For Alice, her worry about Bernie—and she had never worried about Bernie—added itself to her long-standing worry about poor Francis, and even to her worry about whatever might be happening to Sandra, Alexandra, Alex in Australia. Francis, who had seemed such a clever child, had a life that no one could have wanted, and there was something about it she could not understand: he had never had a girlfriend, and though she had tried to train herself into thinking he must be gay, that seemed false too. There simply seemed some kind of blankness there, some kind of puzzled lack where everyone else had, surely, something. She worried steadily about them all, individually, and in time the individual worries coalesced, united, turned on her and made her ask what, in fact, she had done to the three of them. She felt herself growing old, exhausted, and she could not help what occupied her mind.
It was something, at least, when Francis told her he’d got himself a cat, and when, a few months later, he announced he was going on holiday to Rome, it was an encouragement to her. She remembered, long ago, when the two of them were children, when they’d first moved up from London, how much she had worried about whether either of them would settle in, make friends, and how much comfort she had drawn from even very small signs, even the mention of a name by one of them. Of course, she had been worrying then about nothing. Children settled in and made friends easily enough. On the other hand, in feeling relieved over Francis at thirty getting himself a cat, or taking a holiday, she was admitting there was something to worry about. She wished she knew what it was.
It was, however, mostly selfishness that made her offer to come down to pick up the cat. Alice hadn’t been to London in years. She hadn’t any way of making the offer, however, other than in terms of being helpful, and Francis refused it as soon as she came out with it. It might have been nice. If only Francis had said he’d think about it for a day before deciding that he’d come up, she’d have had a day of thinking where she might go, what she might do; as it was, not only the trip but the smaller pleasure of anticipation was taken away from her. He certainly meant well, though.
In the same spirit of sparing them any trouble, he turned up on a Friday morning without announcing himself, catching a taxi from the station. Alice had heard the guttural metallic rattle of a taxi in the road, and gone to the kitchen window to see. “Francis is here,” she called. She watched him untangle himself from the back seat, setting down an overnight bag, a plastic bag from a supermarket and a black cat-box on the pavement, patting his pockets and finally paying the driver. He’d always had difficulty finding clothes his size, and he was wearing all grey and beige. If his habit of carrying his stuff round in old plastic bags was the habit of a schoolboy, his clothes were the clothes of someone thirty years older. His padded beige anorak on its own could make you weep. She went to let him in.
“You could have phoned,” she said, as he bent down to kiss her.
“There was no need,” he said. “I can perfectly well get a taxi. You all right, Dad?”
He shook Bernie’s hand; there was some kind of agreement between them that they wouldn’t kiss, and they had settled on this when they met and when they said goodbye.
“I don’t know when you’re going to learn to drive,” Bernie said.
“There’s not a lot of point keeping a car in London,” Francis said. “And it’s no trouble, getting a train up here. It must be a lot faster than driving, and you can read on the way, too.”
“There’s something in that,” Bernie said. “Well, come in. Is this him, then?”
They shut the door, and Francis bent down to open the cage. There was a glint inside as the cat looked at them, withdrawn into the far corner of the box.
“He’ll come out in his own time,” Francis said. “Here’s his litter tray and some fresh litter for it.” He handed over the plastic bag. “There’s some food there as well. You can put it in the kitchen, he’s quite clean. Have you got any butter?”
“Any butter? What for?”
“It’s an old trick,” Francis said. “To make him feel at home. A friend of mine, she knows all about cats, she said you’ve got to do this straight away. You smear some butter on their front paws as soon as they get to a new place, a place they’ll be staying, and once they’ve licked the butter off, they feel much more at home.”
“Do we want him to feel at home?” Alice said. “I’ve never had a cat to look after before.”
“They’ve got to feel at home, apparently,” Francis said. “If they don’t, they get confused, they start wandering off, trying to find somewhere they know and then they never come back.”
“I don’t think he’s in the mood to wander anywhere,” Bernie said, peering in. “I don’t think he has any intention of coming out.”
“It’s got to be butter, has it?” Alice said, going into the kitchen. “We mostly eat spread nowadays.”
“I don’t think it makes any difference,” Francis said. “How can you eat that stuff?”
“You get used to it,” Bernie said. “I didn’t much like it at first. The doctor told your mother to get her blood pressure down, so we’ve switched to all sorts of things. Oily fish, twice a week.”
“Nothing serious?” Francis said.
“Oh, no,” Alice said. “It just comes with old age. Everyone we know’s had to give up butter and cream, they talk about nothing else.”
“You’re not old,” Francis said, taking the box of yellow spread and the teaspoon from his mother. Perhaps he meant to banter, but in that case it came out wrong; he looked and sounded quite anxiously concerned. He had always been the sort of small boy you couldn’t tease or banter with; he’d always taken everything with a fearful literalness. And Alice remembered that when you knew and lived with someone for years, they went on looking exactly the same to you, never seeming to change. Bernie was just as he had ever been; and she probably seemed just the same to him and to Francis. “I hope this works.”
Choosing his own moment, the cat came to the brink of the cage, its nose and whiskers venturing outside. It took one step, another, not appearing to look about it or register Francis’s presumably familiar presence. “What a pretty boy,” Alice said encouragingly, but in fact there was something slightly skewed about the animal’s handsomeness, its face coming to a point and not quite symmetrical, one eye a little higher than the other. Its ears, too, pricked up and rotating now like radar receivers, were absurdly large for its angular little head, as if, like an adolescent boy, some spurt of growth had inflated only one of its features, and was waiting for the rest to catch up. “What a lovely glossy coat he’s got,” she said, more honestly.
“Let’s give it a go,” Francis said, kneeling with the tub, and taking a teaspoonful of spread. He took the cat’s front right paw, and, with a finger, smeared it over the pink pads. The cat pulled the paw back, and tried to lick it; but Francis took the other, and, after a short tussle in which both of them were trying to do quite incompatible things, Samson gave up and let the same thing happen to his left front paw.
“He’s not going to walk butter into the carpets, is he?” Bernie said. “Hell of a mess to get out.”
“No, look, he’s licking himself clean,” Francis said. “And after that, he’s supposed to settle down.”
It appeared to be working. Samson finished with his paws, and then gave himself a thorough wash from top to bottom. The three watched; Samson ignored them.
“We ought to leave him in peace,” Alice said. “It doesn’t seem very polite to watch.”
“He’s all right,” Francis said. “He doesn’t care. Look, he can reach everything with his tongue apart from bits of his face.”
“That’s a useful talent,” Bernie said.
“I suppose so,” Francis said, and there was that lack again; it was a little like talking to someone who couldn’t understand jokes. The three of them seemed mesmerized by the cat, and when he’d finished his bath, and set off to find out about the house, they followed him into first the kitchen, then the s
itting room, watching him prowl the margins. They only let him go off on his own when he went out again to map the rest of the house.
“He can’t get out, can he?” Francis said.
“I don’t think so,” Alice said. “I don’t want to be rude, love, but how long are you here for? I’m only thinking about meals.”
“I’ve got to go back this afternoon,” Francis said. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh,” Alice said; she’d got a leg of lamb in for the evening meal. She couldn’t understand the overnight bag.
“I got a really cheap flight to Rome,” Francis said, “but it leaves at four thirty in the morning, tonight. It would have been twice the price otherwise. I’ve got to get back and get packed.”
“That’s a shame,” Bernie said heartily. “We haven’t seen you since Christmas.”
“Can you stay a bit longer when you get back?” Alice said. “I mean, when you come to pick up Samson?”
“That’d be nice,” Francis said. “I don’t see why not.”
“Never mind the cat,” Bernie said. “I reckon it’s you we want to put butter—we want to put butter on your paws, make you feel at home again. It’s always your home.”
But his voice dropped as if he had been trapped into saying something serious. Disconcertingly, Francis put out his long pink tongue and pretended to start licking the palm of his hand. “I know,” he said sadly, and Alice couldn’t help looking about her at the house: the new Turkish rug, the old wood and glass coffee-table, the glass-domed preserved flowers on the shelf and the other knick-knacks, the new pair of sofas, which had replaced the three-piece suite, and Bernie’s ancient comfortable high chair he swore he couldn’t do without, and the ten-year-old television that couldn’t help being at the focal point of the room, the Liberty brown-and-purple curtains that had been there ever since they’d moved in. Like Francis, she knew; it seemed to be her home, too.
He stayed, at least, for lunch—she wished she’d known, it was a bit of a scant affair of shop-bought stuffed pasta and shop-bought sauce with a salad thrown together on the side. She’d got used, too, to cooking for herself and Bernie, and had somehow forgotten that Francis was six foot eight, and ate about twice as much as anyone else you could think of. Bernie insisted on driving Francis to the station, and she’d only just started doing the washing-up when he returned.
“That cat’s watching you,” Bernie said, coming through the front door.
“I haven’t seen it since it arrived,” Alice said. “Where is it?”
“Here on the stairs,” Bernie said. “He’s watching you do the washing-up.”
It was true: it was watching her from a distance and through the kitchen door, but very intently. It was on a step, too, which was not much below her own eye level.
“Daft thing,” Bernie said. “Do you know something? Francis didn’t say goodbye to the cat.”
“There’s not a lot of point in saying goodbye to a cat,” Alice said.
“You’d have thought, though,” Bernie said. “I’m going to let it out into the garden. It seems settled enough.”
He went through the dining room, making little kissing noises as he went, and into the utility room. Alice stopped her washing-up, and turned to see what the cat was doing. As soon as she looked directly at it, it looked away, as if embarrassed, and started washing itself energetically. From the utility room, Bernie’s encouraging smacking and bussing could be heard and, after a cursory wash, for display purposes, the cat lowered itself with unnecessary care from one step to another, slinking into the dining room. Alice followed at a few feet; it walked into the utility room, dropping itself after a short hesitation off the single deep step, and inspected Bernie, standing by the open door to the back garden. The cat looked Bernie up and down, and thoughtfully sauntered to the door. It paused; something seemed to stiffen in its frame; it gave a tiny sneeze and, quickly, another, then turned and ran back into the house.
“Ah,” Bernie said. “I forgot. The garden’s about half an inch thick in chilli powder.”
That hadn’t occurred to Alice, either. “At least we’ve found—” she said. She was about to say that finally they’d discovered one cat the deterrent worked on, but it was as if something, at just that moment, had hit her from behind on the head. She staggered.
“What is it?” Bernie said.
“Ah—” Alice said. A brilliant horrible light was exploding in her eyes, and behind them, some shock of pain. “Bernie—”
He was turning to her, and, starting, almost to run—and Bernie never ran—and she was holding out her arms in order not to be anything but caught when she—
It was a long journey back. Francis hadn’t thought to check the train times to London—he’d vaguely thought they ran every hour, and they did, apart from the occasional longer gap. As it happened, his dad dropped him off at the station—“Don’t wait,” he said. “I’ll be fine, I’ll see you in a week”—just after a train had gone, and another not due until a quarter to six. He filled the time as best he could with a copy of Gramophone magazine, which, he realized after a few dimly familiar pages, he’d read already, and a cup of coffee in the station café.
It was a busy train, and he had to share a table with three noisy women who were heading down to London to take in a show, whose festivities were beginning here; they had two bottles of wine with them, which they invited Francis to share, laughing at him quite unkindly when he refused, and when, after Leicester, that ran out, they raucously asked him to pop along to the buffet to get them some more. “Don’t fret,” one said, pretending to be outraged, “it’s not like we won’t give you the money.” He was appalled at the thought that anyone around them might think he was with them, and appalled at their broad and wrong ideas of the pleasures of London. It was Phantom they were going to see; Francis had never seen a London musical in his life.
The tube train fell into that lull between the rush-hour and chucking-out time; most people who were going out would already have gone out, and it was quiet. Opposite were two Middle Eastern students, talking in their gurgling labial language, smelling of cloves in a way that made Francis feel slightly sick. He remembered he had no food in the house; he’d been using things up before his Rome trip, and had come to the end of everything a day early. He’d have to stop at the corner shop to buy something, or—that would be easier—pick up a chicken kebab from Mo’s takeaway at the end of the road. The best the corner shop could do was ready-stuffed pasta, and he’d had that for lunch.
The house was dark—the housemates downstairs were always out on a Friday night. As Francis was fumbling with his keys, he could hear the phone ringing. He didn’t bother hurrying, it would certainly be for one of the housemates, and as he let himself in, the greasy bundle warm in his hands, it stopped before he could turn the light on. He went upstairs, put the kebab on a plate, poured himself a glass of water, and put the little television in the corner on, quite indifferent to whatever the programme or the channel was. He’d wait to pack his bags until after he’d finished eating—he couldn’t really say “after dinner.” It wouldn’t take long. He could have read his guidebook about Rome, but he had a feeling that over the next week, he’d be filling in a few hours alone in his hotel room by reading it in detail, and there was no reason to start on that early. The phone started ringing again; Francis ignored it.
He finished his plate of food, and went to wash it and his hands. Then he started to pack. He suddenly thought that he didn’t know what the weather was like in Rome at the moment. He had thrown out all the newspapers when he’d got home from work the day before—they carried information about the weather in foreign cities. In the end, he packed a series of short-sleeved shirts and lightweight trousers—all his trousers were grey or beige, and drip-dry, so they would do for relative heat. He put in a pair of thin sweaters—even if it was still warm over there, he’d heard it could be cold in the evening. Then, spending more time thinking about this than about any other, he went over to his bo
okshelves and pulled out one, then a second fat Russian novel. Most of the books on the shelves were old ones, favourites from his childhood, Uncle and Professor Branestawm and Midnite. But others were fat books he’d read, had always meant to read, had been saying to himself so long he had read them that he believed they had actually been read. He packed The Idiot; he packed Dead Souls. Finally, with a quick look round the room, he went to the bottom drawer of his desk, on top of which an Amstrad computer sat stolidly, its start-up disk hanging from the slot like a tongue. Francis took out the half-finished bulk of his own book, eight inches thick, an A4 notebook with black binding and three green Pentel pens. He’d always used those Pentel pens; he liked the flow of the ink-soaked ball under pressure.
The book was the third novel Francis had written. He had sent the first out; he had sent the second out; he rather thought he would finish this one and put it back into his drawer.
The telephone started ringing again. Francis looked at his watch; it was past eleven o’clock. If he was going to get even two hours’ sleep, he would have to go to bed soon. They’d been phoning every half an hour since he got in. It was completely unreasonable. They’d probably go on phoning and preventing him sleeping, too; or, if they stopped phoning, he would probably be lying awake wondering whether it had been someone phoning for him with an important message. By the time he had thought half of this, he was down the stairs, sure he was going to reach it just as they rang off.
“Hello?” Francis said. There was some ambient noise at the other end of the phone, and the clunk of a payphone. “Hello?”
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