The Queen of Cats

Anamnesis: The Ghosts That Broke My Heart Before I Met You

This chapter is dedicated to @Imaginekta, a wonderful new writer, whose beautiful work of fantasy, Hiraeth deserves a lot more reads than it's got. Give it a read.

xxx

And Mother I blame you with every inch of the being you gave,

For I have become you and I know every part of your game.

And Father I love you, but how can you watch as I push her away.

I cannot forgive you for bringing me up this way.

-Tap At My Window, Laura Marling

Year Sixteen, Birmingham

My mother is hunched over the pan. Things bubble and burst and the smell of the familiar spices float across the room. I whiff them. They are exotic and mesmerizing. Now, while the two of us are crammed together in this little booth of a kitchen, my text-book flecked with dollops of curry, a palimpsest of metaphor over the diagrams of atoms and molecules.

She turns around and I look at her face. She's beautiful. Why did God make her so beautiful? She used to tell me stories, long ago, about my Appachen and Ammachi. Old vestiges of heritage that she chose to regurgitate at select points during my childhood. They had nothing to do with me. Her tales of India, like some kind of pathetic holy land. Like as if I were a demented pilgrim. Like as if my life's aspiration should be to visit and to bathe myself in the soil of my forefathers. She brought them out when she was guilty about what she had done. Her desperate, fervent, ever-hopeful plea for absolution.

I don't know what my answer to that plea is. I might have forgiven her without knowing. I probably haven't.

xxx

I board the bus when the time comes. I sit where I usually sit, at the front behind the driver, my eyes firmly fixed out the window, the curtain around my head, blocking me out.

"Paki bitch!" somebody yells from behind me. Some crude vermin who can't tell the difference between an Indian and a Pakistani.

The driver's eyes flits to the rear-view mirror. He looks away when I meet his eye.

"Hey Paki! How's Kavya?"

He says my mother's name with pathetic unfamiliarity, like an alien's name.

"Paki! Paki! Could you give me her number? I heard she gives it up for cheap!"

"That's enough!" The driver yells.

"You keep your f****ing dick out of this, Creavy!" They yell. Sniggers all around. I must not turn around. I must not turn around. I must not turn around. I must not...

"Paki!"

"Paki!"

"Paki."

I close my eyes. They can't physically assault me, can they? Can they?

xxx

I walk home with Vikram. Everyone thinks the reason I'm with him is an ethnic one. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The reason I'm with him is the fact that he's absolutely self-possessed. He knows who he is and he feels no shame. I love that.

It is cold. I walk with my arms curled around his. I am much shorter than him. I reach only up to his chest.

"Did they do it again?" he asks.

"Hmm." I say, holding him closer.

"Why can't you just come with me?"

"You know what my mum would say, Vic."

He smiles. "What would Kavya Rothmans say?"

I'm silent. I don't know what to tell him. The truth is she wouldn't say anything. She'd be relieved, happy that I'm capable of loving somebody. But I don't want her to feel that. Maybe I don't forgive her after all.

Vikram twirls a cigarette between his fingers. I slide my hand into his coat pocket and pull out his pink, transparent plastic lighter. He puts the cigarette between his lips and I light it for him. He takes the lighter from me and puts it back in his pocket.

We sit on a dirty, hard bench and he smokes. My Vikram. So very elaborate in everything else. As coarse as a factory worker when he smokes. He breathes smoke out through his mouth. I hold his free hand.

A cat curls in lazy circles around my feet. I scratch behind its ears.

"Pretty." he says, looking at it.

The cat clambers on to my lap and looks at me, licking my hands. It doesn't have a tail.

"Poor darling." I coo. "Who did that to you, huh darling? Who did that?"

Vikram pets it nonchalantly as he finishes his cigarette.

"You're going to keep it?" he asks.

"Maybe." I tell him.

"Kavya Rothmans will be fine with that, huh?"

I kiss him on the cheek. "You don't worry about that, Vicky. I'll handle Kavya Rothmans.

xxx

She opens the door for me. Her eyes widen when she sees the little bundle of fur in my hands. "Ooh! Come here, precious."

She stretches out her hand. I give it to her, kiss her on the cheek and pour myself some warm water.

The kitchen is spotless, as always. Fresh groceries lay on the counter-top. My mother plays with the cat.

I wash the day's filth off my body. I dress. I think of Vikram.

I'm going to run away with that boy. I'm going to marry him in London. We'll go to uni together. We'll study. We'll work. We'll make a baby.

The cat patters into the room. I'll have to take it to the vet. Get it spayed.

I hold it against my face. A warm, soft little bundle. It purrs.

I sit with it. I remember. I begin to cry.