“That robin comes every evening during the cocktail hour,” Jane said. “He likes to tease Spook, I think. Stanley isn’t the slightest bit interested.”
“Are you going to have any more children, Jane?”
“We’d like to adopt a girl. After what I went through with Spook, I couldn’t face childbirth again. He was born at the camp, you know—a year or two after you left. I didn’t have proper prenatal care because I refused to go to that so-called doctor at the camp. Do you remember him?”
I nodded.“His office smelled more of whiskey than antiseptic.”
“He made passes at everybody, and I do meaneverybody!”
“They couldn’t get a really good doctor to go up there and live in those conditions.”
At that moment a large dog bounded over a fence and headed straight for the boy. Spook had been lying on the lawn, chewing a blade of grass, but he scrambled to his feet and headed for the nearest tree.
“Spook, no more climbing,please,” his mother called.“Juneau won’t hurt you. She just wants to play.”
The man in the Mexican shirt came to the fence, calling:“Here, Juneau. Come on home, baby.” To us he explained: “She broke her chain again. Sorry.”
Precisely as we finished our second drink, Stanley jumped down from his chair with a fifteen-poundthump and went to Jane, putting one paw on her knee.
“Stanley’s telling me it’s time for dinner,” she said. “Linda, I’ll put the ramekins in the microwave while I’m feeding the cat. Mrs. Phipps fixed chicken divan for us before she left. You might see if you can find the son-and-heir and tell him it’s time to wash up.”
I wandered around the grounds, noting the professionally perfect flower beds, until I found Spook. He was digging among the jonquils.“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Digging,” he said.
“You’re getting your jumpsuit all muddy. Come and clean up. It’s time for dinner.”
He raised his nose and sniffed.“Chicken!” he squealed, and headed for the house, running in joyful circles as he went. A few minutes later he appeared at the dinner table, looking spic and span in chinos and a tiger-striped shirt, with his face and hands scrubbed and his Buster Brown haircut combed to perfection.
We dined at a table on the deck, and Stanley tried to leap onto the redwood railing nearby, but he missed his footing and fell to the floor, landing on his back.
“Honestly, he’s the most awkward cat I’ve ever seen,” Jane muttered. “Come on, Stanley. Aunt Linda won’t mind if you sit with us at the table.” She indicated the fourth chair, and he lumbered up onto the seat, where he sat tall and attentively. She said: “Stanley’s mother was Maple Sugar. Do you remember her, Linda? She had a litter of five kittens, but he was the only one who survived. He’s a little odd, but isn’t he a beaut?”
Spook was picking chunks of chicken out of his ramekin and gobbling them hungrily.
“Don’t forget the broccoli, dear,” his mother said. “It makes little boys grow big and strong. Did you tell Aunt Linda you’re going to take swimming lessons?”
“I don’t want to take swimming lessons,” he announced.
“It will be fun, dear. And someday you might be a champion swimmer, just like Daddy before his accident.”
“I don’t want to take swimming lessons,” he repeated, and he scratched his ear vigorously.
“Not at the table,please,” his mother corrected him.
To change the touchy subject I asked:“What do you like to do best, Spook?”
“Go to the zoo,” he said promptly.
“Do you have any favorite animals?”
“Lions and tigers!” His eyes sparkled.
“That reminds me!” I said. Excusing myself, I ran upstairs for the gifts I had brought: a designer scarf for Jane; a cap for Spook, with a furry tiger head on top. My gift for Stanley—a plastic ball with a bell inside—seemed ridiculously inappropriate for the sedate cat. A videotape of Shakespearean readings might have been more to his taste, I told myself.
After Spook had been put to bed, Jane and I spent the evening chatting in the family room, accompanied—of course—by Stanley. Jane talked about her volunteer work and country club life and Ed’s engineering projects around the globe. I talked (boringly perhaps) about thyratrons and ignitrons and linear variable differential transformers. Stanley listened intently, putting in an occasional profound “mew.”
I said:“He reminds me of a Supreme Court justice or a distinguished prime minister. How old is he?”
“Same age as Spook. They say a year of a cat’s life is equivalent to seven in a human, so he’s really forty-two going on forty-nine. He and Spook were born on the same day, and we always have a joint birthday party. I never told you about Spook’s birth, did I? It’s a miracle that I lived through it … . Let’s have a nightcap, and then I’ll tell you.”
She poured sherry and then went on:“Ed intended to have me airlifted to a hospital when my time came, but Spook was three weeks early, and Ed was away—hiring some more construction workers. The doctor was on one of his legendary binges, and I refused to go to the infirmary; it was so crude. The boss’s wife and a woman from Personnel were with me, but I was screaming and moaning, and they were frantic. Finally the sheriff brought a midwife from the nearest town, and then I really did scream! All she needed was a broomstick and a tall black hat. At first I thought she was wearing a Halloween mask!”
“Oh, Lord!” I said. “They sent you Cora! Cora Sykes or Sypes or something. She took care of me when I had that terrible swamp fever, and I think she tried to poison me.”
“She was an evil woman. She hated everyone connected with the dam.”
“It’s no wonder she was bitter,” I said in Cora’s defense. “Her farm was due to be flooded when the dam was completed. She was forcibly removed from the house where she had lived all her life.”
Jane looked pensive.“Do you believe in witchcraft, Linda?”
“Not really.”
“There was a lot of gossip about that woman after you left the camp. She said—in fact, she boasted—that her ancestors had lived in Salem, Massachusetts. Does that ring a bell? … She told several people that she had put a curse on the dam.”
“I heard about that.”
“It looked to me as if the curse was working. After Ed’s horrible accident there was a string of peculiar mishaps and an epidemic of some kind. And I never told you this, Linda, but … Spook was born blind.”
“Jane! I didn’t know that! But he’s all right now, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he’s okay, but it gave us a bad scare for a while.”
We talked on and on, until I remembered that I had to catch an early plane in the morning.
After I went to bed I felt uneasy. Maplewood Farms and the dam-building experience were so far removed from my familiar world of tachometer generators and standard interface modules that I longed to return to New York. There was something unsettling, as well, about the boy and the cat. It was a situation I wanted to analyze later, when my perspective would be sharper. At that moment, exhaustion at the end of a busy week was putting me to sleep.
At some unthinkably early hour my slumber was disturbed by a strange sensation. Before opening my eyes I tried to identify it, tried to remember where I was. Not in my New York apartment. Not in a Chicago hotel. I was at Maplewood Farms, and Spook was licking my face!
I jumped to a sitting position.
“Mommy wants to know—eggs or French toast?” he recited carefully.
“Thank you, Spook, but all I want is a roll and coffee. It’s too early for anything more.”
Frankly, I was glad to say goodbye and head for the airport. The situation at Maplewood Farms was too uncomfortably weird. I dared not think about it while I was driving. After I had boarded the plane and fortified myself with a Bloody Mary, however, I tackled the puzzle of Spook’s tree climbing, bird stalking, and face licking. He did everything but purr! Could Jane’s inordinate fondness for cats have imprinted her son in some …spooky way?