were following her all the way. And how many other eyes, behind the curtains of the village? By the time she reached the cottage, she was running.
And yet how silly it all seemed, as she opened the kitchen door. Curtains drawn against the dark, oil-lamps lit, the fire well made up and casting everything in a rosy glow. The kitchen table laid for Scrabble . . .
The two kids sitting peacefully in the rockers each side of the range, rocking, with their feet up on the fender, a picture of contentment.
And on Jane’s knee, the cat.
‘I told you not to encourage that animal,’ she snapped.
They looked at her with open mouths; she had never been a snapper.
‘It’s lost and hungry,’ said Jane. ‘We gave it a pasty and it ate the lot, even the pastry and crumbs.’
‘People have tried to shoot it,’ said Timothy. ‘It has all little scars on one side and a shotgun pellet came out of one when I picked it. The people round here must be beastly.’
The cat continued to purr and knead on Jane’s knee. But it gave Rose a wary, calculating look, an old cold look. It knew it had won two hearts, but not three.
And yet its wounds won it the day.
‘Yes,’ said Rose, ‘the people round here are rather beastly, I’m afraid.’
‘Even Mr. Gotobed,’ said Timothy, with the sudden crushing condemnation of the young. ‘We’ve been thinking about it. We don’t think he set those snares to catch a rabbit. We think he set them to try and catch the cat. Those hairs I found round the snare weren’t rabbit-hairs, they were hairs from the cat. There aren’t any rabbits round here. There isn’t a trace of droppings.’
‘But why would he want to catch the cat?’ asked Rose. ‘What had it done to him?’ She was reluctant to cast Mr. Gotobed as a villain, along with the rest.
‘Because the cat was digging in our garden, I suppose. Cos if there are no rabbits, the cat must have dug those holes down by the outhouse.’
‘But cats don’t dig burrows,’ said Rose, a bit feebly.
‘They do to bury their cr – droppings,’ said Jane, with a last-minute swerve of voice.
‘Oh, I suppose so,’ said Rose. ‘Though what damage a cat could do to a hopeless garden like this . . .’
‘I expect Mr. Gotobed had grand new plans for it,’ said Timothy. ‘Like that stupid rockery of his.’
‘You mustn’t be rude about him,’ said Rose hastily. ‘The outhouse . . .’
‘Oh, we won’t be rude to him,’ said Jane. ‘We’ll be polite for your sake. But we’re not friends of his any more . . .’
Rose shuddered. Mr. Gotobed was out in the freezing wastes now. She hoped she was never sent to join him.
‘Oh, I suppose the cat can stay. If it behaves itself,’ she added. It wasn’t just that she wanted the children’s approval. She felt . . . beleaguered now, and the cat became a comrade in misfortune. When they went, they’d take the cat with them, if it wanted to come, leave this horrible village. They could find it a good home, even if Philip put his foot down about keeping it. A little glow lit up in her, a mischievous little glow. Let Philip try fighting the kids about getting rid of the cat. That might cut him down to size a bit . . .
Really, she told herself severely, I’m turning into a not very nice person.
‘Scrabble,’ she said briskly.
Jane got up, and carefully replaced the cat on her rocker. It turned round and round about six times, then settled with a satisfied look on its face. Almost as if it lived here . . .
It was not a very good game of Scrabble. At least for Rose. Visions kept drifting through her mind. Miss Yaxley’s grim tormented face; tears gathering in the corners of its stoniness, as if Moses had smote the rock and water came forth. The silence of the woman in the shop, the coldness of rejection. The scrawl on the car door . . . the little minister’s doubtfulness.
‘Poor old Mum’s off form,’ said Timothy smugly at the end. ‘Me 197, you 192 Jane, Mum 109.’
‘How’s Daddy?’ asked Jane, with careful casualness.
‘How’s the answering machine,’ said Rose with feeling.
‘Poor old Mum,’ said Timothy, pouring the Scrabble tiles back into the bag that held them. ‘You don’t think he’s having an affair with Ms. Sampson, do you, Mum?’ He asked with only the mildest interest.
‘Don’t