The Catlady (5 page)

“All those that have gone have got good homes, I'm sure, Miss Muriel,” she said to the Catlady, who was sitting in an armchair in the drawing room with the Queen of the United Kingdom on her lap, reading a book called
The Care of Cats.

“Well done, Mary dear,” the Catlady said. “Though I shall miss them all very much.”

Let's hope, she thought, that my Florence (Mama, that is) has a lot of kittens.

As though to compensate for the losses, Florence gave birth the very next day, on the fine silken bedspread of the four-poster in the bedroom of the Catlady's late parents.

“Oh, Mama!” breathed Muriel Ponsonby as she bent over the two newborn kittens. One was a tortoiseshell like the mother, the other white like the father, who sat nearby, purring with pride.

The Catlady had been an only child, but now she thought, I have a baby brother and a baby sister!

“Oh, Papa,” she said, “what shall we call them?” But of course Percival merely replied, “Mu.”

“I'll ask Mary,” said the Catlady, and she followed Vicky (who always liked to lead the way) down to the kitchen.

If only Mary knew, she thought as she
told the good tidings, that these two new kittens are the children of my dear mama and papa, so that now I have the brother and the sister I never had as a child.

“Come up and see them,” she said. And then as they stood looking down, she said, “What shall we call them? Why don't you choose, Mary Nutt?”

Mary laughed.

“We could call them after some sort of nut!” she said.

“What a good idea,” said the Catlady. “Let's see now, there's walnut and peanut …”

“… and chestnut and beechnut and groundnut …”

“… and coconut and hazelnut,” said the Catlady.

“Hazel,” said Mary. “That would be a nice name for the little female, wouldn't it?”

“Oh yes!” said the Catlady. “But what about the little tom?”

“Coco, Miss Muriel,” said Mary. “Short for
coconut.
”

“I like it!” cried the Catlady.

My sister Hazel, she thought, and my brother Coco. What fun! How lucky I am to believe in reincarnation. It would be nice for Mary to believe too. Just think. Her father, for instance—Arthur, I think he was called—suppose he's now a boy or a horse, perhaps, or a dog or maybe even something as small as a mouse. No, not a mouse, they don't live long enough. He'd have gone into yet another body by now, dead of old age or, worse, killed by a cat. Just think, if dear Papa had eaten Arthur Nutt!

But it might help Mary, she said to herself, to know that I, at least, believe that her father is not dead and gone. His body might be buried on some South African battlefield, but his personality, his spirit, his soul, call it what you like, has been reincarnated, has entered some other body. Maybe I should try to explain it to her.

“Mary dear, tell me, is it very painful for you to talk of your parents?”

“Painful?” replied Mary. “Yes, it will always be painful. But they've gone. I just have to accept that.”

“Gone,” said the Catlady.“Gone where?”

“To Heaven, I suppose. They were good people.”

“Have you ever thought,” asked the Catlady, “that they might have been reincarnated?”

“What does that mean?”

“That they might have been reborn, in some other shape or form?”

“Oh, I don't think I could believe in that,” Mary said.

“I do,” said the Catlady.

Mary Nutt looked at her employer, the elderly, green-eyed Catlady, gray hair tied back as usual. She's aged quite a bit in the time I've lived here, she thought— rather bent, a bit unsteady on her feet—but her mind is still clear, I think.

Or rather, I thought. But this reincarnation thing!

“Do you mean,” Mary asked, “that you believe you were someone else in a previous life?”

“Someone. Or perhaps somebody. I wasn't necessarily human.”

“You could have been an animal?”

“Yes, indeed. I may be one in the future, when my heart stops beating. I don't expect you to believe in the idea, Mary, but I thought it might be a comfort to you to know that I am sure your mother and father are still enjoying lives of some sort. As indeed my dear mama and papa are.”

“Your mother and father?”

“At this moment they are in their old bedroom, resting upon their four-poster bed, while my brother and sister play on the floor.” “I don't understand,” said Mary.

“Percival and Florence. My father and mother.”

“Those were their names?” “Those are their names. New forms they may have
acquired, but I know without a shadow of a doubt who they were before they became cats. Just as I am absolutely certain about Vicky here. She was born at twenty past four on the afternoon of January 22, 1901, the very instant that the last breath left her previous body.”

“Whose body was that?” Mary asked.

“Vicky, as I most disrespectfully call her, is in fact Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India,” said the Catlady.

She picked up the stout ginger cat and began, with great deference, to stroke her. “So now you know, Mary,” she said. “Vicky here is the late great Queen Victoria.”

Did I tell myself her mind was clear? Mary thought. She's barmy.

Chapter Five

The shopkeepers in Dumpton Muddicorum had always thought Miss Ponsonby a bit mad. “You'd have to be,” they said, “to keep as many cats (and spend as much money on their food) as the Catlady does.”

Nonetheless, they were still rather fond of her. She was always smiling, always polite. “She may be a bit strange,” they said among themselves,“but she's a proper lady.”

Of course, they knew nothing of her belief in reincarnation, but commented, first, on her kindness in giving away some of her cats (“Free,” they said. “She never asked for a penny”) and, secondly, on the fact that
the years seemed to be telling on her. Riding her bicycle was patently becoming a big effort.

“Good job she's got that nice young girl living with her, what's her name … Mary … Mary Nutt, that's it,” they said. They had not been surprised when Mary appeared in the village one day, riding the Catlady's tall black bicycle, to do the shopping. They each made regular inquiries of Mary as to how Miss Ponsonby was getting on.

One day Mary came back from the village to find the Catlady standing at the