The Cat Next Door

by Marian Babson

  ‘Now then.’ Emmeline briskly pulled a book and exercise notebook from the shelf immediately behind Lynette. ‘Have you finished your English assignment?’

  ‘Almost.’ Lynette twitched defensively. ‘I was going to, but …’ Her eyes closed and she leaned back against the pillows. ‘I was too tired.’

  Tired, yes, tired. Margot fought back a yawn. Aren’t we all?

  Margot looked again at the hobby table and saw that the embroidery ring held a pattern with just a few flowers filled in, the tapestry in its frame was only two inches wide, a band of beadwork curled despondently on top of tubes of loose beads in a plastic bag, a threaded needle was jabbed into what was intended to be a petit-point cushion cover, pieces of a jigsaw puzzle were in a tumbled heap beside a few fitted-together sections of a cuddly-pets domestic scene.

  Everything started and nothing completed.

  She noticed, too, a small cluster of sports books and political biographies flanking the school books and novels on the bookshelves. Uncle Wilfred was maintaining a foothold in the quarters that had belonged to him and Aunt Milly His attitude was now explained, although it looked as though there was scant chance of his reclaiming the master suite at any time in the immediate future.

  ‘Isn’t Fenella here yet?’ There was a querulous, faintly accusing note in her tone, as though it were someone’s fault that Fenella hadn’t arrived yet.

  ‘She’ll be here soon. But you’ve got Margot right now. Why don’t you have a nice visit with her, while I – ’

  ‘Fenella is going to bring me a present from Tokyo.’ Lynette eyed Margot speculatively. ‘Did you – ?’

  ‘Lynette!’ Emmeline called her to order sharply. ‘Where are your manners?’

  ‘I’m tired, so tired …’ Lynette retreated into invalidism. She gave Margot a wan smile. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow you must tell me all about New York. Tonight I’m only strong enough just to say hello to everyone.’ She lay back on the pillows and closed her eyes firmly.

  ‘Tomorrow …’ Margot agreed, grateful for the reprieve and following Emmeline from the room. This was not the Lynette she had known. This Lynette was looking and sounding like a child but …

  ‘Isn’t Lynette into her teens now?’ she asked.

  ‘There has been a bit of regression, yes.’ Emmeline answered the thought behind the question. ‘It’s something we may have to deal with … eventually. If it doesn’t right itself naturally. But not until this is … over.’ Her voice wavered suddenly. She turned her back on Margot abruptly and marched down the hallway and into a room at the far end, the door of which closed behind her with a firm decisive click – not actually slammed, but making it quite clear that the conversation had ended.

  A bit of regression! Margot did a swift calculation. Lynette must be fourteen now – and she was behaving like an eight-year-old. Ten, at the most. And hadn’t Lynette been heading towards being the sporty type? Margot distinctly remembered watching her on a tennis court, playing an aggressive but good-humoured game with one of the cousins. And winning school prizes for swimming and running. Claudia had always boasted that she was rearing a future Olympics winner – in one field or another.

  Claudia …

  Her eyes blurred with sudden tears, Margot stumbled and caught at the banister just in time, leaning heavily on it as she descended the stairs. She reached the foot of the stairs before she realised it and stretched out a hand blindly for balance.

  Only to feel it grasped firmly and reassuringly. Henry had been waiting there for her. She opened her eyes and smiled weakly at him.

  ‘Hooray Henry …’ She greeted him by the old nickname.

  ‘Not any more,’ he said ruefully, squeezing her hand and releasing it. ‘There’s not much to hooray about these days.’

  ‘No …’ She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm and they strolled into the library. ‘There isn’t, is there?’

  ‘You’ve seen Lynette?’

  ‘How long has she been like that?’

  ‘Ever since she …’ He turned away and busied himself with the coffee pot and cups waiting on the long table. ‘Ever since … Cream and sugar?’

  ‘No sugar, thanks.’ She sank into one of the button-back leather armchairs flanking the fire. The tray beside the coffee pot held a full complement of cups and saucers. She wondered how long it would be before the others appeared for their coffee. This was the first chance she had had to talk to anyone privately since she arrived late this afternoon. Might as well make the most of it.

  ‘Will she ever be able to walk again?’

  ‘What?’ In the act of bending over to hand her coffee to her, Henry straightened up abruptly, snatching the cup away. ‘Who? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Lynette. Isn’t she paralysed?’

  ‘Not a bit of it. Where did you get that idea?’

  ‘I’ve just seen her. Lying there in that king-sized bed, all her games and pastimes within easy reach. She looks so pale and frail. I just assumed …’

  ‘Assumptions are dangerous things. There’s nothing physically wrong with Lynette. But the shock completely traumatised her.’

  ‘Then she can walk.’

  ‘Of course she can. She did, in the beginning. Except that she wouldn’t go out into the garden.’ Henry restored her cup of coffee to her and sank down in the opposite armchair. ‘Then she didn’t want to come downstairs. Well, there was so much commotion going on for so long, you couldn’t blame her for that. Everyone was just as glad to have her tucked up safely out of the way, to be frank. Only …’

  ‘Only …?’

  ‘Only … they’ve let it go on for too long. She’s too well dug in now and she doesn’t want to leave that room any more. It’s a shame they moved her in there to begin with. It’s too convenient with the bathroom en-suite, she doesn’t even have to walk down the hallway to the family bathroom. It’s been weeks now since she left that room at all.’

  ‘I thought Uncle Wilfred was looking a trifle strained when I went upstairs with Emmeline. I’m surprised he allowed her to take it over like that.’

  ‘At the time, it seemed the best thing to do. Her own room overlooked the … the salient part of the garden. The police were swarming out there, with electric lights set up around the taped-off area and all their equipment. We couldn’t let her look out and see that. She’d seen enough.’ He set down his coffee cup abruptly and looked around for something stronger. ‘What about a cognac or a liqueur?’

  ‘She found them, didn’t she?’ The twin sisters, Claudia and Chloe, Lynette’s mother and aunt. Claudia, stretched out upon the ground; Chloe, stooping over her with the bloodied knife in her hand. ‘I … I just know what I read in the newspaper clippings you sent me. I thought someone else might write to me about it, but they didn’t. Oh, they wrote, but they never mentioned … what happened.’

  ‘No, they wouldn’t.’ Henry poured cognac into two balloon-shaped glasses and brought one to her. ‘We’re all still trying to come to terms with it ourselves.’

  ‘Yes.’ It must have been unbearable, still was. ‘But Milly and Wilfred seem to be coping fairly well, considering …’

  ‘Is that the way it looks to you?’ Henry gave a sharp bark which could have been a cough or a bitter laugh.

  ‘Well, from what I’ve heard, they’re coping a lot better than …’ She found she did not want to utter the name. Someone else she hardly dared enquire about.

  ‘Kingsley?’ Henry nodded. ‘He came as close to a breakdown as one could possibly get without going completely over the edge. Or perhaps he did. He was devastated, he adored Claudia.’

  ‘And she him.’ Margot could attest to that. Despite fluttering every female heart in the neighbourhood – yes, hers included – the rising young politician had had eyes for no one but Claudia from the moment they first met. He could even tell her apart from Chloe – something even Aunt Milly was not always able to do in those days – and that, in turn, had helped to win her hear
t. A man who could not be fooled by their games was someone special indeed – someone to be held tight.

  ‘They were so utterly devoted to each other. It was a tragedy …’ Henry paused and seemed to consider what he had just said. ‘A tragedy for all of us,’ he amended. ‘I don’t know how we got through it. In a way, Kingsley had it easy – he disappeared into The Priory for six weeks, even though the election was looming. And he got re-elected, when so many others weren’t. No one dared mention the words “sympathy vote”, but that was what it was.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Margot defended. ‘He was always one of the best politicians in his party.’

  ‘Good old Kingsley!’ Henry gave the sharp mirthless bark again. ‘Always has the women on his side!’

  ‘That isn’t fair – ’

  ‘Fair? What’s fair? And what does it matter, anyway? All that’s important now is the trial.’ He turned his head away. ‘The trial. God! It’s so incredible! Chloe’s trial.’

  ‘But why?’ It was the question she had been asking herself since she first heard about Chloe. ‘Why?’

  ‘God knows.’ Henry shrugged. ‘And, presumably, Chloe. But we can’t ask the One – and the other isn’t talking. Literally. She hasn’t said a word all the way through.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just that. Not a word. Not to the police, not to the legal beagles, not to the doctor, not to the psychiatrist and, especially, not to us. It isn’t going to do her case any good. Now that the Right to Remain Silent has been abolished, it will probably do her harm. They can’t force her to talk, of course, which is just as well. It’s as though she’s been stricken mute.’

  ‘But surely – ’ Margot’s throat constricted. She felt as though she had been stricken mute herself.

  ‘Not a word. She won’t utter one syllable to explain – or to defend – herself. She’s cut herself off completely, refused to see any of us. Parcels we’ve sent are returned unopened.’ Henry shook his head. ‘I wonder sometimes if she’s punishing herself … or us. And for what.’

  ‘I didn’t realise …’ Margot closed her eyes for a moment; immediately, the deep whine intensified in her ears, the chair seemed to vibrate. Even sitting down and leaning back, she felt dizzy and exhausted. Damn!

  A homecoming to this situation was enough to cope with without jet lag as well. Yet, if it weren’t for the situation, would she have come home at all? Would any of them?

  Henry was saying something. She opened her eyes and caught a glimpse of something moving beyond him, on the other side of the french window leading out to the garden. Something crawling along the ground through the shadows, something that looked shadowy itself and, perhaps, rusty. A breastplate, dragging along the ground, rusty – or stained with blood …

  ‘The Centurion!’ she gasped, suddenly transported back to childhood.

  ‘What?’ Henry whirled about, following the line of her vision. ‘Oh, you had me going for a moment there.’ He laughed and opened the french window.

  ‘You want to come in, Tikki?’

  Chapter Three

  The proud Abyssinian sauntered into the room as though he were doing them a favour. By his lights, he probably was.

  ‘Hello, Tikki.’ Margot held out her hand and waggled her fingers. ‘Remember me?’

  The cat strolled over and indulged in a good sniffing session. He seemed fascinated and Margot wondered how many unfamiliar and exotic scents were clinging to her. From her fingertips, Tikki moved on to the hem of her skirt and then to her shoes. Could he identify the smell of a foreign country, crowded airports, aviation fuel … loathing, misery and fear?

  ‘I hadn’t thought of the Centurion in years,’ Henry said with relish. ‘Zeus! How that takes me back!’ His laughter invited her to join in.

  Tikki gathered himself together and sprang into her lap. Whatever messages he had read from her skin and clothing, she had passed muster. He settled down in her lap.

  Automatically, she stroked the soft sand-coloured fur. Not rusty, not bloodied, just sandy, evolved to act as natural camouflage in the sandy wastes of the deserts his ancestors had patrolled. He arched his neck under her soothing fingers and began purring.

  ‘I went back, too.’ She smiled reminiscently. They had invented the Centurion between them, she and Henry. As children, it had seemed so unfair that, here in St Albans, with its long centuries of history and human habitation, there had been so little trace of it all in their immediate area.

  It had seemed only proper to redress this omission of history by inventing their own ghost: the Centurion from one of the Roman legions that had occupied St Albans or, as it was then known, Verulamium. He could have existed, their fertile imaginations insisted, and, from that, it was but a short step to having his ghost inhabit their garden on dark and moonless nights. What imaginations! And no wonder, surrounded as they were with Roman ruins, in an area where any garden spade might turn up ancient coins, shards of amphorae, mosaic tiles, statuettes of gods and goddesses, and who knew what buried treasure, still-undiscovered or, perhaps, discovered but unreported. Illegal, but these things happen.

  It would have happened in reverse, if she and Henry had ever discovered anything in their garden. Uncle Wilfred had made no bones about that. ‘Dig as much as you like,’ he’d said, a flash of humour lighting his lean sardonic face, ‘but, remember, if you find anything, we’re covering it all up again and forgetting about it. I’ll not have hordes of bloody archaeologists swarming in to excavate and ruining my peace and quiet.’

  ‘But there might be something wonderful down there,’ Margot had protested. ‘There’s so much of ancient Verulamium still to be discovered. We could find anything!’

  ‘You can find the Temple of Apollo and the temple of every other god they had, but if they’re buried in my land, they’re going to stay buried. I want a quiet life – and I intend to have it.’

  Alas, poor Wilfred. His quiet life had been shattered irretrievably, in a way that could not be buried or covered up. His lean sardonic face had puffed out, buried in the rolls of fat from comfort eating that could bring no real comfort. His peaceful world had gone for ever – along with his beloved twin daughters, his former pride and joy.

  ‘Ah, yes, the Centurion …’ Henry chuckled reminiscently. ‘We really had them going with that one.’

  ‘Poor Uncle Wilfred.’ Looking back with adult hindsight, Margot realised why Uncle Wilfred had been so upset about it. Uncovered ruins could be covered up again, but a ghost stalking the garden was beyond his control. One whisper of a haunting and both media and ghost-hunters would have been unleashed.

  ‘Mother wasn’t very happy about it, either,’ Henry said.

  ‘So she wasn’t. You know, sometimes I have difficulty in remembering that Aunt Christa is your mother.’

  ‘I know.’ Henry smiled ruefully ‘So do I. She isn’t very maternal, is she?’

  ‘Whatever that is.’ Margot had often wondered how she would have fared if Sylvia, her own mother, had lived to raise her. ‘I don’t think any of the women in our family are very maternal – except for Milly, of course. Milly is maternal enough for all of them.’ Or was. There was little sign of Milly’s maternal nature at present.

  ‘Ah, well, mustn’t grumble, eh?’ Henry reached out and clasped her hand, renewing the old alliance.

  Dear Henry, the brother she’d never had. And she knew that she was the sister of his heart, never mind Fenella and her twin, Justin – they had each other. The children of Christa’s third marriage (there had been no issue from the second), they had appeared too late to be boon companions to their elder half-sibling. Apart from which, their father had wanted his children with him, so their early childhood had been spent abroad – until Christa had ended that marriage and, having been granted custody, had promptly ceded that custody to Milly and got on with her own career.

  Tikki shifted position in Margot’s lap and looked up at her impatiently – she had stopped stroking him.

>   ‘Sorry, Tikki,’ she apologised. ‘I didn’t mean to neglect – ’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Nan swept into the library and took one appalled look at the scene before her.

  ‘No, no, no!’ She bore down on Margot and snatched the cat from her lap. ‘No! Wilfred mustn’t find you here, he has enough to contend with right now!’ She opened the french window and lightly tossed the offended cat out into the garden. ‘And what are you thinking of, Henry? You know the curtains should be closed before Millicent comes in for her coffee.’

  Margot caught a glimpse of baleful yellow eyes glaring into the room from outside before the heavy drapes swished across the window, closing out the night and everything in it.

  ‘It’s all right in the daytime,’ Nan half-apologised to Margot. ‘But night was when it happened and Milly can’t bear – ’

  The doorbell chimed, more of an announcement that someone had arrived than a request for entry, for the chime was immediately followed by the scrape of a key in the lock and the babble of laughing voices.

  ‘They’re here!’ Nan said, with what seemed like disproportionate relief. ‘I wonder if they got anything to eat during the flight’s delay, or whether …’ Her voice trailed off as she bustled from the room.

  ‘They’re here,’ Henry echoed. His shoulders slumped with relief from tension, his face looked clearer, brighter. He went after Nan without a backward glance. ‘It was just an ordinary flight delay …’

  Of course it was. His half-brother and sister were safe. What else had they expected?

  Then Margot was sharply aware that they might have expected anything – from an accidental but fatal crash, to a bomb on board, to a hijacking and/or hostage situation. This was a family that had been so severely battered by Fate, or circumstances, or whatever you wanted to call it, that they had no faith left, in airline, in goodness or mercy, or perhaps even in God.

  And who could blame them?