Only the Cat Knows (4 page)

The cat flicked her ears irritably. I wasn’t getting the message. She rose slowly and pointedly began to sniff along the bottom of the door.

Then I saw it. A small white triangle slipped beneath the door. I stooped and pulled it towards me cautiously.

Not a message from Beloved, I hoped, although I wouldn’t put it past him. Even more cautiously I opened the envelope — and relaxed.

Good morning, Vanessa.

I didn’t want to wake you (Dr Anderson
emphasized
the importance of your getting plenty of rest), so you’ll find brunch just outside.

We all hope you’ll feel able to join us for dinner this evening. We gather in the library at 6:30 for 7:00.

If you need anything or have any questions, please contact me at HI on your interior phone.

Monica

The cat was dancing with impatience while I read the message. Now that I thought of it, I was hungry. I checked my watch: 11:45. How time flies when you’re having fun!

Holding the cat back with one foot, I eased the door open and looked up and down the cloister walk. It was deserted. An elaborate hostess trolley stood just outside the door. I tried to keep the cat away while I opened the door wide enough to roll the trolley inside.

I needn’t have worried. She wasn’t going anywhere. Not now that the trolley was on her side of the door. She hurled herself against my ankles, nearly tripping me and purring enthusiastically.

The truce was on again. At least until she had cajoled a goodly portion of my brunch away from me.

‘I’m hungry, too,’ I told her. ‘But don’t worry. There’s enough in here for a regiment.’

A warming compartment held scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages and — in case they didn’t appeal — kedgeree. Also an assortment of rolls and croissants.

A cool compartment beneath it had pots of yogurt, orange juice, small jugs of milk and cream, pats of butter, both salted and unsalted, and a variety of cheeses, all keeping nicely chilled.

The last panel revealed a neutral compartment holding a selection of fruit and Danish pastries.

‘
Prryah-yah-yah!’
my new best friend enthused, pawing at the warming compartment. She couldn’t wait.

‘Oh, all right,’ I surrendered. The warmed plates were in a wide lower drawer and I took two out, piling a bit of everything on hers and rather more of everything on mine, and we settled down to a long satisfying meal.

Old habits die hard — and why shouldn’t they? When we had eaten our fill, I salvaged the remaining cheeses, butter, jams and a couple of rolls and folded them into a napkin and secreted them at the bottom of a drawer. In a place like this, you never could tell when you might get your next meal.

The cat watched with approval. She was indifferent to the rolls and jam, but she had a vested interest in those luscious cheeses.

‘Just in case,’ I told her.

She blinked agreement, just before she slumped across my feet and conked out, her little tummy bulging.

I wondered when she had last been fed — and how well. She had gulped down everything on offer, even the scrambled eggs, like some stray unsure of when — or what — her next meal would be.

But she had the right idea. I yawned. A little catnap right now was not to be despised. It was not just the heavy meal, it had been a pretty sleepless night. I vaguely recognized that I was also probably experiencing some sort of delayed shock after the last few days.

I gathered up the cat’s unprotesting form and carried her into the bedroom where we both collapsed on to the bed and into those everloving arms of Morpheus.

They were all so much older than I had thought. Beautifully nipped and tucked, Botoxed and liposuctioned, their smooth unlined faces turned towards me as I hesitated in the doorway. A faint golden glow about them might have been honey — or the amber they had been preserved in.

I looked around at them, my face as blank as theirs. Blanker, I was holding mine steady lest a passing flicker betray that they were not completely unknown to me. Decades of exposure in headlines, gossip columns, social notes and endless photographs had ensured that the public were aware of their names, faces and exploits.

But I had amnesia.

We held the tableau for a long moment then, abruptly, they all seemed to relax. Whatever they had expected — or feared — hadn’t happened. On face after face, the tightly stretched lips forced themselves into welcoming smiles.

And yet, I was conscious of a wave of hostility eddying towards me from someone — or perhaps more than one. What had Nessa ever done to them — except be a generation or two younger? In these circles, that could be enough.

‘Vanessa —’ The first to speak was a painfully thin woman whose blonde hair was pulled back so tightly into a chignon that it constituted a facelift in itself. ‘How good to have you back. And you look so … well…’ Her voice trailed off uncertainly.

‘Better than we expected, she means.’ A larger woman
with improbably black hair translated. ‘How are you feeling? Really?’

‘Oh …’ I waved a hand vaguely. ‘A bit… disorientated, I’m afraid.’ My smile was equally vague.

‘Vanessa —’ Monica Chandler stepped forward to place a reassuring hand on my shoulder. ‘You’ll soon remember everyone. Yvonne Beauclerc.’ She indicated the blonde. ‘And Candy Shaeffer.’ The black-haired one. Her voice was carefully neutral. I couldn’t tell whether she liked them or hated them.

They both nodded to me. Their lips stretched wider, revealing white shining teeth.

Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear
… The melody of ‘Mack the Knife’ began to play at the back of my mind. I’d be willing to bet that both the dear ladies were as expert as he when it came to wielding knives.

The curious hush was back in the room. It was up to me to break it.

‘How do you do,’ I said politely. Again there was that sense of relaxation from somewhere. Or someone.

‘Amanda Sloane.’ Monica continued prompting, as another blonde clone nodded and raised her glass to me.

There was a faint movement at the back of the library and I saw two more slip out through a door I hadn’t noticed. When it swung back into place, I saw why it wasn’t noticeable. Shelves of books had been either built into it or painted on to it, so that it merged seamlessly into the other bookshelves. If I hadn’t caught it in action, I’d never have known the door was there. I wondered how many other clever little tricks were scattered around the place. And whether the door led into another room — or a secret passage.

‘Here you are —’

I jumped involuntarily. I hadn’t been aware of anyone coming up on the other side of me. And that voice —

‘— your usual.’ He held a glass of amber liquid out to me, his eyes trying to meet mine with what was obviously intended to be a meaningful look.

And this was my Beloved?
I didn’t think so. Not unless Nessa had lost every shred of taste or sense that she had ever had.

It wasn’t that he was overweight, pudgy was more like it. Nor that he was too tall and the over-solicitous way he bent towards me encroached on my space and made me uncomfortable. His moustache needed trimming and his fingernails were bitten to the quick.

I took the glass gingerly, managing to avoid the fingers trying to brush against mine as I did so. I also avoided meeting his eyes and the entreaty in them: that one sidelong glance had been quite enough for me, thank you.

‘Are you all right?’ he queried earnestly. ‘Really all right? I can’t believe —’

‘I told you, Ivor —’ there was now a trace of asperity in Monica’s tone — ‘she doesn’t remember a thing. Not what happened, not this place, not you, not me, not any of us.’

‘But —’ His look pleaded with me to deny it.

I gave a sad faint nod and took a sip of my drink, expecting Scotch. An involuntary shudder racked me and I set the drink down hastily on the nearest occasional table.

‘You don’t like it!’ Ivor was stricken. ‘But I made it just the way you always liked it.’

‘Perhaps my tastes have changed,’ I said faintly. The drink may have been Scotch-based, but it was overpowered by the amaretto that had been added. It was too sweet, cloying and faintly repulsive. Rather like Ivor himself, in fact.

‘No!’ Aghast, he appealed to Monica. ‘Can that happen?’

‘I don’t see why not. I’ve heard of people losing their sense of smell or sense of taste after an accident.’ She looked at me with concern. ‘Have you —?’

‘Oh, I can taste it,’ I assured her. ‘That’s the trouble. It’s much too sweet. Perhaps I could have just a plain Scotch?’

‘Of course.’ A brisk nod from Monica sent Ivor back to the drinks table.

‘Better?’ This time, he did not try to brush fingers, perhaps because everyone was watching.

‘Much,’ I approved. Whatever Nessa’s tastes might have degenerated into, I was not prepared to go along with them. This was not the sort of establishment where one wished to ingest a heavy oversweet drink tasting so heavily of almonds that half a pint of cyanide could be masked by it.

‘Perhaps you’ll like it again —’ Why was he so insistent? ‘When you get your memory back.’

‘Perhaps,’ I said doubtfully.

‘Nothing ever remains the same, Ivor.’ Monica’s firm hand on my shoulder propelled me gently forward and urged me down into an armchair. ‘You should have learned that by now.’

His thin lips twisted, just before he raised his glass to cover them. His head dipped, then he turned his back on us to study the row of books on the shelf behind him. Sulking.

A movement in the doorway attracted everyone’s attention. The air of expectation was palpable. Then he appeared and everyone deflated.

A tallish, darkish, saturnine young man in black denim jeans, black rollneck sweater, black shoes and socks, he might have stepped out of a Lowry painting. He looked over our heads to Monica. They stared at each other in wordless communication for a long moment, then he shook his head and disappeared.

As I raised my glass to my lips, I realized everyone else was doing the same. It was as fine an example of synchronized sipping as I had ever seen.

‘It appears that Mr Oversall will not be joining us this evening,’ Monica announced. ‘Shall we go through to the dining room?’

‘Where are Kiki and Nina?’ Amanda looked around as she rose. ‘I’m sure they were here a minute ago.’

‘They slipped away some while ago.’ So Monica had been paying closer attention than I had thought. ‘I rather doubt that they’ll be joining us.’

Typical!’ For such an elegant woman, Yvonne had a distinctly inelegant snort. ‘Drink and run. And not even an apology.’

‘Do they ever apologize?’ Candy was realistic. ‘They don’t know the word exists.’

‘A law unto themselves.’ Ivor was conciliatory. ‘As ever.’

Place settings were being removed as we entered the dining room and Monica, that guiding hand at my shoulder, moved to the head of the table and seated me at her right. On the other side of me was an exceptionally wide gap, the place setting still to be taken away.

Either these people weren’t much given to conversation, or I was the skeleton at the feast, inhibiting them all. Hardly surprising when the odds were that someone here had planned for ‘me’ to be an actual skeleton by this time. I kept a determinedly pleasant expression on my face and resisted all attempts to draw me into conversation, not that there were that many. I also took the precaution of stifling an occasional yawn and drooping wearily from time to time.

Somewhere between the wild mushroom soup and the tournedos Rossini, someone glided into the place beside me. Since I was talking to — or rather, listening to — Monica at that moment, I couldn’t turn, but was subliminally conscious that I hadn’t heard the scrape of a chair.

‘Good evening, Madame.’ Monica looked beyond me, greeting the latecomer and freeing me to turn and look for myself.

The elderly woman in the wheelchair grunted some sort of acknowledgement, angling her head awkwardly in Monica’s direction. You rarely see such bad cases of osteoporosis these days and, when you do, they’re usually in the elderly, those whose earliest days were before the milk-and-orange-juice era that might have protected them. Her
head was bent so far forward that her chin was brushing her collarbone and the steep hump in her back was almost level with the top of that bowed head.

I was glad that the wheelchair was pushed far enough beneath the table to hide her legs from view. I realized now that there had been no other chair waiting there, which was why I had assumed that the place setting was in the process of being cleared away.

‘So?’ There was nothing wrong with her brain. Her snapping black eyes raked me and I was thankful for the flickering candlelight and shadows. ‘You are back. You are better?’

I nodded wordlessly feeling that she had half-hypnotized me with that piercing gaze. I did not trust my voice.

‘She’s still quite fragile.’ Monica answered for me. ‘As I explained —’

‘We are all fragile!’ Madame cut her off sharply, then lost interest in anything else as the maid slid a bowl of the fragrant soup in front of her. She snatched up her spoon greedily and began catching up with the rest of us.

‘A difficult day, Richie?’ Monica murmured sympathetically to the man who had just taken the chair on the other side of her.

‘No more than most.’ He saw me looking at him and gave me a matter-of-fact nod. I began to like him, he was the first one who didn’t treat me as some sort of freak show. I wondered if he was a particular friend of Nessa’s.

The staff were well trained. As soon as she put down her spoon, Madame’s empty bowl was whisked away and replaced with her tournedos. She gave a brief nod of satisfaction and attacked them. The rest of us had nearly finished, but she would catch up with us for dessert.

‘We usually adjourn to the drawing room for coffee.’ Monica draped her napkin beside her plate. Of course, no dessert. With this crew, anything sweet and calorie-laden
would be out of the question. I should have known. I gave her a weak smile.

‘Are you all right?’ She looked at me with concern. ‘Quite all right?’

‘Actually …’ I took the cue gratefully. ‘I — I’m not really sure. I seem to be … fading out. If I might be excused …?’