The Glaring Read online

  Resorting to even more extreme measures, as opposed to the routine one of never going into his garden without some stones in his pocket, Lionel then purchased from a regional zoo a large bag of lion excrement. Again, he was much persuaded by the strong advertising which averred that this was the proven antidote to cats and cat mess in the garden. Cats would be scared stiff by the pungent smell of their ferocious cousins, he was verbally assured when he turned up to collect the several bags he’d ordered. Lionel wasn’t interested in half measures anymore; he’d gone in for the (over) kill.

  At the bottom of his garden below the back wall – a veritable M1 motorway for local cats –

  Lionel stealthily and generously distributed the lion shit all over the pebbly path and around the bins by the garden door, which led out to the back alley. He crept back to the house hoping that none of his neighbours were at their windows, and waited upon results. It was getting towards the back end of the summer by now, though the nights were still hot and sleep difficult. As he lay on his bed, in only his boxer shorts, trying to get to sleep that night, a pungent ordure wafted into his bedroom (located as it was at the back of the house), and a strangely disturbing, not to say menacing smell began to assail his nostrils. Lionel’s fitful half-sleep was tormented thereafter by dreams of a tiger, a man-eating tiger, slowly and methodically stalking its prey: him, of course!

  After several hot days and sultry nights, a couple of neighbours called upon Lionel, separately, and asked him politely but firmly to bag the stuff up and bin it – having sourced the offending smell to Lionel’s garden. Lionel promised to spread it more thinly and to dilute it, as it were, with some soil, but he insisted he had every right to protect his small vegetable garden from the nocturnal soiling and diurnal depredations of local cats, but, significantly, he stuck to that theme rather than bring in the bird protection issue. For if there’s one thing that cat-lovers hate, as he already well knew by now, it is any imputation that their ‘Rumpelstiltskin’, ‘Napoleon’, ‘Socks’ or ‘Mister Tom’ is an avian mass murderer.

  So Lionel stuck it out for a couple of weeks, but in the end he had to confess that the lion shite hadn’t made a blind bit of difference. If anything, the local cats were attracted by the smell of their cousins’ urine mixed in with the more solid matter and, perversely, Lionel’s garden experienced a spike in feline defecations, if anything, over the period concerned. He gave it up as a bad job.

  His last throw of the dice was to get all modern and electronic. He installed sensors in various parts of the garden, solar-powered sensors that emitted a sound that was inaudible to human ears but which would induce fear and alarm in the cat that’d triggered it. So much so, the accompanying literature assured him, that they would flee the scene, never to return. It was an expensive piece of kit. And, needless to say, it failed. That is to say, it did work but only too well, setting-off all the dogs in the neighbourhood into a cacophony of incessant barking that well and truly murdered any thought of sleep.

  Lionel was close to despair. There was not only the cat problem.

  His attempt to grow some native trees robust enough to encourage nest-making (suitably protected by spikey collars wrapped around their trunks to deter any climbing cats) and all surrounded by a dense array of native flowers, had proved to be an abject failure. He’d planted too many trees originally and they were too close together; consequently, he’d had to cut some down and uproot others. The trees were taking years to fully mature, in any case, but when they did the survivors, he’d recently realised, would be far too big for his garden. The trees competed with each other for ground water and there was too much shade, thus leaving the soil beneath them too arid - especially in the summer - to produce a richly packed meadow of wild flowers; thus, what few flowers grew there were poor and straggly-looking specimens. And, in any case, the cats kept shitting and scratching away at the dry earth and uprooting his flowers and vegetables, at a rate that left him exasperated. He all but gave up; the battles lost, the war effectively won by the opposition.

  Cats did at least (in general) avoid his garden when he was in it, or fled the moment they saw his angry face, his hand reaching for his trouser pocket. But the nights belonged completely to them and he could do nothing about it other than inspect his garden very closely every morning to bury their dirt and their occasional kills.

  Ailish’s ‘serenity prayer’ came back to him most forcefully at this time as did the sound of her voice softly admonishing him for something or other. He missed her greatly. Not her endearments as such, because they had always been few and far between throughout their life together – she possessed little of the passionate Celtic temperament, despite her name – no, it was her calm presence, her nearness, her comfortableness and the fact that she took good care of him that he felt the loss of, keenly.

  Ailish Cartwright had looked like everybody’s favourite grandmother, even though the joys of that role in life had, sadly, eluded her. She had been on the small side and a little dumpy, but only slightly so and even in her later years one could still see in her face and figure the ‘bobby dazzler’ that Lionel had fallen for all those years ago. She had a pretty, that is to say a young-looking face for a woman of her years – crow’s feet, laughter lines and a few age spots notwithstanding – and a mop of prematurely white but naturally curly hair. She had been a bundle of energy, a human dynamo, with a quick-witted mind and a very quick tongue when confronted with pomposity or nastiness of any kind. She had been very well-read with a fund of literary stories and with hilarious anecdotes about her one-time numerous family always at her finger-tips.

  Ailish had been a popular, much loved and well-respected primary school teacher and she and Lionel never failed to meet someone she’d taught on any one of their frequent forays into town. She’d even taught the children of people she’d taught, but decided to call it a day when she met the grandchild of a child that she’d taught at the very start of her career. Lionel’s attempt at mollification, his observation that those people were a bit like that (exceptionally fecund over that side of the town) did nothing to allay her sense of getting on, and of being too old for the job. Besides, though she would not admit it, the job had lost some of its savour for her and she was very, very tired by the time she left the profession. Sadly, she’d not had a very long retirement and that made Lionel very bitter indeed, which may – partially – explain his increased antipathy towards cats.

  He was lonely, if the truth be told, horribly lonely and overly preoccupied with too few things, and he knew it, what is more. His one true friend, Bob Merchant – an old hospital buddy – told him in no uncertain terms what he thought of him on one of their bi-monthly meet-ups…

  “Lionel, your battle royal with the local cats is not without its comedic possibilities, y’ know… the subject for a short story, maybe, a radio play, perhaps… I might just pen one… But, in all honesty, for your own sake and, well, for Ailish’s too (he’d known her briefly), you ought to lighten up you know, and let it go. And the bird sanctuary idea as well, while you’re at it… It was never going to work in such a town-centre setting as this and… and… well, it’s got to you in a big way, Lionel… a bad way, I feel. You need to branch out and take up some new divertissements… some dramaturgical ones, perhaps.” (Bob always talked like that, being an ex-drama teacher and amateur thespian).

  Lionel thanked his friend for his concern, over a coffee in one of their regular watering-holes on the high street. He always tried to treat his friend to lunch on these occasions, Bob having made the effort to travel the hour’s journey from his home (Lionel had never learned to drive), and he genuinely wanted to be seen to be taking Bob’s advice. However, in his heart he knew he could never appear on a public stage, and – equally – he doubted his capacity for remembering his lines these days. It would have to be something else.

  They parted, after a few hours pottering around the many charity shops in Lionel’s home town, with Lionel promising faithfully to �
�get out there’ and get a new interest in his life. This friendship with Bob was a life-line and Lionel knew it: genuine friendship – it was almost a novel experience where the ex-librarian was concerned. And then, guiltily, he remembered some of Ailish’s friends or members of her wider circle at least, and the fact that he hadn’t been in touch with them; he immediately resolved to do something about it. But before he could his attention was irresistibly and forcibly drawn elsewhere, towards matters feline once more.

  It was a piece of pure serendipity, an on-line newspaper article of modest length that he only came across by chance, skipping idly one evening from one line of thought to another, letting the computer almost take him where it will. It was the highly arresting headline that caught his eye, and – immediately – stopped him in his tracks.

  It read… Public health warning as cat parasite spreads to Arctic beluga whales.

  **

  (iv)

  Lionel read and re-read the article several times: it was an epiphanic moment for him, a truly life-changing event, and one – date, time, place – he would never forget. It concerned a public health warning issued to Inuit populations in Canada – a population that often consumes whale meat. It had been published earlier on in the year, Saint Valentine’s Day, he noted wryly, but he only came across it somewhat later.

  Canadian scientists had discovered - following tests on hundreds of the animals - that 14 per cent of the Beluga whale population of the Beaufort Sea was found to be infected with Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite that only breeds in cats and which can pose serious health problems for humans: specifically, pregnant women and people with low or faulty immune systems. The most likely source was thought to be infected cat faeces washing into waterways and out to sea, into the marine food chain, and global warming wasn’t helping either since ice was traditionally a major eco-barrier for pathogens such as this, but the ‘big thaw’ was clearly helping pathogens gain access to new hosts. The parasite, described in the article as ‘one of the most successful pathogens on Earth’, was likely to be spread to humans during food preparation rather than through cooking, which should destroy it – and through people failing to wash their hands properly.

  It was a short article but the effect on Lionel was profound. One third of the human race was believed to be infected, he read on. And the UK Food Standards Agency estimated that there were 350,000 new cases of the infection in the country every year. The parasite was reportedly harmless in most people but up to 10 per cent of victims went on to develop flu-like symptoms or more serious eye problems leading to blindness. Worse still, pregnant women ran the risk of the parasite affecting the development of the brain and heart of the foetuses they were carrying, and it could also trigger miscarriages and stillbirths.

  His eyes almost out on stalks, Lionel nearly started out of his armchair when, on second reading, the sentence… ‘The infection has also been linked to schizophrenia and other bipolar disorders…’ finally leapt off the page and impinged upon his consciousness.

  He was shocked at his own ignorance, appalled that he’d never heard of this phenomenon before. It’s possible that most people would pass over such an article with a shake of their head on their way to the sports or travel pages of their newspaper, but not Lionel – not with his recent experiences with cats. He began to research Toxoplasma gondii after that with an enthusiasm bordering on the obsessional, reading everything he could find on-line. And the more he delved, quite naturally, the more he found out.

  *

  At first, after the initial shock of discovery and the implications of that discovery, Lionel became highly perturbed and haunted even by the possibility that he, too, might have been contaminated, through his many dealings with cats and their mess in his garden. Nevertheless, several of the articles he encountered and the official government-backed health sites (both sides of ‘The Pond’) proved to be quite re-assuring really and he calmed down a bit. Infection rates varied considerably around the world and the UK was not one of the hotspots, unlike Latin America and the Middle East, say. Equally, the infectivity rate among domestic cats was generally lower than feral ones and Lionel had had little acquaintance with the latter. Cats, he learned, usually shed the parasite when young, when they began to hunt, and then over a single period, usually, of two to three weeks; and, whilst there was, as yet, no human vaccine, there was an effective vaccine for sheep, for example – so a human one could not be far off, surely. And, furthermore, most counter-measures were simple enough and usually very effective: like wearing gloves when gardening, washing all vegetables thoroughly, freezing foodstuffs and advising pregnant women from going anywhere near a cat litter tray. Most official web-sites were sober and re-assuring on the subject and Lionel began to calm down somewhat.

  But that worm of doubt – the sine qua non of all educated people, surely? – began to wriggle and squirm about. The ex-librarian and former SDP member was not so easily ‘fobbed-off’ and Lionel was enough of a sceptic not to leave matters there. He kept looking: in the further-flung, deeper and relatively harder to find corners of the internet; and in more obscure health journals and foreign publications very often. And he soon began to find another and altogether more worrying narrative.

  His good friend, Bob Merchant, got the dubious benefit of this industry the next time they met up for one of their regular day’s out together. They’d gravitated, about midday, toward their favourite coffee house and had barely sat down when Lionel launched into one of his ‘passions’, as Bob called them; he’d recognised the tell-tale signs in his companion earlier on that morning – a slightly distracted air about him and a greater use of the hands in conversation.

  “Have you ever heard of Toxoplasma gondii, Bob? It’s one of the most successful parasites on the planet, apparently.”

  His friend shook his head.

  “No, I haven’t… but let me guess… might this have something to do with cats?” he intuitively enquired.

  Lionel bore on, unaware of the heavy resignation in Bob’s voice.

  “Toxoplasma gondii is capable of infecting all warm blooded animals, though it can only sexually reproduce in cats – the so-called definitive host… A cat becomes infected by consuming mice or rats positively laden with the parasite, which then passes intact through the cat’s stomach. It then infects the epithelial cells…”

  “The what?” Bob enquired, in spite of himself.

  “Er, I’m not entirely sure, to be honest… tissue that lines the blood vessels and organs throughout the body… in, er, every animal’s body, I think... Anyway, the t. gondii parasite gets inside cells of the cat’s small intestine and undergoes sexual reproduction in there… producing millions of thick-walled zygote-containing cysts, known as oocysts. The infected epithelial cells then rupture and release these oocysts back into the intestine where they are subsequently shed in the cat’s faeces.”

  “Right,” was Bob’s only response, slowly and absent-mindedly stirring his cappuccino and staring dreamily at a young and very attractive female barista. Lionel took that as confirmation that his friend was as interested in the life-cycle of the ‘very clever’ feline parasite as he was, and ploughed on.

  “These oocysts, Bob, spread to soil, water, food, et cetera, and are highly resilient, lasting up to a year in either hot or cold climates. Once ingested by other animals, including humans, these oocysts break out of the new host’s stomach and intestines and travel to the brain, eye and muscles like the heart, all within days of infection… T gondii has also been shown to be sexually transmitted in rats, sheep and dogs and has been hypothesised to be sexually transmitted in humans, too.” He ended up a little breathlessly.

  “Yes, but so what, Lionel? Where’s the panic?” Bob’s voice was soft, measured and tempered with kindness, even a little concern.

  “If this has been about for as long as we’ve domesticated cats… and if it was… is… a major public health problem to boot… well, we’d have known about it, surely? Cats would have
been slaughtered wholesale if the finger of suspicion had once pointed toward them and… and, since the Scientific Revolution at least, wouldn’t the world’s scientists have said something… started something by now?”

  Lionel digested that for a moment or two.

  “There are concerned scientists, of course… worried about the seeming link between risk-averse, sometimes dangerous behaviour and the parasite… and also a possible link between schizophrenia and other mental disorders and t. gondii. But they are drowned out by the millions of cat-lovers, the pet-food industry and other vested – vetted? – interests,” he ended up, smiling wanly at his feeble attempt at a bit of punning humour.

  They were quiet for a minute or so, each with their own thoughts: Lionel on cats and Bob… well, that young barista kept walking up and down the café between the seated customers and, in all fairness, she really was a very attractive young woman.

  Lionel got up to get a newspaper – they sometimes did a crossword together over their coffee – and upon opening it he gave a positive snort of contempt.

  “Look at this, Bob,” he expostulated, almost slamming the offending article down on the table in front of his friend. “Just look at this!”

  It was a controversy that had been raging in the national print media mainly, after one of them had picked-up on a story in one of the regional newspapers. Lionel had fumed impotently at this particular story, even considering writing to a national newspaper about it, though he declined in the end remembering his past attempts (all failures) to get things published.

  Simply put, an old woman in one of the economically depressed ex-mining valleys of south Wales had been discovered in a bad way, half-starved, ill, deranged and desperately in need of hospitalisation. She lived surrounded by hundreds of cats (upon whom she lavished her social security benefits, eating very little herself), many of which were infested with lice, worms, fleas and the beginnings of cat flu. Nothing particularly unusual about that perhaps, every now and again such a person comes to the attention of the authorities, usually too late and after the repeated ignoring of neighbours’ complaints and concerns. Only this time several newspapers – including this one – had got it in the neck from feminists and certain high-profile celebrity cat-lovers for describing it as an example of ‘cat-lady syndrome’ and a whole brouhaha had immediately kicked off – dominating the news for several days – on the employment of such (allegedly) derogatory, denigratory and sexist language. In the meantime, the old woman died, the cats were all put down (with no autopsies), even as the argument continued to rumble on in the media; today’s edition of this particular ‘red top’ being no exception.