“You would wind up as a cat, I told her. They don’t need anyone else.
I need you, she replied.
Well, I said. Maybe I’ll come back as catnip.”
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper
John looked at her quickly. “Where do you live, Miracle Corner? OK I’ll bite. Tell me about both.”
Bonnie screwed her eyes against the sun as she looked out to sea and began at the beginning. “Well, D’s death was just a copycat event. First to die was actually Lisa’s cat. Before D’s, admittedly dramatic but ultimately derivative, attempt, it was dead, buried and then born again.”
“So Lisa’s cat was a reincarnation of Schrödinger’s cat?”
“Don’t bring foreign cats into the conversation; we’re taking back control of our borders remember.”
“I think that particular cat’s coming out of the bag now don’t you? The Border Agency’s role will shift to stopping people leaving once Brexit hits the fan. I hear the European Research Group are thinking of relocating to warmer climes now they’ve cleaned up on the dead cat’s bounce. Perhaps the Agency could turn a blind eye and let them go. Anyway, forget quantum mechanics, I’m sure Lisa’s cat is more interesting, do go on.”
“Well Lisa had got religion…”
“As all eight year-olds do.”
“As this eight year-old did. Our neighbours at number 42 were 7th or possibly even 8th day Alpinists or something and always praying and frowning. They liked Lisa though, no kids of their own, and she was always round there, absorbing religion. If you recall, I said I was normal not my off-spring. She was into saying her prayers before bed for ever-increasing lengths of time on successive nights and she was always talking about miracles and what she called the holy spill-it.”
“Close enough, I guess”, said John.
“Anyway she’d got religion and I’d got a decorator…”
“Both saved then.”
“Shush. I’d got a decorator, patching and painting the outside of the house. He was very good and used to be there at 7 in the morning and work through. I just used to go off to work and leave him. It was a bit chaotic but o.k., then half-way through the week Lisa can’t find Madonna, who is always there for breakfast.”
John frowned. “I’m sorry, I was listening but I must have missed something. When did Madonna start having breakfast with you?”
“Very funny. As you know, Madonna was/is Lisa’s cat: keep up. A big, fluffy, black and white, she-cat, very placid; generally she just eats and sleeps.”
“Sounds like a life.”
“Well, we searched the house, searched the garden, went up and down the street and couldn’t find Madonna – and you do feel a bit daft walking around shouting Madonna as kids are being piled into cars for the school run. The decorator, kind soul that he was, joined in but still there was no Madonna. I got Lisa to school, assuring her that I’d keep looking until we found her. We put a postcard in the corner-shop window, pestered the neighbours, posted on Facebook, Lisa asked for special prayers in assembly and prayed her way through the school day, and, when she got home even I pretended to, but still no cat. Lisa was distraught by night-time and I was beginning to drop hints about baby Jesus wanting a pet. It was upsetting though and I couldn’t think what to do. Then the next morning the decorator caught me when Lisa was out of the room and quietly asked if he could have a word. I though he was going to put his bill up or something. He took me outside and pointed to a sack on the path. He’d found a big, fluffy, black and white, she-cat dead in the road and put two and two together; she’d been hit by a car I suppose. Well Lisa knew something was up and I had to tell her God had taken her feline friend away. That was the signal for the big funeral. She got so excited organising the burial that that she wasn’t actually all that upset about the cat being dead. We had a little wooden box that the decorator found for a coffin, lined with one of my silk scarves (I liked that scarf). The decorator dug a grave in the back garden and Lisa gave the peroration then we, the decorator and I and the neighbours, had to sing ‘What a Friend we have in Jesus’.”
“It sounds very moving….in its own way.”
“Have you heard me sing? and the decorator was worse! As for the neighbours…you’d think with all that practice they’d be able to make a fist of it, but no – they were pretty poor mourners. That night, of course, the prayers were even longer but the funeral seemed to have done the trick and Lisa wasn’t too upset.”
“Job done then – cat dead and buried…………and the second coming?”
“That was the next morning. Lisa needed to check something in the bible. Amazingly, we did have one but it was in the spare room. Normally it was kept shut because we never went in there, it was more a communal tip than a room as such. If someone came to stay it was a week’s work to get the room ready. But I had been in at the weekend hiding D’s birthday present. Anyway, in she went and there was Madonna fast asleep on the bed. God (to coin a phrase) knows whose cat we’d buried. Still, at least we gave it a good send-off. Lisa, of course, was ecstatic and I mean ecstatic: she came running in shouting, ‘It’s a miracle. She’s come back, she’s come back. God has sent Madonna back to us. It’s a miracle.’ and we had to kneel down and thank baby Jesus for bringing Madonna back from the dead.”
“Hard not to believe in the holy spill-it after that”, said John thoughtfully.
To be continued
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