The third in our series of four consecutive weekly short stories about cats.
My little sister George lived with her boyfriend Ollie in a flat at the edge of the city centre, where the redzone trees make a ghost grid around every knocked-down house. The flats were five little 1970s breeze-block units, one up and one down, behind a mechanical gate that closed slowly at first and then took the last metre all at once in a big jerk. George and Ollie lived above another couple. Cushla and Kieran. Cushla had brown curly hair and clothes that were all purple tie-dye, trailing sleeves, and handkerchief hemlines. Kieran was six two, a hundred or so kilos, a redhead. He often worked out in the shared driveway. George and Ollie would watch him through the blinds as he did squats, crunches, side plank, deadlifts, and then drank two litres of blue-top milk to finish. The milk would run down his freckled sinewy neck and soak the front of his singlet.
Kieran and kept to themselves. George couldn’t imagine being friends with them—it was too close to home, they could hear when her and Ollie fought or had sex or probably even when they opened a can of Coke. But the third member of their household was delightful. A tabby cat with a white bib and green eyes. She twined herself through your legs to show she wanted to be patted. She lay limp in your arms while you scratched her under the chin. She was a dream cat.
George has always been obsessed with cats. Our parents weren’t cat people, so as a kid she found an ingenious alternative: she pretended to be a cat. She licked her hands and rubbed the spittle behind her ears. She arched her back and scratched it on door frames. Her meals were taken on the ground. These antics continued for months, but our parents never gave in. As a substitute, in her twenties George bought every piece of cat paraphernalia she could find. There was a wall of vintage biscuit tins with cats on them in her flat. Floor to ceiling, cats peeking out from baskets of roses, lying on silk cushions, kneading biscuit dough, which was disgusting when you thought about it but then again maybe it was for cat biscuits in which case—fine.
It wasn’t far between George hoarding cat biscuit tins and George feeding Cushla and Kieran’s cat. There was an outdoor staircase up to George and Ollie’s place, and at first she put the treats on the landing, but it was made of steel grating and sometimes they would fall through the gaps and come down outside Cushla and Kieran’s door as pieces of evidence. George started to put the treats on her balcony. The cat would climb a tree and take the treats. After a while, it began to come into the house through the open French doors. George sometimes worked from home, and the cat would sit on her knee purring while she updated a spreadsheet or typed out a letter. It went back to its real owners at the end of the day: shared custody.
One night, things escalated. The cat slept on George and Ollie’s bed. The next morning, there were loud knocks on their door. George got up and answered. It was Kieran in a grey minky dressing gown. He didn’t even say hello, just “You got my cat?” George shook her head, but it was like a police procedural—Kieran was ready to push past her and shine a black light and tweeze any loose cat hairs into a plastic bag. George could see one of his neck veins pulsing.
Then Kieran’s perfect cat, with perfect timing, meowed at the front door of his flat. It had found an open window and climbed downstairs.
Kieran cooed, “Banshee.”
Banshee. That was the cat’s name.
Kieran wasn’t finished. “I know you feed her. I’ve seen the treats by our doormat. And the next person who feeds my cat—girl or guy—is going down.”
He gathered Banshee up into the neck of his dressing gown and took the stairs two at a time, slamming the door to his flat so the textured amber glass rattled.
George heard Cushla through the floor saying, “You shouldn’t—,” but not the rest and not Kieran’s reply. She made coffee. Ollie came into the kitchen.
“I think we should stop feeding the cat,” he said.
*
George kept feeding the cat, kept hanging out with it during the day. She made sure it was outside by five o’clock, but still—the cat was at her flat often. She bought it a catnip mouse.
George looked out her window on a Thursday afternoon and saw a removals van parked in the driveway. The company was called No Job Too Small, and Kieran and the No Job Too Small man spent hours moving boxes. George had the balcony doors open—it was hot—and when they finished she heard the van drive off. She heard Cushla too.
“Seen Banshee today? I thought she’d come when I put out the jellimeat.”
“I’ll give you one fucking guess where she is,” said Kieran.
George imagined Kieran pointing up at her. She almost looked down to see if there was a laser sight in the middle of her chest.
Kieran and Cushla went inside, speaking too low for George to hear, and then came out calling in hoarse high cat people voices: “Here, Banshee Banshee Banshee. Here, Banshee-girl.”
A knock at the door. Not Kieran’s glass-endangering knock—it was Cushla. George opened it.
“Hi honey,” said Cushla. “We’re moving today!” She sounded as if George should be excited, and George tried to smile. It didn’t come off. Cushla continued in a flatter tone: “Anyway, we’re looking for our cat. I—I know you feed her sometimes.” Cushla avoided George’s eye. “It doesn’t matter—it’s nice she can be with you during the day—but we can’t find her, and we have to go soon.”
“Sorry, I haven’t seen her for a couple of days.”
“Get her to let you in!” called Kieran. Cushla winced.
"Do you mind if I check she’s not under any beds?”
George opened the door. “Of course not! You never know where cats will get to.”
Banshee was not in the flat. Cushla left her phone number. George and Ollie went to meet friends for drinks in town, and when they got back Kieran and Cushla’s place was dark. There was no note, no text message. George assumed Banshee had been found.
At three in the morning, she woke up and heard a cat’s meow in the distance. She lay listening as it came closer.
*
Our family met at George’s flat to discuss the situation. The way we saw it, George needed either to steal Banshee outright or to get her back to her owners.
“It’s like Double Jeopardy,” said George, who thought everyone had seen the same nineties films as her. I mean, I had, as kids we watched them together every Thursday at 8.30 on channel three, but still. “I can’t be found guilty of the same crime twice. They think I stole the cat—I should just steal the cat.” She sank her hand into Banshee’s fur where her spine curved down towards her tail. Banshee purred. George sighed.
“You can’t steal somebody’s cat,” I said. “What if they come back? Which I’m sure they will. Sounds like they really liked this cat. She’s lovely. They’ll probably be here at the weekend to try to find her and knock on your door and then. . . .”
Our dad had many thoughts about the next part.
“Bloody hopeless, Georgia. People in Christchurch have been murdered for less—”
Seeing George’s face, I stopped him there. “Seems a bit dramatic, Dad.” I turned to George. “But anyway. You think they were nice to her, right?”
“Yeah.”
“They’ve probably had her for ages. It’s horrible to lose a pet. You need to give her back.”
“Oh my God, George,” said our mum, stretching the oh and the first syllable of my sister’s name. “Ohhh my God, Geeeooorge. Could anything else go wrong?”
We all worried what would happen if George had to find Kieran and Cushla. It would look like she stole the cat and then regretted it. And my dad was partly right: you never knew which cat-loving, milk-drinking, ginger man would be the next local murderer.
Besides, I might get there first if she kept being so annoying.
“I bet he’s on steroids,” Mum whispered as we left. “You have to help her.”
“Okay, Mum,” I said.
*
I had an instinct: if I could organize it all, George wouldn’t stop me from giving the cat back. I found the slip of paper with Cushla’s number on it in the orange plastic bowl on George’s counter, right under her keys and a loyalty card punched through with stars. I texted Cushla.
Hi I think I have your cat.
Got your number from a vet who scanned the microchip, I lied.
Half an hour later, a text glowed green on my phone. I smiled. It was almost over. Then I read the message. Cushla had moved to Whanganui and had no plans to be in Christchurch anytime soon.
Fresh start, she texted. Me and my partner have a new business up here.
Oh? I replied.
Resin. She attached a photo of a clear clock with shells and coloured starfish set into it. It was beautiful.
Amazing, I texted.
Yeah thanks love but that means we don’t have much $$.
Another Oh? from me.
Any chance you could keep Banshee for a bit?
Really sorry but I can’t. Flatmates allergic. Think these guys might be able to help. I pasted in a link to a site I’d found: a bus that transported pets across the country. The timetable had a list of improbable stops. Norsewood sock factory. Pōkeno by public toilets.
Cushla didn’t reply for a while, then she said she’d look into it.
*
I told George that Cushla had moved but that I was sorting it. She replied: “Ollie and I have decided to keep her if they don’t get her soon.”
George had fully inhabited her new situation. She had bought Banshee a scratching post and organic cat biscuits and a plush pink house shaped like a pig. The pig-house had googly eyes that followed you around the living room. I felt like screaming every time I saw it.
“Cushla is coming, you know,” I said. “You need to be ready to give up that cat.”
“Mmmhmm,” said George, dangling a ribbon in front of Banshee till she pounced.
The thing was, I didn’t know if Cushla was coming. Sometimes she would reply to my messages right away, saying that she was going to find a friend in Christchurch who could pick Banshee up and keep her for a few weeks until she found the money for the bus. Then I wouldn’t hear from her for a day or two. Then something irrelevant but cute, to keep me on the hook, like: Banshee and I have the same birthday, and that’s hard to find in a cat!
I replied: Oh wow. That’s so cool. Did you find out about the pet bus?
*
The next time I went round to George and Ollie’s place, Banshee was wearing a little pink jacket. It had studs on the side spelling out Biscuit.
“Biscuit?”
“Yeah, Banshee is just—who’d call a cat that? It’s so . . . goth. She’s much more of a Biscuit,” said George. “Ollie agrees.”
“But Banshee’s her name. They learn their names. It’s confusing for them.”
Banshee was dragging her belly along the ground, not knowing that the thing she was trying to get rid of was temporarily part of her. I bent down, undid the jacket at the neck, took it off, and stuffed it in my bag. Banshee scampered away to hide.
“Rude!” said George.
“George. You can’t put a cat in a jacket. It’s borderline with dogs. With cats, it’s—”
George interrupted me. “Poor Biscuit, having you for an aunt.”
*
It had been three weeks since Cushla and Kieran moved. Long enough. I texted again. Hey Cushla, how are you? Banshee’s good. Need a solution!
Cushla replied two hours later. Yeah I’m trying but money is tight and that bus is expensive. Then a follow-up: No one can help atm.
I thought about the little jacket. I texted again. Maybe we could split the cost for the bus?
I brought up the website on my phone and gasped. I’d forgotten how much it was.
I wrote: 140 each?
Cushla replied right away. YES. Thank you so much. ANGEL. And a string of emoji angels, the bodiless ones with wings coming straight out of their heads.
*
I called George to tell her where the pet bus would pick up Banshee. I tried to be brisk. “You need to be outside the Munch Machine on Ferry Road with her at ten past nine on Tuesday.”
Silence.
"You’ll get a cat carrier and take her?”
Again, silence.
“Um, sorry, but no,” George finally said. “It’s your plan. I want to keep her. And now that it’s obvious they aren’t coming back—I mean, I’ll let you take her, but I’m not actually taking her myself.”
I wanted to talk about the weeks spent cajoling Cushla. The cost of the pet bus. The principle.
I said nothing except, “Okay then. I’ll come get her on Tuesday at eight thirty.”
*
When I arrived, Banshee was sleeping in her pig-house, one paw hanging out. George was dressed.
“I didn’t think you’d be up up,” I said.
“I’m at the office today,” said George. “I thought you could give me a lift after we drop her off.”
“Don’t you start at nine?”
“I can be late.”
I put Banshee in the new apricot cat carrier I’d bought, and we left.
*
At the meeting spot, George didn’t want to get out of the car, so I did it. The stop was on the shady side of the street, and there was a cool breeze. I angled Banshee’s carrier to point away from the wind while I waited. She mewled occasionally. I kept checking my phone and shifting from leg to leg to keep warm.
The pet bus was on time, the driver cheerful. He told me the cats were in a separate part of the van to the dogs. “They can hear them, but they can’t see them,” he said, looking at Banshee through the latticed plastic on the front of the carrier. “Lovely cat. And she’s going all the way to Whanganui?”
“Yup,” I said.
“Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of her.”
I nodded.
*
“I hope you’ve learned your lesson,” I said to George when I got back into the car.
“What do you mean?” said George. “None of this was my fault. How should I know the guy would be so psycho, or they’d move house, or the cat would run away, or the cat would prefer me to them, or they’d take so long sorting it out—”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, my head on the steering wheel.
“Anyway,” said George. “I really loved having a cat.”
Next week's short story, which concludes our series of four short stories about cats, is by Stephanie Johnson.
