The Cat Among Us

by Louise Carson

  She and Prudence moved the furniture around, put some of it in the big foyer next door. “They can drop their coats in here,” Gerry said, “then come through.”

  “Maggie used to close off this room after Christmas. Too difficult to heat. Poorly insulated.”

  “Well, if this room’s too cold, we’ll just have to move to the winter living room next to the kitchen and make a nice fire. That is, assuming anyone wants to continue after Christmas.”

  “Some local businesses close in January and February. It’s so cold and a lot of people stay in or just struggle out for work and grocery shopping.”

  “Is it as bad as that?”

  Prudence grimly nodded. “You should get your firewood in now. We have to stack it in the garage and bring it into the house as we need it.”

  “But it’s August,” wailed Gerry. “Can’t we still enjoy summer?”

  Prudence was relentless. “Yes, but you need to get the chimneys swept and the oil furnace serviced. Oh, and top up the oil tank.”

  “My God, you mean I have three types of heating? Oil, wood and electric baseboards?”

  “Yes, and you’ll need all of them by January. You ain’t in Toronto anymore.”

  “Anything else?” Gerry added sweetly.

  “Did you want me to call the Hudsons about the septic again?”

  The Hudsons were the only local contractor who seemed available to work on the house’s odour problem, and they’d postponed twice. Gerry’s voice took on an absent-minded tone. “Yes, please, Prudence. Just don’t let them start on a Wednesday! Unless they make it before Labour Day, which is beginning to look doubtful.”

  She surveyed the portraits, some done in charcoal, some in coloured crayon or chalk, which adorned the walls of the bamboo room. “Who drew these?”

  Prudence seemed surprised. “Why, I thought you knew. Your aunt did.”

  “Why didn’t she sign them?”

  “She did. But on the back.”

  Gerry took one down — a portrait of a thin elderly woman with forbidding lips — and reversed it. There, neatly printed on the paper that her aunt must have glued to the frame, were the words, ‘Eliz. Coneybear, by Marg. Coneybear, her granddaughter,’ followed by Aunt Maggie’s signature.

  “So all the drawings in this style are Aunt Maggie’s?”

  Prudence nodded.

  “Fantastic. I’m putting them in the show. They’ll be the third wall and there are enough of them to spill over into the foyer. Let’s do a count — I seem to remember there are some in her bedroom — and then have a coffee.”

  It was a fascinating ancestral treasure hunt. As Prudence and Gerry went from room to room, turning portraits over, Gerry discovered a great-aunt or -uncle, cousins from two centuries before. Aunt Maggie had always noted the subject’s relationship to her, so it was easy enough for Gerry to extrapolate their relationship to her. “Look, Prudence, a Crick.”

  Prudence smiled thinly. “Yes, he has the look of my husband.” There was a lack of enthusiasm in her voice that warned Gerry away from the subject. They took their break on the back porch. A light rain was beginning.

  “I’ll be sorry when it’s too cold to sit here,” Gerry began, leaning back in her chair and putting her clasped hands behind her head. A small drop of water fell on her nose. “That’s funny,” she said, sitting upright. Another larger drop fell in her coffee.

  Prudence got up and went into the house, returning with two umbrellas. The women sat glumly and drank their coffee. “Who do I call for roofs?” Gerry asked grimly.

  “It’ll make a good story to tell your children.” Prudence’s lips were twitching. Gerry couldn’t help it. She laughed.

  She laughed again that Friday afternoon when Bea, having walked with the aid of a stick from her house to the farmer’s market, held up a suggestively shaped tripartite carrot and raised her eyebrows.

  “Yes,” said Gerry, “but chopped up in a stew.”

  “Ouch,” said the nice young man selling the carrots. They also bought onions and potatoes for the stew, and late raspberries to eat with ice cream, then went back to Bea’s house and started cooking.

  “How’s the show coming?” asked Bea, pouring them each a glass of red wine.

  “Oh, I meant to ask you. Do you think the third weekend in September would be good?”

  “Let me think.” She looked at the calendar on the side of the fridge. “Film society, music club, historical society, literary festival. Nope. Third weekend works fine.”

  “Do you really participate in all that?” Gerry asked, awe in her voice.

  “Church choir, cooking for Meals on Wheels, baking squares for funeral receptions.” Bea finished checking her activities off on her fingers. “Oh, and helping Cece if he needs me.”

  “Wow.” Gerry handed Bea the chopped onions. “I think I’m going to cry.”

  “Don’t feel bad. Remember, I’m a kept woman.” She waggled her hips and lurched against the stove. “Damn. Time to sit down.”

  Gerry took over, under Bea’s supervision, and by the time Cece walked in there was garlic bread, a crisp salad, and a beef stew, redolent of fresh thyme from Bea’s garden.

  “Cheers!” said Gerry. “To the weekend.”

  “To the weekend!” chimed the others.

  She wilted. “Actually, I don’t even know what a weekend is supposed to feel like anymore. When you work for yourself you just seem to keep pushing every day.”

  “Yes,” agreed Cece. “I know what you mean. But you have the option of just taking off whenever you feel like it. That’s fun, isn’t it?”

  “He should talk,” said Bea. “He works hard Monday to Friday, then switches off on the weekends.”

  “Yes, but I’m not doing creative work like Gerry is,” Cece pointed out.

  But Gerry seemed to have lost interest, was fiddling with her salad.

  “What is it, dear?” said Bea, leaning over and touching Gerry’s hand.

  Not for the first time was Gerry reminded that Bea and Cece were her parents’ ages — maybe a little younger — and that she was comforted by having them to lean on. “I’ve been meaning to discuss this with you for some time,” she began.

  “Uh oh,” groaned Cece. “Should I put on my lawyer hat?”

  “No, no, nothing like that, though I suppose that now I have stuff, I should make a will.”

  “Yes, you should,” he agreed.

  “I’ll think about it. Would you like a ramshackle old house and twenty, I mean nineteen, cats?”

  They shook their heads.

  Gerry sighed. “I went through all Aunt Maggie’s files, papers, letters — everything.”

  Cece leaned forward. “Yes?”

  “Everything was in order. But I found some letters pushed down, hidden. They’d not been posted, had been left at the house, I guess.” She sipped her wine. “Anyway — you’re the first I’ve told of this — they’re nasty letters, full of threats and insults. How she’s a stupid, selfish old woman. How nobody loves her, not even the cats. How the cats had better not wander or they’ll come to a bad end. And the letters are illustrated, but so poorly. It’s almost as if a kid drew them. Stick figures of cats being run over, thrown into the river in a sack. Of cats eating from dishes with skull and crossbones on them. You know, the symbol for poison? Cats with their heads cut off.” She shivered. “Very nasty.”

  “Are they dated?” Cece queried. “Handwritten, printed?”

  “Undated and typed. Except for the drawings. I’ll give you them to look at, if you like. Nothing happened while Maggie was alive, did it?”

  Bea spoke slowly. “Remember when we heard that the cats were sick, Cece? The winter before Maggie died.”

  Cece reflected. “Yeah. She said they were puking all over the place. She figured it was a bad batch of food and threw it
all out. They got better.”

  “Oh, poor Aunt Maggie,” Gerry exclaimed. “I wonder if she’d already received the letters and thought someone was trying to poison the cats.”

  “You should talk to Prudence,” Cece advised.

  Gerry shook her head. “I did and she hadn’t known of the letters’ existence.”

  “It sounds like a crank to me. I think we should have dessert and talk about Gerry’s upcoming show,” Bea said firmly. “Come on, drink up. I’ll make coffee.”

  Gerry felt relieved to have shared her worries and was able to present a cheerful face to Doug next morning, despite the fact that he was there to tear apart and mend her back porch roof. “Should I stay, Doug? I trust you to do the work.”

  He grinned down at her where she stood under the big old apple tree. She flushed and hoped she looked cute in jean shorts, a black T and sports sandals. “No, you can go. It’s a small job. I’ll finish it today.”

  “Okay. I’ll be at Cathy’s if you need me.” The sound of crickets followed her as she picked her way through the long grass at the side of the road. Dozens of grasshoppers zoomed out of her path, some landing briefly on her bare legs. She stifled small screams. City girl, she admonished herself.

  Blue jays screeched nearby and robins hopped, pecking at all the insect life on offer. She passed Mr. Parminter’s. An incurious woodpecker tapped at a tree on the lawn. She saw Graymalkin watching it from the porch. Good, good. She turned into Cathy’s driveway.

  As it was the weekend, she was unsurprised to see a few cars in the driveway — the B&B’s paying guests — and went round the back to the kitchen door and opened it. “All right if I come in?”

  Cathy, enjoying a post-breakfast coffee with Charles asleep at her feet, smiled. “Just finished feeding them. There’s some apple cinnamon loaf, if you want it.” She looked tired.

  “I’ll get it. I’ll get it. Cathy, is doing the snacks for my show going to be too much?”

  “When is it again?”

  Gerry named the date.

  “So, a little while yet, eh? What? Three weeks? I should be fine. I’m improving every day. What numbers do you expect?”

  “Well, I’m inviting people all the time plus there’ll be a notice in the paper so…between fifty and a hundred?”

  “Oh my. If we allow at least five per person, that’s two hundred and fifty to five hundred hors d’oeuvres! Oh my!” She seemed overwhelmed, then checked herself. “No, it’ll be fine. Cheese straws are easy. I’ll make lots of those.” Gerry, who’d had them — crisp, buttery, cheddary concoctions — licked her lips. Cathy laughed. “I’ll make a dozen extra for you.”

  “Yes, please. And those bacon-wrapped chicken livers in brandy? Are they hard?”

  “No, they just have to be made on the day. So cheese straws several days ahead — a hundred of them; no, two hundred. And a hundred chicken livers. Gerry, this could get expensive.”

  Gerry shook her head. “I want to splash out. To thank all the people who’ve been helping me. You — though you’ll be pooped by party time — Doug, Prudence, Cece and Bea, the Shiptons. Did I tell you I got another commission through them? Another garden. One of Mrs. Shipton’s neighbours. Okay, what else?”

  “We’re up to three hundred. You realize if nobody comes you’ll be eating this stuff for weeks?”

  “Better make things I like then. What about canapés? Those are easier. Blue cheese and caramelized onions on toast squares.” That burger at the Parsley had become one of Gerry’s favourites.

  “Yee-es. And I could prepare the toast and onions ahead of time, just run them under the broiler before serving. Better make a hundred of those. Some people don’t like blue cheese.”

  “Fools, eh, Charles?” Gerry said to the sleeping dog. One weak thump of the tail was all he could muster.

  “You’d be surprised what people don’t like. I had a woman staying here turn up her nose at baked potatoes. I mean, really.”

  “We only need one hundred more of something.”

  “How about cold canapés? Chopped egg? Some with olives, some with a cherry tomato. Cheap, easy, make ahead.”

  “You’ve done it! Cost it out, pay yourself for your time and give me an estimate. If there’s any left over we can serve it to the folks who come on the Saturday and Sunday after the vernissage. Which reminds me, I should go home and design the ad and buzz it over to the Herald.” She gave Cathy a kiss. “Thank you. For doing this.”

  Cathy looked pleased. Charles woke up in time for a pat from Gerry.

  At home, she went in the front door and to her study. As she drew the notice, she heard sounds of roofing being ripped up and thrown to the ground. She delivered the ad copy to Judith at the paper, then picked up a pizza.

  “Lunch, Doug,” she called as she walked back in. “Doug?” She heard a dismal gurgle from the downstairs toilet and waited anxiously till he emerged.

  “Uh, it’s broken, I’m afraid.”

  “What? Did you try plunging?”

  “Mm. It’s just not going down. I suspect it’s to do with the weeping field. It’s sodden, the tiles are broken and the water’s backing up.”

  “And the Hudsons are busy and nobody else wants the work,” Gerry responded glumly.

  “They’ll come eventually,” Doug assured her. “They’ve got a development to finish and then they’ll be here. Meanwhile, maybe you should make an attractive sign to put in the toilet, explaining the situation, while I get back on the roof.”

  “Pizza first. Then back to reality.”

  After lunch she made the sign, a copy of one she’d seen in the toilet of a store in town. “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, send it down.” “And pray,” she added to herself. She hung it on the door of the toilet then, promising herself she was going to try and have a weekend off, or at least part of one, she retreated to the studio with Marigold and soon became engrossed in one of the family’s ancient books.

  Published in 1934, Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson was a gentle humorous look at polite society in a small British town between the wars. Gerry fell asleep on one of the banquettes. The absence of banging hammer noise woke her.

  Doug was gone. The roof was done. A few boxes of rubbish were in the driveway. He’d left a note in the kitchen. “Come for a drink at the inn if you like. Eightish.” She did the cat patrol, freshened up and drove to the Parsley.

  Saturday night was busier than the Friday she’d been there with Andrew had been. Nervously, she left the car in the lot, asking the boy to keep an eye on it. She went to the pub side of the building and saw Doug sitting alone.

  “Well, this is nice,” she said, brightly.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he said slowly.

  “I’d have called if so,” she replied. “I’ll have a glass of rosé, please,” she told the young waitress. “All these kids who work here kind of look alike.”

  “That’s because they’re the children or other relatives of the owner — Phil Parsley.”

  “Any relation to Bill?”

  “Brothers.”

  “Judy’s nice.”

  “Yeah, great kid.”

  There was a pause, which Gerry broke. “Doug, you were going to tell me about your art when I rushed away to help Cathy with Prince Charles. Remember?”

  He looked at her steadily. “I remember. I remember you asking about it. I don’t remember whether I was going to tell you about it.”

  She felt taken aback and it must have shown on her face. “I’m sorry. I — ”

  He interrupted. “I’m just explaining how I feel. It’s something addicts have to learn. Why they feel so bad they try to destroy themselves and wind up destroying everything else.” She kept silent so he continued. “You ever hear that expression ‘Art is sickness’?”

  “No.”

&n
bsp; “Well, for some of us, who become obsessed — or maybe we become addicted to our art — art isn’t a creative, regenerative act. It’s destructive, frustrating.” He got up and got himself another ginger ale. “I should explain.

  “I was young. I was at art college. I came home one summer and there was Margaret Petherbridge. She used to be fun. We’re related. Her grandmother — your grandmother — was my great-aunt. My grandmother was a Catford.

  “We’d gone through school together — we’re the same age —and back then there was only one class for each grade.”

  Gerry thought of the Toronto high school she’d attended with about ten graduating classes in her year. “Go on. There was Margaret.”

  “Yeah. So. We hung out at the same places — the yacht club, the golf course. Our parents knew each other. It seemed natural. And she got pregnant. I got her pregnant. With James. So we married.

  “At first it was fine. I quit school, started working for her father, Geoff, at the furniture store. But I kept up my artwork on the side, or tried to. And Margaret changed, wanted her own house. Did I mention that we lived with her parents at first? Geoff’s great, but her mother, Mary, what a whacko. One day, sweet as pie, the next, biting your head off. No wonder Margaret got sour. And we couldn’t afford our own place. But as the other boys came along, Geoff let us have a little house he’d been renting out for profit. He let us have it for nothing.

  “Well, I stuck it out for a few years, but it wasn’t any good. Our marriage had been a mistake. I couldn’t concentrate at work or at home. I drank too much. It got really bad for a few years. I wasn’t working. I wasn’t making art. Then she threw me out.

  “Best thing that ever happened. I straightened out, found a room at the Parsley, got enough odd jobs to be able to give Margaret something each month and started doing art again. Want to see?”

  He led her out a back door onto the sloping lawn of the inn. An intricate assemblage of metal and neon winked and shimmered, casting its reflection on the nearby lake.

  “I always liked welding in high school and studied sculpture at college. One of my part-time jobs was at a neon sign factory. It all suddenly came together.”