The Catswold Portal

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  She held the profile until he said, “All right,” as he would if he were drawing her. He stood moments more looking at her, then turned away and knelt before an oversized chest with long, thin drawers. He pulled out the bottom drawer and began to shuffle through drawings. He removed one, studied it, and handed it to her.

  She looked down into the face of a child, in profile against the door of the cats. The cats’ faces surrounded hers. Braden got his sketch pad and held, next to Alice’s drawing, his own drawing done an hour earlier as she had stood against the dark woods, her profile sharply defined in the library window.

  They were the same. The child’s wide mouth was turned up at the corners. She had the same nose, the same dark lashes and light brows. Only the hair was different. The child’s hair was a patchwork of pale and dark streaks, several shades mixed together, tumbling down her shoulders.

  He rose and went out to the veranda, and stood looking up the garden. She laid the drawings on the coffee table side by side, stared at them, then escaped to the bathroom.

  She shut the door and stood looking into the mirror. She saw, superimposed over her present reflection, the face of the child who had, years ago, stood looking into this glass.

  She and Alice used to come here to stay with Aunt Carrie for weekends. The door of the cats had been her special place. She remembered when Alice had drawn her there. “Just a few more minutes, Melissa—you can be still just a little while more…”

  She remembered the last time she was alone by the door. Alice had gone into town to get something for Aunt Carrie. She had been playing and talking to the carved cats. She had been grabbed from behind and jerked into the tool room. The oak door slammed as she kicked and bit. Her screams were muffled by a hand over her mouth. A woman’s voice hissed words she didn’t know—rhythmic words.

  The voice had been Siddonie’s.

  The next memory that would come was of riding double behind Mag, looking down the rocky cliff, seeing a thatched stone cottage, not knowing where she was or how she had gotten there.

  When she came out of the bathroom, he was standing before the coffee table looking at the drawings. He looked up at her. “Melissa.”

  “Yes.”

  “Alice thought you were dead.”

  “My memory was dead. For years I didn’t know my true name—I thought it was Sarah. I didn’t remember anything. I came here to try to remember. I saw you in the studio working, and I remembered this house.”

  “You met me on purpose today.”

  “Yes.”

  “And in front of the tea shop?”

  “I had started to come in, then I saw you and I was afraid suddenly,” she lied. “I knew you lived here but I didn’t know who you were. I didn’t remember Alice then—only the house.”

  She sat down on the edge of the couch. “Maybe I was afraid of finding out more.” It was hard to tell him half the truth. She found it hard to lie to him. “I didn’t even know what color my hair was. Someone kept it dyed. I…” She felt shaken because he was so angry—silent and pale and angry. “It—sounds silly but I—I would like to wash the dye out.” She looked at him openly. “It would—maybe I would feel more like Melissa. Maybe be more like Melissa.”

  He nodded curtly. “The towels are in the bathroom cupboard, the shampoo on the shelf in the shower.”

  She fled for the bathroom, chagrined and hurt. If she’d had anywhere else to run to, she would have gone. In the bathroom she dropped her dress and turned on the shower, trying with panic to remember the spell Mag had used with the dye.

  And, in the shower, whispering the reverse of the spell, scrubbing her mass of hair, she watched brown dye flow away mixing with the running water.

  She toweled and knelt before the little electric wall heater, drying her hair just as she and Alice used to kneel side by side, warned by Aunt Carrie over and over never to touch the heater while their hair was wet.

  When her hair was dry, she rose and stood looking at herself in the mirror.

  Her hair was all in streaks: shades of rust, and streaks so pale they were almost white, and streaks nearly black, all in a patchwork of colors. This, with her green eyes, gave her such a resemblance to the calico she was afraid to go back into the studio, for fear that secret would be destroyed.

  But that was silly. No upperworlder would think of shape shifting. To be Catswold would be beyond an upperworlder’s ability to believe.

  She dressed slowly, combed her hair with Braden’s comb, and went out.

  He was opening a bottle of wine. When he looked up at her, his dark eyes widened. She swallowed.

  He said nothing for a long time, then, “It’s beautiful. It suits you. It’s the way she drew you.” He paused, then, “She loved you, Melissa. She never stopped searching for you.”

  She took the wine he offered. She wanted to weep for Alice, not only with her own pain but with the pain in Braden’s eyes.

  She said, “When I was small, she would wake me in the mornings hugging me, her long, pale hair down around us like a tent, making me giggle.” She took his hand. “You loved her very much. I am just beginning to remember how much I loved her.”

  They were quiet for a while, then she said, “There was another house, too. A tall house on a hill, with a view of the bay. I think that was where we lived.”

  “The Russian Hill house.” He searched her face. “We can talk over dinner. I think we could both use something to eat. I’ll wash, just be a minute.”

  Before he went to wash he put food on the veranda for the cat, and stood on the terrace calling her, looking up the garden as if he might see the white flash of her face threading along through the dark foliage. And Melissa sat alone in the studio trying to reconstruct the dark time before she knew Alice.

  There had been a tangle of strangers, one after another. And Siddonie had come sometimes—a handsome, terrifying young woman with strange games she wanted Melissa to play. But then when she went to live with the Kitchens in the Russian Hill house, Siddonie had not come so often. There she was happy for the first time.

  Braden returned wearing a sport coat and pale slacks. His glance slid across her long skirt, making her wish she had other clothes. She said, “I think your little cat was here. Is she orange and black and white? I tried to let her in but she ran. Cats don’t like me much. I guess I should have let her eat in peace. How beautiful she is, really lovely.” She hid her smile. “I expect she’ll come back when I’ve gone.”

  Walking out to the car, she wanted to look at the door. But when they stood before it, a chill touched her. He would be thinking of the drawings and of Alice’s death. And again she was ashamed and sorry that she had stirred his pain.

  Chapter 36

  The cars racing by them, the speeding lights and the speed of their own car dizzied and terrified her. Again she felt the little cat’s panic as trucks roared past on the highway. She told herself that as a child she had ridden in cars. And she hid her fear from Braden. He was telling her about McCabe.

  He had met McCabe only briefly, but he knew a lot about him from Alice and from McCabe’s newspaper column. Her father had written regularly for the Chronicle. “An off-beat column,” Braden said, “about art, politics, whatever came to mind. McCabe had an original, sharp way of looking at things. He was a building contractor but he also moved within the art community. He was a good friend of the Kitchens’. Before he met your mother, long before you were born, he encouraged Alice’s interest in drawing animals. Later when Timorell moved in with him, Alice and she became friends. Timorell was about seventeen—she was eighteen when you were born. Alice was then about thirteen.

  “McCabe knew that Timorell had a husband—she left him for McCabe, but he was in the city. He lived in a Russian Hill apartment with his small sister, a child about nine. Alice described her as totally evil; Alice was afraid of her.”

  He stopped for a signal, then moved on through traffic. She watched him, liking his lean good looks, his smile. He an
swered her questions honestly, she thought. He said, “Timorell was soon pregnant, and terrified her husband would find out. But the husband didn’t contact her until after you were born.” He turned onto the road to Tiburon, the car’s lights slewing across the water.

  “When you were three months old, Timorell’s husband came to the apartment with his small sister. Alice was there visiting, and McCabe was at work on a house up in north Marin.

  “The husband was in a rage about the baby. Timorell tried to get him to leave. As they argued, the earthquake hit. It rocked the building. The wall cracked, warping in at them. Alice described it quite graphically. Timorell was holding you, trying to protect you when the front windows collapsed inward and a huge bookcase toppled; it hit Timorell hard, she twisted and fell, and Alice grabbed you.” Braden slowed for a cross street.

  “Alice didn’t remember clearly what happened next. She woke in the rubble, sprawled under the dining table clutching you. You were screaming. There were rafters down all around the table. Timorell was dead. Alice screamed at her and shook her, trying to wake her. The husband was alive, trapped by fallen timbers, watching Alice woodenly. But his small sister was standing over Alice staring down at the baby; she said something in a strange language, some kind of rhyme, then Alice fainted.

  “When she came to, you were gone. And the sister was gone. Alice had no doubt she had taken you, and she was terrified for you. She felt things about that little girl…” He shook his head. “Alice was terrified of her.

  “She got out of the building, got down the broken stairs, and searched for you. The street was all rubble, cars every which way, groceries scattered where they had exploded from shop windows. And there was looting, confusion everywhere. She searched until dark then made her way home hysterical and exhausted.”

  Melissa could see too clearly her mother lying dead. She could see young Siddonie snatching up the baby and running—stealing her, stealing the Catswold child. “And McCabe? What happened to my father?”

  “He was working up here in Marin County, on a scaffolding four stories up. It fell with him. The police said that somehow he jumped free, but he was hit by falling bricks and killed.”

  Braden turned into a parking lot, under a row of muted lights. There were potted plants at the door of the restaurant. It was a weathered wood building set on rough pilings, extending out between the docks, over the bay.

  Inside there was a small shop and then the bar. Braden led her into the shop to wait for their table. She didn’t want to talk; she was filled with the past. But then in the shop, she saw on a top shelf a basket that intrigued her. When Braden lifted it down she knew she wanted it. She was fascinated by its smooth, octagonal sides and by its smell—it would be just right to nap in. She bought it, pulling the roll of bills out of her pocket, making Braden stare. “It’s for your little cat.” She handed the basket to him. “For her to sleep in.”

  He looked surprised, then faintly embarrassed. “She sleeps all over the silks I keep for models; she’s clawed the hell out of them.” He grinned. “Maybe, with a basket, she won’t get on them.”

  When their table was called Braden watched the other women studying Melissa, her hair, her lithe beauty. It made no difference that she wore a long, rather strange dress, she would be smashing in anything. He was surprised she wasn’t used to such stares, that the glances made her uneasy. Only when they were seated did she forget the other women watching her, as she became fascinated with the fishing boats crowding the dock outside their window. Her green eyes took in every detail of rigging, her mouth curving up in the little smile he liked. He wanted to touch her throat, her cheek. He wanted to make love to her. He wanted to know her better, to know what she thought, to show her new things, to take her sailing in the bay, or maybe riding. He felt a pang of guilt at being unfaithful to Alice, then realized how stupid that was.

  When he asked her if she rode, she seemed surprised that he did. He told her he had learned to ride in England after the war. “Because of a girl whose name I’ve long since forgotten.”

  “The war,” she said, watching him, seeming almost puzzled.

  “I was in the Second Marines, in the Pacific. But after the armistice they sent me to England as an embassy guard. It was after I came home that I met Alice, when I was teaching.” He picked up his menu. “What would you like? The lobster’s usually good.”

  “Oh, yes, the lobster.” She looked as if lobster was the most wonderful thing in the world. Everything seemed wonderful to her; she seemed to drink in every sight, every sound as if the whole world was spanking new, as if she had just been born.

  But yet, watching her, he was sharply aware of another side. Despite her quiet enthusiasm, she gave him the impression she was holding something back, that there was far more to her life than she was letting him see.

  “Wine?” he said. “The chablis?”

  She nodded.

  “Melissa, the Kitchens will be beside themselves when they learn you’re alive.” He watched her hands tighten on the menu. She had been reading the menu as eagerly as if it were deathless prose. “To the Kitchens, you were like their own child. Your disappearance caused a rift in that family that has never healed.

  “They’ve gone to Europe for the summer. If I knew where, I’d call them. We could drive into the city tomorrow so you can see the house.”

  “Oh, yes. I’d like that.”

  When their dinner came she was starved, and the lobster smelled wonderful. She attacked it eagerly then realized he was staring. She felt her face redden. She slowed down, taking smaller bites. But it was the most wonderful food she had ever imagined—far richer than the rock lobsters which could sometimes be found in sea caves of the Netherworld.

  He said, “The Kitchens have tenants in the house, but we can ask if they…”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to disturb anyone. I don’t—want to explain to strangers. It would be nice just to see it from the outside.”

  He nodded. “We could go to the Cat Museum, too—it’s the best example I know of McCabe’s work. He completely changed the old buildings. Alice must have taken you there.”

  She tried to remember and could not.

  “We can get some nice poses in the museum gardens working against the windows—reflections of the oak trees and of the outdoor cat sculptures.” And now she remembered. Bronze cats, brick paths beneath twisted branches, white walls and long windows.

  She had loved the Cat Museum; how could it have faded from her memory? When she was small its galleries and gardens had been a haven for the part of herself that even Alice didn’t see. She had always loved cats, had run to cats on the street to pet them, upsetting her foster parents and enraging some of the cats. And even though she and Alice had cats, some element had been missing, something she had come close to only in the Cat Museum.

  He said, “The place has the feeling of a self-contained world. The reflections of the twisted trees and the sculpture are just what I want—you will fit perfectly. I think we can get some exciting work there.”

  She smiled at him, liking his intensity, his deep involvement in the work. She did not see such passion of purpose in the Netherworld. Except of course in Siddonie’s dark passions.

  “I’ll pick you up in the morning if you’ll tell me where, what part of the city.”

  “I’m staying in the village with someone, quite near to you. I’ll walk over.” She watched him set a morsel of lobster aside for the calico. She must have looked amused, because he grinned shyly.

  “I spoil her. I never thought I’d have a cat, let alone spoil it.”

  “Doesn’t she deserve to be spoiled?” she said softly.

  “She’s so beautiful, a really lovely cat.” She couldn’t resist, the deception was delicious. And she could see his pleasure when she admired his cat. Their eyes met and held, and she shivered. But she thought, I am Catswold. We are totally different. I should not let myself be so drawn to an upperworlder—I will be sorr
y. Already I can feel the pain this involvement would cause. I am Catswold, I am of the blood of Catswold queens, the blood of Bast. She watched idly as the dessert cart was wheeled toward them, and let herself be distracted. Such desserts in the Netherworld were served only to royalty. She selected the most beautiful one, but it was too sweet and disappointed her. Sipping her tea, she said, “Did Timorell or McCabe leave anything personal? Something of—sentimental value? Jewelry, perhaps?” An emerald pendant, perhaps?

  He watched her, frowning. “John Kitchen salvaged some of McCabe’s paintings and prints. I think there was a safe deposit box. McCabe and Kitchen had the same attorney, one they both trusted. He might know. I’ll give him a call, if you like.”

  She nodded. Things in this world were so complicated. She was yawning when they left the restaurant, was almost asleep when they turned into the lane. When he asked where she was staying, she said she would walk. He insisted he take her.

  “But I really want to walk. The evening’s lovely.”

  “Then I’ll walk with you. It’s late to be walking by yourself. I won’t pry or question your living arrangements.”

  She looked at him, puzzled, then got out, handing him the basket. “I’ll be fine. You have canvases to stretch. It’s only a little way, and there are street lights.”

  “You can’t know you’ll be fine. The streets are empty, Melissa.”

  She touched his arm. “Please. I’ll see you in the morning, early.”

  He stared at her then turned and left her, striking fast across the garden to the terrace. She watched him retrieve his key and push inside, not looking back. And she turned on her heel and hurried away, sorry she had angered him.

  Deep in the woods she changed to cat. As cat she wandered the garden, thinking and enjoying her sharpened perceptions, her improved eyesight, the stronger smells. But then as she passed the white house she detected a scent that made her leap to cover, her tail lashing: Wylles. From the open bedroom window came the faint scent of Prince Wylles.