Cats and Flowers.

There is a florist the next road over. A Chinese family owns the shop and they all work there from time to time, but it’s most often the daughter you see. She’s about forty-five, extremely quiet and has that economy of gesture which shy people have. I go in there every Friday to buy a red rose for my wife. Yes, yes, very romantic. Of course, it sounds a lot less romantic when you realise that the giving of this rose commemorates the day on which I slaughtered her entire family. (It doesn’t really. Sorry about that.) Going to the florist is always a pleasure. The lady is so shy you half-suspect she’s having some complicated conversation with the flowers which you can’t quite hear, yet which you absorb through the moist green air. I also love the place because of the cats. There are always at least three of them there, although it’s not always easy to see them at first. You have to look. They might be on a shelf above the counter, snuggling up against the TV or stalking through the geraniums. Sometimes they’re curled up asleep on a spare chair or peeking out through the pale fingers of orchids. Sometimes they’re just picking delicately away at a bowl of biscuit. They’re all different types, long and short hair, snow white and tabby, and sometimes there are kittens. My favourite time to visit is when it’s not raining (which is not that often during the São Paulo summer), because that’s when the lady puts a spare cardboard box out on the pavement which the tabby loves to sleep in. If it’s sunny, he’ll doze there all day. If it’s cloudy, the box might be empty or he might be there in one of the little jumpers which the lady knits. Whenever he is there, passersby step quietly around him, because we all sense there’s something inviolable about a sleeping cat. I do occasionally try and give him a stroke when I’m walking out of there with my rose. He suffers the attention with regal hauteur until I wander off, feeling a little bit sad that I ever have to leave that quiet place given over entirely to cats and flowers and the unmarked passage of untroubled time.