Page 71 of Reinventing Cato
Maybe his violin could work a miracle and empty his mind. He locked his car, grabbed his bag and coat, and carefully picked his way over the icy path to the house. The snow was going, but slowly. He didn’t much like the dog days of a heavy fall, when everything turned to ice or dirty slush, making things look messy.
The moment he pushed open the door, Sam poked his head out of the living room.Oh God, bugger off, you creep!
“Hi, Cato, had a good day?”
“Not really.” Cato headed for the stairs.Leave me alone.
“What’s the matter?” Pedro appeared next to Sam.
Cato turned to face them. “My mum had a car accident.”
They both looked suitably shocked.
“Is she okay?” Pedro asked.
“Yep, but the car isn’t.”
“As long as she’s all right,” Sam said.
Cato nodded.
“We’re just watching a film,” Pedro said. “Want to join us? We’ve opened wine. If you’ve not eaten, I could make you some pasta. You must have had quite a shock.”
“No thanks.”
“Come and sit with us for a bit,” Sam said. “Have a look at what I bought back from the Vermos exhibition.”
“I’m not in the mood.”
“Have a drink at least,” Sam pressed.
Cato hesitated halfway up the stairs. The guy was just being friendly. “I can’t. I have to do some violin practice, but thanks for the offer.” He made himself smile and Sam gave him a bright smile in return.
“Okay. Well, if you come down later, I’ll make popcorn. I got the cheese sort you like.”
“Sam and Cato sitting in a tree,” Pedro sang.
“Fuck off,” Sam and Cato said at the same time.
Cato carried on up to his room wondering what it was about Sam that irritated him so much. Generally, Cato was pretty easy-going, but… Was it that Sam tried too hard? That he wastoofriendly,tooeager, just…tooeverything?He drives a silver car.But so did almost a quarter of drivers in the UK, including Max. What reason would Sam have to do any of this? Cato hung his coat on the back of his door and took off his boots. He drew the curtains, tossed his phone onto the bed, then stripped off and had a shower. Once he’d cleaned his teeth as well, he felt more human.
He didn’t bother getting dressed. He took his electric violin out of its case, plugged his headphones into his amp, muted the speaker, and practised the Vivaldi. It quickly became clear that music wasn’t going to work its magic in the way he’d hoped. There was too much buzzing around in his head, anxiety about his mother and those texts. And Vigge. Was there any point even thinking about the guy anymore? Didn’t telling Vigge to get out of the car, then driving away put an end to it? Whateveritwas? Quite an irony that the one bloke he hadn’t had sex with, was the one he couldn’t get out of his head.
After the Vivaldi, he chose something difficult to play. Bach’s Partita in D minor should be taxing enough to stop him thinking. Of the five movements, the first four were types of dance, the last, theciaccona, variations on a theme and absolutely right for his gloomy mood. Even the faster dance movements didn’t have any joy to them.
Bach had composed it the year he returned from a journey to learn his wife was dead and buried. Cato thought of the absolute horror of that as he played, but it made him reflect on his own situation, and how his hopes were now dead and buried, both with NASA and Vigge. Crazy that he was less upset about NASA than he was about Vigge. Maybe he was never meant to be with someone longer than it took for them both to come. Divine justice for all his one-night stands, pre and post Max. Doomed to repeat his mistakes time after time.
Thirty minutes after starting the Bach, he reached the last note, played twice on two strings at the same time. Two becoming one again. Cato back on his own.
In that case, he needed to do something. Get himself out of this funk. Go out. Go dancing.
Except once he’d dressed, put in his lenses, and lined his eyes with black pencil, he stared at himself in the mirror and changed his mind.
~~~
Vigge returned home cursing himself.I’m a stupid idiot. I don’t deserve him.None of that had needed to happen.I let him down.For someone whose job required him to be good at dealing with people and to be able to handle difficult situations in careful, controlled ways, he’d messed up. He was worried for Cato, worried about him driving home in that state. While it was possible that second text had no connection to Cato’s mother’s accident, what if it did? He wished Cato had let him have his phone, wished he’d agreed he could report it.
He locked the door, kicked off his shoes and bounded up the stairs to his office.Those bloody photographs.If he’d not printed them out and brought them home, this wouldn’t have happened. If he’d thought to put them in his briefcase before Cato came, this wouldn’t… He picked up the photo of Dan Frayn, and let his gaze wander down the line of wounds made by what the pathologist had determined was a long slender blade around 15 centimetres long with a needle-like point. Similar to a stiletto.
