Kiss Kiss (20 page)

      
“Well!” she said as she struck the last chord. “So you came
up to sit beside me, did you? You like this better than the
sofa? All right, I’ll let you stay, but you must keep still and
not jump about.” She put out a hand and stroked the cat softly
along the back, from head to tail. “That was Liszt,” she went
on. “Mind you, he can sometimes be quite horribly vulgar, but
in things like this he’s really charming.”
      
She was beginning to enjoy this odd animal pantomime, so
she went straight on into the next item on the programme,
Schumann’s
Kinderscenen
.
      
She hadn’t been playing for more than a minute or two
when she realised that the cat had again moved, and was now
back in its old place on the sofa. She’d been watching her
hands at the time, and presumably that was why she hadn’t
even noticed its going; all the same, it must have been an
extremely swift and silent move. The cat was still staring at
her, still apparently attending closely to the music, and yet it
seemed to Louisa that there was not now the same rapturous
enthusiasm there’d been during the previous piece, the Liszt.
In addition, the act of leaving the stool and returning to the
sofa appeared in itself to be a mild but positive gesture of
disappointment.
      
“What’s the matter?” she asked when it was over. “What’s
wrong with Schumann? What’s so marvellous about Liszt?”
The cat looked straight back at her with those yellow eyes
that had small jet-black bars lying vertically in their centres.
      
This, she told herself, is really beginning to get interesting—a
trifle spooky, too, when she came to think of it. But one
look at the cat sitting there on the sofa, so bright and attentive,
so obviously waiting for more music, quickly reassured her.
      
“All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m
going to alter my programme specially for you. You seem to
like Liszt so much, I’ll give you another.”
      
She hesitated, searching her memory for a good Liszt; then
softly she began to play one of the twelve little pieces from
Der Weihnachtsbaum
. She was now watching the cat very
closely, and the first thing she noticed was that the whiskers
again began to twitch. It jumped down to the carpet, stood
still a moment, inclining its head, quivering with excitement,
and then, with a slow, silky stride, it walked around the piano,
hopped up on the stool, and sat down beside her.
      
They were in the middle of all this when Edward came in
from the garden.
      
“Edward!” Louisa cried, jumping up. “Oh, Edward, darling!
Listen to this! Listen what’s happened!”
      
“What is it now?” he said. “I’d like some tea.” He had one of
those narrow, sharp-nosed, faintly magenta faces, and the sweat
was making it shine as though it were a long wet grape.
      
“It’s the cat!” Louisa cried, pointing to it sitting quietly on
the piano stool. “Just wait till you hear what’s happened!”
      
“I thought I told you to take it to the police.”
      
“But, Edward,
listen
to me. This is
terribly
exciting. This
is a
musical
cat.”
      
“Oh, yes?”
      
“This cat can appreciate music, and it can understand it too.”
      
“Now stop this nonsense, Louisa, and for God’s sake let’s
have some tea. I’m hot and tired from cutting brambles and
building bonfires.” He sat down in an armchair, took a cigarette
from a box beside him, and lit it with an immense patent lighter
that stood near the box.
      
“What you don’t understand,” Louisa said, “is that something
extremely exciting has been happening here in our own house
while you were out, something that may even be . . . well . . .
almost momentous.”
      
“I’m quite sure of that.”
      
“Edward,
please!
”
      
Louisa was standing by the piano, her little pink face pinker
than ever, a scarlet rose high up on each cheek. “If you want
to know,” she said, “I’ll tell you what I think.”
      
“I’m listening, dear.”
      
“I think it might be possible that we are at this moment
sitting in the presence of—” She stopped, as though suddenly
sensing the absurdity of the thought.
      
“Yes?”
      
“You may think it silly, Edward, but it’s honestly what I
think.”
      
“In the presence of whom, for heaven’s sake?”
      
“Of Franz Liszt himself!”
      
Her husband took a long slow pull at his cigarette and blew
the smoke up at the ceiling. He had the tight-skinned, concave
cheeks of a man who has worn a full set of dentures for many
years, and every time he sucked at a cigarette, the cheeks went
in even more, and the bones of his face stood out like a
skeleton’s. “I don’t get you,” he said.
      
“Edward, listen to me. From what I’ve seen this afternoon
with my own eyes, it really looks as though this might be some
sort of a reincarnation.”
      
“You mean this lousy cat?”
      
“Don’t talk like that, dear, please.”
      
“You’re not ill, are you, Louisa?”
      
“I’m perfectly all right, thank you very much. I’m a bit
confused—I don’t mind admitting it, but who wouldn’t be
after what’s just happened? Edward, I swear to you—”
      
“What
did
happen, if I may ask?”
      
Louisa told him, and all the while she was speaking, her
husband lay sprawled in the chair with his legs stretched out
in front of him, sucking at his cigarette and blowing the smoke
up at the ceiling. There was a thin cynical smile on his mouth.
      
“I don’t see anything very unusual about that,” he said when
it was over. “All it is—it’s a trick cat. It’s been taught tricks,
that’s all.”
      
“Don’t be so silly, Edward. Every time I play Liszt, he gets
all excited and comes running over to sit on the stool beside
me. But only for Liszt, and nobody can teach a cat the
difference between Liszt and Schumann. You don’t even know
it yourself. But this one can do it every single time. Quite
obscure Liszt, too.”
      
“Twice,” the husband said. “He’s only done it twice.”
      
“Twice is enough.”
      
“Let’s see him do it again. Come on.”
      
“No,” Louisa said. “Definitely not. Because if this
is
Liszt, as
I believe it is, or anyway the soul of Liszt or whatever it is
that comes back, then it’s certainly not right or even very
kind to put him through a lot of silly undignified tests.”
      
“My dear woman! This is a
cat
—a rather stupid grey cat
that nearly got its coat singed by the bonfire this morning in the
garden. And anyway, what do you know about reincarnation?”
      
“If his soul is there, that’s enough for me,” Louisa said firmly.
“That’s all that counts.”
      
“Come on, then. Let’s see him perform. Let’s see him tell the
difference between his own stuff and someone else’s.”
      
“No, Edward. I’ve told you before, I refuse to put him
through any more silly circus tests. He’s had quite enough of
that for one day. But I’ll tell you what I
will
do. I’ll play him
a little more of his own music.”
      
“A fat lot that’ll prove.”
      
“You watch. And one thing is certain—as soon as he
recognises it, he’ll refuse to budge off that stool where he’s
sitting now.”
      
Louisa went to the music shelf, took down a book of Liszt,
thumbed through it quickly, and chose another of his finer
compositions—the B minor Sonata. She had meant to play
only the first part of the work, but once she got started and
saw how the cat was sitting there literally quivering with
pleasure and watching her hands with that rapturous concentrated
look, she didn’t have the heart to stop. She played
it all the way through. When it was finished, she glanced up
at her husband and smiled. “There you are,” she said. “You can’t
tell me he wasn’t absolutely
loving
it.”
      
“He just likes the noise, that’s all.”
      
“He was
loving
it. Weren’t you, darling?” she said, lifting
the cat in her arms. “Oh, my goodness, if only he could talk.
Just think of it, dear—he met Beethoven in his youth! He
knew Schubert and Mendelssohn and Schumann and Berlioz
and Grieg and Delacroix and Ingres and Heine and Balzac.
And let me see . . . My heavens, he was Wagner’s father-in-law!
I’m holding Wagner’s father-in-law in my arms!”
      
“Louisa!” her husband said sharply, sitting up straight. “Pull
yourself together.” There was a new edge to his voice now,
and he spoke louder.
      
Louisa glanced up quickly. “Edward, I do believe you’re
jealous!”
      
“Of a miserable grey cat!”
      
“Then don’t be so grumpy and cynical about it all. If you’re
going to behave like this, the best thing you can do is to go
back to your gardening and leave the two of us together in
peace. That will be best for all of us, won’t it, darling?” she
said, addressing the cat, stroking its head. “And later on this
evening, we shall have some more music together, you and I,
some more of your own work. Oh, yes,” she said kissing the
creature several times on the neck, “and we might have a little
Chopin, too. You needn’t tell me—I happen to know you
adore Chopin. You used to be great friends with him, didn’t
you, darling? As a matter of fact—if I remember rightly—it
was in Chopin’s apartment that you met the great love of
your life, Madame Something-or-Other. Had three illegitimate
children by her, too, didn’t you? Yes, you did, you naughty
thing, and don’t go trying to deny it. So you shall have some
Chopin,” she said, kissing the cat again, “and that’ll probably
bring back all sorts of lovely memories to you, won’t it?”
      
“Louisa, stop this at once!”
      
“Oh, don’t be so stuffy, Edward.”
      
“You’re behaving like a perfect idiot, woman. And anyway,
you forget we’re going out this evening, to Bill and Betty’s
for canasta.”
      
“Oh, but I couldn’t
possibly
go out now. There’s no question
of that.”
      
Edward got up slowly from his chair, then bent down and
stubbed his cigarette hard into the ashtray. “Tell me something,”
he said quietly. “You don’t really believe this—this
twaddle you’re talking, do you?”
      
“But of
course
I do. I don’t think there’s any question about
it now. And, what’s more, I consider that it puts a tremendous
responsibility upon us, Edward—upon both of us. You as well.”
      
“You know what I think,” he said. “I think you ought to see
a doctor. And damn quick, too.”
      
With that, he turned and stalked out of the room, through
the french windows, back into the garden.
      
Louisa watched him striding across the lawn towards his
bonfire and his brambles, and she waited until he was out
of sight before she turned and ran to the front door, still
carrying the cat.
      
Soon she was in the car, driving to town.
      
She parked in front of the library, locked the cat in the car,
hurried up the steps into the building, and headed straight for
the reference room. There she began searching the cards for
books on two subjects—
REINCARNATION
and
LISZT
.
      
Under
REINCARNATION
she found something called
Recurring
Earth-Lives—How and Why
, by a man called F. Milton
Willis, published in 1921. Under
LISZT
she found two
biographical volumes. She took out all three books, returned to
the car, and drove home.
      
Back in the house, she placed the cat on the sofa, sat herself
down beside it with her three books, and prepared to do some
serious reading. She would begin, she decided, with Mr F.
Milton Willis’s work. The volume was thin and a trifle soiled,
but it had a good heavy feel to it, and the author’s name had
an authoritative ring.
      
The doctrine of reincarnation, she read, states that spiritual
souls pass from higher to higher forms of animals. “A man can,
for instance, no more be reborn as an animal than an adult can
re-become a child.”
      
She read this again. But how did he know? How could he
be so sure? He couldn’t. No one could possibly be certain
about a thing like that. At the same time, the statement took
a good deal of the wind out of her sails.
      
“Around the centre of consciousness of each of us, there are,
besides the dense outer body, four other bodies, invisible to
the eye of flesh, but perfectly visible to people whose faculties
of perception of superphysical things have undergone the
requisite development. . . .”
      
She didn’t understand that one at all, but she read on, and
soon she came to an interesting passage that told how long a
soul usually stayed away from the earth before returning in
someone else’s body. The time varied according to type, and
Mr Willis gave the following breakdown:

      
Quickly she referred to one of the other books, to find out
how long Liszt had been dead. It said he died in Bayreuth in
1886. That was sixty-seven years ago. Therefore, according to
Mr Willis, he’d have to have been an unskilled labourer to
come back so soon. That didn’t seem to fit at all. On the other
hand, she didn’t think much of the author’s methods of
grading. According to him, “the highest class of gentleman
farmer” was just about the most superior being on the earth.
Red jackets and stirrup cups and the bloody, sadistic murder
of the fox. No, she thought, that isn’t right. It was a pleasure
to find herself beginning to doubt Mr Willis.
      
Later in the book, she came upon a list of some of the more
famous reincarnations. Epictetus, she was told, returned to
earth as Ralph Waldo Emerson. Cicero came back as
Gladstone, Alfred the Great as Queen Victoria, William the
Conqueror as Lord Kitchener. Ashoka Vardhana, King of India in 272
B.C
., came back as Colonel Henry Steel Olcott,
an esteemed American lawyer. Pythagoras returned as Master
Koot Hoomi, the gentleman who founded the Theosophical
Society with Mme Blavatsky and Colonel H. S. Olcott (the
esteemed American lawyer, alias Ashoka Vardhana, King of
India). It didn’t say who Mme Blavatsky had been. But “Theodore
Roosevelt,” it said, “has for numbers of incarnations played
great parts as a leader of men . . . From him descended the
royal line of ancient Chaldea, he having been, about 30,000
B.C
, appointed Governor of Chaldea by the Ego we know
as Caesar who was then ruler of Persia . . . Roosevelt and Caesar have
been together time after time as military and administrative
leaders; at one time, many thousands of years ago, they were
husband and wife . . .”
      
That was enough for Louisa. Mr F. Milton Willis was
clearly nothing but a guesser. She was not impressed by his
dogmatic assertions. The fellow was probably on the right
track, but his pronouncements were extravagant, especially
the first one of all, about animals. Soon she hoped to be able
to confound the whole Theosophical Society with her proof
that man could indeed reappear as a lower animal. Also that
he did not have to be an unskilled labourer to come back
within a hundred years.
      
She now turned to one of the Liszt biographies, and she
was glancing through it casually when her husband came in
again from the garden.
      
“What are you doing now?” he asked.
      
“Oh—just checking up a little here and there. Listen, my
dear, did you know that Theodore Roosevelt once was Caesar’s
wife?”
      
“Louisa,” he said, “look—why don’t we stop this nonsense?
I don’t like to see you making a fool of yourself like this.
Just give me that goddamn cat and I’ll take it to the police
station myself.”
      
Louisa didn’t seem to hear him. She was staring open-mouthed
at a picture of Liszt in the book that lay on her lap.
“My God!” she cried. “Edward, look!”
      
“What?”
      
“Look! The warts on his face! I forgot all about them!
He had these great warts on his face and it was a famous thing.
Even his students used to cultivate little tufts of hair on their
own faces in the same spots, just to be like him.”
      
“What’s that got to do with it?”
      
“Nothing. I mean not the students. But the warts have.”
      
“Oh, Christ,” the man said. “Oh, Christ God Almighty.”
      
“The cat has them, too! Look, I’ll show you.”
      
She took the animal onto her lap and began examining its face.
“There! There’s one! And there’s another! Wait a minute!
I do believe they’re in the same places! Where’s that picture?”
      
It was a famous portrait of the musician in his old age,
showing the fine powerful face framed in a mass of long grey
hair that covered his ears and came halfway down his neck.
On the face itself, each large wart had been faithfully
reproduced, and there were five of them in all.
      
“Now, in the picture there’s
one
above the right eyebrow.”
She looked above the right eyebrow of the cat. “Yes! It’s there!
In exactly the same place! And another on the left, at the top
of the nose. That one’s there, too! And one just below it on
the cheek. And two fairly close together under the chin on the
right side. Edward! Edward! Come and look! They’re exactly
the same.”
      
“It doesn’t prove a thing.”
      
She looked up at her husband who was standing in the
centre of the room in his green sweater and khaki slacks, still
perspiring freely. “You’re scared, aren’t you, Edward? Scared
of losing your precious dignity and having people think you
might be making a fool of yourself just for once.”
      
“I refuse to get hysterical about it, that’s all.”
      
Louisa turned back to the book and began reading some
more. “This is interesting,” she said. “It says here that Liszt
loved all of Chopin’s work except one—the Scherzo in B flat
minor. Apparently he hated that. He called it the ‘Governess
Scherzo,’ and said that it ought to be reserved solely for
people in that profession.”
      
“So what?”
      
“Edward, listen. As you insist on being so horrid about all
this, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to play this
scherzo right now and you can stay here and see what
happens.”
      
“And then maybe you will deign to get us some supper.”
      
Louisa got up and took from the shelf a large green volume
containing all of Chopin’s works. “Here it is. Oh yes, I
remember it. It
is
rather awful. Now, listen—or, rather, watch.
Watch to see what he does.”
      
She placed the music on the piano and sat down. Her
husband remained standing. He had his hands in his pockets
and a cigarette in his mouth, and in spite of himself he was
watching the cat, which was now dozing on the sofa. When
Louisa began to play, the first effect was as dramatic as ever.
The animal jumped up as though it had been stung, and it
stood motionless for at least a minute, the ears pricked up, the
whole body quivering. Then it became restless and began to
walk back and forth along the length of the sofa. Finally, it
hopped down onto the floor, and with its nose and tail held
high in the air, it marched slowly, majestically, from the
room.
      
“There!” Louisa cried, jumping up and running after it.
“That does it! That really proves it!” She came back carrying
the cat which she put down again on the sofa. Her whole
face was shining with excitement now, her fists were clenched
white, and the little bun on top of her head was loosening and
going over to one side. “What about it, Edward? What d’you
think?” She was laughing nervously as she spoke.
      
“I must say it was quite amusing.”
      
“
Amusing!
My dear Edward, it’s the most wonderful thing
that’s ever happened! Oh, goodness me!” she cried, picking up
the cat again and hugging it to her bosom. “Isn’t it marvellous
to think we’ve got Franz Liszt staying in the house?”
      
“Now, Louisa. Don’t let’s get hysterical.”
      
“I can’t help it, I simply can’t. And to
imagine
that he’s
actually going to live with us for always!”
      
“I beg your pardon?”
      
“Oh, Edward! I can hardly talk from excitement. And d’you
know what I’m going to do next? Every musician in the
whole world is going to want to meet him, that’s a fact, and
ask him about the people he knew—about Beethoven and
Chopin and Schubert—”
      
“He can’t talk,” her husband said.
      
“Well—all right. But they’re going to want to meet him
anyway, just to see him and touch him and to play their own
music to him, modern music he’s never heard before.”
      
“He wasn’t that great. Now, if it had been Bach or
Beethoven . . .”
      
“Don’t interrupt, Edward, please. So what I’m going to do
is to notify all the important living composers everywhere.
It’s my duty. I’ll tell them Liszt is here, and invite them to
visit him. And you know what? They’ll come flying in from
every corner of the earth!”
      
“To see a grey cat?”
      
“Darling, it’s the same thing. It’s
him
. No one cares what
he
looks
like. Oh, Edward, it’ll be the most exciting thing
there ever was!”
      
“They’ll think you’re mad.”
      
“You wait and see.” She was holding the cat in her arms
and petting it tenderly but looking across at her husband,
who now walked over to the french windows and stood there
staring out into the garden. The evening was beginning, and
the lawn was turning slowly from green to black, and in the
distance he could see the smoke from his bonfire rising up in a
white column.
      
“No,” he said, without turning round, “I’m not having it. Not
in this house. It’ll make us both look perfect fools.”
      
“Edward, what do you mean?”
      
“Just what I say. I absolutely refuse to have you stirring up
a lot of publicity about a foolish thing like this. You happen
to have found a trick cat. O.K.—that’s fine. Keep it, if it
pleases you. I don’t mind. But I don’t wish you to go any
further than that. Do you understand me, Louisa?”
      
“Further than what?”
      
“I don’t want to hear any more of this crazy talk. You’re
acting like a lunatic.”
      
Louisa put the cat slowly down on the sofa. Then slowly
she raised herself to her full small height and took one pace
forward. “
Damn
you, Edward!” she shouted, stamping her
foot. “For the first time in our lives something really exciting
comes along and you’re scared to death of having anything to
do with it because someone may laugh at you! That’s right,
isn’t it? You can’t deny it, can you?”
      
“Louisa,” her husband said. “That’s quite enough of that.
Pull yourself together now and stop this at once.” He walked
over and took a cigarette from the box on the table, then lit
it with the enormous patent lighter. His wife stood watching
him, and now the tears were beginning to trickle out of the
inside corners of her eyes, making two little shiny rivers where
they ran through the powder on her cheeks.
      
“We’ve been having too many of these scenes just lately,
Louisa,” he was saying. “No no, don’t interrupt. Listen to me.
I make full allowance for the fact that this may be an awkward
time of life for you, and that—”
      
“Oh, my God! You idiot! You pompous idiot! Can’t you
see that this is different, this is—this is something miraculous?
Can’t you see
that
?”
      
At that point, he came across the room and took her firmly
by the shoulders. He had the freshly lit cigarette between his
lips, and she could see faint contours on his skin where the
heavy perspiration had dried in patches. “Listen,” he said. “I’m
hungry. I’ve given up my golf and I’ve been working all day
in the garden, and I’m tired and hungry and I want some
supper. So do you. Off you go now to the kitchen and get us
both something good to eat.”
      
Louisa stepped back and put both hands to her mouth. “My
heavens!” she cried. “I forgot all about it. He must be absolutely
famished. Except for some milk, I haven’t given him a thing to
eat since he arrived.”
      
“Who?”
      
“Why,
him
, of course. I must go at once and cook something
really special. I wish I knew what his favourite dishes used to
be. What do you think he would like best, Edward?”
      
“
Goddamn
it, Louisa!”
      
“Now, Edward, please. I’m going to handle this
my
way
just for once. You stay here,” she said, bending down and
touching the cat gently with her fingers. “I won’t be long.”
      
Louisa went into the kitchen and stood for a moment,
wondering what special dish she might prepare. How about
a soufflé? A nice cheese souffée? Yes, that would be rather
special. Of course, Edward didn’t much care for them, but
that couldn’t be helped.
      
She was only a fair cook, and she couldn’t be sure of always
having a soufflé come out well, but she took extra trouble this
time and waited a long while to make certain the oven had
heated fully to the correct temperature. While the soufflé was
baking and she was searching around for something to go
with it, it occurred to her that Liszt had probably never in his
life tasted either avocado pears or grapefruit, so she decided
to give him both of them at once in a salad. It would be fun to
watch his reaction. It really would.
      
When it was all ready, she put it on a tray and carried it
into the living-room. At the exact moment she entered, she
saw her husband coming in through the french windows from
the garden.
      
“Here’s his supper,” she said, putting it on the table and
turning towards the sofa. “Where is he?”
      
Her husband closed the garden door behind him and walked
across the room to get himself a cigarette.
      
“Edward, where is he?”
      
“Who?”
      
“You know who.”
      
“Ah, yes. Yes, that’s right. Well—I’ll tell you.” He was
bending forward to light the cigarette, and his hands were cupped
around the enormous patent lighter. He glanced up and saw
Louisa looking at him—at his shoes and the bottoms of his
khaki slacks, which were damp from walking in long grass.
      
“I just went out to see how the bonfire was going,” he said.
      
Her eyes travelled slowly upward and rested on his hands.
      
“It’s still burning fine,” he went on. “I think it’ll keep going
all night.”
      
But the way she was staring made him uncomfortable.
      
“What is it?” he said, lowering the lighter. Then he looked
down and noticed for the first time the long thin scratch that
ran diagonally clear across the back of one hand, from the
knuckle to the wrist.
      
“
Edward!
      
“Yes,” he said, “I know. Those brambles are terrible. They
tear you to pieces. Now, just a minute, Louisa. What’s the
matter?”