Completely Unexpected Tales Read online

  ‘What is it now?’ he said. ‘I’d like some tea.’ He had one of those narrow, sharp-nosed, faintly magenta faces, and the sweat was making it shine as though it were a long wet grape.

  ‘It’s the cat!’ Louisa cried, pointing to it sitting quietly on the piano stool. ‘Just wait till you hear what’s happened!’

  ‘I thought I told you to take it to the police.’

  ‘But, Edward, listen to me. This is terribly exciting. This is a musical cat.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘This cat can appreciate music, and it can understand it too.’

  ‘Now stop this nonsense, Louisa, and for God’s sake let’s have some tea. I’m hot and tired from cutting brambles and building bonfires.’ He sat down in an armchair, took a cigarette from a box beside him, and lit it with an immense patent lighter that stood near the box.

  ‘What you don’t understand,’ Louisa said, ‘is that something extremely exciting has been happening here in our own house while you were out, something that may even be… well… almost momentous.’

  ‘I’m quite sure of that.’

  ‘Edward, please!’

  Louisa was standing by the piano, her little pink face pinker than ever, a scarlet rose high up on each cheek. ‘If you want to know,’ she said, ‘I’ll tell you what I think.’

  ‘I’m listening, dear.’

  ‘I think it might be possible that we are at this moment sitting in the presence of –’ She stopped, as though suddenly sensing the absurdity of the thought.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You may think it silly, Edward, but it’s honestly what I think.’

  ‘In the presence of whom, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘Of Franz Liszt himself!’

  Her husband took a long slow pull at his cigarette and blew the smoke up at the ceiling. He had the tight-skinned, concave cheeks of a man who has worn a full set of dentures for many years, and every time he sucked at a cigarette, the cheeks went in even more, and the bones of his face stood out like a skeleton’s. ‘I don’t get you,’ he said.

  ‘Edward, listen to me. From what I’ve seen this afternoon with my own eyes, it really looks as though this might be some sort of a reincarnation.’

  ‘You mean this lousy cat?’

  ‘Don’t talk like that, dear, please.’

  ‘You’re not ill, are you, Louisa?’

  ‘I’m perfectly all right, thank you very much. I’m a bit confused – I don’t mind admitting it, but who wouldn’t be after what’s just happened? Edward, I swear to you –’

  ‘What did happen, if I may ask?’

  Louisa told him, and all the while she was speaking, her husband lay sprawled in the chair with his legs stretched out in front of him, sucking at his cigarette and blowing the smoke up at the ceiling. There was a thin cynical smile on his mouth.

  ‘I don’t see anything very unusual about that,’ he said when it was over. ‘All it is – it’s a trick cat. It’s been taught tricks, that’s all.’

  ‘Don’t be so silly, Edward. Every time I play Liszt, he gets all excited and comes running over to sit on the stool beside me. But only for Liszt, and nobody can teach a cat the difference between Liszt and Schumann. You don’t even know it yourself. But this one can do it every single time. Quite obscure Liszt, too.’

  ‘Twice,’ the husband said. ‘He’s only done it twice.’

  ‘Twice is enough.’

  ‘Let’s see him do it again. Come on.’

  ‘No,’ Louisa said. ‘Definitely not. Because if this is Liszt, as I believe it is, or anyway the soul of Liszt or whatever it is that comes back, then it’s certainly not right or even very kind to put him through a lot of silly undignified tests.’

  ‘My dear woman! This is a cat – a rather stupid grey cat that nearly got its coat singed by the bonfire this morning in the garden. And anyway, what do you know about reincarnation?’

  ‘If the soul is there, that’s enough for me,’ Louisa said firmly. ‘That’s all that counts.’

  ‘Come on, then. Let’s see him perform. Let’s see him tell the difference between his own stuff and someone else’s.’

  ‘No, Edward. I’ve told you before, I refuse to put him through any more silly circus tests. He’s had quite enough of that for one day. But I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll play him a little more of his own music’

  ‘A fat lot that’ll prove.’

  ‘You watch. And one thing is certain – as soon as he recognizes it, he’ll refuse to budge off that stool where he’s sitting now.’

  Louisa went to the music shelf, took down a book of Liszt, thumbed through it quickly, and chose another of his finer compositions – the B minor Sonata. She had meant to play only the first part of the work, but once she got started and saw how the cat was sitting there literally quivering with pleasure and watching her hands with that rapturous concentrated look, she didn’t have the heart to stop. She played it all the way through. When it was finished, she glanced up at her husband and smiled. ‘There you are,’ she said. ‘You can’t tell me he wasn’t absolutely loving it.’

  ‘He just likes the noise, that’s all.’

  ‘He was loving it. Weren’t you, darling?’ she said, lifting the cat in her arms. ‘Oh, my goodness, if only he could talk. Just think of it, dear – he met Beethoven in his youth! He knew Schubert and Mendelssohn and Schumann and Berlioz and Grieg and Delacroix and Ingres and Heine and Balzac. And let me see… My heavens, he was Wagner’s father-in-law! I’m holding Wagner’s father-in-law in my arms!’

  ‘Louisa!’ her husband said sharply, sitting up straight. ‘Pull yourself together.’ There was a new edge to his voice now, and he spoke louder.

  Louisa glanced up quickly. ‘Edward, I do believe you’re jealous!’

  ‘Of a miserable grey cat!’

  ‘Then don’t be so grumpy and cynical about it all. If you’re going to behave like this, the best thing you can do is to go back to your gardening and leave the two of us together in peace. That will be best for all of us, won’t it, darling?’ she said, addressing the cat, stroking its head. ‘And later on this evening, we shall have some more music together, you and I, some more of your own work. Oh, yes,’ she said, kissing the creature several times on the neck, ‘and we might have a little Chopin, too. You needn’t tell me – I happen to know you adore Chopin. You used to be great friends with him, didn’t you, darling? As a matter of fact – if I remember rightly – it was in Chopin’s apartment that you met the great love of your life, Madame Something-or-Other. Had three illegitimate children by her, too, didn’t you? Yes, you did, you naughty thing, and don’t go trying to deny it. So you shall have some Chopin,’ she said, kissing the cat again, ‘and that’ll probably bring back all sorts of lovely memories to you, won’t it?’

  ‘Louisa, stop this at once!’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so stuffy, Edward.’

  ‘You’re behaving like a perfect idiot, woman. And anyway, you forget we’re going out this evening, to Bill and Betty’s for canasta.’

  ‘Oh, but I couldn’t possibly go out now. There’s no question of that.’

  Edward got up slowly from his chair, then bent down and stubbed his cigarette hard into the ash-tray. ‘Tell me something,’ he said quietly. ‘You don’t really believe this – this twaddle you’re talking, do you?’

  ‘But of course I do. I don’t think there’s any question about it now. And, what’s more, I consider that it puts a tremendous responsibility upon us, Edward – upon both of us. You as well.’

  ‘You know what I think,’ he said. ‘I think you ought to see a doctor. And damn quick, too.’

  With that, he turned and stalked out of the room, through the french windows, back into the garden.

  Louisa watched him striding across the lawn towards his bonfire and his brambles, and she waited until he was out of sight before she turned and ran to the front door, still carrying the cat.

  Soon she was in the car, driving to town.