The Cat Between Page 14

  “You’re doing well,” J-L encouraged. “Let’s go on.”

  And so, by fits and starts, they crossed field after field until they came to the familiar farmhouse that signalled to Gerry they were joining her usual path into the woods.

  As they crossed the train tracks, they saw the red rear lights of a snowmobile way off in the distance, heading alongside the tracks to Lovering. “They park behind the bar, have a few beers, then go out on the trails again,” J-L told her. “We’ll have to be careful.”

  Gerry, having struggled sideways up the little slope to the tracks after J-L had simply run up it, hardly heard him. She was looking in some trepidation at the little slope on the other side of the tracks—her first downhill.

  J-L skied down it, stopped and turned. “Just keep the skis straight, about a foot apart, bend your knees, lean forward and let gravity do the rest.”

  Gerry followed his instructions. And all might have gone well. However, neither of them had allowed for Harriet, who chose the moment when gravity propelled Gerry downhill to dash in front of her. Gerry swerved and fell into the very deep, snow-filled ditch to the side of the path.

  “Are you all right?” said a laughing J-L who’d dropped his poles to pull her out. She was covered in snow.

  “Yes. I suppose. Is Harriet all right?” asked Gerry. She spat snow out of her mouth. “Yes. I see she is.” The dog was pursuing whatever scent had caused the incident. Gerry, acutely aware of J-L’s hands brushing snow off her body, shivered.

  “Are you cold? Do you want to go back?”

  “No, no. I want to go up into the woods. It’s so beautiful.”

  Organized again, they entered the old forest.

  Giant oak, maple and hemlock supported the starry, moonlit sky. They stayed on the snowmobile trail and passed the sugar shack. Now a long winding ascent began. Gerry, who had to do it all sideways, was in a sweat by the time they reached the top. They paused and J-L produced two flasks from his backpack. He held up one. “Water.” And then the other. “Whisky.”

  Gerry made a face. “Water, please.”

  He smiled as he handed her the one flask and sipped from the other. “That worked out. Want some chocolate?”

  Gerry’s happy expression made him laugh. “A little positive reinforcement for all your hard labour. No, I haven’t forgotten you.” From his pocket he took out a large dog cookie and gave it to Harriet. “Keep going?”

  “Maybe for a bit,” Gerry said.

  They entered the darkest part of the woods—the plantation of pine Gerry’s Uncle Geoff had planted many years ago. In amongst the tight rows of trees, the path narrowed. The temperature dropped and the moon’s light dimmed.

  The land dipped as they left the pines, moving back into the mixed deciduous forest, and Gerry successfully coasted down, keeping a careful eye out for Harriet. Bisecting the path was a small creek where tall reeds were frozen in ice. Gerry came to a halt and looked to either side, wondering where the dog was. Jean-Louis had gotten farther ahead of her and she couldn’t see him either. Off to one side, where the reeds ended and willow shrubs began, she caught a glimpse of the tip of a ski. “J-L?” she called uncertainly. “Harriet?” she called, and was reassured to hear the dog crashing through the underbrush.

  Gerry edged off the path, stepping, not gliding, on the creek’s fragile surface. Little air pockets trapped under the ice collapsed under her skis. Brittle reeds shattered. When she was a yard from the ski tip she reached out with one of her poles, parting the willows.

  She jerked back in surprise, slipped and lurched forward, fell, landing painfully on one elbow. She looked up at the figure slumped on the snowmobile, still wearing its tinted helmet, blood dark at its throat.

  PART 4

  COYWOLF

  Defiance tentatively stretched. His wound pulled but he didn’t feel any pain. It felt good to arch and bow, extend his back legs one at a time, then retract them. He sat and groomed for a bit, then stared out the sliding back doors of his kitchen. The old man was asleep in his chair where the girl had left him.

  Defiance had to admit, she was growing on him. The ham and cheese had been a nice touch. He dimly remembered her soft hands holding him together when he’d been slipping between pain and endless sleep; the warmth of her chest as a terrible coldness began to overtake his body.

  Then, nothing for a time until he woke to sickness in a cage. He’d thought he was back with the pet adoption agency; that the old man had given him up. But soon he became aware of the old man’s voice speaking softly, telling him he had to get better and come home again.

  That had encouraged him enough that he concentrated on recovering, eating and drinking when permitted, submitting to the many different sets of hands that seemed to mean well, though they sometimes caused him pain.

  And now he was home.

  It was a sunny afternoon and chickadees hopped and chirped in the shrubbery. His whiskers twitched. Just wait, birds, he thought, just wait until spring. His head jerked as one bird flew close to the glass, pulling up at the last moment.

  It was no good. He couldn’t get out. In resignation he composed himself on the mat, put his front paws together and let his mind drift.

  A fishbowl for a hat. A child without a scent. Coloured lights. A ribbon fluttering in a tree. A black and white cat falling, falling.

  He opened his eyes. That part had been real. He remembered the sound the cat’s body made when it hit the snow under the window. Whump! Fine particles had risen into the air. The cat had stood up, shaken itself, seen him and taken off around the corner of the vacant house.

  He’d raced after it, and both of them had been surprised to see the goldfish bowl followed by the rest of the man in a one-piece suit exit the house through a window.

  But hadn’t goldfish bowl already driven away on its noisy machine? Maybe there were more than one of them. Goldfish bowl had sauntered down the road after leaning a piece of wood against the window.

  The black and white cat had leapt up onto the window ledge and slithered behind the plywood into the house.

  Defiance hadn’t even considered. He’d followed.

  Broken glass gave him some difficulty in his landing. He cursed as he tiptoed between the pieces. He sniffed for scent of the other cat.

  The interior of the house smelt strongly of mice. Distracting. Then he caught a trace of the cat. Female. Scared. She would hardly be likely to return to the upstairs room where the weird odourless child lived. He prowled the rooms on the main floor.

  The scent. Stronger. This way.

  Another scent overlay that of the female. He’d followed it to the back of the house where his nose also told him this had been the food room.

  The black and white cat was sniffing a body lying on its side. Blood oozed from under the man’s chin. Defiance had recognized the look in the eyes: the glazing over when life is just leaving.

  The other cat sensed his presence and puffed her fur defensively. Even so, he had seen how painfully thin she was. Suddenly, beating on her hadn’t seemed so much fun. He allowed her to pass.

  He was alone with the body. Just meat now. Not his kill. He yawned.

  He jumped up onto the long shelf that followed the row of windows along the lake side of the room. On the snow outside he could see the reflection of flickering Christmas lights from above. He heard a child first laugh then sob.

  He blinked and woke, glad not to relive leaving the dead body, going outside, and the horrible attack he’d just barely survived. Back on the nice safe mat at the back door of his nice safe kitchen. Behind him the old man gently snored. Outside, little snowflakes began to fall.

  15

  Gerry sifted the flour and salt into the mixing bowl. She measured the shortening and cut it into the flour, first with a knife and fork to break it into manageable chunks, and then with the pastry blender.
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  The pastry blender was old: five pieces of wire curved and embedded in a worn wooden handle, contoured to fit her closed palm. She pressed and scooped until the mixture resembled breadcrumbs.

  She paused and stared out the kitchen window where a storm raged. Wind gusts off the lake blew snow that piled up around her car. The sky was grey.

  She consulted the recipe dreamily. She should have made the pastry for the Eccles cakes yesterday. It was supposed to chill overnight. Oh well. A few hours this morning would have to do.

  She mixed lemon juice, egg and water in a teacup and added it to the large bowl of crumbs. Using first a fork and then her hands, she formed a smooth ball of dough.

  She heard Prudence’s voice in her head. “Light hands. Light hands make light pastry; heavy hands make edible rocks,” but even that didn’t make her smile.

  She rolled the dough out, folded it and repeated. Then she wrapped it in waxed paper and put it into the fridge.

  Still in a dream, she took her coffee and wafted into the living room. Cats strolled by on private business; Jay and Ronald played by the fire; Bob, Min Min and Mother looked on indulgently.

  Min Min, as he’d been doing lately, asked for her lap. It was given him. I’m relaxing as the dough chills, Gerry thought. Sounds like a soap opera on The Muppet Show. “As the Dough Chills.” Cue melodramatic music and Miss Piggy, she thought.

  She was beginning to feel better. Home, cats and routine were replacing the nastiness of the last few days.

  She remembered the dead body on the snowmobile, her shrill cry for help. She supposed Jean-Louis must have had a cellphone and used it because suddenly help had been there—police officers arriving on snowmobiles and floundering through the snow.

  She didn’t really remember the ski back to J-L’s, just the questions there and that her teeth were chattering when she was given a mug of hot tea with whisky in it.

  She remembered falling asleep on the couch and someone covering her in a fuzzy blanket. She smiled as she remembered extending her feet only to encounter at the other end of the couch a large tightly compressed furry friend—Harriet, also succumbing to slumber. How comforting her warmth had felt. As had the warmth from the cottage’s wood stove.

  She remembered passing between sleep and wakefulness, overhearing bits of conversation between J-L and, she supposed, a police officer. J-L’s voice was a low rumble, the other voice was clear.

  “What were you thinking of, taking her up there?” Mumble, mumble. “Are you kidding me?”

  Then she thought someone else arrived, much later, and had another conversation, this time completely inaudible, with J-L.

  It was eight o’clock Saturday morning when he walked her home and she fed her cats before falling into her own most welcome bed.

  She’d slept all day, then woken to find Bob staring down at her hungrily. She thought she had a sore throat but was distracted by phone calls from, first, J-L and then the police.

  Later, as she’d been sipping tea and staring at The Cake-Jumping Cats of Dibble, trying to plot the next chapter (Would Queen Atholfass find love with the ace cake-jumper Crazy Legs Cucina from the next village? Or would a new character arrive, a dachshund named, say, Barkey Barkington—Barky Barkison? A rival for Lady Ponscomb’s paw; a dog even more annoying than Max, Count Scarfnhatznmitz?), she realized her throat did hurt.

  Gloomily, she’d stared out at the dark backyard, cleaned the cat boxes and gone up to bed. She woke sweating several times Saturday night and dreamt not of the two recent murders but of her mother. Oddly, part of her feverish brain noted.

  Her mother carried the infant Gerry at her side in a green sling while the adult Gerry watched and was simultaneously in the sling.

  Her mother put the sling down on the floor and when the adult Gerry picked it up, it contained a cat, a new cat, not one of her own. She put the sling over her neck and followed her mother, who was walking outside now, in the streets of Riverdale, the Toronto neighbourhood where Gerry grew up.

  They were on a garden tour. Her mother would walk up to a house, go to its gate and enter the garden, admire the flowers, caressing them, then exit and repeat the process at the next house.

  Meanwhile, Gerry and the cat followed her meekly, until at one house Gerry felt the cat struggling to climb out of the sling. Terrified it might escape and be lost or run over by a car, she called to her mother. As her mother turned, feverish Gerry woke up.

  Except for struggling downstairs to do cat chores, she’d spent Sunday in bed, trying to read the second book in The Darling Buds of May series: A Breath of French Air. The Larkin family, depressed by a long rainy English summer, crossed to France for what they hoped would be sun and fun. But the weather was as bad on the French coast as in England and they had to amuse themselves without swimming and tanning. Instead they indulged in flirting, subsequent jealousy and copious amounts of alcohol.

  Gerry could only read for short periods before falling asleep. The winds of France died down and the Larkin family got their sunny vacation. She finished the book.

  Monday she’d been able to get up and shuffle around as Prudence, who’d cadged a ride from her neighbour Charlie, vacuumed and made cups of tea and a batch of chicken soup. She’d brought DVDs of the television show of The Darling Buds of May and Gerry snuggled up on the lumpy old couch in the living room, several cats keeping her company, watching and getting to know the Larkins through the interpretations of excellent actors and actresses.

  By Tuesday morning Gerry had been in the sniffling stage of the cold. It was a good thing the art history students were to present their homework, as she was only barely able to sit with a pile of tissues and intermittently blow.

  With relief she’d reached the end of the class. A few kids still hadn’t presented so she said, “We’ll finish painting reality on Thursday and I’ll give a brief introduction to Impressionism, and your homework assignment for the weekend.”

  She’d made it home and into bed.

  Today she’d woken feeling much better. The stuffy head was gone; she just had a little cough. So, after washing her face and hands well (She didn’t want to infect her students!) she’d made the dough for her Eccles cakes.

  On the back of the handwritten recipe, Aunt Maggie had noted some facts about the origin of Eccles cakes. Gerry read them as she drank her coffee.

  The cakes were at least 300 years old and were said to celebrate the founding of the church in Eccles, a town near Manchester in central England. Apparently Eccles, the town, derived its name from the ancient Greek for church. Gerry thought of the word ecclesiastic (which she had a fuzzy impression meant something to do with religion) and the penny dropped. The church building in Eccles was almost 1,000 years old, so Eccles cakes had probably been served at fairs in Eccles since before people wrote recipes down.

  She sighed and patted Min Min and thought about the Shrikes, the drugs, snowmobilers—alive and dead—and the house next door. And Jean-Louis. Something about how the police had treated him hadn’t been the same as the way they’d treated her.

  She went into the kitchen and took the dough out of the fridge. It was hard. “And I’m supposed to roll this?” she said doubtfully. While she was waiting for the dough to soften, she made the next part of the recipe: the filling. “Combine butter, brown sugar, currants and cinnamon.” She tasted a bit. “Mm. I could just eat this.”

  She rummaged in the back of the recipe drawer where Prudence had told her cookie cutters were kept. She needed a three- to four-inch round one. She found it among the hearts and snowflakes, the Santa Clauses and pumpkins, and she found something else—a child’s plain, old, exercise book.

  “What’s this? More recipes?” Taking another mouthful of the lovely buttery, sugary currant filling, she went back to her rocking chair and opened the book.

  Not recipes. Her Aunt Maggie’s name written on the cover
, the heading: Tales of Lovering, True and Imagined.

  She smiled when she saw the date. April 17, 1958. Aunt Maggie had been ten years old and she’d been writing stories. “The Talking Dog,” “The Laughing Child,” “The Singing Milkman.”

  “Oh, these are so cute!” she exclaimed, then saw what time it was and rushed back into the kitchen.

  She scattered flour on the counter and the rolling pin and rolled the dough out thinly, making as many rounds as she could with the cookie cutter. She put a teaspoon of the filling in the centre of each round and drew the edges together until she had a few dozen little parcels.

  More flour was strewn and each parcel flipped and carefully rolled out again, but not as thinly. Gerry preheated the oven and placed the cakes on the baking trays, brushed each with beaten egg, sprinkled them with sugar and scored three times crossways with a sharp knife.

  “More fiddly than I thought,” she muttered as she popped them into the oven and dashed upstairs for a wash and change of clothes.

  A lovely smell greeted her return. She removed the now golden brown cakes and prepared the tea things for later. The doorbell rang. Well, at least one student had braved the bad weather.

  Soon the other two also appeared and she taught the class, who seemed much more relaxed this time, fed them Eccles cakes to great acclaim, and saw them on their way. As she was washing the dishes, she handled the knife she’d used on the cakes. She thought of the snowmobiler, his throat slashed, dying in the woods, and began to cry.

  Crying brought on a spell of coughing. She made a coffee and sat on a rocking chair with it and her aunt’s childish book. It was almost cat suppertime but she had a few minutes. She read “The Talking Dog,” a story about a man who taught his dog to have a conversation with him. The man, a Mr. Leger, owned a candy store and gas station not far from Aunt Maggie’s house and she’d been allowed to bike there alone or with her sister Mary or brother Gerald (Gerry’s dad).