Every day an adventure

The cat is sitting to attention in front of the glass doors, ears pricked, when I come into the kitchen. I open them for her and she creeps out a few steps into the night, belly low to the ground. She pauses at the edge of the decking, where the light thrown by the kitchen stops abruptly. Beyond is darkness.

I follow her gaze, but I can't see anything. Just black.

Black is the colour of nothing, I remember from long ago art classes. The absence of light.

There is no chill tonight so I leave the door open a few moments, breathe in the night-time scents.

There's a crackle, then, from the bottom of the garden. Cat and girl peer out again. The girl can see nothing. Perhaps the cat can.

A moment longer. Again.

I turn back inside. There's something at the bottom of the garden, I call out.

My mum joins me at the door, and we look out again.

Ears pricked, all three.

A hedgehog? she asks. She goes out to the porch railing, to stand beside the cat. Then she turns back.

Give me a torch, she whispers.

We find one in a kitchen cupboard, nested in unrolled twine and loose washing tablets. I don't expect it to work, but it does, and so out she ventures, picking her way across the lawn. The cat trots after her, close to her heels.

The phone rings and I go to pick it up. It's for her, so I bring it outside, down to the shed, where the torchlight is sweeping among the Hawthorn branches.

She's right here, I say to my grandfather at the end of the line. I hold the phone out.

She ignores me. Creeps around the side of the shed, cat in tow. Torch picks out pieces of garden; fringe of suddensharp grass blades, white clawed branch. Flat green cat's eyes wink.

Finally she takes the phone. Whispers to her father that she's on an adventure. He whispers something back. Together they set off through the clump of trees at the bottom of a suburban garden, to explore the June night, grinning like schoolchildren in the dark.

Sometimes my mother is far better than I am at being young.