Shirley Murphy - Cat Under Fire

There were shots of the white cat with Janet, one where he sat in her lap, and one where he lay across her shoulder, his eyes slitted half-closed.

"Can he still be alive? Maybe he's hurt. Is that why I dream of him, because he needs our help?"

"The volunteers looked everywhere, Dulcie. There must have been twenty people combing the hills. Don't you think if he were alive, they would have found him? Don't you think that, even hurt, he would have tried to come home?"

"Maybe he's too badly hurt. Or maybe he did come home, maybe he found the studio gone, flattened, nothing but ashes-and Janet gone, no fresh scent of her. He would have been terrified. He might have just gone away again, frightened and confused. The fire itself must have been terrible for him. Maybe he was afraid even to come near the house."

"No matter how scared, if he were hungry, he'd go to the neighbors, at least to cadge a meal."

"There's some reason I dream of him." She gave him a clear green look. "The dreams have some purpose. They have to come from somewhere, not just from my own head. Before I dreamed of him, I didn't even know what he looked like, except from seeing him blocks away. I didn't know his eyes were blue, I didn't know that he wore a blue collar with a brass tag." She looked at him a long time. "Where did those bits of knowledge come from?"

"Maybe you saw his collar some time, saw him close up and don't remember."

"I didn't. I would remember."

But he didn't answer, and she let it drop. Maybe there was something in the male genes that wouldn't let him think about such mysteries.

The rest of the album contained snapshots of Janet at a picnic, and at a party, and several shots of her beside an overweight, overdressed woman. "Beverly," Dulcie said. "That has to be her sister Beverly-she's just the way Wilma described her. Looks like an overfed pug dog."

There were three shots of Janet in a wet suit beside a rocky shore, then pictures of a baseball game, where Janet stood tanned and grinning, ready to pitch, and there was a shot of her at bat.

They went through all the albums, pulling them off the shelves until the big, leather-bound books covered the rumpled bed. They found no diary. Dulcie prowled beneath the bed, under the fallen sheets and comforter, then searched the bookshelves again, thrusting her nose behind the disarranged books. When, balancing on the bottom shelf, she felt it shift beneath her paws she dropped down and dug at it.

They worried at the shelf, wiggling and clawing until it moved, then slid back.

The space beneath contained a box of tissues, face cream, a jar of hand cream, two small sketch pads, pencils, pens, and a small folding clock. Half-hidden beneath the jumble lay a small, leather-bound book.

Dulcie touched it with a hesitant paw. The scent of leather was mixed with Janet's scent. She took it in her teeth, dragged it out, dropped it on the bed. Gently she pawed it open.

The cats glanced at each other and smiled. This was it, this was Janet's diary.

Janet's handwriting was small and neat. She had written as much as she could on each page, leaving only thin margins, squeezing the lines close together as if she had felt frugal about the space, as if she had wanted to make the journal last over as many years as possible.

The last half of the diary was empty.

She had begun the journal during art school days, but had made only occasional entries then, mostly random notes of scenes she wanted to paint… Corner Jones and Lombard, white Victorian towering behind shops… The top of Chestnut Street when the storm sky is low and dark, and the East Bay seems so close you could touch it… The light against Russian Hill when clouds break the sun. Who can put that light on canvas?

She had made brief notes about her move to Molena Point, and some memos as to moving costs. There was a page of notes about apartment hunting, then a lapse of time. Then later, during her stormy marriage to Kendrick Mahl, the entries were long and painful, a montage of hurts from Mahl, his sarcasm about her work-and his involvement with other women, the details meant for no one else's eyes, as Janet set down her painful disappointment in Mahl, and then at last her resolve to leave him. Her notes about the divorce were raw and ugly, filled with her growing hatred.

Joe hadn't thought of Janet as one to hold on to hurts, but she had held on, clinging to her anger, and who could blame her? Kendrick Mahl was a vindictive man, hurtful and cold. Joe had no reason not to believe Janet; he thought Janet didn't lie easily. She had not talked to Clyde much about Mahl.

The journal entries were all tangled together, her personal life, her painting notes, brief reminders of when and where each painting was hung and if it had received an award, all the fragments of her life jumbled into one entity like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. In the occasional stilted notes about her sister Beverly, it was apparent that the two sisters did not get along. A year before Janet's death, Beverly had wanted to open a gallery and take Janet's work from Sicily, a proposal Janet had rejected. The entry reflected her anger with bold, dark handwriting. Not even when she was the most hurt by Mahl had she written in this little book with such obvious rage.

"How can they be sisters?" Dulcie said. "There's no love, there's no closeness at all between them." She stared at Joe with widening eyes. "I had three sisters and two brothers, and I never saw them again after Wilma took me away."

"And you're sorry she took you?"

She licked her whiskers. "If Wilma hadn't taken me, I probably would have died. I was the runt, they kept pushing me away from the milk. I didn't know what it felt like to be really, beautifully full of supper until I went to live with Wilma.

"But I do wonder what it would have been like to have someone to play with, when I was little."

"Maybe that's why you steal. You had a maladjusted kittenhood."

She gave him a gentle swat, and returned to Janet's diary. Scattered through the journal were brief passages that did not seem to be painting notes but were simply written for pleasure, little pleasing word pictures, a drift of clouds over the darkening hills, the sea heaving green against the rocks, vignettes more detailed than her painting notes. The entries where Janet broke off with Rob Lake were written shortly after Mahl became Rob's agent.

Anyone's head would be turned, Kendrick was the most powerful critic in Northern California before he left the Chronicle to open his own gallery. He can make Rob's reputation, or prevent Rob from ever getting anywhere. Of course Rob's being used. Can't he see that? Or is he so eager that he doesn't care, that our relationship means nothing? I can't see him anymore, not when he belongs to Kendrick, I can't be comfortable with him now.

Joe withheld comment. His remarks about Rob Lake only angered Dulcie. She would have to admit in her own time that Lake wasn't as pure as she'd imagined.

Near the end of the journal was a note about a Mrs. Blankenship, who seemed to be a neighbor. Janet described her as a harmless old dear who had nothing to do but watch other people from her bedroom window.

She has sent word by her daughter that she doesn't like me welding so near their house, that it isn't safe, and that the flashing light bothers her. I've put up heavy shutters in the studio, and started pulling my kitchen shade, too. Poor old woman doesn't have anything else to do with her time. Maybe she should get a dog.

"That's the woman we saw staring out the window across the street," Dulcie said. "It's the only house that looks right over to the studio." The houses on the street above were higher, farther away, and positioned so that probably no one cared what Janet did. But the house across the side street had a clear view. "I wonder," she said softly, "what that old woman saw, the morning of the fire. There hasn't been any witness named Blankenship."