This is just a little present for you all to keep you occupied while I'm away, based on a few lines of conversation between Harry and Nikki in Body 21. I'm not sure about this as it's very different to anything I've attempted before, so please let me know what you think :) Reviews are greatly appreciated, both signed and anonymous!
Love Flossie xxx
Digging up the Cat
"My mother had a story that when I was younger, I used to dig up the cat. Which was dead, obviously. They thought I wanted to see if it had gone to heaven or not. But I was more interested in how far it had decomposed. They took me to see a psychiatrist."
"And what did they say?"
"That I would either be a brilliant doctor, or a very nasty serial killer."
He knew he shouldn't have looked. It was none of his business, after all. OK, so she had left the album on her desk, but she had left it closed, half-concealed under a pile of PM reports. He shouldn't have pried. But somehow he had found himself lifting off the report files and placing them in a neat pile on the other end of Nikki's desk- knowing how obsessive she was about keeping her work space tidy- picking up the photo album and sitting down in her chair to examine it. Nikki was in the cutting room carrying out a Post Mortem on a hit and run victim; it would be a while yet before she was back. Which gave Harry plenty of time to snoop. Not that it was snooping, though, not really. It was just… investigating, that's what it was. It was rare for him to get insights into her childhood like this, so rare that Harry could probably write all he knew about Nikki's earlier years on the back of a postage stamp. South Africa, dad left, mother died, England, ran away from school… it was hardly worth stringing together a sentence. That was the only reason he looked. He wanted to gain a better understanding of what her life had been like long before he knew her, of the events which had shaped her adult personality. And the only way he could do that besides questioning her, which really would be prying, was to open the photo album.
Even the cover of the album was typically Nikki; a pale blue background with a pink floral pattern, the date '1984' printed in gold in the centre. Trust Nikki to be so organised as to have date-labelled photo albums, rather than a stack of shoeboxes under the bed. Which reminded him, he really needed to sort through those.
Harry flicked through the pages slowly, delicately, overcome with a strange sense of shyness now he was actively sticking his nose into Nikki's business. Still, there was no going back now, no matter how uncomfortable he felt. He hadn't extracted the photo album from Nikki's carefully stacked pile of reports to close it again without taking a proper look- he was going to have to go through with it. He assured himself that she would have done the same, were their roles reversed. Nikki was notoriously nosey when she wanted to be.
She hadn't changed a bit, he observed, studying the photographs. The small, blonde-haired girl in the photographs was evidently Nikki: her smile, the glint in her eyes, it was all the same. And yet there was an air of innocence about 7 year old Nikki, an innocence which Harry didn't see on her face nowadays. Growing older did that to people, he mused. As a person grew older life began to turn against them, shadowing that innocent air with pain and knowledge and anger and betrayal. That was why childhood was so precious: because once that innocence was gone, there was no getting it back.
Harry didn't think he had ever seen a picture of Nikki's mother before, and for a moment he paused, wondering if he was taking his prying a little too far. He had shown Nikki pictures of his long-dead father in the past and yet she had never chosen to share mementos of her own deceased parent; perhaps she didn't want him to see. And so he flicked on quickly, though not before he had taken in just how much Nikki was the spitting image of her mother. Same long blonde curls, same wide, inviting look in their eyes, the only difference being in colour. 'Celin and Nikki, Table Mountain 1984', read the simple caption beneath a photograph of the two of them together, Nikki sat on her mother's lap, the two of them laughing at the camera and the whole of Cape Town stretching out in the background, down below what presumably was Table Mountain. It was only reading the caption that Harry realized he hadn't even known her mother's name until now. She was his best friend, he prided himself on knowing more about her than most, and yet there was still so much he didn't know.
The next page held a series of photographs which seemed to have been taken in the Alexanders' back garden; a number of pictures of a much younger Nikki sat on the grass, her long blonde hair blowing out behind her delicately in the breeze and a bundle of ginger fluff on her lap. It took him a moment to work out that it was a cat: a rather old, tired looking ginger cat, and suddenly Harry was reminded of a conversation he had had with Nikki a number of years ago, back when she had first started working at the Lyell Centre.
"My mother had a story that when I was younger, I used to dig up the cat. Which was dead, obviously. They thought I wanted to see if it had gone to heaven or not. But I was more interested in how far it had decomposed. They took me to see a psychiatrist."
"And what did they say?"
"That I would either be a brilliant doctor, or a very nasty serial killer."
"Harry?"
He jumped, suddenly aware of someone standing behind him, and realising that he must have become so lost in the memory that he hadn't heard Nikki enter the office behind him. Damn, he was an idiot. Busted.
Groaning to himself, Harry spun around on the chair to face his best friend, leaving the photo album open, knowing there was no point trying to deny it. He gaged the look on Nikki's face for a moment, trying to assess how angry she was. Thankfully, there didn't seem to be much in the way of anger present in her features, her expression was more one of amusement.
"Nikki, I'm sorry I… I didn't mean…."
"To poke your nose into my business?" Nikki finished for him, perching on the edge of the desk and leaning over his shoulder, peering at the photo album. "And this is a first; you're sitting at my desk for a change. What prompted that?" The glint in her eyes suggested that she wasn't angry, not really, yet still Harry's feelings of guilt wouldn't go away.
"Poking my nose in, I suppose," he sighed, getting up from Nikki's chair and moving around to his own desk sheepishly. "Nikki, I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have…"
"Oh Harry, stop apologising, it's fine!" Nikki insisted, picking up the photo album and passing it over the computers in the centre of their desks to Harry. "It's not like I haven't been a right nosy parker in the past, is it? It's not that interesting anyway," she shrugged, leaning back in her chair as Harry took the album back from her.
"Oh but it is!" Harry told her, grinning broadly. "I had no idea how cute you were as a child."
"Shut up."
"Hey, that was a compliment!" Harry pointed out. "Anyway, how come you have this at work? I'm surprised Zak hasn't found it and sent pictures of your rainbow legwarmers and sugar plum fairy costume to the whole pathology department yet; he's even nosier than I am!"
"I find that hard to believe!" Nikki replied, rolling her eyes at him light-heartedly. "No, I know, I had to bring it in to scan some of the pictures and email them to my father; apparently he's been looking through his own photos wherever he is at the moment and realized he doesn't have any from that year… or something like that, I don't know. The sooner I scan a few pages worth in and email them off, the sooner he's out of my life again." Her whole tone had changed from light and playful to bitter and frustrated, and suddenly Harry found himself feeling bad at having brought the subject up in the first place, dampening her mood. Although he did have an idea on how to cheer her up…
"So is this the famous cat?" he asked her, holding up that particular page of the photo album and chuckling at the confused expression on Nikki's face. "The one you used to dig up as a child? The one you got sent to see a psychiatrist over?"
"Oh!" Nikki's face lit up as she suddenly realized what he was talking about, her cheeks turning a soft shade of pink as she blushed. "You remembered that? God, that's embarrassing, why on earth did I tell you that?"
"Because I've just got one of those faces that makes you want to spill all your secrets," Harry joked, propping his feet up on his desk. "So come on then. Are you going to tell me the whole story?"
Nikki stared at him for a moment, puzzled. "The whole story?"
"Well, there must be more to it than just being told you would either be a doctor or a serial killer when you grew up. Come on Nikki, I want the details! You can't give me half a story and expect me to not nag you for more!"
"There's not really much to tell," Nikki told him, feigning a sigh, but Harry knew he had won all the same. He could be rather persuasive when he wanted to be after all, even with someone as stubborn as Nikki.
Cape Town, September 1984
"Nicola Alexander!"
6 year old Nikki Alexander looked up at the sound of her name, closing her book and arranging her bookmark neatly amongst the pages, before turning to face her mother. Her parents were sat on either side of her, having taken a rare day off work in order to take her to the psychiatrist office that day. Nikki pouted slightly as she saw the worried looks on her parents' faces; there was nothing wrong with her! She didn't need to go and see a stupid doctor to prove it.
"Now, you're going to be good for Dr Reid, aren't you Nikki?" her mother told her firmly, taking the book from her and pushing her daughter towards the newly opened door on the other side of the waiting room.
Nikki frowned, turning back to face her parents in confusion. "You're not coming in with me?"
"No sweetheart, we're not allowed to," her father explained. "But I'm sure Dr Reid is very friendly, and we'll be here waiting for you when you're done, OK?"
Nikki just nodded, glancing at her parents one last time before skipping off towards the open door, presumably Dr Reid's office. She was almost 7, practically grown up, and she didn't need her parents to hold her hand anymore. No, she was perfectly happy to go by herself.
"Nicola?"
The woman calling her name from behind the desk at the centre of the consultancy room was a middle aged white woman with short brown hair, and a strange accent, reminding Nikki of the way her father said her name. Nikki simply nodded, looking up at the doctor.
"You're the psychiatrist, aren't you?"
"That's right," the woman confirmed, smiling encouragingly. "My name's Dr Reid, your parents sent you to see me, didn't they? Do you want to have a seat, Nicola?"
"Nikki," she corrected the doctor, sitting down at the chair in front of the desk all the same. "No one calls me Nicola."
"OK then, Nikki. So how old are you Nikki?"
"6," Nikki replied. "But I'm nearly 7."
"Nearly 7, OK," Dr Reid repeated, scribbling something on her notepad, her handwriting so messy that Nikki couldn't quite read it upside down.
"So did your mummy and daddy tell you why you're here today, Nikki?"
"Yes," Nikki replied confidently; she knew the answer to that question. "Because they think I'm showing borderline psychopathic tendencies. Well, my daddy does. My mamma thinks it's closer to sociopathic behaviour, but my daddy says that's because she can't bear to think of her child as a… a… a psychopathy person." She paused now, frowning. "I can't remember the other word they used."
"OK, well, not to worry," Dr Reid assured her, with a strange expression on her face which Nikki couldn't quite place. Bewilderment, maybe?
"Well that's certainly a start. So Nikki, do you know what a psychopath is? That's a very big word for an almost-7 year old."
"Of course I do," Nikki told her. These questions were an insult to her intelligence! "A psychopath is a person suffering from a chronic mental disorder which makes them prone to abnormally violent behaviour and leads them to have no respect for other people's feelings." She looked up at the doctor now, her eyes wide. "But I'm not like that! I'm not a psychopath!"
Dr Reid paused for a moment. "OK. Well Nikki, do you know why your parents might think that?"
Nikki thought for a moment, her face screwed up in concentration, before she finally realized what all this was about.
"This is about the cat, isn't it?" she said sincerely.
"That was what your parents wanted me to talk to you about, yes," said Dr Reid. "So what's your cat's name?"
"'What was'," Nikki corrected her. "Not 'what is.' Simba's a dead cat," she explained matter-of-factly.
"I see," Dr Bank said, beginning to scribble in her notebook again. "So the cat was called Simba, was he?"
"Yes. Like in the Lion King."
"OK. So Nikki, can you tell me what it is about Simba that's making your parents so worried?"
"Well, yes," said Nikki. "But it's silly really. I've tried explaining to them, but they just don't understand."
"So can you tell me what you do to the cat, Nikki?"
"I dig him up. He's buried under the sagewood flowers in the bottom of the garden, and every Saturday morning I dig him back up."
"Every Saturday morning?" Dr Reid repeated, beginning to scribble again. "That's very specific, isn't it?"
"Well, it has to be," Nikki explained. "You should know that, you're a doctor! You have to be a scientist to be a doctor, and scientists have to leave… leave… equal bits of time between each stage of their investigation. Otherwise you might get a…um...a… a false negative!" she announced proudly. Nikki knew all about science experiments; it was her favourite subject at school. No… second favourite. In Afrikaans lessons the teacher often gave the class sweets.
"OK. So this is all a scientific experiment, is that right?"
"Yes," Nikki said, sighing a little. How many times did she have to spell it out?
"So what is it that you're trying to find out?"
"But that's obvious! I'm interested in the speed of decomposition," Nikki told the doctor, missing the look of sheer astonishment on her face. "It's very interesting. For the first couple of weeks there wasn't much difference at all, but then Simba was all covered in maggots and smelled funny, and then…"
"OK, OK, I think I get the picture!" Dr Reid halted her. "So you're not seeing if Simba has gone to heaven to be with God? That's what your mummy thought, isn't it?"
"No of course I'm not," Nikki said, confused. "How would I be able to tell? Martha says that when we go to heaven, our body gets left behind on earth and God gives us a new one. So Simba is probably a lion or a tiger in heaven now. I think he'd like that much better than being a boring old cat."
"I'm sure he would," Dr Reid agreed. "So, who's Martha?"
"My nanny."
"Oh, I see," Dr Reid nodded. "So who do you see more of at home, Nikki, your mummy and daddy, or Martha?"
"Martha. But this isn't a bid for attention, if that's what you're thinking," Nikki said quickly. "Why would anybody dig up a dead cat just to get attention, when they could investigate decomposition instead?"
"I don't know," Dr Reid admitted. "That's a very good question. Now Nikki, there was one other thing I wanted to talk to you about," she said, flicking through a stack of papers on her desk. "You see, your teacher sent me some of your school reports to discuss with you, and there were a few incidents that came to my attention. You're normally very well behaved at school, aren't you Nikki? But then last term you punched a boy in the face…"
"I know," Nikki said frankly, her eyes narrowing. "But that was payback."
"Really? So what did he do to you?"
"He… he called me short!"
"And does that bother you, feeling smaller than your classmates?"
"Well, not usually," Nikki said. "But when people much taller than you steal your packed lunch and run around the playground holding it above their heads, then that does bother me."
"I see. And what about this incident here, when you cut a locust in half with the sharp end of a pencil?"
"That was another experiment. It was already dead, and it was quite a small one. I was just trying to see if locust blood is red like human blood." She looked straight at the psychiatrist now, almost pleadingly. "I'm not crazy, I'm not violent, and I'm not a psychopath! Or a… a… a sociopath! I'm not! I just like science! It's all so interesting, and there's so much to find out, and sometimes you just have to have the answers, ASAP. And it's so much more interesting finding things out for yourself than looking in a book!"
"I know Nikki, I know. And is locust blood the same colour as human blood?"
"No. It's sort of white and gooey."
"Right," Dr Reid said, giving Nikki a strange look. "So what would you like to be when you grow up, Nikki?"
"I'm not sure yet," Nikki told her honestly. "But I think I've narrowed it down to a cellist, a doctor or a ballerina."
"I see. Well, for what it's worth, I think you would make a fantastic doctor," Dr Reid smiled encouragingly, getting to her feet. "I'm just going to get your mummy and daddy, OK? I'll be right back."
"So is she alright?" Nikki's mother asked a few minutes later as she entered the room, lifting her daughter off the ground and holding her close. "There's nothing… nothing wrong with her?"
"Let's just put it like this," Dr Reid said, smiling slightly as she addressed her patient's parents. "I've never met a 6 year old quite like her. But what I can tell you for certain is this: when she grows up, Nicola is either going to be a brilliant doctor, or a very nasty serial killer."