Cat's Eyes

by Alan Scholefield

  “And then he puts it down on a typewriter, or by hand?”

  “He’s taken to using a little tape-recorder, then he has it typed by an agency. He’s already filled several cassettes, though the book isn’t half finished. There’s a stack of them in his room. He’s taken the manuscript with him and he hopes he might have time to work on it between sessions on the screen-play.”

  “What a lovely life it sounds. Do you enjoy having him home all the time?”

  “I love it. In the States women whose husbands have retired tend to moan that they married them for better or worse — but not for lunch. I’ve never been able to understand that.”

  Celia laughed and stood up. “Time to go. We must do this more often now we’re both bachelor girls.”

  “Call in whenever you can.” As they reached the door Rachel added: “The mist is coming down. You’ll have to drive carefully.”

  “I nearly hit a cat on the way here.”

  “Which one?”

  “Which one? God knows. There are so many. I thought it might be yours, but you don’t own one, do you?”

  “No, why?”

  “It was sitting in your drive when I turned in. Then it ran off. Seemed to be limping.”

  “Was it big? I mean, bigger than usual?”

  “Yes.”

  “That goddamned cat is haunting me,” Rachel burst out, an emotional chill mixing with her anger. “It’s been raiding the garbage can and I think it killed and ate something on the lawn.”

  “I’d poison it if I were you.” It was said coolly, a piece of practical country advice. “Strychnine’s the best. I used it on a stray dog once.”

  “I bought a dog today. He sleeps inside but I hope his presence might drive the cat away. It gives me the creeps. I have a feeling it watches me.”

  Celia laughed. “I think you’re over-reacting.”

  After she had gone, Rachel went upstairs to look at Sophie. She had flung off her aircell blanket and was lying in a twisted mass of arms and legs. “Penny says I should tuck you up tightly, too,” Rachel whispered. “Maybe she and Nurse Griffin are right.”

  That day the baby had cried after lunch and not even a rusk would calm her. It was only after Penny had taken her in her arms for a few moments, then put her in the cot and tucked the blankets up to her chin and deep down on either side of the mattress, that she had finally gone to sleep. “Why do you tuck her in so tightly?” Rachel had asked. Penny had looked confused, her big, moonlike face turning towards Rachel like a radar dish. “Can’t say,” she replied. And then, as her brain slowly sorted out the correct response, she had added: “Mum always does it like that. She says it makes them feel more secure, like.”

  Now Sophie lay like a little Russian doll and Rachel realised that she herself liked the blankets tucked around her. Bill slept any-old-how, flinging his arms and legs out, but she was a neat sleeper. Maybe Sophie had inherited a need for such security from her.

  She glanced at her watch. It was nine thirty. What now? Bed? Her mind protested. It was too early for bed. But the well-being engendered by Celia’s visit and three whiskies was wearing off. She returned to the sitting-room and switched on the television, but hardly watched it. She had imagined that the beginning of the evening would be the worst time. What about later? What about when she switched off the light, when she only had her own thoughts to live with and the dream was waiting in the dark corridors of sleep. Would another drink help, or would it make her more wide awake? She wouldn’t know unless she had one. Good old Scotch, she thought. A drink for all seasons. She poured one, put her leg up on the footstool and sat back, trying to concentrate on the television screen. The whisky and the warmth of the fire soon made her sleepy and she dozed.

  She awoke a little after midnight. The testcard was on the screen, the fire had burned low and she was cold. This time there was no dream but her heart was beating at twice its normal speed, as though something had given her a fright; not an image, but a noise.

  She strained to listen. She thought she heard a high-pitched note, almost like the creaking of a rusty door. Then a scraping noise of metal on stone. It came from the rear of the house. Then a thud. And again the scraping.

  She was tempted to go to Sophie’s room and lock herself in with the child, symbolically burying her head under the blankets and waiting for whatever was causing the noise to go away. But she knew that the childlike course was closed to her by the years of adulthood. She picked up a brass fire-iron and went into the hall. The high-pitched noise was clearer, then she heard a scratching. It sounded as though an animal was trying to get into the house. Where is that goddamned dog, she thought? This is why I bought him.

  “Franco!” she said loudly. “What is it, boy?”

  The high-pitched noise changed timbre and she realised what it was: it was the dog, whining. She went into the kitchen, switched on all the lights and opened the door into the back passage. Franco was at the far end, at the back door, scratching to get out.

  “What is it, Franco?”

  The sound of her voice caused him to bark and jump up at the door. She switched on the light in the yard. The back door had two small glass windows near the top, and by standing on tip-toe she could see out. One of the rubbish bins was on its side and a mess was strewn over the concrete. The lid had fallen and rolled. She thought she saw a black shape move in the penumbra of the light but could not be sure.

  Her fear gave way to anger. The dog was barking hysterically, jumping up and trying to get out. “All right,” she said, “you want to get that cat, you get it.” She opened the door. Franco shot out like a golden streak and she followed him, set the bin upright and put a couple of bricks on the lid. Then she banged the door, locked and chained it and stood with her back to it.

  She was wide awake. She kept on all the lights and made herself a cup of coffee, took it back into the sitting-room, built up the fire and put a record on the stereo. She lit a cigarette and sat down. But she was restless. She stood up and began to pace slowly up and down the room. Her leg ached, but in a curious was she was glad of the pain; it gave her something to think about.

  First the tapping ...

  She stopped, holding her breath.

  She could have sworn she heard tapping. But it was supposed to come in her dream, not in reality. Her back was to the window and she was afraid to turn. What would she see? But the curtains were drawn. Slowly, by force of will, she made herself turn round. There was nothing. But she had the sensation of the house around her turning and twisting in a life of its own.

  Where was the tapping? In her head? The fear of fear itself swept over her. She went to the back of the house, opened the door on the chain and called, “Franco! Franco!” She called for five minutes, but there was no sign of the dog.

  She found herself back in the sitting-room, not knowing how she had got there. She lit another cigarette and crossed to the drinks table and picked up her glass. She was about to pour herself another whisky when she realised that she was in a moment of crisis in her life and that there was no one to help her resolve it except herself. She put the decanter down.

  “All right, face it,” she said aloud.

  Her father had often told her that when you actually faced a problem it never seemed as bad as it had before.

  “So do it!” She seemed to hear his voice.

  She knew what she had to face. She had to remember the night of the accident, to dig each detail out of her memory and look at it and then, if her father was right, the fear would have disappeared.

  *

  Bill had gone up to London to have dinner and spend the night with his editor. It was a hot, sultry day and the clouds had built up after lunch into great purple thunder-heads. The atmosphere was electric and very close. She had taken Sophie and Alec Webb into Chichester, shopping, and had returned home at five o’clock. She was preparing Sophie’s supper when there was a knock at the back door. Charlie Leech was standing in the yard.

  “I
’ve got the elbow pipe for your stove,” he said, holding out a piece of seven-inch black, vitreous enamel piping with a right-angle bend.

  “Are you going to do it now? Mr. Chater’s in London. He was expecting you last Monday.”

  “Couldn’t make it then. It won’t take long.”

  She led him through into the sitting-room where the black stove stood on its three legs in the fire-place. Bill had had the small Edwardian coal-burning fire removed and they had found a large, square ingle-nook fireplace behind it. Then he had bought the big Jotul and asked Charlie, the village handyman, to install it.

  She knew Bill always gave him a glass of beer when he arrived to do a job and she asked if he would like one now.

  “I don’t mind,” he said, which was his way of showing enthusiasm.

  She took a can from the refrigerator and gave it to him. He ripped off the tag and put it to his lips.

  She was never sure of Charlie. Bill had an easy way of dealing with workmen. He was friendly and made jokes with them and called them by their Christian names and they were friendly and joked with him but they called him ‘sir’ or ‘Mr Chater’. It was the same with Charlie. But she called him Mr. Leech because she had the distinct feeling that if she called him Charlie he might — though not in Bill’s presence — decide he had the right to call her Rachel.

  He was in his mid-thirties and had the reputation of being the village stud. His thick black hair was combed back in a duck’s tail, reminding her of pictures she had seen of the 1950s Teddy-boys. He had a broad, heavy face and wore a single gold ring in his right ear. It was apparent that he was vain of his appearance and he would take off his shirt when he was working, even on cool days. Now it was unbuttoned to his navel, showing a substantial, bronzed chest. On the inner part of his left forearm was a tattoo of an anchor and he liked to give an impression that he had spent part of his life at sea and been round the world a couple of times. In reality, the farthest he had ever been from home, apart from jaunts to London, was a day trip to Boulogne on the French Channel coast where he had drunk red wine and brandy and been sick as a dog on the ship coming home.

  There were stories about him: that he was a poacher, that he’d had affairs with most of the married women in the district, that he was the father of half a dozen illegitimate children, that he came from gypsy stock.

  He finished the beer in one long swallow and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Coming on to storm,” he remarked, peering at the empty can.

  “Would you like another?” she said.

  “I don’t mind.” He added: “You trying to get me you-know-what?”

  She took the can from him and their fingers touched and she read a knowing look in his dark brown eyes. It seemed to say, “You and me are equals, aren’t we?” She knew the look would never appear when Bill was around, for without effort he preserved the dividing line between employer and employee, but she sensed that Charlie considered Americans to be free and easy and equal; all working-class people together.

  She handed him another can and said coolly, “I have things to do.”

  She went upstairs and bathed Sophie. She took her time because she could hear him working and she wanted to see as little of him as possible. Finally she came down with Sophie in her arms. He was hammering at something in the fireplace and only his feet were visible.

  “Are you having problems?” she said.

  He emerged. He was naked from the waist up, a powerfully-built man covered in a sheen of sweat on which brick dust stood out in tiny pink spots.

  “I’ve got to cut them bricks,” he said. “Otherwise the flue won’t go up the chimney. It’s too tight.”

  She fed Sophie in the kitchen, put the plates in the dishwasher and tidied up. He was still hammering. She took the baby upstairs, played with her, then put her down to sleep.

  Thunder rolled over the Downs. She stood at Sophie’s window for a while, watching the lightning crackle through the darkening sky. She waited until the child was asleep and then she listened for hammering from downstairs. It had stopped.

  When she went down Charlie was moving the huge black stove further into the ingle-nook. Bill had told her that it weighed more than four hundred pounds. She stood in the doorway. The muscles in Charlie’s back were standing out like cables. He was grunting and heaving, and slowly the stove moved back, the flue-pipe bedding down into the hole he had cut in the bricks. He gave a last grunt and stood back to look at his work. He was breathing heavily and she saw that his hair was matted and caked with dust.

  “Bloody thing!” he said.

  “But you’ve got it in.”

  “As the actress said to the bishop. It’s not level. Look ...” He pointed to the front legs, which were slightly off the hearth. “Can’t leave it like that.” He rummaged in his tool bag and came up with two washers. “I’ll lift. You put one under each leg.” She knelt on the hearth. Her head was close to his body and her face was within inches of his stomach. He heaved and the stove came up.

  “Quickly!”

  She slipped a washer under one foot.

  “Now for the other,” he said. “Ready?”

  The smell of his body was in her nostrils, an overpoweringly musty odour of sweat.

  “I’m ready.”

  “Right. One. Two. Three.”

  She could almost hear his muscles groan under the strain. The stove came up and she slipped the washer under the second leg.

  “That’s all it needed,” he said. “Steady as a rock now.”

  He wiped his face with a filthy handkerchief, then he opened the stove’s doors, crumpled a piece of paper, put it inside and lit it. It flared up quickly, then died. All the smoke went up the flue. “It draws beautiful. Really beautiful.”

  There was a pride of achievement in his voice which touched her, since the stove was not his own. “You deserve a beer for that,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t say no.”

  She fetched a can, then poured herself a whisky.

  “Here’s to the stove,” she said. “Thank you very much, Mr. Leech.”

  “Call me Charlie,” he said. “Everybody else does.”

  She said nothing and after a moment he began to roll himself a cigarette. He did it well and was utterly absorbed in what he was doing. She watched his big fingers, which should have been clumsy, roll the paper with the delicacy of a surgeon’s. He was conscious of being watched. He raised it to his lips and licked it, then he held it out to her.

  “No, thanks,” she said.

  “You ever tried one of these?”

  She shook her head.

  “Go on, try one.”

  She thought of his saliva on the paper. “I only smoke filter-tips.”

  “You don’t get no taste with a filter-tip. Like having it off with a you-know-what on.”

  She ignored him, sorry now that she had offered another beer. He drank half the can in one gulp and said, “I wouldn’t say no to a drop of whisky. Just to take the dust from me throat.”

  Reluctantly, she poured a shot and said, “Water?”

  “No water.” He threw the whisky back into his throat and chased it with beer. “Boilermaker,” he said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Boilermaker. Whisky and beer.” He stood by the fireplace with his elbow on the mantelpiece. The rain was lashing down but the thunder and lightning seemed to have moved away.

  “Here,” he said. “You got a sense of humour?”

  “I hope so.”

  “You like a good story?”

  Her heart sank.

  “It’s a bit naughty. But like they say ... consenting adults. There was this sailor, see, and he’s supposed to have the biggest —”

  Just then Sophie began to cry. It was the first time Rachel had heard the sound with pleasure. “Excuse me,” she said. “I must go. Thank you very much. I’ll tell Mr. Chater to come over and see you tomorrow and settle up.” Her tone was dismissive, final.

  “Oh
... all right, then.”

  “Goodbye, Mr. Leech.”

  She went upstairs. The wind had come up and was blowing half a gale from the south-west. She heard a door slam. Sophie was wet and very cross. Rachel changed her and stood at the window again, looking out at the storm. The rain was coming down in buckets, driven against the window by the wind.

  As she put the baby down, she was suddenly tired.

  Charlie had left a mess of brick-dust in the sitting-room. She picked up the beer cans and his whisky glass and took them out to the kitchen. She was reaching into the cupboard for a dustpan and brush when she suddenly knew he was behind her. She had half-turned when she felt herself gripped from behind, hands covering her breasts. She was wearing a skirt and blouse and he began to pull the blouse off. The first impact of terror was overlaid by anger. She wanted to scream at him, to beat at him with the brush and pan. But part of her mind remained cool.

  She stood stiffly as he fumbled with her bra, trying to put his hand underneath, and she said, “You’ll tear my blouse, Mr. Leech, and that’ll make some nice evidence for the police, won’t it?”

  He paused, turned her round and kissed her roughly. She tasted liquor and sweat and tobacco. “Come on,” he said.

  She raised her right hand. “Do you see these?” she said. He looked at her sharp red nails. “You try to rape me and I’ll rip your eyes out.”

  Her quiet voice and the coldness of the threat stopped him. He dropped his hands. “What makes you so particular?” he said. “It was only a bit of fun.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Only a bit of fun. Good night, Mr. Leech.”

  She locked the back door after him, hating him for what he had done to her, hating him for putting her in a position where future meetings would be fraught with tension.

  She went upstairs and brushed her teeth, while bath-water gushed from the taps. She swirled the toothpaste about in her mouth, cleansing her gums and tongue and lips of his smell; the bath would remove traces of his touch.