The Cat Vanishes Page 5

  From ship owner to trader to storekeeper and landowner had seemed to be the progression, and by 1845 he was ready to settle down in Lovering.

  He extended the original house, took up farming and, in 1854, married — Gerry made another check of the tree — Sybil Muxworthy, aged seventeen! And John was forty-four!

  The cat boxes were dry. Gerry lugged them into the bathroom and dragged out two more. She yawned. Maybe not. She slid the boxes back into the bathroom. Prudence always took on this nasty monthly task, and Gerry wanted to surprise her by having them all done when she came back to work. She’d carry on tomorrow.

  She heated some canned soup and another scone. It had been a long day. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed, then relaxed. “Geez, so much has been happening. I thought I’d missed a day. We checked Cathy’s yesterday. It’ll keep till tomorrow.” She smiled at the furry faces quietly keeping her company. “I guess I can always say I’m talking to the cats.”

  5

  Gerry was too tired to read letters that night, but next morning, after her regular chores, and with two more clean cat boxes drying out in front of the fire, and over her second cup of coffee, she selected one bundle, sat in a rocker by the fire and undid the string.

  The letters were all addressed to one or the other of the same two people: Matthew Coneybear, Gerry’s father’s father; and Ellie Catford, his soon-to-be wife. They had both been dead before Gerry had been born and she touched the envelopes with respect, wondering what she would read inside them.

  A quick glance at the family tree confirmed Matthew had been fourteen years Ellie’s senior. Yet he’d died only two years before his wife. What did Gerry know about Matthew? Only that he’d died on the commuter train coming home to Lovering after a hard day in Montreal doing business.

  Gerry did as she’d done the day before. She took all the letters out of their envelopes, carefully paper-clipping them together so they didn’t get mixed up. Then she put them in order so she’d have the sequence correct, dated them on a piece of paper, and left a space after each entry in which to describe the letter’s content.

  She’d expected serious, formal letters, but again she was surprised. They all seemed to be from 1933, when the couple became engaged, to 1935, when they married. So Ellie was around twenty while Matthew was in his early thirties. Yet the letters were playful. They had nicknames for each other. They gushed. It was quite touching.

  The absences had been caused by Matthew being away for work — business took him to Toronto, New York. And Ellie was a young girl living with her parents in Lovering, a few miles from The Maples.

  Surprised again, Gerry noted on the tree that Ellie had been the child of first cousins, Henry and Louise, both Catfords by birth. Before she got bogged down in how many of her friends and acquaintances her grandmother had been related to (many), she went back to the letters.

  Not much mention of other people in those. These two were interested only in each other. Gerry laid aside the letters with a sigh, tenderly returned each to its envelope and retied the bundle with its ancient piece of string. Maybe my children will read them someday, she thought.

  The freshly scrubbed cat boxes were dry. “I’m on a roll, cats.” She filled the boxes with fresh litter and tackled the last two boxes. She was eating a sandwich when the phone rang. “Helloooo,” she said in a comic voice.

  “Gerry? Is that you?” The quavering tones told her at once to whom she was speaking.

  Contrite, she responded, “Yes, Mr. Parminter, it’s me. I was just being silly. Are you home? Is everything all right?”

  “Gerry, would you have supper here tonight? My nephew and his wife insisted I bring home some leftovers from the delicious meal they made yesterday. No, two days ago. I must say, I’m glad to be home. Travelling is too exhausting at my age.”

  “I would love to come, Mr. Parminter. What time?”

  “Seven too late for you?”

  “Not at all. May I bring dessert?”

  “Lovely. Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye, Mr. Parminter.”

  Gerry went to her Christmas tree and found and transferred two small parcels from there to the kitchen counter where she kept her wallet and keys. Which reminded her… She went in search of catnip mice.

  When, on Boxing Day, she’d remembered to distribute the little oval parcels among her pets, she’d expected a feeding frenzy, but only a few cats had been excited enough to rip off the wrapping paper, and now, a day later, the mice she could find lay in corners where their “users” had left them.

  “Huh. Well, that was a bust.” She pulled out a reference book about herbs. “Catnip, catnip. Not all cats…may prefer fresh… aha! I wonder if you guys have some in the garden I don’t know about. If you don’t, I’ll get some plants in the spring and we’ll see. We’ll see, eh, Bob?” With her toe she poked gently in Bob’s direction, where, as if to prove her wrong, he was rolling from side to side, a plaid catnip mouse on his belly, alternately clutching or mouthing it, before he dashed up onto the bench where Gerry sat, back down to the floor, and crossed the room to sit, tail thrashing, under the table.

  “I might have known that you’d be the one most affected,” mused Gerry. “Well, let’s do a bit of cleaning in here.”

  House vacuumed, cat boxes clean, laundry done, and herself fresh from a hot bath, it was a contented Gerry that walked to Mr. Parminter’s. Doing housework always made her feel virtuous.

  She tapped on the door and let herself in. “It’s me, Mr. Parminter.” She slipped on the little ballerina slippers she wore when visiting — SpongeBob was surely best left at home! — and followed her nose into the kitchen.

  A lovely smell of roast beef and garlic greeted her. Mr. Parminter was slowly setting the table. “I thought we could eat in here tonight. So cozy.”

  “Let me do that.” She kissed his cheek as he settled into a padded chair that swivelled, his lookout post for watching the birds in his back yard.

  As she served the supper, he chatted about his family, the visit, how they’d driven up onto Mount Royal and parked to look at the Christmas lights of Montreal; how they’d taken him to visit the graves of his parents in a crypt also on the mountain; how lucky he was to have his house and cat. “Thank you again for letting me have Graymalkin, Gerry.” As if on cue, Graymalkin (who Gerry could not stop calling Stupid, at least to herself) entered the room and jumped on his owner’s lap. He blinked lazily at Gerry. “Work, slave,” he seemed to be saying.

  “Don’t chop up any beef for him,” Mr. Parminter was saying. “He doesn’t like the garlic.”

  Gerry opened a tin of fishy cat food and dumped half in a saucer. “I guess it’s too strong. Here you go Stu — Graymalkin. Merry Christmas. You know, only about half of my cats went for the catnip mice I bought them. So I looked it up and it’s a fake cat-hormone that fools the susceptible ones. I brought him one.”

  Mr. Parminter took a glass of red wine from her and toasted, “To St. Stephen. Oh no. That was yesterday. To St. John.”

  A confused Gerry replied, “To St. Stephen and St. John. Hip-hip,” and drank. She sat down and they dug in. “How do you know so much about saints, Mr. Parminter?”

  “I’m a lapsed Catholic. For reasons I won’t go into, I stopped attending as a young man and eventually drifted over to the Anglicans. But I still remember the saints and their days, especially around Christmas. St. Stephen, St. John, the Holy Innocents —”

  “Who were they?”

  “The children murdered by Herod’s soldiers because he knew a troublemaker had been recently born. He had a dream or consulted a soothsayer or something. I should be able to remember.”

  He toyed with his food, appeared suddenly tired. Gerry was concerned. “Shall I clear? Why don’t you put your feet up in your chair while I do the dishes? Then we’ll have dessert and I’ll go. Tell me about the storm in Montreal.”

&
nbsp; Mr. Parminter quietly chatted, stroking the cat on his lap, and Gerry only half-listened to his pleasant voice as she scrubbed and rinsed at the sink. “But I can tell you’re distracted, my dear.” His words penetrated her reverie. “What is it?”

  She sliced some of the golden fruitcake she’d brought and offered it to him, then plugged in the kettle. “Prudence felt…an emanation in my woodshed. And Bob turned up in Cathy’s basement of all places, when we were checking her house. Oops! I meant to do that today but time got away from me.” Mr. Parminter waited. “It just feels like something is happening. Oh, I don’t know.”

  He looked sympathetically at her. “Have you been very lonely?”

  Tears came into her eyes. She nodded.

  “I thought so. I remember, after my dearest Michael died —” He fumbled for a tissue. Gerry, who knew Mr. Parminter had really loved only the one, mourning him deeply, made sympathetic noises. He cleared his throat. “Well. For one thing, Bob is a nut.” Bob was Graymalkin’s archenemy. Gerry knew Mr. Parminter wasn’t very fond of him. “He followed you and Prudence into Cathy’s house as a joke. That cat has a questionable sense of humour.”

  Gerry, who’d many a time seen Bob stalking an unsuspecting Graymalkin before the pounce and ensuing kerfuffle, nodded. “He does.”

  Mr. Parminter continued. “Or he got into the basement somehow ahead of you.”

  “We checked all the windows,” Gerry began doubtfully.

  Mr. Parminter shook his head. “These old houses. There might be a coal chute, or an opening for chucking down firewood, or a cupboard for keeping milk cool…a…what’s it called? — a cold room.

  “As for Prudence, well, I respect that woman, so I don’t know what to tell you. What exactly happened?”

  “Oh, I just remembered. It happened twice. The first time she was inside the shed, getting wood, and she said someone tapped her shoulder. I blamed Bob but he was inside. Then outside the shed at the back, she was holding a rope while the Hudsons cleared a tree off my car —”

  “Good God! Is it all right?”

  “Oh yes, just a dent in the roof. It still goes, which is the main thing I require from a car. Where was I? Oh, yes, she says it felt like someone helped her pull on the rope. She was so startled, she slipped and fell.”

  “Well,” Mr. Parminter smiled, “you have had an exciting few days. Not so lonely now, eh?”

  Gerry jumped up. “I have a present for you. First Stup — Graymalkin’s mouse.” Mr. Parminter opened it for the cat, who sniffed the toy. Mr. Parminter dropped it to the floor.

  “Oh,” said a disappointed Gerry. “He doesn’t like it.” But she spoke too soon. Graymalkin also dropped to the floor and put out a tentative paw.

  “He’s a serious cat,” Mr. Parminter was beginning to say, when Graymalkin pounced, salivating heavily. They laughed.

  “Whoa!” said Gerry. “Success!” She offered Mr. Parminter the other small parcel. “Now, before you say anything, I didn’t spend any money. I found it in with Aunt Maggie’s books.”

  Mr. Parminter blinked as he read the title, in faded gold embossed on the little volume’s cover. “The Poetical Works of William Cowper, Excelsior Series. You notice I pronounce it Coper, not Cooper or Cowper, although all are nowadays considered correct.” He cleared his throat and read, ‘To my dear Maggie. May your days be ever filled with the lily and the rose. Christmas 1960.’ Funny how they didn’t include the date of printing in old books, but I think you’ll find —” He rustled through the first few pages. “What does that say?”

  She peered at the tiny print. “‘St. Catherine’s, Bear Wood.’” She looked up with smile. “What a lovely name for a place. And then there’s a date: October 9 — I can’t make out the last digit. Is that 1850 or 1856?”

  “It’s one of my father’s books. He loved poetry. I gave it to Maggie long ago. So long ago.” He paused. “There’s a poem — ‘The Lily and the Rose.’ Could you read it to me?”

  Gerry read, “‘Within the garden’s peaceful scene / Appeared two lovely foes, / Aspiring to the rank of queen,” and Mr. Parminter joined in with, “‘The lily and the rose.’”

  After Gerry had read the rest of the poem aloud, she exclaimed, “Why, Mr. Parminter! This is about Aunt Maggie and Aunt Mary, isn’t it?”

  “I’d just moved in here. They were teenagers. No, wait.” He did some mental math. “Mary was a teenager — seventeen. Maggie was only twelve. Oh, how they struggled with each other! Mary was beautiful, you know, and Maggie — Maggie was not. But she was the lovelier person. A few moments with them soon settled that. So, I thought if she saw herself as the lily with ‘the statelier mien,’ she might learn patience. And she did. But it took time.”

  “That’s a lovely story, Mr. Parminter. I’m so glad I found the book.”

  “Your house is full of such treasures, Gerry. You must guard it, and them. Now. One old book deserves another.” He walked slowly into another room, returning with a slim paperback with a faded purple cover that he handed Gerry.

  “Old Habits by Blaise Parminter. I look forward to reading it. Thank you very much.”

  He sank back down into his chair. Graymalkin leapt lightly into his lap. “I’m very tired,” he said abruptly. “Thank you for the book and your company.”

  She let herself out. He was already asleep in his chair.

  When she was in bed, draped with cats, her eyes closing, Gerry promised herself to check Cathy’s house the next day.

  In the morning when she rolled out of bed, she stepped on something hard and painful. “Is this one of your toys, Bob?” she said, yawning, with her eyes barely open as she bent to pick it up. She flung it from her with a shriek. It rattled into the black grate of the disused fireplace where it gleamed palely: a small white bone.

  Something moved in a damp corner, stole slowly along the cement floor. It encountered wetness, stopped, shuddering.

  It was hard to see in the darkness down there. Snow had built up around the foundation and against the one window. Anyway, it was a moonless night and starlight didn’t reach that far.

  The thing crept slowly along the floor to the bottom of the basement stairs. Was there any point trying to mount them? No one had come before. It waited, considering.

  It must have slept, for it woke with a start, wondering where it was, then, remembering, uttered one dreadful cry.

  What had it done to deserve this?

  It eyed the metal shelves of the wine rack. How good it would be to drink. Water would do. If it could only reach —

  The rack fell over with a crash, narrowly missing the creature on the floor. Glass, flying in all directions, and wine, red and white, splattered the recumbent form.

  Carefully, it dragged itself away from the mess of broken shards and sharp-smelling liquid. There must be water somewhere in this basement. It could be heard drip, dripping.

  The thing found a wet corner and, losing strength, lapped directly from the floor. The last thing it felt was cool water going down its throat.

  PART 2

  AND NEW

  6

  Prudence will have a fit, was Gerry’s first thought, followed by, it’s probably just from a chicken, or maybe it’s an old spare rib. She approached the object and picked it up with a tissue. “Definitely a chicken,” she said. “Bob?” Bob rolled on her bed, displaying the three attached white triangles that made his belly so enticing to scratch. Gerry pounced with the bone and Bob’s four paws and his mouth closed gently on Gerry’s hand. “You are a nut,” she said affectionately, “just as Mr. Parminter said.” The Honour Guard gravely watched these shenanigans from the foot of the bed. “Who’s hungry?” she asked.

  Downstairs, she dropped the bone into the kitchen garbage.

  Chores done and coffee dripping, she brought in four armloads of wood from the back porch. The pile there was almost depleted. “A
fter church,” she promised herself. As she stacked the last load by the cold ashes of yesterday’s fire, she sang dramatically to the cats. “On the fourth day of Christmas, someone gave to me, four loads of firewood, three of Jane’s scones, two ham and cheese, and my car crushed under a treeeee! Stay tuned for further instalments!” Snickering to herself at her cleverness, she bundled up and set off for church.

  As she walked the short distance, she saw what had improved her mood. The sun! The sun! she chanted to herself. I really am a pagan at heart. The temperature had dropped, but that didn’t seem to matter as long as the sun shone. She stamped her feet in the church porch and went in.

  Red poinsettias had now joined the white ones decking the altar. The hymns were old favourites and Gerry enjoyed singing them. She let her mind wander during the sermon and reread the brass plaques screwed into the church walls.

  Her family and several others were well represented. Her gaze lingered on the first Coneybear couples’ names: John, Sybil, and a long list of children, most dead in infancy; and then at Sybil’s death date, coinciding with that of her youngest child’s birth — 1865. What must it have been like for little Albert, growing up without a mother? His sister, Margaret, was ten years older. Probably she and the servants had cared for the infant.

  People were standing to sing “It came upon a midnight clear” and Gerry scrambled to her feet. A few more prayers, then “Good King Wenceslas looked out” saw the minister and the minuscule choir down the aisle.

  Outside, Gerry looked at the drifts of snow between her and her parents’ plaques on the wall of remembrance at the rear of the graveyard and regretfully turned away. She saw Betty Parsley, wife of Phil Parsley, owner of the Parsley Inn. A tall man with flaming red hair stood talking to her. The man said something, and Betty looked away, somewhat angrily, Gerry thought, and saw Gerry watching them. As Gerry turned to leave, Betty caught up with her.