Village Fortunes (Turnham Malpas 17) (23 page)

That night before they put out the light Jimbo told Harriet that Chris was pestering Fran with text messages.

‘Oh, no. The man is obsessive.’

‘I wonder maybe whether concentrating on training the kitten might be a good thing for her. Take her mind off him. He’s now offered for her to go for a holiday in Brazil, and he’ll pay the first-class fare.’

‘No! He hasn’t. Damn it. That’s where too much money becomes evil. Trouble is a kitten is a poor substitute for a good man, isn’t it? Although, I don’t know. Perhaps not.’ She smothered her laughter in her pillow.

‘Harriet. No, but if it helps her . . . And anyway Chris isn’t a good man.’

‘We still have the basket that Flick’s cats used, just needs new bedding, and it wouldn’t be on its own a lot because there’s three of us in and out of the house, and I love the dear little dishes and things they sell for cats now.’

‘Might be a good idea then. Shall we say yes, but kind of reluctantly, don’t give in too easily.’

‘Why not be enthusiastic, just this once? She does need help to recover. Chris is a total cad, as my mother would have said.’

Jimbo propped himself up on his elbow and leaned over to kiss Harriet. ‘You’re right, she does. Goodnight, my darling, goodnight.’

‘I’m going right now to tell her.’

‘No, leave it till morning and then say you can go with her to the cat sanctuary or whatever it’s called straightaway tomorrow. More than likely they won’t have what she wants and so it’ll give us some breathing space to acclimatise ourselves to the idea. That way she can’t feel we’ve rejected her.’

‘There is one thing that I am determined on. We get a cat, no messing. She is desperate and that fool in Brazil hasn’t as much compassion in the whole of his body as she has in her little finger; she feels things very deeply. Remember that. She thinks the bouquet came from Chris, but it didn’t.’

‘It said so.’

‘It was the florist who wrote the card, as it always is when you do it over the phone; and I know that the florist acted according to Johnny’s instructions.’

‘Just a minute, I didn’t know you were a confidante of Johnny Templeton.’

‘I’m not, Alice told me.’

‘Ah, right. It makes Chris even more of a pig of a man than I thought. I should have hit him twice as hard.’

‘Considering the damage you did in the first round, I rather think not. Goodnight. I can’t wait for tomorrow.’

The following morning Harriet did her yoga as usual but cut her programme short because she couldn’t wait any longer to tell Fran of their decision.

‘Fran, I know it’s your day off—’

‘It isn’t, that’s tomorrow.’

‘Well, it’s been changed. You have to have today off.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, you see I’m going to the cat rescue to look for a kitten or a young cat, whichever. Ginger, I thought. Come with me?’

Fran sat up in bed, her face aglow. ‘You mean for me, a kitten for me? Is it all right with Dad?’

‘Of course. You can use Flick’s old cat basket and we’ll find some old blanket and cut it up, and I have a cushion I’ve no use for, so it can have that in the bottom. What do you think?’

Fran was out of bed and heading for her bathroom. ‘I’m coming!’

On the way to the cat rescue, Fran said, ‘We’d better not go, they’ll think I’m an idiot wanting a kitten at my age. Turn round, and we’ll go home.’

‘Certainly not. We’ll say the house feels empty now the other cat has died.’

‘Which other cat? We haven’t got one.’

‘I know but we can always say we have, mention Flick’s cat basket, you know, as if it’s only just been vacated. In fact I have a tear coming to my eye right now just thinking about it. Remember it was called Muffet. Kidney problems and old age, it died of.’

‘Honestly, Mum. OK then. It’s a family cat and not just mine. But it’s mine when we get home.’

‘That’s right. And no tears if they haven’t got one to adopt. We may have to wait for a while.’

‘I know. No tears, promise.’

Fran leapt out of the car when they arrived in the cat rescue car park, then recollected she was twenty-one now although she felt eleven, straightened her face, and followed her mother into reception.

There were regiments of cats of all colours and all sizes. Fran had never seen so many. Cage after cage. Black, white, tabby, part Siamese, part this, part that, and overwhelmingly adult. Some were cruelty cases brought back to full health; one had only three legs, another only one proper ear, one was totally deaf, another had only one eye. But while Fran felt incredibly compassionate about the damaged ones, she knew she had to have one in perfect health because at the moment she felt quite enough damaged without having a cat that was damaged too. She almost went back to take a second look at the damaged ones though, but she hardened her heart.

Fran was standing watching three kittens playing together, obviously from the same family as they were all black with white markings in differing degrees of intensity. While she watched she felt something pulling at her jeans round about her ankle.

She turned to see what it was. It was a tiny cream-coloured kitten in the next cage trying to get her attention because it wanted to play and couldn’t quite reach her. ‘Oh, Mum! Just look at that.’ Around its ears it tended to be chocolate coloured, but the chocolate was haphazard as though it had made an attempt to be Siamese but it hadn’t quite worked. ‘Oh, isn’t it beautiful.’

Harriet wouldn’t allow herself to become captivated. ‘That’s not ginger and it’s never going to be either.’

‘I know. It’s like a Siamese misfit, just like I feel I am. A misfit, ever since . . .’

‘Fran. Stop it. I won’t have you talk like that. It’s not you who is the misfit, believe me. Go ask about this kitten’s history then, and perhaps they’ll let you hold it for a while. I think it looks too young to be going to a new home just yet, so don’t get upset if we can’t take it with us.’

Half an hour later after both of them had played with it and completely fallen in love, they left. It had been agreed they could take the kitten home two weeks from today.

‘Oh, Mum, thanks for agreeing. Dad will like her, I’m sure. She is so sweet.’

‘She is. She looks naughty to me.’

Fran looked delighted. ‘Really? Do you think so? Good. I’ll be pleased if she is. I can’t call her Tiger, can I? I’ll have to have a good think.’

‘She needs a distinguished name, if she’d been a boy Orlando would have been a good name.’

‘Orlando? For heaven’s sake, Mum!’

Two weeks seemed to take an age to pass, but inevitably it did and Harriet deliberately pretended she’d too much to do to spare the time to go for the kitten, so reluctantly Fran went on her own with a brand new travelling cage in the back of her estate.

She signed for it and became its official owner, and she drove home in her new role as little Bonnie’s owner. Fran couldn’t explain the feelings she had about Bonnie; they were so powerful that she almost couldn’t cope with them. Just how she’d been about Chris, but in a very different way. Overwhelmed, passionate, deeply possessive, deeply . . . she ran out of words, although Fran knew whatever the words were she was searching for, Bonnie was hers to be loved.

She parked the car and got out full of excitement. But there was no Bonnie in the travelling cage. The door was open and she’d gone. Eventually Fran discovered her hiding amongst the collection of belongings Fran couldn’t travel without, curled in a ball under the plastic raincoat Fran had flung in the back of her estate one wet day when the raincoat was too sodden to take inside to dry. With relief she scooped up Bonnie, secured her in the cage and rushed her inside. Very, very gently, and with as little fuss as possible so as not to alarm Bonnie, Fran opened the cage and sat waiting. But Bonnie wasn’t for coming out, and so Fran went into the kitchen to get the bowl already filled with water before she left and put it on the carpet in front of the cage. Very slowly Bonnie took her first steps in her new home, stood on the edge of the water bowl, turned the bowl almost upside down, the water soaked her through before it soaked the carpet and the shock made her cry out.

Bonnie shot back into the safety of the travelling cage and refused to come out ever again. Until, that is, Fran put a bowl of very tempting food in front of the cage, and when hunger got the better of her Bonnie dared to come out. Her new owner sat on the carpet to watch her eat. When Bonnie finished her food she glanced up at Fran. They looked at each other for a long moment and a bond developed between the two of them in that moment, which Fran knew could never be broken. Stuff Chris and his first-class travel. This was far, far better than that. This was loving on a grand scale, every minute of every day. All the same a feeling of desolation crept into Fran’s heart that she resolutely pushed away.

Craddock Fitch had several cards sent to him by his newly discovered grandchildren, and he had been thrilled to receive them. He immediately sent cards by return. But the biggest surprise of all was answering the front door one lunchtime, just when he was wishing that Kate would be home for lunch soon, and finding his son Michael on the doorstep. This strange oddball of a son said, ‘Hallo, Craddock Dad. Are you too busy to talk?’

‘I’m never busy nowadays. Come in. Please.’

Michael came in and stood looking at his father. ‘You know I was too young to have a memory of you, but I’m glad . . . you know . . . glad we’ve met.’

‘So am I. I was just about to make my lunch. Have you time to have some with me?’

‘If it’s not too much trouble.’

Craddock was intensely aware of this tall skinny man following him into the kitchen. Michael had done all that growing and he, his father, had never seen it happen, and now Craddock felt shattered by the thought. ‘You were coming this way on business?’

‘Truth to tell, I’ve taken a day off to come to see you. I never take days off, never take holidays, except if Graham and Anita ask me to go with them. Nowhere to go and no one to go with. A sad state of affairs. So I thought about you and decided that I did have somewhere to go now, so I’ve come if that’s all right with you. But I’ll go immediately if that’s what you want.’

Craddock was overcome with sorrow. This was what a ruinous family life had done to Michael. Craddock turned to face him and, meaning every word he uttered, he said, ‘While ever I am alive, you’ll always have somewhere to come. Don’t forget that.’

‘Thank you, thank you for saying that. Graham’s different from me, you see. He’s got a different kind of confidence, he can take hold of life in both hands, and he has so much belief in himself he can go right ahead, find a lovely wife and have five children with her. But me, when my mother left us I was ten and Graham was twelve, and it nearly finished me. I turned into the school bully, a thoroughly unpleasant son to Cosmo; he must have despaired of me, until I discovered this talent I had for computers, where everything was certain, permanent and secure. And I made it my life.’

‘The soup won’t be long. I’ve got quite good at cooking since I retired . . . well to be honest . . . since my business collapsed. Mind if we eat in the kitchen as it saves me having a lot of clearing up to do?’

Michael stood looking out of the window at the garden. ‘Nice garden.’

‘The previous owners created it; I just keep it looking smart. Not much of a gardener, me; more a deck chair and the
Financial Times
sort of chap.’

Michael managed a smile. ‘Who did it then? It’s very lovely.’

‘A lady, a lady with a capital “L”, a very dear lady whom I admired.’

‘Ah! Of course you rent this house, I’d forgotten.’

‘Sit down, it’s ready. Who told you that?’

‘Young Sarah.’

‘A very sharp young lady is Sarah. Bread roll? With your soup?’

Michael picked up his spoon and for no reason burst out with, ‘I found out where Stella went, you know.’

‘Your mother, you mean?’

‘I can’t call her that. Stella is as far as I go. She’s in Liverpool in a home that specialises in dealing with elderly people who’ve gone crackers. Not dementia, not Alzheimer’s, just plain crackers.’

Craddock was horrified. ‘You’ve been to see her?’

Michael nodded. ‘It’s one of those places where every door into every room is kept locked so none of the inmates are able to escape because they are categorised as possibly dangerous. So as far as I am concerned, she’s in the right place.’

‘Did she know who you were?’

‘I never asked her. Just said I was Michael. But it meant nothing to her, which when you think about it, is par for the course anyway with her, isn’t it?’

‘I think you were brave to go see her. When she was married to me she was very beautiful. What does she look like now?’

‘A barmy old bat with nothing to recommend her.’

‘Does Cosmo know?’

‘No, I haven’t told him I’ve seen her. He adored her apparently, so when she dumped us on him and disappeared without a word, he was distraught. But he never let us see that, he was always his kind loving self to us, nothing changed. He carried on being our dad, yet he must have been missing her dreadfully. Brave of him really. It would have been so easy for him to stick us in a home, but he didn’t, so Graham and I owe him a lot.’

Michael turned his head away from looking directly at Craddock and remained silent. Craddock knew what it must have cost such a reserved quiet man like Michael to talk so openly to someone like himself who was almost a total stranger.

‘Thank you for telling me that. It must have been a shock for you seeing her.’

‘Not for me, because I don’t care enough to be shocked. What good turn has she ever done me?’

‘Given birth to you?’ Craddock suggested.

‘Well, there is that. She never married Cosmo, but she did marry again after she left him, except of course it wasn’t really married, just like it wasn’t for you.’

Craddock put down his roll. ‘We got married, I mean I was there, I know.’

‘According to the records I have researched, she was already married when you went through a marriage ceremony with her, and there’s no record of a divorce. I’ve checked.’