Peter Beagle - Tamsin

It was another cat. A long-haired, short-legged, blue-gray cat with deep-green eyes and a wide, pushed-in sort of face—a Persian, for God’s sake. I don’t like Persian cats much, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I could see through it.

Okay, not quite through —it wasn’t really transparent, but almost. Its outlines were a little fuzzy, but Persians look like that anyway. It looked darker beside Mister Cat, lighter when it moved and had my blanket behind it; and when it sat down for a moment to scratch, I lost it altogether in the moonlight shining on the white wall. When Mister Cat nudged it with his shoulder, it opened its mouth and this tiny, tiny, faraway meow came out. Not a real meow. More like an old yellowing memory of a meow.

I was cold. I was so cold that I could feel it in my fingernails. Mister Cat kept prodding that thing toward me, and I kept scooting away, till I was as flat up against those fancy brass spindles as I could get. But it came on, making that little distant cry that didn’t get any louder close to. It had really pretty eyes, but I couldn’t see the lamplight in them, or me, or anything but deep, deep green.

It was a female—anybody could tell that watching Mister Cat fussing and nudging and carrying on around her. I didn’t stop being scared, not with the way her shape wouldn’t stay quite in focus, and the way her… her texture kept shifting, so you couldn’t ever get a real fix on just what color she really was. But I was starting to get curious at the same time I was scared. I didn’t try to touch her, even though she was solid enough for Mister Cat to rub up against. I didn’t want to know what she felt like.

When I finally got my voice, I said to her, “So it was you, huh? You’re the one he chased all over the east wing and up the stairway. Well, you sure must have shown him a good time, that’s all I can say.” She looked straight back at me, and if the rest of her was a little undecided, those eyes weren’t. I didn’t doubt for a minute that she understood what I was saying—better than Mister Cat, even. You tend to think like that when you’ve just been waked up in the middle of the night by two cats, and one of them’s a ghost.

Because that’s what she was, that green-eyed Persian—I never doubted that, either, though I hadn’t ever seen a ghost, or believed in them, or even thought about believing in them. Or thought about cats having ghosts. But it was the only thing she could be—it’s like Sherlock Holmes saying that once you eliminate the impossible, whatever’s left has to be the answer, no matter how weird it is. I almost forgot to be scared, I was so anxious for it to be morning, so I could tell Meena.

Ghost or no ghost, Mister Cat obviously thought his new girlfriend was the greatest thing since the can-opener. He was showing her off to me, purring and crooning like an idiot, waltzing around her on the bed, practically turning somersaults. She seemed to be enjoying it, but I didn’t like seeing him that way—it reminded me too much of the changes in Sally. I said, “Okay, okay, I get the picture, settle down already. I just hope the Siamese Hussy never hears about this, that’s all.”

The Persian came up close to me then, without any prompting from Mister Cat, and she looked right into my eyes. Mister Cat does that all the time, but this was different. Those green eyes were like those stairs to the third floor, but without the boards blocking the way. You could feel yourself leaning, tilting toward them, beginning to climb… only I didn’t want to. No temptation, no hesitation. I shook my head, and I said, “Forget it. I’m tired and I’m going back to sleep. You can stay if you want, I don’t care. Just be quiet, don’t mess around. We’ll talk in the morning, whenever.”

And I did pull the covers up and wrap the pillow around my head and fall asleep again, with a ghost-cat on my bed, and my own cat fussing over her to make a complete fool of himself. I think I was more disgusted with him than I was scared of her. Mister Cat in love is not a pretty sight.

She was gone when I woke, and Mister Cat was snuggled under my arm, just as though he hadn’t spent the night doing God knows what with God knows what. When he saw I was awake, he started running through his usual cool-cat-in-the-morning routine: the long stretch, the tongue-curling yawn, the serious scratch, the careful touch-up wash, and then , finally, it’s the big bright eyes and what’s for breakfast? I just looked at him, the way he looks at me sometimes. I said, “It’s no good, give it up. I know everything.”

But I didn’t, and he knew I didn’t. He came over and bumped his head against my hand, once only, and I said, “All right, but don’t think I’m forgetting,” and we went to see about breakfast.

I haven’t worked on this for a few days now. Tony’s dance company made it as far west as Salisbury for once, so we all spent the weekend there and caught every performance, even though he only danced in a couple of numbers. And then he came home with us and stayed until Sally and Evan took him back to London, leaving Julian and me in charge of each other. Julian wants to see what I’ve written in the worst way, and I keep moving it around, hiding it from him, stashing it at Meena’s sometimes. Even Meena’s just seen a few pages, because it’s not ready. I’m stuck between who I think I was and who I think I am, between what happened to me and what I think really happened. All I wanted was to get it all down and done with, and now I don’t know. Maybe I’m the one who’s not ready.

Trying to write about seeing the ghost of a Persian cat doesn’t exactly clear the mind, either. As I’ve already said, if ghosts were possible, maybe it was all possible, everything—boggarts, Hedley Kows, UFOs, alligators in the sewers. Mrs. Chari, Meena’s mother, was in an earthquake once, and she said it felt as though the ground under her feet had all turned into water. That was how I felt after Mister Cat brought his new girlfriend around. I didn’t tell Meena after all, or Sally, or anybody. Not because I thought about whether they’d believe me or not. I just did not want to deal with it. I didn’t want to tell myself, even.

But I did come within that much of telling Tony. A few days after all this happened, he found me in a back pasture getting a cricket lesson from Julian. I can hit—I don’t see how you could not hit, with a flat bat—but I can’t pitch worth a damn. Bowl, I mean. Julian was showing me how to turn my wrist so the ball bounces away from the batter, when I looked around and saw Tony watching us. That made me nervous, but he wasn’t interested in making fun of me. He waited until Julian asked him if he wanted to play, and then he said, “Not right now, but I’d like to borrow Jenny for a bit. I’m trying to work something out, and I need a partner. Just for a few minutes, I promise.”

“I can’t dance,” I said. My heart started pounding, and I was running with sweat, that fast—not because of Tony, but because of the whole idea of dancing. “Take Julian, take Wilf—take Albert . You don’t want me, believe me.”

Both of them ignored me. Julian said, “You can have her, but only if I get to watch. I want to see Jenny dance.”

“Not a chance,” I said, just as Tony said, “Done, it’s a deal. But you have to be quiet .”

They were still arguing about whether it would be all right for Julian to giggle if he didn’t actually say anything, while I was being hustled off to Tony’s studio. I didn’t put up much of a fight, mainly because I was curious about what Tony actually did when he was pacing around in front of all his mirrors, mumbling to himself and slamming doors. And there was one stupid little part of me that kept wondering if maybe I could dance—if maybe panicking twice on the gym floor at Gaynor and running to the girls’ john both times to have dry heaves and cry in Marta’s lap didn’t mean I couldn’t learn a few moves. Maybe I wasn’t born to boogie, but to float; maybe the moment Tony took my hand I’d know . I wondered if he’d try to lift me, and that was scarier than ghosts or the third floor.