Rachel Morgan, the estateagent, hung up and stared at her mobile for a few seconds as if the device itself were to blame.
For twentytwo years shed been selling flats with overdue mortgages, with tenants listed on the lease, with leaky pipes and a view of the local cemetery. Once shed even shown a property with a parrot that swore in three languages. But never had she ever had to list a cat as a burden in the contract.
Alright, lets run through the details again, she murmured to herself, leafing through her notebook. Twobedroom, Oak Street, third floor, 62sqm. Owner passed away in January. Heirs a son and a daughter from Bristol want a quick sale. They wont take the cat, wont hand it over to a shelter, and they refuse to have it put down. The cat is included.
She sighed and added a clause that would make any solicitors hair stand on end: Price includes cat. Negotiation welcome.
The first viewing was set for Saturday.
Rachel opened the door and ushered in the buyer a tall woman in her midfifties wearing a grey coat. She crossed the threshold and halted. The flat smelled exactly as a longterm, solitary seniors flat does: lavender soap, old books, a hint of valerian.
Good afternoon, Im Ethel Whitaker, the woman said, not extending her hand. She glanced around. And wheres this bonus you mentioned?
The cat perched on the sill of the large living room a massive gingerwhite beast. He stared at Ethel without blinking, his gaze free of fear or curiosity, just endless, weary patience.
Thats how it looks when youve been abandoned enough times to learn the art of waiting.
Ethel walked through the flat in silence. She ran a finger over the spines of books on a shelf Chekhov, Paustovsky, Astafyev, all dogeared to the point of falling apart. She peeked into the kitchen, where a tearoff calendar was stuck on January17. On the windowsill sat three pots of dried geraniums and a bowl. Clean, empty, perfectly centred at the left leg of a stool.
Does anyone feed him? she asked without turning.
The neighbour, Rachel replied. Mrs. Clarke from flat36. She drops by twice a day. The heirs pay her a bit for it. Its not much, but its something.
Ethel returned to the living room. The cat had not moved still perched, front paws folded, gazing out at the street where bare February poplars swayed and a woman with a pram trudged by.
Whats his name?
Duke, thats what the heirs called him.
Duke, Ethel repeated, expressionless.
The cat did not turn his head.
She called three days later.
Rachel, Ive thought it over. The areas nice, the tubes close. But the price is still above market, even with the extra. And the place needs work the wallpaper, the linoleum. Id take it if you knock another £300 off.
Ill see what I can do.
The heirs trimmed the price by £200. Ethel agreed.
The paperwork took three weeks. Ethel came back twice more armed with a tape measure and a notebook. She measured walls, jotted notes, did the maths. The cat watched. The second time she squatted by the window to check the radiator, the cat leapt down, trotted over and sat half a metre away. No closer.
Hello there, she said.
Duke blinked once, slowly, then turned away.
Mrs. Clarke from flat36 turned out to be a slight, nervouslooking woman with frightened eyes. She waited for Ethel at the front door on the day the handover was due.
Are you the new owner? she asked.
I hope so, Ethel replied.
Ill tell you about Duke, Mrs. Clarke continued. Nora Whitfield, the previous owner, was a saint. Ten years ago she rescued him, a ragdoll of a cat, all torn up in November. She nursed him back to health and never let him out of sight.
She paused, then lowered her voice.
When Nora suffered a stroke in the kitchen, Duke was right by her side. The ambulance broke down the door, and he stayed, his head on hers, refusing to move.
Ethel stood in the doorway, a bundle of new keys in her hand three in total. Two for the locks, one for the postbox that now had no one to check it.
Hes not a troublemaker, Mrs. Clarke went on. He doesnt scratch, he doesnt ruin furniture. The only problem is he wont come near anyone. Ive fed him for two months, and he never approaches me. He eats when Im out, I set a bowl down hes gone the moment I return. He never comes when Im there.
Maybe hes scared, Ethel suggested.
Not scared. Hes waiting. Every evening at six he sits by the door and watches. Nora used to come home from her walk at six.
Ethel moved in on Saturday. She had few possessions, having grown accustomed to a compact life. Twenty years as a cardiac nurse, then a stint as a junior doctor, then redundancy, a cramped flat in Hackney that made her knees ache and her spirit sag. Owning a home had been a dream for so long it was almost a plan. Shed saved for nine years.
The movers hauled in a sofa, two wardrobes, boxes of crockery. Duke vanished. Ethel found him later tucked behind an ironing board in the cupboard, ears flattened, massive and unmoving.
I get it, she whispered to him. Its hard for you. Its hard for me too.
She put the bowl back at the left leg of the stool, exactly where the old one had sat, and closed the kitchen door.
In the morning the bowl was empty.
A month later they lived parallel lives same walls, different worlds.
Ethel rose at six, poured coffee in the kitchen, and headed off to her shift at the community clinic on Union Street. It wasnt cardiology any more, but after a year of unemployment, choices were limited.
Duke only appeared in the kitchen after the lock clicked. She knew this because she left a long, greying strand of hair across the bowl each night. If the hair was on the floor, hed eaten.
In the evenings she sank into an armchair by the window and read the same books left on the shelf by Nora Chekhov, Paustovsky, Astafyev. Chekhovs volume was covered in pencil notes: tiny exclamation marks in the margins, occasional single words yes, exactly, I feel the same. Reading those marginal whispers gave her a strange, notquitesad recognition, as if a woman shed never met was thinking exactly like she did.
Meanwhile Duke camped in the hallway, by the front door, precisely at six each evening, waiting.
By the end of March Ethel fell ill. A nasty flu hit her in one night 39°C, sore throat, aches in every joint. She phoned work, took a paracetamol, and collapsed into bed. She couldnt get up to eat, let alone feed the cat.
Duke, she croaked from the bedroom, sorry, I cant right now.
Silence.
She drifted into a heavy, sticky sleep, head buzzing. She woke to something pressing on her feet not heavy, just warm, alive.
Duke lay at the foot of the bed, curled like a loaf, staring at her without blinking, serious and attentive. For the first time in a month he wasnt in the hallway, the cupboard, or behind the ironing board. He was here.
Ethel didnt move. She feared that if she did, hed bolt. She just stared, and he stared back, sharing a wordless silence that said everything.
You already know that, dont you? she whispered.
Duke pressed his ears against his paws, dropped his head and closed his eyes.
He didnt go anywhere.
For three days she was bedridden; for three days Duke kept his vigil at her feet, only leaving to nap beside the bowl when she finally mustered the strength to pour food. On the third day, when her fever finally broke and she was curled up on the kitchen floor in a blanket with a mug of broth, Duke jumped onto the stool, sat beside her, and began to purr.
A soft, hoarse rumble, as if hed forgotten how to purr and was now relearning it.
Ethel set her mug down, took off her glasses, extended her hand slowly, palm up.
Duke sniffed her fingers, then nudged his head against her palm.
She wept. Not from sentimentality she never cried from that but because a simple, clear truth hit her: shed bought a life that wasnt hers, with books that werent hers and a cat that wasnt hers, because her own life was short on space. And the cat had stayed in a life that wasnt his, with a woman who wasnt his, because there was nowhere else for him. Two burdens, two extras, two misplaced companions.
And now they sat together in the kitchen: fifteen catyears for Duke, fiftysix human years for Ethel, and a shared warmth that made the whole thing feel right.
By May Ethel ripped out the old brownfloral wallpaper that made the flat feel even gloomier, painted the walls a soft cream, and left the linoleum in place she didnt have the cash to replace everything at once, but it no longer mattered. The flat stopped feeling foreign; she didnt even notice the exact moment it happened.
Noras books remained on the shelf; Ethel added a few of her own a dozen or so. Chekhov, still scribbled in the margins, stayed in its spot. Sometimes shed open it at night and read not the story but the side notes other peoples yes, exactly, me too and smile.
She tossed the dead geraniums on the day she moved in. Only later did she plant fresh ones on the same sill where Duke had first perched during the viewing. He still claimed the sill now and then, but more often he lounged on the armchair beside her, or curled on her lap when the evening stretched long and the book was good.
At six oclock he stopped heading for the door.
In June Rachel Morgan, the realtor, bumped into Ethel at the local Tesco on Oak Street. Ethel stood in line, a bag of cat food and a bottle of kefir in hand.
Hows the flat treating you? Rachel asked. Happy with the purchase?
No regrets, Ethel replied.
And the cat?
She paused, shifting the food from one hand to the other.
You know, Rachel, she said, they shouldve kept the price up. We overcut it.
Rachel laughed. Ethel didnt.
When she got home, Duke was waiting at the hallway, beside the shoes his new favourite spot. The moment she turned the key, he lifted his head, blinked once, slowly.
Thats how you greet the ones youve been waiting for.
