by Claire Peate
Was this normal? For the second time that weekend I lay in bed clutching the duvet, terrified. I had half a mind to go run upstairs and ask Laura whether it often gets this windy out in the middle of nowhere or whether this was really serious weather. But then she’d just think I was a pathetic townie and really, what good would it do me to know whether this was normal or not? It wouldn’t make the slightest difference.
On its own the gale wouldn’t have worried me, but combined with the possibility of a big cat stalking around outside it terrified me. Now the howling gusts and violent cracking of branches, along with the creaks and groans of the old house, took on a more ominous tone. Maybe that howl wasn’t the wind at all but a baying big cat? Maybe that rattle of the door was someone trying to get in? Maybe that crunching of gravel was the cat prowling around outside?
My heart stopped.
Crunching of gravel?
I listened, every muscle tense.
Crunch, crunch, crunch. Outside my window, by the front door.
The wind wouldn’t do that! The wind couldn’t crunch gravel, could it? No! It might blow it along a bit but not make it crunch in the measured steps I could hear. Oh my God. The cat was outside the house.
Outside my window!
That Discomania! man had caused my impending death. Thanks to him I was the last to arrive at the house and now I had this poky room right by the front door where the cat was prowling and no doubt preparing to hurl itself at the window to get in. Could an old leaded window sustain a body blow from a blood-hungry big cat?
As I lay there in the dark I could picture a pack of slavering leopards hurtling through the woods towards the house, fangs bared and claws at the ready. Pounding towards me…
And there it was again, crunching on the gravel. Without a doubt something was prowling outside between the front door and my room.
ACT LIKE A HUMAN! I scrambled up in bed and whacked on the table light scattering everything on the floor.
I froze, listening. Surely it can’t be Gwyn wandering outside again?
There was a scratching sound at the window.
I screamed. Fighting with the bed sheet, I fell on to the floor, picked myself up and pelted out of the room. I tore through the pantry, sending boxes of cereal flying. I pushed past the narrow shelves and emerged into the kitchen running to the hallway. When I got there I saw Laura, Henna and Cathy hurtling down the stairs looking equally frenzied.
“Did you hear it too?” I shrieked, coming to a halt on the stairs.
“We’re going to die,” squealed Henna. “Tonight. That’s it. We’re doomed!”
“It’s outside,” I wailed. “It was right by my window. Right there. Oh my God. Do you think it can smell us?” I saw a movement in the corner of my eye and turning my head I looked up the staircase. My mouth opened involuntarily. “Oh … my … God …”
Everyone stared at me and then, fearing the worst, slowly turned to follow my line of sight. En masse we saw Louisa slowly descending step by step. Hair curled and set, full make-up on she sauntered down towards us, dressed in a tiny black negligee, tinier black pants and a pair of feather trimmed kitten heel slippers.
“Do you think its Gwyn outside?” she asked, wide eyed with an innocent expression as though she really had been fast asleep looking like that.
“Oh thank God, it’s Gwyn!” Laura’s expression, that had up to that point been somewhere between petrified and more petrified, relaxed. “I knew he’d be back.” She put her hand on her chest and breathed deeply.
“It’s not Gwyn,” I said slowly. “It’s definitely not Gwyn out there.”
“Is it just the wind?” Henna volunteered with a shaky voice, holding on to the banisters for support.
“Well, there’s that as well but – listen!” Cathy stuck her hand up for silence and we all froze, ears straining to hear the noise again.
It was distorted by the gale but it was there, right outside where we were standing. Something was scratching at the front door.
And then there was a howl.
Henna was visibly shaking.
Louisa was frowning. “It sounds like Caaa-eee,” she said. “Do big cats make that noise? Is that a call? Laura, you must know. Is it a cat? Are we going to die?”
“How do I know?” Laura flung her hands up. “Shit, no one has ever prepared me for a cat attack. We don’t do that in the army. I don’t know what to do! I don’t have anything on me! Shit!” She looked around for a weapon.
Henna held her hands up to her face and wailed, “Oh my God, we’re going to die. We’re going to die. WE ARE GOING TO DIE!”
“Shut up Henna!” Louisa shook her but Henna wouldn’t be stopped. “Should we call the police? Should we do something? Are the doors all locked? Did anyone check the cellar door? Is the cellar door locked?”
There was an ominous silence. The wind howled round the house and there was another “Caaa-eee” wail. We stood motionless on the staircase. No one breathed.
“What cellar door?” said Cathy slowly.
My heart, which up to this point had been pounding away in my chest, now leapt into my throat. Was there a cellar door?
“The cellar door,” Henna said hoarsely, “at the back of the house!”
Everyone was looking blankly at one another all thinking the same thing: We have a cellar door?
“I didn’t know there was a cellar door!” wailed Louisa in a small voice.
The noise came again. Closer. Nobody moved. I felt tears prickle behind my eyes I was so scared. This was it. There was a cellar door and it was open. We were going to be torn in two. Every one of us five girls, torn in two where we stood huddled against the banisters in our night wear. Ten bloody pieces of girl and a pair of black kitten heels – that’s all they’d find when the police came round in the morning. I haven’t even made my will. Who would get my Ikea furniture?
Henna had started to cry. “You gave Gwyn the poker,” she sobbed, pointing an accusing finger at me. “That’s all we had to defend ourselves with and you gave it away!”
“We should call the vet!” I said. “I could press redial on the phone and get Gwyn’s vet from last night. He’d know what to do.”
“Oh!” Cathy exclaimed. She’d been standing at the top of the staircase up to this point, but now she suddenly threw herself down the stairs, two at a time, heading straight for the front door.
“Cathy!”
She ran across the hallway. She was at the front door.
“What?” Laura made a move to stop her, but it was too late.
“Cathy, NO!” Henna screamed.
Already the bolts were being driven back and the huge iron key inserted in the lock.
Surely she wasn’t going to open the front door?
She opened the front door.
“NO!” we all screamed, scrambling up the stairs.
Cathy ran out into the night.
The wind rushed in and up the stairs. Louisa’s negligee flew upwards. She gripped it down around her thighs. “Jesus Christ! Someone shut the fucking door.”
It was banging on its hinges in the gale, groaning.
I looked at Henna. Laura looked at Louisa. Henna looked at me.
Laura was the first to move, her TA training finally kicking in. Leaping down the stairs she ran out into the night after Cathy.
“Laura! Oh Fuck!” Louisa sank onto the stairs, her head in her hands.
Henna and I looked at each other, wondering whether we ought to go out after Laura. But then neither of us was that stupid. We wouldn’t willingly let ourselves be the equivalent of a walking can of Whiskas.
The three of us that remained stayed where we were, not uttering a word between us, staring at the black night through the wide-open doorway below.
It seemed like an eternity, but suddenly Laura emerged from the gloom, clinging on to the doorframe, red-faced and panting.
“It’s OK,” she managed, gasping for breath, “it’s OK.”
“Oh thank
God.” I managed to let go of the banister. My fingers ached with the force of gripping the handrail.
“What…?” Louisa began.
“It’s not a cat,” Laura panted.
“Oh thank God.” Henna slumped onto the stairs and started crying again. “I thought we were going to get eaten. I really thought that was it.”
“What is it then?” I came down into the hallway now that the coast was clear.
“It turns,” Laura gasped, “it turns out … its Cathy’s fiancé. He’s come to see her.”
Oh.
I sat down on the stair.
Oh.
It all made sense now.
The crunching of gravel, the scratches at the front door. And of course! The howling. It was her fiancé! “Caa-eeeee” was “Cathy”.
Henna was still sitting on the top stair crying, but now out of relief. Laura climbed the staircase and came to a stop at Henna’s step. She sank down and put her arm round her. “Come on.” She pulled her to her. “You’re safe, you know.”
“I know.” Henna’s voice was small and wobbly. “It’s still fucking scary though.”
“Hi guys!” We all looked down to the front door. Cathy was standing in the doorway, a-glow with an enormous Cheshire-cat smile on her face.
No one said anything.
“I guess I owe everyone an apology,” she beamed.
“No, let me!” A short blonde man strode in from behind her. He was prematurely balding with small mole-like eyes and ruddy jowls. He had the look of a man that rarely turned down the offer of a pudding. Cathy was engaged to him?
He stepped forward and holding Cathy’s hand in his own announced, “Laura has just been telling me what’s going on with this wild cat thing and I just can’t tell you how sorry I am that I might have scared you all.”
“Fucking try, arsehole,” Henna muttered, blowing her nose into Laura’s handkerchief before handing it back to her. Laura tried not to look too disgusted.
“Heath and I … well, we’ve been through a rough patch.” Cathy was still standing in the doorway, looking at her jowly fiancé lovingly.
Heath put his hands on her shoulders. “And I decided to come up and see her. I didn’t know what to do when I got here though. Her phone was off and, well, it was dark and I wasn’t completely sure I’d got the right place. So I was trying to tap at the door quietly.” He looked at us all, unashamedly amused at his having scared the shit out of us. His appearance changed, ever so briefly, as his eyes rested on Louisa and her windswept negligee, but then he politely turned his eyes away, only glancing in her direction a few times more.
“So you tapped on the window quietly so that you wouldn’t disturb anyone?” I asked.
“I’m sorry. I, well, I didn’t know about this wild cat rumour.”
“Big cat,” Laura cut in.
Cathy seemed oblivious to the mood of the house. Still smiling and fawning over her porky fiancé, she nudged him forward, whispering in his ear.
Turning back to us she announced, “I’m sorry guys, but I’ve made the decision that I’m going to go home with Heath. Is that OK?”
“Fine by me,” Louisa said.
The rest of us nodded, mutely.
“Good luck with the rest of the weekend,” she said, arms around Heath. “And I hope that cat thing works out OK. Come on, Heath, help me pack my stuff.”
And with that they walked upstairs, Heath slowing to ogle Louisa who was now trying desperately to hide her breasts.
“Do you think there are any other men out there?” I stood up, still shaky, “because I don’t think I can take another night of terror.”
“I don’t know.” Louisa rose up. “It’s OK when they turn out to be fit farmers, but overweight jilted lovers? No thank you. Anyway, I’m going to get a dressing gown.”
“Whiskey!” Henna emerged from her hunched position. “We need whiskey. Now.”
Laura and I followed Henna into the lounge. I was angry and tired and spent. I needed a drink like Marcia needed an audience. Louisa came down, wrapped up and make-up free and together we sat and stared into the fireless grate and drank our whiskeys in virtual silence.
Half an hour after they’d gone upstairs, Cathy and Heath wandered in to the lounge red-faced and tousle-haired.
“I think we’ve packed everything,” Cathy said sheepishly to us, “so we’ll be off.”
“Yeah, bye then,” said Louisa, not taking her eyes off the empty fireplace. “You take care now.”
“I’m really sorry…”
“Sure. Just go.”
“OK. And bye Laura, Rach, Henna. It’s been nice to meet you. See you at the wedding.”
Within a few moments we could just make out the noise of a car starting up and we heard it drive off into the windy night.
“I don’t care what just happened upstairs in her bedroom,” I declared. “I am definitely having that room. There is no way I am spending another night sleeping downstairs on my own. I don’t care if George Clooney comes knocking later on, I’m going upstairs.” And with that I walked back into my old room, threw my belongings into my bags, hoisted all six of them up onto my shoulders and staggered up the staircase to Cathy’s old room. I unpacked in the comfort and space of a proper bedroom. A bedroom with a double bed, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers and a chair. With space in between to walk. Luxury. I threw on new sheets I found in a cupboard and collapsed into bed. No hungry cats, no dishy farmers and definitely no heartbroken fiancés were going to keep me awake another hour.
18
It would be fair to say that, come breakfast the next morning, I was feeling pretty jittery. I was feeling as though I had actually come face to face with a big cat. The terror of the midnight prowlers and the drama of the TV reports combined with the cold facts from the big cat leaflets had merged in my mind to become one. I felt as though there really was a big cat out there, and I had actually seen it.
In fact all that had happened, as I tried to force myself to remember, was that we had seen someone who had been told by someone that one of his animals may have been attacked by a big cat. And that we’d read the leaflets in the pub that neither confirmed nor denied that there could be big cats out there. And we’d seen the TV report which may or may not have featured a big cat. So really, no one even knew if there was actually one out there. I tried to take my mind off it by focusing on Gwyn, stripped to the waist, hoisting rafters in the hot summer sun. But it was no good. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d seen a big cat and the three other remaining hen weekenders, it turned out, felt much the same way. We were well and truly spooked.
In this spirit Laura called the stables to ask whether our planned day of horse riding should be cancelled for fear of us being mauled to death on a bridle path. While she went off and made the phone call Louisa, Henna and I sat round the table eating our breakfast in silence broken only by, “Can you pass the butter?” or “More tea?” Our interrupted nights were getting the better of us. I was rather enjoying it though; it was a good alternative to my usual routine. Being so sensible and Dull Life Crisisy, I tended to go to bed at a reasonable time, especially if it was a work night. But I don’t think I’d ever felt quite so alive as I was feeling this morning. I was completely alert and awake – perhaps I’d been getting too much sleep before and I was permanently stupefied with rest? Or maybe this new feeling of being super-alert and alive was just the result of breaking out of my weekly grind of work work work work work shop shop.
Perhaps I wasn’t entering my “pipe and slippers” years quite yet.
“Pass the marmalade,” Henna asked me. “Cheers.” She spread a thick layer on her toast and took a bite. “Hey, I don’t suppose either of you have ever read that Agatha Christie novel And Then There Were None?”
“No.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, there’s this group of tourists who are stranded in a remote hotel and end up getting picked off one by one. And here we are with Cathy gone
– who’s going to be next?”
“Louisa,” I said, lining my crusts up on the plate.
“Thanks for that, Rach!”
“I mean you’ll be camped out at Gwyn’s.”
“Oh. Right. I thought you meant…”
“It’s still on!” Laura strode in from the hallway. “The owner of the stables says there’s no danger whatsoever. Same as at the pub, the word is the big cat scare is a hoax and they’ve had it loads of times before. And anyway, a cat isn’t going to attack a group of horses out on a trek. Everyone OK with that?”
She had a brittle way about her this morning, the sort of brittleness that comes with farmers and jilted lovers and exotic animals threatening to ruin your hard-worked plans. She stood, legs astride, arms crossed. Like a terminator, she slowly looked at us each in turn, waiting for one of us to crack. She was, at least at that moment, scarier than the prospect of actually being ragged by a big cat. So one by one we all nodded and went on chewing our toast, caught up in our own reveries.
My thoughts now wandered away from the subject of Gwyn and his lovely broad shoulders and on to the much less pleasant subject of horse riding. In all the noise and activity of the last couple of days, I’d almost managed to forget the fact that I would be going horse riding, but now it was looming all the old fears came flooding back to me.
Basically, I couldn’t ride.
Well, that wasn’t actually true because I didn’t know that I couldn’t ride on account of never actually having ridden a horse before, but there was every chance that I would be entirely crap at horse riding.
I was not an animal lover, and having grown up in a city and considered suburbia to be “the great outdoors”, I hadn’t been one of those country-raised horsey-girls like Laura that has rosettes pinned to walls and pictures of themselves hard-hatted cradling the head of some enormous stallion they’d just jumped over random fences with. The only times I had ever been near a horse was at the Notting Hill Carnival three years ago when the police were manipulating enormous beasts through the crowds. I was standing near to one when it decided to have a wee – and my God they can clear a space when they need to go.
