes some wet wipes upstairs to the bathroom, clears up Minx’s shit and then slips on to the floor and draws blood from the shit hand, it can be passed on to the baby.
‘Don’t blame me when the new baby comes out blind,’ she said.
She always did know when to stick the knife in, and that’s when I went upstairs with my wet wipes to clear up the shit.
A family called up to see if Poppy and Princess were still looking for a home and I was quick to arrange a time for them to come and see the terrors, but then Maddy started crying and her mother had nothing to say.
I tried to console Clara, who was in slight shock from her mother’s earlier outburst. We sat down and I told her that it was just Mummy and Daddy being silly and not good. I was sorry, I told her. Everything was alright.
It wasn’t, though, and I can’t help thinking how inconsequential cats are when there is a baby in Suzie’s tummy and the children are right there.
Granted, she’s been ill with early pregnancy, but the house is going to hell. She hasn’t done a wash for days, the towels are the same since Friday, the kittens are running riot over anything that smells on kitchen tops, and Minx is sheer vermin.
Suzie can’t talk to anyone on the phone. She can’t arrange anything with anyone, apart from the vet to book another appointment for the kittens’ numerous and costly jabs. She can’t deal with daily matters of the most minute detail; all this because the new baby is screwing with her mind.
Just as I was about to make an exit without a fuss, Suzie launched into one of her ‘I won’t be told what to do!’ speeches mixed with ‘You’re going down the bar, aren’t you, where no one really likes you’.
It was fortunately only a murmur of what had preceded it, and Clara kept calm in the living room.
‘At least I’m not abused down the bar,’ I mouthed.
‘That’s because they’ve all got the same problem as you!’
The drive home was full of anger and shame, as usual. I remember thinking how lost and devoid of compassion Suzie had become, so mysterious were her emotions now.
She’d said plenty of things to me; about my inadequacy as a father, that I’d started to enjoy telling people off, that my attitude to the cats was abhorrent, how I had always failed to cook in peace, my constant visits to the bar and not being back at the flat writing; all this in front of Maddy.
It was unnecessary twaddle. I have never enjoyed telling people off, although at home it was for a reason, like ‘There’s a kitten with a paw full of shit eating from Maddy’s cereal bowl’.
Everyone had to be vigilant with their own plate at meal-time because, without a keen eye, the kittens or even big Minx would sweep up and steal the food, rendering it useless on contact, if detected.
The cats have taken over, and even Hero had a pee on the landing the other night in ironic dissent.
All seems lost this Tuesday night. I bought myself a paraffin heater for the flat because of the exorbitant price/quality of electricity here, but it’s not as quick to heat the place as I’d hoped. I need a smaller flat, otherwise I’ll be lugging paraffin barrels up the stairs all winter.
‘It may be winter outside, but in my heart it’s spring’, crops up in my mind. What a lovely song.
It’s Wednesday lunchtime and I’ve failed to get out for something to eat again.
I was about to go to sleep last night, just warming up in bed, when it dawned on me that Maddy may well have heard me mention the baby when Suzie was going on at me.
‘Why are you having the baby of a man you describe as hell on earth in front of the children on a daily basis? Where’s the sense in slagging me off just because the kittens are bugging the arse off me?’ I’d asked. ‘I’d like to think about buying you some new clothes to be comfortable in, and about the baby and your health. You can’t let everything go to pot around you for kittens, Suze.’
She’d finally allowed me to screw her on Monday afternoon, but it had done nothing to help her physically. In fact, since that afternoon, she stayed in bed all day and left the place to rot even more, which means I run around twice as much.
It’s manageable so long as there aren’t cats eyeing plates or shitting on beds or sofas. I can’t work in that sort of environment. It’s unhealthy for children and stressful for me to contain. There is only damage limitation. It’s like living in a zoo.
I catch them on at least ten plates a day, so they must get to many more without Suzie realising. The Weetabix Clara eats may have had the milk sucked out of it by a pair of dirty kittens, but who’s the wiser until someone needs to go to the doctor for a serious stomach infection?
In my mind’s eye, I can see the saliva of the kittens coating the remaining Weetabix with a film of infectious disease and when I eye Minx I want to kill her.
My head is not a pretty place to be right now. I should be getting in touch with publishers and literary agents in London, but I know I’ll only go up to the PMU and watch the races with coffee and then beer, after which I’ll wish I was with the family and call them apologetically.
I just called them. No reply, and I bet they’ve gone to Toulouse. I’m angry because Clara may have fallen asleep in the car on the way back and might miss her dance class. It’s her only time of interaction with other children, having left her nursery school, and it’s delicate enough with the black girl twice her size pushing her around.
I’m angry and unhappy with Suzie. She promised to be present in the class this week to help the teacher evaluate the situation, and I don’t even know whether Clara went or not.
‘I’m a rabbit in your headlights,
Scared of the spotlight,
You don’t come to visit,
I’m stuck in this bed.
Thin rubber gloves,
She laughs when she’s crying,
She cries when she’s laughing.
Fat bloodied fingers,
Sucking your soul away.’ Psyence Fiction.
That’s the closest I can get as far as my awful predicament with Suzie is concerned.
It’s the mysterious question:
Why do we stay emotionally attached to each other?
There’s only grief and heartache, so what’s the point?
Although I live here and she lives there, we still regard each other as boy/girlfriend, which is a good thing because there’s a baby inside her, which is the normal size for one so young, according to the gynaecologist.
As I thought, I went to the PMU bar and started on coffee, then went on to beer. I stayed till the last race became an official result, took my money and left, fifty euros to the better this time. From there, I nicked a Daily Mail from the tabac for the first time ever and placed a four-way bet on footy for tonight. I was pissed but still lucid.
At Fred’s record shop, I bought three ragga and reggae CDs and met the local ragga buff.
After that, I went to the Jacquemart for my dinner with my stomach growling like a locked-up bull terrier in an empty bedsit. I drank Perrier, much to the dismay of the boys at the bar, read my Mail and ate my meal.
Jean-Marie from the hardware store tapped me on the shoulder as I was leaving and told me he’d visit my flat to tweak the new heater. It can perform much more economically, he told me with a wink.
Suzie hasn’t called and I can’t wait to find out if the two kittens have gone to their new owner. The bedroom looked like a lonely place, so I lazed in front of the 14’’ telly flicking channels every five minutes. Believe me when I tell you that the quality of French TV is awful.