by David Haynes
After a few minutes he heard a cheer from outside followed quickly by a collective groan of disgust. It was over. He waited a few more minutes before climbing back in. Hopefully the cat would be so exhausted and satisfied he would be easy to catch and throw out onto the street. As soon as he climbed back into the display he heard a terrible crunching sound coming from the far end. Fortunately most of the crowd had dispersed; they were either disgusted by the sight of the cat eating its prey or they were bored by it. Either way, Bobby was pleased; he didn't want anyone seeing what he had planned for the cat.
He followed the sounds of bone crunching and located the cat behind the plastic lilies. The cat peered over the top of what looked like a half eaten nose and emitted a drawn out growl followed by a hiss. Its teeth hadn't grown any smaller since it had last displayed them.
"You're out of here, pal." Bobby bent at the waist and sounded out his own guttural rumble. The cat eyed him but didn't try to escape. It merely put one of his paws onto the rat's rump and dragged it closer to his fangs.
"I'm not interested in that. You can take it with you, I really don't care. But you need to leave before one of us gets hurt and let me tell you, that ain't gonna be me." He moved his hand as quick as he could and grabbed the scruff of the cat's neck. The cat didn't let go of its meal but swivelled its entire body around and raked all four sets of claws down Bobby's shirtsleeve.
"You little shit!" Bobby roared and tried to fling the cat away. This only made the cat drop its meal which in turn made it angry, really angry. It wriggled its head free of Bobby's grip whilst hanging on to his arm with its claws. Thin trails of blood had already started to seep through the cotton on his shirt and Bobby felt the sting of his flesh being punctured.
They locked eyes for a moment before the cat sank its fangs into his flesh. It did it slowly too, as if pointing out how much it was in control of the situation. Bobby let out a grunt but didn't shout. The cat was toying with him but he wouldn't give it anymore satisfaction.
"Alright, alright, you've got me." The cat closed its jaw a fraction more sending a small but sharp sting through his arm. The curved ends of its claws reached under his skin and locked them in place. One move from Bobby and he knew those claws would dig deeper and make a real mess.
"How about a deal?" he said wincing. "Anywhere but the window or the chapel. The rest is yours." The cat's nose wrinkled as it made another rumbling sound.
"Okay the chapel too, just not the window again."
The cat unlocked its jaws and hissed.
"I'll take that as a yes." He looked down at his blood streaked shirtsleeve. "Would you mind unhanding me now?"
The cat retracted its claws and dropped back onto the Astroturf. It landed without a sound. Bobby thought about putting his foot up the cat's arse but as if reading his thoughts the cat turned and hissed. It picked up the partially eaten rat and strolled casually out of the window display.
"That's right, you run away." Bobby shouted. The cat didn't make a sound; they both knew who had come out on top.
Bobby looked at his arm. His shirtsleeve was covered in a mixture of blood, possibly rat's and his own, and dirt. "Jesus Christ."
By the time he'd finished cleaning up and embalming Nancy it was nearly ten o'clock. He'd set her carefully in the coffin and locked her in the little room designated the Chapel of Rest. The room was little more than a converted store cupboard, albeit one with a dead body and air conditioning in.
He hadn't seen the cat since the altercation and he was happy about that. He thought about closing the window in the embalming room. It was a good idea if the cat was out, but he suspected it was hiding away somewhere, sleeping off its belly full of rat and human flesh. The open window might encourage it to leave of its own free will.
Apart from that blemish the rest of the day had been productive, at least as productive as any for some time. He locked up and headed for home. He got as far as the corner of Main Street and London Road and paused. It was strange but up until that moment he hadn't thought about the fact that for the first time in twenty-five years he hadn't seen his brother for a whole day. One beer wouldn't hurt, besides it had been an exciting day, one worth telling Tom about. He'd enjoy the thought of his big bro' getting attacked by a rabid cat.
He turned onto London Road and saw the gently swaying illuminated sign for "Crabbe's Bar." The crude sign depicted Crabbe sitting in his coffin with a bottle of beer in his hand. It was a blatant attempt to cash in on the name but no one was bothered, least of all those who drank there. Bobby had gone occasionally after work with Tom but usually left after a couple, particularly when Lucy was still alive. God he missed her. He'd always miss her. The grim reaper may have ended her life with his scythe but he'd also cut a dirty great tract out of Bobby's heart with the downward stroke.
"Hey, Big Bro'!" Tom called across the bar as soon as Bobby walked in. He might have been embarrassed by the attention except for the fact that he was the only customer.
"Bit dead tonight isn't it?" he asked his brother taking a seat at the bar.
"Should've seen it earlier. Man, it was buzzing!"
"Really?"
Tom banged a beer down on the bar causing the froth to bulge and spill over. "Dickhead." Bobby took the bottle and drank half of it in one go.
"Shit. What happened there?" Tom pointed at Bobby's hand.
Bobby looked at the scratches. "I found myself a new partner. I'm training him up but it's not gonna be easy. He eats like shit, he's dirty and he's a really vicious bastard. Just like you really."
"Yeah right. C'mon what happened? Not been playing with the shiny things in the prep room again have you?"
"A cat bit me." He sank the other half of the beer and gestured for another. "Little bugger crept in through that window in the prep room and now I can't get its out. The little shit attacked me in the window earlier"
Tom laughed and placed another beer on the bar.
Bobby couldn't help but smile. "Yep, and about twenty of Littleoak's finest saw it all."
"Jesus. At least it can't get any worse. That's the way to look at it." Tom wiped a stained cloth over the bar. "Any business today?"
Bobby looked up. "You remember the Butlers?"
Tom nodded. "The old boy used to help Dad out from time to time."
"I got a call from Jack this morning. Nancy died. I think he phoned me out of some sort of respect for Dad."
"Jack Butler was a pompous twat. Always was." Tom draped the cloth over his shoulder like an old hand. "If you need a hand with Nancy I'll come over in the morning. Not too early though. I don't finish here 'til midnight and by the time Ruby's finished with me the sun's just about coming up."
"Don't worry, I've done it all." He peered around Tom toward the living quarters, then whispered. "She's as old as mum. You know that don't you?"
"Of course I know that. Lively old gal she is too. Last night..."
Bobby held his hands up. "You can shut it right now. I definitely do not want to know."
"You're just jealous. When was the last time you got any?"
"It's been a while." Bobby couldn't remember the last time he was actually with someone. He'd had a few brief moments with Julie McVeigh behind Ronny McVeigh's back but they'd been as bitter as they were brief. One pretty girl had come into the shop a while ago; not much younger than him. They'd discussed her granddad's funeral and for one second he'd forgotten his lines. The lines he'd been saying for the last twenty years without a single dropped syllable. He'd smiled and blushed; awkward as ever around a beautiful woman. And when she put her hand on top of his and said, "This must be a difficult job for you," he'd almost asked her to dinner there and then. The wedding ring on her finger stopped him short and brought the words back. Business was business again. Apart from the families of dead people, he didn't meet any women at all.
"I think there's been opportunities missed. By both of us," Tom started, "I mean, think of all the vulnerable widows, nieces and daughters you
come into contact with. The right word could get you..."
"Come on!" Bobby drained the last of his beer. "One more then I'm off. I need my wits about me to deal with that cat in the morning."
Tom opened the bottle with the opener under the lip of the bar and put it down. "Have you been up there recently?"
"No." Bobby kept his answer short; he knew where the conversation was heading.
"I went this morning. Right after Ruby released me. I wanted to explain to Dad why I couldn't do it anymore." He paused.
"Here it comes," thought Bobby.
"Someone's put lilies out for Lucy. You ought to go."
Tom put the bottle to his lips and closed his eyes. The beer was icy cold and his throat burnt as it washed down his gullet. He didn't stop drinking though; not even for a second, not until the bottle was emptied. He slammed it on the counter and wiped his fingers across his mouth. "Not today Tom. Not today." He slid off the stool and rotated his neck. "Good luck with Ruby." He turned and walked toward the door.
"I was just saying Bobby, that's all."
Outside, the night air had an autumnal smell to it. The perfumed explosion of leaves crashing into the earth was as sweet as it always was at this time of year. Bobby took a deep breath and savoured the smell. He was tired and the beer had given him a comfortable feeling inside. He looked back up the street and considered walking back to the shop. It was only a short walk and the thought of spending a night with a dead person in the building didn't worry him. He'd spent the last two years living with the ghost of his dead wife so he wasn't in the slightest worried by that.
He turned and walked in the opposite direction. Far off in the distance, and carried on the breeze like the drum of some ancient God, the sound of the Atlantic Ocean pounding the foot of Crabbe's Bluff provided the accompaniment to the slap of his feet on the pavement.
*
Bobby woke with a start. He had probably been snoring or shouting in his sleep. If Lucy had been there she'd have... "Stop it," he thought. If Lucy was there she'd tell him to stop drinking so much. It got you off to sleep alright but it didn't stop you waking up in a cold and miserable sweat. The wind had started blowing harder on the way home and it had threatened to blow him into the road on a couple of occasions, but that was nothing to how it was now. Silver moonlight washed over the ceiling and mingled with the dancing shadows of the trees in the orchard. He lay there for a few seconds listening to the wind whipping through the leaves and the ocean breaking on the bluff until his eyes started to close again.
"Bang!" The noise startled him but was it just part of his brain firing off a last impulse? He leaned over and picked his phone off the bedside table. It was three thirty-seven a.m. His eyes widened. It was the same time as Lucy's text message, only hers had been in the afternoon. The last text message she'd ever sent. "Doug had Prosecco at half price so I bagged one before they all go. Fancy Pizza, Prosecco and an early night? Xxx." He'd read the message hundreds of times, maybe thousands. He rubbed his eyes and sat up. God he needed a drink. Not beer or whiskey, just cold water. His tongue felt about the size of a shoe and was as dry as a desert.
It was just a coincidence that was all. Twenty-four hours in a day, fourteen hundred and forty minutes; it was an inevitable coincidence that was all.
"Bang!" Tom swung his legs off the bed. There was no way that was a brain impulse or a dream. It was very real and the noise came from inside the house. He waited, perched on the side of the bed. He slept closest to the door because as Lucy had said, "If someone breaks in here in the middle of the night, if they see your great big arse sticking out of the bed, they won't come in. My pretty little thing on the other hand."
He pulled on his boxers and padded across the floorboards. If someone had broken in, they were welcome to whatever junk they could find. As long as it wasn't the whiskey or the secret packet of Marlboro Lights he kept in the biscuit tin. Why did he keep them there? There wasn't anyone to keep them secret from for God's sake.
"I'm coming down. Either get out or pick up something heavy to hit me with because I'm really pissed off!" He stood at the top of the stairs and shouted down. It was as much for his own sake as any would-be burglar. He put his hand on the cold carved oak of the banister and started down the stairs. His mum and dad had carpeted every single room in the house; almost from top to bottom. But when they were gone and Lucy moved in, she ripped each and every one of them out and polished, then stained, the pine floorboards with meticulous care. The stairs didn't escape her carpet hating frenzy and now as he walked slowly down them, he felt the cold of the wood seeping through the skin on the soles of his feet.
"I mean it." He could've quite easily called the police but he didn't want to run the risk of looking like a scared, pathetic fool, which he probably was.
"Bang!" The sound made him jump and he nearly fell down the rest of the stairs. "Right, that's it!" The noise was definitely coming from the kitchen, so that could only mean they were after the cigarettes. He jogged across the dark hallway and into the kitchen. Moonlight flooded in and bathed the room in a sea of silver. It was bright enough to clearly see there was nobody inside the kitchen. The back door was wide open though, and as if to make things perfectly clear, banged loudly against the frame.
That was the source of the noise but how had the door come to be open in the first place? He walked through the door and down the two steps into the orchard. Apples had started to rot in the overgrown grass and the smell was sickly. There was no way he was trampling through the grass and risking sticky feet.
He hadn't put any lights on in the house and his eyes had adjusted to the moonlit night. The apple trees swayed in great dark shadows like a crowd of automatons. "Hello!" he called and tried to look through the mass of trees. "Take all the apples you like. You might find one with a maggot in if you're lucky." The wind gusted and blasted his skin with cold night air.
What on earth was he doing? Standing there like a complete moron shouting into the night. Jesus Christ. At least it wasn't raining. He turned and looked in the other direction toward the back of the house. A few seconds passed until the distant blink of Wolf Rock lighthouse reassured him it was still there. "Wanker!" he shouted and turned back toward the open back door.
"Shit!" An enormous black shadow filled the space in front of him. He felt his heart rise in his chest and he froze; he simply froze. Whatever it was looked him straight in the eye, unblinking. Its head was massive. The biggest, most deformed head he'd ever seen on any living creature. He opened his mouth to speak, to shout, to do anything at all, but he couldn't. He couldn't even lift his hands to protect himself.
Then came the smell. Not really unpleasant, but warm, earthy and ever so slightly, shitty. Bobby peered slowly around the head and saw the rest of the body. "You're a cow," he said simply. "You're a bloody cow."
It wasn't unusual for cows to be found wandering around in the lanes and fields this far out of town but at night time? He had no frame of reference to say whether that was normal or not. The cow lowered its head and looked Bobby's semi-naked form up and down. It snorted and turned away with a flick of its tail. Bobby watched it as it walked into the lane at the front of the house and disappeared into the field opposite.
He walked slowly back inside. A cow outside his house at nearly four am? He might have to write it down so he didn't dismiss it as a dream in the morning. After giving the rest of the house a cursory check he sat on the back step and lit a cigarette. He couldn't remember leaving the back door open but he had been on the step and smoked a couple of cigarettes before bed. Maybe he'd left the door open and the wind had blown it in? Who knew.
The wind fanned the embers on the tip of his cigarette sending them sizzling, briefly into the darkness. Maybe he'd been more drunk than he'd realised and left the door open, or maybe it was the ghost of Jerome Moreton showing his anger at the failure of his ancestors to keep the business viable. In any case, what did it really matter? There wasn't much in the old place wort
h stealing. A few worthless antique trinkets, a few pieces of crockery and some silverware, that was all. Of course there was also a priceless mahogany cabinet in the cellar. A cabinet containing instruments which would probably be regarded as tools of mutilation in modern society. But way back in 1855, they'd been considered as cutting edge. Literally.
