Matthew Flinders' Cat (11 page)

He sat up slowly and examined himself, but, as is so often the case with drunks, seemed none the worse for wear. The automatic sprinkler must have come on at some time during the evening because his arm felt wet. Billy was also vaguely aware that his left wrist hurt where the shackled briefcase had pulled away from his body as he fell forward, but the drink anaesthetised him against any major pain. He tried to rise to his feet, lost his balance and fell backwards onto his bum.

‘Oops!’ he said to himself, ‘Careful, Billy-boy!’ His second attempt to rise was more successful. Wobbling somewhat, he looked carefully about and launched his body in the direction of the bench, his hand stretched out towards it in anticipation of his arrival. He reached the bench without further mishap and stood for a moment swaying and holding tightly onto the back rest. Billy glanced up at the statue of Trim on the window ledge of the library. ‘Ow yer goin’, Trim, old son . . . I’m drunk sa Lord! Drunk sa skunk . . . Who’s afraid a drunken sailor, eh? Seenit all, haven’t you, son.’

Then he sat down, his bony bum bumping down hard onto the wooden slats. He attempted to lift his briefcase up to the bench, but it was too heavy and again he became aware that his wrist was painful. Gripping the leather handle with both hands, Billy hauled the case onto his lap, allowing it to lie on its side. He lifted his legs up onto the bench and fell back, bumping the back of his head hard against the wooden slats. The briefcase now sat on his chest and he rested his palms on the worn leather.

He watched as the moon shone through the canopy of ficus leaves, moving, dipping and dancing among the whirling branches as he tried, without success, to focus on it. He was drunk and sad, then he began to weep softly.

Arthur and Martha yelling at each other from adjacent lampposts brought Billy slowly back to consciousness. He lay on his bench, his eyes closed, trying to gauge the extent of his hangover. His head throbbed and he didn’t dare lift it or sit up for fear of the additional pain that he knew would follow. Too drunk last night to place the briefcase against the leg of the bench, it now rested partially on his chest, its weight further restricting his breathing. His wrist was painful but he thought of it as only another component of his overall condition. He knew from experience that a hangover of this dimension should be treated with the utmost care. By approaching it slowly and without careless movement, its severity could be somewhat contained.

He was badly dehydrated and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, forcing him to breathe through his nose. With his eyes still shut, Billy located the latch to his briefcase and clicked it open. He was unaware of how badly his hand shook as he rummaged through its contents until he located the small leather pouch containing his hangover pebbles. Fortuitously, the drawstring to the pouch hadn’t been drawn and tied so he managed to insert his forefinger and thumb to locate the pebble he needed. He knew by its shape which was the tiger’s eye, the preferred pebble when he’d been drinking scotch. Attempting to open his mouth, he discovered that his lips were paper-dry and stuck together. He could feel the sting of the tissue tearing and the salty taste of blood as he forced the pebble between his lips. Then he waited for the spittle to gather around the tiger’s eye so he could salivate to the point where his tongue could move freely.

Sooner or later he’d have to stagger over to the drinking fountain in Martin Place, then down into the station to relieve his bladder, but for the moment he was content to lie perfectly still. Billy’s head pounded so fiercely he could hear it, clear as a drumbeat, reverberating in his cranium. He was only vaguely aware of the sound of a skateboard on the pavement and the sudden silence as it stopped.

‘You’ve got a hard-on,’ a young voice announced. Billy groaned, ‘Not the boy! Please not the boy!’ he thought desperately.

A giggle followed, ‘Don’t worry, I’ve seen it lotsa times. When blokes come home and it stands up like that in their pants, me mum calls it “the circus tent”. You know why?’ The voice, bubbling with mirth, didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Because some clown is about to perform an act!’

Groaning, Billy opened his eyes and pushed himself up into a sitting position, dropping his legs over the bench. A sharp, almost unbearable pain jolted through his cranium and down his spine and he thought for a moment his head might explode as the blood drained from his brain. His movement caused the briefcase to slip off his lap and fall over the edge of the bench, its weight jerking the manacle about his wrist. ‘Jesus!’ Billy screamed as the briefcase hung over the edge.

The boy moved forward quickly and, grabbing the briefcase’s handle, placed it back on the bench beside Billy. Billy, panting from the sudden rush of adrenaline, waited for the pain to subside a little before reaching for the key around his neck. He attempted to open the handcuff, but his hands shook so badly that it became impossible for him to insert the key into the locking device.

‘Here, give’s a go,’ the boy said, holding his hand out for the key. He unlocked the handcuff and gently eased it away from the wrist. ‘It’s real bad. Yiz’ll have to go to the ’ospital.’

Billy, still too confused to thank the child, tried instead to bring his hands up to cover his face, but the act of moving his left arm sent a fresh stab of pain through his wrist. He raised his head slowly and looked at the boy for the first time, unable to speak.

‘Want some water? I’ll get you some water if you like?’ the boy offered. Billy nodded.

With the boy gone, Billy looked down at his crotch. He knew he didn’t have an erection, or if he did, then the area around his appendage must have suffered some sort of paralysis. Yet an erection was there all right, bigger than anything he’d ever been able to boast about. Slowly it dawned on him. The stash! The blackfella’s money! In his drunken stupor he’d stuck the roll of banknotes down the front of his trousers. He put the money into the briefcase and rummaged about for the pebble pouch, but when he tried to put the pebble back, it fell from his grasp and into the bottom of the case. Now he lacked the energy to search for it.

Billy closed the briefcase and looked up to see the boy holding a paper coffee cup out in front of his body the way kids do when they’ve overfilled a cup, concentrating on every step, careful not to spill a drop. The kid was bright enough, he’d obviously scavenged the cup from a nearby street bin. ‘There you go,’ he said, smiling and holding out the water.

Billy reached for it, but his hand shook so violently it was obvious he’d spill the contents before he could drink it. ‘Here’s a go,’ the boy said, bringing the cup to Billy’s lips and allowing him to take a sip. After Billy had swallowed most of the water, he placed the cup on the bench.

‘Thank you, lad,’ Billy croaked, his first words to the boy. ‘I am most grateful to you.’

‘No worries, me mum’s same as you sometimes and me nana also, now she’s crook.’

Billy was too preoccupied with his own condition to think what this might mean.

‘I come about the cat,’ the boy said suddenly.

‘The cat?’

‘Yeah, that one,’ the boy pointed behind Billy. ‘On the winda over there. You told me about it, remember? Yesterday mornin’.’

Billy was silent for a moment, his befuddled brain searching for a suitable reply, though in the end all he could manage was ‘Trim?’

‘Yeah, him.’

Billy appeared to be thinking. In fact, he was stalling for time. He knew he would be quite incapable of any sort of conversation in his present condition, let alone tell the story he’d conjured up in his imagination. He could always tell the boy to bugger off. But that was potentially dangerous. Young as he was, he’d probably know a street gang or even be in one. Besides, it would be lacking in manners, the lad had been kind to him and there was no point in alienating him.

‘It’s not that easy,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll have to ask him, he may not feel like talking.’

‘Ask him? He’s already dead. That’s a statue.’

‘Well, that’s true and then again it isn’t.’

‘What’s that supposed t’mean?’

‘Well . . . it’s why I sleep on this bench.’ Billy was becoming exhausted and his head hurt with the extra effort it took to think.

‘Eh?’ The boy looked confused.

Billy sighed. ‘Look, lad, you really must excuse me, I’m just not up to it today.’

The boy ignored his plea. ‘What about sleeping on the bench?’

Billy wiped his hand across his face in a gesture of weariness. ‘The cat, I mean, Trim, he sometimes talks to me when I lie on the bench.’

‘Dead-set? He talks to you and you talk back?’

‘Only in my head, in my imagination.’ The boy, suddenly scornful, drew back. ‘You one of them schizos?’

Despite his condition Billy smiled, only a street kid his age would know about schizophrenia. ‘No, no I’m not, I’m a . . .’

‘Yiz an alky,’ the boy said firmly. ‘I didn’t know alkies also hear stuff in their head.’

‘No, they don’t usually, not unless they’re also schizophrenics, the two sometimes go together,’ Billy explained. ‘It seems schizophrenics use alcohol to stop the talking going on, as you said, in their head.’

The boy pointed over Billy’s shoulder, ‘But you just said that cat . . .’

‘Trim, his name is Trim.’

‘Trim then. You said he talks to yiz.’ Billy realised that the boy didn’t understand that his conversation with Trim was imaginary and so he changed tack. ‘Only in my sleep.’

‘Like when you’re having a dream?’

‘Yes, precisely.’

‘Can you ask him stuff?’

‘You can do anything in a dream.’ The boy seemed to be thinking for a moment. ‘Will yer talk to him ternight?’

‘I’ll try, he’s not always there.’

‘Statues don’t move!’

‘His spirit does, Trim’s spirit. Cats like to go walkabout.’

The boy seemed to accept this explanation. ‘Termorra. I’ll come back termorra mornin’. Promise you’ll try?’

Billy grabbed the opportunity to end their conversation and see the boy on his way. ‘I promise. Now I really must go.’ He made as if to rise.

The boy shrugged. ‘I got to take you to St Vinnie’s.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Billy wasn’t sure he’d heard him correctly.

The boy pointed down to Billy’s wrist. ‘It’s swollen somethin’ terrible.’

Something terrible
. It was a quaint old-fashioned expression a nanny he’d had as a child used to use and Billy wondered where the boy had picked it up. The boy, despite his background, had a confidence about him that belied his age.

Billy straightened up and tried to assert himself.

‘You’ll do no such thing! I can take myself.’

‘Nah, derros won’t. They hate the ’ospital.’

‘Oh, you’re an authority on our medical habits, are you?’

The boy ignored the question. ‘St Vinnie’s don’t mind derros, they’re Catlick, see.’

‘There’s a hospital in this block, not fifty metres away,’ Billy protested. ‘I can go there,’ though he had no intention of doing anything of the sort.

The boy drew his lips into a pout and shook his head, ‘Nah, no good.’ He didn’t explain further.

‘You seem to know a great deal about hospitals, young man?’

The boy nodded his head. ‘Yup!’ Now he squinted at Billy, ‘If you’ll come to St Vinnie’s I’ll buy you a coffee at the Cesco Bar.’ The boy pulled at the dog-collar chain that fell in a loop from his belt to disappear into one of the many pockets in his trousers and pulled out a small leather purse attached to the end. Opening the purse, he produced a fifty-dollar note. ‘See, I got money.’

Billy tried to sound decisive despite the headache that pounded through his temple. ‘Thank you, that’s very kind, but I don’t think so. Despite what you have to say, if I need a hospital, the one next door is perfectly adequate.’ He looked momentarily at the boy. ‘Besides, I have a great deal to do.’ It worried him that a child so young could produce a fifty-dollar note with such equanimity, but then Billy told himself he didn’t want to get involved.

‘They ain’t Catlicks.’ The boy returned the money to his purse and pushed it back into his pocket. ‘Yiz’ll need a needle,’ he said.

‘Needle? Why will I need a needle?’

‘Tetanus.’

Billy glanced at the boy in surprise. ‘Tetanus? I have a sprained wrist.’

‘Yeah and it’s cut, germs’ll get in. Pus and stuff. There’s probably some there already.’ The boy looked serious. ‘You can get lockjaw, you know.’

‘No, not at all. Tetanus is a bacterium that lives in soil, it can enter when you fall and graze yourself or step on a rusty nail.’

The boy thought for a moment. ‘Derros get drunk and fall over and stuff gets in,’ he indicated Billy’s wrist, ‘Yiz already got some dirt on yer arm, how’d you get that?’

Billy glanced at his arm to see the boy was right, the inner part of his arm, including the wrist area, was caked in dried mud. He vaguely remembered the fall he’d taken the previous night. ‘It’s only a superficial wound, I’ll get something from the chemist later.’ Then he added, ‘Please, I need to go to the toilet in Martin Place.’ He rose and it appeared for a moment as though he was going to lose his balance. Grabbing onto the back of the seat, he steadied himself.

‘See! Yiz crook.’

Billy looked down at the child in front of him. The boy was being inordinately stubborn and much too self-assured for his age. ‘How old are you?’ he asked. ‘Eleven, nearly . . . more eleven than ten.’ He’d mentioned a mother so obviously he wasn’t a street kid although he appeared neglected, somewhat scruffy and in need of a good feed. He wore a black T-shirt with the word ‘Independent’ in white letters across the front and, in smaller letters under it, the two words ‘Truck Company’, a pair of baggy army-disposal shorts that reached halfway down his shins and a pair of Vans. While his clothing was up-to-themoment skateboard gear, its condition indicated that the adult in his life had a careless regard for his personal hygiene.

‘Could you help me with my briefcase, please?’ Billy asked, extending his right arm. ‘I’ll carry it for yiz.’

‘No, please! Just shackle it to my good wrist.’

‘They know me at St Vinnie’s, you won’t have to wait, yer know.’

‘No, thank you, I’m quite capable of going to hospital on my own.’

‘It’s swollen real bad,’ the boy persisted stubbornly, ‘Don’t look good, could be broke.’

‘Thank you, doctor,’ Billy said in a feeble attempt to make a joke. ‘Men don’t easily break their wrists.’ It was something he remembered from a case he’d once conducted. ‘The handcuff, would you help me, please?’

The boy sighed dramatically, picked up the briefcase, placed it adjacent to Billy’s right wrist and attached the handcuff. ‘How you gunna take a shit?’ he said.

The question took Billy by surprise. ‘The usual way, I imagine.’

‘Oh yeah? Don’t see how. Who’s gunna wipe yer bum?’