Nicola Barker - Darkmans

Laura glanced over at Kane as she spoke, trying to gauge his reaction, plainly still not entirely resolved on this issue herself.

‘That’s fair enough, I guess,’ Kane shrugged.

‘Yes.’ Laura nodded violently as she plugged in the kettle, ‘Yes…I mean that’s such a typically male way of going about things, don’t you think?’

‘What is?’

‘To want to just throw everything out and start afresh…’

Kane smirked. ‘ God . You should meet my dad — he’s the total opposite. He never gets rid of anything. He’s stuck in a complete time-warp. He lives like a refugee from the late 1950s…’

‘I have met your dad,’ Laura observed, testily.

‘Oh…yeah,’ Kane winced, ‘of course…’

‘And he seems very nice ,’ Laura emphasised, her cheeks flushing as she pulled a thick, slightly broken cork stopper from an ugly-looking red jar with TEA written on it and removed two bags from inside.

‘Like I said on the phone,’ Kane murmured, ‘I’m really sorry about Gaffar — he was totally out of line…’

A cat came trotting into the kitchen as Kane spoke, its arrival heralded by the jangling of a small bell. Kane glanced over towards it, distractedly. ‘He should’ve been more discreet. I had a stern word with him about it…’

The cat was a Siamese. A blue-point.

‘No. No. I’m the one who should apologise,’ Laura sighed. ‘I shouldn’t have got so upset earlier,’ she shrugged, ‘it’s just a tricky situation, that’s all.’

‘How so?’

The cat commenced winding itself, somewhat feverishly, around Kane’s ankles.

‘Well Pat’s set up this little group , this little committee , to try and put pressure on the Council to get this road crossing built…’

While Laura spoke Kane subtly tried to push the cat away with his foot, but it was extremely persistent. He glanced down at it, irritably.

‘ Wow …’ he suddenly exclaimed. ‘This cat’s just like Beede’s. In fact it’s almost identical…’

Then he frowned.

‘It’s wearing a bell,’ he added, his voice falling strangely flat.

‘I know. I just caught Dora — the security guy — putting that on him,’ she grumbled. ‘I mean he feeds him and keeps an eye on the place when Tom’s away, but putting a bell on someone else’s cat is taking things a little far, don’t you think?’

Kane stared down at the cat again, without comment.

‘I really should’ve said something at the time,’ Laura continued, ‘but I chickened out.’

‘What’s his name?’ Kane asked.

‘Dora. He’s German.’

Kane stared at her, blankly.

‘Oh — you mean the cat . He’s called Manny.’

‘I see…’

Kane nodded, feeling a slight twitching sensation in his foot, like a bad case of pins and needles, or a mild case of cramp.

‘It’s short for Chairman Mao…’ she frowned. ‘Which I’ve always thought was rather an ugly name for such a sweet, little thing…’

Kane smiled, thinly. ‘I think it’s meant to be a joke,’ he explained. ‘It’s the name of a famous, Chinese dictator…’

‘Really?’ Laura looked amazed. ‘How strange . A dictator? But what’s so funny about that?’

‘Nothing, in principle. It’s just a play on words…’

‘But how’s that any different…’ Laura scowled, confused, ‘from calling the poor animal Adolf? Or…or Thatcher ?’

‘It isn’t…’ Kane glanced back down at the cat again ‘…Although — now you come to mention it — Thatcher’s probably quite a good name for a cat.’

‘Are you serious?’

Laura seemed horrified by the notion.

‘So you were telling me about this road crossing thing, this committee…?’ Kane tried his best to return to their former subject, but Laura was having none of it.

‘I mean if he was so concerned about the poor creature he should’ve turned up last night and fed him, don’t you think?’

‘Uh…yes,’ Kane nodded. ‘Absolutely.’

‘And did you notice that awful bruise ?’

‘Pardon?’

‘That awful bruise he had? On his forehead?’

‘No,’ Kane lied, ‘I didn’t.’

‘Well it was huge . All purple and pink and swollen…’ she grimaced, gazing down at the cat again. The cat shook himself, vigorously, and his bell jangled accordingly.

‘I’m going to take that stupid thing off ,’ she huffed, bending down and snapping her fingers to attract his attention. ‘ Manny? Come over here, my love…’

No reaction

‘Manny, baby, come here, come to Aunty Laura…’

The cat continued rubbing himself, lasciviously, up against Kane’s calf.

Laura gently clapped her hands together.

‘ Hey! Gorgeous! Remember me? Come on! Come over here!’

The cat sat down and began licking his shoulder.

‘Do you like cats, Kane?’ Laura asked, finally straightening up.

‘No,’ Kane admitted, ‘not especially.’

‘It’s strange, but they really seem to sense it when a person doesn’t like them,’ Laura beamed. ‘It’s a kind of special power they have. Cats are always drawn to the one person in a room who isn’t actually keen on them…’

‘I’m not sure if it’s a special power as such,’ Kane demurred, ‘I think it’s just a body language thing. In cat psychology if you turn your head away then that’s a sign of respect. If you stare, a cat interprets that as a show of hostility. Dogs respond in basically the same way…’

Laura gazed at him, wide-eyed.

‘So why d’you think he stuck the bell on him?’ Kane wondered, keen to return to less contentious ground.

‘I don’t know,’ Laura shrugged, ‘I just walked into the room and there he was, fastening it on. He said something about it being “better for the bird”. He said it was a “warning” for the bird. But I don’t think it’s really his place to make a decision like that, do you?’

‘No,’ Kane agreed.

‘Which bird, anyway?’ she wondered. ‘Tom and Pat don’t even have a bird.’

‘I see.’

‘We have a bird — a parrot — but Manny isn’t my cat, obviously. And our bird lives in a cage.’

‘Perhaps he just meant birds in general, wild birds…’

‘Wild birds?’ Laura looked frightened. ‘ Which wild birds?’

‘I mean the wild birds outside, the garden birds…’

‘Oh…’ Laura considered this for a while and then shook her head. ‘But Manny’s a house cat. Always has been. Pat’s last home was near a main road so she never risked letting him out…’

‘Maybe his English isn’t quite up to scratch,’ Kane suggested.

She shrugged. ‘Maybe…’ then turned towards the kettle as it came to the boil. ‘I’m actually quite fed up with him, to tell you the truth.’

‘The security guy?’

She nodded, grabbing the kettle and pouring boiling water into an old, brown teapot. ‘Everybody just loves him around here — Charlie thinks he’s wonderful —and he and Tom go way back. They worked together on the Channel Tunnel…’

Kane watched as Laura stirred the pot and then popped on the lid.

‘Sorry…’ he suddenly said, ‘they worked together…?’

‘On the tunnel. The Chunnel . That’s how they first met. But now he’s gone and stuck his oar in over all this road crossing stuff — insisting on bringing your dad on board because of the influence he apparently has with the Council…’ she paused, scowling. ‘And I’m sure if he hadn’t stuck his nose in then Pat might’ve just dropped the whole thing. I mean Tom knows we’re not terribly keen on the idea. He tried to have a word with her, but once Pat has a bee in her bonnet…’