Bed Share

The girl did not like cats. She'd had a couple of bad experiences as a small child. Nothing major. No big deal. Just enough to make her wary and distrustful.

Her brother, Hans, had brought a plump ginger cat home once. He named it Richard and kept it in his room. Very soon Richard had kittens. Six closed-eyed, mewing things. She had taken them and put them in the bath tub on the second floor. No water of course. She was cruel, but not evil. She had laughed at the little souls, trying to claw their blind ways up the sides - their pink, open mouths desperately searching for Richard's swollen teats.

Richard had taken her revenge when the girl had placed the poor cat on her head one day, and paraded around the living room in her new 'hat'. Suddenly, two sets of claws had reached down and dug into her face. Richard had been grabbed and flung across the room in outrage. The claws had drawn blood and the girl would always have four thin white scars on her temples. In the future, her many lovers, whilst smoothing back her dark hair in a moment of intimacy, would ask her what they were and run their fingers over them.

Another time, the girl had been heart-broken when Mrs Marshall's cat had found his way into their kitchen and stolen her father's dinner. The girl loved no-one, no-one except her daddy. She loved Daddy with all her six-year-old heart. And she hated Mrs Marshall's cat. Daddy had laughed. After a day in the factory, he had been looking forward to warming up his plate of stew and dumplings. Instead, he hugged her and wiped away her tears with a clean white handkerchief - then he made himself a corned beef sandwich with a thin layer of brown pickle, and told her it was okay. Daddy always put things right. Daddy made things okay. He was a good man. A good man who often wondered how his own flesh and blood could be so cruel.

Mrs Marshall's cat had disappeared not long after. The boys had looked everywhere for him. They had looked in all the rooms of the house. In the cupboards and wardrobes and even in the dish washer. They had looked in the yards and alley ways. They had knocked on doors with hope on their dirty little faces.

Mrs Marshall's cat had been found three days later with a cord around his neck, hanging limp and lifeless from an apple tree in the orchard. Who could have done such a cruel thing to a cat? The neighbours were all in shock. Mrs Marshall slipped on the back steps to the granary the following year and broke her back. She would spend the rest of her life in bed.

But this cat was different. This black and warm and purring cat had climbed in through the slightly open window in the night and cuddled up to the girl. It seemed to like her. She wondered how it had got past the net curtain, held fast with an elasticated wire.

In the morning, she took the cat downstairs with her before the others woke, and gave it a little yellow saucer of milk. She opened the back door and let him out.

The following night, the cat came back, and again they slept together, warm and comfortable in the spring night. And, in the morning, she rewarded him again with a little milk.

The girl named the cat Yashka, and left the window open for him every night, even in the harsh winter and the humid summer. The girl could only sleep to the sound of Yashka's soft purring. She could only sleep with Yashka's warm belly close to her head.

The weeks went by and then the months and Yashka came to her every night. The years passed slowly. The girl was almost a woman and the cat was her only friend.

The girl was not popular at school. The other children spat in her tapioca and jam, and drew penises on her new satchel with black marker pens. They laughed at her sadness when her father was killed in an accident at the factory.

Her teachers disliked the girl too. There was something strange about her. She was odd. They couldn't quite put their finger on it, but something was not right about her. They made her sit at the back of the class. As far away from them as possible. They gave her decent marks for work which was often sub-standard. They never admitted it to their colleagues, or to themselves, but they were afraid to cross her.

The girl's mother showed her no warmth or kindness. On the contrary; her husband's death had made the woman unkind towards the girl. It was almost as though she blamed her, when no blame could be afforded. The girl was forced to endure repeated acts of cruelty: broth so salty that the girl choked and swallowed three glasses of water; tight rags in her hair at night, to make it curl; cold baths and insults. The insults were the hardest thing.

The girl's mother told the whole village how stupid she was. She told the women at chapel that the girl had a smell of rotten, yellow fish. At any gathering that the girl went to, her mother would accompany her and tell everyone there how sullen and slovenly and lazy the girl was.

When the spring came again, in its white and green and yellow and pink glory, her mother took the girl to have all her hair cut off. The black curls lay abandoned on the polished granite floor of Mrs Carson's Hair Shop for Women. It was the day before the school trip to Hashenfjord. The girl had sat on the back seat of the coach with her head bowed, listening to the other children laughing at her. It was no more than they usually did. She did not care too much.

The girl was lonely but she was not alone. At night she had the cat. The girl and Yashka were comfortable together, sharing a warm bed and asking nothing from each other. Until one day...

One day, the girl told Yashka how cruel her mother was to her and asked the cat to help. The girl's mother died a few days later. She had somehow suffocated in the night. The doctors could not explain it.

The maid had found short black hairs on the pillow case when she had washed the bedding. The girl's mother had been blonde.