the story of the mechanical cat
As she knelt on the bed, staring into the room that used to be hers, Sarah wondered whether anyone had ever looked at her in this way. One eye closed pressed up against the wall, looking through a knothole. The walls were thin and living in silence was a given. She had never thought about being watched before.
But she was the watcher now. Her grandfather had taken his old uniform out of the wardrobe and was laying it out on the bed. He smoothed it with his hands before carefully folding it and placing it in a vinyl carry bag. He put the bag by the door of the room.
Sarah doesn't have a room anymore. Her bed is in the hallway surrounded by old hospital screens. Between the kitchen and the bathroom. She doesn't have anything that doesn't fit in the drawers under her bed.
Sarah ran downstairs the next morning, she had promised to meet up with Rolly and Judy and Mark. They are waiting at the corner for her and soon as they see her they move off. They don't have to confer about where they are going. They always go to the block dumpster. Mark starts to tell another one of his stories.
"My mum said that toys used to be so common that every kid would need their own room to keep them all in. Everyone had so many that they would sometimes get confused and not know what to play with next!"
"That's not true," Judy pokes him in the chest. "No one would have had more than one toy. Why would you?"
"Yeah," Sarah agreed. "What would you do with them all?"
They get to the dumpster and Judy gives Rolly a push up to the edge. He leans there for a moment, lying on his stomach, "It's no good, it's just been emptied," he yells.
Sometimes Sarah tries to imagine what a toy would look like. She imagines bright colours and noise, but the shapes are blurred and purpose is unclear.
Everything is grey-brown and dusty.
Sarah's cheek is scraped as she looks through the knothole; the walls are unfinished, unpainted. The room is empty, Grandfather was still in the kitchen with her mother. Sarah felt like she was looking into her room as it was only a few weeks ago. Nothing was different. She couldn't see into the wardrobe where the clothes were not hers. The bed was covered, perhaps a little more neatly than she would have achieved, by the same green blanket. Neither she nor her grandfather owned anything that would change the tiny room. Then she realises that the bag by the door has gone.
Grandfather was from another city. He is her mother's father. He never speaks to Sarah - never seems to even see her. He has a pension from the war, but it was not enough to live by, so now Sarah's mother has to work even more at the hospital. She is a nurse and is good at getting things from her patients. Sarah's mother knows where to get things. Useful things like old hospital screens. Useful things like cans of food with the labels missing, or too dinted or too rusty for the supermarkets.
Sarah hears her mother's footsteps coming out of the kitchen. She scoots her legs back under the covers and flops back onto the pillow.
The next afternoon Sarah comes home and goes straight for the kitchen to see if there is something to eat. Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't. Her mother is drying dishes and actually smiles at Sarah when she comes in. Grandfather is sitting at the table holding something in both hands, examining it.
"Look," says her mother, "It's a toy cat."
The cat is made of carefully curved and riveted tin. It was brightly coloured once, in blues and orange in a quite uncatlike pattern. Time, light and sticky dust have faded its paint. There are spots of rust along its seams.
The cat is suspended by a rod going straight up into its gut from the wooden base. Grandfather winds a key that pokes out of one side of the cat's rump. There is a grinding sound and the cat's legs jerk back and forth, head and tail bob. Grandfather picks up the cat, which is only as big as his hand, and pokes a toothpick into each of the joints, wiggling out small clumps of dust and dirt. Some rust flakes off too. Then he takes some vegetable oil and, still using the toothpick, puts a drop on the cat's neck, the base of its tail and where the legs join the body. Sarah watches silently, she sees her mother is watching too, even as she dries the dishes.
Grandfather puts the cat back on the table and winds the key again, four times around. There is only a small squeak and the cat runs. The legs stride forward and back. Left front and right back legs move forward then the opposite side. The cat runs quickly at first then settles to an even stride. After a time it slows and then stops - mid-wag of the tail.
Grandfather picks the cat up again and gives it and the base a sharp twist. The cat comes off and then it is standing all alone on the table. He winds it once more and the cat runs across the table to Sarah. She catches it before it falls to the floor. She holds it carefully in both hands and watches it striding in the air, nodding at her. She giggles.
copyright Rachel Holkner 1999, 2006