“Very difficult things, beginnings,” Jane said. “Almost as difficult as middles and ends, in my experience. Stay with it, Peter. Remember Robert the Bruce and the spider. It’s been lovely talking to you, must dash, bye.”
She retrieved her car, adjusted the rear-view mirror, put on her seat-belt and pulled out the choke. According to her AA book, you could get to Cirencester by way of the M4 and a number of other reputable main roads, and although it was her experience that road-maps generally tend to speak with forked tongue, particularly when dealing with the location of motorway service stations, it was certainly worth a try. As she turned the ignition key, something moved her to look out of the window and take one last glance at the little town of Bridport, where so much of such consequence had happened; the initial discovery at the bank, the visitor’s book in the hotel, the curious ruined cottage, culminating in the dramatic meeting outside the boatyard and her irrational, as yet undissected decision to involve herself deeper still in this improbable but magnetic adventure. The sun gleamed on the windows of the Town Hall, and the traffic lights seemed to wink at her like old friends. Perhaps she would come back again one day, perhaps not. Perhaps she would never pass this way again, and this was to be the last time.
“Yippee!” she said aloud, and let out the clutch.
♦
The cat woke up, uncurled its tail, and decided it would be nice to go for a walk. It got about three feet and discovered there were bars in the way.
Pleasant enough bars, as bars go. Quite probably there for its own good, to keep it from wandering too far and falling the short distance to the floor. If there were wolves about, it might keep them out for at least thirty seconds, provided they were not too hungry. The cat considered all these possibilities and rejected them. It yowled.
At the other end of the room, a man was playing a tall, elegant musical instrument, something halfway between a spinet and a harpsichord. It must be noted that he was doing so absolutely soundlessly, unless you counted the clattering of the keys under his rapidly-moving fingertips.
Hearing the yowl, he lifted his head and looked at the cage. He put down the lid of the musical instrument and walked across the room, stopping about halfway to pick up a dead mouse by the tail from a cardboard box of the kind that cream cakes come in.
“Here, pussy,” he said, in a rather embarrassed voice, for he was not used to addressing cats, small children or any of the other forms of sentient life who have to be spoken to in a silly voice. In truth, he wasn’t accustomed to talking to anyone who didn’t have a first-class honours degree, and it showed. “Pretty pussy like a nice mouse, then?”
Pretty pussy yowled, and the man dropped the mouse down through the bars of the cage. The cat ducked and thereby avoided being hit on the head; it didn’t look particularly grateful for the kind thought either. The man made a selection of cooing noises and poked a finger at the cat, apparently by way of a friendly gesture. The cat appreciated that all right; it bit it, hard. The man winced slightly and withdrew the finger. It was undamaged. Heartened by this minor reprisal, the cat ate the mouse. The man stepped back and looked at his watch. Five minutes later, he stepped out of the room and called up the elegant Queen Anne staircase.
“Mrs Carmody!” he said. “Could you come through into the study for a moment?”
A tall, grey-haired woman appeared in the doorway. She was wearing an apron over a fiendishly expensive Ralph Lauren original, and her hands were covered in flour.
“Well?” she said.
“Mrs Carmody,” asked the man. “Does that cat smell?”
The woman sniffed carefully. “No,” she said. “Should it?”
“No,” said the man. “Thank you, you’ve been most helpful.”
The cat looked at them both in astonishment, but they took no notice. The woman asked when she should expect the guests.
“I think they said about half-past six,” said the man.
“Then they’ll have to wait,” the woman said firmly. “You can’t expect me to produce malt loaf out of thin air, you know.”
The man bowed his head, acknowledging his fault, then turned and sat down again at the spinet and began to play, as quietly as before. After about ten minutes, the telephone rang and someone read out the results of an experiment involving platinum isotopes. The man thanked him, said goodbye and put the receiver down.
Half an hour later, the man summoned Mrs Carmody again.
“Now does it smell?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“Excellent,” said the man. “You don’t mind helping me like this, do you?”
Mrs Carmody thought for a moment. “No,” she said. Then the man thanked her again and she left.
What the cat thought about all this is neither here nor there.
♦
