Big Cats and Kitten Heels

by Claire Peate

  I heard something. Quickening my pace, I shot nervous glances into the impenetrably dark woodland on either side. Only the tips of the branches were visible in the moonlight, reaching out into the lane.

  A new sound came from the woodland a bit further up from where I was, on my right. A snap. A twig. Something…

  I kept walking. I could feel tears prickling behind my eyes and I felt horribly sick. I carried on, not daring to stop or turn back.

  Again. The same noise. Snapping of twigs.

  I lifted my eyes from the track and looked into the murky woodland. I could just make out the nearest tree branches and the grassy verge before it all blended into blackness.

  And there it was.

  The puma.

  Up ahead at the edge of the wood. Two big eyes, a white face. It was huge. It was looking at me.

  I could hear nothing except the blood pounding in my ears. I was still trying to walk and I stumbled into a pothole and reeled, desperate to stay upright.

  I was crying now. It was here. It killed by pouncing.

  What should I do? My mind went blank as I tried to recall the list of things to do from the pub leaflet. What was it? What was it? I knew that stopping would be suicidal. I had to keep going.

  Torn in two!

  I was nearly level with the cat now – I could just make out its form through the blur of tears that were streaking down my face. It hadn’t moved and stood surveying me from the tall grass verge at the side of the track. Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit. I kept walking.

  Talk loudly. That was it! Talk loudly and act human. Hold my arms out and look as big as possible. Don’t run. Keep walking.

  Keep walking.

  Again my mind went blank.

  What could I talk about?

  I was really near now. Just a few metres. What did that policeman say? Twelve metre pounce? Shit shit.

  I slowly raised my shaking arms and held them out at shoulder height. All I could think of were wildlife programmes about big cats and birds and fungi and deer and Bill Oddie in bird-watching gear presenting those endless rounds of nature programmes…

  “BILL ODDIE,” I said loudly in a wobbly voice, “er … IT’S … IT’S REALLYANNOYINGTHEWAYTHATHE’SALWAYSONTHETVALLTHETIME.” I drew a big shaky breath and carried on, “HE’SPRESENTINGNATUREPROGRAMMESABOUTBIRDSANDTHEONSETOFSPRINGANDIREALLYDON’TCAREABOUTTHESETHINGSIMEANWHOCARESWHENTHEFIRSTBUMBLEBEEISSEENINBRITAINAND…ANDIHATETHEWAYTHATHELAUGHSTHATSTUPIDLAUGHWHENHESEESABIRDDOSOMETHINGHETHINKSISFUNNYBECAUSEIT’SNOTFUNNY…AND…ANYWAY…HEWASN’TTHEFUNNIESTONEINTHEGOODIESITHINKTIMBROOKE-TAYLORWASTHEBESTONE …”

  I drew a breath and carried on. I’d now passed where the puma was standing and was walking away from it. It was behind me. I didn’t look back to check. I didn’t dare. I was super-aware that the back of my neck was exposed when the breeze caught my hair. Waiting for the teeth to sink into it … Twelve metre pounce…

  “I’MSUREHE’SAVERYNICEGUYANDALLTHATBUTHE’SSOOVEREXPOSEDTHATYOUJUSTCAN’THELPGETTINGFEDUPWITHHIM…ER…ITHINKHESHOULDGIVEOTHERPEOPLEAGOATPRESENTINGWILDLIFEPROGRAMMESITHINKSTEPHENFRYWOULDBEAGOODPRESENTERORJEREMYCLARKSONORMAYBEBOTHTOGETHERTHENI’DFINDTHEMINTERESTINGANDWANTTOHEARWHATTHEYSAYABOUTBUMBLEBEES…”

  I wobbled on. No teeth in my neck yet...

  Tears were still coursing down my face and through my watery eyes I could just make out the turning to Gwyn’s farm on the right. I could see the light of a building through the trees. Was he home? My nose was running. I didn’t dare drop my arms and wipe my face. I was panting, sobbing, but still managed to carry on talking about Bill Oddie, arms outstretched brandishing my rolling-pin.

  I turned into the track towards Gwyn’s farm, which meant more exposure to the woodland where the cat was standing. But there was no way I would be able to walk another ten minutes to the pub – I had to get to safety right now. I didn’t know how my legs were able to keep moving but somehow it was happening.

  My arms ached.

  “ITHINKTHERESHOULDBEMORENATUREPROGRAMMESABOUTTHEDANGERSOFNATUREANYWAYLIKEPUMASANDSTUFFANDHOWTOSURVIVEANDSTUFF. GWYN!”

  I’d reached the front door and pounded on it with the rolling-pin.

  “GWYN!!!” I screamed.

  Nothing. I turned round, flattening my back to the door and holding the rolling-pin out in front of me like Luke Skywalker with his light sabre. I couldn’t see the puma, but I knew it was still there, in the woodland, watching me. I don’t know why, but I knew it could still see me. The moon had gone behind a wisp of cloud and I could now only make out the surface of the yard a few metres from the lit window.

  “GWYNFOR!!” I screamed again, pounding the door.

  The door opened.

  “Oh thank God!” I tumbled in.

  25

  I must have momentarily passed out and fallen to the ground because the next thing I was aware of was Gwyn leaning over me, lifting my head off the flagstone floor. Raising myself up, I managed to thrust out a leg to slam the front door shut behind me before giving way and sinking to the floor again in a jumble of filthy boots.

  “Rachel, what’s wrong?” He knelt down beside me.

  I started sobbing and shaking again, desperately trying to wipe away the snot and tears with my sleeve. My ringleted hair was all over my shoulders and my gold dress was half way up my legs but I didn’t have the energy to move. I was completely exhausted.

  He put a warm hand on my head and looked into my eyes. “What’s up, Rachel?”

  “The cat,” I snivelled, trying to draw breath, “it’s outside.”

  “Outside here?”

  “Yes!” I burst into tears again, out of relief. I was so grateful to be safely inside. In one piece. And not two.

  Gwyn was silent for a moment. “Stay there.” He left me on the floor and went into the room next to me and I heard a window closing. I hastily wiped my face with my sleeve and ran a hand through my hair, not that it would make me look remotely better. I must have looked shockingly bad. He came back and put his arms around me, hoisting me up like a bridegroom carrying his bride over the threshold. I winced, waiting for him to turn purple and stagger forward under my weight, but he walked down the hallway saying, “Come on, come and sit in the kitchen.” Maybe, just maybe, I was lighter than one of those rafters he’d been hauling in the Hen House photographs.

  I put my head against his shoulder as he carried me through the narrow dark passage to the kitchen. Was this moment worth the terror I’d just gone through outside? Probably.

  “You need a drink.” He gently put me down in an old rocking chair and turning to an ancient cupboard he pulled out a bottle of brandy.

  “Wait there. I’ll go and find some clean glasses.”

  He walked off and I looked around for the first time, taking in my surroundings now that I was calming down. Gwyn’s kitchen could not have been more different to the kitchen I was used to. For a start, my kitchen was small; ergonomically designed to fit only what was necessary and no more. This kitchen sprawled and turned and seemed to go on forever. I was used to a strip-lit spotlessly modern room with shiny plastic surfaces and gleaming metal appliances. Gwyn’s kitchen was dim and poky with a dark stone floor, dim red-painted walls and the most enormous redbrick fireplace complete with a spit along an entire wall. There was no fitted kitchen or melamine worktop in here, just dusty old kitchen drawers, the tops of which had doubled up as chopping boards for what must have been many generations. A huge Belfast sink was positioned by the window with a makeshift drainer next to it loaded with chipped crockery. There were still meat hooks in the ceiling beams, turned from black to grey by the accumulation of years of dust, with wispy cobwebs floating from them, moving in an invisible breeze. The paint was bubbling and peeling from the walls, the stone floor was gritty underfoot and the wooden cupboards and drawers were stained and grubby. But despite all this, the overall impression as I sat in the lamplight, huddled into the creaking chair, was of a very beautiful room. Somewhere with character and integ
rity. And somewhere in need of a woman’s touch.

  A loaf stood half-carved on the worktop with a wedge of cheese and a pack of butter beside it. Was that dinner?

  “Sorry. I didn’t know I’d be having a guest…” He came in with the glasses and poured us both a drink. “That’s twice I’ve been caught off guard by you hen weekenders. I’ll dress in my suit tomorrow, just in case I bump into any of you again.”

  I accepted the glass of brandy and took a big gulp, feeling it burn its way down. And then I had a coughing fit. I gripped the glass tightly and tried to force a smile, hoping against hope that he didn’t think I was wholly dreadful. Because just maybe this was the kind of look he liked in a woman?

  “I’m so sorry,” I began when I got my voice back again, “I can’t imagine what you must be thinking. I had to come up and tell you something I worked out. I had to tell you straight away. It couldn’t wait until tomorrow.”

  “Obviously,” he laughed, looking at the state I was in. “Top up?” He filled up my glass before I could answer. “So what couldn’t wait until tomorrow?” He was sitting opposite me on a rickety stool, his face lit by the soft light of the lamp on the mantelpiece. He looked so breathtakingly handsome just then that I almost forgot why I was there. Almost. His dark appearance was all the more rugged for being lit at an angle which threw his features into shadow. His eyes, shaded by his strong brow, and the curls of his black hair that fell forward as he leant towards me. And his old white shirt was part unbuttoned, the sleeves rolled up and covered in scuffs and marks. Man’s work…

  I took a deep breath. “I think I’ve discovered a connection between Tomos and the puma.”

  “Puma?”

  “That’s what they think it is.” I paused. “And having seen it on your doorstep, that’s what I think it is too. I mean, it’s definitely not a lion. And it’s definitely not a regular cat. I would say it’s something in between.”

  “Who are the ‘they’ who think it’s a puma?”

  “OK, hold on, let me get my story straight…” I knocked back the second brandy, coughed and launched into what I knew. I told him about the party at the Hen House and about the policemen and Josh the big game hunter. He listened, frowning with concentration while I related what the policeman had said about it being a puma: the tracks, the style of attacks, the fur caught on a bramble. Then I told him about Josh’s theory that the cat was being manipulated by someone and had probably been living in the wild for years without anyone being affected.

  “So,” I said, sitting back in the chair, “I reckon Tomos has captured the puma and is starving him and then by some means dropping the animal in the middle of Elijah’s farmland around dinner time.”

  Gwyn nodded slowly, taking it all in. “That would certainly explain the fact that it’s mostly Elijah’s animals being attacked,” he said eventually, “but I heard in the pub this evening that Tomos’ dog has been attacked. I know he loves that animal and there’s no way on earth that he would let it be attacked by this puma as a way of covering up what was really happening.”

  “I was thinking about that.” I leaned forward. “And I reckon Tomos hasn’t got as much of a hold on the puma as he thinks he has. I mean, presuming this animal is an escapee from a circus or something, then it’s going to be pretty tame. But a few years in the wild will have sharpened it up a bit. So perhaps the cat turned on Old Shep and Tomos had to wrestle it off him? After all, an old half-crippled dog isn’t going to be able to defend itself against a puma, is it? Tomos probably separated them and in the process he got the cuts to his hand and arm that we saw in the pub the other night.”

  Gwyn was staring into the fireless grate, deep in thought, saying after a moment, “You know, Rachel, I think you could be right.”

  “It makes sense, doesn’t it? It explains Tomos’ injuries, and why his old dog was attacked and survived and why only Elijah’s animals have suffered.” I paused for breath. “What do you think we should do now?”

  Gwyn was silent for a minute, twirling a curl of his thick black hair in his hands. “We should go and talk to Tomos.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. I’ve known Tomos all my life, and while he’s no close pal of mine –” he paused “– of anyone’s really, I don’t think it’s out of order for me to say something to him.”

  “You don’t think we should go down to the Hen House and tell Josh my theory instead? I didn’t want to say anything to him in case it was all rubbish and I got Tomos into trouble unnecessarily. But if you think it’s really something…”

  “We can go and talk to Tomos about the cat and if he admits something we can always go to that Josh chap afterwards. Out of interest, just what did your man Josh say he would do with the cat once he’d found it?”

  “Sedate it and send it to a zoo. But if the sedative doesn’t work then he might have to kill it.”

  Gwyn looked unimpressed. “I can’t pretend that I like the sound of that. I don’t much care for zoos. And as for the sedative plan, how capable a marksman is he or any of those policemen at shooting animals in our countryside?”

  “One of the marksmen shot a squirrel this afternoon.”

  “Oh, great. So their aim is good but their sight is bad. Maybe we should be concerned that they’ll shoot at us?”

  “Not tonight they won’t.”

  “True – and that’s why we should go and see Tomos tonight, when they’re out of action and out of our way. If we have to, we can think about involving this Josh afterwards.”

  “Go and see Tomos right now?” I asked, quite happy to be safely inside and not careering round the cat-infested countryside.

  “Yes. I was up at the pub earlier this evening…”

  “Oh, I wondered where you were,” I said, without stopping to think. I bit my tongue to stop saying any more. I sounded embarrassingly over-keen.

  “Why?” he asked, half smiling.

  “Well…” I tried to look more detached than I really felt. “You know. I called you to invite you to the party at the Hen House. Actually I called the pub beforehand to get your number. Didn’t Angharad tell you that I called?”

  “No. But I didn’t see much of her, she was working in the bar and I was out back helping shift barrels. Sounds like you had enough policemen and hunters to keep you occupied though, surely I would have been an unnecessary addition?”

  He was playing with me now so I ignored him, feigning disinterest and staring over towards the window.

  “I wonder if anyone at the party has noticed that I’ve gone?” I mused.

  “Do you want to call up? They might be worried.”

  I laughed.

  “Seriously,” he said, “if there’s a puma on the loose and someone’s gone missing in the night, well, the policemen are going to be interested even if your friends aren’t, which I don’t think would be the case. If you don’t want to break the party up, maybe you ought to call and tell them what you’ve done? Otherwise they might come looking for you.”

  “No. Don’t worry about it. I don’t think anyone will miss me this evening. Besides, we can go and talk to Tomos now and maybe when we’re done you can come back to the party with me. That’s if you want to?”

  He shrugged his shoulders in a maybe, maybe not sort of way.

  “We can go in your vehicle, can’t we? We’re not walking anywhere?”

  “Of course,” he said, “so there’ll be no need for you to take that rolling-pin with you.”

  “Oh. I’d forgotten about this.” I sheepishly put it on the table.

  26

  I stayed in the comfy old chair while Gwyn went round the house turning on all the lights in a bid to deter the cat if it was lurking directly outside the building waiting for its moment with me. Then he opened the front door, rapidly closed it behind him and headed over to the barn next door to get his vehicle. I sat there for what seemed like half an hour, although it was only a fraction of that. I couldn’t hear a thing from outside. My imag
ination started to get the better of me again and I had visions of Gwyn’s beautiful body lying mutilated, torn in two on the yard outside. But all was OK; I heard an engine starting up and then he was back at the door.

  “Come on then,” he said, “there’s no puma outside now, I had a good look.”

  I walked up to the front door, heart racing. He’d parked his Land Rover tight against the front door and it was the work of a second to jump from the doorway and into the passenger seat. Gwyn shut the door behind me and I was safe again. Trembly, hot and sweaty, but safe all the same.

  Unless the cat was in the back of the vehicle!

  In horror I jerked round to look. There was nothing there.

  Gwyn climbed into the driver’s side and shot me an amused look. “Any cats in the back?”

  “Ah no,” I said lightly, trying not to be embarrassed about it. After all, it was only sensible to check. I pushed the lock down on my door.

  “Why,” he asked as he manoeuvred the vehicle out of the yard, “did you just lock your door?”

  “Well,” I said, trying to hang on to my composure, “the puma might be able to open a car door, mightn’t it?”

  “How?” He was laughing now.

  “Think about it. It’s an escapee from a circus or something. So it probably had a trick or two that it performed. What if one of those tricks was to open car doors?”