The Cat

ALLISON:

I dream of a cat, a white cat with tabby markings on her face and her back, and as I look at her she stares at me with that enigmatic gaze that cats have, and I lose myself in her eyes.

I wake up. My husband lies next to me, a heap of rage and hate and muscle, sleeping unpeacefully. I shiver. We have a large bedroom window that he makes us keep open at night to help him sleep. I’ve always felt the cold so much.

I quietly get up and wake my son, Robby. We are going out early as it’s Saturday and my husband likes to have the house to himself on Saturdays.

Robby eats his cereal, and while he is eating I glance into the garden and see the cat from my dreams sitting there, staring at me.

I am in shock. Robby notices me staring at something, and turns to see what it is.

’Mum! It’s a cat! I want to stroke her.’

He’s always wanted a pet but my husband has always said no, and before I can respond Robby is up and going outside.

The cat stays perfectly still as Robby approaches, and I don’t know why but I know that she won’t scratch him, and that he’ll always be safe with her around.

She lets him stroke her for a moment, then after giving me one last look she turns and slinks away into the flower beds.

It’s a month later, and Robby is playing with the cat in the living room. She rolls on the floor on her back and Robby tickles her stomach and laughs, and I smile.

The front door slams and the cat bolts upstairs to Robby’s room and Robby follows her. I feel like she’s drawn him away on purpose.

The shouting doesn’t start immediately, but the frustration and hate is oozing off my husband’s well-built frame as he walks in, and it’s only a matter of time. If I try and leave he’ll yell at me for running away, and if I try and comfort him he’ll sneer at me, and tell me I don’t understand. So I do nothing but wring my hands together.

‘Can’t you stop fidgeting? It’s driving me crazy.’

‘Sorry,’ I say, nervously.

‘Always apologising.’

He makes himself a large whiskey and coke. ’I bet you haven’t even started dinner yet.’

’No, no, I have,’ and I show him the casserole that I’m cooking in the oven.

He shrugs and sips his drink, then tenses up as he hears Robby running around upstairs.

‘Fucking Christ. I’m going to go get him to be quiet’

‘No please, please no...’

‘He needs to fucking grow up.’

‘Please...’

I go to my husband, sit down next to him, and awkwardly try and run my hand down his arm.

He looks at me, and there is no respect in his eyes. He puts down his drink, then grabs both my wrists in one of his big hands and squeezes. I yelp it hurts so much. He kisses me.

Later I go up to Robby’s room, and he’s put himself to bed. I cry a little, and then I notice the cat staring at me. She is curled up at the end of his bed, her eyes shining in the corridor light.

She blinks at me, then goes back to sleep.

Things get worse.

This time it’s another bad day at work, and I try and soothe him but he lashes out and catches me across the chin.

I’ve read that after men hit their wives they always try and apologise, but he doesn’t. Instead there is a kind of vicious delight in his eyes. He picks me up and takes me upstairs to the bedroom.

As I am on my back all I can think of is how cold the room is.

It is a cycle - things gets better for a while, and then they get worse, and every time they get worse the low point sinks deeper, and all the time I feel the tension and stress building and building, like the calm before the storm that ends the world.

It’s Friday. I bring Robby back from school and he runs upstairs while I go into the bedroom to lie down. I have a terrible headache.

‘I’m going to have to sort him out.’

I jump. My husband is in our bathroom, dishevelled but still with all his strength radiating off him, sitting on the floor with his back against the bath drinking his favourite drink.

He gets up and saunters towards me, and I back away.

‘He needs to grow up, always escaping into those little fantasy worlds that you and him love so much. He needs to become a man.’

‘He’s just a child’.

‘And what are you?’

‘What?’

He grabs me by the throat.

‘What are you? A waste of flesh and bone.’

He lets go and puts his glass down. Then with all his force he slaps me across the face and I drop. It’s so hard I think I lose consciousness for a moment.

‘Get up. Get UP!’

He pulls me up and shakes me, and all I feel is the cold draft from the open window, and I laugh as I am hurting so much but what really pisses me off, what really upsets me is the damn open window that makes me cold all the time. The whole situation is so absurd that I laugh again, harder.

He doesn’t like that. He thinks I’m laughing at him and hits me again, in the gut this time. I retch.

‘Mummy..?’

Robby is at the door.

‘No darling...go to your room.’

Throughout all this I’ve shielded him, kept him away, but now he sees.

And he runs to me and stands in front of me like some tiny little knight.

‘Don’t hurt her!’

Out of the corner of my eye I notice the cat sitting in the doorway, perfectly still but ears up, alert.

‘You ungrateful little...’

And he grabs Robby by the arm, and hurls him across the room. It’s the first time he has ever touched my child.

‘Yowlllleeeesssssssraghhhh!!!!!!’

A ball of screeching fury and tabby fur shoots through the air and lands on my husbands face, and the world goes mad.

A whirlwind of cat and husband go dancing round the room, as the Cat, oh wonderful, enigmatic, strange creature that is the Cat, proceeds to destroy my husbands face.

Robby watches open-mouthed, disbelieving, as the Cat scratches, and claws, and yowls like a terrible Siren of Death, and no matter how hard my husband tries he just can’t seem to disentangle himself from the savagery he has unleashed.

Finally he gets hold of her with both hands, and a look of triumph crosses his face. Her ears go down, she gives one evil horrendous 'hisssss’, and she scratches out his left eye.

He drops her, screams, and clutches his bleeding socket.

‘Aeeeee! My Eye! My fucking Eye ! Help me!’

He looks at Robby, and then turns back across the room at the sound of a low feline growl.

The Cat is crouched low, inching forward, eyes wide and black, focused on the kill.

’No! I’m warning you! STAY AWAY FROM ME!’

He backs away, and the Cat charges and leaps.

And my husband keeps backing away as the Cat lands on his chest, keeps backing away as she rips at his neck, and keeps backing away and trips, and falls backwards out of our large open bedroom window.

There is a scream, then a crunch, and then silence.

The Police are very understanding. They’re trained to deal with women in my situation, and the bruises on my

body and Robby’s arm are evidence enough. As they take the body away I ask - ’But what about the Cat’?

’What Cat ma’am?’

I look down, and is that a shade of red I see on the end of the fingernails of my left hand?

Maybe it’s just my imagination.

We’re packing up the car; the house has been sold and we’re moving down South. It’s much warmer there.

Robby gets in the car and straps himself in the back, and I am about to get in when I see the Cat.

We haven’t seen her since the incident, and now she’s sitting there without a care in the world, licking her paws in that cat-like nonchalant way.

I keep staring at her, and eventually she stops and looks right back at me, and we hold each others gaze for what seems like an eternity.

I break the gaze first. I owe her that much.

I open the back door of the car.

‘Well then?’ I say.

She yawns, then very slowly, very very slowly, she ambles up and without giving me another look jumps into the back of the car.

‘Mum! Mum it’s the Cat!’

I get in, and we drive off to a better life.

FIN.