when I see it.”
I wake with a start, jerking into an upright position in bed. Darkness envelops the room, broken only by a pale lilac light creeping beneath the curtains.
Momentarily disorientated, I fumble for the bedside lamp, relieved when its warm glow chases away the shadows, revealing the familiar outline of my bedroom. Everything looks as it should be, at least. Yesterday’s dress thrown over the back of the pink velvet chair, the cream painted wardrobe hulking in the corner, the door slightly ajar as always. I bought it at an antiques centre several years ago, and it’s never closed properly. My dressing table is littered with various paraphernalia: bottles of nail polish, lipsticks, a piece of amethyst given to me by my mother, its faceted crystals gleaming in the lamplight.
I sit there for a moment, the duvet drawn up under my chin for warmth, wondering what might have woken me. Normally I sleep fairly soundly. Unless I’m having a nightmare, and usually, if I’ve had one of those, I know all about it. I wake up cold, shaking, the remnants of the dream still clinging to the edges of my mind like cobwebs.
No, I’m pretty certain that I was sleeping quite peacefully. So what …?
And then I hear it. A deafening, screeching sound fills the air, followed by yowling. It sounds like it hails from the bowels of the earth itself, but I know better than that.
Fully awake now, I throw the covers aside, heart already in my mouth. As I clatter down the stairs, knotting my kimono at my waist, I keep telling myself that I’m overreacting. That of course it’s not Casper. That I’ll open the kitchen door and he’ll be safely there, all curled up in his …
All right, so he’s not in his basket. He’s not on the windowsill either. Or on the chair. He’s nowhere to be seen.
Really, who was I trying to kid? If there’s a fight going on, he’s bound to be involved. I’ve never known him to miss one yet.
The hideous screaming sound has stopped and I waver in the middle of the room, trying to decide what to do next. Then, with a huff of resignation, I pull on my flowery wellington boots, which now live permanently next to the back door. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to take a nightly sojourn into the garden in pursuit of my errant pet. Far from it. But I know I’ll never get back to sleep until I’ve reassured myself that he’s all right.
“Casper?” I call softly, even as I do so wondering why I’m bothering. As if that cacophony hasn’t woken the whole street anyway. He certainly has a way of making me unpopular with the neighbours.
Tentatively, I venture out onto the lawn, my boots sinking into the damp grass. The first light of dawn is bleeding into the sky, washing the garden in an ethereal pink glow. Dewdrops have transformed the lawn into a shimmering carpet and the air is bitingly cold, invigorating in its sharpness. It would be stunningly beautiful, I suppose, if I weren’t too preoccupied with worry to pay it much attention.
I check half-heartedly under a few bushes, already knowing that he won’t be there. He’ll turn up when he’s good and ready, and not a moment sooner. I don’t come across his assailant either. Or – and I have to allow for this possibility – his victim. I’m not so blinded by love that I don’t know what he’s like. He’s just as likely to start a fight as he is to get drawn into one.
Giving up the search, I trudge back into the kitchen to find a tousled-looking Freddie standing there, yawning extravagantly.
“What’s going on? I got up for a glass of water and saw that the lights were on downstairs.”
And yet, somehow, the screeching and caterwauling completely passed him by. My brother would make a fascinating case for medical science. His tendency towards complete obliviousness never fails to astonish me. I swear he could sleep through the apocalypse with no trouble at all.
“I can’t find Casper,” I explain, stamping my boots on the mat to knock the excess mud off them. “He’s not in the garden.”
Freddie stares at me like I’m utterly insane. “Clara, he’s a cat. What do you expect? That he’s going to just stay in one place?”
“I know, but …” How can I explain it to him? How can I tell him how much Casper means to me? Of course, to him, it seems ridiculous. Even to my own ears it sounds it.
At that moment the cat flap rattles and Casper slinks into the kitchen, drawing up short to look askance at us both. For a cat, he has a surprisingly expressive face, and I can tell that he’s wondering what the humans are doing up at this hour.
“There you are.” Instinctively, I move towards him, the relief in my voice audible.
Certainly, he’s been in a tussle of sorts; his fur is all standing on end, his eyes bright and feverish. But he looks okay, at least. To be honest, I feel a bit foolish now, having got into such a state about it all.
“See, he’s fine.” Freddie’s already halfway through the doorway, stifling another gargantuan yawn. “Nothing to worry about. Now can we go back to bed?”
“Freddie …” I’ve drawn my hand away from Casper’s side to find it stained red. For a moment, I can only stare at it, frozen.
“What?” He turns, then blanches. “Oh, God. Is that …? What do we do?”
Casper’s leaning into me now, obviously weakening. I shake the fog from my brain, willing myself to stay focused. This is no time to panic.
“Get the cat basket out of the cupboard under the stairs, will you? We’re going to have to make a dash across town.”
***
“What were you even thinking?” I pant as we cross the market square. Rearranging my grip on the basket, which was digging painfully into my fingers, I continue. “Why must you get yourself into every fight going?”
Casper looks up at me balefully from where he’s nestled on his favourite blue blanket. I know he must be feeling bad because Freddie and I managed to get him into the basket with surprisingly little fuss. Usually, the very sight of it is enough to send him into histrionics.
I longingly watch a car trundle past. There’s no point in my owning a car here in Cambridge; in fact, very few people do. Normally, I’m quite content to get around on foot, although this morning that’s not so much the case, what with my rather unwieldy cargo.
I’m beginning to wish I’d just bitten the bullet and called a cab. I’d forgotten how heavy Casper starts to feel by the time you’ve lugged him halfway across town. Failing that, I should have let Freddie bring him.
“Besides, you’re not exactly a spring chicken any more, are you?” I point out, stopping on the corner to catch my breath. “Don’t you think you should be past all of this by now? Isn’t it time to retire to your basket and let the younger toms have it out?”
Actually, that’s probably a bit unfair. The truth is, I have no idea how old Casper is. When I first took him in, the vet estimated him to be somewhere between four and twelve.
Which is … you know, helpful.
In
