Fully English

CHAPTER 4

Despite fatigue threatening to engulf me on the train and bus, I manage not to sleep a wink on the journey home. Not because of insomnia but fear of the nightmares. So even when I get home I couldn't leap into bed and indulge in a nap. Instead I busied myself by having a shower, unpacking my bag, scrolling aimlessly through my phone and lounging in the downstairs conservatory.

There is a green-eyed black cat lurking amongst the grass of my mother's garden. It is treading defiantly through the jungle of Yorkshire fog to reach the paved stones that line the French doors. I stare at its familiar form. I don't know who owns it or whether it's a he or she. All I know is that every time my mother is in the kitchen, whipping up a grand meal for her only child, it is there watching me peculiarly. It's as though my mother is the Pied Piper of Hamelin, her instrument of choice being the spices and seasoning she dashes into her pot, and this cat her loyal child follower. Or rather animal follower. Animals and humans are not to be equated as my mother says.

"What's up little kitty?" I murmur to myself. "Never smelt seasoned food before?"

The cat stares at me expectantly, its tail a perfect 'S' in the air. We are alike in some ways. Both black, poised and defiant. Except I'm a bitch... no pun intended.

I toss my phone on the settee and skulk to the kitchen. My mother stands stationed over the bubbling pan of oil, no apron, hairnet or gloves, she drops the polygons of yam into the liquid African-style before checking on the stew she has prepared. It too is bubbling and bursting with life. Silently, she cuts red, green and yellow peppers and onions – neither of which brings her to tears – before handing me a handful of tomatoes.

"Slice," she orders.

I grab a knife and do as she says, mimicking the shape and girth of the vegetable slices she has already produced. She points to the shelf above my head and I reach up to open it, grab the tin of sardines I know she wants me to peel and empty the lot amongst the rest of the chopped food. The yam sizzles and she quickly strains it, placing it on my plate before ladling some stew alongside it. I'm getting the five food groups from this meal alone. The yams are my staple carbohydrate, the oily fish the protein, the salt-laden stew the fats and the vegetables the vitamins.

I get the last of my food group from the mineral water I glug down after taking my first few bites.

"This is good," I cough. The camaraderie of flavours conspires to make my eyes water but I continue wolfing it down anyway. The urge to eat outweighs my choking reflex and I am soon scraping the last of the stew with the remaining yam blocks.

"You need it," my mother tells me. Her plate is too nearly empty, polished with red streaks where stew once was. She's already gone through three glassfuls of water and is now dunking down her fourth. "The weather is getting cold. I don't want you getting sick."

I think of that black cat standing idle in the cold, propped on its hind legs with its paws on our glass. I wonder whether it got sick too?

I lied earlier: when I said the cat is beckoned by the smell of my mother's cooking? Mother's cooking is actually just the signal that I am in town, my presence is what makes the cat stay. Every time I'm back from university and mum is preparing this big meal – I make sure to sneak it a tin of tuna and milk when she's not around. So once the Itis kicks in and mum has retreated to her bedroom for a nap, I leave a tray of food just out of sight of her bedroom window so the cat can indulge in its free meal without shooing from my mother.

I'm not sure whether this association is the result of instinct or consciousness, all I know is that the cat arrives like clockwork every time I'm back in London. Patiently waiting. And I am happy to watch it lap up the titbits of fish and pool of milk as I ponder on life from the confines of my conservatory.