The Catswold Portal

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  She saw him slowly relax. She said, “I think she was a very special person.”

  His expression softened reluctantly; he looked at her more directly. “We were lucky to have her, and to have the home she gave us. My mother wasn’t trained to any skill, but she liked working in the hotel. She was good at that—at managing the kitchen, and then at the bookkeeping. She learned that quickly. It was just the right thing for her, and Carmel is small. She liked being in a small place. She liked getting to know people.” He smiled for the first time. “We both liked staying put, not moving around anymore.”

  He was quiet a few minutes, working through the heavy morning traffic. She stretched, letting her muscles ease. He said, “When my father was alive we moved from oil field to oil field, my mother made few lasting friends. He was a roustabout—Long Beach, Sunset Beach, Bakersfield. My strongest memory is a succession of little shacky houses with sandy front yards. Hot. There were always fleas in the sand. I would wait all afternoon after school for my father to come home and play ball with me—it was about all he liked to do.

  “Our move to Carmel was the first time I was in the same school for more than six months. And Gram was my friend. She wore old faded jeans in a time when women didn’t dress like that. She had worked in a boardinghouse when she was quite young—she was a wonderful cook.

  “I used to sit on the dining terrace drawing the guests and waitresses. Gram was the only one who saw any value in my drawings.”

  “Your parents didn’t?”

  “My dad didn’t think much of it. My mother thought I was clever and talented. She bragged and showed my pictures to the neighbors and to casual acquaintances, which enraged me. She meant well, but she didn’t understand. Gram understood.”

  “Then she was special.”

  “We spent a lot of time together. We used to walk along the sea early in the morning after she had made the pies. She had a cook to do the breakfasts, but she always got up at four to make the pies.

  “She loved the early morning sea. She loved fog pressing against the breakers, loved the wind. On Sundays we would go down to Point Lobos and walk there, watching the waves crashing on the rocks. She thought it good that I wanted to be a painter; she never thought it was sissy.”

  He slowed and turned the corner, and directly ahead of them was a theater marquee. She glanced at it and went cold. The legend on the marquee jolted her so hard she swallowed back a cry. Across the white face of the sign, in bold black letters, were three words that filled her with fear and confusion:

  THE CAT PEOPLE SIMONE SIMON

  How could there be a movie about cat people? She didn’t understand; she felt betrayed, exposed.

  Braden was saying, “Pretty good old B movie. Ever see it?”

  “I don’t—I don’t think so.”

  “About a girl turning into a cat. A silly story, but it’s well cast. Simone Simon is good in it. She really looks like a cat—more like a pampered house cat, though, than a panther. The special effects are good—Jacques Tourneur directed it.”

  “A—a silly story?”

  “Girls turning into cats. I like science fiction, but people turning into animals…” He grinned and shrugged. “Too silly.” He turned into a parking area.

  She said nothing. They got out and he held the restaurant door open for her. She felt cold. She shivered as she followed the waitress.

  There were yellow flowers on the table. She touched them, sniffing their scent on her fingers. When the waitress had gone, she said, “What would you do if that story about cat people was real? If you were to see someone change into a cat?”

  “Faint dead away,” he said, laughing. “Or run like hell.”

  “I suppose it would be disgusting.”

  “I suppose it would—the arms and legs changing, fur sprouting all over, the shape of the head…Make an interesting series of anatomical drawings.”

  She toyed with her napkin, folding it into a small square, then smaller. She felt disappointed in him.

  But what else would she have expected? She thought, I am a cat person. I am that disgusting creature. I am your cat—the little calico who sleeps on your pillow. She said, “Do you dismiss anything you don’t understand?”

  “Of course not. Would you like the waffles? They’re really very good.”

  “Waffles would be fine.”

  When the waitress had gone he said, “Would you like to see the movie? It might be fun.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Come on, Melissa—I’d like to see the damned movie!”

  “You said you weren’t much for that sort of thing, so why bother?”

  “I only meant…I like Simone Simon. It would be fun with you, anything would.”

  “But you…”

  “I only meant that things like that, things that can’t really happen, people turning into cats—I just meant…Don’t stare at me like that. What the hell’s wrong? Oh, Christ. It seems silly to make such a movie, not silly to see it. Does that make any sense to you?”

  “I—yes, I suppose it does.” But it didn’t. She watched the waitress set down his coffee and her tea, and she pushed her cup away.

  “Are you all right? Are you not feeling well? Do you want me to take you home?”

  “I’m fine.” She looked at him steadily. “Your pictures aren’t real. And reflections aren’t real. They’re not the real world any more than cat people are.”

  He started to speak, but she pressed on stubbornly. “For one thing, reflections make things go backward—your right hand is your left. They are illusions. So how can you say a movie about other illusions is silly?”

  The waitress brought their waffles, letting her eyes slide down Melissa’s bright tunic and pants.

  Braden passed her the butter. “That’s just the point. Light and reflections are real. The physics of light photons, electromagnetic radiation—all that is real.”

  The waitress came back with their orange juice, and apologized for having forgotten it. Melissa tasted it with curiosity. Cressteane Palace had orange trees. Five gardeners were kept to do nothing but maintain the spells for growing the delicate fruit, which was served only to the royal family.

  Braden spread butter on his waffle and passed her the bacon. He gave her a deep, needing look, as if he wanted very much for her to understand. “Physics, the action of light, is a real science. But a woman turning into a cat is—that is just impossible. Physically, medically, scientifically impossible.”

  She ate in silence. There was no way to argue with him.

  And why should she? What difference did it make? He was an upperworlder—they were different. Totally, irreconcilably different.

  He signaled for more coffee, wondering why such a discussion should upset her. And why the hell he was so strung up.

  But he knew why. He had thought she understood how he saw the world because she seemed to like his paintings. She had given him that impression, that she had a perception of color and light and meaning that was akin to his feelings. He had thought she understood what he was trying to do, what he wanted to say with his work.

  Now he could see that she didn’t understand at all. So all right, his stupid ego was hurt.

  Why the hell did he want her to understand? He wanted her to model, not for some goddamned philosophical discussion.

  They worked all morning around an abandoned, crumbling Victorian house set alone in the center of a grassy field. They didn’t share half a dozen words. The empty rooms were filled with the sounds of the wind rattling the old doors and leaded windows. From beside a broken window she watched the wind running through the tall yellow grass that heaved like a sea. The chill, empty rooms made her feel forlorn and lost. She was very conscious of Braden’s detachment, of his silent, intent concentration. His work overrode his anger. She knew she had hurt him, and she didn’t like hurting him. She had said his paintings weren’t real. In effect she had said that what he felt, what he wanted to bring alive for others, was n
ot real. She had implied that his work was of no worth.

  She hadn’t meant that, and she hadn’t meant to hurt him. She said, as he stood looking at a finished drawing, “I didn’t mean that, about your work not being real.”

  He frowned, picking up the drawing. It was of the leaded glass window reflecting shattered images of grass and sky and of herself.

  She said, “I meant, not physically real. But—there is something else in your work.”

  “You don’t need to—”

  “There is,” she interrupted, “the spirit of what we see.” She looked at him deeply. “You bring alive the spirit of the physical world and make it real for others. That is your great strength, Braden West. In that way, what you do is very real.”

  He looked embarrassed, and looked at her deeply for a moment then turned away. She wanted to take his hand, wanted to touch him; but she dropped her hand and moved into the pose he wanted, turning casually, relaxed, until he told her to hold. And as he worked she watched him beneath lowered lashes, feeling the tension growing between them, a tension charged now not with anger and misunderstanding but with something intimate, a need drawing them together though he didn’t touch her.

  When they stopped to share the lunch he had packed, he wasn’t angry, his glances still caressed her as they had when he drew her. In the last drawing she was standing before a stained glass door, her face streaked with its red and green light. She said, teasing him, “If physics makes things real, then this is the way I was at this minute. I was red and green.”

  He stared at her, scowling again, then started to laugh. He dropped the lid of the basket and reached for her, hugging her close, and when he kissed her it was a long, slow kiss. She leaned into him, kissing him back, forgetting what he thought about cat people.

  Chapter 45

  Melissa left Braden painting—already he had roughed in a canvas of the Victorian house. She went up the garden toward Olive Cleaver’s, retying the scarf around her hair, watching Olive, above her, sweeping her front porch. She had decided to take the direct approach. Olive seemed gregarious, outgoing about her research, and Braden said the old woman liked to talk about what she was doing. What harm would it do to ask Olive, directly, what she was finding?

  Within minutes Olive had hurried her inside, put the kettle on, and laid out her notebooks and a heavy, leatherbound volume. She cut some angel food cake, and as they waited for the tea to brew Olive opened the thick book. “This is on loan from the Cat Museum; it’s quite valuable.” The old woman sat with her back to the window, her face in shadow, her frizzed hair looking wild against the light. Carefully her wrinkled hands turned the frail pages, then she passed the book to Melissa. The open page showed the picture of a door carved with a running cat.

  This door of the galloping cat was discovered in a croft house in the south of England, in the village of Tiverton. It opens from the bottom of the cellar stair into the cellar itself, and had been boarded over, apparently for several centuries. The cottage, fallen past reclaim, had served as a feed storage shed. The myth of the galloping cat, which was believed locally, would allow no one to live in the house. Several families tried to move in but something, likely the stories told by superstitious villagers, seems to have frightened them off. In 1947 Dr. Alfred Stetsingwell obtained permission from heirs to unboard the cellar and examine the door. It far surpassed his expectations. Radiocarbon tests date the timbers at older than the six centuries, probably from the first century B.C. The carving is bold and primitive, and made with simple tools. All attempts to remove the door without damage for exhibit in the British Museum have failed. The frame wood splits, the hinges crack, and twice the door itself has cracked. And these efforts give rise to another chapter in the myth. Two of the workmen, remaining alone past quitting hours, swore that a figure came down the cellar steps and told them to board up the door again. The workers described the man as having the face and paws of a cat. They boarded up the door, but Dr. Stetsingwell later unboarded it. He was never able to remove it, short of cutting apart the wood, which he was not willing to do. The door remains in the cellar in Tiverton, where this photograph was made. The myths of the countryside center around it, and around the strange disappearance and reappearance of Tiverton’s townsfolk. Tiverton is also known in the area for its large, handsome cats, which are said to be uncannily clever at mousing. In this farming region, cats are valued for that purpose.

  Olive said, “I’ve had a time searching out such examples. I’ve used every resource in the city, and of course inter-library loan.”

  Melissa was shaken. She watched the old woman warily. “What the book says about the man being half-cat—that’s just made up, of course.”

  Olive smiled. “Of course that part is folktale. Oh, there are wonderful tales. They’ve been all but lost.” Her faded brown eyes shone. “How lovely if they were true.”

  She opened a leather case and began shuffling through papers. “I’ve found mention of several such doors carved with cats.” She looked up at Melissa. “Are you sure you’re interested in all this?”

  “Oh, very interested.”

  “Well, you’ve seen the door in the garden, of course.” She studied Melissa rather too intently. “There are curious stories surrounding each door—fears, superstitions. That’s the aspect that interests me most. Are you a cat person?”

  Melissa sat very still, fear swamping her. She daren’t move, daren’t speak.

  “Do you like cats, my dear? Are you a person who likes cats?”

  She let the fear drain away; she felt weak; her heart was pounding too fast. “Oh, yes, I like cats. But cats don’t like me much. Tell me about the other doors.”

  “In a tomb in Egypt, a door was found hidden behind the sarcophagus. The cat carved on it is standing upright like a person. In her left hand she holds the crescent moon, in her right she holds the sun. She is wearing a tear-shaped pendant.”

  “A pendant?” Her heart thundered.

  “An amulet. Surely it symbolized some power.”

  Melissa waited, afraid to speak.

  “There are tales of an amulet,” Olive said. “An emerald amulet with the powers of Bast.”

  “Do you mean magical powers? What—what kind of powers would such a thing have?”

  “I have found several mentions of the pendant in works on ancient Egypt, but they do not describe the powers.” Olive seemed to take the amulet very seriously. “The emerald is tear-shaped, and its setting is formed of two gold cats, their paws joined to protect it.”

  “I suppose it is in a museum?”

  “Oh, no. It has never been found. And there seem to be no other really good pictures. I suppose if it really does exist, it lies buried in some undiscovered tomb.”

  Melissa studied Olive. “In the tomb where that pendant is shown in the carving—has anyone searched for it there?”

  Olive smiled. “The archaeologist writes that behind that door is a solid clay wall. I have wondered, if one dug there…” She shook her head. “I’m sure others have thought of that. I’m sure the archaeologist himself must have dug into that wall, though his published work doesn’t mention it.” She poured more tea, filling their cups. “There is a door in a Celtic grave which shows an amulet around the neck of a cat, though not such a clear image. All that remains of that door is a fragment, a piece of dark oak bearing the marks of a hinge, and the forequarters of the cat.

  “And there is said to be such a door in Italy, where a cat wears a jewel around its neck, but I have found no good reference. But that’s intriguing because—do you know about the cats of Italy, the Coliseum cats? Hundreds of cats living there in that magnificent ruin…”

  There was no need to answer her, Melissa need only listen, Olive was completely engrossed.

  “Hundreds of cats. And there’s a strange myth in Italy that intrigues me, though I don’t know how they could be connected. It is said that every now and then a stranger appears in Rome without money or identification—n
o passport, nothing. A stranger who is confused by the city and its traffic—innocent, like a child.

  “He will be around the city for a few days then disappear. No one knows where such people go, or where they came from.” Olive picked up the book, wrapping it in brown paper. Melissa’s fists were clenched in her lap, her nails biting into her palms.

  Chapter 46

  Three hundred cats roamed within the fenced, wire-roofed compound in the center of the Lillith Ranch. Within the two-acre enclosure cats hunted through the high grass, played, slept, fought, and bred. Some had marked off territories and defended them. Beyond the cat compound and separated from it by low hills stood the barracks housing the human refugees from San Francisco’s streets. The buildings crested the far side of the hill, and included besides the barracks a mess hall, recreation buildings, a gym, stables, tack rooms, and weapons rooms. There was a riding ring large enough to accommodate sword training and mock battles. The human trainees were encouraged to handle the horses under supervision, but they were not encouraged to visit the cat compound.

  Some of the cats were strays. Some had been stolen from the yards and gardens of San Francisco’s residential areas; some came from animal pounds. All were Catswold, carefully selected; one could tell by the eyes, by the unusually long ears, by something singularly unsettling in the expression. Vrech had not liked collecting them.

  The toughest, most adaptable cats among the group did not bother to hunt, but sprawled arrogantly in the hot California sunshine, disdainful of hunting such easy game as the white mice freed daily into the enclosure for their pleasure. Instinctively they waited for normalcy to return to their lives, for times to fall again into the lean pattern of precarious survival they had learned in San Francisco’s alleys. Here, the effort to hunt was wasted; here food was brought twice daily.

  Some of the cats, feeling too crowded, skulked along the fence or climbed irritably up and down the oak trees that had been pruned to stubs to allow for the wire mesh roof; they clawed at the mesh, staring through to freedom. The more dependent cats simply gorged on the white mice, which hardly knew how to escape a cat’s claws.