Cat's Eyes

by Alan Scholefield

  *

  In the time before he left, Bill found someone to take Mrs. Aske’s place a girl named Penny Mason, who would come every day to clean and help with the baby. She was seventeen, a large, plain young woman who moved and thought slowly. At first Rachel had wondered if she was mentally retarded, then she realised it was simply that she reacted at the gentle pace of the countryside. Her eyes were wide apart and friendly and she had a nice, shy smile.

  “At least you’ll have someone other than old Griffin for company during the day,” Bill said.

  Penny had never done housework, except to help her mother, and Rachel had to show her everything and tell her everything. If she was not reminded to wipe the top of the coffee-table, it wasn’t wiped; if she wasn’t told to vacuum under the furniture, it was not done; if she wasn’t told to take a cloth and clean the whisky and gin decanters, the dust was allowed to accumulate. She did not mind being told. A smile would lighten her round vacant face and she would say, “Yes, Mrs. Chater. Sorry, Mrs. Chater. I’ll do it now, Mrs. Chater.”

  She made up for any short-comings by her attitude to Sophie. She doted on the baby and would happily have spent her entire day nursing and playing with her, had Nurse Griffin allowed it. That was a plus as far as Rachel was concerned and, as Bill said, she was company during the day.

  “There’s one snag,” he added. “She lives over at Addiscombe and has no transport. You’re going to have to fetch her in the morning and take her back in the evening. Which means driving. But with me away you’ll have to drive anyway.”

  So they went into Chichester and bought her a little Volkswagen with an automatic gear-box. She found, to her relief, that the fears which had resulted from the accident evaporated as soon as she was behind the wheel, and discovered that she could use her left foot on the brake. It took some getting used to as she kept on thinking that the brake was the clutch-pedal. The first two or three times she had to brake she nearly went through the windscreen. But she quickly adapted to it and only needed her right foot for the accelerator.

  The moment of Bill’s departure had come all too soon. A taxi arrived in the morning to take him to the airport. Rachel, who had slept badly, was still in her dressing-gown and stood with Sophie in her arms on the front steps, waving and watching until the car disappeared through the gates. A feeling of desolation and exhaustion swept over her as she turned and saw the two women who would be virtually her only companions in the foreseeable future: Nurse Griffin, straight-backed and unsmiling; and Penny, covertly trying to attract Sophie’s attention by waggling her fingers in front of her face, and nodding her head, so she looked half-demented.

  “I think I’m going back to bed for half an hour,” Rachel said abruptly.

  “I’ll take Sophie,” Nurse Griffin said.

  “Oh, couldn’t I put her down?” Penny burst out. “Please Mrs. Chater, just this once!”

  The nurse glared at her and came forward. “I’ll take her,” she repeated.

  It was an order, not a request. Deliberately, Rachel turned to Penny and handed her the child. “Of course you can put her down. You’ve surely made a hit with her already, Penny.”

  Penny, unconscious of the tension, took Sophie upstairs, crooning to her. Nurse Griffin opened her mouth to say something, then closed it with a snap and turned on her heel.

  As she pulled herself wearily up the stairs, Rachel wondered how long she was going to be able to endure Nurse Griffin. But without her, she would be alone with Sophie in the house at night and she did not like to think about that.

  This time, she fell asleep almost as soon as she had slipped under the sheets, and had not moved until the dream had forced her back to life.

  3

  Rachel made her way slowly downstairs. It was after midday and Penny was singing to herself in the kitchen. There was no sign of Nurse Griffin and she felt a sudden compunction as she remembered their encounter earlier. After all, the woman had only been trying to do her job. It wasn’t her fault that everything she did, every word she spoke, was an irritant. She’s a natural disapprove Rachel thought, but I guess she can’t help being plain and charmless.

  Once again, she climbed the stairs and knocked at the nurse’s bedroom door.

  Nurse Griffin was standing by her bed. An open suitcase was lying on it.

  “Look, why don’t you and I spoil ourselves and have a sherry together before lunch?” Rachel said with exaggerated vivacity.

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Chater. I don’t drink.” Her eyes looked huge behind the spectacles. “I have decided I shall be leaving today. Your leg is obviously on the mend and you have that girl to help you now.” There was venom in the way she said ‘that girl’.

  “But Sophie ...”

  “I cannot believe one woman and a baby need two people to attend to them. I should be grateful if you would drop me at the station in Addiscombe when you take the girl home.”

  I’m not going to beg her, Rachel thought. “If that’s what you want,” she said with formal politeness. “I’m very pleased you were able to come at all.”

  So she was to be on her own in this rambling house with its dark, secret corners after all.

  Without much hope, she went into the kitchen. “Penny, Nurse Griffin is leaving. I suppose you couldn’t live-in for a while, could you? Just until my husband gets back.”

  There was a long silence as the wheels of Penny’s mind creaked into motion, then she shook her head. “I couldn’t, Mrs. Chater,” she said. “It’s my mum. She hasn’t been well and I’m the oldest, see. She can manage during the day, but there are five of us and I’ve got to be home to put the small ones to bed.”

  “It was just a thought.”

  At that moment, the telephone rang in Bill’s study. She limped in to answer it.

  “Rachel? It’s Moira Renshaw. My dear, how are you? Bill told us you were due home from hospital.”

  “Much better, thank you.”

  “I can’t tell you how bad I feel ... not coming to see you ... but the days pass so quickly.” She was talking fast to cover her embarrassment. “Anyhow, you’re back. Could you both possibly come and have a drink with us this evening? We suddenly thought ... could you?”

  “I’m afraid Bill has just left for America.”

  “Oh.” There was a pause, and a noticeable diminution of enthusiasm. “Wouldn’t you come anyway?”

  “I don’t ...” She thought of the day and evening stretching ahead. She did not like the Renshaws much, but an hour or so in their company would at least break up the lonely hours. “I’d love to.”

  “That’s marvellous, if you’re sure you feel up to it. Are you driving yet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Super. There’ll only be Alec Webb and Celia James.”

  “Celia James? I don’t think I know her.”

  “She’s moved in to the thatched cottage near us. I think you’ll like her. She’s going to collect Alec in her car.”

  *

  They were all gathered in the Renshaws’ drawing-room when she arrived, clutching Sophie’s carry-cot.

  There was a flurry of welcome and David Renshaw bore Sophie off to the nearest bedroom.

  When he returned he beamed at her. He was a big man, overweight and with a high colour. “The beauteous Mrs. Chater,” he said, with heavy gallantry. “No wheel-chair?”

  “No wheel-chair.”

  “It’s so nice to have you back, Rachel,” Moira said.

  “Thank you.”

  “And what’s the news of the great author?” Renshaw said. “Still writing?”

  It was another in the series of routine questions put by people uneasy in the presence of those whom they clearly considered worked at abnormal occupations. She was swept by impatience. He said the same thing every time they met. “Yes, still writing,” she said. “And you? Still farming?”

  He was taken aback for a moment and then he said, “Of course. Why do you ask?”

  “Just checking up. Hullo,
Alec.”

  Alec Webb came forward to kiss her with real affection. He was the only person, apart from Bill, who had taken the trouble to visit her in hospital.

  They had met when he had called on them a few days after Rachel’s arrival from America. He had been a member of the Long Range Desert Group during the war in North Africa — some sort of quasi-private army, as Rachel understood it, whose function had been to operate behind the German lines — and his armoured car had taken a direct hit. The left side of his face had been badly burnt. They had brought him back to East Grin-stead and Archibald McIndoe had worked on his face, taking pieces of skin from the inside of his thigh and grafting them on to his left cheek and the left side of his forehead. But the skin was lighter than the rest of his face and gave him a patchwork look. He had lost his left eye and wore a glass one and now his right eye, having taken the strain for so many years, was beginning to fail. Once Rachel, calling on him unexpectedly, had seen him through a window, blindfolded, moving around his sitting-room as though playing a macabre game of Blind Man’s Buff by himself. It had taken her a few seconds to realise that he was practising for the day when he could no longer see at all. Over the months she had come to respect and admire his determination not to give in to his disability.

  He was a widower and lived about half a mile from the Chaters in a cottage in the woods. After the war he had become a veterinary surgeon and had run a rural practice in Addiscombe, Lexton’s nearest small town. Because of his failing eyesight, he had retired early. His wife, Mary, had died soon afterwards.

  After their first meeting, Bill and Rachel had become his friends. Rachel went to see him often and, since he could no longer drive a car, had taken him for drives over the Downs or to the sea at West Wittering. He would join them for a meal at least once a week. He never whined, never spoke about the future and filled his days listening to the radio and making his own wine.

  “Sit down, love,” he said now. “That leg can’t be right yet.”

  She smiled at him gratefully and allowed herself to be led to a chair as Moira Renshaw brought another woman forward.

  “This is Celia James,” Moira said. “A new neighbour, Rachel, as I told you.”

  She was a tall woman wearing a grey woollen dress that clung to her. Although she was slender her breasts were heavy and her hips curved down in ripe lines from a narrow waist. Her thin, aquiline face was striking, with hollow cheeks under a smooth cap of black hair. She made Rachel feel suddenly shabby and unkempt, but her smile was friendly.

  “Hullo!” she said. “Alec told me about your accident, but it seems superfluous to ask how you are. You look wonderful. Hospital must have been good for you.”

  Rachel said: “I guess everyone should go in once a year if only to make them appreciate their own homes. It’s like knocking your head on the wall: so nice when you stop.”

  There was a pause as they tested the aphorism, then Renshaw laughed loudly: “I like that!”

  Alec brought her a drink, then moved to stand beside Celia. Rachel glanced from one to the other and her eyes widened at his expression. He was looking at Celia like a schoolboy in love for the first time.

  Celia turned to her. “I do hope your husband’s coming,” she said. “I’ve read all his books and I’m longing to meet him.”

  “Oh, dear, I forgot to tell you,” Moira said. “Bill’s in America, isn’t he, Rachel?”

  “He left this morning.”

  “A bit sudden, wasn’t it?” Alec said.

  “He only had three days’ notice. He has to work on a screenplay in Hollywood.”

  “How long will he be away?” Celia asked.

  “He hopes not more than six weeks or so.”

  “So you’re by yourself?”

  “I have a daily help, and there’s my daughter for company.”

  “I heard you’d had a baby recently. What’s her name?”

  “Sophie.”

  “David, Celia’s glass is empty,” Moira said. Celia smiled at Renshaw as she handed him her glass. She was undoubtedly an attractive woman and Rachel found herself not too sorry that Bill was not present. She had looked at herself in the mirror before she left home and had not liked what she had seen. Her face seemed gaunt and dead, there were new lines under her blue eyes and her hair, though washed the previous day, hung lankly to her shoulders. Normally a rich autumn brown, it looked dry and lifeless. She felt years older than she had before the accident and was sure she looked it. There had been disappointment in Celia’s face when she had heard Bill was away and Rachel, at this moment, felt herself incapable of competing with women who found her husband attractive, not only for his appearance but for the successful novels which had brought him fame, if an erratic income.

  She sat, half-listening as the conversation swirled above her. She had only arrived in Lexton shortly before Sophie had been born, when Bill was too immersed in his last book to be bothered socialising. When he was working he preferred to cut himself off from distractions. She had not minded, because she had not been well, and when she felt strong enough was busy organising her new home. Then the child had arrived and she had suffered an unpleasant bout of post-natal depression when everything was too much effort; when her imagination, vivid at the best of times, ran riotously over the field of life’s horrors: Bill was tiring of her; something would happen to take Sophie from her; nameless pains that plagued her at night were cancer, heart trouble, arthritis. On the whole, she had managed to keep the depressions to herself, apart from the occasional bout of weeping which Bill had attributed to general debility after childbirth, but it had been a strain and she had avoided contact with strangers. Almost the only outsider she had seen was Alec, whose company was never a strain. Then, miraculously, she had awakened one morning to a glorious day and the clouds over her mind had disappeared. Her natural optimism had surfaced and life, on the whole, looked good. She had decided to face the world again and had started by contacting the Renshaws, whom she had met casually once or twice, and asking them for drinks. She recognised that she and Bill had little in common with them, but in time they might be the means of widening her circle of acquaintances.

  But not long after her emergence there had been the accident and, once more, she had been removed from circulation. Now, watching the party, which seemed flat to her without Bill, she wondered whether she could, in fact, bear much more of the Renshaws.

  David Renshaw was Bill’s height, but broader, and was in his mid-fifties. The biggest land-owner in the area, he seemed to have taken to Bill and felt they had at least one bond because he had once farmed cattle in Central Africa and Bill had lived for a time in Nairobi, where his widowed mother had been housekeeper in a large hotel. She had heard David refer to them both, with heavy humour, as ‘old Africa hands’.

  As she watched, he turned to Alec. “... To go on with what I was saying before Rachel arrived, if the Reds get a foothold in Southern Africa, we’ve had it. Take my word for it. They’ll control the sea route around the Cape and have their subs and missile carriers deep into the Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic ...”

  Alec nodded abstractedly, his eyes on Celia.

  Suddenly aware that Rachel was being left out of the conversation, Moira turned and said: “The last time we saw you, Bill was talking about having a wood stove installed to save oil. Is it working yet?”

  “Yes. It’s very successful.”

  “It must have cost something,” Renshaw said.

  “Bill says it will pay for itself within a year.”

  “That’s all very well, but it presupposes an unlimited supply of wood ...”

  Rachel had noticed Alec glance at her and knew why. Now he broke in: “When I was in North Africa we booby-trapped a wood stove once ...”

  She smiled to herself. “When I was in North Africa ...” was one of Alec’s catch-phrases. He was dwelling more and more in the past and sometimes she grew weary of his wartime reminiscences. But she told herself that the past was all he h
ad, since the future was unimaginable. Unless Celia ... but it was too early even to hope that Alec would have such luck.

  “... Not a big chap like yours. A small French one. We taped the gelignite inside the fire-box. Rather hoped we might get Rommel. It was one of those times when the Germans and us were going backwards and forwards over a single piece of the desert like a tennis-ball. Anyway, it went off with a hell of a bang. When we went to look, all we found were three dead Arabs, no Jerries at all. Arabs must have come in to shelter and lit the fire ... and up she went. I remember another booby-trap in Libya ...”

  Moira, who thought almost as slowly as Penny at times, was not listening to him. “Oh, my God, Rachel,” she broke in. “How awful of me even to have mentioned it! I’d completely forgotten. That was the stove Charlie Leech was putting in the night ...”

  “The night I had the accident,” Rachel said.

  “I’m making it worse. How is the leg?”

  “Not too bad. It will always be a little stiff.”

  “Isn’t it lucky ... I mean ...”

  “Yes,” Rachel said sharply. “Isn’t it?”

  *

  I’m going to have to get used to it, she told herself as she drove home, slowly and carefully, her left foot poised above the brake-pedal. They tell me how lucky I am, and then there’s a pause and we all think about Charlie, who was not lucky. They don’t mean to be crass. It’s just making conversation.

  She reached the house, put the car away and limped inside, carrying Sophie, who had slept throughout. After tucking her up, Rachel went into the sitting-room and stared at the big, black Norwegian stove, remembering Charlie, muscles rippling, chest bare, heaving it into place.

  Some time she would have to face what had happened, think it through, remember it. Didn’t psychiatrists make their patients dig down into their subconscious and face thoughts they were trying to avoid?