After Cleo (27 page)

After I got off the phone, the bedroom shadows seemed to fill with the presence of those I'd tried to honour through the book. Sam and Mum enveloped me with loving warmth, along with Cleo herself. I'd finally found a way to acknowledge the parents, strangers and friends who'd helped us through our loss – along with the man who'd sat with Sam during his final minutes on the roadside. The book had also given me a way to let the driver of the car that had killed our son know that I forgave her at a deep and truthful level.

Stardust

A cat takes on the world

The book
Cleo
padded softly onto the scene with a launch in a Melbourne bookstore. Among the fifty or so people there, it was wonderful to see some of our dearest friends smiling and generously asking for their copies to be signed. Julie, my yoga teacher, Dave the interior designer, Katharine's violin teacher . . .

Not so close friends had also dragged themselves away from the early evening news to be there – the shrink who'd helped me through breast cancer; Robert who'd designed my website, though we'd never met.

A wonderful woman I'd made friends with through Lydia's school, Professor Deirdre Coleman, gave a speech which was so thoughtful and kind I was almost overcome.

Most important was having Philip and our nearly grown-up family there. Rob and Chantelle carried that special glow lovers have. Lydia and Katharine had invited some of their friends along, and were looking especially beautiful.

People sometimes ask how they feel featuring in so much of my writing. All I can say is they're incredibly generous and tolerant about it. Rob, Lydia and Katharine grew up knowing nothing different. They were written about even before they were born, through almost all our ups and downs until the present. I was helped by the fact that for most of their lives they were convinced no one could possibly want to read Mum's ramblings.

It probably hasn't been so easy for Philip. It took him a while to adjust to being writer's fodder, on the understanding he read anything he featured in before it was published.

A week after the Melbourne signing, I flew across to New Zealand for another even more moving launch in Wellington, where much of the book had been set. I was honoured that Louise travelled from Sydney for the event. Both she and Roderick Deane, who'd first encouraged me to write the book several years earlier, gave terrific speeches that were followed by tearful reunions with old friends and neighbours.

With invitations to appear on television and give talks in Australia and New Zealand, it looked like I was no longer destined to live under the middle-aged woman's invisibility shroud. Maybe I wouldn't be doing crosswords and watching
The Weakest Link
until I was carried out of the house in my recliner rocker.

I was half expecting the family to show signs of resentment, but their eyes shone whenever good news about the book came in. And there was plenty of it.

Hurrying to the computer every morning, I could track where the book had just been released by the foreign language emails that had flooded in from readers overnight. Russia and Taiwan one week, Italy the next. I hadn't realised the Translate function on a computer could be so handy.
Cleo
's success was teaching me that people are similar the world over. We cherish our pets and we'd give our lives for our children. Given that humans care so much about the same things, it's tragic that so much energy is wasted concentrating on our differences.

Lydia rolled her sleeves up and took over instinctually when dishes piled up in the sink or I'd inadvertently forgotten to cook dinner. Following her lead, Katharine became equally helpful. I never had to ask for a table to be set or cleared.

Cancer had taught our daughters to shoulder responsibility and flourish as young women. Watching them laughing and talking together, I sometimes felt overwhelmed with gratitude. If things had unfolded differently and I'd delayed the mammogram, I'd have been present only as a memory.

Countless emails flashed up on the computer screen. Many of them were incredibly touching, a tribute to cats and their importance in people's lives. One woman whose husband had committed suicide wrote saying their cat (who was usually terrified of strangers) had stayed by her husband's side while paramedics worked to save him. Another was from a woman whose clinical depression after a miscarriage seemed incurable – until a cat called Cleo stepped into her life. Then there was Wilson, the cat who refused to leave the bedside of a four-year-old stricken by leukaemia. The night the boy died, Wilson ran on to the road and was hit by a car. A vet, understanding the family's torment, did everything he could to save the cat and Wilson survived to help them through grief.

These and numerous other stories moved me so deeply I'd often be in tears in front of the computer. While I responded to every email as best I could, words often felt inadequate. Occasionally, when I couldn't string the right response together, I'd ask Lydia or Katharine for assistance. Lydia was particularly helpful when it came to dealing with unconventional people. She suggested the woman who kept seventy-two cats, a donkey, an owl and three peacocks in her house might need professional guidance. I was beginning to realise her Sri Lankan experience combined with Psychology studies were giving a breadth of understanding that was rare in a person of her age.

Cleo was opening the world to me in other ways, too. A movie deal was signed and I was invited on a global publicity tour. Out in the world after nearly two years engrossed with illness and book writing, I was anxious to present a passable public image. My tracksuit collection went in the bin. The breast cancer John Wayne uniform went too.

Being interviewed by foreign journalists was a disconcerting prospect. Even though I'd worked in media for three decades and had a pretty good idea how to feed an angle to a reporter, my homely Antipodean style mightn't go down well. I thought about trying to ‘improve' my presentation to seem more sophisticated. But in the end I decided honesty was safer. If the real-life author of
Cleo
was a disappointment, so be it.

Unlike our trips to the airport when we'd seen Lydia off to the monastery, the car hummed with enthusiasm. Amid promises to send postcards and text messages to Philip and both girls, I realised this adventure into the unknown was in some ways a middle-aged version of what Lydia had done.

As I kissed Philip and Katharine goodbye, Lydia stood back. For a moment I thought perhaps she wasn't going to kiss me at all. As I turned to walk through the departure doors, Lydia stepped forward.

‘I'm so proud of you,' she said, hugging me warmly.

I felt sheepish that Lydia was so generous in her support. My behaviour toward her Sri Lankan exploits had been inglorious by comparison.

A Strauss waltz spiralled inside my head as the plane I was on circled Vienna, where I was to do publicity for the German-language edition of the book. I craned my neck for glimpses of Viennese woods. Bare and spiky in their October garb, they seemed to stretch forever over snowy ridges.

Martina, my Austrian-based publisher, had emailed extremely clear instructions about finding a taxi from Vienna airport. Turn right straight after Customs, head out the automatic doors then look for a little red hut. A man in the hut would find a cab.

Everything happened exactly as she predicted. Except easier, quicker. I wished I could speak German. It seemed inadequate, rude even, to rely on the famous reputation German-speakers have for fluent English. The taxi driver and I sat in silence while Lady Gaga sang something raunchy on his radio. When I asked what he thought of her, he delivered a professorial analysis of how she combined artistic ability with mainstream appeal. All in perfect English.

Julie Andrews would've been perfectly at home in my hotel room. White as edelweiss, it was crisp as schnitzel without the noodles. My suitcase spilt its contents on the floor and the room suddenly looked more like home.

To walk off the jet lag, I headed to the Mozart museum next door. Said to be the only remaining building in Vienna where Mozart actually lived, it was gracious. Sailing through its light-filled rooms, I could almost imagine the short-lived genius flitting through the doorways in one of his embroidered jackets.

His bronze death mask was mesmerising. Mozart appeared to have been surprisingly handsome, almost like Elvis with his hair swished back from his forehead.

Just as well I'd written about a champagne-drinking friend in
Cleo
. Every foreign publisher seemed convinced I drank copious amounts of nothing else. I stopped arguing when they poured champagne at 11 a.m. or three in the afternoon.

Martina became my Austrian soul mate. She had two cats and had checked out satellite images of Wellington to see if it matched my descriptions in the book. Over dinner she explained how writers and artists are revered in Austria and Germany.

‘You mean like Rugby players?' I asked. She didn't seem to understand. I
must
learn German, I thought. Or possibly move to Vienna.

Clopping over cobblestones in the dark on my way to give a reading one night, I was unnerved by the fact I was being shadowed – not by one, but several silhouettes. When I sped up, they accelerated. If I slowed down, they reduced speed. Their breathing was audible. In the end I stopped, turned around and prepared to confront my would-be assailants, my heart pulsing in my ears as they closed in to mug me, or worse.

‘Mrs Brown?' asked a polite voice. ‘I love your book. Could I possibly have your autograph?'

Reading from my book in an elaborate jewel of a room where Mozart often played had to be one of the greatest honours of my life. It was difficult to know what the audience made of this big-boned Antipodean author. Martina later reported someone had remarked I looked like the Queen – a perplexing comment. Perhaps it was something to do with the way my hair had been concreted into place in a local salon earlier in the day.

Philip was in good hands with Lydia and Katharine looking after him. Nevertheless, I sent messages and photos home whenever I had the chance. Lydia was always quick to respond with a ‘Fantastic!' or an update on her latest marks, almost always Very High Distinction. I was slowly beginning to understand that any pain she'd given me I'd returned to her with interest. For that I felt deep remorse.

When I reached London, where
Cleo
had hit the
Sunday
Times
Bestseller List in its first week, a forest of flowers waited in the hotel room. I assumed there'd been a mistake, but they were from Lisa, my brilliant and generous UK publisher. At the BBC I was sealed inside a booth and given headphones for fielding back-to-back radio interviews. It was easy to tell which jocks had read the book and who were simply filling airtime. Later that day, Lisa threw an afternoon tea in Hodder and Stoughton's office in Euston so I could meet the thirty or so people who'd worked on the UK edition. At least three of them were New Zealanders. This was followed by yet more champagne.

I'd assumed Lisbon would be more restful than London. The Portuguese publisher of
Cleo
was incredibly suave. He met me at the airport and drove me to a funky 60s-style hotel. I loved the way Lisbon gazed out over white cobblestones to the sea.

‘U wd love it here,' I texted Lydia. ‘People are casual & friendly. It's like Australasia with history.' I hesitated to add the seafood was great in case it offended her vegetarian soul.

Late at night, early morning in Australia, I'd talk to Philip on the phone. He reported that he, the girls and Jonah were all thriving. I asked if there'd been any more talk of Sri Lanka and was relieved when he said no, though Lydia still meditated a lot and was secretary of the University Buddhist Society. There'd been no sign of the monk, either. We were hopeful she'd stick with her Psychology course in Melbourne for another year.

* * *

The book had sold well to Portuguese teenagers, so I was asked to speak to high school students in a hall for a whole hour. Once I realised they were just like the kids at Katharine's school, we got on well. After I'd convinced them I wasn't really a grownup, they were a fantastic audience. They mobbed me afterwards, each with a story to tell or some personal pain to share. My throat started burning. I began to worry my health wasn't up to international book tours.

After the school visit it was on to interviews with a national newspaper and a magazine. I had a fantastic time in Portugal, but it was no holiday. Some interviews were easier than others. I was bemused by the intellectual nature of the questions posed by a bespectacled woman journalist in Lisbon, and had been unnerved while subjected to Freudian probing about my relationship with my mother at the Vienna Book Fair.

By the time I reached the concrete canyons of New York, the sore throat felt like a bushfire at the back of my mouth. I struggled to hide my exhaustion from my enthusiastic New York publishers. They took me to lunch at one of the city's smartest restaurants and announced they were putting ‘Number One International Bestseller' on their cover of
Cleo
. Admiring the sleek fashion sense of my luncheon companions, nothing seemed further away than cancer and the mastectomy. Life had changed radically in less than two years.

Despite the wonderful US welcome, I developed shivers and a persistent cough. I longed to be back home in bed. A doctor visited the hotel room and said my condition was understandable. A book tour would be extremely draining, and cancer lowers the immune system.

Curious about the book, he acknowledged the importance of pets in today's world. Two of his patients had suffered severe clinical depression after the death of their cats. He scribbled a prescription for antibiotics, and gave me an inhaler for the plane. I signed a copy of
Cleo
for him and wished I could pack him in my suitcase.

* * *

Back in Australia, Jonah adored being a celebrity cat. Every morning he trotted behind me into my study. Though I still didn't trust him alone in there, he loved nestling on my lap to inspect the overnight emails. He was pumped the day a French television crew arrived at Shirley to make a documentary for a much-loved animal programme in France called
30 Millions des
Amis
(Thirty Million Friends).