The Unseen(30)

‘I did … I did do something. And I have been in prison for it – that part is true. And what was done to me and others like me was far worse than we deserved, far worse than our crime, if crime it was. And after it, I find I’m not afraid. Not of gossip and rumours, or the wretched, petty hags who put them about either,’ Cat says, angrily. ‘And now you will ask me what I did, and what happened thereafter,’ she sighs. Such questions seem to dog her, hanging from her neck like dead weights.

‘No, I won’t. If you want to tell it, I’ll listen; but it’s not my business,’ George says, hurriedly. Cat stares along the water again to where it is swallowed whole by the night. There is a nip in the air now, and she shivers. ‘I’ll walk you back. Not all the way to the door, if you’re worried about being seen. I’ll bet you can move with the stealth of a ghost, when you need to,’ George says.

‘Black Cat, they used to call me – in London. For that very reason.’ She smiles. ‘It’s two miles to the village, that’s four for you to walk, and after you’ve fought tonight. Stay here on your boat, and rest. Don’t feel obliged to play the gentleman this evening,’ she argues. George clears his throat, folds his arms to mirror her.

‘I would walk those four miles to keep talking to you, Cat Morley. How’s that for a reason?’

Cat studies him for a moment, and thinks about insisting. But then she relents. ‘Very well, then.’

A small, high moon sits in the sky like a farthing, and casts a weak light onto the towpath. In places the path is overhung by branches, made narrow by thick borders of yellow flag and willow herb. George insists on taking the lead, although he is tall enough to catch every branch, and send them swinging back for Cat to dodge. He mutters and curses beneath his breath.

‘Perhaps I should lead? I can see quite well,’ Cat says.

George pauses in a patch of open moonlight, and turns to her. ‘Truly like a cat, then?’ he says. In the colourless night he is grey and black, his eyes empty hollows, his expression lost. For a second he seems not-human, some creature made of stone and shadow rather than flesh. But then he puts out one hand and touches her chin, and his skin is warm and dry. ‘You look more like a gypsy by this light,’ he says quietly.

‘My mother told me once that her grandmother was a Spaniard. She was dark like me, my mother, and people always said that I take after her.’ His touch feels strange, unsettling; like an intrusion, but one she finds she does not mind. She reaches up for his hand and keeps hold of it, and even in the dark she can see how avidly he watches her, how rapt his expression.


The house is so quiet when Cat returns to her room that she thinks she is discovered. It feels as though all is poised, tensed and ready to spring shut around her like a steel trap. Even Mrs Bell’s snoring is absent. Cat strips off her clothes and hangs them by the open window to air, to rid them of the telltale smell of beer and cigarettes. Then she lies still on the bed and hardly breathes, and though her heart hammers she feels ready to fight, to spring up and lay about her with her fists, if needs be. If they put hands on her, hold her down, force her. She will not let them again. But these are memories, half brought on by the beer she drank and the sleep she hasn’t had, and slowly she grows calm, and shuts her eyes, and wonders if George is still out in the meadow where she left him, waiting with his cut and bruised face turned up to the attic windows, in case she were to look out and wave. The thought soothes her, lets her breathing slow and deepen; lets her sleep.


In the morning, Hester, her stomach hot and empty, waits impatiently for Albert to return from his early walk so that they can sit down to breakfast. She abandons the book she’s been reading and drifts into the dining room where the table is set for two. Empty plates waiting, the cutlery laid beautifully straight. In the quiet room, her stomach growls audibly. It is not like Albert to be so late. How long can a person spend communing with nature? she wonders, hunger making her anxious.

Suddenly Hester hears the rattle of Albert’s bicycle, and leaps up with unseemly haste to greet him. The front door is ajar, where Cat is polishing the brass letter plate with a piece of soft leather. The vicar bowls through the door at such speed that he runs right into her, grasping her by the upper arms to steady himself.

‘My word, it was extraordinary!’ he bursts out, as if continuing a discussion they’d been having all morning. To Hester’s surprise, Cat lets out a shriek of protest, and fights her way free of Albert’s grasp, scuttling backwards until she hits the wall, and glaring at him with livid eyes. Albert blinks and stares at her as though she’s turned into a snake.