Cat's Paw (33 page)

‘Don’t think we are,’ said Dad.

‘Then we’re all living here now? Mum as well?’

‘In this dump? I think not.’ Lucy Gallagher snorted. ‘Which reminds me, Ray. That pinball machine in the living room…’

The next day he went back to school. Few remarked on his absence before the holidays, though he had to think quickly when Miss Bird, his form teacher, asked if his tonsillitis was better.
Walking home he took the turning that led to Tiffany’s house. He braced himself and rang the doorbell.

‘Oh,’ said Peter Maine. A rat on the porch would have got a more welcoming look.

‘Is Tiffany around?’

‘No. And she can’t be disturbed.’

Tiffany’s voice called down. ‘Let him in.’

‘See here.’ Mr Maine came out onto the step. ‘I think it’s best if you stay away. Don’t you?’

‘I said let him in, Dad.’

Mr Maine’s face quivered. Taking that as a yes, Ben slipped inside and upstairs.

Tiffany was in bed. Had been, Ben guessed, for several days. The sheets had the look of mixed cement starting to set. He sat near her feet.

‘I see your dad’s still my number-one fan.’

‘Sorry. He’ll be worse than ever now.’

‘He doesn’t know–?’

‘All they know is that something’s happened. Something awful. Some reason why I won’t stop crying.’ She gave a choking laugh. ‘It’s obvious. They think
you’re my boyfriend.’

‘Ha. Funny.’

‘And that you’ve dumped me. And now you’ve come to upset me even more. Maybe you should leave by the window.’

‘Thanks for the tip.’ He sat where he was. She was clutching an elderly teddy bear, which he pretended not to notice. A queasy thought crept up on him.

‘What about your arms? The claw wounds? Your parents must have seen them, they must have.’

‘No,’ said Tiffany. ‘Long sleeves. Sulking in my room. I’m good at secrets.’

‘But the doctor…’

‘He won’t tell. He didn’t even ask me how I got them. He just stitched up every cut, one after the other. Then he asked if I was unhappy.’ Tiffany shrugged. ‘I said
no.’

‘Do they hurt still?’

‘I don’t notice.’ Her face lost all its shape. Tears sluiced down her cheeks. ‘Ben. I can’t feel this way. I can’t bear it.’

Ben said nothing. What could he say?

‘I’m giving it up. Pashki. I’m giving it up. I won’t ever do it again.’

‘Okay.’ Now he couldn’t even reach for her hand. ‘Okay.’

‘It was me,’ Tiffany whimpered. ‘I killed her.’

‘No.’

‘I did. I tracked her down. I did exactly what he wanted me to do. I should have seen it. He couldn’t find her himself because he didn’t–’ she shuddered from deep
inside, ‘he didn’t love her.’

Ben twisted a corner of her bed sheet.

‘If it wasn’t for me,’ Tiffany whispered, ‘she’d still be alive.’

‘It was Geoff,’ Ben burst out. ‘He didn’t have to connect that detonator, did he? And she didn’t have to stay and fight him. But she did. To save us.’

‘I helped Geoff to get her.’

‘He used you,’ said Ben. ‘It’s not your fault.’

‘It is. I wanted her back. I wanted to find her so badly.’

‘Yes.
You
wanted to.’ Ben found he was holding her hand. ‘You’d have done it anyway. No-one could have stopped you. That’s how it works. We know
that.’

She stared into space. Her head wobbled, a nod maybe.

‘That’s the other worst thing. The Oshtian Compass. I thought it would stop, now she’s gone. But it’s still there. In here.’ She pressed Ben’s fingers into
her stomach below her ribs. ‘I can feel its needle sort of… spinning. Going crazy. Trying to point to something that isn’t there.’ Abruptly she pushed him away. ‘Oh,
what’s the use. You never really liked her.’

‘I’ve dreamt about her every night since,’ Ben confessed. ‘Her face. Over and over. Telling me to go and help you instead of her. It was the last thing she said.
I–’ He broke off. He always awoke from that dream on a pillow wet against his cheek.

‘Sorry,’ said Tiffany. ‘Didn’t mean it.’ She gave an exhausted sigh.

‘The weirdest thing,’ said Ben. ‘I even miss
him
. Geoff. Even though I know what he was. I miss the person I thought he was. I remember someone who felt like, oh, like
he was a friend. Who did some good things.’ He looked to Tiffany, exasperated. ‘Was he ever real? Was any of it real?’

She turned her head to face the wall.

‘I don’t miss him.’

She made Ben leave before her parents kicked up a fuss. Weary bedsprings creaked underneath her. Her stitched wounds itched, raging hot. Farmers were burning stubble on her arms. Rufus came to
lie on her duvet, purring as if he had swallowed a live dove. Her hand lay upon his back. The digits of her clock tiptoed from 5:20 to 6:20. At twenty-eight minutes past seven came a knock at the
door.

‘Go away.’

The door opened.

‘No, Stuart. Go away.’

‘I need to rest first. I’m practising walking with these.’ Stuart had been prescribed a new pair of KAFOs to brace his legs, as he was outgrowing his old ones. ‘Doctor
Bijlani says to try short distances first. It’s a short distance to your room.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I could use some help with the PM.’

‘PM? Prime Minister?’

‘Paranormal Map. It needs some adjustments.’

Oh, if it would get rid of him. She rolled herself out of bed. Crossing the landing behind her brother’s ponderous steps she felt hollow and light, transparent from weeping. Up on
Stuart’s wall was the map of the British Isles, speckled with coloured dots.

‘Need more pins pushing in?’

‘Actually,’ said Stuart, slumping into his chair, ‘I need you to take some out. Down there.’

In the shaded patch that was London she saw a cluster of green pins. Nine of them.

‘I thought green ones were sightings of the Loch Ness Monster?’

‘They used to be. But under the old system I had too many greens left over. So now they represent people with supernatural cat skills.’

‘What,’ she asked, suspicious, ‘am I doing with them?’

‘Well.’ Stuart pushed up his arms to make a shrug. ‘It’s not accurate anymore, is it?’

‘In what sense?’

‘You’re giving up your pashki. Which means the others will probably give up too.’

‘I told you not to spy on me.’

‘I forgot. Anyway, you see the problem. I need you to take all the green pins out. I can’t do it myself.’ He lifted a book on UFOs off the arm of his chair and used both hands
to guide it to his bedside table. ‘I don’t have the strength to pull a pin out of a notice board.’

Oh, she saw what this was about. It was a nice try. It wouldn’t work.

‘Fine, I’ll do it. They’re gone.’

She plucked out the first pin fiercely. That was easy. The second was harder, for it was stuck in very deep. On the third, her bloodless fingers couldn’t get a grip. She tugged. She tugged
some more. The pin wobbled like a loose tooth. She resolved to do the others first and come back to that one. All at once her hand went heavy.

‘Forget it! I’m not in the mood for your silly games.’

She stormed from his room and flopped back into bed. Then she felt suddenly hungry and had to nip downstairs for a bowl of corn flakes.

At the weekend Ben called on Olly. Apart from an egg-sized lump on his head he seemed in good spirits, and his parents had virtually ignored his curious injuries. ‘In the Sanders
family,’ he explained, ‘we have accidents. Dad says I take after Clumsy Uncle Bob.’ Olly had heard from Yusuf, whose leg, to the despair of his football coach, was in plaster.
They talked for a while in Olly’s bedroom about all that had happened. Ben had hoped that talking might help. It didn’t seem to.

The tower that had blown up too soon became a local news sensation. A week later the story went national, when the diggers clearing the rubble uncovered the pulverised remains of two people. Ben
couldn’t bear it, switching off whenever the report came on.

On Monday, trudging home from school in the drizzle, a flutter in a rubbish bin made him stop. He fished out a sodden page of newspaper and scanned it, wondering what had caught his eye. Then he
saw the second story.
Soap star’s son ‘returns from the dead’
. He read it and reread it to make doubly sure. The details were few. Tony Sherwood, better known as teacher
Keith Grogan in
Eastenders
… his son, missing since the age of ten…tearful reunion… A photo of Tony Sherwood’s character but not his son.

Ben folded the wet newspaper into his schoolbag. He no longer noticed the rain. Thomas had made it home. Ben did something he hadn’t done for years – he jumped in a puddle. Mum would
moan about his trousers and even that would feel good. He paused before the next puddle. There was still Hannah. What about her? In his heart, he knew that she too would be all right. Either
Thomas’s family would help her or, more likely, she herself had already plucked up the courage to ask someone where Cambridge was, and had found her way back to the house she’d once
left to go shopping with her mum. Here was her finger, reaching for the doorbell.

Ben didn’t jump in the second puddle, though, because his phone rang. It was Tiffany.

‘I’ll tell you what else I’m glad to see the back of,’ she snapped.

Ben got the impression that he’d missed the first half of this argument.

‘Er, what?’

‘Hiring that crummy church hall,’ said Tiffany. ‘Week after week. It was always me who had to phone the warden, and then squeeze the money out of you lot. At least that’s
the end of that.’

‘But what about–’ Ben was going to mention the cemetery chapel, then remembered that this had been Geoff’s idea. ‘What if we did start classes again? I could do all
that stuff.’

‘You? You’d forget after two weeks.’

‘Okay then,’ said Ben. ‘How about this week and next week?’

‘Dunno.’

‘All you have to do is turn up. I’ll book the hall and everyone will be there. Guaranteed.’

‘Yusuf’s got a broken leg.’

‘Exactly. No more football practice.’

‘Hadn’t thought of that.’

‘And Olly will not be late.’

‘Ha. I’ll believe that when I see it.’

‘You’ve got to be there to see it,’ Ben pointed out. ‘There’s just one thing.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Don’t forget to bring your three pounds.’

At last, she laughed.

Ben relished his new role of club secretary for about five minutes, after which it made him want to climb the walls as he tried to fit it in with school, homework, the arcade, and spending as
much time as he could with Mum and Dad. It amazed him that Tiffany hadn’t complained about it more. In that first lesson the Cat Kin mostly just talked, but it felt right to be meeting again.
Olly spent much of the second class decorating Yusuf’s cast with graffiti. Still, Ben had lasted his two weeks, and then he managed a third.

It was Wednesday lunchtime. Tired of sandwiches he left the school grounds in search of proper junk food. He bought a Cornish pasty from the shop on the corner. When he came out he saw a cat. It
was sitting, amusingly, on the warm leather of a motorcycle seat. It swivelled its head to look at him.

‘Jim?’

Ben was proud to admit that usually he couldn’t tell one cat from another. But this cat, Mrs Powell’s cat, he could have picked out of a line-up. The frosty coat ingrained with
black, the bewitching olivine eyes. But Jim should still be in Dartmoor, shouldn’t he? Two hundred miles from here.