The Calico Cat

by Amanda James

  It occurs to him as he runs the shower that she might actually just want time alone after the trauma of yesterday. God, what bastards her parents were, or her mother at least. Mind you, the dad isn’t blameless; he should have the bloody guts to stand up to his wife. He soaps his body and thinks about James. It would be nice if some bridges could be built between him and his sister. If Caleb had been James, he wouldn’t have just left it at one phone call. Aren’t doctors supposed to understand when someone needs help, care and attention? Being told that your sister feels like a piece of broken crockery should have been a big clue to her state of mind. A kernel of an idea hisses into his ear with a jet of water. No. He shakes his head. That’s not going to work.

  Caleb rubs his chest briskly and then drops the towel. He wishes he could do the same with the kernel that has grown inside his mind. It isn’t any of his business, really, is it? But the fact is that it’s getting bigger, more insistent, nagging at him until he has to admit that it is a shaping up to be a great idea.

  Heavitree Hospital, Exeter, is a series of red-brick blocks and has many windows. It looks quite welcoming as hospitals go, but a nervous twist in Caleb’s stomach suggests that he’s been a bit hasty. What had seemed like a great idea in a sun-drenched breakfast kitchen yesterday morning feels a bit empty the next afternoon as he stands at the entrance to the hospital. Once across the threshold he’d be in someone else’s life, and in someone else’s business. He might not be thanked for that intrusion and the great idea could all crumble about his ears. He has a quick discussion with himself. Stay or go? It would be cowardly to give up before he’s started. A glance behind and he steps through the doors.

  ‘But is Mr Vincent expecting you?’ a bespectacled eagle of a receptionist says. She looks like she wants to peck both his eyes out and rip his gizzard to shreds with her talons. Medical receptionists often give him that impression. Something about protecting the very important medical staff from all and sundry, he supposes.

  ‘No, but I think he’ll see me once he knows why I’m here.’

  ‘Not without an appointment, I’m afraid.’

  She doesn’t look afraid, she looks smug. Caleb can hear others behind forming a queue, shuffling feet and coughing unnecessarily to tell him they are waiting. He leans forward within pecking distance and says in a low voice, ‘It’s a personal matter to do with his sister.’ He puts a letter on the desk between them and pushes it forward with a forefinger. ‘I wrote that just in case Mr Vincent wasn’t on duty today. I’m willing to wait while he reads it.’

  The receptionist pushes it back with a talon. ‘I can’t deal with Mr Vincent’s personal business, and if you don’t mind, there’s a queue of people who do have appointments.’

  He figures there are two choices: walk away and forget the whole thing or bend the truth a bit. The fact that he’s come this far, in terms of initiative and distance – an hour and a half up the M5 after a full teaching day, and the fact that this woman needs to be taken down a peg or two, to use Gwendoline’s term – swings it.

  He squares his shoulders and says, ‘It is a very serious matter, and I’m sure Mr Vincent would be most upset to have missed the opportunity to be reunited with his sister.’ He looks directly into her narrowed eyes. ‘Before it’s too late.’

  The eyes widen briefly, and the talon pulls the letter towards her. She heaves a sigh. ‘Okay, Mr… er?’

  ‘Walker, Caleb Walker.’

  ‘Mr Walker, please take a seat over there. I have no idea how long it will be – Mr Vincent does have quite a few people still to see today – or if indeed he will want to speak to you, but—’

  Caleb raises his palm to halt her words. ‘That’s fine. I can wait as long as it takes. Thank you for your understanding at this very sad time.’ He turns quickly before she catches his smirk and makes his way to a row of blue padded chairs.

  The same green cat-like eyes as Lottie’s regard him across the desk. They sit in a pale face full of concern, a face that is symmetrically handsome and remarkably unlined for a man nearing his forties. His hair is more tawny than Lottie’s chestnut brown though, and he runs one hand through it as he says, ‘I’m confused now, Mr Walker. My receptionist tells me you seemed to imply that Charlotte was very ill. Yet this letter says only that you want to discuss the possibility of a reunion.’

  ‘I must confess that I might have given that impression, yes. I saw no other way of getting to meet you.’ Caleb hears a rill in his voice as if it’s just breaking. Great.

  The green eyes narrow and James sits back in his chair. ‘So, Charlotte asked you to come?’

  ‘No. She has no idea I am here and I’m not so sure she’d be very pleased if she did.’ Caleb is all of a sudden sure she wouldn’t be, and he begins to question the merits of the whole thing.

  ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘I Googled you. It wasn’t hard, really.’

  James looks out of the window; he seems to scan the clouds and then looks at his watch. ‘I have another patient and then we can meet at the Globe pub down the road in about forty-five minutes, if you like?’

  ‘Thank you. I won’t keep you for long,’ Caleb says and tries a smile that he hopes looks more confident than he feels.

  It looks as though his journey hasn’t been wasted, but what exactly James is thinking is anyone’s guess. Caleb has told him everything that Lottie revealed about her past and now James is at the bar waiting to be served, his face undecided between anger and bewilderment.

  ‘There’s no wonder she behaved in the way she did, then,’ James says as he sets an orange juice in front of Caleb and takes a pull on his pint. ‘Now that I know her version, it all makes more sense. I’m so bloody furious at the way she was treated by Mum and Dad, and I’ll certainly want to have words with them about it. I know Mum is bit of a drama queen and certainly bossy, but this…’ His gaze becomes distant as if he’s looking into the past. ‘This is vile.’

  Shit. Caleb hadn’t thought of others being involved. If James told his parents about it, then Lottie would get to know, and then Caleb would certainly be for the high jump. How foolish of him not to have thought it through. He’d assumed it would just be kept between the two of them, until they’d worked out a way to get Lottie to agree to meet up with James.

  Caleb’s hand closes around the cool of the glass. That’s what he needs to be. Cool. His thinking needs to be cool, calm, in straight lines and no-nonsense, because if he doesn’t take control, everything will go suddenly and irretrievably tits up.

  ‘I’m not sure that would be helpful at this stage, James. I thought we could come up with a plan to make Lottie see that meeting her big brother would be the first step to healing all the hurt and trauma of the past.’ Yes, that sounded cool, ordered, calm and reasonable.

  ‘I would love to meet my sister, Caleb, but given our past history I’m not sure she would want to meet me. I don’t like doing things in secret, either. After all, I was one big secret until she was thirteen, kept from her by her parents. So, if you and I plot behind her back she might see it as another betrayal by someone else she cares about.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be plotting or a betrayal, more like a nice surprise,’ Caleb says, but even to his own ears it sounds a bit Disney.

  ‘I think that might be naive if you don’t mind me saying so. Charlotte, or Lottie as she now seems to prefer, had a very, very difficult time of it. Now I realise the full extent of why… poor kid. Those feelings and memories don’t just get swept away like they never happened, you know.’

  Caleb hears a superior tone in the other man’s voice that he doesn’t like. It goes with his expensive suit and messy hair that’s actually been cut by an expert. Okay, maybe his ‘nice surprise’ comment was a bit crass, but he’s not totally insensitive.

  ‘I do realise that, and the counselling your parents made her have made things a lot worse. She felt like she was an alien or something.’

  James sighs and shakes his head. ‘Even t
hough their actions, or Mum’s at least, triggered Lottie’s behaviour, I don’t see that they had a lot of choice. Psychotic episodes don’t just right themselves without help, normally.’

  Caleb shifted his weight on the chair. He didn’t like the flutter of panic inside him that James’s last sentence had prompted. ‘Psychotic episodes? Yes, she might have problems with anger management, but calling your teacher a tosser hardly adds up to psychotic, does it?’

  ‘Ah. I see that you don’t know the full story, and I’m not sure if I should be the one to tell it,’ James says, drawing his hand down his mouth and chin as if he’s trying to create a barrier to further comment.

  ‘But if we’re to put things right for Lottie, I have to know.’

  ‘Then why didn’t she tell you all of it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Caleb says almost to himself. James makes him feel small and unsure, yet nobody is closer to Lottie now than Caleb, at least he doesn’t think so, and that makes him resent the knowledge about her that James holds stored out of reach in his head.

  ‘Look, if I tell you, it might change the way you feel about her and that wouldn’t be fair.’ James puts his head on one side, allows a half smile. ‘You are more than friends, am I right?’

  None of your bloody business. Caleb remembers about being cool and says, ‘We are good friends, and yes, I do care very much about her.’

  ‘Then I suggest you ask her, not me.’

  ‘But if you tell me, it will help us work out a way forward won’t it? How can I be the only one ignorant of her past if I’m to try to help her heal it?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I can’t be the one. How would that look if we were to get her to agree to meet up and she found out I’d told you things about her behind her back?’

  Caleb has to concede that James is right. Perhaps Lottie hadn’t told him everything because she was scared that he’d judge her, look at her differently. ‘Okay. But tell me one thing at least. Did she… do any harm to anyone?’ Damn it, where did that come from? It makes him sound weaselly and weak.

  ‘Yes, but not in the way you mean, judging from your expression. Nobody died.’

  James takes a swallow of beer and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. His eyes have become cautious, veiled.

  Caleb isn’t surprised. He probably thinks that Caleb is looking for a way out now that he knows Lottie has once done something serious. ‘Whatever she did, I will be there for her. She’s not that frightened and rejected little girl anymore. She’s got through whatever it was and now I think a little closure would be useful.’ God, he hates that word closure. It’s bandied about far too much, but he has to admit it’s appropriate.

  James’s wary eyes look less than convinced but says, ‘Okay, if you think it would help Lottie to meet me, then we’ll try and come up with something. I won’t mention anything to my parents, of course. I have your number and,’ he takes a card from his wallet pushes it across the table, ‘you have mine.’ He leans forward and looks Caleb straight in the eye. ‘But I’ll give you a bit of advice. Take this slow and don’t push her. I’m on the end of a phone if you need advice.’

  Caleb nods and feels a bit more positive. ‘I will, and I really hope you two can forge some kind of relationship in the future.’

  James finishes his drink and stands. ‘I really hope so too, Caleb,’ he says and shakes his hand, and Caleb is relieved to see real warmth in the other man’s eyes. ‘It will give me some closure, too. I have wanted to make things right between us for years but feared all was lost. Thanks for giving me hope.’

  As Caleb watches James walk away, the enormity of his task settles across his shoulders like a lead cloak. It squashes his fledgling positivity and there is a nagging headache gearing up at the back of his eyes. This great idea might not be so great after all. Not only has he undertaken a responsibility to help Lottie, he now has James’s expectations to hold up as well. Marvellous.

  9

  Half a Cat

  So, it’s nearly the end of the penultimate week of July, and I have half a cat on the canvas. I would have had a whole one, but I’ve been far too busy planning this walking holiday. I’m not normally a big planner but I want to make sure that the basics are taken care of so Caleb and I can enjoy ourselves. We go tomorrow, and I am so looking forward to it. The B&Bs are booked, well, for the first week, anyway, and yes, before you ask, separate rooms. I thought I wouldn’t book two weeks, because we might decide the whole thing is a bad idea and want to come home. If we don’t, then I’m sure we’ll find accommodation somewhere.

  I look at the half-cat and think I will probably get back to it when I’ve done the laundry. It’s funny, because even though I have been busy planning and researching the holiday, the best walks to take and the like, I have managed to paint the Dragon Cave. It just needs a few finishing touches to the waves and the light playing across a gull’s wing, but then that’s it. So perhaps I’m avoiding the cat? But why? I turn away. I can tell by the look in its green eye that it’s really pissed off with me. But then what do I expect? I would feel the same if I had been left half finished, incomplete, not whole, or is it unwhole? Is there such a word?

  Oh, yes, I almost forgot – I have been busy with other stuff too. You will be pleased to know that I have been viewing possible premises for an art studio/shop over the last few weeks. There’s a little place on a side street in Newquay that might do, though it is a bit out of the way and next to dry cleaners. Not that there’s anything wrong with dry cleaners, it’s just… oh, I don’t know – too practical, boring, I suppose. Art isn’t practical, it’s to do with feelings and emotions and existential love of the world and one’s place in it.

  I don’t often say ‘one’s’; I think it sounds stuffy and pretentious. It’s the kind of word someone would use on a late-night programme about philosophy or art (intellectually inaccessible to most people). It’s the only word that feels right in certain sentences, though. But I expect you might feel differently.

  The other premises are at a little place called Mawgan Porth, about ten minutes up the coast a bit, the location of one of my most favourite beaches. It’s really near the beach and not much bigger than one room – an offshoot, really, but that’s all I need. The rent isn’t peanuts, but I can afford it, as you know, thanks to Gwendoline. Caleb says he’s going to help with the business side of it, him being a business studies teacher and all.

  He has been a great support in this new venture but has been behaving a bit oddly recently. For example, into conversations about a TV programme, or anything like that really, he’ll drop questions about my past. I don’t always answer them; I don’t like being put on the spot. Examined. Besides, these questions feel planted and orchestrated, because they are so divorced from the context.

  I walk over to the half-cat and turn her to face the sea. That might appease her until I can find the time to finish her. Anyway, I was talking about Caleb. Sometimes it’s as if he’s trying to make me feel better about my parents, and how they behaved during the time of the big fat secret reveal. He actually said the word ‘healing’ in reference to my past the other day. Now that made me furious. I don’t need healing. I did once, but now I am healed. The counselling was supposed to do that, but as I said, it made things worse. You see, I healed myself, with Gwendoline’s help, of course. Who does Caleb think he is? That first afternoon, and since, he’s said he admired the way I am different, but sometimes it feels like he wants to change me.

  Mother and I met for a jolly lunch last week. She is happy that I am looking into opening a shop and thinks it’s her idea, of course. I did remind her of the beach hut conversation to illustrate that I had been thinking about it for some time, but she swept crumbs from the table cloth, and with them, any verbal acknowledgement of my comments.

  Instead, she said that if she were me she’d look at somewhere like St Ives rather than Mawgan Porth. After all, St Ives has hundreds of visitors year-round and I would earn a good living. I thanked her f
or the advice but explained that she isn’t me (thank God, that would really be very confusing, because who would I be?), and that I am happy to see how business goes just in the summer and autumn months for now.

  Mother thought that idea was folly because how would I survive in the long term? Gran’s money won’t last indefinitely, didn’t I know? I said that was none of her concern, I was mostly setting up this new venture for the love of it and that I would reassess the situation if and when it arose. Experience told me that behind a sniff of derision and a furrowed mouth, a cutting remark waited, so I got there first. I said, ‘There’s two hundred thousand in my bank account, I own my flat outright, so I think I have a while yet before I start to panic, don’t you?’

  The mouth drew even tighter and she did that tucking her bob behind her ears thing – a display of irritation she’d had as long as I can remember. A blotchy rash crept up her neck, which indicated that she was angry, embarrassed or both, and she looked anywhere but at me. I could tell she was thinking of a polite answer, but it escaped her, and she changed the subject.

  Sometimes I think I should cut her a bit of slack nowadays. After all, the James revelation, how it was done, and the counselling were a long time ago. We have muddled along, kind of, over the years. Most of the time though I don’t think she should be given any slack. I mean, think about it, why would Gwendoline have left everything to me? If she’d have thought her daughter deserved it, surely the will would have been in her favour? No. Gran had the measure of Mother and Mother knows it. That’s why she changed the subject, that’s why she couldn’t look into my eyes, because if she did, she would see right away that I knew it too.