Loving Memory
Fur like oiled silk, sleek and soft to the touch. The little girl closed her eyes, smiling, to concentrate on the delightful sensation as her cat purred fulsomely on the windowsill. She giggled. Earlier they had played with the cases on the floor, hiding and leaping out at each other like two kittens, until the child lay laughing on the floor while her cat fought madly with his own tail. Now Georges-cat just sat on the window seat leaning on his friend, purring and purring, gazing through lidded eyes at the long garden of which he was king, where spring bloomed. Sunshine fell through the window, patterned by the panes, and Paku opened her eyes, still smiling.
If she laid her head on his purring side, she could feel the happy sound reverberate all through her head and drown out the sounds of arguing.
Her parents were upstairs. They thought she couldn't hear them. Paku could always hear her father's voice as one attuned; she adored him and tried to spend as much of his scant home time with him as possible. Tall and handsome, always in a suit from his work, he always had a game or a story for his little girl, an escapade from his past, like a fairytale to a child raised in privilege. She kept every story in her heart to retell to herself in the dark hours she lay awake during his business trip. Worrying about where he was, worrying about Mummy, who walked like a shadow through their lovely home, always busy, always quiet. 'Not now Paku, I have to make dinner' , 'In a little while dear, I have people to call.' Mummy never laughed, never played.
The voices upstairs grew more strident, the pitch of her mother's voice more desperate, then a door slammed and feet, briskly urgent but trying not to run, walked down the stairs.
Mummy, thin-lipped and red-eyed, opened the door quietly. Paku looked up from Georges-cat wide eyed and summoned her biggest smile. Her parents hated to find out she'd heard them. She wished she could listen. It made her anxious, not knowing what was happening.
"Paku." She looked at the child and cat in the window seat with a thinly veiled desperation in her blue eyes. "Did you pack your toys? Is that your case?"
"Yes Mummy, I packed everything." She beamed, wanting to change Mummy's tense expression to a smile. She had spent half an hour carefully packing every tiny item that caught her eye in the bedroom with very little thought of what she needed, like she did when packing for holidays every summer. Every year she would spill the residue of childhood into her perfect hotel room, drawings, bouncy balls, stuffed animals, to make the empty places feel like home. And Daddy would laugh, and ruffle her hair, and say she was amazing.
"Did you pack everything?" Mummy pressed, not smiling back. "Are you ready, Paku?" She paused, and sat next to the little girl, staring out of the window. Georges-cat glanced up at her and sinuously removed himself with the air of guilt he always wore around Mummy, who he knew didn't like him. Paku watched him go, gold-patterned fur glowing through the dappled sunlight on the floor, until he slipped through the doorway. "Paku?"
She started, and remembered to smile up at Mummy. "Yes, everything," she promised firmly. "I'm ready Mummy." Mummy gazed at her for a moment before patting her head distantly.
"I need you to be brave, Paku," she said quietly. Mummy was always quiet. "It's only for a little while, and then things will be better again..." She trailed off, staring around her at the room, the cases, the furniture, some already marked with labels for removal or sale. "Things will get better again. They must..."
Paku regarded her with an awkward sense of worry.
"Mummy is Georges-cat packed?" she asked with sudden energy. "If he goes into the garden now he won't know when the car comes! Let me fetch him."
She hopped up, determined to be helpful. Mummy gazed out of the window again.
"Georges-cat is staying here Paku. He can't come where we are going. The new people have agreed to look after him."
Paku stopped, shocked. She turned to look at Mummy, but she was just staring, gazing out of the window as if to lock the view in her head forever.
"Mummy?" she said in a tiny voice. "Where are we going? We'll be back in a little while, yes? I want Georges-cat to come with us!"
Her voice trembled but she kept hold of the tears. Mummy and Daddy both hated to see her cry.
Mummy didn't answer. The big car to take them away was pulling up outside.
Paku stared at it in an impulse of panic. She turned and ran after Georges-cat, calling his name frantically. He was not in the kitchen, not in the sunroom, his favourite spot. She ran up the stairs, distraught. She would hide him in her bag, no one would see, and when he popped out it would surprise everyone. Daddy would laugh. She would make it all right. Georges-cat could come too.
Paku stopped dead in the doorway of her parents' room. Her father, business-suited and handsome, hair swept back and neatly styled as always, stood framed by the big bay window watching the car draw up. He looked strangely as if he was standing to attention, one hand to his head.
Paku closed her eyes for a moment, remembering one of his stories. Daddy and his brothers, playing at soldiers. "We would line up for parade and stand to attention, just so! And salute!" He snapped his heels together and saluted, rigid fingertips pointing to his head. Laughing.
The bang shattered her memory. Paku's eyes flew open, she yelped in terror, her golden hair flying round her face as she jumped.
Framed by the big window, Daddy stood. His hand, holding the gun, slumped. He fell like a house of cards, tumbling as she screamed his name and everything changed.
A person is the sum of their memories. Paku knew this more than anyone.
She looked at her boss longingly, wanting his smile, the understanding of his wide blue eyes. His forgiveness.
Chrollo walked past her slowly, as if they were a world apart. She walked past him, filled with the silent pain of having disobeyed his most fundamental order. To leave him.
Leave him? Let Chrollo die and live on as the Spider? Paku smiled quietly as she went home, silent, to die. She didn't care about the Spider. There was only Chrollo. She didn't ever mean to live without someone she loved again.
She walked home with a sense of freedom. It was over. The gun in her hand reassured her that her memories, their essential information, could not be lost.
A cat, the light of evening catching and glowing on its patterned fur, walked by. Paku stopped and smiled. I am coming home at last, Georges-cat, she thought with sudden happiness. Things will get better. At last. "She met the cat's curious eyes and murmured, "Nya?"
It blinked, reassured. They both went on their way.