This Exquisite Dance - REVIEW THIS STORY

Written by CrystalWren
Last updated: 01/02/2007 02:01:11 AM

Chapter 6

At the Londe family home a full-scale war was in progress. Angele, that mild, good- natured (dare he say 'submissive'?) woman was three steps shy of trying to kill her husband, and Cat wasn't quite sure what to do about it. Currently, they were screaming at each other in Cajun French, and for the first time in his life Cat was glad he was unilingual. He didn't particularly want to know the specifics of what they were saying- judging by the fact his earwax was beginning to melt, it probably wasn't very nice at all. He was considering for the umpteenth time trying to intercede between the two when his mind was suddenly decided for him. In pure horror he watched his gentle mother actually raise a hand to strike his father- her husband of more than thirty years. Without thinking he all but leapt across the room and grabbed Angeles' hand before it actually connected with his fathers' face.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he yelled. "Settle, people, settle!"

They just glared at him.

Here we go again, thought Cat, it's up to me to be the mediator- and remember what happened the last time? He licked his lips, and came up with one of the main things that peace negotiators have been using since a certain hot beverage was introduced to the western world.

"Why don't we all sit down and I'll make us all some coffee?"

Angele and Bernard scowled, then they both nodded. Carefully avoiding each other's eyes they followed their son out of the lounge room and into the kitchen, recent scene of the return of their mutant prodigal son. (It sounds rather like the title of a bad movie, doesn't it?) There was a chair knocked over onto it's side and Cat righted it, gesturing for his parents to sit- they sat at opposite sides of the table and avoided each others eyes. Cat set about making the coffee. Dreadful stuff, he hated it. Couldn't see why other people touched it, but his mother and father seemed to enjoy it so it should probably do the trick. He wasn't very good at it, but at last the coffee was finished. It looked and smelled as coffee does, so he judged it fit (or unfit, as the case may be) for consumption. He got the coasters, and set each mug in front of Angele and Bernard. The mugs were matching ones, and he hoped they'd get the hint. They didn't. They sat in silence, scowling at the ceiling, or wall opposite, or the top of the wooden table. As the song went, 'they said nuthin'.' Cat was just about to give up and attempt to start the conversation when Bernard finally took a sip of his coffee- and immediately spat it out, messily and disgustingly. Cat got a few droplets on his face and wincing, he brushed them off.

"What's the matter?" asked Angele quietly, still not looking up.

Bernard spluttered for a few seconds more, before he managed to choke out: "The coffee, it's-"

"Is there something wrong with it?"

Ignoring Bernard's frantic motions to stop her, she took a sip and immediately duplicated Bernard's actions perfectly. Cat got up and went looking for a roll of paper towel to wipe his face with.

"Cat," coughed Angele when she finally got herself under control, "it's dreadful!"

"Oh come on," protested Cat, mildly hurt, "it can't be that bad!"

"Oh yes it is!" rejoined his father. "I've never met a person so capable of thoroughly ruining a perfectly decent cup of coffee. Is this a talent on your part, or do you do it deliberately?"

"Deliberately. Has to be deliberately," said Angele, a smile twitching about her lips.

"Is not!"

"Is so! It's impossible to make coffee that bad, unless you're trying!"

Cat made a disgruntled sound, crossed his arms, glared at the floor and mock-pouted. "My coffee's fine," he said, "you just don't appreciate it."

"Oh, we appreciate it," drawled Bernard. "That's the problem."

Bernard and his wife exchanged the knowing kind of look that parents use, and laughed. Halfway through that laugh they remembered what had happened and they choked back the laughter, and went back to staring guiltily at the wall, or table top, or ceiling, or floor, or whatever. Anything except each other. Cat leaned against the sink and sighed.

"We have to talk about this," he said.

"What's there to say?" snapped Bernard. "The mutant son we abandoned twenty-four years ago has tracked us down. He disconnected our power somehow, then reconnected it, waltzed into our kitchen and then proceeded to threaten us-"

Cat interrupted. "He didn't threaten us! Well, not exactly-"

Bernard raised his voice over his son's protests: "We know he's going to be back." Cat fell silent. Bernard looked hard at his son, and then at his wife. They both lowered their eyes to avoid meeting his stare. "We know he's going to be back," he repeated quietly. "There's no way we can avoid this. It's pointless running because he'll only find us again." Bernard sighed and rubbed at his aching eyes. "I don't- I don't- I don't know what to do," he whispered. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I thought that leaving him was the best thing I could do. I thought that we'd be better off without him." He looked up at his wife, his eyes watering. "I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do. I thought it was for the best-" his voice broke.

Angele got up and went over to his side, wrapping her arms around him as his shoulders began to shake with rough sobs. Cat wasn't quite sure what to do. His father was the strongest, most stubborn man he had ever met. And now he was crying? Cat just stood there helplessly. He wanted to go to his father. He wanted to. But he couldn't. He didn't know what to do or what to say- so coward that he was he began to slink out of the kitchen to give his parents some privacy. He didn't get very far. Bernard's hand shot out and grabbed his wrist.

"No!" he said. "Don't leave me! I can't- I can't lose another son!"

"Dad…" Cat blinked and knelt by his father's chair. "I wasn't leaving you. I- I just wasn't sure what to do. You've always seemed so strong…"

Bernard shook his head, tears running down his face. "I'm not strong," he said, "I'm weak. I made my own wife abandon our infant son just because he was born with weird eyes. I'm a coward- I left my own child on the hospital doorstep because I was afraid of what my neighbours would think." He buried his head in Cat's shoulder, gripping it hard and painfully with his hand. "Don't leave me. Don't leave us. Not ever."

"I won't, Dad. I promise. I'll never leave you and Mum." Cat looked up as Angele stroked his hair, her arms around the both of them. "Never."

They stayed like that for what seemed like forever, but was probably only a few minutes. Finally, they loosed their embrace and sat back in their respective chairs. Cat cleared his throat, wishing that it wasn't him asking the question, but knowing that it had to be said.

"Well. What are we going to do now?"

His parents glared at him with bloodshot eyes. They probably didn't mean to do it.

"My brother is going to be back. The way I see it, we've got two options. One, we can sit here and wait for him." He stopped, and the silence stretched on like the ticking of a grandfather clock.

Bernard broke it. "And? What else can we do?"

"We can run."

There was another silence, but it wasn't one created by absence of speech. It was more the silence of indrawn and withheld breath.

"I've got some money set aside. If I went down and sold my car right now I could probably have enough money to by plane tickets to another city. Another state. Another country. I hear that Kakadu is fairly spectacular this time of year."

Angele blinked. "Where's 'Kakadu'?"

"Australia," said Cat. "The Northern Territory. It hasn't got much by way of population, but it's got a fairly large tourist industry. Four more won't be noticed."

Silence again, but this time it was filled with the soundless noise of busy thoughts.

"If we run," said Angele slowly, doubtfully, "we'd have to take Angelique with us. We'd have to uproot her from her school, her friends..."

"She'd have her family, though." This was Bernard, his face almost eager.

"Eventually, though, she'd ask us why."

"But she doesn't have that many friends," replied Bernard. "And I get the feeling that she wouldn't particularly miss the ones she's got." He tossed a pointed look in Cat's direction. "She's a bit like you in that respect."

Cat rolled his eyes.

"If we did go," said Angele, "what would happen when- not if, when- the money ran out?"

"I'd get a job." Bernard leaned forward. "Cat'd find some work, easily. Don't you see? We'd be free again."

Angele avoided his eyes and instead looked out the window at her garden.

I don't believe this, thought Cat disgustedly. He spends half an hour sobbing on my shoulder racked with guilt about abandoning his infant son, and here he is all set to run away again. He gritted his teeth. So much for regretting what he did. I only made the suggestion to see how he would react. Can't he see that running is not an option this time?

"We'll book the first plane out," Bernard was saying as he leaned across the table, his eyes alight with enthusiasm. "I've got a little bit of money I've kept hidden away-" there was a flash of shocked and surprised hurt in Angele's eyes but he didn't see it "-we'll go to Scotland or Ireland first, then we can see what your Kakadu is like, Cat. And after that? Who knows! Africa or India! We'd see the world!"

"Shut up! Just shut up!" For the second time in his life, in this hour, Cat witnessed his normally quiet and obedient mother not just disagreeing with his father, but actually screaming at him. He bit his tongue and resisted the urge to hide. For more reasons than one, it seemed as though his old concepts of his own private world were falling apart. "For thirty years, thirty years, I've followed you, I followed my wedding vows: "love, honour and obey", that's what the priest said and I took those words to heart. I loved you, I honoured you, I obeyed you! I left my friends and family behind in New Orleans for you. I gave up all prospects of a job or career for you. I spent my life watching over your child! Your perfect child, your precious oldest son-"

I don't really think I want to hear this, thought Cat desperately as he sank further into his chair. Any more and he'd slide off under the table.

"-I cared for him while listening to you tell me every day how I'd failed you with the second!"

Bernard had been up until now as speechless as Cat, but now he found his voice. "I never said that! I never said-"

"You didn't have to!" Angele by now was in tears, but it didn't stop her none. "You never had to say anything! You just sat there and thought it, day in, day out, you never had to say anything because it was written all over your face."

Bernard looked like a goldfish, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly.

"Well, I'm not going to obey you any more. I'm not going to follow you again, I'm not going to abandon my son again. When he was born we didn't know what he was and we were afraid. We were afraid of him because he was different, and we didn't know why. Well, we know why now, and he doesn't seem so frightening. If you leave now I'm not going to follow you. I'll let you leave and I'll close the door after you! I want my son, and you are not going to take him away from me again!" Angele stopped for a second, her chest heaving up and down. When she got her breath back she continued, albeit quieter. "I am not leaving this time, Bernard. Not again. Not for you." She turned to Cat, who had been hoping she'd forgotten him. No such luck. "And you!" she said angrily, "your brilliant idea to run, to leave, was something he'd" (meaning Bernard) "would come up with, and I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed of you, because I thought I'd raised you better. A child is supposed to make up, to atone for the sins and faults of his parents, and here I see you copying his mistakes and expecting me to go along with you! How dare you! How dare the both of you!"

"But I didn't- I didn't mean- what I said, I-" Cat managed to stammer out. Angele didn't listen to him. She got to her feet, knocking over her chair in the process, and turned and ran up the stairs to her and Bernard's bedroom. There was the sound of quick, heavy footsteps on the ceiling above them, and the sound of a door slamming. Cat blinked, and looked at his father. His father looked at the tabletop in front of him. "Well," said Cat. "I think we've just been well told." Thoughtfully he picked up Angele's cold coffee cup, and absently took a sip of the cold liquid. Then he spat it out all over the place.

Bernard got up and went looking for a roll of paper towel to wipe his face with.