The Calico Cat

by Amanda James

  Our food arrives, and my lion demands full attention. Louisa digs in too and for a few minutes we just stuff our faces. Remember that day I stuffed my face when Caleb first came round? Louisa looks just like I did. Two spherical hamster cheeks and a fork poised ready to load more in. I must have mirrored her, because she catches my eye and says through a small gap at the side of her mouth. ‘Great to see someone enjoy their food as much as me.’

  I choke back a giggle and swallow my mouthful. ‘No point in affecting table manners when you’re bloody starving.’ I dive into my lager again – not literally, the glass isn’t big enough – and say, ‘So did they give you their blessing to marry Jagger in the end?’

  ‘Grudgingly. By then Jagger had spoken his mind on world politics, tradition, gender issues, race issues, you name it. He and Dad were chalk and cheese on every single one of them. In the end, though, it didn’t really matter, because they still had my little sister at home and my older brother would be the one to take over the farm, anyway. Dad just wanted me married to someone like him, someone who’d take care of me and have nothing in his head apart from land and cows.’

  ‘What about Jagger’s parents?’

  ‘His dad was a lecturer at Plymouth uni and his mum was an art teacher. Hence my dabbling over the years.’

  This prompts me to tell Louisa all about my gran and I don’t realise that I have taken over the whole conversation until I glance at the clock above the bar and discover it’s an hour later. I haven’t touched on my parents or Caleb either – just Gwendoline, how she was with me when I was little, how she inspired me, and then I went off at a tangent, told her all about my degree and teaching career.

  ‘Oops. I’ve been rambling a bit, Louisa. This was supposed to be about your life. You’re just so easy to talk to.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. I’m interested in your story, too. Shall we have another drink and chat some more, or do you want to get an early night before our walk in the morning?’

  Now that’s a tough one. Does she mean she wants to get an early night? I’m not great at reading people. ‘I think you should decide.’

  ‘Well, I’d like another, but I don’t want to impose.’

  ‘Great. And you really aren’t.’

  It’s nearly another hour later. We’ve moved out into the beer garden to watch the sunset and I wish I’d not asked her about children. I expect it all would have come out eventually anyway, but at least I wouldn’t have been the one to force heart-wrenching memories out into the open, exposing their pain and fragility to a gabble of chatter and clinking glasses.

  ‘I’m sorry. You don’t want to hear all this. Let’s change the subject,’ she says.

  Another difficult one. Does she really want to change the subject, or does she think I’m finding it all a bit too sad? I am finding it all a bit sad, but I asked and therefore should be tough enough to hear the answer. ‘Louisa. If you’d rather not go on I totally understand—’

  ‘No. I think if we are to know each other properly then I’d like to tell you. Pain and sorrow make up a person’s character, not just the happiness and laughter. Guess who always said that?’ She puts her head on one side and fiddles with the steel-grey hair that has been brushed free of streamers and tided into a ponytail.

  ‘Jagger?’

  ‘The very same. So yes, I had five miscarriages in all. The last one nearly made it. We lost her almost six months in. I suspect nowadays with the new technology and whatnot, they might have been able to save her. There were complications after her birth and I had to have a hysterectomy.’

  Louisa stops, and I notice her hand is shaking as she picks up her glass of cyder. She takes a sip and continues. ‘We called her Celandine after my favourite flower.’ Louisa looks at me and I try not to flinch at the depth of suffering in her eyes. ‘She was perfect, Lottie. Just needed to grow a bit more… she’d have been thirty-five this year.’

  Not that much older than me, I think. I also think that I would have liked it if Louisa was my mother. I could have called her Mum and we’d have laughed and talked and shared things. I take a drink and say, ‘Had you thought of adoption?’ That’s right, Lottie – lead her away from those memories, the image of perfect little Celandine, the missing womb, because if you don’t, you’ll both end up crying into your glasses.

  ‘We considered it for a while, but it kind of fizzled out. I was in a bad place for some time afterwards. I was cruel to everyone I loved – Jagger bore the brunt, of course. It was a case of why me? Why us? Why couldn’t we have children when we craved them so badly, yet those who didn’t want them fell pregnant by accident? I couldn’t understand why life was so cruel and senseless sometimes. But as I grew older, I accepted that shit happens, and you have to accept it and move on.’

  Louisa finishes her drink and shrugs her arms into a lightweight jacket. I realise a chill is coming in from the ocean and pull my cardigan on. ‘And what happens if you don’t accept things and move on?’ I say, though I had no idea I was going to.

  Louisa sighs and fixes me with a cool stare. ‘Then life takes huge bites out of you, chews you up, spits you out and watches you slowly bleed to death by the wayside.’

  This imagery is very scary and, as we walk back to our bed for the night under a firmament of day-bright stars, I wonder if I have to do a bit more of the accepting and moving-on stuff. As I said before, I think I’m okay with it all – Gwendoline helped me to ‘heal’ the past. But perhaps I’ll tell Louisa all about my life tomorrow. It wouldn’t hurt to get another opinion, would it?

  17

  A Few Days More

  Everyone loves the feeling they get in their belly at the beginning of a holiday, don’t they? And if it’s been a good one, they have the opposite feeling at the end of it. I have that now. I am awake and looking at the ceiling and have just realised that it’s the end of a lovely holiday, it’s Monday morning and I have work. It’s not Monday or work really, but I’ve that sinking heavy feeling you get when it is.

  On top of that, there’s another layer of something even heavier spreading thick through my system. It has lots of strands and twisty thoughts leading different places, some of which I don’t want to pursue, but if I had to give it a name I’d say it was melancholy. You see, two of us started out on this journey and now there’s just me. Yes, objectively there are still two if you count Louisa, but I can’t pretend it’s the same thing – a success. Meeting her was a very happy accident. We crossed each other’s paths, but she wasn’t part of the original plan.

  One of the things I pride myself on is setting an aim and following through. Perhaps it stems from my need to be in control of things, but I really don’t like failure – or perceived failure. I have failed at keeping a relationship with Caleb, and the painting, or at least sketching I had planned to do hasn’t really happened either, has it? I have a drawing pad a quarter full of bits of this and bits of that. I don’t like bits of things. They make my mind feel cluttered and untidy.

  I’m in the shower now, still thinking about failure and Caleb and my immediate future, but mostly about Caleb. Have I been too harsh on him? He was only doing what he did because he cared about me, after all. But was he? Could it be that he thought he knew best, let his judgement override what he knew deep down I would hate, just because he wanted to control me, sort my life out for me? Has he been so influenced by what this society expects a man to be like that he’s forgotten to fight against it, become consumed by it?

  Now I have soap in my eye and it stings. Is that my answer? Is the soap-sting saying don’t be silly, Caleb isn’t a macho posturing ape intent on ruling his female, he’s kind, sensitive and you should have given him another chance? Or is it actually just soap in my eye? I don’t know, but I do know that I’m unused to this line of thought. Like clutter, my mind doesn’t do well with jumbled thoughts and unanswered questions.

  I haven’t mentioned it to you, but I have actually thought about Caleb often through the days we’ve been apar
t. I’m looking at a view or chatting to Louisa and there he is stepping in on the act like one of those people on a live news item when the reporter is talking to camera. You know the type – they leap on from the side and behind, pulling faces, or waving and shouting something unintelligible and the reporter tries to keep a straight face, carries on stoically. My thoughts of Caleb don’t show him leaping or yelling, he’s just there in the middle of a view or a conversation, silent, sad and alone.

  After a lovely and leisurely full English, the last one for the foreseeable, I find that Louisa has an idea for the day planned if I’m happy to agree. I am. I have too many thoughts in my head and no room for any plans.

  We are to make for the ruins of Botallack Mine and another that she says too quickly for me to catch the name of, then we are to go on to Cape Cornwall and just have a look out to sea from one of the most westerly points in England. Perhaps we’ll have elevenses there and then walk on to Whitesand Bay, which is only a spit from Sennen, our final destination. She knows a lovely café there that does a wonderful cream tea, which seems a fitting end to the short break in her case, and the holiday in mine.

  We set off into the perfect summer morning and my feet carry me to the springy grass along the path. I’m going to miss the fresh smell of that grass, the carpets of wildflowers, the azure sky, wide and vast, this morning adorned with a few white unhurried clouds. I shall miss too the rugged landscape as surprising as its wildlife, and, of course, the ocean singing its ancient song to the wind, or whispering a lullaby in hidden coves along the way.

  I can imagine you’re thinking that I do actually live opposite the ocean, so what’s all the drama about? Yes, I do, but you see this is all new, it’s like an adventure. When I’m at home I know what my immediate surroundings are, it’s familiar, day to day. I agree it is a wonderful day to day and I wouldn’t live anywhere else, but there’s something about my feet taking me to new places every day that makes me feel energised, alive. Or perhaps it’s only really a state of mind. If your mind is open to the idea of adventure, then you see it in every blade of grass, every turn of a wave. If on the other hand your mind is closed, dull, decaying, then you see only darkness, woe… misery. Yes, that seems to make sense to me. How about you?

  The Botallack Mine is perched on a breathtakingly steep cliff side next to the Atlantic which is presently hurling itself at its feet and I am reminded of a scene or two in Poldark. Louisa confirms that this is indeed one of the many areas of outstanding natural beauty used in the programme. I am also reminded of Wheal Coates Mine and that reminds me of Peter, which is good, and, of course, Caleb, which isn’t, so I switch my mind back to today and something Louisa is saying about the mine.

  ‘This would make a fantastic painting, you know.’

  ‘Yes, it would,’ I say but have no desire to draw it.

  ‘How about a quick sketch?’

  ‘Not really in the mood,’ I say in the manner of a moody teenager. My insides feel twisty and grumpy and I don’t really know why. Not something specific I can put my finger on anyway.

  ‘Okay, then let’s press on to Cape Cornwall, shall we? I’m looking forward to having a look at the Ballowall Barrow I read about in the guide book this morning.’

  ‘A burial chamber?’

  ‘Yes, Bronze Age by all accounts.’

  I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t something that looks like the remains of a little hut. It is built of dry stone wall and set in two concentric rings. I reach out to the stone and I feel as if I’m reaching back four thousand years. I close my eyes and try to imagine what it must have been like to live here then. I can’t, of course, but I try. I open my eyes and face the ocean, just a little way off over the edge of the cliff and Louisa voices what I am thinking. ‘What a fascinating place and a wonderful burial site.’ She turns in a circle and then puts her head back, closes her eyes. ‘It said in the guide book that it’s thought they put it here for an important person, so they could face the setting sun over the ocean.’

  ‘Just stunning,’ I say, and feel a catch in my chest. I think it’s because I recognise the humanity that created such a place. I know it was to do with superstition and a god or gods, but for me that’s not what is important. For me it’s the fact that people built this tomb out of respect and love for a fellow human being. In a time when life was short and brutal, they bothered to try and create something beautiful for the spirit of the deceased, and in doing so would remember that person’s life every time they looked at it. Even though four thousand years separate our civilisations, I feel like we’re not that different.

  ‘You look lost in thought,’ Louisa says as she leads the way back up towards the end of the cape.

  ‘Yes. I am a bit.’ I could have told her exactly what I just told you, but I want to keep it between us. I think sometimes the more people you tell about a deep feeling, the shallower it becomes.

  Though the view from Cape Cornwall is breathtaking, the wind has got up and is trying its very best to blow us off our feet. I guess it has to find its fun where it can. Louisa suggests that coffee and cake up here is perhaps not wise, so we head down to the nearest beach instead. This ‘beach’ turns out to be just a little spit of landfall made of sand and boulder called Porth Nanven. It is quite beautiful though and provides the shelter from the wind that we need.

  ‘How come after a full English this morning I’m ready for coffee and cake?’ Louisa says, handing me one of two huge slices of coffee cake we bought from the Pendeen bakery before we set out.

  ‘I think it’s to do with the sea air and the trillions of calories we’re burning without even realising it.’ I grin at her and she nods solemnly back, though the twinkle in her eye gives her away. ‘It’s true. I think we’ll need at least three scones each to make up for it all by the time we get to Sennen.’

  A sugar tsunami whirls in my head so I settle back with my coffee and take in my surroundings. I remark on the many boulders on the beach. Louisa says that the guide book said it is sometimes called Dinosaur Egg beach because of them. I balance my flask cup on one and smooth both my hands around another. It’s warm but I can tell that just below the surface it’s cool and full of moisture. I wonder how many thousands of years old it is and touch my nose to its surface. A deep breath gives me a mixture of salt, seaweed and dried sand and I wonder if it’s the first time in all its life that someone has taken the time to touch and sniff it.

  I say as much to Louisa and she smiles and says she expects it is. That’s the thing about her: she gets me. Halfway through me asking, my brain panicked because it is a fairly ‘out there’ thing to say. I wouldn’t have ordinarily spoken a thought like that out loud; well, perhaps I would have to Caleb because I’ve known him longer. But I needn’t have worried.

  And she wasn’t just humouring me, because she turns to me and says, ‘People don’t take the time to get in touch with their environment enough. It’s so important to physically connect with nature sometimes like you just did, because it grounds you, makes you feel part of the world.’

  Now that was exactly something I might have said – kindred spirits indeed. Right at that moment I knew that she was a central part of this third turning point. You know the one I mentioned the other day when I set out alone after Caleb had gone? It’s as if Louisa and me we were supposed to meet, become friends, and share our stories. I’m not a huge believer in fate and destiny, but this kind of feels part of a bigger plan – and it’s not mine.

  And it’s not lost on me that so far, I haven’t shared my story. Still, that’s going to be sorted when we get to Sennen. Perhaps not all of it, I can’t do big uploads of my life all at once. It makes me feel light-headed, anchorless, as if the sharing of important emotional information hollows me out, somehow.

  And all too quickly, here we are a few hours later in beautiful Sennen Cove. I came here when I was a teenager with a friend and her family for a weekend. They had a caravan not far away. I don’t remember much a
bout it because I didn’t enjoy myself. I felt awkward and suffocated by other people’s rules and expectations. At least when I was at home I could hide away in my bedroom and shut out the world.

  I can see her now in my mind’s eye, this friend: Kelsey Edwards – a mass of unruly yellow hair, green eyes, large gravestone front teeth and freckles. She was nice and patient and kind, but I did wonder sometimes if she was my friend because she could see my loneliness. I think she admired me too, me being a bit wild, different and outspoken in class. She was quiet and mousy and perhaps I gave her a bit of street cred. Who knows? Whatever the truth, the friendship didn’t last for long. My fault, probably.

  ‘I know the perfect place for the cream tea, come on,’ Louisa says, hurrying along the promenade as if she’s not eaten for days.

  Little Bo Café is certainly in a perfect setting opposite the beach and has a row of outside tables across the road, continental style. I sit down and wait while Louisa orders and feel something in my chest – a cross between nerves and melancholy again. I sometimes talk to myself when I’m feeling unsure, don’t you? If I’m on my own I talk out loud, but internal talking is best for a busy seafront, I’ve found. People tend to stare and nudge each other. Those people ought to try it because it does help.

  I ask myself why I feel like this and the answer comes back that I’m nervous about what Louisa’s response to Caleb’s story will be, and sad because I know that once we part today, I might never see her again. Yes, of course we’ll swap numbers and promise to call and arrange a time to meet up again, but it rarely happens. Life takes over and rushes past and then a few years down the line you think, oh, I never did get to meet Louisa again. Shame, I must look out her number. But when you do, you find it isn’t in the hideous coffee pot that Aunt Hilary gave you, nor is it in the jar of keys that don’t work, or in the drawer where important things are placed and then forgotten about. It’s not on the fridge amongst the Post-its, edged with jam smears and toast crumbs; it’s not anywhere.