Bono

After the second blog post went up and a new tide of Bono worshippers washed in from all over the world, I pinned hopes on Lucy from Brooklyn. She seemed a sensible young woman with a genuine love of animals. She adored Bono’s looks, especially his haircut. More important, she wasn’t daunted by his prognosis.

On the afternoon she planned to visit, I hurried out to the flower shop and bought acres of red and yellow tulips. As I carried them past Patrick’s door, it burst open.

“She’s dead!” he shouted jubilantly.

I froze and almost dropped the flowers. Though I was aware Patrick was probably borderline eccentric, I hadn’t put him in the murderer category. Remembering my journalistic days, I drew a breath, adopted a calm tone, and asked the name of the deceased.

“Maggie Thatcher!” he said, his eyes swiveling wildly behind his glasses.

“You mean the woman who used to be the British prime minister?” I asked, immensely relieved he wouldn’t be asking to borrow towels and help him hoist an oversized trash bag down the garbage chute.

“Good riddance, I say. We hated her in Ireland.” he said, beckoning me into his lair. “This calls for a whiskey.”

Though I didn’t love Margaret Thatcher when she was in power, I wasn’t eager to dance on her grave—or anyone else’s for that matter. Besides, hard as I’ve tried, I’ve never managed to appreciate the subtleties of whiskey.

Patrick must have sensed I was finding his vehemence perturbing.

“Been poaching in Central Park, have we now?” he asked, softening his tone and casting his gaze over my tulips.

I told him the wake would have to wait for another day on account of my visitor. I regretted saying the word the moment it left my lips.

“And what sort of a visitor would that be?” he asked, folding his arms and leaning against his doorframe as if he had all afternoon, which he undoubtedly did.

A friend of a friend, I said. Not in the publishing world, so nobody he’d know.

Patrick made a point of reminding me I owed him a book, and perhaps I could bring it down for afternoon tea tomorrow around three. I nodded and hurried upstairs to prepare the apartment for our important guest.

Bono greeted me at the door and bounced toward me with his tail aloft.

“This is the beginning of your new life,” I said, sinking the tulips into vases.

Before long, the place resembled a house and garden show. Sensing something was up, Bono even let me brush the end of his tail.

The cat stretched out like a movie star on the window ledge while I played Scrabble on my iPad and drank too much coffee. The light softened to shades of lilac as the outlines of office workers in the other building packed up their desks and left for the day.

An hour later, I sent Lucy a text, but there was no reply. As hope faded to disappointment, I wasn’t angry with her. She hadn’t meant to let us down. This experience was probably just a piece of flint she’d tripped over on her road to maturity. Perhaps now she understood the gulf between meaning well and doing something can be as deep as the Grand Canyon.

Chapter Twenty-five

GOLDEN TOWERS

A cat is no stranger to jealousy.

Bono had become king of our studio. His tummy had rounded out, and his fur seemed glossier—not that he’d let me brush it thoroughly, let alone trim his nails. Though he still refused to let me pick him up, I’d never seen such a happy, grateful feline.

Every night he slept on the pillow next to mine. I woke each morning to the touch of a paw gently patting my eyelids, as if Bono was checking to confirm I was still breathing. He’d then sit back on his pillow and watch with appalled interest as his giantess housemate yawned and groaned herself awake.

When the laptop bleeped with an incoming Skype call, I scrunched my hair and hoped Philip wouldn’t die of fright at the sight of my early morning dishevelment. He’d been working late and was looking impeccably handsome in his suit.

“Great tie,” I said. “Where did it come from?”

Bono emitted a happy meow from beside my feet.

“You bought it for me, remember?”

Philip’s computer wobbled and a large, angry-looking Jonah face glowered at me.

“What’s the matter, boy?” I asked.

“He heard the other cat,” Philip said, stroking Jonah and trying to ease him into a sitting position on his lap.

“Oh, Jonah!” I said. “You don’t need to worry about Bono. You’re such a beautiful boy!”

Jonah’s ears pricked up. He’d always been a sucker for flattery.

“And look at those eyes,” I added, trying to ignore Bono, who was now winding himself around my ankles. “How did they get so blue?”

When Bono meowed a second time, Jonah pressed his face into the screen and growled like a bear.

“Don’t be silly, Jonah,” I said. “Bono’s your friend.”

As Jonah’s eyes narrowed to a pair of turquoise slits, I could feel option two going down the drain. No way would Jonah welcome a rival cat into his life.

“Have you found him a home yet?” Philip asked.