The Knot Garden by Gabriel King

Author:Gabriel King [King, Gabriel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Head of Zeus Ltd.

16

For the next few days, I stalked around the cottage and the gardens, tail lashing, a permanent half-growl rumbling quietly at the base of my throat. I felt at odds with myself and everyone else. I had gained access to another world, a place where all I had ever wanted would deliver itself up to me with a purr and a wave of musky scent; and had stupidly turned my back on it and run away. I knew I could never find my way back.

For this reason, I avoided even thinking about Lydia. I avoided the canal. I avoided Hawkweed and the highways.

Dellifer and Vita avoided me.

*

‘You live your own funny little lives,’ Anna said to Dellifer, ‘don’t you? You cats?’

Dellifer purred contentedly.

‘What do you think about, all day long?’

It was Saturday night: comfort night. Orlando was out. These days, in fact, he was rarely in. His whole demeanour was that of a cat with important business. He rushed about. He rushed his meals. ‘But we don’t care about him,’ Anna said. ‘Do we, girls? Because we’ve got comfort night.’ She had fetched fish and chips for an early supper, and now, while Vita dozed contentedly in the kitchen, waking occasionally to lick the ghost of grease off her paws, Anna and Dellifer were sitting on the sofa in Anna’s tiny front room, watching Casualty on the television. Anna sighed happily. She had beside her a cup of mocha which she had made half-and-half with drinking chocolate; and a moment ago one of the more competitive of the young doctors had been rushed into his own emergency room with a suspected rupture of the spleen after an ill-considered rock-climbing weekend. What more could you ask? Dellifer yawned, and rearranged her long, scrawny body on the sofa so that her head rested on Anna’s forearm.

Suddenly she raised her head.

A moment later, Anna did too.

‘What’s that awful smell?’ she said: ‘Orlando!’

She phoned Stella Herringe.

‘He’s done it everywhere,’ Anna said, ‘and I’ve got no idea how to clean it off.’

Stella laughed. ‘My dear, he is a tom,’ she said. ‘If you don’t want a smelly house, you’ll have to have him snipped. How old is he?’ and when Anna told her, ‘Well, he’s a little early, but there it is. You can get it done in Drychester,’ – here, she gave a strange laugh – ‘but it’s so straightforward you could probably do it yourself.’

Anna discounted this bizarre possibility. ‘I suppose I’ll have to have them both done,’ she said.

There was a silence, then the click of a cigarette lighter. Stella inhaled and said in the same breath: ‘Oh no, dear.’

‘But—’

‘Has she come on yet?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not sure what to look for.’

‘You’d know,’ said Stella. Another laugh. ‘Well, look, think about it. It would be such a waste. She’ll just make the most wonderful kittens.’ Then, before Anna could object that she had enough kittens in the cottage already: ‘And I’ll take them all off your hands at six weeks. Earlier if you like.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.