The Cat Between Page 12

  The almost full moon lit her way along the river road. She slowed as she passed the Parsley Inn, gay with lights, its parking lot three-quarters full even this early in the week. She gave a thought to the family there, wondered how Phil Parsley, the owner, was managing without his hard-working wife Betty, how their four kids were coping without their mother.

  Gerry sighed. As the car climbed the big hill she looked down to her left. The best view in Lovering, she thought, then checked herself, thinking of several others, including the one from her own backyard.

  Across the lake the lights of the little village there, its church and harbour visible, twinkled invitingly. The moon hung off to the right. The sky was a deep dark blue. “I wonder,” she mused, thinking what a fine painting it might make.

  She was considering the palette she’d select when she saw movement out on the ice. First checking her rear-view mirror, she slowed, then stopped the car, pulling over as much as she could. You never knew in Lovering in winter where exactly the road ended and the snow-filled ditch began. She pushed the hazard lights’ button and got out of the Mini. She was halfway up the hill.

  She crossed the road and found a place to stand a few feet from its edge. She shivered and folded her arms across her chest, remembering that night she’d watched Doug and others out on the ice, the sickening lurch in her stomach when first one man then another had gone through into the cold lake waters.

  But these weren’t perpendicular shapes crossing the ice, drawing nearer. These were low to the ground, running.

  Gerry straightened. Wolves! Coming from the other side, presumably the forest, to the Lovering side, to hunt in Lovering’s forest—where Gerry snowshoed and others skied! Where Harriet went for walks!

  She ran to her car, got in and waited. Night Crossing she’d call the painting. Her fingers itched for a sketchpad and pencil.

  Where she was parked the land fell off abruptly to a long marshy expanse. The wolves had left the ice and reached the first frozen reeds. Of course, they should be easily able to climb to the top, even where the angle of ascent became acute. She thought about wolves, about their smaller cousins, coyotes, and about this new creature—the coywolf.

  To her surprise, instead of disappearing as they struggled up the steep incline, the two whatever-they-were veered to her left, found the driveway of a shut-up summer cottage and took that easier, gentler incline up to the road.

  They looked neither to right nor left, nor did they appear to take notice of Gerry’s car or the road itself. Without hesitation, they crossed and continued along another long driveway that led to a house hidden behind some trees. Boy, those people would get a surprise if they were walking their dog tonight! Or driving out for some reason. Like her. “Oh crap!” She’d caught sight of the car’s clock. Ten minutes until the film was supposed to start and she still hadn’t picked up Prudence.

  “Sorry, sorry,” she exclaimed as Prudence for once slid into the passenger seat. “There were wolves and I stopped to watch.”

  Prudence dismissed the wolves. “Probably coyotes. And it’s all right to be late. People like to have a drink first.”

  “Unusual,” Gerry commented. “Booze at a country film show.”

  Prudence made a face. “Well, it’s in a theatre usually used for live productions so I guess the licensing is different.”

  “What are we seeing anyway?”

  “An adaptation of one of Jane Austen’s stories, extended and filmed.”

  “Oh, I love Jane Austen. I read her books when I was a teenager. I should read them again.”

  “What are you reading now?”

  “A set of five novels I found in Aunt Maggie’s collection. By H. E. Bates. They start with The Darling Buds of May, which I’m almost finished.”

  “I think that was a television show. When you were little. Maybe the library has DVDs. I’ll look next time I’m there.”

  Gerry pulled into the parking lot for Lovering’s grocery store. It was packed with cars.

  “You may have to go over to the other side.”

  “I had no idea showing a film in a little village theatre like this would be so popular.” Gerry found a spot and they hurried inside.

  People were just leaving the lobby, drinks in hand. Gerry turned to Prudence. “Do you want anything?” Prudence shook her head, so they took their seats. As the lights dimmed, Gerry caught sight of Mrs. Shrike.

  The film was pleasant enough. At the interval, people proceeded out of the auditorium, Gerry assumed for more drinks and standing around, chatting. She and Prudence just stood and stretched by their seats. Mrs. Shrike, sitting a few rows below them, sat rigidly in place. People in her row edged around her without speaking.

  Odd, thought Gerry. “Oh, Mrs. Shrike,” she called impulsively. The woman twisted her neck.

  “Oh. It’s you.” She nodded and turned back to face the stage.

  Gerry got up, walked over to Mrs. Shrike and sat down. “How are you?”

  Mrs. Shrike kept her gaze forwards. A brown leather purse sat on her brown-skirted lap. “I’m fine,” was the brusque reply.

  “And how’s Sharp? You said he was pining.”

  “The dog is improving.” Did Gerry imagine it, or was there a slight softening in Mrs. Shrike’s demeanour?

  “I’m glad. I saw him in the car the day you paid me a visit. It’s a striking breed. A foxhound, I think you said.”

  “An English foxhound,” Mrs. Shrike replied proudly, turning her head to look at Gerry.

  “I heard from my neighbour who works at Royal Mountain that one of your student boarders, er, got lost last weekend. He was working there?”

  Mrs. Shrike looked away, her lips tightening. “All my boarders work. At part-time jobs. It’s part of how they pay their ways.”

  Gerry continued in a bland voice. “And the two girls I heard you threatening when you picked them up at the college? Do they have jobs? And why would you say you’d kill them?”

  Mrs. Shrike flushed and stood. “I don’t have to explain myself to you!” She tried to edge past Gerry. Other moviegoers, returning to their seats, gave them nervous looks. Gerry scrunched her legs to one side to let Mrs. Shrike leave.

  “What did you say?” whispered Prudence as the theatre darkened and the film resumed.

  “Tell you later,” Gerry whispered back.

  13

  “Nooooooo!” wailed Gerry. The kitten Jay, standing on the kitchen counter—no, right on the pan of carefully prepared unbaked fat rascals—leapt off the counter onto the table, to a chair and from there to the floor and out of the room.

  “How did you get in here, anyway?” Gerry, who had stepped into the living room to make up the fire, realized she must have failed to properly close the kitchen door. No cats allowed unless they were eating, was the usual kitchen rule.

  She surveyed the little teacakes. There was no obvious damage. It must have been the smell of butter that attracted the kitten. There was three quarters of a cup of the stuff to two cups of flour in this recipe. You rolled out the dough and cut it into twenty-four two-inch rounds. Half of them you put on the baking sheet (No need to grease that!), dotted each round with a little blob of butter, and then topped with the other twelve rounds.

  “Double-deckers,” breathed Gerry, bending low to inspect the biscuits’ surfaces. She reached out and picked off a black cat hair, squinted, couldn’t see any more, and made her decision. She thrust the pan into the hot oven, set the timer for ten minutes and made a cup of tea. What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve, she thought, or the mouth taste.

  She was sipping a nice hot Earl Grey when the timer buzzed. She peered nervously at the biscuits and tapped one. She quickly rotated the tray, closed the oven door and set the timer for three additional minutes. The biscuits had risen nicely but the one she’d tapped hadn’t had that satisfying h
ollow feel she’d come to associate with perfectly baked cookies, cakes and muffins.

  “And just think,” she told herself as she removed the browned biscuits, oozing buttery raisins, and transferred them to a wire rack, “a year ago I couldn’t bake a thing!”

  She couldn’t resist—ate one then and there. After all, there would only be four, including her, for afternoon tea. The fat rascal easily split into its upper and lower halves—flaky, delicious.

  She rushed upstairs, washed and dressed, then returned to the living room for a final tidy.

  She cleared the table completely and ranged four chairs facing it and the view of the lake out the back window. Then she put a few objects on the table: a stack of old hardcover books, her wooden cat, a jug of dried hydrangeas.

  At five to one the doorbell rang. Judith, the one student from last fall’s class, left her coat in the hall and followed Gerry into the living room. Gerry explained, “Much warmer in here and close to the kitchen for making tea.”

  Judith, a tall girl in her early twenties, looked around appreciatively and held her hands out to the fire. “It’s a lovely room.”

  The bell rang again and Gerry let in a woman whose voice she recognized from the phone to be Sharon Wolfe. She took her coat and led her to join Judith.

  “Well,” Gerry said brightly, “we may be joined by another student. Or not. So tell us, Sharon, what your previous art experience has been.”

  As Sharon recounted how talented an artist she’d been as a child—“everyone said so”—and how she’d had to “give it up” to raise her children and look after her husband (Here she sniffed deprecatingly.), Gerry allowed her attention to drift. No third car was heard arriving. It was ten past one. She decided to begin.

  “Well, I’ll try to make sure you get to explore all that potential, Sharon. Let’s do a very quick sketch of the objects on the table. We have five minutes.”

  Judith began and Gerry pretended to begin as she watched Sharon frown and stare at the table. She drew a strong horizontal line to represent the table edge. Gerry leaned forward and said, “Just make quick little strokes with the pencil, Sharon, and try not to think about what you’re seeing.”

  Sharon carefully drew the two legs at the front of the table. Gerry narrowed her eyes and checked the clock. “Time,” she said. “Turn the page.”

  “But I’m not done,” protested Sharon.

  “These are just preliminary exercises,” Gerry explained. “The next one will be longer.”

  The doorbell rang. “Excuse me. That must be the other student.” She went to the front door and opened it. A very short, very fat woman stood to one side, looking at her husband in their car. He in turn was leaning out the window, looking anxiously at her.

  “It’s all right, Mr. Conway. I’ve got her.” Gerry waved and the obviously relieved man drove off. “Please come in, Mrs. Conway. June.”

  June Conway stepped sideways over Gerry’s door’s sill and, still without making eye contact, unzipped her coat. Gerry, trying to fill the social vacuum, found herself chattering. “I’m so glad you could join us. Let me take your coat. Of course we’ve already begun a few exercises but you’ll catch up. Do come this way.”

  As she seated June in the fourth chair, she saw a look of compassion on Judith’s face even as Sharon, when she saw who it was, rolled her eyes up toward the ceiling. Gerry wondered, Is there something I don’t know here?

  There had already been a few cats by the hearth but now a half-dozen more sidled in and arranged themselves around the room. Bob, the extrovert, hopped up onto the table and posed, sitting blinking at the class. Min Min, all the good places by the fire taken, paused by June’s leg, then stretched up and looked at her, one paw tapping her thigh.

  “Min Min, I think—” Gerry began, and made as if to remove the old white cat.

  But June forestalled her, reached down, scooped up the cat and plunked him on her lap. A vast purring began as June supported the cat and her sketchpad with one hand and grasped her pencil with the other.

  “Well, if he’s not bothering you,” Gerry said.

  Gerry made a few suggestions, then went to make tea and pop the scones into a warm oven to reheat. When she returned, all three students were working away. “Tea time,” Gerry announced, and put the tray next to Bob. “Help yourselves, please.” She poured four cups of tea and they all took a biscuit.

  “Mm! Gerry! So good!” said Judith, who was used to this aspect of Gerry’s art classes.

  “Yes. Er. Very nice. I wasn’t expecting tea,” said Sharon stiffly. She added, “Thank you.”

  “Thank you,” whispered June, feeding Min Min a buttery crumb.

  “They’re very rich, aren’t they?” said Gerry. “It’s the first time I’ve made them. Have another.”

  “That’s a lovely tray,” observed Sharon, examining the portraits of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. “‘The Queen’s Silver Jubilee 1952–1977’,” she read.

  “Is that her wedding anniversary?” young Judith asked.

  “Her reign,” whispered June, much to their surprise.

  “Do you follow the Royal Family?” Gerry asked kindly.

  June nodded. “Mugs,” she said.

  “You collect mugs,” Gerry concluded. June nodded again. “Royal mugs?” June nodded vigorously. “Well,” Gerry said dubiously, casting about for something else to say, “You would have gotten on well with my Aunt Maggie. She collected ceramics too.” She turned to Judith who had found a catnip mouse and was twirling it for Gerry’s kitten Jay. “How’s Beecham, Judy?”

  Judy smiled up at Gerry. “Just like this. Nuts for an hour, then sleeps for half the day. Then nuts again.”

  “Why’d you call him Beecham?” The five kittens Mother had found and brought home last November had been named by Gerry after letters of the alphabet: Bee, Cee, Dee, Gee and Jay. (They’d actually been named for her first five art students, the first letters of Ben, Christine, Doris, Gladys and Judith herself—but Gerry hadn’t told anyone that.) Like the Muxworthys, who had modified Cee to be Cecilia, and the Shaplands who’d called their Dee, Didi, Judith Parsley had made Beecham out of Bee.

  “I don’t know. It just seemed funny for when he’s a crazy kitten and dignified for when he grows up into a serious adult cat. Like Bob.” Judith swung the mouse in front of Bob who was still reclining on the table. With one mighty leap, he snagged it out of midair, twisting so he landed on his feet on the hearthrug.

  “Some more serious than others!” Gerry exclaimed, and everybody laughed. Bob, now he had the mouse, feigned disinterest and groomed a shoulder. Gerry put her cup down. “Well, I think we should return to drawing, don’t you?”

  The tea break and cats had done their jobs. The ice was broken. The students seemed looser with their sketching and sad when three o’clock came.

  “See you next week! See you!”

  As Gerry waved the last one, who happened to be Sharon Wolfe, out the front door, the woman leaned close and whispered, “She’s a hoarder,” and jerked her head in the direction of June Conway’s disappearing car.

  Gerry, thinking of her Aunt Maggie’s collection of cats, now in her care, and of ceramics, now cherished by Andrew, simply said quietly, “Nobody’s perfect,” and shut the door.

  She went to tidy away the cups and leftover biscuits. “Just the thing for Prudence to have with her tea tomorrow,” she told the cats, most of whom were milling in anticipation of their supper.

  By the time she saw to their needs and did a few chores, it was time to think about her own supper. She gazed at the interior of the fridge, uninspired. I wonder what Cathy’s doing? she thought and phoned her. As she walked over to Cathy’s, fifteen dollars to pay for her meal tucked in a mitten, she felt a soft breeze on her cheeks and noticed the stars were invisible. “Snow coming,” she murmured and let herself into her friend’s
house.

  What with sleeping in after a fun night at Cathy’s—eating a scrumptious meat loaf with tomato sauce, baked potatoes with sour cream and broccoli in cheese sauce, followed by apple crisp and ice cream in front of the TV—being late picking up Prudence, and rushing to prepare for her art history class, it was a frazzled Gerry who dashed from her car across the circular driveway at the college’s main entrance.

  Someone else must have been running late, as the midnight-blue Cadillac screeched up, disgorged its load of foreign students and screeched away. Gerry caught a glimpse of Mrs. Shrike’s angry face, but only a glimpse. The students scattered like frightened mice. Gerry spotted the one she wanted and stepped in front of him. “Hello. Remember me?” He obviously didn’t. “We went on the tour at the beginning of term. You thought it was spring and I explained—”

  “Yes, yes. What do you want?”

  She took a deep breath. “I’m a teacher here.” His attitude changed. He assumed a look of respect. She felt absurdly gratified. “I teach art history and—” His face lost interest. She continued, “And I just wanted to say, if you need advice, or even a place to stay, please contact me. I’m Gerry Coneybear and I know about last weekend, how you got lost on the mountain.” His jaw slackened and his eyebrows rose. “And I know the woman you live with is a bit difficult, so—”

  “With respect, you don’t know anything. I didn’t get lost.” He straightened, trying to look dignified. “I was conducting research. Now, excuse me, I have class.” He walked away.

  She felt foolish and awkward. That told me, she thought.

  “Well, obviously, artists had been depicting reality all along, so what do we think was new at this time?”

  Silence.

  Gerry sighed. Either no one had bothered to do the reading or they just didn’t care. She let her glance stray outside where a sky of such dullness made her feel equally dull. She plowed on. “In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, remarkable progress was made in landscapes and portraits. With the former—” Gerry clicked through a few images. “—we have, for the first time, artists travelling much further than before for their scenes—the Americas, both North and South, and the Middle East were new locales.