Paws for Alarm

by Marian Babson

  ‘Drink up, Babe.’ Arnold patted my hand, ‘Then we’ll start looking again.’

  ‘Well never find them. We’ll never see them again – never. They’re gone for ever. I should never have left them. If they’ll only come back, I’ll never do it again. I’ll take better care of them: I’ll –’

  ‘Here they are now,’ Arnold said, looking over my shoulder.

  ‘I’ll kill them!’ I pushed back my chair and whirled to face them. ‘Where the hell have you brats been?’

  They were eating ice cream – perhaps that was the most infuriating thing about it. They looked at each other and shrugged, then turned winsome smiles on me.

  ‘I was afraid you’d be worried.’ Hazel saved us all from infanticide. Until she spoke, I hadn’t even noticed she was there. ‘We’ve been looking for you.’

  ‘Have you?’ I could imagine how much looking the twins had done.

  ‘It was awfully good of you to find the kids and bring them back to us.’ Arnold spoke quickly.

  ‘Actually, they found me.’ Hazel did not sound exactly pleased about it.

  Donna and Donald exchanged their secret twin-smiles again. I found I was clenching my fists. I tried counting silently to ten. It would not do to make a public scene in the middle of Boulogne. The French probably had old-fashioned ideas about murdering children – no matter how richly they deserved it.

  ‘Now see what you’ve done, you kids,’ Arnold scolded mildly. ‘You’ve got your mother all upset. You shouldn’t have gone running off on your own like that.’

  ‘We got tired of hanging around,’ Donald said.

  ‘Yes, it was very boring.’ Donna backed him. ‘We didn’t want to come all the way to France and then stand around in a boring old supermarket. We wanted to see the country.’

  ‘Oh, you did.’ Never mind seeing the country, I was seeing red. ‘Well, let me tell you, you’re really going to find out the meaning of the word bored. When we get back to England, you’re going to be confined to quarters for the next week. And Angela and Peregrine are not going to be allowed to visit you!’

  ‘Aw, Mom –’

  ‘That’s enough! You’ve been thoughtless, disobedient, inconsiderate — and a nuisance to everyone. You can stay up in your rooms and think about how lucky you are that we aren’t sending you back to the States so that we can enjoy ourselves in peace for the rest of the summer!’

  ‘Aw, Mom –’

  There was just the faintest trace of a satisfied smile on Hazel’s face.

  Quite frankly, the rest of the week was harder on me than it was on the kids, but I stuck to my guns. The next day we were treated to a double-fit of monumental sulks. By Friday, they had graduated to the sympathy racket.

  ‘It’s no use your trying that one again,’ I said heartlessly, as they limped wincingly through the kitchen on their way to the back yard for one of the periodic breaths of air they were allowed. ‘It isn’t going to work.’ I had already inspected their feet last night, when they had first begun acting as though they were walking on burning coals.

  ‘If you’ve blisters, it’s your own fault – running all over Boulogne. You’re lucky you didn’t break a leg – or get hit by a car.’

  The cars drive on the right side of the road over there,’ Donald said indignantly. ‘It’s more dangerous here.’

  ‘Regardless –’ I was not going to be drawn into argument. ‘You’re lucky you’re getting off so lightly. From now on, you’ll behave yourselves or take the consequences. If Hazel hadn’t found you, you might have gotten hopelessly lost and never found your way back to the ferry.’

  ‘Hazel didn’t find us,’ Donald corrected, ‘we found her.’ He sniggered. ‘And she didn’t like it –’

  ‘She was furious.’ Donna giggled. ‘We spoiled her date with the Invisible Man.’

  ‘And what is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Nothing.’ The twins exchanged glances and went off into such paroxysms of laughter that they had to support each other as they stumbled towards the back door.

  Before I could challenge them further, a plaintive howl from Arnold in the study demanded my attention. He sounded as though he was dying in agony but, when I rushed in, he simply required a pot of tea and some toasted buttered scones.

  By the end of the weekend, I was a wreck. Those scrabbling, nibbling noises had surfaced again and Esmond steadfastly refused to do his duty. He seemed to think it lese-majesty on my part to suggest that he attend to anything so menial as mousing. I had a couple of long discussions with him, citing our priceless Errol – who would never have been left behind in New Hampshire if it weren’t for the callous and cruel English quarantine laws – as a shining example of what a male cat should be. Esmond regarded me coldly throughout these pep talks and disappeared through the cat flap as soon as feline decency permitted.

  The situation was not improved when Lania decided to intervene on Sunday evening. Possibly the fact that she had had Angela and Peregrine on her hands all weekend had something to do with her decision. That, and the fact that school holidays were starting.

  She sailed into the living-room, Richard in her wake, and began trying to tell me that I was interfering with the freedom of my children, ruining their social development and probably marking them for life.

  As I studied her quietly, trying to decide just where I would like to mark her for life, Arnold hastily moved between us.

  ‘Take it easy, Babe,’ he said, out of the corner of his mouth. ‘She means well.’

  ‘I doubt that.’ Lania was interested only in her own comfort, which had been disturbed when part of the twins’ punishment had been the barring of their friends from the house.

  ‘I can assure you —’ Lania began coldly.

  ‘I have told the twins – I was equally cold – ‘that their punishment will last for a week – and it will. I’m sorry Angela and Peregrine don’t like it, but discipline is discipline.’

  ‘I really think you might –’

  Esmond saved the situation. He marched triumphantly into the kitchen, a limp object dangling from his mouth. He came straight up to me and deposited it at my feet.

  ‘Rrrr-yah!’ he said proudly.

  ‘Esmond!’ I was astonished. ‘You’ve caught the mouse!’

  ‘Well, well.’ Arnold looked down at him with grudging approval. ‘So you’re not just a pretty face.’

  ‘Oh, darling Esmond!’ I bent and gathered him into my arms. ‘Who’s a clever boy, then? Who caught the nasty mouse that was bothering Mommy?’

  ‘Shrew!’ Lania said suddenly.

  ‘You should talk!’ I snapped back.

  ‘No, no,’ Richard said quickly. ‘She means it isn’t a mouse – it’s a shrew. Or possibly a vole. It isn’t a house mouse – it’s one of the field mice.’

  ‘I don’t care.’ I cuddled Esmond defensively. ‘At least my lovely Esmond was showing willing.’

  ‘Whatever it was –’ Arnold stooped and picked up the thing by the tail. ‘I guess we ought to dispose of the corpse. Heh-heh-heh.’

  ‘No, no, darling.’ I restrained Esmond as he tried to wriggle free to reclaim his prize. ‘You can’t eat it – it isn’t good for you. I will give my lovely boy a lovely can of sardines. And then he’ll go and catch more nasty mice.’

  ‘I hope you have several cartons of sardines,’ Lania said coldly. ‘The woods are full of shrews.’

  I gave her a look that let her know where I thought the biggest shrew of all resided and carried Esmond into the kitchen. I met Arnold at the door on his way back to our guests.

  ‘Just don’t use the step-on rubbish bin,’ he said. ‘I’ll empty it first thing in the morning.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I carried on into the kitchen and gave Esmond his promised treat. No two ways about it, that cat seemed to have grown in stature and confidence. He knew he’d lived up to expectations and that I was proud of him. His triumphal purr throbbed through the room as he demolished the sardines.

  ‘
Plenty more where that came from,’ I promised him. ‘Just you keep this place mouse-free.’

  ‘Prrr-yah!’ he agreed.

  Fourteen

  ‘White rabbits! White rabbits! White rabbits!’ First thing Monday morning, the twins charged into the kitchen, shouting in unison.

  ‘Oh, no! You’re not starting that again!’ Lania’s horrible casserole rose up in my mind again and my stomach prepared to rebel. That was weeks ago and I don’t want to be reminded of it. The subject is definitely, finally, forevermore closed.’

  ‘Not that, Mom,’ Donald said. ‘This is different. You’re supposed to say, “White rabbits, white rabbits, white rabbits” the first thing on the first day of the month. It brings you lots of good luck – and lots of money.’

  ‘Really? White rabbits, white rabbits, white rabbits!’ I’d try anything once.

  ‘No, no, Mom, it’s too late. You’ve already been talking. It has to be the very first thing you say on the first day of the month. Otherwise, it doesn’t work. Angie and Perry told us so.’

  ‘Did they?’ I should have known there was a catch in it. ‘Okay, I’ll try again next month.’

  ‘Try what?’ Arnold appeared in the doorway, dressed for town, driving everything else out of my mind.

  ‘You’re not going to try to go up to London today!’

  ‘I’ve got a lot of work to do, honey, and I’ve lost a lot of time. I’m feeling much stronger and –’ he forestalled further argument – ‘I was okay on the Boulogne trip, so I ought to be okay just going to London. I’ll take it very carefully and I’ll come back on an early train and not get caught in the rush hour. Don’t worry.’

  Don’t worry. Easy enough to say. I glared at the twins. If it hadn’t been for them, we wouldn’t have had such a hard time in Boulogne. So hard that it made a trip to London seem easy in comparison.

  ‘Can we go out to play today, Mom?’ Donald tried his newly-acquired luck. ‘Can we? Please?’

  ‘May we?’ I corrected automatically.

  ‘May we?’ he asked on a note of rising hope. ‘Please?’

  ‘No. I said a week and I meant a week. Eat your breakfast and go back upstairs.’ I hardened my heart to their pleas, wishing I could forbid Arnold’s excursion as easily.

  ‘I’ll be all right, honey,’ he said reassuringly, catching my thought.

  ‘I’ll drive you to the station,’ I said grudgingly.

  After watching Arnold board the London train safely, I did the shopping. By now, I was able to recognize some faces; more to the point, they recognized me and stopped to chat. Hazel had been right. That day trip to Boulogne had been very useful in getting me integrated with the locals – even if it had nearly torn my nerves to shreds at the time.

  I shuddered involuntarily and suddenly wondered what the twins were doing right this minute. I trusted them. Of course, I trusted them to obey the rules. They were being punished and they knew it, and they knew why they were being punished. They wouldn’t slip out of the house behind my back, would they?

  I decided to skip the bakery – there was a long queue outside – and go straight home. I’d been away for a couple of hours and that was quite long enough. Besides, the postman would have called by now and perhaps there’d be some letters for me. I wasn’t exactly homesick now, but I sure missed not knowing what was going on back in New Hampshire.

  Mostly, I wanted to know what was happening with Patrick; whether that jealous bitch of a wife of his had managed to pull him back from the edge of a nervous breakdown. Celia had thought she could do it all by herself; she’d fixed it so that I was too far away to be of any help; so what was happening? I hadn’t heard a word since I’d left. Was that a silent admission that she had failed?

  I ran into Lania in the parking lot; she was parked just a couple of cars away. We observed the amenities and that meant a further delay. Before I broke away, I had promised that Arnold and I would go round on Thursday night for drinks and something she mysteriously referred to as ‘the unveiling’.

  The twins greeted my return effusively. They had obviously been worrying about their lunch, although they were perfectly capable of making sandwiches for themselves, if necessary.

  After I got them fed and out of the way, I decided to make a lemon meringue pie to welcome Arnold home tonight. It was his favourite and he would be exhausted after his first full day back at work. A bit of cosseting wouldn’t go amiss.

  I was elbow-deep in flour when the doorbell rang. As usual, the twins raced to answer it. I continued rolling out piecrust.

  ‘Hey, Mom –’ Donald shouted suddenly. ‘The cops have got Dad again!’

  ‘Oh, no!’ He’d overdone it going up on that early train. He’d collapsed! He wasn't as recovered as he thought he was. I covered the distance from the kitchen to the front door in record time and skidded to a stop in front of the familiar tableau.

  ‘Arnold! What’s happened?’

  ‘Just a slight accident, madam,’ one of the policemen said. They were two different policemen this time. ‘He’ll be all right.’

  ‘Yeah, honey,’ Arnold said absently. ‘I’ll be all right.’

  He looked better than he had the other time. There was no obvious physical damage. True, his trousers were torn, he had a large oil smear on his jacket, and he appeared to have lost his necktie somewhere along the way, but he was basically unmarked.

  ‘What happened?’ I demanded again. I was not going to be fobbed off with that famous stiff upper lip. English policemen may be wonderful, but I prefer hard facts to soft words. Especially where my husband is concerned.

  ‘He seems to have slipped and fallen, madam.’ The policemen gave up the unequal struggle and let me have it. ‘In front of a bus.’

  ‘Arnold!’

  “Take it easy, Babe. I’m okay.’

  ‘I should never have let you go up to London alone. You’re still weak and wobbly. They haven’t even taken out the stitches yet. I was insane to let you go!’

  ‘Okay, Babe, okay.’ Arnold threw his arm around my shoulders and hugged me tight. I was the only one who could know that he was leaning his full weight on me to hold him up.

  ‘Are they going to throw you into jail, Dad?’ Donald was evidently of the opinion that the Strong Arm of the Law was strictly punitive. Where had we gone wrong? When I was a child I was taught that, if I were ever lost, I was to march up to the nearest policeman, recite my name and address – and I would be seen home safely. Up to now, I had always thought I had inculcated this procedure into my children. But they must have been watching too much television. How could a parent teach that the Law was a friendly protective force when, night after night, in every living-room, the police were portrayed as trigger-happy gunslingers intent on vengeance and annihilation?

  ‘No question of that, son.’ The policeman spoke between clenched teeth, evidently having had more experience of the problem than I had had. ‘Your Dad wasn’t feeling well, so we’ve just brought him home, see?’

  ‘Yes.’ Donald backed away uncertainly, the tone rather than the message getting through to him.

  ‘I can’t thank you enough –’ Arnold said earnestly. His hand wavered towards his wallet, then dropped as he remembered that you don’t tip the police. ‘Can we offer you a drink, or something?’

  ‘No, thank you, sir.’ Both policemen smiled and moved towards the door. It would be reward enough for them to get out of here. ‘If there’s anything else you’d like to add to your statement, you know where to find us.’

  ‘Fine, but I can assure you, the bus driver wasn’t at fault in any way.’ Arnold shook hands with them. ‘Thanks, again. You’ve been terrific.’

  ‘Our pleasure, sir.’ They opened the front door and disappeared.

  ‘Daddy! Daddy!’ Donna flung her arms around his waist, leaned her head against it and burst into tears. ‘Don’t die, Daddy. We need you. We want you to stay with us.’

  ‘Okay, kid, okay.’ Arnold patted her shoulder. ‘I’m not
going to die, I promise you.’ There was a new, grim note in his voice. ‘You and Donald go upstairs now, you hear? Daddy wants to rest in the study for a while.’

  Amazingly, they went. Donald, although not admitting it, obviously as shaken as Donna. I followed Arnold into the study and stood over him as he collapsed into the wing chair.

  ‘Arnold, honey, what is all this? What happened?’

  ‘You’re not going to believe this, Babe.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Okay. I didn’t fall – I was pushed.’

  ‘Pushed? But how – why? Arnold, be sensible.’

  ‘I am.’ He caught my hand and looked at me intently. ‘Nancy, we can’t kid ourselves any longer. I don’t know why, but somebody is deliberately trying to murder me.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Arnold. Nobody here knows you well enough yet to want to murder you. Wait a while.’

  ‘I told you you wouldn’t believe me.’

  ‘But, Arnold, it doesn’t make sense –’

  ‘Just think about it, Babe. One.’ He began ticking the occasions off on his fingers. ‘One: a brand new hire-car goes out of control. That could have killed me then and there –’ His lips tightened. ‘It could have killed all of us.

  ‘Two: I was knifed by those soccer hooligans. I told you, there were lots of other passengers waiting for that train – but they rushed at me deliberately. I was the only person they attacked. That might have killed me, if I hadn’t been lucky. I’ll bear the scars to my dying day – which may not be so far off.’

  ‘Arnold – don’t say things like that!’ I was getting frightened.

  ‘Three: what happened today.’ He dropped his hand and stared into space. ‘I was waiting in the queue at the bus stop. I’d worked all morning at the London Library and I was going to get the bus over to the British Museum and have lunch in the Museum Pub before going to the Reading Room. I was standing there, minding my own business, when a bus came along. Not even my bus –’

  ‘Arnold –’

  ‘You can’t mistake a good solid push in the back, Babe. It was deliberate. Just as the bus came along –’