The Calico Cat

by Amanda James

  We do stretchy grins at each other for what seems like two minutes, but it’s probably only a matter of seconds, and then I say, ‘Would you like to stay for lunch?’

  4

  This Afternoon

  Upset stomachs and salmon salads might not be perfect partners, but there isn’t much else on offer. A growl from my abdomen is ambiguous in tone. Am I just hungry? I think I might be, because the churny anxious bubble I’ve had in there for the past few days seems to be absent. From the kitchen area I look out at Caleb on the balcony drinking a glass of wine and think the churny bubble might have gone because of all the nice things he said.

  He turns and smiles, raises his glass, sweeps his arm across the view and mouths ‘fantastic’ at me. I nod and bob down behind the counter to stuff a hunk of bread and butter in my mouth. God, that is delicious. I chew it and quickly swallow it down. My stomach is grateful and asks for another. Luckily, I have another hunk in my hand. Hang on. What am I doing hiding away behind the dammed counter?

  With bulging cheeks, I stand and butter more bread. I expect I look like a hamster or squirrel preparing for winter, but don’t care. I’m a little annoyed with myself that I bowed to social pressure just then. What the hell does it matter if Caleb sees me literally stuffing my face? I can hear Mother’s answer. She would say because it’s bad manners, piggy, and definitely unladylike. Unladylike? Now there’s a word that’s just wrong on so many levels. She used it all the time in my teens when I stuffed my face, wiped my nose on my sleeve, broke wind, swore – the list was endless, or at least very long. The thing is, Mother was a bit of a rebel when she was a teenager; that’s like this bread, hard to swallow, I know, but…

  ‘Need any help?’ Caleb is standing in front of me trying not to look at my spherical cheeks stretched to capacity. I didn’t notice him come back in, too busy thinking, as usual.

  I realise that I can’t speak and an attempt to do so has scattered soggy crumbs on the work surface. I point at my cheeks as if that were necessary and then point at the lettuce and nod at the colander. He gets it straight away and my smile releases more breadcrumbs. I know that my cheeks are turning pink, not because I’m being piggy or the word that is wrong on so many levels, but spit-soaked crumbs on a work surface… well, it’s a matter of poor hygiene, isn’t it? I grab a cloth from the sink to scoop up the fallout of my ravenous appetite and notice, from the corner of my eye, Caleb chopping a lettuce and trying to hide a smile.

  The bread has finally reached its destination helped by a gulp of white wine and I mask a burp by closing the fridge door too hard. What the hell is wrong with me? I consider trying a full-on ear-splitting belch to rectify my conformity to social etiquette, but I don’t have enough air, and to do that would be a bit juvenile, I suppose.

  ‘How are you getting on with the lettuce?’ I hear myself ask in a bouncy karaoke manner. I frown and become worried that my mother has cast some evil spell over me – perhaps she’s taken over my mind by inserting a clone of her thoughts and behaviours through my ear while I slept last night.

  ‘All done. Anything else?’

  ‘You could set the table. Where’d you like to eat – in here or on the balcony?’

  ‘It’s lovely and sunny but still a bit windy…’

  ‘Out?’ I say and am rewarded with another dog grin.

  I assemble the salad, stick the salmon under the grill and watch Caleb set the table inside, but next to the window. I remember that Anna had added other descriptions of him apart from the forget-me-not blue eyes. She’d said his butt was as firm and round as peach and his thighs were to die for. Yes, that stupid phrase again. She’d said other stuff that I can’t remember now, because I’d dismissed it along with her fluttery eyelashes and pouty lips whenever Caleb had been in the vicinity.

  Why do we think as a society it’s okay to describe people as if they are pieces of meat? Surely our personalities and souls are more important than physical attributes? Caleb had taken the trouble to find out where I live, buy congratulatory flowers and tell me that he thought I was brave and different. He leans across the table to place the salad bowl and I notice that his jeans are quite tight around his bottom. I look away.

  I place my knife and fork together in the centre of my plate and pat my stomach, which is now copying the hamster cheek look. It doesn’t have two spherical lumps of course, that would scare the shit out of me. No, just the one distended mound. The bread basket has two pieces left in there, but I shouldn’t, really. I would say that my eyes are bigger than my belly, but that would be physically impossible today. Well, on any other day too, but you know what I mean.

  ‘That was absolutely gorgeous. Thanks, Charlotte,’ Caleb says and pushes his plate to one side.

  ‘You are most welcome. Particularly since you arrived I’ve found I now have my appetite back. I pat my mound. ‘Back in a big way.’

  ‘You hardly need to worry about your figure.’ He stops when he sees my frown. ‘You’ve been off your food?’ He tries again, eyeing my midriff – and did he just glance at my breasts? Because if that’s why he’s here, he can think again.

  ‘Yes, I guess it’s been all the crap swilling around my impromptu departure from the job.’ I lean back in my chair and put my feet on the table and my breasts at a distance. I don’t want to be stand-offish, but I don’t want to encourage any untoward ideas. Untoward ideas? My mother must actually be in my head. I clear my throat, something I learned from Tom. ‘I’m much better now though, and that’s thanks to you, I suppose.’

  ‘Really?’ Caleb leans forward and puts his elbows on the table and a smile on his face. ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because you said that I was brave and different from others, stuff like that.’

  ‘You are. I wish I could be more like you, have the guts to just follow my heart. Who do you take after?’

  ‘Take after?’

  ‘Yes. Do you take after your parents? Did they encourage you to be… well, unusual, an individual?’

  A donkey bray of a laugh builds, and I take a drink to drown it. If I allow it free rein I think it might never stop. ‘No. I don’t take after my parents. Well, my dad is okay, but he’s no match for Mother.’ I look at Caleb’s open face, his head on one side looking interested. Perhaps he noted the ice in my voice when I said her name. In my throat I feel an ocean of words rising, but I don’t want to let them spill out. ‘Anyhow, I won’t bore you with it all. I’m sure you have better things to do with your Saturday afternoon.’

  ‘I don’t actually, and I’m sure it won’t be boring.’

  How can he possibly know that it won’t be boring? It isn’t to me, but it might be to him. Other people’s backgrounds and life stories don’t really mean an awful lot to anyone but those people, do they? Not really. Of course, you can empathise and sympathise if necessary, but it’s not your life, so you can’t know what it was actually like for them. I said this to Anna once when we went out for a drink. She was halfway through her life story and then she shut up about it. I think she’s oversensitive. While I look at the floor in silence, unsure what to say or how to say it, Caleb gets up and looks at the view.

  ‘How do you fancy a walk along the headland? We could talk about our parents and growing up, or whatever we like really, and then we could have a drink in the Fort or somewhere after?’

  I tell him I think that sounds like a good idea. I haven’t been out of the apartment for over a week except to get necessities. I change into my walking boots because we’ve had a lot of rain lately and I know it will be muddy on the paths, and shrug into my parka which should protect me from the strong March winds. I love the fluffy pretend fur around the hood; it makes me feel like a Wookie. I tell Caleb this and he laughs and calls me Chewbacca. I look in the hall mirror and wish my hair was auburn instead of dark brown because it would add to the overall Wookiness.

  Down the road, we stop and look over the railing at Whipsiderry beach. The wind is flapping my hood against my cheeks and
bashing white waves against the rocks far below. Caleb pulls his woolly grey hat down over his ears more and says something that the wind doesn’t want me to hear. He tries again and adds a few finger points and does wavy arms for effect,

  ‘I said I think the tide’s coming in, so we’d better not go down there!’

  He points to the steep and windy steps leading down to the rapidly disappearing patch of sand. I nod and say, ‘Do you know why this beach is called Whipsiderry?’ I say it in a tone that obviously implies I do know.

  ‘Not a local. I’m a Truro lad, just work here.’

  I don’t tell him that I’m not a local either and that I only found out by looking it up when I moved here. ‘It’s derived from the mining terms, Whips and Derrick. They used to mine iron ore here years ago.’ I do wavy arms at a huge rock sticking up from the sand that he says looks like a giant’s nose, and then sweep it across the wider area. ‘Also, when the tide’s out, there are lots of caves and rock pools to explore.’ I know this from first-hand experience.

  ‘That’s interesting. I’d like to have a look one day when the tide’s out.’

  ‘Yeah. And the rock you called the giant’s nose is really called Black Humphrey Rock, after the well-known smuggler, and some say wrecker.’ I wonder if I sound like a guide book. I hope not.

  ‘Interesting! You seem to know an awful lot about this area,’ he says, leading the way back onto the path towards Porth.

  ‘I know a fair bit,’ I say, pulling my hood closer to my face because the west wind insists on searching underneath it. ‘I do love history, of course, and the only big regrets I have about walking out are not teaching it anymore and of course leaving the Year Eleven kids in the lurch not long before their exams.’

  Caleb nods. ‘Yes, I did think you might. Let me ponder on it a bit.’ He runs ahead and then turns and kicks a large pebble towards me. I kick it back and we have a game of pebble football all the way down to the little bridge that spans the cliff path at Porth. I kick the pebble too hard and it lands in the turbulent waves below.

  ‘Oh no, I was enjoying that,’ I say, looking over the bridge until a particularly large wave spits a spray of foam across the bridge of my nose.

  ‘There are plenty more pebbles, come on,’ he says and jogs off the bridge and up the incline towards the grassy promontory of the ancient Trevelgue Head.

  My favourite cave is living up to my own name for it today – Dragon Cave. It’s part of the head and ejects a huge spray of water when the waves bash up inside it. On days like this when the Atlantic takes it by storm, the spray looks more like an exhalation of smoke and a mighty hiss comes with it. I tell Caleb my name for the cave and explain it’s because the sight and sound of it is just like I imagine a dragon’s breath to be.

  ‘Oh yes, that suits it perfectly,’ he says, and takes a picture with his phone. I’m glad he understands and hasn’t said there’s no such thing as dragons or something similar. Of course, I know that dragons don’t exist, but I like to imagine that they do from time to time, don’t you? Especially when I’m up here surrounded by the rawness of nature, and the thumping of the waves against the rocks echoes that of my heart against my ribs.

  ‘This would be a wonderful place to paint,’ I say. ‘Not on a day like this, of course.’

  ‘It would, and you should.’ Caleb takes another photo back towards the beach and adds, ‘I’ve pondered on the leaving the kids in the lurch problem. You could spread the word that you’d help them revise on one of the beaches round here. You wouldn’t be allowed in the school I don’t think, after your dramatic departure and leaving of the profession.’

  I like the sound of that – but would it work? ‘Wouldn’t I need parental permission?’

  Caleb looks up to the left and strokes his chin. ‘Hm. Not if they’re just a bunch of classmates getting together on the beach after school. But if you wanted to be extra sure, you could get them to bring a letter?’

  ‘Excellent!’ I shout and do a little dance. Caleb joins in.

  We walk back towards the beach and then on to the town and talk about nothing of any consequence, until Caleb says, ‘You don’t have to talk about your past if you’d rather not.’

  Surprised, I say, ‘I don’t mind. I’ve just not thought about it since we’ve been out.’ That is true. My head has been past- and trouble-free ever since we set out from my apartment.

  ‘Have you enjoyed being out?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘So have I.’ He pulls the collar of his jacket up and nods out to the horizon where a crowd of dark clouds is gathering over the scene like thugs in a playground. ‘But let’s get inside before we get drenched and have a drink and that chat, eh?’

  ‘Okay, you asked for it,’ I say as I follow him through the door of the pub.

  5

  In the Pub

  The Fort Inn is a very lively family pub in the tourist season, so I tend to only visit outside late spring and summer. It has one of the most spectacular views of the ocean, harbour and the coastline and the food is locally sourced and plentiful. Caleb grabs a menu and we sit in a raised seating area at a round table. He runs his finger down the list making appreciative noises, but I can’t tear my eyes from the view, even though we’ve spent the best part of three hours outside. Perhaps I am addicted to the Atlantic and should go to AAA meetings. Addicted to Atlantic Anonymous.

  Caleb decides on steak and I go for honey-glazed lemon chicken, and then we look at our drinks and the view in what I hope is a companionable silence but worry that it isn’t. An uncomfortable silence feels more accurate. Why, I don’t know. I shift in my seat and trace a finger through the condensation on my cyder glass and draw a smiley face.

  ‘Ever the artist, eh?’ Caleb smiles and takes a swallow of his beer, the froth of which leaves a moustache on his top lip.

  I watch him lick it off and think that the uncomfortable silence is probably just inside me. You know when you feel a bit jittery and kind of outside yourself? You might not; it might be something specific to me. But I think I know how to get rid of it.

  ‘Tom Kershaw phoned after I walked out and talked about me having counselling,’ I say while drawing a hat on the smiley face. ‘That brought an awful lot of unhappy memories from my teenage years to the fore because I had counselling then. Mother insisted that I went. Dad wasn’t so sure at first, but went along with her in the end, always does. He means well, but he’s weak really, when it comes to Mother, anyway.’

  Caleb turns and looks at me. I can see that his eyes want to be sympathetic but that he senses I might not like it, so he glances away and selects a casual voice. ‘Why did you have counselling?’

  I tell him about the calico cat day and the quiet rebellion that came after it, the actively seeking to be different bit and the subsequent attempts to squash that difference by my mother, and later my teachers at school.

  ‘Why did the calico cat conversation trigger the change, do you think?’ Caleb says as our food arrives, and we make space for the waitress to put plates in front of us.

  I pick up an onion ring, blow on it and then crunch into it. ‘I couldn’t really say. I think it was a cat-a-lyst.’ My wink makes him laugh and then I continue. ‘I suppose it’s because I wanted to be like Mother. In her youth she was a bit of a rebel. Her hero was David Bowie and she and her best friend used to walk around the place wearing zigzag make-up and black T-shirts with WE ARE THE DEAD emblazoned across the back. They did it to get on their parents’ nerves, of course, but mainly to be different. She told me all this when she’d had too much wine after a works Christmas party.’

  ‘Really? I bet she was devastated to hear of his death.’

  ‘No. No, she wasn’t, and that’s her all over. I was more upset than she was, because after she’d told me that he was her hero, I listened to all his albums, watched videos and documentaries about him and totally identified with his desire to be apart from the crowd.’ I pick up a chip and stab it at Caleb to emphasis
e my next sentence. ‘But Mother is a fake. She never sticks to her principles, hopes or dreams… and her hero,’ I bite the chip in half, ‘someone who shaped her teenage years, is just reduced to a “Oh dear, that’s a shock. Now I’m glad you phoned as I need to remind you to get a card for Cousin Matthew…” banal throwaway comment.’

  Caleb swallows a mouthful of steak. ‘What? Is that all she said?’

  ‘Yes. I phoned her to ask if she knew he’d died and she didn’t.’

  ‘I assume it could be just part of growing older.’

  Caleb assumes too much. ‘No, it isn’t. She’s always been the same, and besides, I know people of her generation that went down to London to stand vigil and share their grief at the loss of such an icon. Mother stayed in and cleaned the cooker.’

  He nods but I’m not convinced that he gets it.

  ‘When I was about fourteen, my quiet rebellion got a bit noisy. I had this English teacher, Mr Baldwin, who was crap, but he thought he was Robin Williams in Dead Poets or something. He used to make lame jokes and tried to be our mates, but just came across as a tosser – you know the type.’

  ‘Oh, I do,’ Caleb says and wipes sauce from his chin. ‘I think we have a few in our business studies department.’ He takes a drink and then his eyes grow round. ‘God, I hope the kids don’t think I’m a tosser.’

  A laugh waits in my throat and I want to tease him, but I’m not sure it will work as I’m in the middle of telling him about my rebellion, and I don’t want my serious words to come out and find themselves misunderstood as levity. ‘Of course, they don’t. Loads of them have said you’re a cool teacher and one or two have even said you’re a legend.’

  ‘Really?’ he says and laughs. I nod and smile. The last bit wasn’t true, but it has made him blush and go all sparkly, so it’s worth a bit of a fib.