her eyes, as though daring me to go on.
So I did. ‘Lawrence was showing me his batik and I thought it was good. But you didn’t seem so keen. I mean, like you didn’t want him to show it to me. Why’s that?’
There was a timely distraction. We both glanced down at a gentle commotion on the floor.
Gentle, commotion. The words wouldn’t usually work together, unless the agent concerned was a cat, whose speciality was a combination of stealth and violence. It was the orange cat, again, which had wrangled a pigeon bigger than itself into the tower bedroom, which had ambushed the grounded swift and borne it home for the boy to experiment on. Now, as if to defuse a difficult moment between its mistress and a nosey newcomer, the cat had overturned a laundry basket and was dragging Juliet’s wet shirt across the floor, the one she’d worn when she came to the hearse.
‘Bad puss...’ she hissed at it. She flapped with a tea-towel. The cat feinted from the blow and retreated under the table. One of its claws was snagged in the shirt, it couldn’t have let go if it tried, so it skulked in the shelter of the table legs and under my chair. When I bent and picked up the shirt and unhooked the cat’s claw from it, the animal swiped at my hand, a raking pass which didn’t break the skin, and at the same time, something else which must’ve been stuck inside the shirt dropped out.
An odd sock? A handkerchief? The cat sprang onto it. It was a crumpled ball of newspaper.
A perfect toy for the killer cat, something to menace and maul, to swat this way and that across the kitchen floor and chase and pounce on again. Each time Juliet bent to pick it up, the cat was too quick. It got there first and batted the ball of paper out of her reach.
It could’ve looked like a game... a lissom woman and her tigerish pet playing in a sun-filled country kitchen. Until Juliet, lunging hopelessly for the third time where the cat had been, slung the tea-towel at it and said with tremendous force, ‘Fuck you, you fucking cat!’
The ball of paper skidded to a halt against my bare foot and I bent to pick it up.
‘Give it to me,’ she said. She crossed the room and held out her hand, as if she were a schoolteacher and I were a naughty boy. ‘Give it to me.’
‘No,’ I said.
I was starting to unfold the paper onto the table when Lawrence came in.
Chapter Twelve
L AWRENCE L UNDY. M Y father had had trouble saying the words. Because of his stroke, he’d blurred them oddly in his mouth. He’d heard the name somewhere before, but it wouldn’t come back to him.
And then at last it had. ‘Bad boy, bad boy...’ His face had twisted into a grimace of revulsion.
Lawrence and Juliet Lundy stood over me, on either side of the table. They could both see what I’d got in front of me and knew what it was, they’d both tried to prevent me from seeing it. Now they stopped short of physically wresting the paper from me.
‘You would’ve found out sooner or later.’ It was the woman who spoke first. ‘To tell the truth, we were both surprised you hadn’t heard about it already. Of course I would’ve told you. We only thought to keep it back for a while because we weren’t sure you’d stay very long anyway.’ She said all this without looking at me, looking at her son as though the words would filter through him and then reach me. She glanced down at the paper. ‘Go ahead. And then me or Lawrence will try and make some sense out of it.’
Lawrence had a sickly smile on his face. As usual he’d appeared in the kitchen unwashed and smelling of his bed. He must have thought I looked unusually tousled, unshaven and unshowered, in my bed-shirt and shorts. He wouldn’t know that I’d slept in the car and had just wandered in from the garden. In the same way that I got a waft of his sleepy body, he was inhaling the scent from me. Something in the smell of my shirt, my hair, something on my skin... as he watched me trying to
So I did. ‘Lawrence was showing me his batik and I thought it was good. But you didn’t seem so keen. I mean, like you didn’t want him to show it to me. Why’s that?’
There was a timely distraction. We both glanced down at a gentle commotion on the floor.
Gentle, commotion. The words wouldn’t usually work together, unless the agent concerned was a cat, whose speciality was a combination of stealth and violence. It was the orange cat, again, which had wrangled a pigeon bigger than itself into the tower bedroom, which had ambushed the grounded swift and borne it home for the boy to experiment on. Now, as if to defuse a difficult moment between its mistress and a nosey newcomer, the cat had overturned a laundry basket and was dragging Juliet’s wet shirt across the floor, the one she’d worn when she came to the hearse.
‘Bad puss...’ she hissed at it. She flapped with a tea-towel. The cat feinted from the blow and retreated under the table. One of its claws was snagged in the shirt, it couldn’t have let go if it tried, so it skulked in the shelter of the table legs and under my chair. When I bent and picked up the shirt and unhooked the cat’s claw from it, the animal swiped at my hand, a raking pass which didn’t break the skin, and at the same time, something else which must’ve been stuck inside the shirt dropped out.
An odd sock? A handkerchief? The cat sprang onto it. It was a crumpled ball of newspaper.
A perfect toy for the killer cat, something to menace and maul, to swat this way and that across the kitchen floor and chase and pounce on again. Each time Juliet bent to pick it up, the cat was too quick. It got there first and batted the ball of paper out of her reach.
It could’ve looked like a game... a lissom woman and her tigerish pet playing in a sun-filled country kitchen. Until Juliet, lunging hopelessly for the third time where the cat had been, slung the tea-towel at it and said with tremendous force, ‘Fuck you, you fucking cat!’
The ball of paper skidded to a halt against my bare foot and I bent to pick it up.
‘Give it to me,’ she said. She crossed the room and held out her hand, as if she were a schoolteacher and I were a naughty boy. ‘Give it to me.’
‘No,’ I said.
I was starting to unfold the paper onto the table when Lawrence came in.
Chapter Twelve
L AWRENCE L UNDY. M Y father had had trouble saying the words. Because of his stroke, he’d blurred them oddly in his mouth. He’d heard the name somewhere before, but it wouldn’t come back to him.
And then at last it had. ‘Bad boy, bad boy...’ His face had twisted into a grimace of revulsion.
Lawrence and Juliet Lundy stood over me, on either side of the table. They could both see what I’d got in front of me and knew what it was, they’d both tried to prevent me from seeing it. Now they stopped short of physically wresting the paper from me.
‘You would’ve found out sooner or later.’ It was the woman who spoke first. ‘To tell the truth, we were both surprised you hadn’t heard about it already. Of course I would’ve told you. We only thought to keep it back for a while because we weren’t sure you’d stay very long anyway.’ She said all this without looking at me, looking at her son as though the words would filter through him and then reach me. She glanced down at the paper. ‘Go ahead. And then me or Lawrence will try and make some sense out of it.’
Lawrence had a sickly smile on his face. As usual he’d appeared in the kitchen unwashed and smelling of his bed. He must have thought I looked unusually tousled, unshaven and unshowered, in my bed-shirt and shorts. He wouldn’t know that I’d slept in the car and had just wandered in from the garden. In the same way that I got a waft of his sleepy body, he was inhaling the scent from me. Something in the smell of my shirt, my hair, something on my skin... as he watched me trying to
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