Catfantastic II

'Of course.'

Two days later, it was possible to tell Pearl that Clara had forgotten being told-of course she had told her about the calls, but since this latest stroke, and with the new medications… Jeannie delivered this information in a low voice, just inside the front door. Pearl herself looked sick, her wisps of white hair standing out in disarray, her deep voice more hoarse than musical. If Jeannie had been capable of it, she would have felt pity for Pearl then-she knew she ought to, an old woman whose oldest friend was fading into senility-but what she felt was coarse triumphant glee. Old cow, she thought, I should try you next. Pearl was nodding, showing no suspicion; perhaps she was too tired. '.

She left them alone, and went to fix them tea; she could just hear Pearl 's deep voice, and a wisp of plaintive trembling treble that must be Clara. When she came in with the tray, Clara's hands were shaking so that she could not hold the cup.

'Are you sure you told me, dear?' she asked Jeannie. 'You couldn't have forgotten?'

'I'm sure, Aunt Clara. I'm sorry-maybe you were still sleepy, or maybe the medicine…' She held the cup to Clara's lips, waited for her to slurp a little-no longer so ladylike in her sips-and set it down.

Pearl, leaning back in her chair, suddenly sniffed. Jeannie stiffened; she had bathed Clara carefully (that duty she would always perform) and instantly suspected Pearl of trying to make her feel inferior. But Pearl merely looked puzzled.

'Do you have a cat again, Clara?' she asked. Jeannie relaxed, relieved. She answer for her aunt.

'No, but there's a stray, and he… uh… he… you know.'

'He sprays the house? It must be, to smell that strong on a chilly day. I thought perhaps indoors-'

'Did I ever tell you about the time Snowball clawed the minister's wife?' asked Clara brightly. Jeannie glanced at Pearl, and met a wistful and knowing glance. She accepted that silent offer of alliance as silently, and told her aunt no.

After that it was as easy as she'd hoped. November continued cold and damp; Clara's friends came rarely, and readily believed Jeannie's excuses on the telephone. Once or twice she let a call go through, when Clara was drowsy with medicine and not making much sense. Soon the calls dwindled, except on sunny bright days when they asked if they could come see her. This Jeannie always encouraged so eagerly that everyone knew how hard it was on her, poor dear, all alone with dying Clara.

When they came, Clara would be exquisitely clean and neat, arrayed in her best bedjacket; Jeannie, in something somber and workmanlike. They never smelled alcohol on her breath; they never saw bottles or cans in the house. They never came without calling, because, as Jeannie had explained, 'Sometimes I'm up most of the night with her, you know, and I do nap in the day sometimes…' That was only fair; no one could fault her for that, or wanted to bring her out, sleepy and rumpled, to answer the doorbell.

It was true that Clara's monthly allowance from the trust would not buy Jeannie what she wanted. She began in the cedar chests which were full of a long lifetime's accumulation: old handpainted china tea sets, antique dolls and doll clothes, handmade quilts and crocheted afghans. She would not risk the county seat, but it was less than fifty miles to the big city, where no one knew anyone else, and handcrafted items brought a good price.

Gradually, week by week, she pilfered more: an old microscope that had belonged to Clara's dead husband, a set of ruby glass that they never used, a pair of silver candlesticks she found in the bottom cupboard in the dining room. Clara had jewellery that had been her mother's and her older sisters', jumbled together in a collection of old jewellery boxes, white and red and green padded leather, hidden in bureau drawers all over the house, under linens and stationery and faded nightgowns from Clara's youth and brief marriage. With one eye on the bed, where Clara lay dozing, Jeannie plucked first one then another of the saleable items: a ruby ring, a gold brooch, a platinum ring with diamond chips, a pair of delicate gold filigree earrings.

Autumn passed into winter, a gray, nasty December followed by a bleak and bitter January. Jeannie felt the cold less, with her secret cache of favorite beverages and pills. Pearl came once a week or so, on good days, but Jeannie always had plenty of warning… and Clara now knew better than to complain. Jeannie had used no force (she had read about it), but threats of the nursing home sufficed. And it was not like real cruelty. As she'd told Clara, 'What if it does take me a little while sometimes… at least you got a nurse to yourself, on call day and night, and that's more than you'd get there. They let people like you lie in a wet bed… they don't come running. You ought to be glad you've got me to take care of you-because you don't have no place else.' She felt good about that, really, even using bad grammar on purpose. The world was not the bright, shiny gold ring Clara had told her about when she was a child; using good grammar didn't get you anywhere she wanted to go.

She intended it to be over before spring. She could not possibly stand another summer in this dump. But picking a time, and a precise method-that was harder. Clara slept most of the day now, helped by liberal doses of medicine; the doctor was understanding when Jeannie explained that she needed her own sleep, and couldn't be up and down all the time when her aunt was agitated. Jeannie watched her, half-hoping she'd quit breathing on her own. But the old lady kept breathing, kept opening her eyes every morning and several times a day, kept wanting to talk, in that breathy and staggering voice, about the old days.

And especially, to Jeannie's disgust, about cats. Snowball, of course, first and always. But she sent Jeannie out to find and bring into the bedroom the other cats, the china ones and glass ones and the elegant woodcarving of a Siamese that Jeannie had not noticed in a corner cabinet until Clara told her which shelf. Clara not only talked about cats, she seemed to talk to them: to the picture ('Snowball, you beauty, you dear…') and the china cats ('You're so sleek, so darling…') It made Jeannie gag. So did the tang of tomcat, which remained even in cold weather. Had the cat hit a hot-water pipe, Jeannie wondered? Was it living under the house, in the crawl space?

In the middle of January, Pearl came one day without calling first. Jeannie wakened suddenly in midmorning, aware of the doorbell's dying twang. Her mouth was furry and tasted horrible; she knew her eyes were bleary. She popped two breath mints, put on her hooded robe, and peered out the spyhole. Pearl, muffled in layers of brilliant knitting, stood hunched over a walker on the front porch, holding a folded newspaper in her hand. Jeannie opened the door, backing quickly away from the gust of cold air. 'Sorry,' she said vaguely. 'I've had a sort of cold, and I was up last night…'

'That's all right, dear, and I won't disturb Clara-' Pearl handed her the paper. 'I just thought you should know, to break it gently-our other classmate, May, died yesterday in the nursing home.'

'Oh, how terrible.' She knew what to say, but felt the morning after lassitude dragging at her mind. 'Sit down?'

'No.' Pearl glanced at Clara's shut bedroom door. 'I don't think I-I mean, I might cry… I would cry… and she'd be more upset. Pick your time, dear.' And shaking her head to Jeannie's offers of a cup of tea or a few minutes of rest, she edged her way back out and down the walk in careful steps behind the walker. Jeannie watched through the window, then glanced at the paper. 'May Ellen Freeman, graduated high school in '17, one of the last few…' The newspaper writer had let herself go, wallowing in sentimentality.

It was, in fact, the perfect excuse. Everyone knew that old people were more fragile, could fall apart when their friends died. Pearl was using a walker- Pearl, who two weeks ago had climbed the front steps on her own. So if she told Clara, and Clara's heart stopped, who would question it? And she would choose her time carefully.

Clara, of course, was awake, and had heard the doorbell. Another mistake, Jeannie told her. She hurried Clara though the morning routine-after all, they were late-rushing her through the bedpan part, bathing her as quickly as she could, changing the bed with quick, jerking tugs at the sheets. She even apologized, with the vague feeling that she ought to be polite to someone she was going to kill in a few minutes, for being late. She'd felt a cold coming on, she'd had a headache last night, she'd taken more aspirin than she should. Clara said nothing; her tiny face had crumpled even further.

'I'll get your breakfast,' said Jeannie, carrying away the used bed linens. Her head was beginning to pound with the effort of thought. She glanced at the clock as she pushed the sheets into the washer. After ten already! Suppose they did an autopsy… Clara would have nothing in her stomach, and she should have had breakfast. Could Jeannie say she had refused her breakfast? Sometimes she did. A snack now? The thought of cooking turned Jeannie's stomach, but she put a kettle on the stove and turned on the back burner. Tea, perhaps, and something warmed in the microwave. She went to her room and brushed her hair vigorously, slapped her face to get the color in it. In her mind she was explaining to the doctor how Clara had seemed weaker that morning, hadn't eaten, and