The Cats - Short story

‘Are they here, Neil, are they here?’

For the milk had just been poured into their favourite bowl, and it was then that Neil would come, announce that they’ve drunk it all, and ever so slowly take the bowl to the kitchen. Why not now? Why not now?

‘Where are you, Neil? You never tell me where you are.’

So, for the first time in two or three years, she shuffled to the corner, and bent down with difficulty to feel how much was left. The bowl was almost full. ‘Are you sure the milk is all right?’ she asked, but as he did not reply, she hesitantly neared her finger to her mouth, and sucked the lukewarm liquid out of the furrows of her shrivelled skin. It had that sweetish taste that she’d always associated with white. ‘I can’t feel nothing wrong with it. Maybe they aren’t be hungry.’ She turned her head to hear her voice coming back from the walls. It rang hollow in the room. There was something missing, but she couldn’t tell what it was.

‘Did they drink the milk yesterday?’ For she didn’t know. It was her husband who poured the milk into the bowl; who waited for the cats to eye it first with suspicion, then with interest; who waited for them to make up their minds about what there was to be done, and finally to approach the heavenly beverage, and lap it up in ever so small laps. (Why not now?) All this would pass in almost complete silence, like a ritual. Then Neil would bend down breathing heavily (he wasn’t the man he used to be), take the bowl, and carry it back to the kitchen. Now that she came to think of it, he usually carried it much more carefully than would’ve been necessary for a bowl that was at least half empty.

It’d been so since the couple had got Tabby and Ginger some twenty years before, just after moving into the flat. Her son had said it would be easier for her there being no stairs and no thresholds. He’d said she’d find her way around easier in only two and a half rooms. ‘I told ’em I wasn’t mad, I wasn’t, you know,’ she mumbled. But he’d answered that it’d be nicer, wouldn’t it, if she was able to take care of herself without Neil’s constant attention. So they’d moved in; she’d sat down in a rocking chair among the boxes, and had remained there ever since.

A month later Neil was late from work. After an hour of waiting, she tried to telephone his son to do something, but they still hadn’t got a suitable set, and she soon gave up counting the circular holes over and over again. Just as she eased herself back into the rocking chair, she heard keys rattling outside. It was Neil.

‘Where have you been?’

‘Nowhere.’

‘You’re an hour late.’

‘Come here, sugarplum.’

‘No, first you tell me where you’ve been.’

‘Now don’t grudge; come here, darling.’

‘You never tell me where you are or what you do.’

‘Give me your hand.’

She felt something furry and warm that was vibrating—or, rather, purring. For it was a cat. The thing was two cats, to be precise.

She wasn’t overjoyed with the gift. Apart from fish, cats are the only pets you cannot hear, and she didn’t want to believe her husband was that inconsiderate.

‘I’m not taking care of them. I can’t even take care of myself.’

‘Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ll do all the nasty bits. You just enjoy them around the house. You will, won’t you?’

Did she want to hurt Neil’s feelings? ‘Of course, darling.’ She didn’t think she did.

‘I can take them back if you don’t want them.’

‘No, no! Here, let me hold them. What are they doing?’

‘They’re looking at you.’

‘Oh, the sweet things.’

For they were. She quickly came to appreciate the independent nature of the felines and to cherish the half hours the lazy bastards would spend on her lap in the rocking chair.

The only problem with the cats was when they decided not to go close to her, whatever she may have tried to call their attention. When Neil was around, she could simply ask him where they were. But back then he was away at work most of the day, and she was home alone—well, not alone actually, but with two cats who were there and weren’t there.

She simply could not bear those times. She would shuffle around the flat bending down to check every corner, putting her hand behind every book, checking the chairs, tables and countertops. But when Ginger and Tabby so wished, she could turn her home upside down and not know where they were. Sometimes she felt convinced that they did this deliberately; that they watched her, and moved just in time to avoid her searching hands, and oh God what they were thinking about her in the meantime. At first, she thought she was concerned because she was afraid she might tread on their tails or delicate paws by accident while they were lying on the rug unsuspectingly. But hardly had six months passed when the true reason of her uneasiness slowly dawned upon her.

She would doze off in the rocking chair with that old knit shawl thrown across her sturdy legs to awake to the feeling that from the direction where she all too well knew only the television stood with the vase that had been her mother’s, somebody was watching her. ‘Kitty, kitty,’ she’d call out, but there came no taps of paws or little thuds of one landing on the ground. She’d then turn her head to get rid of the uncanny feeling, only to realise that the windowsill was also watching her. The small table, the back of the armchair, the plant above the door—all had eyes, eyes that were moving around; eyes that suddenly joined into one glaring globe in the middle of the room that she imagined to be like a bicycle wheel with a dark centre and bright spokes flickering all around.

Once, when she had checked every corner and every nook on all fours, and had cut her hand on something she’d found behind the chest of drawers that had been undisturbed for months, and the eyes were still not gone, she was driven to take refuge in the closet, which was small enough for her to feel every part of it from the middle. She secured the door, and waited till she heard the keys rattling outside.

Relief came only when one of the cats let out a small meow. She could determine the place of the source of the tiniest sound, and with that meow, everything in the room moved back to its proper place. The smelly armchair was back in front of the TV; the plant climbed back to the wall above the door, and the windowsill turned back into a simple plank of varnished wood. Even the birds began to sing louder outside. Or, when Neil was home, she could simply ask him where the cats were.

But he wouldn’t answer every time. He’d steal out to the kitchen (on tiptoe, she thought, he must’ve gone out on tiptoe) with her still talking to him from under the knit shawl. She’d only realise that he was gone when he didn’t answer a question she asked for the third time.

‘Where are you, Neil? You never tell me where you are.’

It usually took five minutes’ pleading for Neil to come back into the room, and announce, as if it was the most self-evident thing, that he’d been in the kitchen. She would not reply. She didn’t want to believe that her husband was that inconsiderate, and that he wouldn’t understand her situation. He was just like the cats, she thought, disappearing if so he wished, being there, and not being there. Still, Neil did take care of Tabby and Ginger, he changed the litter and cleaned them up. Lately, she had to admit, he appeared to neglect their pets. It had been ages, as far as she could remember, since he’d brought a new bag of cat litter, for example. Or some cat food. But the cats themselves didn’t seem to mind. And at least they meowed from time to time, and, during the past two years or so, to her great relief, they were meowing more and more often.

It was like a game. She’d call out ‘Kitty, kitty,’ and the cats would answer. From the top of the telly, from behind the books, or from the middle of the plant above the door (she always wondered how they managed to get there). They’d tell her if they needed anything, so that she could tell Neil; or if it was the postman coming, or if her favourite radio programme was on in a minute. The searching eyes that troubled her had long been gone. All she had to do was to call out, and the cats would meow.

Meow. Meow.

Like now. ‘Now what are they trying to tell me?’ she wondered as she rose slowly from the chair. Had she left the oven open? Or was his son going to telephone? The last meow had come from—where?—it sounded as if it was coming from the chandelier. Now from the other room. She hurried there as fast as she could. Now from the kitchen. Now from outside. Now from below the floor. Now from the attic. She just stood there with meows hovering around her head.

‘Where are the cats, Neil? Where are the cats?’ she shrieked.

He usually replied when she sounded like that. Why not now? Why not now? Why hadn’t he taken the milk out? Why hadn’t the cats drunk any of it?

She inched her way around the room searching for Tabby and Ginger. With hands shaking she knocked down a pile of newspapers, a little statuette, and some books.

‘Kitty, kitty!’

She checked the windowsill and the floor behind the bed. The meows now appeared to come directly from inside her head.

‘Kitty, kitty!’

What a relief it was when she found something furry and warm lying on the table. But the thing did not move.

‘Neil, come quick, I think Tabby’s not feeling well.’

She was stroking the top of the thing when she discovered a bony protrusion and, immediately next to it, two sticky and watery balls, just like some strange, soft marbles. It was a face. A very familiar face. But it was in the wrong direction. It was then that she realized what she had been missing. For the past hour or so, she hadn’t heard Neil’s heavy breathing.

But that couldn’t be. Was it a cat’s tail that she felt brushing against the edge of her skirt? Or just a light breeze coming from under the door? She turned away from the table.

‘Now where are you, Neil? You never tell me where you are.’