Day Twenty Four

Persephone’s tail twitched and wagged. Something was definitely in the air but she just couldn’t put her paw on it. Like Marvin, there was some sort of “vibes” they were just about able to understand. She needed to keep on watching and hoping peace would find its way to them again.

It had all seemed so much easier before Alfie had arrived. It was almost as if his presence had disturbed their order and understanding of the world. They were missing human logic but at the same time played right into its hand. None of it made sense and both of them felt—but could not explain—a deep uneasiness that had settled over everyone who had to stand by and observe as events unfolded.

 

Clarice awoke on a Sunday morning and checked to see which house visits she was to make. Like other nurses in her hospital, she was required to check in on patients who were on the borderline of independent living and needing at least part time care.

To her dismay, two of her patients had been replaced with new ones and this usually meant only one thing: the regular patients had died. This always bothered Clarice. She knew she shouldn’t be “emotionally involved” with her patients but at the same time, there was an unstated declaration that a nurse needed to care for her patients and as far as Clarice was concerned, this meant feeling something for their situation. Sometimes, if she could make it, she went to the funerals of those who had been in her care. She always sent a sympathy card to the family or friends of the deceased.

“What’s the score with you?” asked a young nurse who had only recently started. Clarice liked her on a personal level enough to be friendly but on a professional level, she didn’t think she was up to much. Her name was Joy which Clarice thought was about as incongruous as it could get.

“I have eight visits, two of them new.” She concentrated on toasting her bread so that it was just a light tan colour. There was nothing worse than burned toast—not to mention it set the fire alarm off. “You?”

“I have four new ones, wouldn’t you know?”

“Gosh,” said Clarice, knowing Joy would not be attending any of the funerals nor would she be bothered about sending cards.

“In fact, I only have the four new visits to make,” Joy was saying. “Would you like me to take on a couple of yours?”

It was sweet of her to ask but Clarice looked forward to making home visits. There was something edifying about delivering a hot roast dinner to someone who didn’t get company very often. Although she knew she could get into serious trouble if caught, she had gotten into the habit of adding a few extra vegetables to the paltry portions. What were a few carrots and a few more peas? To top up the meals maybe cost her a couple dollars. The satisfaction of knowing she made someone’s belly feel a little more full on a cold day was worth the risk and extra effort. When she found out a few of her patients had their roots in England and Ireland, she started adding a Yorkshire pudding or two and a little extra gravy as well. Again, it came down to a couple of bucks but it brought out a conversation to folk who just didn’t get a chance to talk to another human being for the whole entire week.

To deliver the meals, Clarice used a portable warmer from the hospital that fitted neatly into the trunk of her car. It was simply a matter of filling the warmer with the trays, wheeling it out to her car and lifting it in. The warmer did its job and she would go to her house to top of the trays.

Except on the day she would discover Alfie’s body, things didn’t quite go to plan.

After the shooting, her car was completely unusable and so she had to arrange to borrow another one. What a palaver that had been! The biggest problem was that she simply had a bad credit card rating courtesy of her deadbeat husband. It was bad enough to discover he was spending a great deal of money that she knew nothing about but quite a different matter to learn she was somehow implicated in the whole matter because he had used their joint account as if it had been solely his own. Creditors—many of them who were, quite frankly, extremely dubious—had simply taken her husband at his word. And when the payments didn’t arrive, started to pass the bill on to credit agencies who wrote to her husband—at home all the time—and she was blissfully unaware a crisis was brewing. Until, of course, she needed a bit of credit as a guarantee she was reliable enough to return a borrowed car safely back to its creditor.

“What do you mean?” was all she had been able to respond to the rejection.

“I’m sorry ma’am,” said her car insurance representative, “But you can only have a loan car if your credit rating passes and I’m afraid,” he shrugged his shoulders.

Of course, it took several hours of awkward phone call backwards and forwards to figure out what on earth was going on. In the meantime, the guy that got shot in the leg in her backseat had died, so her car was needed as evidence for the inquest. She was just plain lucky Brandon, who had not been given the all clear to drive due to his concussion, had offered to loan her his car.

Alfie, Ivan, the birds, Maurice and Persephone all breathed a sigh of relief. Alfie wanted to Clarice to discover his body because he knew she would take good care of him.  Maurice and Persephone, using what remained of their animal instincts were nervous of what would happen if Alfie was under stress and the birds were just keen to save what was left of their damaged reputations from when the penguin decided it would be a great idea to scare Brandon into walking through a sliding glass door.

“I knew this would happen all along. All along!” honked the penguin.

Alfie and Ivan exchanged glances.

“Really,” said Ivan. “So I take it you also knew the guy that was shot in the leg was going to die to?”

“Sure! Sure!” boasted the penguin again.

“Then I hope he doesn’t like spit roasted penguin, flamed flamingo or poached puffin because he’s right behind you.”

There was a flurry of ghostly feathers as Ralph lunged for the birds, which scattered in three directions.

There was an ear shattering trumpet as Maurice made his entry and stood between the birds and Ralph. For a few seconds Ralph looked so completely and utterly confused that Alfie took pity on him. After all, it wasn’t every day that one died and then encountered three talking birds and a six tonne bull elephant. Besides that, Maurice looked ready to charge although for the life of him, Alfie couldn’t imagine what kind of damage could be done now that everyone was dead.

“Whoa,” said Ralph with resignation.

“I should say so,” said Maurice. “You don’t get to intimidate people anymore around here. You will behave like a gentleman or you can go elsewhere.”

Ralph looked suitably sheepish. “OK,” he said with a sigh, “I didn’t mean for things to get so crazy anyway. I would not have hurt the nurse. I just needed to get out of town quickly. There was no need to shoot me.”

The birds had hidden behind Maurice and were peeping out at Ralph from between the elephant’s legs.

 

Caroline, freshly released from the hospital, was bored and lonely now that she was back at home. As it was a Saturday, she decided she would wander over to drop in on her Uncle Nathan. It had been a while since she had last seen him and she had often thought of him. Like her grandfather and everyone else in the family, she had been devastated when had been so badly injured in the accident. No one had said very much but she had witnessed the unspoken agony on everyone’s faces. To get to Nathan, she would have to get a couple of buses but, as she had nothing else to do, it didn’t seem like a bad idea to reconnect with family.

Persephone had been fretting over Nathan’s fast decline back into absolute decrepitude. All the progress he had made the previous months was undoing at an alarming rate. The tom cats were back and demanding to be fed, the toilet was blocked again and the kitchen was a mess. Worse, Nathan was flopped back on the couch totally comatose of sugar and mindlessly watching television. There were red and green dots on the screen and the one representing him was flashing red.

There was a knock at his door but Nathan did not even flinch. Persephone jumped off the couch and walked over to the tom cats with her tail in the air. There were two older toms lounging near the front door. Neither of them was interested in tail anymore and had reached the stage of their life when they wanted nothing more than a peaceful life. So when the younger toms started to fight, the two older ones decided it was time to make an exit.

Over time, cats imitate certain skills they have seen humans do. There are cats who have managed to toilet train themselves for example and other cats that can open boxes of dry cat food and cats that can squeeze through impossible places. And then there are cats who have lived together for so long and have seen humans do so many things that they learn to collaborate and do as humans do. So one old tom cat simply stepped on the back of the other tom cat and reached up, unlocked the front door and let themselves out. In the process, they let Caroline in.