Big Cats and Kitten Heels

by Claire Peate

  “There must be a hotel around here,” Henna said quietly, “there’s a whole coach load of Germans down near the front of the room.”

  “Really?” I asked. “What on earth are they doing in deepest Wales?” I peered over to where she had indicated, trying to catch a glimpse of the checked-trousered, wire-frame-bespectacled tourists.

  Cathy looked amused. “Why do you think they’re Germans, Henna?”

  “They’re talking in German,” Henna answered, with a “duh!” look at Cathy.

  “That’s not German, it’s Welsh,” Cathy said, more amused than ever. We braced ourselves for a linguistic lecture. It didn’t come. Cathy just stood there with her arms crossed looking very superior with an “ask me! ask me!” look on her face. But no one asked her. We all strained to listen and sure enough, I could make out that they were speaking Welsh.

  “That is just so weird,” Louisa said loudly. “Now I really feel like I’m on holiday, hearing a foreign language. Do they really speak like that here? I thought it was one of those dead languages, you know, like Belgian.”

  “Belgian?”

  “Well, I don’t know what you’re laughing about, Rachel. It happens to be true. No one speaks Belgian any more.”

  “Oh, OK.”

  “As a matter of fact Louisa’s right,” Cathy said to me, looking utterly serious, “no one speaks Belgian.”

  “See? The linguist agrees with me. You lot are constantly laughing at me on my hen weekend and it’s just not fair.” Louisa gave a haughty look and turned back to the bar to get served.

  “So do you speak Welsh then?” Henna asked, starting to pick at one of her spots. “Living in Cardiff, I suppose you must do.”

  “Should you really be doing that? Anyway, no, I don’t speak Welsh. I might try to learn though. You know, it would be a bit weird to be married to Gwyn and not be able to talk to him in his own language.”

  “I heard that,” Louisa said without looking round from the bar.

  Henna and I exchanged glances.

  I was rather sick of wine so I ordered a pint of some Welsh beer and walked over to the table Laura had commandeered near the entrance, beside the non-German Welsh-speakers.

  “So, Rachel, you’re the tallest here, can you see the fit farmer?”

  “No,” I said mournfully. “I looked the minute we got in but he’s not here. To be honest, I’m a bit disappointed, I had hoped he was representative of the male population in rural Wales, but it doesn’t seem to be the case.”

  “You can say that again,” said Henna, swigging her pint. “We must be the youngest in here by about two hundred years. Maybe in their heyday they were something to look at but bloody hell, there are some real munters here.”

  “Shush!” Laura hissed. “Some of the munters probably understand English.”

  “I bet the barwoman was a looker,” whispered Cathy and we all turned en masse to have a look at the woman who had just wiped our table down. She caught us in the act.

  “Everything all right?”

  “Oh. Yes. Fine,” we mumbled. Honestly, talk about pack mentality.

  “I think you’re right,” I said quietly, still hot with shame, fiddling with my beer mat. “I mean, she must be about sixty but she’s got a nice face. Good bone structure and all that. I bet she used to look a bit like Mae West in her younger days.”

  “That old farmer bloke over there thinks she’s still got it.” Laura nodded in the direction of the bar and we turned again en masse to look. An old red-faced man was sitting nursing a pint in the corner of the bar, huddled up in his waxed jacket and wearing a knackered old cap.

  “He looks familiar,” I said. “Where have I seen him before?”

  “Down in the city maybe,” Louisa giggled, “at one of your nightclubs on a night out with his mates?”

  “You’re right though.” Henna was studying him. “He is watching the barwoman, isn’t he? Do you think that’s her husband?”

  “No way,” I said, examining him for a moment, watching the furtive little looks he kept giving the woman behind the bar, in between staring into space and taking the occasional sip from his pint. I had the best seat from which to examine him and the old man certainly didn’t have that everything-you-say-bores-the-arse-off-me look that a lot of people of that age tend to have when they look at their spouses. I was pretty sure he wasn’t her husband.

  “Lovers, then?” asked Laura.

  Henna snorted and then started picking at the skin around her toxin-spots. “He is staring at her, though,” she said, “that would really freak me out if that was me.”

  “Well, it’s not you,” said Louisa, “and sorry to break it to you honey, but he seems to prefer looking at the old bar woman than looking at you.”

  “Now that’s sad,” Laura said and Henna had to agree.

  While this conversation was taking place, Cathy had gone to the loo but now she returned with an odd look on her face. She wordlessly dropped a pile of leaflets on the table in front of us.

  “Look guys. These were by the front door – we must have missed them in the rush to get in. It must be serious…”

  We scrabbled for the rough photocopied sheets and read. My hands went clammy as I got down the page.

  CIRCULATED BY SOUTH WALES POLICE – AUGUST 2007

  What happens if you see a big cat? Dr Richard Maiden of London Zoo recommends:

  The danger to countryside users from the species of cats thought to be present in Britain is small. However, there is a significant risk that a cat may attack a human if it is cornered, if its young are threatened or if the person encountering it otherwise aggravates the cat. If you encounter an exotic cat…

  “Fucking hell! Have you got to the bit about shooting them?” Henna slapped her copy down on the table and stared at us wide-eyed.

  “No,” we all chimed in. Being a journalist Henna had powers of speed-reading well beyond us mortals.

  “Sorry.” She hung her head and we carried on.

  If you encounter an exotic cat you should carry out the following procedures:

  a) Walk away, without turning away from the cat, slowly and deliberately. DO NOT RUN.

  b) Do not make full eye contact with the cat or try to stare at the cat’s eyes, as this is considered threatening behaviour and may instigate territorial behaviours from the cat.

  c) Hold out your arms and try to make yourself look big. Shout and jump up and down if appropriate.

  d) Act human; talk and make noise as you walk. Do not walk away quietly.

  e) Allow the cat to move away at its own pace and in its own direction. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO FOLLOW THE CAT.

  f) DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SHOOT THE CAT. Not only is this a safety issue, since an injured cat may represent a significant danger to humans, but there may also be serious legal issues involved.

  In most cases the cat will take off, fairly quickly. Most cat species are very shy and contact with humans is rare.

  If you think you have seen a big cat call your local police on the numbers below.

  One by one we finished reading our leaflets and put them back on the table, expressionless. Laura was just about to say something when the barwoman came over and began to serve dinner.

  Suddenly walking up the hill in inappropriate shoes seemed like a really stupid idea.

  “It’s all a hoax,” the barwoman said, seeing the leaflets and our pale faces as she dealt out the plates. “Scampi? That yours, love? Yes, we’ve had big cat scares before and we’ll have them again. No doubt about it. I wouldn’t worry about it, to be honest. It’s young lads having a laugh.”

  “Rachel here met a farmer, didn’t you Rachel. He didn’t think it was a hoax.” Louisa verbally pushed me forward.

  “That’ll be Tomos or Gwynfor, then,” she said,

  smoothing down her apron and looking at me questioningly.

  “Gwynfor,” I said and I blushed when I saw the nod she gave me. She managed to convey an awful lot in that one small tilt of her he
ad; a sort of ‘and-I-bet-you-liked-what-you-saw-eh?’ nod.

  “Well, anyway,” I continued, trying to act all cool about it, “he said one of his sheep was attacked last night. And he didn’t think it was attacked by a dog.”

  “It’s true,” came a deep voice behind me. I looked round. It was him – all dark eyes and thick black hair – standing there in a T-shirt and cords that I couldn’t help noticing were rather stretched over his thighs.

  How long had he been standing there?

  I caught fire, burnt up and crumbled into ash on the carpet below my chair. Oh, the shame. Most of the girls round the table were staring up at him semi-open-mouthed. At least they weren’t looking at me, writhing in my own private little hell in front of a plate of scampi.

  “Hi,” he said, looking down at me burning away.

  “Hello,” I managed, “how’s the sheep?”

  “Still dead.”

  “I meant, what’s the verdict on the sheep?” I asked, trying to recover a smidgeon of my composure and making room for him as he was pulling up a chair next to me.

  “Don’t mind if I join you?” he asked, sitting astride the chair like it was the tiniest of footstools. Five open mouths surrounded the table, with five plates of untouched food on the table. How good did he look in those cords?

  “The vet said he just couldn’t tell what predator got the animal, so it’s gone on to higher powers. He did say, though, that it showed signs of being a big cat kill because a dog would have attacked the other sheep in the group. But he couldn’t be sure from the tissue damage. Anyway, I should know more tomorrow.”

  “Great,” I said, again without thinking. Why had my brain suddenly decided to leave me alone at this point? What was “great” about it? That his animal had died? That it could be a big cat killing? Doh!

  The barwoman brought over a pint of something dark for Gwyn, and the two of them exchanged a few more words in Welsh. I shot a glance around the table and saw that most of the girls had regained their composure, closed their mouths and were tentatively picking up knives and forks. Louisa was running her hands through her hair, smoothing it down, and, when she thought no one was looking, she glanced down at her cleavage, considered it for a second and yanked her strapless top down a couple more centimetres. My DLC self was mortified. I was sure I could see nipple.

  I picked up my cutlery and forced myself to eat. The scampi was good, which was fortunate as I didn’t seem to have much of an appetite and could easily have left the plate untouched. Why is it that finding yourself next to a devilishly handsome man completely takes away your appetite? What good does that do anyone? It means that Romeo and Juliet must have been absolutely famished – I couldn’t imagine Romeo squeezing a wedge of lemon over his scampi and chips after he’d spent an evening under the balcony with Juliet. Infatuation should come with a health warning.

  “So who’s the hen then?” Gwyn looked round the group of us, measuring us up before tentatively pointing to Louisa.

  “Yes!” she said, absolutely delighted to be singled out, “how on earth did you guess?”

  “You have a badge on.” He pointed to her chest.

  “Oh that!” she laughed and fiddled with the “Chief Hen” pin that Laura had given her.

  Gwyn started making polite conversation about her wedding plans and so on, so I ate my scampi in silence trying not to be super-conscious of the man sitting centimetres away from me, his enormous muscular thigh almost touching mine. He wasn’t talking to me anyway, he was preoccupied with talking to the others about the plans for the weekend. Laura told him about the incident at the spa with the two waitresses and the subject of the stag do was brought up. Louisa jumped into action.

  “Why don’t I call James?” she said suddenly, when Laura had finished explaining to Gwyn about the overheard conversation.

  “Why?” I asked, with a mouthful of chips. “What good would that do you?”

  “Well,” she considered for a moment, “it would put my mind at ease if he still said he was staying in tonight.”

  “And you’d believe him if he told you he was staying in?” I asked.

  “Maybe not.”

  “And what if he says he’s going out,” asked Henna, “would that make you feel any better?”

  “He could be honest about it, couldn’t he? He might say that the lads were up for a night out so he’s going along although he really doesn’t want to…”

  “Really doesn’t want to go out for a night on the town on his stag weekend?” Laura said, pointedly.

  “Well—” Louisa searched her thoughts for the most positive outcome. “He might just want to play darts or snooker or something.”

  “I think,” said Cathy with a mouthful of lasagne, “that you should call him. Otherwise you’ll just be worrying about it all night.”

  We all stared at Cathy for a moment. Was she actually advocating that Louisa phone her fiancé? This advice from the girl who wouldn’t phone her fiancé and suffered endless texts all weekend.

  Henna, who was managing to rub off most of the concealer on her toxin-spots, thought for a second before saying, “I agree with Cathy. You should phone him and get it out into the open. You’ll just dwell on it otherwise.”

  “Does everyone think that?” Louisa asked.

  “No, I don’t,” I said eventually.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, I think it’s probably best if you don’t know and just expect the best of him. If the lads aren’t meeting up with the girls at the pub then everything is rosy, but if they are – well, James will either lie to you and you’ll hate him for it, or he’ll tell you the truth and you’ll hate him for it. And if the lads aren’t meeting up with the girls and James tells you that they aren’t, you won’t believe him anyway. So he can’t win. I say you should definitely not phone him. Just have a good time tonight.” I tried to say the last bit without looking directly at Gwyn.

  “And I agree with Rachel,” Gwyn added, looking at me impressed, “I think she’s got all the angles covered.”

  Louisa thought about it deeply for a moment. I, on the other hand, thought about nothing deeper than just how lovely it was to hear Gwyn say my name in his lovely Welsh accent. All basey with sing-song lilting vowels.

  “OK,” Louisa said slowly, “I’ve made my decision. I’m going to call James. Just to ask how things are going. Nothing heavy. I won’t ask anything specific. And then I can gauge things from there. That’s a good plan, isn’t it, a compromise between the two? Not come out and question him about the girls?”

  I wasn’t so sure that there could be a compromise, but I nodded anyway. Louisa remained seated at the table while she made the call. She stuck to her plan of not directly coming out with any accusations but just gauging how things were from what James was saying. She was looking pretty positive about whatever James was saying so all of us girls around the table were giving her the thumbs up.

  “Oh right,” she was saying, “oh right … and did he get his vision back? … Oh that’s good … Yes we’re having a great time. Great … No we were at the health spa … No that’s tomorrow … Yes …”

  Henna and I gave her a big thumbs up. She was definitely playing it cool.

  “The health spa was interesting actually,” Louisa continued.

  The thumbs froze.

  Laura held her hands out in a “don’t do it!” motion. We all looked tensely at Louisa who looked down and was tracing the pattern of the wood on the tabletop and ignoring us.

  “So are you fucking around with valley girls then tonight or what?”

  None of us put our thumbs up after that.

  Gwyn leant to me and whispered, “She doesn’t work in PR by any chance?”

  “Estate agent,” I whispered back.

  “Oh, right then.” He nodded.

  “Well, it’s no fucking good telling me that, you naive fucking bastard!” Louisa shouted at the phone, spit flying everywhere. “I overheard some rough Welsh TARTS talking abo
ut your plans today. And I know what your mates are like for egging you on so don’t think I’m fucking stupid!”

  I looked around at the faces of our fellow diners turned towards our table. I smiled tightly and hoped that Welsh was their only language and they hadn’t got round to learning English yet. It was a long shot and judging by the expressions of some of the women at least it was a pretty sure bet that they spoke English and not just the polite bits.

  Gwyn kept himself busy by eating my dinner, stealing chips and scampi off my plate when he thought I wasn’t looking. I shot him a mock-disgruntled look and he shrugged innocently. Louisa watched us both with beady eyes before eventually snapping her phone closed.

  “Well, girls, and Gwyn,” she said in a brittle way, getting up, “I’m going to the bar to get a very large drink. Very large. Everyone OK for drinks?”

  When she was safely at the bar and out of earshot Henna whispered, “Sounded to me that James told her nothing was going on this evening. Big mistake! You were right, Rachel, I don’t reckon she should have called.”

  “We should rally round her in her hour of need,” piped up Cathy in her matter-of-fact way. “We have a job to do on this hen weekend and that’s to make sure Louisa has a great time. And gets over this evening.”

  “And you’re responsible too.” Henna pointed one of her chips at Gwyn.

  “Me?” he said innocently.

  “Oh yes,” Henna laughed. “You’ve got to help her in her hour of need!”

  “And how do you propose I do that then?” he said good-naturedly, playing along with them. The great thing about him was that he was so unaffected by it all. He wasn’t playing any kind of game or flirting, he was just being himself – well, I was pretty sure he was being himself. Not that I knew him at all well having only met him yesterday. But he seemed a really genuine person and I can’t say I’d met many people like him.