Cat and Mouse (7 page)

The little milk-woman clanked her tinny cans. “Well, sorry I am, bach, but I can’t help you at all. Proper old muddle, I’m sure. Better you leave it alone, my girl, and come back across the river with me in my boat.” How patient country people are, thought Katinka. All this oddness and mystery—but don’t worry about it, it’s nothing to do with you, just leave it alone. … And she looked at the little woman and thought, In years she is not so very much older than me—yet here I am dithering and blathering over my half real, half imagined tuppenny mystery, and she so incurious and wise. Aloud, anxiously seeking, she said: “You really think I should give it up and go? You honestly think I ought not to stay here and try to help this girl?”

“
I
never saw no girl, Miss Jones,” said the woman, and swinging her milk cans, hurried away round to the kitchen door.

And Tinka remembered a phrase from one of Amista’s innumerable letters. “Nobody to speak to, ever, but the two servants and now and again the woman who brings the milk. …” The mountains outside the low window-sill were boundless in their offer of liberty. She turned away from them as wistfully as any prisoner from the blue tent of the sky.

Carlyon was standing speaking to Mr. Chucky in the hall. Chucky, in his character as policeman, bowed stiffly to Miss Jones, and his eye consulted Carlyon’s as to how he should conduct himself. Tinka was thankful that he should be on the spot when she made her announcement. She had ricked her bad ankle again in her stumbling run across the dining-room, and was able to put on a very good semblance of agonizing pain as she limped across the hall. “Mr. Carlyon, I’m sorry if I seemed ungracious. …”

Carlyon politely disclaimed. “And the trouble is,” said Tinka, casting a covert glance at her fellow conspirator to see how he would take it, “that I’ve hurt my ankle again, whizzing across the room just now to speak to Miss Evans.”

Carlyon said quickly: “You’re going to stay?” and she felt, to her astonishment, that her heart gave a little bound at the unconcealed pleasure in his voice. He tried immediately to cover it, saying stiffly that he was sorry the cause should be a fresh injury to her ankle. Mr. Chucky, watching them both in some doubt, asked respectfully if Mr. Carlyon would prefer him, after all, to stay on. In view of… H’m, h’m… He flicked an explanatory glance at Katinka.

“No, no,” said Carlyon. “That’ll be all right. There’s been some muddle somewhere, but it’ll clear itself up. You can go back now, with the milk-woman.” He added: “I’ll give you a note to your superiors.”

“I did right to come, sir?” said Chucky, evidently playing for time while he thought up reasons for prolonging his stay.

“Yes, yes, perfectly right,” said Carlyon. Tinka could see that he was growing weary of the attentions of Inspector Chucky. He said to her: “Would you like this man to take a note into Swansea for you? You might have a few things sent up from your hotel; you oughtn’t to risk that ankle going down the mountain-path at least till tomorrow.”

If she had known that Chucky was going, leaving her there all alone, she might have funked staying on. But it was too late now. Anyway, she thought, they shall know that if anything happens to me there’ll be enquiries. She could not address Mr. Chucky outright in his role as policeman, but she, also, would give him a note to his “superiors,” would give him, quite openly, a letter addressed to the police. She went back to the dining-room table and was provided with writing paper. A few lines to the manageress of her gloomy hotel explaining her plight and requesting a few things from her room; and then the letter to the police. She was suspicious of the people at Penderyn, she wrote, rapidly scribbling. There had been a girl there who seemed to have disappeared. Would they please listen to Mr. Chucky’s story and confirm details at the offices of
Girls Together
. She was remaining there to find out more—if she did not communicate with them within three days they would know that something had happened to her. Her fingers shook as she licked down the envelope. Letters in hand, she limped out into the hall.

Carlyon was sitting at his desk in the other room, writing, the lovely cat posed like a statue beside him, only now and again putting out a plush paw to dab at the moving pen. She held out the letters to him, the one to the police on top. “I’ll give them to Chucky,” he said. “He and Miss Evans are having a cup of tea before they go off.” He went out with the letters. The Siamese cat dabbed softly again at the bright green fountain pen.

Amista had told her about the cat. Its name was Tybalt. “… Tybalt, Good King of Cats—it’s out of
Romeo and Juliet
: Carlyon knows all about those things, he told me about it and now I’ve read it. …” The pen slid down the desk with the cat pouncing after it, and she shot out a hand to prevent its rolling to the floor. The first words of Carlyon’s letter caught her eye. She snatched it up and read what was written there.

“The Superintendent, Swansea Police. Your man Chucky will report to you. He has done a good job. He can tell you about this young woman who has arrived here out of nowhere, calling herself nothing more original than Miss Jones, and making what look rather like deliberate excuses for remaining here. On the whole we think she is probably only a journalist from some feminine magazine, wanting romantic copy about the scenery and I want ho action taken at present. But please note that this situation exists, in case I should have trouble.” It was signed “Carlyon” in inverted commas: apparently he used the single name as some sort of pseudonym, and, equally apparently, the police accepted the fact.

She remained standing by the desk when Carlyon came in. “I was just reading your letter to the police.”

He came across swiftly and whipped it up off the desk. But he merely said, stiffly: “I don’t think you can complain.”

“Especially as I’ve just written one too.”

“That’s what I meant,” said Carlyon. He gave a little, rather rueful laugh. “We
are
a trustful couple—aren’t we, Miss Jones?”

“Speaking for myself,” said Tinka, “I don’t know the meaning of the word.”

“I don’t know that it’s anything we need be proud of,” he said, almost reproachfully. She felt a little ashamed. I suppose he’d like me to be a clinging Victorian miss, she thought resentfully; all vapours and big eyes. Though why the hell she should care what Carlyon thought…!

It seemed a long morning. Mr. Chucky departed with Miss Evans and there was nothing to do now but lie on the sofa with her silly leg stuck up on a cushion, pretending to be reading; and where it was getting her in the search for Amista, she hardly knew. I shall lie here pretending to be an invalid till they finally chuck me out; and then I shall say goodbye politely and a lot of good I shall have done Amista! And yet she could not go hopping about the house like a one-legged kangaroo, clumsily peering into cupboards, barging through closed doors, looking for Amista.

Amista. What secret was there about this girl, Amista, what hold had Carlyon over even the little milk-woman who called at the house, that they should all deny the existence of Amista? Was she a prisoner? Had she come creeping into the stranger’s room last night to beg for help? Mrs. Love and Carlyon knew by now that she had come; what price had she paid, poor frightened child, for that secret visit? Amista, with her little white hand and scarlet nails, that in the grim shadows had seemed to be dripping blood. …

Tybalt, the cat, had embarked upon a quarter of an hour of intensive training: five minutes of shadow boxing, five minutes of chasing his tail, five minutes of stalking a ping-pong ball across the linoleum floor. It is exquisite, she thought, and charming and graceful and infinitely amusing—and infinitely horrible. For the ping-pong ball is a mouse and when Tybalt has completed his training he will go forth after real mice and, having caught one, he will torture it. He will let it go and when it thinks it is free he will put out one lazy paw and drag it back again into terror. And maul it a little and let it creep away hoping to end its agony in peace; and bring it back once more. When Carlyon came into the room again, she said something to him of what was in her mind. His blue eyes clouded. He stood in the centre of the room, pushing back his hair with his hand. He said, abruptly, “Siamese cats don’t torture their prey; they kill outright or not at all.” But the very word “prey” was ugly in her ears, and she would not be comforted.

During lunch, he sat silently, eating very little, staring down into his plate. Dai Jones cleared the table and brought in a tray of coffee things. Carlyon took his cup and went over to the window. He stood with his back to her, looking out across the valley, automatically stirring the coffee round and round and round. The spoon made a maddening little clink-clink against the sides of the cup. He said at last: “Miss Jones…” But he broke off, in search of words. “Well, nothing. Never mind.”

“But what were you going to say?”

“
I
don’t know,” he said. He shrugged hopelessly. “It’s all a muddle, isn’t it?”

“But if you don’t want a muddle and I don’t want a muddle. …”

“It’s nothing to do with you and me,” he said. “It’s a muddle in itself. At least… Oh,
lord
!” He drank a gulp of coffee and put down the cup and saucer on the window-sill. But suddenly he said, softly: “There’s a rainbow being born. Come over here.”

She limped over to him. Above the mountain opposite, the sky hung, steely blue; and as they watched an unseen hand dipped into a pool of colour and drew a slow, graceful arch, rose, turquoise, amber, jade, across the leaden sky. They stood side by side, not touching one another; it was almost a sadness when the whole was perfected, when there was nothing more to hope. Katinka said. “It’s over. I wish it wasn’t. It’s over too soon.”

“Yes,” said Carlyon. “It’s like—it’s like love at first sight—too perfect, too soon.” He thrust his hands into the pockets of his old tweed coat, looking out at the great arch of the rainbow glowing palely in the sky. “But there’s nothing to be done about it, is there?” he said; and muttered an excuse about going for a walk across the mountain, and went out of the room.

It’s like love at first sight—too perfect, too soon.

Mrs. Love crashed in upon Katinka’s kaleidoscope of thought, smiling, friendly, gay. “Well, dear—there you are!”

Was there or was there not, something sinister about this woman’s vulgar jollity? Tinka tore her mind from Carlyon. She said, shortly: “Where did you expect me to be?”

“I know where you ought to be,” said Mrs. Love, eyeing her with a professional air. “And that’s having a lay down on your bed. Got a headache, dear? Ankle paining you?”

“No, thank you, I’m quite all right.”

“Now don’t you tell me fibs,” said Mrs. Love robustly. “You’re not all right at all, you look as white as can be, and I’m going to take you right upstairs and tuck you into your beddy-byes, that’s what I’m going to do, whether you like it or not, and pull the curtains and let you have a nice snooze till Mr. Carlyon comes back from his walk.” She advanced upon her with bright determination. “No arguments! Dai’s on his way over with your things, I’ve just seen the boat pulling across the river; and you shall roll yourself up in your own nice dressing-gown and pop under the eiderdown with a hot-water bottle, or my name’s not Marie Lloyd Love which it is, dear,
and
after the old girl, my mum and dad being in The Profession all their lives and
why
they ever let me go in for nursing. …” Garrulously gabbling, she propelled Katinka up the stairs and into her room. “Now you get your frock off, and I’ll meet Dai with your things.” She drew the heavy curtains across the window and turned on the bedside lamp in the pleasant semi-dark.

Katinka had not got a headache; and yet at the bare suggestion, her temples throbbed and all she wanted was to get between cool sheets and lay her head on the cool, hard pillow. (“It’s like love at first sight—too perfect, too soon…”) Had he said, “there’s nothing to be done about it”—or, “there’s nothing
we
can do about it”? She wandered over to the window and, parting the curtains, leaned her forehead against the chilly glass, staring out across to the opposite mountain. But the rainbow was gone. Nothing to be seen but the thin shaft of sunshine across the hump of the hill, the sullen, silver river, and, at the turn of the path, two tiny specks creeping upwards towards the house. She felt suddenly glad that Dai Jones was bringing her things. It would be comforting to have something of her own about her, to sleep tonight in her own silk nightie instead of Mrs. Love’s dreadful creation of georgette and lace. Dai and the milk-woman disappeared again as the path twisted. She turned back to the bed.

Mrs. Love came in with a bundle of her possessions and a quite unwanted hot water bottle; and went away. She lay very still in the cool semi-darkness. The little sounds of the house eddied about her, men’s voices rumbled in the room below and on the stairs she heard Mrs. Love say sharply: “Hush, Dai, hush! You’ll wake Miss Jones.”

She gave herself up to her thoughts. Carlyon had said… But she would not think of Carlyon, she dragged her thoughts away from Carlyon and of what he had said, staring out at the rainbow that had flowered to perfection too soon. Amista, then. But the puzzle of Amista’s identity, Amista’s whereabouts was more than her mind, obsessed with Carlyon’s words, could struggle with. And so on to Tybalt, the cat, the exquisite, sleek, pale cat with the slanting sapphire eyes, the Siamese cat which would not torture its prey. … So Carlyon had said, at least. He had frowned his quick frown and said that Siamese cats killed their prey at once; that Tybalt, Good King of Cats, would not torture… Would not torture… She yawned luxuriously, trying to nestle back against the cool, hard pillow. Tybalt would not torture a mouse. … But here was a rainbow-coloured cat playing with a white mouse, a mouse as round and light and white as a ping-pong ball. … And the ping-pong ball was caught in the cruel claws, was caught and crying out with little shrill squealings such as one might expect from a ping-pong ball, little shrill, cut-off squeaks, little gurgling, muffled screams, cut off by the muffling of the soft plush paws; cut off by the tearing of the claws at the celluloid throat, claws that struck out, and released, and caught and tore again. Little muffled, horrible, squealing, gurgling screams… She shot bolt upright in the bed. I was dreaming! But now I’m not dreaming any more, I’m awake, I’m wide awake. … She was wide awake and not dreaming any more about the white, tortured ping-pong mouse and the Siamese cat. …