The Calico Cat

by Amanda James

  The reason for this is because I’m pleased with the painting, of course, but also because I just let myself go, allowed myself to get lost, submerged in my work. Any uncertainty that I was born to do this I might have had before I set out on the walk has gone.

  It’s hard to put into words how I feel because they keep moving about, refusing to be ordered into coherent sentences, but I suppose you could say I feel centred. Rooted. I’m comfortable with the immediate prospect of starting the next bit of my new life, because I will be starting it as a proper artist, something I have always wanted to be deep down, but didn’t really know it until the day in the vineyard – and today’s painting has strengthened that conviction.

  Why it’s happened I couldn’t say with any clarity, but it has to do with who I am now, and, as I said before, the people I met recently. Louisa has played a big part in it all and so has Caleb, of course. He let me down in the end, but… I don’t like the way these thoughts are heading, so I cut them off.

  There are lots of people around today because we are now in the height of the summer holidays. Lots of people are on the beach or wandering past me, either playing at happy families or they actually are that happy. It’s hard to tell, isn’t it, when people are on holiday? They think they should be having fun and enjoying themselves because they’ve paid out lots of their hard-earned cash that they’ve worked all year for, and because they have invested lots of ‘so looking forward to it’ time in this week or fortnight.

  Some of them have peered over my shoulder and said very complimentary things; I smiled politely but made it clear I didn’t want to engage in conversation. Some have given me a wide berth because they obviously didn’t want to disturb me, but all who passed have sounded jolly, seemingly having a good time.

  So, what to do about my not-so-happy family? I have kind of been thinking that I might be open to speaking to James. It could be better to go that way instead of jumping into a meeting. I didn’t throw away the card with his number on that Caleb gave me. It’s still in the Velcro pocket at the side of the rucksack. That must have meant that on some subconscious level I thought I might need it in the future, mustn’t it? There’s a nagging worry about whether he still wants to have contact, though, as I’ve said. But I won’t know until I make the effort, will I?

  A strand of hair has come loose from its clip and I tuck it behind my ear. That’s what me contacting James is like too, really, isn’t it? Making the strands of my life secure, neat, tucked – instead of blowing about in my mind making everything a jumble. Most of what’s in my mind is fairly ordered now, what with the confidence in my work and the plans being afoot, so I know I should probably give James a ring in the near future. The Dragon Cave snorts at this, so I decide I will do it this evening, after dinner, or perhaps even before.

  The calico cat is still in the position on the easel where I left her staring out to sea. She wouldn’t have moved though, would she? She is a painting of a cat, not a real one, and she can’t really stare, as I said when I gave her the second eye and a cat in a tree nearby to keep her company just before I set out on holiday. Over two weeks of facing the sun has faded her coat, though, and she looks a bit dry and dusty. The outline of the second cat is downright ghostly, and I make a decision to finish the painting tomorrow. It’s only fair, really; they have been waiting ages, after all.

  I set the Dragon’s Cave painting on a spare easel next to it and immediately notice the difference in brush application. Yes, they are very different subjects, but the latest has been painted with a more confident hand. A definite style is present in each sweep of the brush too. The calico cat is one of my better pre-holiday attempts, but it is a bit flat, hesitant, and wishy-washy. Tomorrow I’ll bring it to life, complete it – make it real.

  The smell of the chicken casserole and jacket potato I have in the oven causes a bit of a rumble in my stomach, so I open some pistachio nuts and a bottle of Louisa’s wine. It would be daft to have too much wine on an empty stomach, though, particularly because I have that all-important phone call to make. ‘All important’ is another newish phrase people use nowadays, isn’t it? How can anything be all important? Things can be more important than others, like making a decision to cut my toenails wouldn’t be as important to my existence as making a call to my estranged brother, for example, but it isn’t all important, is it? How can it be?

  I realise that procrastination is something people do when they have important things to do that might not be a success. Even though I’m just pondering on ‘all importance’ it’s still putting things off. Then I wonder if I actually ought to cut my toenails and paint them because it’s over two weeks since I gave them a second thought. That would be procrastination, though, and my nails aren’t that bad anyway. The fact that I’m even considering doing such a thing is a result of the socialisation process. I mean, who decided that painting toenails different colours, so you have ‘holiday ready’ feet when wearing sandals, for example, is a good thing?

  The whole fashion and beauty industry stinks, if you ask me. I could go on and on, but I won’t because then my food will be ready, and I’ll have to eat it and then I won’t have made that very important call that I promised myself I’d make before dinner. Procrastination extraordinaire. I shell a few nuts onto a saucer, then pick up my drink and my phone.

  ‘Hello?’

  This is the first time I’ve heard my brother’s voice for ten years and I think it sounds more cultured, mature than last time. ‘Hello, this is Charlotte, your sister. I use Lottie nowadays, though.’

  ‘Lottie! Oh, I’m so glad you’ve called.’

  This is encouraging. ‘I thought I should really – see what we can work out.’ I sound much more relaxed than I am, and I hear a few muted voices on the line. James is probably doing that holding the phone to his chest thing that Mother does while he talks to someone in the room. He’s probably telling his wife that I’m on the line.

  ‘Great! I thought that you wouldn’t after Caleb told me that you weren’t best pleased… um… upset…’ His voice falters and stops.

  ‘Well, yes. I wasn’t best pleased that he’d gone behind my back to you, betrayed my trust. But it wasn’t to do with you, really.’

  James’s words come out in a rush, run into each other as if he’s worried that I’d not want to hear them or something.

  ‘No, no, of course not, I totally understand. I told Caleb that you’d be pissed off if he did what he did when we first met. Oh, that sounds bad, doesn’t it? I’m not trying to get him into more trouble, he does genuinely care about you and I think he’s a good guy.’

  ‘Yes, well, I didn’t ring to talk about Caleb,’ I say a bit too stabbily. I had only meant to aim for my ‘in control of the conversation’ voice. I sigh and pop a few nuts into my mouth. I then wish I hadn’t – I imagine that someone crunching nuts down the phone into your ear is very annoying.

  ‘No, of course you didn’t. Look, can we meet tomorrow? I have a few days’ holiday and face to face is better than the phone, isn’t it?’

  I shove the crunched nuts to the side of my mouth and pin my tongue against them, which of course isn’t the best idea when you are expected to answer a question, but there’s a panicky feeling in my chest and my heart is beating fast. Tomorrow? Crikey, that’s a bit soon, isn’t it? I wasn’t expecting that. I’d expected time to mull over the conversation, eating chicken and potatoes with my feet up watching some drivel on the box, while not really watching it at all. Hell. Now, as you have no doubt noticed, my thoughts are turning themselves into a big pile of nonsense and I fear my tongue is permanently stuck in this position.

  ‘Lottie? You okay?’

  I grab my glass and wash down the nuts, but the fizz makes me cough a little. I take a breath. ‘Yes, just eating nuts and got one stuck momentarily.’ Momentarily? Who uses that in normal conversation?

  ‘Oh, I see,’ James says, and I think I can hear a suppressed chuckle. ‘So, are you free tomorrow?’

/>   Am I? I have the calico cat to finish and I suppose I should get some shopping in. Then I hear Louisa’s voice in my ear. Go for it, Lottie. Make peace with the past before it swallows you whole. ‘Yes, okay. Late afternoon for coffee somewhere?’

  ‘Fantastic! I’ll come to you. How about Mawgan Porth? Our mum said you were thinking of renting a studio and shop there.’

  ‘Mother would.’ I emphasise the word mother. ‘I seem to be quite the topic of conversation with a few people, don’t I? Unbeknownst to me, of course.’ Unbeknownst and momentarily… I shake my head and take another drink.

  ‘You do. And Lottie, just so you know, I went to see our mother a few days ago with the express purpose of talking about the way forward for our family. My wife came, too. I’m telling you now because you might think it sounds like some sort of betrayal again if I just spring it on you tomorrow.’

  I really don’t like the sound of this. My ‘family’ getting together to talk about me behind my back. ‘Right. More behind the scenes plotting,’ I say in a pondering type of way. I don’t know what else to say, though. I don’t want to tell James that I don’t like the sound of it because I’m supposed to be making peace, not starting battles, aren’t I?

  ‘Hopefully it will make sense tomorrow. And Lottie, this isn’t plotting or a betrayal, it’s a way forward… I hope. Closure, if you like.’

  I say I hate that word and he laughs, says he’s not too fond of it either. We agree to meet at three at the Merrymoor Inn and then end the call.

  The calico cat watches me as I set the table and take out the casserole. I ask her why Mother always has to fuck everything up for me. I was sort of looking forward to making contact with James, you know, just me and him? I was getting used to the thought of talking things through with him, getting his perspective, and now I find that everyone in the family has recently met up together apart from me, and why? So, they can talk about me.

  The calico cat listens to my ramblings for the next while but says nothing. Neither does the ghost of her companion in the tree. The casserole could have been cotton wool for all the enjoyment it gave me, yet I appear to have finished it all. I push my empty plate to one side and realise that’s how I feel now. Empty. Is there really any point to meeting James tomorrow, raking over how I feel, how he feels, as if we’re in some bloody therapy session? I have a cat to finish and other stuff to do. In the end I decide to sleep on it and see what tomorrow morning tells me to do. Hopefully it will have a better idea than I do right now.

  22

  Naming the Future

  It’s afternoon and I’m putting the shopping away. I have bought enough to sustain the population of Leningrad through their entire siege period. Okay, that’s a lie, but there is far too much. The freezer is full to busting and so is my head. Of thoughts, I hasten to add, not food. That would be very uncomfortable and quite surreal.

  The calico cat rolls her eyes and huffs at me. Well, I imagine she does because I haven’t finished her as I promised. When I woke this morning, it seemed like a good idea to get out and do something that I didn’t have to concentrate on too much. Something day to day like shopping. Turns out that I perhaps should have concentrated just a teensy bit more, because in my hand is a packet of nappy sacks. Must have picked them up instead of bin liners.

  I turn my back on the calico cat and run water into the kettle. Taking up the majority of space in my full to busting head is thoughts of the meeting I’m having with James later. The shopping trip has seen me change my mind about meeting him several times. Each time I thought I’d put forward valid reasons for not going, a trickle of counter reasons seeped through them as if they were acid on litmus.

  The idea of ringing Mother even made an appearance, because I thought it might be a good idea to get a picture of what happened at this closed meeting, so I can be prepared when I meet James. Mother, as we know, can embroider the truth, or just plain lie, however, so that scenario had been sloughed off into the frozen fish section and shoved under some fish fingers.

  The clock tells me I have only about an hour and a half to eat lunch, do a bit to the calico cat, and then get ready before I leave for the meeting. I tell it to mind its own bloody business because I haven’t decided if I’m going or not yet. The phone sits quietly on the counter trying its best to make me ignore it, but my eyes flick over to it every few minutes. I manage to pull them back to my ham sandwich each time, because it would be the easy way out, wouldn’t it? Pick up the phone, make up some excuse to James about why I couldn’t meet him, and then I could get on with my life.

  Eventually the same dilemma would barge its way into the business of getting on with my life though, wouldn’t it? James won’t just dissolve into the ether, will he? No. Louisa’s advice whisper in my ears again and I consider ringing her. There’s no point, though, because she’ll just tell me to meet him and get it over with. Damn it. I ought to just do it and stop piddling about. My eyes meet those of the calico cat over the top of my coffee cup and I know that there’s not really enough time to do her justice. Not when my head is all over the place. I tell her I’m sorry and I imagine that she yawns as if she’s trying to pretend she couldn’t give a shit.

  So here I am in the beer garden, looking out over the ocean. I got here half an hour early because I didn’t want him to be the one to pick a table, watch me walk towards him, control everything from the off. No. I want to be the one to do that. It’s very busy and I’m lucky to have a table nearest the beach. I only secured it because I did the hovering vulture act. As an elderly couple stood up to leave I swooped in and slid along the still warm bench even before the woman had picked up her bag. I nearly spilled my tea over her in the process, but she didn’t look too put out. Or at least that’s what I told myself.

  A thought occurs to me. How will I recognise him? I’ve seen photos of him at my parents’ house, but photos aren’t always a reflection of reality, are they? Besides, I don’t look at them if I can avoid it. I draw my disinterested filter blinds across my eyes mostly and Mother knows not to deliberately draw my attention to them. I even refused to look at his wedding pictures.

  I do know that Mother doesn’t like his wife, but then nobody would be good enough for her precious son. When I found out that her father was from Nigeria I did wonder if that was another reason Mother didn’t like her, because I’d noticed her nasty small-minded prejudices over the years. Not just against black people, but people who lived on council estates, who had children outside wedlock (yes, really), same-sex marriages, the people who took advantage of the welfare system, the list goes on.

  Upon a challenge, she would argue that she wasn’t prejudiced, just remarking on the fact that they weren’t the same as us, lived in a totally different way, and that it wouldn’t do for her, but she guessed it took all sorts. I told her that as she knew, I liked difference and not to rope me into the ‘us’ bit, thank you very much. I asked her if the dislike of her son’s wife had anything to do with her colour and she said that was ridiculous. Her cheeks went pink and her mouth tight, so then I knew my suspicions were correct.

  I think I hear someone call my name and my stomach flips. I turn to see a man hurrying up the steps towards me: James, of course, he has my eyes. Before you say it, they aren’t actually mine, they just look like them. I think what a good memory he must have for faces, because he hasn’t seen mine for fifteen years, unless Mother makes him look at my photos, of course. I stand. My heart is thumping, and it looks like he’s going to hug me, so I stick my hand out – I’m not ready for hugs.

  ‘Lottie! So fantastic to meet you,’ he says, pumping my hand. ‘You are even more beautiful than your photo.’

  Annoyingly my skin decides to set itself on fire and my voice comes out a little too loud. ‘You’re very kind, but beautiful is pushing it. I’m not bad, of course – well I don’t think I am, though it’s hard to be objective when looking in the mirror, isn’t it?’ I was about to say something else but realised this was more th
an enough.

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is. Nobody wants to think they’re ugly, do they?’ James grins and then stops. ‘Not that you are, of course.’ His skin is copying mine and I watch his Adam’s apple bob. ‘No, as I said, you’re beautiful.’

  His vulnerability has put me at ease, or at least a little bit. The fact that he’s a consultant and obviously very clever has been quietly whispering in my head on the way here; in fact, it has popped up now and again even before I agreed to meet him. Not that I don’t think I’m clever, but it’s the white coat syndrome thing, I suppose. Plus, the fact that he’s always been held up as a beacon of success that everyone should aspire to (especially me) by my mother hasn’t helped.

  ‘Well, thank you. And you’re very handsome,’ I say, because he is. ‘Have a seat – I got us a good one.’

  ‘You have, it’s lovely.’ He looks at the ocean and pushes his hand through his hair. I think he could be nervous. I also think he’s considering what to say next. James looks at me and his smile is warm. ‘I’ll go and get us a drink, shall I?’

  I nod at my cup. ‘Another tea would be nice, thanks.’

  ‘I was thinking of a bottle of champagne – this is a celebration, after all.’

  This is not what I’m expecting. We’ve a bloody long way to go before we can decide that meeting again is a good thing. What if it all goes tits up? I opt for the obvious response instead of speaking my mind, which annoys me. ‘No thanks. That wouldn’t be a good idea with both of us driving.’

  ‘No. But I’m staying here at the inn overnight and I thought I’d arrange a taxi for you home and one back again in the morning to collect your car.’ James grins and looks very pleased with himself.