Kit looked startled, then turned away so as not to make matters worse, and headed down the hill, her glance at Dulcie hurt, and very sad.
The pale cat remained where she was, looking after Kit longingly. But at last, at Sage’s prodding, the bony little waif turned away and obediently followed the bleached calico tomcat back up the hill toward the fallen walls and crumbling mansion of the old and ruined estate.
Dulcie, hurrying home beside Kit, down the hills through the rising dawn, had no idea where this meeting of the two young females would lead, but she knew a friendship had been formed-and, she thought uneasily, knowing Kit, she wouldn’t be surprised to see this meet ing turn to trouble. To some kind of trouble, as the tortoiseshell’s enthusiasms so often led.
They were halfway down the hills, were just passing a newly framed house, skirting its skeleton of raw timbers, stepping carefully to avoid dropped nails, when Kit said, “I’ve seen her before. When Lucinda and Pedric and I walk up here, sometimes I see a pale little shadow slipping away among the broken walls. Once, for a second, she stood atop a wall looking down at me, but then she turned and ran.” Ever since the weather had turned warmer, and the tourists were returning to crowd the shore on nice mornings and late afternoons, Kit’s two housemates had abandoned walking the beaches and sea cliffs and taken to tramping the hills. Tall, slim, eighty-something Lucinda Greenlaw had always been a walker. She had, during a long and abusive first marriage, escaped from her pain at the hands of a philandering husband by indulging in solitary rambles over the Molena Point hills. Now she was wed again, this time happily, and Lucinda and Pedric were both enjoying the world anew, including their long and pleasant rambles accompanied by their tortoiseshell companion.
But Joe and Dulcie, too, sometimes glimpsed the clowder cats as they hunted, saw them like swift shadows flicking away among the hills or into the ruins. Because of the dry weather, the clowder had moved back within the walls of the old estate, wanting the water that ran in springs there and wanting to be safe in its shelter from the coyotes that had drawn closer to the village to quench their thirst-ever since the weather turned hot, Dulcie and Wilma, her human housemate, tucked up in bed at night, could hear coyotes on the hills, ever closer to the village, yipping and yodeling.
Some people called their noise singing. Dulcie and Wilma, knowing how dangerous the beasts were, called those cries bloodcurdling. When the yipping was near, neither of them slept well. The three cats, until just this past week, had kept their hunting to the daylight hours. When sporadic rains had begun, leaving puddles for the wild creatures among the far woods, and the coyotes had moved away once more, the cats began their night hunting again, though they stayed near the scattered houses or near boulders where they could race for shelter.
Now, descending the hills, suddenly Kit broke into a run, wildly circling Dulcie then skidding to a stop inches from the older cat’s nose, Kit’s yellow eyes blazing with laughter. “Free,” she mewled. “I’m free!”
Dulcie puzzled over this, as she so often did over Kit’s behavior. Had Sage, taking a new cat for his mate, cut the last painful thread that bound Kit to him? Did she no longer feel responsible for having hurt him, having spoiled his life as she had once thought?
But then, just as suddenly, Kit sat down in the tall grass, looking so sad that Dulcie thought she might weep.
“She’s not the one,” Kit said, looking forlornly at Dulcie. “She feels as trapped as I did. She wants…Didn’t you see? She wants…Before she settles down to raising tangles of kittens, she wants to see what the rest of the world is like. Oh, I feel so bad for her. Didn’t you see…?”
“No,” Dulcie said crossly. “I didn’t see anything! Leave it, Kit! Leave it alone. It isn’t any of your business.”
“But-”
Dulcie faced Kit, her ears back, her teeth bared. This would never do. Kit’s concern screamed of trouble. “Leave it alone, Kit. You will not entice her away. They’re happy, Sage is happy.”
“She’s not happy, she-”
Dulcie raised an armored paw to slap Kit. “You will not ruin Sage’s life again! Why would you do that?”
“Because…,” Kit said miserably, “because…” She glared at Dulcie, and turned and trotted away, tears running down her tortoiseshell nose. Dulcie shouldered her to a stop, her teeth gently in the nape of Kit’s neck. For a long moment they stood looking at each other, Kit so upset that if Dulcie let go, she thought Kit would fly at her with all claws bared.
But at last Kit backed away. “She won’t be happy,” she said grimly, “thinking about all the wonders she’s never seen. And so, Sage won’t be happy.”
Dulcie said nothing. She moved away, heading on down the hill. They were quiet for a long time, padding toward the village, Kit’s sadness like a weight that pressed on Dulcie, too. But then suddenly, Kit came to life again.
“I know what to do,” she said, leaping away. “I know exactly!” And she raced like a mad thing through the gardens of the first scattered houses, skidding to a stop beneath a porch, looking back at Dulcie.
Padding under the porch beside her, Dulcie said not a word. She didn’t want to hear Kit’s harebrained idea, she didn’t want to contemplate what kind of trouble this would stir to life.
Seeing Dulcie’s look, Kit didn’t offer an explanation. She licked her fur and her dusty paws, and they went on at last, in a tense silence. The rising morning smelled of rain, the clouds overhead throwing changing shadows across the crowded cottages and shops.
Coming down into the village, the two cats took to the rooftops. Below them, early cars were on the street as locals and tourists set out to attend church and then Sunday brunch or, despite the threat of rain, to play golf or to hike along the coastal cliffs. Soon they parted, both cats, having hunted all night and feasted on rodents, heading for their own homes and housemates, longing, now, for “people” food, for a little something to settle a cat’s digestion. Dulcie’s Wilma had promised a rich quiche, and Kit looked forward to Pedric’s paper-thin Swedish pancakes with Lucinda’s mango syrup, which was, in Kit’s opinion, the best breakfast that a cat ever licked from her whiskers; and for the moment, the plight of the pale little feral was set aside, at least in Dulcie’s mind. Whatever Kit was thinking, she kept to herself.
5
JOE ARRIVED HOME, over the rooftops, to the welcome smell of pancakes and sausages, the heady scent rising up to him as he leaped from the neighbors’ shingles to his own. Landing on the wet, slippery shakes, he could hear Clyde ’s and Ryan’s voices from the back patio. The rain had been short and light, only a few showers and then one serious effort, and even that didn’t last long. Now the sky was clearing, the June sun brightening and warming his damp fur. Pausing beside the second-floor skeleton of the new construction that would be Ryan’s office, he crossed to the edge of the roof to look over.
Below, in the big, walled patio, the two lovebirds were kissing and Joe backed away, unsure how much of this newlywed mush he could take. Ryan had put the big umbrella up over the patio table to keep their breakfast dry, a nicety that Clyde wouldn’t have bothered with. Ryan Flannery was, Joe thought smugly, the best thing that had happened to Clyde since Joe himself had come on the scene to brighten his life.
Looking over the edge, his paws soaking from the wet shingles, he watched Clyde move back inside the house, presumably to flip the sausages that he could hear sizzling in the pan. He could see, beneath the umbrella, a corner of the patio table carefully set with clean place mats, fresh napkins, and a centerpiece of flowers. Clyde ’s bride might say she wasn’t domestic, that she was more used to a hammer and saw than a mixing spoon, but she had a nice touch around the house. In the four months they’d been married, life had taken a real change from his and Clyde ’s rough bachelor ways. No more breakfasts with their two plates slapped down carelessly on sections of the morning paper. Now the household reeked of domesticity, sometimes as cloying as a rerun from the fifties, but, more often, just as comforting.