The Cat Among Us

by Louise Carson

  “No,” she said aloud. “It’s Saturday night. I am not doing the accounting. I am going to eat and read in bed and then enjoy an early night.” The phone rang. It was Andrew.

  “I’ve got a rotisserie chicken with fries, Gerry, and I remember you like chicken. Would you share it with me?”

  “I’ll be right there.” Huh, she thought as she washed and dressed. That was an about-face I just made there. Living out here in the country must make people desperate for company. She was changed and across the road in ten minutes.

  Andrew had on jeans and loafers, an open-necked, long-sleeved plaid shirt, and — a frilly pink apron. Nothing to me what he wears, thought Gerry. “Smells good in here.”

  “I popped it in the oven to reheat for a moment. Would you like some wine?” He led the way through the living room with its rows of Aunt Maggie’s figurines all shiny in their glass cases. Mentally, Gerry shrugged. If it makes him happy.

  But she liked his kitchen: white cabinets with old-fashioned details and antique hardware; the table a chunky round one on a central pedestal; the matching captain’s chairs cheerful with Mediterranean blue cushions. The floor was terracotta tiles and the walls Tuscan yellow. Many plants clustered by the bow window near the table. She exclaimed, “Oh, Andrew, what a lovely kitchen! Did you design it?”

  He blushed with pleasure. “I did. Do you like the colours? I read a lot of these.” He gestured towards a stack of design magazines in a neat pile on one chair.

  She suddenly felt sorry for him, sitting eating his dinner alone, thumbing through décor mags. But then remembered, he’s in the furniture business, so maybe it’s not just his occupation but his passion. After all, I live alone, her inner voice murmured. But I’m not almost forty, the same voice replied. “How old are you, Andrew?”

  “I’ll be thirty-eight in November.”

  “I’ll be twenty-six in February,” Gerry confided. “Twenty-five is such a nice round number. I’ll be sorry to leave it. I don’t know why I think that.” You’re babbling, she cautioned herself. He handed her a glass of white wine, then bent his tall frame in front of the oven.

  “You should get one of those built-in-the-wall models, Andrew, so you don’t have to bend so far.”

  “This oven came with the house. Maybe when it needs replacing.” He served them their supper, removing the apron with a muttered, “One of Mother’s.”

  “Andrew, what do you know about a Royal Doulton figure, one of the ladies, a Scottish lassie in cream and green?”

  “Flower of Scotland. HN 4240. Isn’t it a blue and white dress? The plaid is green.”

  “Uh, yeah, I guess so. The bodice is blue with white flowers, but the sleeves and skirt are white.”

  “Designed by Nada Pedley. Only been issued in the last few years.”

  Gerry was disappointed. “Oh, so it’s not old?”

  Andrew laughed. “They don’t have to be old to be valuable.”

  “What’s it worth?”

  “A hundred. Hundred and fifty. Why? Did you find it?”

  “Why do you ask?” Gerry said slowly, feeling the food go dry in her mouth.

  “Because I gave it to Aunt Maggie for Christmas last year and I noticed it was missing from her collection when we moved it.”

  “Oh, you noticed that, did you?”

  “Yes. Why? Is something wrong?”

  “The Hudsons found it buried in the side lawn when they dug out the septic.”

  Andrew busied himself with his meal. “Well, I wonder how it got there?”

  “I don’t know. It’s bizarre. I thought, if it was old, maybe it had been there a long time. May I have some more wine, please?”

  He poured. “What does Prudence say?”

  “I haven’t asked her yet. I’ve been trying to put my side yard back in order.”

  “Is it all right — the figurine? Not chipped or scratched?”

  “No, no. It’s fine. I suppose it’s yours.”

  “You can keep it, if you like it.”

  “I do rather like it. It’s more casual than some of the other ones in their big dresses and hats. Thank you, Andrew. I will keep it.”

  Then he spoiled his generous offer somewhat by adding, “I can always get another one.”

  She didn’t stay much longer. After he showed her the collections in the living room, there didn’t seem much to say.

  Sunday, while she was feeding the cats, she heard the bells of St. Anne’s bidding the faithful to worship, and, on a whim, made herself presentable in a skirt and summer sweater and walked quickly to the church.

  She was in time to join in on the last verse of the first hymn (“Holy, Holy, Holy”) and settled down to listen with half of her attention, while with the other half she gazed around the church.

  Yellowish walls and thick dark brown beams reminded her of Mary and Geoff Petherbridge’s house, but only fleetingly. She looked at the amazing ancient stained-glass windows, huge ones at either end of the church, as well as the smaller ones set regularly in the side walls. The morning light shining through all that coloured glass bathed the congregation in an amber glow. The responses were quite relaxing to participate in, made her feel nostalgic for a time when she was young, and her parents and Aunt Maggie were alive.

  Another hymn. “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” Gerry looked around. There were a few children attending. Perhaps the cheerful hymn selection was for their benefit. The minister mounted the tiny pulpit for the sermon and Gerry read the brass plaques on the wall next to her head. One for the village men killed in the First World War. Alfred Coneybear 1899–1915. Poor fellow. Only sixteen. Younger than David. Another plaque for the Second World War. Andrew Catford 1921–1941. Her father’s uncle. Well, at least he made it out of his teens. Barely.

  There was the plaque enumerating the ancient dead of the Parsleys. The Parsleys had been the first to arrive from Devon. Then another plaque that listed the families who donated money, land or materials to build St. Anne’s. Coneybears, Muxworthys, Parsleys, Catfords, Petherbridges. All the old families.

  She looked around, spotted a woman seated with some of the kids who worked at the inn. Parsleys?

  Another hymn, this one for the collection plate’s going around. Gerry fumbled in her purse. Thank goodness. She placed the five-dollar bill on top of a pile of small white envelopes. Oh, yes. That’s what regulars did, she remembered, for tax purposes.

  A few more prayers. The final hymn. Then the minister processed out, ready to greet her congregation. She held Gerry’s hand as she extracted her name and said how welcome she was. Gerry, embarrassed, knowing full well she’d not be making a regular appearance, muttered something about visiting her loved ones, and escaped into the cemetery.

  She walked to the back, touched the three plaques as she always did, then edged around the little group milling outside the front door and walked home.

  She spent the rest of the day peacefully finishing her painting of the datura bloom and beginning the portrait of Mitzi. She was enjoying a rare, for her, gin and tonic on the porch with Marigold, reading her book, looking up from time to time to take in the view, when a thought occurred.

  Taking one of her largest sketchpads, she went out to the garage and placed a stool in front of the family tree. “Why am I always having to run out here to check something about the people Aunt Maggie painted?” she asked Mother, who with Ronald and the honour guard had followed her there.

  She quickly copied the genealogy onto two adjacent pages, then returned to the porch. “You didn’t follow me, sweetheart?” Marigold lifted a shrunken head and gazed dully at Gerry. “You’re not feeling well, are you?” She gently stroked the fur between her ears until Marigold went back to sleep. Gerry studied her family tree.

  It was easiest to begin with the latest generation and work backward through people she’d known, then
people she’d heard about, to the fourth and fifth generations before her, who nobody living remembered. It was a sobering thought, that one day she and all the people she knew would be names on a piece of paper, on a cemetery wall.

  She turned her attention to the tree, counted all the Parsleys. The name Mary reappeared frequently. There was Prudence, born in 1948, only child of Constance Parsley and Edward Catford. Alexander Crick was her husband’s name. There was no death date for him. Could he still be alive? Or no, she remembered, the tree wasn’t up to date. Two sad words appeared under his and Prudence’s names: no issue.

  There was Andrew. He’d probably been named for the uncle who’d died in the Second World War, his grandmother’s brother. Had Aunt Mary been trying to curry favour with her own mother? Had she named Margaret for the same reason — to ingratiate the child with Mary’s sister Margaret? Or was Gerry just being overly cynical?

  She was interested to see, among the Victorian ancestors, how often a man was ten or twenty years older than his wife. Less frequently, a wife would be a few years older than her husband, usually when she married in her thirties, an old maid getting a last chance.

  For example, the first Coneybear, John, born in Devon in the early 1800s, was twenty-seven years older than his wife, Sybil Muxworthy. Twenty-seven years! Even Cece Muxworthy (who Gerry didn’t believe had ever given her cousin a second thought) was only about fifteen years older than Margaret. Twenty-seven years was almost two generations apart, if you considered most women were married and mothers in their late teens.

  Sybil had had a daughter, Margaret, and a son, Albert, ten years apart, and in between a sad list of children who’d died in infancy. And she herself had died at twenty-eight, on or after the birth of her son, who’d be Gerry’s great-grandfather.

  At the other end of the longevity spectrum, Gerry noted her two great-aunts, both of whom she remembered: Sylvia and Mary, her Gramma Ellie’s sisters. They’d each had half a dozen children or so and lived to be eighty-one and eighty-nine.

  What a difference a hundred years made, Gerry mused, in the health of women and children. Gramma Ellie had died at fifty-six, her son Gerald (Gerry’s dad) at sixty-two, and her daughter, Aunt Maggie, at fifty-five. Heart, lungs, heart. It seemed Ellie had passed down a congenital heart disease to Maggie, according to the murmurs she’d heard at the funeral. Someone had talked to her doctor, they said, who’d confirmed this.

  Looking at the tree made her a bit sad. She filled in the missing death dates where she knew them, hesitating over Alexander Crick’s name. Prudence must surely know. Somehow, she didn’t like to ask.

  Gerry woke with a start. Something was missing. She felt the lump that was Bob between her feet but the other lump, the one that seemed to creep to her for warmth, was gone.

  She prowled the house, gently calling, “Marigold. Princess. Where are you?” Oh, God, she thought, remembering Prudence’s remark, I really am turning into a crazy cat lady.

  She padded into the kitchen. No. She backtracked and investigated the cat boxes. Somebody was scratching in one of them but it was a white somebody. It jumped out of the box and skittered past Gerry. “Back to Mother, Ronald.” That left outside.

  It was a dark night, so Gerry went back to the kitchen to get a flashlight. She’d just located one and was slipping on her rubber boots when she heard a howl that stopped her cold. “She’s dying, or being eaten by something!” She grabbed the broom, flicked on the light and went out.

  She shone the light around the parking pad, looking for a raccoon or fox, then turned and shone it the other way, on the stone path along the back of the house. There was another “Yeow!” and this time she realized it was a cat, not a wild animal.

  Lightning sprang out in front of her feet, giving her a fright, then dashed across the lawn, away from the garden.

  Gerry went down the stone steps and onto the lawn. She turned, searching with the light in all directions, waited to hear another cry. It came. This way.

  She moved cautiously to the right, looked up at the screened back porch. Instead of her sunny refuge for morning coffee, afternoon tea or pre-dinner drink, it looked cold and damp, presented a blank face to the lake. She shivered, and pointed her light at the perennial garden.

  Something moved and Gerry almost dropped the light, but it was a cat-sized something so she moved closer, praying, not a skunk, please, not a skunk.

  She reached the animal and it gave a tired mew. “Oh, Princess, I found you.” The little cat crouched next to an uprooted plant, and when Gerry picked her up she pressed close, hooking her claws into the shoulder of Gerry’s robe. “There, there. I’ve got you.”

  Is she becoming senile? thought Gerry. Did she forget where the cat boxes are and wander outside? It was only when she got the cat inside and turned on a light that she saw how filthy she was. Wetting a dishrag, she sponged her off, then wrapped her in a towel, brought her back to bed.

  Bob stretched, showing the inside of his pink mouth as they settled back down. “What good are you, Bob?” Gerry teased. “We could be in the river and you’d snore on.” He blinked at her placidly and groomed his shoulder. Marigold was already asleep.

  11

  Gerry didn’t get much artwork done that week, found herself working on her daily strip of Mug the Bug at night. Otherwise, it was all housework and baking.

  “Prudence?”

  “Mm?”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you, you know the Scottish figurine the Hudsons found outside?”

  “Mm.”

  “Where did Aunt Maggie usually keep it?”

  “On her bedside table. I see you’ve got it in your studio.”

  “Yeah. Any ideas about how it got in the ground?”

  “Nope. Doesn’t make sense. It’s too big for a cat to have dragged out and buried. You?”

  Gerry sighed and wiped her sweaty forehead. “No, I don’t, and it’s bothering me.” She resumed her task. “Does your Mrs. Smith have a way of looking into the past?”

  Prudence sat back on her heels. They were washing the lower part of the walls in the living room. Small in comparison to the formal dining room, it still ran the whole width of the house. Twenty cats kicked up a lot of dirt and, as this was the room where the art show refreshments were to be laid out, they’d decided to give it a thorough clean. “You mean about Maggie’s death and the cat?”

  “Yeah.” Gerry dipped her brush into the soapy water in the bucket and scrubbed, then reached for the cloth to wipe and dry.

  “I could ask her next time I go,” said Prudence.

  “You sound doubtful.”

  “Well, we usually just sit and wait for Mother to begin. And I don’t ask much, just tell her what I’ve been doing, the gossip.”

  “Actually, I saw a notice in the paper that Mrs. Smith will be at the tea room all week, telling fortunes. I thought I might go and see what she can tell me.”

  Prudence became defensive. “Well, I don’t talk about you, just to say I work in the same house for the niece of the cousin I used to work for. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t ask her about me.”

  Gerry was shocked. “Why would I do that? I respect your privacy. And Mrs. Smith wouldn’t be so unethical as to discuss one client with another, would she?”

  Prudence appeared mollified. “No. I suppose not. No. Of course she wouldn’t. She’d lose all her trade.”

  “Does she have a lot of people who visit her regularly?” Gerry asked timidly, hoping she wasn’t overstepping some boundary.

  “Enough to support her.” Prudence stood and inspected the walls. “They look good enough from up here. We better get cracking on the other rooms. The entranceway this afternoon, I think.”

  “All right. I’m just going to call the tea room and make an appointment.”

  Prudence had decreed that the cat boxes were due to be emptied and
scrubbed and left in the sun to deodorize, so while she tackled that grim task, Gerry drove to the supermarket to buy ten big sacks of cat litter.

  Margaret was shopping at the same time and sneered when she saw Gerry straining to push the heavily loaded cart to the cash. Gerry just nodded. She couldn’t be bothered.

  When she got home, there were the boxes, lined up in a row drying on the lawn. Bob and the boys were using them to play hide and seek, hopping in and out. Gerry took the opportunity to throw the plant Marigold had uprooted onto the compost pile behind the garage. She remembered it as one Aunt Mary had identified in her garden and resolved to look it up later.

  She unpacked the cat litter, brought each sack onto the back porch and stacked it. “We’ll be stacking wood here soon,” said Prudence. “Most convenient location. Door leads to the centre of the house.” When she saw Gerry’s face, imagining her nice porch no longer available for sitting, she added, “But not till after Christmas. Till then it’s not too bad going to the shed and bringing it through the kitchen, just messy.”

  The entranceway got washed and dusted and Prudence left, promising to come in early on Wednesday. Gerry remembered she’d promised to help Cathy with the snacks and phoned her. “I can give you tomorrow and maybe Friday a bit, but otherwise I’m busy.”

  Cathy thought out loud. “There’s a lot we can do ahead of time. Come over tomorrow and we’ll prep. Bring your cheese grater.” Gerry promised to be there early and went off to try and crank out a couple of Mug the Bug strips. She worked until late in the evening.

  When she arrived at Cathy’s it was to find her friend had two enormous bowls prepared alongside a huge bag of flour and several giant wedges of cheese. “Get grating,” Cathy said cheerfully. “We need the same amount of cheese as flour.”