Sophie Weston - Catching Katie

‘So where are you now?’

‘I’m house-sitting. On my own, this time.’

‘Good,’ said her mother. ‘You’ll be able to get on with your painting without those silly girls wasting your time.’

‘They were my friends,’ squawked Katie in protest. Even now, her mother’s single-mindedness could shock her.

She could almost see her mother shrug. ‘Never thought about anything but clothes or boys,’ she said, dismissing them.

Since that had been exactly the cause of their acrimonious break-up, Katie could not really argue with that.

She did, however, point out, ‘That’s life, Mother.’

There was a giant snort from the other end of the telephone. ‘Not for a serious artist,’ said her mother with conviction. ‘It’s time you faced up to it and did something about your talent.’

She rang off, briskly convinced that she had done her best for her only child.

‘Thank you, Mother,’ said Katie to the buzzing line.

Telling her father the news took an even shorter time. As usual, he was not at home. As usual, the crisp message on his answering machine reduced her to monosyllables. Katie left him the bare details of her new home. Her father always seemed to reduce her to a curt little voice, she thought, despairing. Even when she wanted to sound friendly she could not.

A drip detached itself from her hair and ran down her spine.

‘Sun,’ Katie told herself aloud. She shook her shoulders, as if that would get rid of the uneasy feeling talking to her parents always gave her. ‘I have a new home and the sun is shining. All is well with the world. Believe it.’

Haydon tipped his head back and watched the sun dance off the edge of the apple blossom. When he half closed his eyes the light refracted off his eyelashes into a thousand rainbows. His body felt light. He picked up the glass and drained his juice, then heard the glass fall to the floor as his hand missed the teak table. God, I must be more tired than I realised, he thought.

That must be why those girls in their battered van had irritated him. The redhead had looked as if she’d wanted to hit him. Shame, that. She’d been quite impossible, of course, with her travelling junk shop of belongings and her nasty temper. But still there had been something about her. He could not quite remember what. But something.

Bees hummed. The sun was warm on his skin. Haydon’s eyelids drooped. He slept.

Katie took a sketchpad and her chalks onto the lawn. Any other girl would have donned a bikini and stretched out in the sun, but Katie had her own reasons for not sunbathing. She did not even possess a bikini.

Instead she folded her long legs under her and began to sketch the lavish prospect: sky-blue grape hyacinths under a fall of star flowered jasmine, golden iris, wallflowers the colour of imperial velvet and perfumed like a night in paradise; lilac. . .

Katie drew a long breath of sheer happiness.

Her fingers flew. She forgot her parents, both the old tensions and new difficulties alike. Flowers bloomed on the paper. She hardly seemed to touch it and the image was there: half-formed, enigmatic, but somehow utterly the thing it was supposed to be. Katie worked like lightning, hardly believing her luck.

It was the lilac that was her downfall.

The tree was heavy with the drooping white blossom, but, try as she could, she could not get the curve of branch and flower. She left them and went on to draw the little lilies of the valley, cat-faced pansies, waving grasses. But time and again dissatisfaction drove her back.

She uncoiled herself. There was a branch about half-way up. It looped over the wall into the neighbouring garden but it had exactly the right arc, the right fall of blossom. It was out of reach from the ground but not impossibly high. It was touching the wall, though. Katie had done some conscientious research for her gardening responsibilities and she remembered that trees could get fungus if their branches were allowed to rub against brickwork.

‘Pruning,’ she said aloud. ‘That’s what it needs.’

And, incidentally, she would get her branch of lilac to paint without risking a terminal crick in the neck. Benefit all round, she thought, pleased. She went in search of secateurs.

Ten minutes later she was regretting the whole idea.

The lilac tree was old and sturdy. But it was not exactly the sort of tree you climbed when you were five foot ten and had never been a champion gymnast. Nevertheless, it had stood a long time, and one unwise assault was not likely to bring it crashing to the ground. Or so Katie found herself trying to believe.

‘I can do this,’ she said between clenched teeth. ‘I can.’

She looped an escaping swatch of soft hair behind her ear and applied herself to the problem. She also held onto the branch for dear life.

It had not looked this difficult when she’d started. The branch had looked nearer, the lilac tree had definitely been half its present height and there had been no sign at all of the dog on the other side of the wall. The dog was now jumping excitedly against the wall that divided the gardens. As it did so, it showed a fine set of healthy teeth.

Normally Katie liked dogs well enough. But she averted her eyes from those teeth. If only someone would come out of the house and put a muzzle on the wretched creature. Even the bad-tempered man who had not liked Andrea’s van would have been better than no one.

‘Hello?’ she called out tentatively.

Haydon Tremayne stirred, not opening his eyes. He frowned. Something had disturbed him. He did not know what it was. He did not like it.

Somebody wanted him to do something. No, not somebody: a woman. Again. Why wouldn’t they leave him alone? He turned his head away from the source of the noise.

‘No,’ he muttered.

No response. The house looked as deserted as the summer garden. No sign of this morning’s bully. No one to catch her if she fell out of the lilac tree. Katie set her teeth. She was on her own.

‘I got myself into this. I can get myself out of it. I can.’ She said it aloud. It seemed more convincing that way.

The tree wobbled. She clutched convulsively at her branch. There were twigs in her hair and her bare arms would carry the scratches for a long time. If she got down at all.

‘Nonsense. Of course I’ll get down.’ It was, Katie thought, the bracing tone she used to her least talented pupils. It did not convince them either.

Below her the dog reared up on its back legs. At its full height both paws reached high enough up the wall to come within touching distance. It barked once. It was not reassuring.

‘Good dog,’ said Katie without conviction.

It seemed to encourage the animal, she saw dismally. Not taking its eyes off her, it set up a pleasurable barking that would, surely, have roused the neighbourhood—if there was anyone about to be roused. The dog began to drool.

Haydon was not sure whether he was dreaming. He turned his head restlessly. He knew he should be moving, doing something. Even on this warm Saturday, he had a load of work. So maybe it was the voice of conscience sounding through his head like a wild hunt. He became aware of a vast indignation at a world which would not even let him drowse in his own garden for half an hour. He stirred angrily, trying to burrow into the canvas cushions under his head and shut out the noise.

The barking increased to decibels a rock band would envy. If she had not been clinging desperately to the trunk of the tree, Katie would have put her hands over her ears. She could only pray that the touchy millionaire was not at home. Or her tenancy of the house would be over in less than twenty-four hours.

‘Hush,’ Katie hissed.

The dog took no notice. The tree seemed to sway. She grabbed. She heard an ominous cracking.