Cat Kin (3 page)

Tiffany had once had tonsillitis for a whole fortnight and had feared she would never get better. But Stuart had been ill for two years. Shortly after he turned six he had begun to fall down a
lot in the playground. He complained all the time that he was tired and kept getting terrible coughs. Soon he was walking strangely; then he had trouble walking at all. Tiffany had watched at first
with pity, then impatience, then horror when she realised this was no silly phase. Looking back, she believed Mum and Dad had always known far more than they had told her. She’d had to work
out for herself what was happening to her brother.

Tiffany reached his room first, creeping her hand round the door. She heard Stuart’s cry of delight above the burble of Sunday morning television. He was sitting up in bed, pale but
grinning, waving a deck of cards.

‘Best of three!’ he demanded, by way of saying hello. The pack was Superhero Top Trumps, an old favourite. Tiffany settled on the bedside beanbag and shuffled the cards. Stuart
sighed. Probably he had spent all morning arranging them.

‘What have we here?’ Dad came in with Mum. Their smiles were like floodlights: bright and not quite realistic. ‘No tubes, no machines? Have we got the right room?’

‘Yeah.’ Stuart grinned. He looked unbearably pleased to see them. After hugging each in turn he lay back on his pillows, as if the effort had exhausted him. He seemed weaker than
usual, Tiffany thought. And a lot pudgier than he used to be. The doctors had said that the medicines they gave him might do that. Still, he perked up when he saw the packet Dad was tearing
open.

‘Tortilla chips! Gimme, gimme.’

‘These’ll have you back on your feet.’ Dad tossed the packet over and Stuart scrabbled for the ones that fell out. With some kids it was chocolate or crisps, with others it was
the kind of toffees that tear out fillings. With Stuart it was spicy tortillas.

Tiffany munched one. ‘Hey. These are pretty good.’

‘They’re—mmmm—magic!’

‘What did you expect?’ Dad put on an affronted face. ‘Your mother only buys from the Tesco
Finest
range, the Sainsbury’s
Taste the Difference
range or
the Waitrose
Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair
range.’

‘How are you feeling, sweetie?’ Mum’s smile hadn’t lasted.

‘They gave me the buzzy vest yesterday,’ said Stuart. ‘That’s pretty cool. It beats you lot thumping me on the back.’

The buzzy vest was a device that vibrated Stuart’s chest to help clear out all the gunk, because he couldn’t take deep breaths or even cough properly by himself.

‘You should come and listen,’ said Stuart. ‘When I sing with it on I sound like a robot.’

Mum looked worried, as if she had missed something important. ‘They make you
sing?
’

‘No, silly, I just do.’ Stuart laughed, then half-coughed for about a minute and went white. When he had recovered, he and Tiffany played Top Trumps. As usual, she tried to lose.
Stuart found this tiring too. Holding the cards, he had once said, was like lifting bricks. Mum and Dad chatted to him, reeling off lots of news that even Tiffany found boring. Soon they began to
run out of things to say. Kids, she could have told them, didn’t do small talk.

‘You’ll be home in a jiffy,’ said Dad. ‘I spoke to Dr Bijlani and he said he’s never seen anyone with MD shake off an infection so fast.’

‘Peter,’ Mum whispered, not so softly that they didn’t all hear.

‘So when we leave here on Tuesday, you might just be coming with us.’

‘Brilliant!’

Mum cleared her throat. ‘What Sanjeev actually said was…’

‘Cathy, just because he’s a doctor doesn’t mean he’s the expert.’

Even the crunch of chips briefly stopped.

‘I think you’ll find it does,’ said Mum.

‘What I
mean
is,’ said Dad, somehow raising his voice and speaking more quietly at the same time, ‘they don’t know everything. They always cover themselves.
It’s like being optimistic is against the law.’

‘But there’s no point in—never mind.’ Mum clamped her mouth shut as if she had more to say, but not here.

Tiffany caught Stuart’s eye. The joy that had sparkled there when they arrived was fading. He had turned away from his parents to gaze at the ceiling, cool blue and painted with
clouds.

‘Physical strength eighty,’ he murmured. ‘The Mighty Thor.’

‘Thirty-two. You win.’ Tiffany gave him her card.

She blanked out the car ride home. It was like a film she had seen too many times. Mum’s lines went something like, ‘You always make it worse by getting his hopes
up,’ and Dad’s character always said, ‘But people get well faster if they believe they will.’ Tiffany was the silent extra no-one ever noticed.

She found proper solitude in her room. It didn’t last.

‘Tiffany,’ Mum called, ‘your kitty is curled up on your clean laundry. Sort it, please.’

Cat and clothes were piled on a kitchen chair. The prophet Muhammad, she knew, had once cut off part of his cloak rather than disturb a sleeping cat. Resigning herself to a less blessed life,
she nudged Rufus aside and took the slightly hairy laundry upstairs. Her mood sank lower when she saw her black ballet leotard. Thursday was coming round again. She couldn’t fake a sore toe
for the third week in a row. It had taken only a few lessons to unmask ballet as evil. Once she had loved watching ballerinas flit around on television. Now she hated it the way chickens must hate
watching eagles. She was too tall, she was too clumsy; her pirouette resembled an out-of-control shopping trolley.

And then she remembered something worse. She had PE tomorrow.

‘Mummy. I think I’ve got a cold coming,’ she sniffed. Mum was preparing dinner.

‘Oh, shame. Do you think you’ll be well enough for school?’

‘’Spect so.’ Tiffany nodded bravely. ‘I don’t think I should do gym though. Can you write me a note?’

‘I don’t hear you sneezing.’ Dad had materialised in the doorway.

‘It’s just a tickle in my throat right now.’

‘A tickle. But it’ll be worse tomorrow?’

‘Yes.’

‘I see.’

Mum already had pen and paper in hand. ‘Who’s it to? Mrs Farmer?’

‘Miss Fuller.’

‘So, let me get this clear.’ Dad stroked his chin. ‘Your little brother is fighting muscular dystrophy on one side and pneumonia on the other, while you are laid low by a
sniffle that isn’t even detectable to the outside world…oh, fine, fine, whatever.’ He retreated before Mum’s stare into the safety of the lounge. Mum scribbled the note
defiantly and handed it over.

‘Best play it safe,’ she said. ‘After all, you don’t want to have to miss ballet again.’

Ugh. It was like rolling a boulder uphill. ‘Don’t I?’

‘You
love
ballet!’ Mum tweaked her nose.

Tiffany flinched. ‘I don’t. It’s embarrassing. And I wish you wouldn’t do that.’

‘What’s got into you?’

‘It’s just horrible. My joints don’t even bend right.’

Dad’s low whistle drifted in from the lounge. ‘Funny how these discoveries always come to light
after
the money’s been spent.’

‘Well.’ Mum mixed gravy in a jug. ‘You should go. Thursdays are Mummy and Daddy time, remember.’

‘Mother! I’m not a baby.’

‘Sorry, sweetheart. It’s not that we want to get rid of you. But we do have a lot on our plate. If we know you’re having fun doing something of your own, we can catch our
breath once a week. Do you see?’

‘You want to get rid of me.’

Something boiled over on the stove. Mum rushed to it, blowing and mopping.

‘It’s just a Thursday thing, Tiffany,’ she sighed through the steam. ‘Is it so much to ask?’

Tiffany stalked out of the kitchen. ‘I am
not
doing ballet.’

The local paper crumpled beneath her on the bed. She scoured the Classified columns in rising despair. A watercolour painting club? She might fancy trying that, but none of
them met on a Thursday. Girl Guides? Get lost. Junior Fitness Club? PE by another name. And kickboxing was right out. Her annoyance gave way to misery. She was too much of a weed even to give her
parents one evening alone. Maybe she could develop an illness herself and get packed off to hospital. No. That was a horrible thing to think.

She turned the page. Hmm, Tae Kwon Do…was that the paper-folding one? She wouldn’t risk it. Tiffany kicked her pillow in frustration.

A ginger missile launched from the top of the wardrobe and splashed down on the duvet by her head. Rufus looked peeved at being granted such a soft landing. Startled only for a second, Tiffany
hugged him to her. Here was a real gymnast, martial artist, ballet dancer, you name it. He could have done any class he liked (well, maybe not the painting club). Sad, she gazed into his amber
eyes. It seemed that the only talent she had was loving her cat.

She glanced down at the newspaper. There was tiny advert in the corner that she hadn’t noticed before. It was shaped like a pyramid.

That sounded more like it! Not a stupid PE lesson. A proper club. People like her talking about their pets, sharing tips, swapping pictures maybe. She did wonder why the meeting place was
Clissold Leisure Centre, but only for a moment. It was probably just a good place to hire a room.

Rufus was testing his claws on the newspaper. She tore out the ad before he could.

Echoes from the squash courts perforated the dry, processed air. Sports centres made Ben nervous. No doubt the smell of chlorine awoke memories of clutching the poolside as a
toddler. Now, crossing the lobby, he was even more anxious than usual. He couldn’t help thinking about what might be happening at home.

It was a stupid thought. It was not as if he could offer Mum the slightest protection if Stanford should appear again in a cloud of brimstone. She might cope better if he wasn’t there. At
least they had a door now. It was light, flimsy wood, unpainted; easy to break, cheap to replace.

The muscle-bound man at reception noticed him, the way a bull in a field might. Ben found himself whispering.

‘Tae Kwon Do?’

The man tilted his shaven head, possibly meaning
Go that way
, more likely trying to ease cramp. Ben bruised his hip hurrying through the turnstile.

While he changed into tracksuit trousers and T-shirt he wondered again why he was here. Perhaps Mum thought it would take his mind off things. It was true that she always came home cheerful from
her own self-defence class. But given the choice he would be at Dad’s flat, taking on the master himself on his home-made pinball machine, ignoring the furious neighbours who banged on the
ceiling.

He wished Mum would swallow her pride and give Dad a call. Raymond Gallagher would tell Stanford where to go. Yet she had made Ben swear not to mention their problems to Dad. It was a tough
promise. Dad always asked Ben questions. He wanted to know how Mum was getting along, if she needed anything, did she seem happy in her new job at the organics shop. If pressed for details, Ben
would have to grit his teeth and say ‘Fine,’ over and over.