Cat Out of Hell (2 page)

Saucer of milk?

(
laughs
)

Ball of string?

ROGER
gives him a pained look. He is a cat, of course. In fact, I probably should have mentioned this at the top of the scene – NB: remember to go back and do that
.
ROGER
is a cat. Otherwise, if not clear
ROGER
is a talking cat, the scene might be somewhat less interesting
.

WIGGY

(
abashed
)

Sorry.

WIGGY
attempts an encouraging smile, but
ROGER
is stone-faced. As well as being a cat, he is a bit of a bastard, to say the least. NB: Is this the right place to start the story? Yes, surely. Or possibly no. Oh God, I have no idea
.

ROGER

Can I just check? You’re not going to write this up like a screenplay?

I mean, in a screenplay format?

WIGGY

(
lying
)

No, I’m not. Why?

ROGER

I’ve read your other screenplays, don’t forget.

You used to send them to Jo. We laughed like drains.

You go in for very self-indulgent stage directions.

WIGGY
rises above this, superhumanly. But what a nerve
.

WIGGY

So, Roger. Here you are.

ROGER

(
not really paying attention, bored
)

Yes.

WIGGY

A talking cat!

Note to self: Remember to make this clear at the top
.

ROGER

Yes.

WIGGY

Would you like to tell me –

(
he falters, understandably
)

– something about that?

ROGER
has been thinking about something else. Close-up on
ROGER.

ROGER

(
thoughtfully
)

What do you say to Daniel Craig?

No one will believe this. But it did really happen
.

WIGGY

(
confused
)

What do you mean: what do I say to him?

I’ve never met him.

ROGER

If this becomes a film.

WIGGY

I’m sorry?

ROGER

You can be very dense sometimes, Wiggy.

What do you say to getting Daniel Craig to do my voice in the film,
if there’s a film
?

WIGGY

Well, I hadn’t really thought –

ROGER

(
interrupting
)

He’s very understated.

WIGGY

Yes. Yes, he is. Famously.

ROGER

He’s classless. I like that.

WIGGY

Yes.

This is exactly how the conversation went
.

ROGER

Masculine.

WIGGY

Absolutely.

ROGER

Emotionally reticent.

WIGGY

Yes, but –

ROGER

He’d be perfect.

WIGGY

(
laughs
)

Except that you sound nothing like Daniel Craig, Roger.

You sound like Vincent Price!

ROGER
jumps off the table, landing softly on the stone-flag floor, tail raised high. What a prima donna. He just can’t stand it when
WIGGY
gets the last word on anything
.

WIGGY

(
calling
)

Roger! Oh, come on.

ROGER
looks round and makes a loud – and very pointed – miaow
.

WIGGY

You’ve got a great voice, Roger!

ROGER
pushes through the cat-flap and leaves. Music climax
.
WIGGY
, sighing, switches off the recorder. Windows rattle
.

Outside, the garden gate creaks and bangs in the wind. Beyond is the cry of the sea
.

Note to self: do this again; still not working. Remember it’s quite unusual that a cat is talking. Difficult to get the proper distance on this when you’ve got so used to it. Formatting quite professional-looking, though. So that’s encouraging, at least.

JPEG DSC00546

The picture shows an unremarkable moggy-type cat – tabby and white. White face and bib. White paws. Tabby back, tail and ears. Quite hefty. Harmless-looking. He is lying in the
arms of a tall, striking woman in a grubby artist’s smock, her long brown hair lifted by a sea-breeze. She is smiling. At her feet is a small brown terrier dog of attractive appearance whose tongue is hanging out. Behind is a flint and brick cottage – the name LIGHTHOUSE COTTAGE visible on the lintel.

ROGER THOUGHTS

(by Wiggy)

Where to start? The crazy thing, or Jo? Well, Jo. Obviously, Jo. I mean, where the hell is she? You can’t just disappear! There I was, Coventry, Belgrade Theatre. God. Four o’clock-ish. Thursday afternoon. Just going on in the second half of matinee of
See How They Run!
“Call for you,” they said. Alice, the ASM. I didn’t have to take it, but I did. Thank God I did. It’s Jo, sounding weird. “Wiggy,” she says. “Wiggy, please come. It’s Roger. You’ve got to help me take care of him.” Or something like that, but I can’t be exactly sure. Well, I was a bit distracted! We’re building up to the bit where Jeff says, “Sergeant, arrest most of these vicars!” and it’s important to concentrate. And my big sister is calling me at work to talk about looking after a cat? “Jo, I’ll have to call you back,” I said. I handed the phone back to Alice, and made my entrance through the French doors – just in time, I might add.

Anyway, after the curtain, I called the cottage, like the decent chap I am, but no luck. It kept going to voicemail. Ditto the mobile. I left a couple of messages. “Orfling Two calling Orfling One” – that’s our code to each other – well, that’s been our code since Ma died and left us on our own when I was still at school. Jo’s Orfling One, of course. And I’m Orfling Two. But she didn’t call back. Alice said afterwards that she’d tried to ask
Jo what the problem was – they met when Jo loyally visited the show when we came in to Worthing (the cottage isn’t far from there) – but she said it was hard to make out anything distinct from the phone because of all the laughter in the theatre – some of which, I’m pleased to say, was generated by yours truly. What did
Coventry Bugle
say? Well, thank you for asking. I believe it was, “Will Caton-Pines manages to make the thankless part of Clive, the husband, almost believable.”

Anyway, back with Jo, I kept trying to call her for the next couple of days. At the end of the week, I just drove down here. Orflings must stick together, and anyway it was the end of the run. And of course there’s no sign of her – or even of mad dog Jeremy, who’s normally so glad to see me. I say “of course” there’s no sign of Jo – but why do I say that? There’s no “of course” about it!
Where is she?
Even as I drove up the muddy lane from that bloody village it felt all wrong. Her car sitting on the soggy grass across from the house. Big gate open. Back door unlocked. Handbag in the hall. Jeremy’s collar and lead hanging from the usual peg, next to the one where she usually keeps the spare keys for the next-door neighbour. Mobile phone plugged into the charger in the kitchen. Heating on. “To do” list on a chalk board – Do this, get that, take care of whatever. It felt like she’d just popped out. It
still
feels like she’s just popped out – and I’ve been here four days. Don’t know what to do, apart from write this.

I did ring the police yesterday, and a detective called Sergeant Duggan came round and took a statement. I showed him all round the house, the shed, studio, little cellar with historical smuggling connections and what not. Took him down to see the beach. Pointed out the fine view along the coast to Littlehampton. We knocked next door, but that chap’s always away – lives mainly in France. Jo’s only met him once since she’s been here. I explained how the two cottages used to be
one house, built around 1750, and how Ivor Novello used to visit the one next door in the 1930s, when it belonged to a star of the musical theatre. I suppose I got a bit carried away telling him about next door – all the parties and what not. I shouldn’t have bothered! You can always tell with police when you’re giving them “too much information,” because they stop writing it down. My big mistake was asking him in a jocular way whether anyone had ever said to him, “Sergeant, arrest most of these vicars!” He didn’t have a clue what I was talking about.

I explained that Jo had called me at the theatre to say “Look after the cat” – and he was quite cross with me then, because what she said suggested she was intending to go away. But she hasn’t
gone away
. What it
feels
like – I didn’t say this to Sergeant Duggan – but what it
feels
like is that she’s been taken by aliens. And it also feels like the abduction happened within the last half hour. I keep expecting the J-Dog to come trotting past, asking for a pat. I keep expecting chairs to be still warm when I sit down – and sometimes I get a real start when they
are
warm – Roger having just hopped down when he heard me coming. A really perverse cat, Roger. Since I first got here, there’s been this sort-of scratching noise from the wall with the fireplace in it, and you’d think – as a cat – he’d be desperate to investigate. But he’s lain there calmly in Jo’s high-backed armchair, just a couple of feet away from the source of this suspicious scratching noise, swinging his tail and ignoring it absolutely.

The policeman asked if he could look at Jo’s mobile – and of course, that was clever of him, so I said yes. But although it was still plugged into the charger, it turned out to have sort-of died. And when he picked it up, he said “Agh!” and dropped it (it was all sticky, he said). Anyway, he reckoned I should take it in to Worthing to see what could be retrieved from the “Sim
card” (God, I hate all that kind of stuff), and he helped me use rubber gloves to put it in a plastic bag.

I have to admit it: he was much more observant than me; I suppose it’s the training. In Jo’s studio upstairs, he found a half-finished watercolour of Roger, and heaps of sketches for it all over the floor. I hadn’t noticed. He also asked about a pair of binoculars and a note book, with times noted down in it, right by the window next to an old, cold mug of tea. “Tuesday, 10:05. Next door garden. Partial.” That kind of thing. Jo being a birdwatcher was news to me. But the big window in the studio would have been a good place to do it. Lovely view across to the English Channel and the horizon. He asked if anything significant had changed in Jo’s life recently, and I said, “Well, yes. Roger” and he seemed quite annoyed with me again for not saying anything about Roger earlier. He made a note of the name and drew a circle round it and asked for a surname – which was when I realised he thought Roger was a lover or murder suspect, so I quickly explained that Roger was a cat, and he crossed it out. So I didn’t explain she’d only had Roger a few months – took him on when her old Chelsea Arts Club chum Michael died in Lincolnshire, falling downstairs. Likewise, I didn’t draw attention to the way Roger had definitely made himself at home here. He was sitting in the lane as I approached in the car; when he saw me coming, he just stood up, stretched, and trotted indoors.

Now this is the crazy bit. Woo hoo. Right. I mean it, this is absolutely crazy. Maybe I shouldn’t even write it down. But all right, I was sitting at the kitchen table last night, drinking some of Jo’s impressive stock of cheap pink plonk – which is disgusting, a bit like drinking melted lollies, but I was bloody desperate – and Roger was clawing at the back door, wanting me to open it for him. And I suppose I was in a bit of a trance. I mean, it’s very unsettling not knowing where Jo is! I keep
testing the phone line; I’ve been in touch with everyone I can think of; I’ve checked her computer and her diary, which felt really awful, really
wrong
. But I have to do these things, don’t I? I don’t know where she is! I didn’t say this to the plod, for obvious reasons, but I’ve also checked all the grass in the area for tell-tale scorch marks, because in my opinion alien abduction is emerging as by far the most likely explanation. So anyway, I’m ignoring Roger, like I said, and he’s saying “Miaow, miaow, miaow” at the door.