The drizzle had stopped by the time she reached her flat. The wrought-iron gate in front of the Victorian terraced house was open, as it always was since the hinges had dropped and wedged it against the path. The tiny garden, no bigger than a large rug, had been flagged over by a previous occupant, but a gap had been left in the centre for a thorny huddle of rose bushes. They needed pruning, Kate noticed absently. She went into the small open porch and unlocked the front door.
Envelopes were splashed on the black and white tiles in the cramped hallway. She bent and picked them up, shuffling through for those addressed to her. There were only two; one a bill, the other a bank statement. The rest was junk mail. She divided it up and put half on her ground-floor neighbour’s coconut-fibre welcome mat. As she straightened, the door opened and the old lady who lived there beamed out at her.
“I thought I heard someone.”
Kate mustered a smile. “Hello, Miss Willoughby, how are you?”
Her heart sank as the woman emerged further, leaning heavily on her walking stick. The dark green woollen dress was immaculately pressed, as usual, and the blue-grey wig sat incongruously on top of the wizened face, like a hat.
“Very well, thank you.” She looked down at the circulars on her mat. “Are they for me? “Kate picked them up again and handed them to her, resigned to seeing the routine through.
“Nothing exciting, I don’t think.”
As far as she could tell, Miss Willoughby never received any letters. But she always came out to check when Kate arrived home. Kate knew she was only using the post as an excuse, and usually didn’t mind chatting to her for a few minutes. That evening, though, it was an unwelcome effort.
Miss Willoughby peered through her gold-rimmed spectacles at the fliers and special offers, and for a moment Kate thought she might escape easily. She started drifting towards her door, but then the old lady looked up again. “No, nothing there for me. Still, you never know, do you?”
Kate forced a smile of agreement as Miss Willoughby leaned both hands on her walking stick, a sure sign that she was settling herself for a lengthy conversation. But before she could say anything else, a grey shape emerged with a clatter through the cat flap in the front door. The tom cat miaowed and rubbed around Kate’s legs, then darted towards the old lady’s doorway.
“No, you don’t, Dougal,” Kate said, grabbing it. The cat, a big tabby, squirmed to be put down. “I’d better take him in. If he gets in your flat we’ll never get him out,” she said, seizing the opportunity.
Miss Willoughby’s smile never wavered. “Oh, that’s all right. But I won’t keep you. I expect you’ll both be hungry.”
With a final goodnight, she went back inside as Kate unlocked her own door. There was a cat flap in that as well, but Dougal saw no reason to use it when Kate was there to let him in. She closed the door behind her before letting the cat jump down. His miaows receded towards the kitchen as he ran up the carpeted stairs. Kate followed more slowly, feeling churlish now for dodging the old lady. Sighing, she took off her jacket, wrinkling her nose at the lingering smell of smoke. She put it on a coat-hanger, ready to take to the cleaners, and it was only when she saw the bulge in one pocket that she remembered the mitten. The irrationality of the impulse that had made her keep it disturbed her. Decisively, she took it out and went to the bin in the kitchen. The lid sprang open when she stamped on the foot pedal, releasing a faint, sweet smell of rot. Kate looked at the hash of egg shells and vegetable peelings, holding the mitten poised above them. But she was no more able to throw it away now than before. She took her foot from the pedal, letting the lid slap down, and went back into her bedroom. Pulling open a drawer, she thrust the mitten far into the back under a pile of clean towels, then pushed the drawer firmly shut.
Kate went back into the hall, untying her hair with a little sigh of relief. The message light was flashing on the answerphone. She played back the tape, but whoever it had been had hung up without speaking.
Barefoot, she went into the lounge. Like the rest of the flat, its walls were plain white, partly because she preferred the simplicity of such a colour scheme, and partly because the house faced away from the sun and was quite dark. Even now, when it was still light outside, the white walls did little to lift the gloomy twilight.
Kate switched on a table lamp. The furniture in the room was clean-lined and modern, except for an old pine seaman’s trunk that served as a coffee table. On the wall was an abstract oil she’d bought from an exhibition, the only splash of colour on the otherwise blank backdrop. The flat was much cosier in winter, when the long nights came and she could draw the curtains and fill the corners with artificial light. Now, though, dark as the flat was, there was something not quite right about having a lamp on when it was still daylight outside. She turned it off again and switched on the TV instead. Idly, she flicked through the channels. There was nothing on that interested her, but it illuminated the room a little, and the sound of voices gave the flat a less empty feel.
There was a miaow as the cat wrapped himself around her legs, butting his head against her ankles. “You hungry, Dougal?” She picked him up. He was big, even for a tom, with close-set eyes that gave him a stupid, perpetually surprised expression. He had come with the flat, an extra that hadn’t been mentioned by the estate agent when she’d bought it. The middle-aged couple who’d lived there before hadn’t bothered to take their pet with them when they’d left. Kate hadn’t wanted a cat, but Dougal had been either too stupid or too determined to accept that. He wriggled free and jumped onto the floor, miaowing. “All right, I know it’s dinnertime.” Kate went into the kitchen and took a tin of cat food from the wall cupboard.
The cat jumped up onto the work surface and tried to eat the meat as she was forking it into the dish. She pushed him back down. “Just wait, gutbucket.
“Kate set the dish on the floor and watched as the cat began to gulp at the food. She considered getting something to eat herself. She opened the fridge, stared inside, then closed it again. A bray of false laughter came from the lounge. Kate went back in. A sitcom was on the TV, noisy and colourful. She switched it off. The hysterical images disappeared as the screen went blank, the laughter abruptly severed. Silence crowded into the room. It seemed darker than ever, but she made no move to turn on the lamp. From the kitchen she heard the faint sound of the cat’s dish softly scraping on the kitchen floor. What’s wrong with me? Winning the Parker Trust account was the biggest coup of her career. She should have been euphoric. Instead she felt nothing. There was no satisfaction, no sense of having achieved anything. Nothing, after all, had changed. She looked around the darkening lounge. Is this it? Is this all there’s going to be. The sound of the cat-flap slapping shut came from the hallway. Dougal had eaten his fill and gone out again. She was alone. All at once the darkness, the quiet was oppressive. She turned on the lamp and quickly set the CD playing without caring what was in it. The sound of Tom Jones belting out “It’s Not Unusual filled the room. Kate went into the hallway and picked up the phone. She had made no arrangements to go out that evening, knowing that if she had lost the pitch she wouldn’t want to. Now, though, the thought of staying in by herself appalled her. The phone rang only twice at the other end before a woman’s voice answered. “Hello?”
“Hi, Lucy, it’s Kate.”
“Oh, Kate, hi! Hang on.” There was a hollow clunk as the receiver went down. Kate heard Lucy raising her voice in the background. There was a childish objection that she overruled, then she was back. “Sorry about that. Slight disagreement over which programme we want to watch.”