The Stories of Alice Adams (v5)

by Alice Adams

  “I guess, if you like obstetrics.”

  A month or so later the art historian friend called with a very sad story; she had just been diagnosed as being very clearly allergic to cats. “I thought I wasn’t feeling too well, but I never thought it could be the cats. I know you already have that marvelous Pink, but do you think—until I find someone to take them? Just the two that are left?”

  Surprisingly, Andrew, when consulted, said, “Well, why not? Be entertainment for old Pink; she must be getting pretty bored with just us.”

  We did not consult Pink, who hated those cats on sight. But Andrew was right away crazy about them, especially the black one (maybe he had wanted a cat of his own?). We called them, of course, Black and Brown. They were two Burmese females, or semi-Burmese, soon established in our house and seeming to believe that they lived there.

  Black was (she is) the more interesting and aggressive of the two. And from the first she truly took to Pink, exhibiting the sort of clear affection that admits of no rebuff.

  We had had Pink spayed as soon as she was old enough, after one quite miserable heat. And now Black and Brown seemed to come into heat consecutively, and to look to Pink for relief. She raged and scratched at them as they, alternatively, squirmed and rubbed toward her. Especially Brown, who gave all the signs of a major passion for Pink. Furious, Pink seemed to be saying, Even if I were the tomcat that you long for, I would never look at you.

  Black and Brown were spayed, and relations among the cats settled down to a much less luridly sexual pattern. Black and Brown both liked Pink and wished to be close to her, which she would almost never permit. She refused to eat with them, haughtily waiting at mealtimes until they were through.

  It is easy for me to imagine Black and Brown as people, as women. Black would be a sculptor, I think, very strong, moving freely and widely through the world. Unmarried, no children. Whereas Brown would be a very sweet and pretty, rather silly woman, adored by her husband and sons.

  But I do not imagine Pink as a person at all. I only see her as herself. A cat.

  Zoe was going to move to Hawaii, she suddenly said. “Somewhere on Kauai, natch, and probably Poipu, if those grubby developers have kept their hands off anything there.” Her hatchet laugh. “But I like the idea of living on the islands, away from it all. And so does Gordon. You guys will have to come and visit us there. Bring Pink, but not those other two strays.”

  “Gordon” was a new beau, just turned up from somewhere in Zoe’s complex Dallas childhood. With misgivings, but I think mostly goodwill, we went over to meet him, to hear about all these new plans.

  Gordon was dark and pale and puffy, great black blotches under his narrow, dishonest eyes, a practiced laugh. Meeting him, I right off thought, They’re not going to Hawaii; they’re not going anywhere together.

  Gordon did not drink at all that day, although I later heard that he was a famous drunk. But occasionally he chided Zoe, who as usual was belting down vodka on ice. “Now Baby,” he kept saying. (Strident, striding Zoe—Baby?) “Let’s go easy on the sauce. Remember what we promised?” (We?)

  At which Zoe laughed long and loud, as though her drinking were a good joke that we all shared.

  A week or so after that Zoe called and said she was just out of the hospital. “I’m not in the greatest shape in the world,” she said—and after that there was no more mention of Gordon, nor of a move to Hawaii.

  And not very long after that Zoe moved down to Santa Barbara. She had friends there, she said.

  Pink by now was in some cat equivalent to middle age. Still quite small, still playful at times, she was almost always talkative. She disliked Black and Brown, but sometimes I would find her nestled against one of them, usually Black, in sleep. I had a clear sense that I was not supposed to know about this occasional rapport, or whatever. Pink still came up to my lap as I worked, and she slept on our bed at night, which we had always forbidden Black and Brown to do.

  We bought a new, somewhat larger house, farther up in the hills. It had stairs, and the cats ran happily up and down, and they seemed to thrive, like elderly people who benefit from a new program of exercise.

  • • •

  Andrew got sick, a terrible swift-moving cancer that killed him within a year, and for a long time I did very little but grieve. I sometimes saw friends, and I tried to work. There was a lot to do about Andrew’s bookstore, which I sold, but mostly I stayed at home with my cats, all of whom were now allowed to sleep with me on that suddenly too-wide bed.

  Pink at that time chose to get under the covers with me. In a peremptory way she would tap at my cheek or my forehead, demanding to be taken in. This would happen several times in the course of the night, which was not a great help to my already fragile pattern of sleep, but it never occurred to me to deny her. And I was always too embarrassed to mention this to my doctor when I complained of lack of sleep.

  And then after several years I met Slater, at a well-meaning friend’s house. Although as I have said I did not much like him at first, I was struck by his nice dark-red hair, and by his extreme directness—Andrew had a tendency to be vague; it was sometimes hard to get at just what he meant. Not so with Slater, who was very clear—immediately clear about the fact that he liked me a lot, and wanted us to spend time together. And so we became somewhat involved, Slater and I, despite certain temperamental obstacles, including the fact that he does not much like cats.

  And eventually we began to plan a trip to Hawaii, where Slater had business to see to.

  Pink as an old cat slept more and more, and her high-assed strut showed sometimes a slight arthritic creak. Her voice got appreciably louder; no longer a littlest announcer, her statements were loud and clear (I have to admit, it was not the most attractive sound). It seems possible that she was getting a little deaf. When I took her to the vet, a sympathetic, tall, and handsome young Japanese woman, she always said, “She sure doesn’t look her age—” at which both Pink and I preened.

  The vet, Dr. Ino, greatly admired the stripes below Pink’s neck, on her breast, which looked like intricate necklaces. I admired them too (and so had Andrew).

  Needless to say, the cats were perfectly trained to the sandbox, and very dainty in their habits. But at a certain point I began to notice small accidents around the house, from time to time. Especially when I had been away for a day or two. It seemed a punishment, cat turds in some dark corner. But it was hard to fix responsibility, and I decided to blame all three—and to take various measures like the installation of an upstairs sandbox, which helped. I did think Pink was getting a little old for all those stairs.

  Since she was an old cat I sometimes, though rarely, thought of the fact that Pink would die. Of course she would, eventually—although at times (bad times: the weeks and months around Andrew’s illness and death) I melodramatically announced (more or less to myself) that Pink’s death would be the one thing I could not bear. “Pink has promised to outlive me,” I told several friends, and almost believed.

  At times I even felt that we were the same person-cat, that we somehow inhabited each other. In a way I still do feel that—if I did not, her loss would be truly unbearable.

  I worried about her when I went away on trips. I would always come home, come into my house, with some little apprehension that she might not be there. She was usually the last of the three cats to appear in the kitchen, where I stood confused among baggage, mail, and phone messages. I would greet Black and Brown, and then begin to call her—“Pink, Pink?”—until, very diffident and proud, she would stroll unhurriedly toward me, and I would sweep her up into my arms with foolish cries of relief, and of love. Ah, my darling old Pink.

  As I have said, Slater did not particularly like cats; he had nothing against them, really, just a general indifference. He eventually developed a fondness for Brown, believing that she liked him too, but actually Brown is a whore among cats; she will purr and rub up against anyone who might feed her. Whereas Pink was always discriminat
ing, in every way, and fussy. Slater complained that one of the cats deposited small turds on the bathmat in the room where he sometimes showered, and I am afraid that this was indeed old Pink, both angry and becoming incontinent.

  One night at dinner at my house, when Slater and I, alone, were admiring my view of the bay and of romantic San Francisco, all those lights, we were also talking about our trip to Hawaii. Making plans. He had been there before and was enthusiastic.

  Then the phone rang, and it was Lucy, daughter of Zoe, who told me that her mother had died the day before, in Santa Barbara. “Her doctor said it was amazing she’d lived so long. All those years of booze.”

  “I guess. But Lucy, it’s so sad, I’m so sorry.”

  “I know.” A pause. “I’d love to see you sometime. How’s old Pink?”

  “Oh, Pink’s fine,” I lied.

  Coming back to the table, I explained as best I could about Zoe Pinkerton, how we got Pink. I played it all down, knowing his feelings about cats. But I thought he would like the multiple-insemination part, and he did—as had Andrew. (It is startling when two such dissimilar men, Andrew, the somewhat dreamy book person, and Slater, the practical man, get so turned on by the same dumb joke.)

  “So strange that we’re going to Poipu,” I told Slater. “Zoe always talked about Poipu.” As I said this I knew it was not the sort of coincidence that Slater would find remarkable.

  “I’m afraid it’s changed a lot,” he said, quite missing the point. “The early developers have probably knocked hell out of it. The greedy competition.”

  So much for mysterious ways.

  Two days before we were to go to Hawaii, in the morning Pink seemed disoriented, unsure when she was in her sandbox, her feeding place. Also, she clearly had some bad intestinal disorder. She was very sick, but still in a way it seemed cruel to take her to the vet, whom I somehow knew could do nothing for her. However, at last I saw no alternative.

  She (Dr. Ino, the admirable vet) found a large hard mass in Pink’s stomach, almost certainly cancer. Inoperable. “I just can’t reverse what’s wrong with her,” the doctor told me, with great sadness. And succinctness: I saw what she meant. I was so terribly torn, though: Should I bring Pink home for a few more days—whatever was left to her—although she was so miserable, so embarrassed at her own condition?

  I chose not to do that (although I still wonder, I still am torn). And I still cannot think of those last moments of Pink. Whose death I chose.

  I wept on and off for a couple of days. I called some close friends who would have wanted to know about Pink, I thought; they were all most supportively kind (most of my best friends love cats).

  And then it was time to leave for Hawaii.

  Sometimes, during those days of packing and then flying to Hawaii, I thought it odd that Pink was not more constantly on my mind, even odd that I did not weep more than I did. Now, though, looking back on that trip and its various aftermaths, I see that in fact I was thinking about Pink all that time, that she was totally in charge, as she always had been.

  We stayed in a pretty condominium complex, two-story white buildings with porches and decks, and everywhere sweeping green lawns, and flowers. A low wall of rocks, a small coarsely sanded beach, and the vast and billowing sea.

  Ours was a second-floor unit, with a nice wide balcony for sunset drinks, or daytime sunning. And, looking down from that balcony one night, our first, I saw the people in the building next door, out on the grass beside what must have been their kitchen, feeding their cats. They must have brought along these cats, two supple gray Siamese, and were giving them their supper. I chose not to mention this to Slater, I thought I could imagine his reaction, but in the days after that, every time we walked past that building I slowed my pace and looked carefully for the cats, and a couple of times I saw them. Such pretty cats, and very friendly, for Siamese. Imagine: traveling to Hawaii with your cats—though I was not at all sure that I would have wanted Black and Brown along, nice as they are, and pretty.

  Another cat event (there were four in all) came as we drove from Lihue back to Poipu, going very slowly over those very sedate tree- and flower-lined streets, with their decorous, spare houses. Suddenly I felt—we felt—a sort of thump, and Slater, looking startled, slowed down even further and looked back.

  “Lord God, that was a cat,” he said.

  “A cat?”

  “She ran right out into the car. And then ran back.”

  “Are you sure? She’s all right?”

  “Absolutely. Got a good scare though.” Slater chuckled.

  But you might have killed a cat, I did not say. And for a moment I wondered if he actually had, and lied, saying the cat was okay. However, Slater would never lie to spare my feelings, I am quite sure of that.

  The third cat happening took place as we drove down a winding, very steep mountain road (we had been up to see the mammoth gorges cut into the island, near its western edge). On either side of the road was thick green jungle growth—and suddenly, there among the vines and shrubs, I saw a small yellow cat staring out, her eyes lowered. Frightened. Eyes begging.

  Slater saw her too, and even he observed, “Good Lord, people dumping off animals to starve. It’s awful.”

  “You’re sure she doesn’t live out there? a wilderness cat?”

  “I don’t think so.” Honest Slater.

  We did not talk then or later about going back to rescue that cat—not until the next day, when he asked me what I would like to do and I said, “I’d like to go back for that cat.” He assumed I was joking, and I guess I mostly was. There were too many obvious reasons not to save that particular cat, including the difficulty of finding her again. But I remembered her face; I can see it still, that expression of much-resented dependence. It was a way even Pink looked, very occasionally.

  Wherever we drove, through small neat impoverished “native” settlements (blocks of houses that Slater and his cohorts planned to buy, and demolish, to replace with fancy condos), with their lavish flowers all restrained into tiny beds, I kept looking at the yards, and under the houses. I wanted to see a cat, or some cats (I wanted to see Pink again). Realizing what I was doing, I continued to do it, to strain for the sight of a cat.

  The fourth and final cat event took place as we walked home from dinner one night, in the flower-scented, corny-romantic Hawaiian darkness. To our left was the surging black sea and to our right large tamed white shrubbery, and a hotel swimming pool, glistening darkly under feeble yellow floodlights. And then quite suddenly, from nowhere, a small cat appeared in our path, shyly and uncertainly arching her back against a bush. A black cat with some yellow tortoise markings, a long thin curve of a tail.

  “He looks just like your Pink, doesn’t he?” Slater actually said this, and I suppose he believed it to be true.

  “What—Pink? But her tail—Jesus, didn’t you even see my cat?”

  I’m afraid I went on in this vein, sporadically, for several days. But it did seem so incredible, not remembering Pink, my elegantly striped, my tailless wonder. (It is also true that I was purposefully using this lapse, as one will, in a poor connection.)

  I dreaded going home with no Pink to call out to as I came in the door. And the actuality was nearly as bad as my imaginings of it: Black and Brown, lazy and affectionate, glad to see me. And no Pink, with her scolding hauteur, her long-delayed yielding to my blandishments.

  I had no good pictures of Pink, and to explain this odd fact I have to admit that I am very bad about snapshots; I have never devised a really good way of storing and keeping them, and tend rather to enclose any interesting ones in letters to people who might like them, to whom they would have some meaning. And to shove the others into drawers, among old letters and other unclassifiable mementos.

  I began then to scour my house for Pink pictures, looking everywhere. In an album (Andrew and I put together a couple of albums, early on) I found a great many pictures of Pink as a tiny, tall-eared, brand-new kitten, stalki
ng across a padded window seat, hiding behind an oversized Boston fern—among all the other pictures from those days: Zoe Pinkerton, happy and smoking a long cigarette and almost drunk, wearing outrageous colors, on the deck of her house. And Andrew and I, young and very happy, silly, snapped by someone at a party. Andrew in his bookstore, horn-rimmed and quirky. Andrew uncharacteristically working in our garden. Andrew all over the place.

  But no middle-year or recent pictures of Pink. I had in fact (I then remembered) sent the most recent shots of Pink to Zoe; it must have been just before she (Zoe) died, with a silly note about old survivors, something like that. It occurred to me to get in touch with Lucy, Zoe’s daughter, to see if those pictures had turned up among Zoe’s “effects,” but knowing the chaos in which Zoe had always lived (and doubtless died) I decided that this would be tactless, unnecessary trouble. And I gave up looking for pictures.

  Slater called yesterday to say that he is going back to Hawaii, a sudden trip. Business. I imagine that he is about to finish the ruination of all that was left of Zoe’s islands. He certainly did not suggest that I come along, nor did he speak specifically of our getting together again, and I rather think that he, like me, has begun to wonder what we were doing together in the first place. It does seem to me that I was drawn to him for a very suspicious reason, his lack of resemblance to Andrew: Whyever should I seek out the opposite of a person I truly loved?

  But I do look forward to some time alone now. I will think about Pink—I always feel her presence in my house, everywhere. Pink, stalking and severe, ears high. Pink, in my lap, raising her head with some small soft thing to say.

  And maybe, since Black and Brown are getting fairly old now too, I will think about getting another new young cat. Maybe, with luck, a small gray partially Manx, with no tail at all, and beautiful necklaces.

  The Drinking Club