Cleo

Sitting on her hind legs with her front paws arranged as neatly as a ballet dancer’s, Cleo put her head on one side and winked. She approved. I doubted my legs would be able to hold me up long enough for the evening to ever qualify as a one-night stand, if that’s what it was going to be.

Sensing my nerves, Cleo took over the meet-and-greet role, her tail curled graciously as she trotted towards Nigel. He was unusually tall and regal, with a sandy moustache. I wasn’t confident facial hair was part of my one-night-stand scenario, but inside my head the shrink’s voice echoed. “Be open!”

“A cat!” Nigel’s eyebrows ricocheted like lines on a stock market chart. “I’m allergic.”

“Oh,” I said, lowering her to the floor, “sorry.”

Unfazed by Nigel’s reaction, Cleo stood on her toes and arched her back prettily. She arranged her tail in a gracious curl as she escorted him to the living room. Trotting ahead of us, Cleo really was the perfect hostess. The back of Nigel’s suit, I noticed, was frighteningly free of creases.

I guided him toward the most pristine cushion on the sofa and asked if he’d like a drink.

“Chardonnay would be excellent,” he said, perching on the sofa arm. I couldn’t blame the poor man for protecting his Armani threads from our crumbs and cola stains.

While the fridge contained an assortment of drinks ranging from milk to cordial, Chardonnay wasn’t among them. The closest on offer was a half empty cardboard box of Riesling. Depressing the plastic plunger, I hoped Nigel wouldn’t notice.

He seemed agitated, crossing and uncrossing his long scissor legs. Cleo settled a few inches from his feet and fixed her eyes on him like interrogation lights.

“The problem with cats,” he announced as I handed him a wineglass smudged with fingerprints, “is they always like me.”

Cleo shuffled closer to him as he spoke and intensified hergaze, then hoisted her back leg aloft and proceeded to lick her most private parts.

“Shoooo, Cleo!” I growled. But Cleo resented being spoken to as if she was a mere animal. She rolled on her back and writhed seductively at Nigel.

“There’s a compliment,” I said. “She wants you to rub her tummy.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that,” he said, drawing a green paisley handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing his moustache. “Th e allergy, you see. In fact, you know, I think I’m going to…”

The curtains trembled in the aftershocks of Nigel’s sneeze. Startled, Cleo leapt to her paws, dug her claws into the carpet, and bushed out her tail.

“Don’t worry, I’ll shut her in the back,” I said.

When I bent over to collect the cat she slithered out of my grasp and scrambled up the bookshelves. Confident I couldn’t reach her and Nigel wouldn’t try, she strutted along the top shelf, tapping a precious Victorian vase with her tail. Cleo was extremely pleased with herself.

“You’re not getting away with this!” I muttered, dragging a dining chair toward the shelves. The instant I stood on the chair and reached for her, Cleo bounded down from the shelves on to Nigel’s lap. He emitted a boyish yelp and I lunged and got my hands around Cleo’s belly. But she wasn’t surrendering without a fight. As she sank her claws into the Nigel’s thighs for leverage, man and cat emitted a simultaneous yowl.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, unhooking each claw while Nigel focused valiantly on the ceiling.

I returned from shutting Cleo away to find Nigel sneezing discreetly into his handkerchief.

“Th e thing is,” he said, pocketing the handkerchief and absentmindedly brushing real and imaginary cat hair off the sofa’s arm, “I’m really a dog person.”

“So am I,” I said, trying to improve the atmosphere. “At least, technically speaking. We have a beautiful golden retriever, but she’s gone to live with my mother. She’s pretty old now. The dog, I mean.”

“Dogs are less aggressive,” he added. “When I was a kid I was attacked by a cat.”

“Really?” I said.

“Yes, I was on my bike on my paper round, and this wildcat threw itself at me.”

I tried not to smile at the image of a mini version of Excellent Nigel pedaling the streets of Whakatane, being felled by a murderous tabby. Nevertheless, it was clear Nigel’s phobia sprang from deep, Freudian waters. It wasn’t a mere quirk Cleo and I would be able to iron out in one night.

“Do you think the experience might’ve given you the drive and determination to become a successful businessman?” I asked, hating myself for employing pop psychology to make a sarcastic joke, but Nigel seemed to consider the question seriously.

“You know I’ve never thought of it that way, but you’re probably right,” he said, reassembling some of his dignity. “I wouldn’t be where I am today if it hadn’t been for that cat attack.”

He was reminding himself aloud to tell the hack ghost currently writing his autobiography Nigel’s Nine Notches to Excellence to include the cat attack when I noticed the bedroom door glide ajar. A four-legged shadow wafted into view. Cleo could open just about any door that wasn’t locked and bolted.