Big Cats and Kitten Heels

by Claire Peate

  I smiled. “I suppose we should see how this goes first. Will your trailer even survive the trip?”

  “I’ll have you know this trailer is as sturdy now as the day it was built.”

  I laughed. “But it probably wasn’t that sturdy when it was built five hundred years ago.”

  “Forty years ago as it happens. And true, it wasn’t very clever then.”

  We’d come to a standstill again. Progress was frustratingly slow and I glanced back at the rickety trailer that was rocking slightly now that we’d stopped. Was she walking around back there? Gwyn wound down the window and shouted something in Welsh to a couple of middle-aged women who were chatting in the centre of the road and had refused to acknowledge the Land Rover which was nuzzling their handbags.

  “That’s Gwenda.” Gwyn held up a hand in a wave as they eventually stood aside.

  “Diolch!” Gwyn called out to them as we passed.

  We were making it. I could see the edge of the crowds now, just passed the old red phone box that was all but covered in ivy.

  Finally we emerged from the mass of people and Gwyn changed up into third gear. We pulled away just as we both heard a loud and unmistakable yowl come from the trailer. Gwyn hit the gas and away we sped down the hill the trailer clattering and crashing behind us. I looked in the mirrors and saw one journalist turn and watch us go, a look of incomprehension registering on his face.

  33

  We’d been driving for what seemed like hours and the weather was getting steadily worse. The road had been climbing since we’d left the Beacons and we were now in a barren landscape; the brooding low clouds and the hazy bursts of drizzle made its remoteness feel all the more overwhelming. Gone were the rambling oak woodlands and the rolling hills. This was much bleaker territory. The wipers squeaked each time they made a pass across the windscreen and the trailer had developed a worrying groan whenever we went round a bend in the road. Twice Gwyn had to stop the Land Rover and go out in the rain to check if the trailer was still holding together sufficiently, although what was deemed sufficient was gradually getting less and less, from being a roadworthy secure trailer to simply holding together without too many bits falling off.

  The last time he climbed back into the driver’s seat, soaking wet, he grimaced. “Reckon we have a 50:50 chance of making it to our destination.”

  “Oh great. How far are we from the drop off point?” I said, not having seen a single farmstead for a good quarter of an hour. Surely this was desolate enough to release the cat? It hardy looked like we were on the outskirts of some great conurbation.

  Certainly we must be a few miles west of Birmingham by now…

  “We’re nearly there.” He pulled off again, the trailer letting out a long low whine as it jerked forward. “I think it’s just a mile or so off this road and then we’ll be in the woods that Tomos’ brother owns. He was right, wasn’t he, there’s nothing much going on around here. A lot of the land is owned by the Water Boards because it’s ideal for reservoirs. And what’s not Water Board land is owned by the Forestry Commission. I reckon she’ll have a fine old time out here. Plenty of rabbits and mice, fish in the rivers and the odd bird or two. She’ll be set up.”

  “Do you think there are any other big cats out here?”

  He shrugged, slowing down to take another corner, the trailer groaning more loudly than it had done yet. “Well, there were reported sightings a few years back, so Tomos said, but they could have been hoaxes, and if they were real the animals could have died or moved on to new territories. But who knows?”

  “I’d like to think there was someone out here for her,” I said, peering out of my side window to the river that still thundered in the valley bottom below. “I reckon there’s a tasty Mr Puma out here just waiting for a wife. He’s got a great den and fishing rights to all the rivers round here, and he’s just looking for the right kind of girl to set up a family with.”

  “Sounds like you read too much of that romantic fiction stuff.”

  “No! It’s just the way the world is. Everyone’s looking for someone.”

  “Are they?” Gwyn raised his eyebrows but continued to concentrate on the winding road in front. We were only doing fifteen miles an hour, hampered by the road, the trailer and the weather.

  At last we came to a dirt track turning off the road with a weatherworn blue sign saying “Cefyn Clawydd” that Gwyn took, slowing right down so the old trailer didn’t disconnect completely from the Land Rover. He dropped down to first gear and we inched our way to the destination.

  I didn’t think it was possible to have a track in worse condition than the ones that led to Gwyn’s farm and the Hen House, but this track made those look like newly surfaced super-highways. It zigzagged sharply through thick dense woodland, at times barely wide enough for the trailer to pass, with outstretched branches of the wet trees dragging across the trailer’s sides. The Land Rover skidded on a patch of wet gravel, slipping into a deep pothole. Gwyn yanked the steering wheel and the trailer screeched.

  “This is impossible!” he said through gritted teeth, leaning forward and concentrating hard.

  “Can’t we just pull up here and release her?”

  “No. Tomos was adamant that we should do it at the end of the track. And besides, we need to turn round and there’s no way that I’ll be able to reverse the trailer back along the track. Hold on!” And we plummeted into another pothole. The trailer scraped against the road and yowling started up from the back.

  “Sorry, old girl!” Gwyn shouted.

  We turned a sharp bend and our journey came to an abrupt end at an old wrought iron gate with PREIFAT written on a plaque and nailed to it. The road opened out just as Tomos had predicted, allowing Gwyn to be able to reverse easily.

  “Well!” Gwyn stopped the engine and sighed loudly, “This is it. This is where we say goodbye to our passenger.” As he said the words the puma set up her yowling again from the trailer. The rain clattered on the roof and ran down the windows as we sat and contemplated the task ahead.

  “So how are you going to let her out?” I asked.

  “Me?”

  “Well, I’m presuming it’s going to be you,” I half laughed. Did he think I was going to be the one to go round the back and let her out?

  “Oh, then. Me it is. The last time I got out to check the trailer I wrapped twine round it to make sure the doors were kept closed. I reckon I could keep the twine in place while I unbolted the doors and then once I was back in the Land Rover I could release the twine, let the doors open and let her free. What do you think?”

  “I think you’re a genius!”

  “Not just a pretty face,” he answered, proudly. “Could do with your rolling-pin though. The whole thing might go horribly wrong. I can’t imagine she’ll be in a great mood after having been thrown around for three hours on bumpy track.”

  There was an old coat draped across the back seat of the Land Rover, which Gwyn now reached back for, leaning in close to me as he did so. Throwing it around his shoulders, he jumped out of the car and into the rain.

  “Is there anything I can do?” I shouted after him.

  “You can hold the twine tight while I unbolt the trailer. Here.” He handed me the end of the cord. “Hold this and I’ll feed it through the window and round the back to the other side.”

  I wound the window down and the rain came sleeting in. Gwyn passed the twine in and wound the window back up so there was just enough of a gap to let the cord pass through. And certainly not enough to allow a savage puma to leap in. Was the glass toughened? I looked for the reassurance of the little kite mark on the window but I couldn’t see it. What if she came through the window?

  Gwyn had now disappeared around the back of the trailer and I sat, listening to the clatter of the rain and the sound of my breath coming thick and fast, fogging up the windows.

  Gwyn now appeared on the other side of the Land Rover and passed me the other end of the twine which was fed through
the window on his side.

  “OK Rachel, I’ll unlock the back doors now. Make sure you keep that twine really tight. I don’t want to come face to face with her.” Pushing the wet black curls back off his forehead he gave me a quick thumbs up and I smiled back weakly.

  Suddenly my hands had become useless clammy rubbery appendages. My palms were glistening with sweat and with it my twine-gripping ability weakened dramatically. I had to hold on to this thin blue cord otherwise the door that Gwyn was unlocking would swing open and out she would pounce, straight at Gwyn’s throat with all those white teeth. I was, quite literally, holding Gwyn’s life in my hands.

  No pressure then.

  I wound the cord round and round my damp rubber-like hands, cutting off the blood to my fingers. How tight would it have to be? Supposing she threw herself against the doors when she heard the bolts being pulled across? Was I holding the twine tightly enough to keep the doors closed or would my arms be ripped off my shoulders as the doors flew open and the twine was pulled tight? And how long could I suffer bloodless fingers for? And shouldn’t I stop moaning about it because at the end of the day wasn’t Gwyn’s life more important than having the use of my fingers?

  Hmm…

  Gwyn disappeared round the back. I sat and watched my fingers turn various shades of white and blue.

  I heard the ancient bolts of the trailer being drawn back.

  Within a second, Gwyn had jumped into the driving seat, ducking below the twine that was running through the slightly open window. He slammed the door behind him.

  “Oh thank God!” I said and let the twine unwind from my numb hands, laying them on my lap, massaging the blood back into them as best I could. They were stinging with pins and needles.

  Gwyn was breathing heavily through his sudden exertion and, probably, nerves. I looked over at him.

  “Well?” I asked, feeling a whole lot perkier now we were both safely in the vehicle again.

  “Well, I guess we just sit and wait for her to come out.”

  “What if she doesn’t want to come out?”

  “Oh she will. I suppose she just has to get her bearings. Have a sniff around, that sort of thing. You know what cats are like,” he panted, wiping the rain off his face and running a hand through his wet hair.

  Not really. I’d never had one and, thanks to this weekend, I wouldn’t be getting one any time in the near future. The pet food aisle at my local Sainsburys would now forever be a mystery to me.

  The ends of the twine sat in my lap as I kneaded and massaged my tingling fingers.

  “Here.” Gwyn took my hands in his own broad hands and in big strong strokes he massaged them back to life. I looked up at him, heart racing. He was leaning towards me so that he could hold my hands and I was leaning in towards him. So close. He sat forwards, now holding my hands still beside his knees and pulling me towards him…

  Slowly the blue twine began unravelling from my lap.

  We both saw it happen and pulled apart. One end of the twine slithered right off my lap, up the door and disappeared out of the gap in the window. The other end of twine swept over Gwyn and out through his window. Outside the back door of the old trailer banged open ominously. Gwyn dropped my hands and both of us wiped the condensation from the windows so we could see outside. My window faced down through the dense dark woodland towards the river below, while Gwyn’s window looked towards the wooded private estate beyond the gate. Nothing. All I could hear was the door, banging against the trailer. I couldn’t see her anywhere. I felt clammy and cold with fear, half imagining her prowling around to the front of the car, working out how she would get in to this old tin box and eat the meat inside.

  “Here,” hissed Gwyn. I scrambled over to his seat, almost sitting on his lap in a bid to get a look. And there she was, as graceful as ever, slinking slowly down the road and towards the river below. We watched as she stalked off, her coat quickly becoming soaked in the rain before she disappeared into the thick ground cover and was gone.

  We stayed still, watching for her. Perhaps she’d return? But no – we must have sat there for a full ten minutes, my legs becoming numb with the effort of perching on the very edge of Gwyn’s seat. She didn’t come back. And now, suddenly, I felt rather sad, to my surprise. That was it – she’d gone. We’d released her into the wild and wouldn’t be seeing her again. The end of the adventure.

  Poor cat. She can’t have had a very happy life and I wondered what her story was. Probably captured when she was young in her native country (which was where exactly?) and then put in a circus or a zoo or something before being left to fend for herself in the wilds. I really hoped that she’d find a home here and not be bothered by people again. It was certainly remote enough here…

  “Rachel are you crying?”

  “NO!” I said, face turned resolutely to my window, wanting to blow my nose but having no intention of doing so in front of Gwyn. I wasn’t one of those ‘dab it and have done’ girls, I was a ‘honk and blow’ kind of a girl, and that would so ruin the moment.

  “You are crying – I can see, you’ve made the door wet.”

  “Well, I’m sorry,” I said, sniffing and wiping my face with my sleeve, “it’s just so sad, that’s all. I hope she’ll be OK out here. Not lonely or anything.”

  “She’s not human. She doesn’t need friends.”

  “I know that! It’s just, well she’s had a rough time of it, being thrown out from wherever she came from, then being taken away from the village. Always moved on. I just hope she’ll be happy and she can stay here.”

  “I’m sure she will. Look, use this hankie.”

  “Thanks.” I blew my nose.

  He laid a hand on my shoulder as I blew my nose again. I felt as though I were five years old and had grazed my knee.

  “Shall we go?” he said gently.

  “Yes,” I replied in a small voice, “let’s.”

  34

  We edged down the track, the trailer bumping and rattling behind us; less stable than ever now we didn’t have our feline ballast in the back. I wondered how she was doing, slinking into the woodland, exploring her new home.

  “She’ll be fine, you know.” Gwyn cast a glance over at me.

  “How did you know what I was thinking?” I smiled. “Am I that easy to read?”

  “Like a book!” he laughed.

  “I could be thinking about anything else. Work, going home, anything…”

  “Were you?”

  “No. I was thinking about the cat,” I admitted, a little sullenly. Cross that I was so easy to read. Did he also know how I felt about him? And if he did, was that so much of a problem anyway? Besides, it was all for nothing, we were pointing in the direction of home and this evening I would be driving off back to the city…

  “Now what are you thinking?” he asked. “Now you look even more down in the mouth.”

  “Will you stop analysing me, Mr Psychiatrist! I thought you were a farmer, not a head doctor.”

  “Maybe I’m just in tune with the female mind.”

  “Are you?”

  “No.”

  “Well then, you concentrate on the driving, and I’ll concentrate on my very important thoughts, thank you very much.”

  And then the trailer broke.

  There was a sharp crack followed by a dull scraping noise. Gwyn stopped the car and got out. I sat in the front and watched him go round to the back and examine the damage. He came back in a minute or so, soaked to the skin, his long-sleeved t-shirt sticking fantastically to his broad chest. I looked away, hoping I hadn’t been too obviously leering at him.

  “Well,” I said, diverting my attention by closely examining the dashboard, “is the trailer broken?”

  “Yup. I knew I should have fixed it before we left, but there you go – there was no time. At least we got the cat into the countryside. If we still had her in the back we’d be in real trouble.”

  “Are you with the AA?”

  “Not as such.
”

  “The RAC?”

  “Not really.”

  “Are you with any recovery people?”

  “No.”

  “Oh. Well, can you mend it yourself?”

  “No.” He started laughing. “Have you finished your interrogation now?” He looked at me, waiting for the next question.

  I shrugged, lips pursed.

  He leant forward, eyebrows raised, waiting.

  “OK then, yes, I’ve finished.”

  “Good. Anyway, I’ve patched it together with some of the twine...” He began to explain what had broken but I tuned out, preferring instead to concentrate on the beads of rain dropping from his hair down his neck, to run in tiny rivulets down his chest. More than anything at that point I wanted to be reincarnated in my next life as Gwyn’s favourite towel.

  “So,” I said, going back to examining the dashboard again, “do we have to leave that pile of kindling here or can we get back to your place with it as it is?”

  “I can’t leave it here. The Water Board would probably have something to say if I abandoned a vehicle on their property.”

  “Yes but it’s not technically a vehicle, is it?”

  He laughed. “What would you call it, Rachel?”

  “I don’t know. Nailed together bits of wood?”

  “OK, I can’t leave my bits of nailed wood here. And besides they might find traces of big cat in it – you never know. Then where we would be? And we can’t go all the way back to the farm because there is no way that the trailer is going to last the long journey home. We’ll have to find a nearby garage and see if they can fix it. There should be an old road map in the back somewhere. Can you find the nearest town?”

  I hunted, leant round and picked up a battered old road atlas. “It’s a bit old. It’s a 1982 map of Great Britain and Ireland. What good is that?”

  Gwyn shot me a bemused look.

  “What?” I said, leafing through the pages.

  “Do you really think this area has changed much since 1982?”

  “How should I know? Anyway, shush, it’s not easy to read all these place names in your foreign language.”