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Another day at school finished and another day coming to a home without him. Tao Xu stood in the junior cloakroom and slowly pulled on his coat. He looped his bag over his shoulder, careful not to catch any of the pin badges on his sleeve. Like him they seemed to be lost so very easily. His coat peg and boot locker were on the end of the row and not quite next to Charlie’s so it was easy to turn away and hide his face as this thought passed through his mind. It was a momentary lapse in a place where any kind of emotional display, aside from aggression, was prime fodder for ridicule. Not that he typically cared, and definitely didn’t worry about Charlie perceiving him most of the time, but this was too precious a wound to risk a grubby prodding by one of his more laddish classmates. Schooling his face he turned back towards Charlie.
“Ready?”
Charlie nodded in response.
Whilst he was usually the louder one to Charlie’s more thoughtful conversational remarks, they were both quieter these days. Wrapped up against the early April chill, the two boys walked out of the school building and down the drive that led to the main road. It was filled with boys of all ages eager to get back to their homes and families and happy lives. Charlie would be heading to the bus stop by the school which would take him to his part of town, whereas Tao had to walk down another couple of roads before his bus stop would come into sight. The two boys stopped at the end of the school drive, the point at which they physically separated for the evening. There was a slightly uncomfortable pause, which Tao broke.
“Well, see you tomorrow then.”
Charlie shook his head, as if rousing himself from a dream and quickly hugged his friend. Letting go just as fast when he could hear catcalls from some of the other boys.
“See you tomorrow. Text me when you finish watching that film?”
Tao nodded as a reply and he watched Charlie cross over the road to the bus stop for a few moments. before heading down the road in the direction of his own bus stop.
Before, it had felt like a tiny bit of time carved out just for himself. A time to think and plan and dream. He stuck his cold hands into his coat pockets. Roll on summer. For the moment this was something to be endured before getting the bus and another step closer to a much quieter home.
Flowers were starting to come into bloom now.The front gardens that lined his route with their new green shoots reminded him, as his mother also seemed to do often these days, that life is a continuous cycle of change: light and dark, life and death. You couldn't stop it no matter how much you wanted to, it just kept flowing onwards. With a pang he stopped still in front of one of the gardens and touched the Taijitu badge on his bag. He didn’t even need to look for its location these days, his fingers would reach out and find it's metallic chill instinctively. One of the aunties who came over with food to keep Tao and his mother going through those first early days without him had given it to him as a reminder and a comfort. It hadn't seemed like it at the time but all these months later it was a small connection to his heritage in a place where he often felt alone. He had his few friends at school, but it wasn’t the same. And home wasn’t an alone place since his mother would be home not long after he got back, but now there was something and someone missing.
This road, currently so quiet before people started coming home from work, felt like a liminal space between his two lives. He felt proud at having identified that; who says that movies can’t be educational! Donnie Darko is a great film, he must get his dad to watch…
He felt a sharp emotional pang in his chest and trailed the fingers of his other hand in the dirt to ground himself. Then instead of a slightly crumbly texture of soil his hand met with a rough wetness. He turned towards his hand and there was a small black cat licking his fingers. The little feline stopped and regarded Tao, cocking its head to one side. He gingerly gave the cat a small stroke on its onyx black head. It nudged his hand, demanding more fuss and for several minutes Tao obliged. The fur was soft beneath his fingers and warming to the touch. He closed his eyes and let himself just feel.
The smell of the earth and the grassy scent of the first lawn mowing of the year, the rumbly purr from the cat and the rumble of his bus splashing through the puddles on the road.
Ow!
Tao pulled back his fingers with lightning speed and examined them. The black cat had nipped them but fortunately not broken the skin.
“What was that for?” He asked. But the cat wasn't telling and hissed and jumped away from Tao and ran a few doors down the road.
Hurting, but with nothing to show for it externally, he stuck his fingers back into his coat pocket. He'd have to wait for the next bus now. Tao trudged along the road to the bus stop. There wasn't even a shelter, so he sat on the wall of the front garden next to it, idly kicking his legs against the brickwork. Last year it was a struggle to get up, but this year he'd shot up almost overnight, towering over Charlie and making his mother cluck in despair at having to buy yet another pair of school trousers.
Charlie was a bit like that cat. He might look soft and small, but there was a sharpness that Tao hoped wouldn't ever be directed at him.
“If he's a black cat, what does that make me?” He mused to himself. He knew he was a Fire Dog:honest, loyal, a bit stubborn. A black cat and a fire dog. A perfect friendship since their first day at Truham.
Tao's bus pulled into the stop and he hopped off the wall and got on. He was so lucky to have a friend like Charlie. He couldn't wait to text him later that evening and tell him all about the film he was going to watch with his mum. He sat on an upstairs seat and stared out of the window.
There was the black cat sitting on the wall. Tao waved at the cat which flicked its tail. There was room for two black cats in his life.