The Catswold Portal (21 page)

A
t dusk Braden made himself a drink and stood studying the painting of the girl in the tea shop window. He had captured her look, captured the intriguing sense of otherness he had glimpsed in that brief moment. The work filled him with excitement—this was right, this was what he wanted to do. He hadn't felt like this about a painting in a while. This was the beginning of a new series, one he had been waiting to do and not known it: a series of reflections all of this girl, her face caught in shattered light as if she had just stepped into this world from another dimension.

The reflections formed a montage: the shattered light striking across the tea shop window, shards of reflected color and light weaving around and through the girl's figure. She was turned away; he had caught her profile against the
red awning and the blue building. The work was alive—it had the old, sure resonance. He was caught up totally, wildly eager, seeing other paintings…

He'd have to find her. He wanted the series to be of her. The planes of her face belonged to reflections, were uniquely made for reflections—in mirrors, in windows. He could see her in the shattered light of a dozen settings, the long sweep of her mouth, the hint of a secret smile, the look he couldn't define. He'd find her—he'd have to find her.

He had reached to turn off the bright studio lights, meaning to go into the village and look for her, when he realized the cat should have been winding around his feet demanding food. He remembered he hadn't seen her all day.

He opened the door and stood calling her, embarrassed to be shouting “kitty, kitty” across the garden. When she didn't come, he went up the hill carrying his drink, looking for her.

She didn't appear. She should be starving—he didn't think he'd fed her this morning, couldn't remember letting her out, then remembered looking for her when he got up. He began to worry about her, and to wonder if she was hurt. He got a flashlight out of the station wagon and looked for her along the lane, thinking how fast people drove in that lane, remembering that Morian's tiger cat had been run over there. Not finding her, he walked down the lane to the highway and up the highway, shining his light along the shoulder and into the bushes. He walked back on the other side, searching the marsh. The jagged grass caught his light, and once he saw the gleam of eyes, but it was a raccoon.

When he didn't find the calico, fear for her shook him. That annoyed him; he had never in his life worried about an animal. Abruptly, he turned back to the studio. She was probably in the woods hunting.

He made another drink and stood looking at the painting, too excited about it to leave it alone. He began to worry that the girl might not live in the village, that she had been passing through, maybe was already gone. If she lived here, why hadn't he seen her before? He grabbed a jacket and swung
out the door to look for her, nearly stepping on the cat where she was pressed against the sill.

“Whoa. That's no damned place to sit in the dark!” Then he saw how frightened she was, crouching and shivering. She stared up at him wild eyed and sped past him into the room, huddling beside the easel, looking back, her pink mouth open in a silent cry. He knelt, afraid she would scratch in her panic, and he took her up against his shoulder, stroking her tense little body.

He petted her for a long time. Slowly she eased against him, relaxing. What the hell had frightened her? He looked out through the windows at the dark garden, wondering if Tom Hollingsworth really had tried to kill the yellow cat. If Tom was so violent with his own cat, how might he react to the pretty little calico?

When the calico had stopped shivering and lay warm against him, he carried her into the kitchen, opened a can of tuna, and watched her tie into it. Whoever said cats ate delicately hadn't seen this one; she acted as if she hadn't eaten in weeks, gulping and smacking. When she finished the tuna he gave her some milk. He watched her clean the bowl, then picked her up again. She belched, then lay limp against his shoulder purring. She was soon half asleep, drifting in some inscrutable feline dream. He stood in the hall holding her and looking at the painting. He had to find this girl. If the cat hadn't interrupted him he might already have found her somewhere in the village.

 

Two cats crouched in the garden watching the studio where the calico had disappeared. The black tom was filled with hate of her and wanted her gone from the garden. The white female felt no hatred as long as the calico stayed off her porch. She was a heavy, old cat, sway-backed from the weight of her pendulous, kitten-bearing belly. She sat with her belly protruding like a Buddha, bored by the black cat's anger. She grew more interested when the yellow tom appeared from the shadows. The black cat, conditioned by other confrontations, lowered his head and crept away.

The golden tom stood on the path staring after the retreating black, then went boldly down the garden to the terrace that ran the length of the studio. He took shelter under the bushes at the end, sniffing the calico's scent and watching the house for a glimpse of her. She interested him in a way he didn't understand: not as a female ready to go into heat, not in any ordinary way, but in a manner that both baffled and intrigued him.

 

Braden fried three hamburgers for dinner, two for himself and one for the cat, his mind on the girl and how the hell he was going to find her. He ate standing in the hall studying the painting, imagining the new series, ignited in the way a good series always stirred him. As if the series already existed somewhere, as if he had not to invent it but only to discover the individual paintings. Twice he put his hamburger down, once to let the cat out, and then to phone Bob for lunch the next day. Bob might know the girl. And he thought, if they had lunch, he could run Anne's problem by Bob and get that off his conscience.

He described the girl to Bob, but Bob didn't know her. He waited, holding the phone while Bob asked Leslie if she knew her, but Leslie didn't. Braden let the cat in, then made half a dozen more phone calls, but no one knew the girl. He went to bed late and tried to read, but couldn't keep his mind on the book.

He slept restlessly. He dreamed that he lay close to someone, he could feel her rough-textured dress against his skin; once he thought he touched her hair, tangled across his cheek.

He woke to a room gray with rain. The cat was sleeping soundly. It was raining hard when he left the house to meet Bob, sloshing out to his car under a battered corduroy cap, having no idea where to find an umbrella. He had left the cat inside; she seemed to have no intention of going out in the wet. The rain was a torrent when he pulled into the parking lot at the Dock. He made a run for the door and found Bob already at a table, perfectly dry, his umbrella dripping where
he had leaned it against the window. Through the glass, sky and bay were joined in one dark curtain, the rain so heavy they could see only the first two boats tied to the quay.

“Working?” Bob said, nodding across the room to the waiter.

“Matter of fact, yes—the girl I mentioned.” He explained about the sketch, and that he wanted to paint her again.

“She's no one I remember. Leslie will keep an eye out—nearly everyone passes through the library sooner or later.” He looked at Braden intently. “This is important.”

“Yes, a series—something very different. Something I want very much to do. Something…I haven't felt like this about the work in a long time.” He could see Bob's look of relief in his returned enthusiasm and improved mental health, and was annoyed.

When they had ordered, he tried to describe Anne's situation, but now Anne's fear seemed silly. “You could drop by,” he said. “I think she's gotten herself over the edge. She's called me twice since the night she came down, and she's talked to Morian, talked to Olive—she's talked herself into believing that Tom
isn't
Tom, that the boy isn't her child.”

Bob shook his head. “If Anne doesn't want to see me, Brade, I can't intrude. Has Morian seen Tom? What does she think?”

“That's strange, too. When I asked her about it, she clammed up. I don't know what she thinks. She's talked with Tom, she just doesn't say anything.”

“That's not like Morian, not to express an opinion.” Bob paused, then, “Anne may be upset about some other things right now. Maybe that, plus Tom's illness, has gotten to her.”

Braden waited.

“Two of my clients do business with Anne's company. A new brokerage firm is trying to elbow them out, giving them trouble, putting the screws to several small Bay area firms.”

“Anne's not the kind to get upset over something like that.”

“They have already taken over two small real estate firms
and fired the key personnel. This could mean her job. Have
you
seen Tom?”

“He's pale, irritable, lost a lot of weight.”

The waiter came with their order. Braden on impulse asked for some fish or seafood scraps for the cat, receiving Bob's amazed stare. When the bag was brought, he realized he'd have to pick through other people's germs to remove shell and bone before the cat got it, and was sorry he'd asked.

Bob looked immensely amused. “When did you get a cat? I thought you hated cats.”

“I don't hate cats. It's Morian's cat. I'm keeping it.”

“The black one? The tiger cat was killed, I remember.” Bob was big on cats—he and Leslie had several. “Where's Morian, some kind of vacation? I thought…”

“She's at home,” Braden said patiently. “I'm just keeping the cat for a while. It's the stray, the one she—we—chased that night at Sam's, the one the gardener had in a bag.”

Bob's expression was one of delighted superiority. Why were cat people so superior? Braden dropped the bag beside his chair and managed to ignore it, but as they rose to leave, Bob picked it up, handing it to him. “Have you named it yet?”

“What?”

“Have you named your cat?”

“It's Morian's cat. It's not my cat.”

Bob buttoned his raincoat and picked up his umbrella. “I guess I can drop around, talk to Anne, see Tom. But I can't do anything, can't offer help unless she asks me.” Then they were out the door, Braden running through the rain for his Chevy wagon, Bob sauntering beneath the black umbrella to his green MG. He waved as he spun out of the parking lot.

By the time Braden reached the house, the rain-damp paper bag was beginning to split. He wiped some juice off the seat, and carried the mess across the garden in both hands, cursing. He took it dripping through the studio to the kitchen and dropped it in the kitchen sink. The cat came yawning out of the bedroom sniffing the fish, winding
around his ankles, her green eyes caressing him. He stood at the sink separating out bones and shells from potato skins—what the hell made the waiter think cats liked potato skins?

When he put the mess before her she set to with greed, holding a piece of lobster down with her paw and tearing at it. Finished, she gave him another loving look, followed him into the studio, and curled up by the easel so he had to step around her as he worked. When Chapman arrived around five, she jumped into Braden's lap and went to sleep.

 

He sat petting the cat, prepared for Chapman's long run-through of the mailing list, which was a lot of nonsense. But Rye always did this, as well as enumerate the kinds of liquor for the opening, champagne punch or whatever. He wanted to shout at Rye to do anything, just let him get back to work. But Christ, it made Rye happy. He had put
The Girl in the Window
in the bedroom before Rye got there to avoid making the rest of the work look dull.

That night the cat slept curled against his shoulder with her head on the pillow. And even though she smelled faintly of fish, he didn't push her away.

 

Melissa woke at dawn. Rain drenched the windows, cascading against the glass. She was unable to move her legs, her dress was tangled around her knees. She jerked awake, alarmed, and rolled away from Braden and swung off the bed.

This was too unnerving, to go to sleep as cat and wake as a girl lying next to him. Someday he was going to wake before she did. He was going to find her there. Her common sense told her to go away from here, to leave this garden and go away.

But she didn't want to go away. She had been a child here. If she remained in this house, she was certain she could recapture her lost memories. And, more powerfully, she didn't want to leave Braden.

But if she stayed here, she would have to learn how to change from girl to cat only at her own pleasure. And she
would have to learn to retain her human thoughts when she was cat. It was terrifying to know that as cat she remembered nothing about Melissa, that she was totally ignorant and vulnerable.

Braden stirred, and she stiffened.

But he only turned over and slept again. She slipped out of the bedroom and into the studio.

Rain drummed on the skylight. The room was dim. The watery light made her think of shadowed caverns. And then another memory fell into place: she knew suddenly that the changing was done with a spell. There was a spell to make her change, a magic as natural to her as breathing.

She remembered Siddonie's voice, remembered the sharp pain of that first changing, felt herself jerked to the floor, could almost make out the cadences of Siddonie's shouted words. But then the spell faded. Absently she studied the painting before her, straining to bring back the spell. The girl in the painting was turned away, standing before a red awning.

Shock jolted her.

The painting was of her.

It was an image of her, standing before the red awning of the tea room, turned away looking up the street. Her dark hair, her green dress. She felt stricken with fear at seeing her own image. But yet she was deeply drawn to the painting. Soon fascination overcame fear. She stood looking, seeing herself in a way no mirror could show her.