CAT

CAT.

Deep in the Herefordshire countryside, a small village baked under a midsummer sun. A woman strolled past the shop, the pub and the church, turned towards a cluster of houses that backed on to a large area of natural woodland, and stopped at the last house in the row. Frances knew her friend would be in the back garden, so made her way through the wrought iron gate next to the house.

         Jocelyn’s garden was what she described as a riot of colour. Not everyone’s taste, Frances thought, but people had their own horticultural opinions. They greeted each other.

         ‘Garden’s looking lovely, as usual. Don’t know how you manage; with all the things you’re involved in.’

         Jocelyn smiled modestly. ‘Well, dear, you know it’s my main pleasure. And if you’ve got a garden, you’ve got to keep it nice. The neighbours all keep nice gardens, they wouldn’t be pleased if one of them showed signs of neglect.’

         She had set tea in the shade of an old oak tree, the remains, Frances thought, of the large forest that adjoined the garden. Jocelyn believed it was spreading, and relentlessly cut back the encroaching vegetation every year. She poured tea, and the couple exchanged horticultural anecdotes, eating the sandwiches provided.

         ‘How’s Melanie?’ Frances asked.

         Jocelyn sighed.

‘As ever. She potters around. Doesn’t say much. Complains.’

         ‘What about?’

         ‘Depends on her mood. At the moment it’s cats. Poor soul, she gets something stuck in her head and there’s no room for anything else. If she comes out for a cup of tea it’ll only be cats she can talk about.’

         ‘It was good of you to take her in.’

         ‘Somebody had to. She could never have managed by herself once Phyllis had died. But she can be trying at times, she gets obsessive about things. I take no notice, best way to deal with her.’

         ‘She likes gardening, I often see her doing odd jobs in the front, I sometimes have a word with her if I’m passing.’

         Frances had realised that the elderly white-haired woman who lived with her friend could not cope with life’s demands without support. Jocelyn spoke of her as ‘simple’. However, Frances observed that the support was not entirely one-way. Melanie had household duties which she performed with absolute reliability, freeing Jocelyn for the multitude of activities that she regarded as her social or civic duty. Mostly consisting, Frances thought, of organising other people to do the necessary work.

Melanie loved the garden, and this was where she was usually to be found during her free time, watering when necessary, sowing seeds and dead-heading the roses. ‘So that more flowers will come’ she explained during one of their rare exchanges.

         Melanie emerged from the house.

         ‘Hello dear,’ said Jocelyn, ‘Would you just clear the things away while Frances and I have a look at the hydrangeas. It’s lovely having tea in the garden, but it does make it look a bit cluttered.’

         Silently Melanie complied. Frances contemplated the wide borders backed by the trees of the forest behind the house. Both were certainly impressive.

         ‘You won’t need another trip to the garden centre for a while,’ she said,’ ‘You’ve enough plants here to last you many years.’

         ‘Melanie does things with seeds,’ said Jocelyn vaguely, indicating the kitchen, ‘one of her little hobbies. She’s got a patch round the back of the shed she’s always messing about with.’

         The pair toured the borders, Frances dutifully exclaiming over the health of the plants, the absence of weeds, and the ingenuity of the planting, all of which was received with modest smiles and dismissive comment.

         ‘It’s nothing, really. Things just seem happy here.’

         With the judicious help of a little chemical fertilizer, thought Frances, and hastily dismissed the notion as uncharitable and possibly unjustified. Gardeners are inveterate snobs of one kind or another, she knew, and laughed at herself. She looked at her watch.

         ‘I really must be going now,’ she said, ‘It’s book group tonight, I don’t want to be late.’

         Passing the kitchen on her way out, she put her head round the door.

         ‘Bye, Melanie,’ she said. ‘Garden looks lovely. Jocelyn says you like growing things from seed.’

         ‘It’s no good. I can’t do it properly’.

         ‘Why not?’

         ‘It’s a cat. It comes every night and scratches up the seeds.’

         Frances laughed. ‘You’re not the only one with that problem,’ she said.

‘You’ll have to speak to the neighbours. Is it just one cat?’

         ‘Dunno. It makes a lot of mess for just one cat.’

         ‘There’s stuff you can buy, I think, some sort of cat repellent.’

         ‘Will it kill them?’

         ‘No, it’s just something they don’t like. Supposed to keep them away. Don’t know if it works. I’ll try and find some if you like. Must go now. Bye, Melanie.’

         Frances’ book group was struggling. Elderly members were complaining of poor eyesight, younger ones of the books that Frances had chosen for them to read. Everyone agreed they needed new members.

         ‘What about your friend Jocelyn?’ one asked. ‘seems an energetic sort of person.’

          ‘She certainly is,’ said Frances, with feeling, knowing that before they knew what was happening, she’d have taken over the group.

         ‘I’ll ask her.’

          ‘Lovely idea,’ she responded with enthusiasm. ‘Always glad of somewhere to go in the evenings. Not much intellectual stimulation at home.’

         ‘How’s Melanie?’

         ‘Still complaining. Said you’d promised to find her some stuff that kept away cats. I’ll be really glad when she finds something else to moan about. Last year it was greenfly and then it was the postman. She swore he always left the gate open. Said next door’s dog got in and buried bones in the tulip bed. I really sometimes wonder if she’s got a touch of dementia.

         ‘I did buy something for her to try,’ said Frances, ‘there were a whole lot of solutions to the cat problem on the internet, from sonic devices to spiky mats.

         ‘Don’t go to too much trouble, dear. It’s probably all in her imagination. It’ll be something else next week.’

         ‘I’ll give her the spray I bought. It might help her to feel that at least she’s trying to do something about life’s difficulties. Where is she?’

         ‘Last time I saw her she was round the back of the shed. It’s where she plays with her seed packets.’

         Jocelyn might have given her a decent patch of ground, thought Frances, the garden was big enough. She found Melanie looking dispiritedly at a bare patch of earth, carefully surrounded by stones, and with two watering cans close by.

         ‘This your seed-bed, Melanie?’ she asked her. ‘Is this where the cats come? Have you ever seen one?’

         ‘Night-time,’ she whispered, ‘only at night. Saw it once. Under the hydrangea bush.’

         ‘Frances handed her the small spray can she had bought.

         ‘Try this,’ she advised, ‘it might work. Just spray it around and we’ll see what happens.’ She smiled encouragingly at the old woman, recognising the imperfectly cleaned fingernails which matched her own, and thinking of Jocelyn’s beautifully manicured hands.

Let’s hope you’ll have better news for me next time I visit.’

          The longest day came, passed, and summer no longer seemed eternal. Dead-heading became more crucial as the necessity to reproduce before the onset of autumn forced the annuals to go into overdrive, and the perennials to think about conserving their energy for another year. Frances tended her own modest patch of garden, considered the book-group’s suggestions for the winter programme, and joined the local rambler’s club, occasionally wondering about Jocelyn and Melanie.

         ‘How’s the cat problem?’ she asked Jocelyn on her next visit. Did the spray work?’

         ‘No idea,’ Jocelyn answered, ‘she’s gone very quiet lately. Very moody. For heaven’s sake let’s talk about something else. We ought to be thinking about the organisation of the book group. Do we have a proper constitution?’

         ‘Never thought about it! I just list a few suggestions every October, and people vote on the ones they like best. Of course, not all the choices suit everyone. But I think that it’s good for us all to come to grips with different kinds of books – I daren’t use the term ‘genre’- that’d lose us another member or two.’

         Well, dear, I’m sure you do your best. But I really do think that a properly organised group would be better, where we could address important matters like recruitment of new members. And maybe book a speaker – an author, perhaps, - or organise an outing. The Hay festival’s not that far away.’

         Here we go again, thought Frances. I should have realised what would happen if Joss got involved.

         ‘You’ll have to suggest it to the rest of the group. It’s likely that some of them don’t want to be properly organised. They don’t much like formality. But I’d like to pop round the back to see if Melanie’s cat problem is any better.

         She set off in the direction of the shed. There, beside the seed bed – she could hardly believe her eyes – was a saucer of milk! Melanie stood at the kitchen door.

         ‘Spray doesn’t work. Cat still comes.’

Frances looked at the familiar figure. She looked tired, Frances thought, and thinner, pale eyes seeming to focus on another world, other scenes being played out elsewhere, inaccessible to the person standing beside her. Frances put her arm round Melanie’s frail shoulder, wondering where she found the physical strength to carry a full watering can.

         ‘Why do you put down milk, Melanie? That will encourage the cat.’

         ‘It’s not for the cat. It’s for hedgehogs. They come and drink, and then they go and eat the slugs.’

                  ‘But the cat doesn’t care who it’s for. If the milk is there, it’ll come and drink it.’

         ‘Milk’s always gone in the morning.’

         Frances laughed. ‘I’m sure it is!’

         Sensing Jocelyn’s boredom with the whole matter, she did not refer to the incident. They had tea in the garden again, the shadows a little longer now, the big Limelight hydrangea illuminating the dark shadows cast by the forest. They chatted for a while, made the routine tour of the borders, Jocelyn graciously accepting her friend’s compliments.

         ‘Well, I do try and make the world a happier place, and if the garden always looks nice, that helps.’

         Back in her own home, only about an hour’s daylight left now, Frances swept up the first of the falling leaves, and considered the likelihood of an early autumn frost. Thinking of Melanie, she realised that in her severely limited world, problems that seemed minor to others loomed large and scary in hers. She wondered if she could do anything that might cheer her a little, a visit to a garden centre perhaps. But she didn’t want to do anything that might upset the fragile balance of the life she was used to. Maybe she preferred being left alone, as Jocelyn believed.

         As things turned out a few weeks later, such speculation proved unnecessary. A phone call from her friend told her that Melanie had died quite suddenly. The funeral would be next week, and she would be glad if Frances would come. There were no other friends, no family.

         That night, if Jocelyn had looked out of Melanie’s bedroom window, she might have noticed movement under the big hydrangea bush. There, looking towards the shed, a pair of eyes, huge, dark and expectant, body bigger than that of any domestic cat. Wild as England had been ten thousand years ago, the lynx watched and waited.