Cecil

One crisp Monday morning in March, Maria found Cecil at the foot of the apple tree at the bottom of her garden.

A small grey shadow, a lumpen form at first indistinguishable from the surrounding splatter of pinecones. Robins sang of the fallen soldier. As Maria delicately approached, the shadows divided into shivering limbs, a pale chest rapidly expanded and contracted. He made her late for work, a disruption that would gradually become the new routine.

When he first tried to get up and walk around, he would limp and cry out in pain. Maria had to practically restrain him to get him to sit still and not put any further pressure on what she presumed was a fracture, there being no bone poking out. She called the emergency services to explain the situation, while Cecil wriggled and snarled. They explained how she could make a brace from common household items. She was surprised they didn’t suggest to bring him in. They simply didn’t sound that interested.

Cecil told Maria he was a vegetarian. Not in so many words as such, but it was evident. From the way he reacted to meat. So much vomiting. So many cleaning products used. He could never quite make it to the toilet in time. Her arms ached from all the scrubbing.

She asked him about his family. Whether they might be missing him. He wouldn’t say. Just peered at her with doleful black eyes.

He liked to sit silently by the window in his favourite armchair, the one that had belonged to her grandfather. The green wingbacked dominator she had meant to have reupholstered but had never got around to. He clawed idly at the loose threads on its arms, seemingly mesmerised by the apple tree Maria had found him under, when he’d been damp with what she hoped was dew. He refused to elaborate on his travels that had ended on with him beaten on the path to her door.

She managed to wrangle a laptop from the charity she worked for, so she could nurse him back to health and still pay her bills. He only accepted liquids until he got more comfortable around her. Then, once he started eating, the problem became getting him to stop. It became companionable, breakfasting with this mute chap, and she, a chatty old maid who hadn’t lived with anyone since her sister moved out three years ago. Janet had sublet from her for six months, moving on fairly rapidly after declaring she would "never" recover from Tom cheating on her with her best friend. Marie had shown a picture of herself and Janet to Cecil, taken in the days where the sisters constituted 50% hairspray and shoulder pads, which he merely sniffed at.

Maria had been glad she could help her sister out in her time of need, but relished being able to walk around in her nothings again too.

Cecil did not seem particularly keen on clothes either. He angrily tore at anything she tried to put on him. Occasionally he permitted a blanket.

Cecil was very twitchy. Perhaps she was harbouring a criminal, wondered Maria. She invented all manner of backstories for him during the course of the year he ended up staying for.

She had to hide him when her neighbour Rohit came by for a cup of tea. Cecil was not a fan of Rohit’s Saint Bernard. It took a while to get Cecil to come in again once they had left, with Maria practically having to douse the tables with holy water and purge from the carpet the spirit of the not-so-saintly dog. Eventually Cecil’s nostrils stopped flaring. Maria had to get Cecil’s favourite nuts – pecans, presented in his favourite of her dishes – the cheerful little Wedgwood one she’d found in the local hospice shop, to persuade him to sit with her again. Cecil’s eyes still darted here and there, as though following shifts in the room Maria couldn’t perceive. Perhaps he’d been on drugs. There was a cluster of nibbled suspicious fungi near where he’d been found.

She filled him in on Rohit’s gossip while he crunched thoughtfully. He was alien to the concept of sharing. Once time he snatched a pecan from her grasp. She noted he kept his fingernails long. And wore a reminder of this herself, on her right index finger. The mark faded after a few days. She took to eating standing up in the kitchen sometimes after that. To avoid both the staring and the stealing.

The fracture appeared to have healed after 12 weeks. It might have been quicker if Cecil hadn’t kept attempting hops on it before it was ready. He seemed his own worst enemy at times. Maria asked Cecil if he was jumping around so much because he wanted to leave. He seemed unsure. As though he too had grown used to the company. The new stasis that differed wildly from his former nomadic life.

He had certainly grown used to the snacks. Maria was having to work overtime. On her office days she showed her colleagues pictures of Cecil, explaining she had another mouth to feed now. Some said he was cute. Others wrinkled their noses and turned back to staring at their work screens of spreadsheets and mobile lockscreens of grandchildren.

One day Rohit surprised Maria by turning up with flowers. Valentine’s Day. Rohit asked Maria how many more times he would have to keep dropping by before she got the hint. She blushed and laughed and gladly took up his offer of a date.

After a few more months of dates, Maria asked Rohit if he would like to move in with her. The question was, would Cecil live with the dog.

Cecil did not entertain the notion for even a second. He practically leapt out of the window when the pooch entered the ‘living’ room -now death trap. Maria thought it might be time for Cecil to move on.

“Come on, Cecil,” Maria said. “Don’t you want to run and play with your friends?”

Cecil, fully grown, cocked his head to one side as though Maria had lost the plot. But then he moved to the door she was holding open for him, through which he could see the inviting boughs of the apple tree.

He looked back over his shoulder – the calm friendly faces of Maria and her new boyfriend, the salivating ugly mess of the dog’s. Cecil made his decision.

Off he bounded towards the tree. He ascended it like an acrobat. A bluetit chirped her applause.

“I’ll miss him,” said Maria forlornly, reaching for Rohit’s hand. He folded it and petted it like it too was a small mammal in need of comfort.

“I have a feeling he’ll be back,” said Rohit, eyeing the sacks of walnuts and almonds parked under the coatrack.

Rohit wasn’t wrong – Cecil had his nose pressed up against the window when they opened the curtains the very next morning. And the morning after that, and the morning after that. Eventually he brought a girlfriend round too, and not long after a whole family of squirrels greeted Rohit and Maria every morning. Tongues wagged, tails danced, and charity truly began at home.