Interfictions (26 page)

Leanne moves to step back inside and shut the front door on him, but somehow he slips under her arm and into the hall. He scampers around the corner and down the stairs. It is almost as if he knows the way.

'Excuse me!' says Leanne loudly. She leaves the front door open and goes after him.

Already he is in the kitchen. When she comes marching in, he is running around the far side of the table, on his way to the basket chair, the chair Timothy always chooses.

She heads him off. He goes gliding around the room, running his hands along her worktops.

'Are you out of your mind?' she says.

'No,' he answers simply. ‘Just out of my body.'

What does he want? Is it a joke? She could laugh at his impudence.

He seems quite uninterested in her feelings. He picks up a spoon and sniffs it.

Leanne rallies. ‘Put that down! Out you go!'

The young man puts his head on one side, looking at the spoon. ‘You called me in,' he says blandly.

Leanne feels warm. She can feel her cheeks going pink.

'So your name's Timothy,' she says.

'It's the name you gave me,' he says. His tone is mildly accusing. Now he is investigating the tin opener.

Leanne folds her arms. It is a joke, and a thin one. She will turn it on him before she turns him out.

'Very well, then,' she says. ‘If you're Timothy, what's my name?'

The man raises his eyebrows. ‘I haven't the slightest idea,' he says. He presses his thumbnail between his two front teeth. ‘Is that an awful disappointment?'

He lowers his head and comes trotting towards her.

Leanne gathers the breast of her nightdress in her hand. It is an automatic gesture, the gesture of someone clutching a jacket closed, to protect themselves. Leanne is not wearing a jacket. The fabric of the nightdress tightens across her breasts, showing their shape still more clearly.

'Stay away,' she warns; and he does. He veers off, to the other side of the kitchen table. He backs into the basket chair, drawing his knees up.

'The only name we ever really notice is our own,' he tells Leanne. ‘And then only when food comes after it.'

He speaks without arrogance or irony. He speaks like an aristocrat, precluding any denial.

Tucked beneath him on the faded old appliqué cushion, his feet are small and neat, in black slip-ons. The shoes look thin, not suitable for walking the streets.

Leanne's feet are bare. She is all bare, but for the nightdress.

'Did I say sit down?' she asks.

Her visitor does not get up. ‘Many times,' he says.

She hardens her voice. She feels a ripple of anticipatory resentment in her diaphragm, as if some delicate fancy is about to be betrayed.

'You're a friend of Howard's, I suppose.'

'Howard,' he repeats. He knows he has heard the word before. ‘Yes: Howard. Your mate.'

She hides a smile. Howard would not like that.

'Well, you're a bold one. I suppose you're after a bed for the night.'

He meets her eye. ‘Of course,' he says. ‘Aren't you?'

Timothy will sleep on their bed, when he can. Howard objects, especially when he starts to wash himself. He is Leanne's cat, Timothy: one of her domestic responsibilities, like any other. Howard makes her put him out. By morning he always finds his way back in.

'Bed is a very fluid concept to a cat,' says the man in black. ‘There are places to sleep,' he says, ‘and places not to.' He flexes one hand backwards at the wrist. ‘Places to stretch; and places to run; and places to sit very quietly, staring at nothing.'

He lifts his head towards her, smiling, as if pleased with his nonsense. He twists his head round over his shoulder and yawns, soundlessly. His mouth opens wide. His teeth look human enough, though, the glimpse she has of them.

'Places to hunt.'

Her face flushes again. She is alone in the house on the side of the hill, wrapped around with the night; hedged about with privacy.

If she ran outside and screamed, in a minute Nonnie and Jack next door would be out. Mrs Mandelbaum from the other side in her dressing gown, she would love a drama, an occasion for calling the police.

The police.

In a minute, thinks Leanne, a lot can happen.

She notices for the first time the muscles of his thighs.

She leans on the table, steadying herself. She takes a good look at him. His tight black garb and slip-on shoes make her think of an actor. Is this a performance? A little drama, improvised, for an audience of one?

She looks into his eyes. They are green. His pupils are not slits, but round as tunnels, with who knows what waiting at the other end.

Behind him the little window over the draining board is still open. Above the drying crockery, the curtain stirs.

She says: ‘What colour are the curtains, then? Tell me that, if you're Timothy.'

He doesn't even try to sneak a look. ‘I never saw colours before this morning,' he tells her. ‘Nice, aren't they?'

She makes a hard line of her mouth and a fist of her hand.

'It's dogs that don't see colours! Dogs, not cats!'

She hears herself. She sounds like a child in the playground, accusing another child of breaking the rules of a game.

'Dogs and cats,' says the young man. ‘And fish and birds and cows. You know that, don't you?'

She makes herself speak coldly.

'Well, this is all quite hilarious, I'm sure, but it's time you were going.'

'Going?' he says. ‘I've only just got in.'

She strides to the fridge and opens it violently. She pulls out a half-empty tin of cat food and empties it into a dish. She dumps the dish on the table in front of the intruder and stands back, folding her arms again.

He looks at it. He shakes his head, as at some marvel. ‘That's just the way I remember it...'

'Well?' she says. ‘Aren't you going to eat it?'

'It won't do now,' he says. ‘I'm not a cat now, am I?'

She shakes her head, in her turn. ‘I don't know the word for what you are.'

'Well, I'm not a cat,' he says, almost rudely. ‘Do I look like a cat?' He jumps up, swivelling his hips, showing her his bottom. ‘Do you see my fine tail? Mm?'

Now he has gone too far. She snatches up the rolling pin and bustles around the table brandishing it like a cartoon housewife.

'Get out! Out!'

He is too quick for her. He springs backwards out of the chair. Turning in the air like an acrobat, he lands on the edge of the draining board. There he pauses the merest instant, legs braced; then jumps again, up onto the windowsill. He balances there, squeezed against the lintel. The curtain flutters around him. With a twist of his shoulders he is through the gap and gone; with not a dish rattled, not a teaspoon disturbed.

The kitchen is silent and empty. There is no sound from the garden. The white and yellow curtain blows in the evening breeze.

Leanne puts down the rolling pin. She puts Timothy's food bowl on the newspaper behind the back door, next to his water bowl. She takes the chair from the end of the table and stands on it, as she does every night at this season, to shut the little window before she goes to bed.

Tonight, as she sometimes does, she looks out into the darkness. Against the light of the neighbours' windows she sees the silhouettes of her rhododendrons, the bobbled spires of her hollyhocks. There is nothing untoward out there.

When Howard comes home Leanne is in bed, reading a magazine. Howard is finishing a limp sandwich in a cellophane wrapper. He kisses his wife on the cheek. His breath smells of cheese and pickle.

She asks him: ‘How was your day, dear?'

She watches him answer. She sees him, fatigued, remote, mouthing his reply like a fish blowing bubbles. The bubbles burst on the surface of the moment and are gone, leaving not the least trace in her mind. His very dullness is soothing, she realises, not for the first time. Her tumbled heart grows quiet.

She turns the light out, but for a long while she cannot sleep. She thinks about the young man in black. The nerve of him.

She smiles into the secret dark.

Of the cat Timothy there is no sign.

All next day Timothy stays away.

In the evening Leanne eats a ready meal in front of the television, a chicken breast with asparagus. She drinks a glass of Muscadet. The television pelts her with events: national events, foreign events, events in the realms of business and sport. A duchess shakes hands with the director of a ballet company. A man with a blanket over his head is bundled into a police car.

Leanne picks up Sunday's paper and starts the crossword. In the grid of squares she enters the names of an Italian city and a tool used by carpenters. Then she gets up and goes into the kitchen.

She slices a banana in a bowl and adds some yogurt. She eats it standing at the kitchen table. Then she does the washing up, slowly and conscientiously.

It is not yet seven. Leanne takes the bottle out of the fridge and pours herself a second glass of wine. She takes a sip. The wine tastes cold and stony. She carries her glass upstairs and starts to run a bath.

The bedroom window looks onto the front garden. The grass is parched. There has been no rain all month. In the street the low sun lights the parked cars. A couple arrive, walking slowly, close together. They get in one of the cars and drive away.

Leanne takes off her shirt.

The evening breeze stirs the leaves of the trees.

Leanne unhooks her skirt. She lowers the zip.

Downstairs, bright music and applause spill from the television.

Leanne takes off her underwear. She stands in front of the full-length mirror. She spreads her hands on her ribs, fingers wide.

She remembers seeing Timothy one day playing on the lawn. He was prancing, stiff-legged, darting at something that seemed, when he lifted his paw, to be attached to his claws. It was struggling.

The moment she stepped outside, without seeming to notice her, he had made a sudden gathering motion with his head and all his limbs. It was too slight, too contained, to be called a pounce. He lay couched in the grass, immediately and completely at ease.

Only then did he turn and look at her.

His face was rigid, imperious. His eyes were slits of absolute authority.

Leanne runs her hands up over the shallow curves of her breasts. She draws her forefingers along under her nipples.

In the bath, Leanne lies breathing scented sandalwood oil, for calming thoughts. She hears laughter from the television, entertaining the empty drawing room.

She lies a long time in the bath. Her muscles relax. Distantly, she hears the doors of cars and houses open and close. Somewhere a phone rings, a dozen times, then falls silent.

Leanne dries herself and puts on her nightdress. She brushes her hair. She finds her wine, grown tepid and slightly harsh. She finishes it and takes the empty glass downstairs.

In the kitchen the food she emptied into Timothy's bowl is still there, untouched, turning dull. The water in his water bowl is evaporating. Its surface looks thick. Leanne can see the dust that lies on it.

Outside it is dark now, except for the streetlights.

She opens the front door and stands on the doorstep and calls, as before.

'Timothy?'

Her nightdress stirs around her knees.

'Timothy!'

Nothing moves. There is no sign of her cat, or of anyone else.

Leanne goes back inside. Her hand is on the latch to close the door.

Something moves, in the garden. She feels a hot spasm of shock, like heartburn. There is something there, something large, on the grass.

'Timothy?'

Everything is still.

Leanne steps outside. She crouches down, trying to see what it is.

Out of the darkness, the man in black comes jumping lightly towards her.

She freezes.

He stands over her, inside her dark enclosure of hedges.

'Is it you again?' she says.

The yellow streetlights mock their meeting.

The silhouette sketches a bow. Tonight he does not speak. Tonight he is wearing an elegant black mask.

Leanne puts her hand to her mouth, stifling a small cry. All day she has been thinking about him. Now he is here, she runs away, indoors.

He leaps onto the step.

She holds the door between them like a shield.

He tips his head around it, enquiringly.

The mask is made of black velvet. From the top rise two sculpted triangular ears. Over his nose is a patch of silky black. On either side of it is a spray of short silvery whiskers.

'That's new,' says Leanne. She tries to laugh, but her voice shakes. The mask is a threat. It frightens her.

Her visitor capers on the step. She dreads that he will turn around and show he has acquired a tail too, of wire wrapped in plush.

He lifts his chin.

She remembers Timothy on the lawn, guarding his prey.

'Go away,' she whispers fiercely.

He dances on the spot. He is not going. She must get him inside before Mrs Mandelbaum's curtains start to twitch.

The mask makes everything impossible. What if it isn't the same man? What if this one is a burglar, come for a sack of candlesticks and spoons? Leanne stands frozen, irresolute.

The man in the black mask sidles in the half-open door. He presses himself to the wallpaper. Her eyes fixed on him, with nerveless fingers Leanne turns the door handle and the milled knob of the lock together, so the door will close without a sound.

She can see his green eyes now, through the eyeholes of his mask. They are close enough to kiss. He smells of the night; of the spicy pavements, the cooling lawns.

'Look at you,' she says softly, scoldingly.

He rubs the back of one wrist over the top of his head, brushing one of the velvet ears. She wants to touch them. She will not give him the satisfaction.

She is being foolish.

'Come in,' she says. ‘Come in here.'

She takes him in the drawing room. The television is still on. It shows a studio audience laughing and clapping. The man in the cat mask seems wary. He paces an arc around the set, keeping his eye on it.