The Catswold Portal

He ran through the hillside residential streets, breathing in the scent of the huge redwoods that stood guard among the houses. He stopped in the village after an hour’s run, cooled down, and had a beer and a hamburger. Eating on the restaurant’s deck overlooking the stream, he wondered if he should have left the cat in the studio. What if she made a mess? Yet he had a strange, unaccustomed feeling of pleasure at knowing she waited in the empty rooms to greet him.

When he got back, she seemed not to have moved. She looked up from the couch languidly yawning, her open mouth pale pink, her green eyes slitted sleepily, the pupils narrowing in the sudden light. Almost reluctantly he phoned Morian and explained that the cat had come back and that he didn’t want a cat. Morian said her screen was torn. She said it looked to her as if the cat had made her own decision, so why didn’t he relax and accept it.

She said, “If you don’t want the cat, just put her out. She doesn’t want to stay with me. You can’t force a cat to live somewhere.”

He knew he ought to put her out. He knew he shouldn’t let her get the idea she belonged here. He glanced out to the garden, remembering the sharp chill as he walked home, and wondered where she would sleep. Well, where the hell had she slept before? Cats slept outside, that was where cats lived.

He didn’t mean, passing the model’s couch, to become interested in how the moonlight slanting down through the skylight stroked the cat’s mottled coat. He stood studying the patterns of her orange and black markings against the shadow-crossed silk, seeing a rich painting. Then, annoyed at himself, he made a drink, got a book and went to bed.

The little cat woke in the small hours. The wind was up, rattling branches against the windows. Through the skylight, clouds ran across the moon, hiding then revealing it. Moon shadows swam across the floor, and she leaped off the couch to chase them. The blackness under a campaign chair belled out then sucked back, and she leaped into it, her eyes huge, then charged out to chase the tracery of branches dancing along the walls. Twisting, spinning away she plunged into the black tunnel behind the stacked canvases and raced along its length to burst out again, eyes blazing.

But suddenly different shadows were in the room with her. Four shadows fell through the glass where four cats stared in. She approached them stiffly, her lips drawn back in challenge.

They stood shoulder-to-shoulder: the black tom and the old white female, and her two half-grown kittens. The kittens, bolstered by their mother’s presence, snarled and spat. And as the calico moved closer, all four cats screamed a challenge and forced against the glass. She held her ground, snarling, until the black leaped at the glass so hard it thrummed and vibrated. She backed fast, and took protection behind the easel.

When he charged again, the glass shook as if he would come flying through. She fled for the kitchen, leaped to the counter then to the top of the refrigerator. There she crouched, listening.

When after some time no sound came from the studio, she began to prowl the kitchen counters.

She found nothing edible. She jumped to the floor, drank water from the bowl, then went to investigate the bathroom. Leaping to the counter she sniffed the tubes and bottles. They smelled like the man. When she grew bored with the bathroom she prowled the bedroom. He was asleep; the sound of his snoring interested her. Moonlight swam across the bed. She jumped up, patting at the streaks of light that shifted across the white sheets. She watched Braden. She had never seen him lying down. She stood studying him, sniffing his arm. In the chilly room she was drawn by his warmth.

When he rolled over snoring she jumped clear. Then, purring, she nosed down into the warm nest he had left. Settled against his warm back, she flexed her claws happily in a wad of blanket.

She slept, her nose tucked under one paw. And within Braden’s sleeping consciousness something prevented him, when next he turned over, from rolling on her; something made him slide to the left before he turned, a sense of caring that rose without his volition.

He woke at dawn and lay looking out at the bay and marsh stained red by sunrise. The blood red sky was reflected in the wind-rippled water, cut through by sharp spears of marsh grass. He had painted this marsh, an early series capturing sunrise and storm and the clarity of summer light: a dozen different moods of the salt marsh.

All night the wind had blown; he could remember waking to wind. He frowned, remembering the cat jumping on the bed, and he turned to look.

She slept soundly in a nest of tangled covers. He reached, meaning to throw her off, but she looked too small and delicate to manhandle. Let her sleep.