Eight Cats at Number Twenty-Seven

D Knight K

Description

Greville Book, the central human in the story, is not a cat and therefore it is possible he may have an extensive vocabulary lurking within his foggy intellect. His wife doubts the possibility; having not seen him read anything beyond a tabloid newspaper in twenty years of marriage. Muriel, as many a husband can testify, can be cunning, manipulative and unscrupulous. But then, as Greville suspects, she is quite possibly a cat in human form."Eight Cats At Number Twenty-Seven" is a novel about the waning of married love, the long-forgotten mystery of Elisabeth Norbutt's disappearance, bigamy, and tips on cat husbandry.

Informations

• Publié par: eBook Versions
• Date de parution: 12 février 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781843961994
• Langue: English

Extrait

Published by Modest Publishing

Copyright © 2014 K D Knight

K D Knight has asserted his
right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988 to be identified
as the author of this work.

ISBN-13 978-1-84396-173-4

A CIP catalogue record for
this ebook edition is available
from the British Library.

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No part of this publication may be
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EIGHT CATS
AT NUMBER
TWENTY-SEVEN



K D Knight





MODEST PUBLISHING
Contents


Title Page
Copyright Credits

Preface
Chapter 1: Tilda Comes And Goes
Chapter 2: A Plea For Eternal Peace
Chapter 3: Thomas Spoils Muriel s Plan
Chapter 4: Muriel Is Hoisted
Chapter 5: It Is Magic, Isn t It?
Chapter 6: Sledgehammers and the Nobel Prize For Literature
Chapter 7: The Books Are Manipulated By A Harridan
Chapter 8: Crime Passional
Chapter 9: A Time of Night When Even Cat Burglars Call It A Day
Chapter 10: Greville Gets Light-Headed And Giddy
Chapter 11: Greville Has His Vision Stolen
Chapter 12: Muriel Is Decidedly Of An Opinion
Chapter 13: Salted Wounds
Preface


As no one can be certain of the correct spelling of the word Miaow/Meow, not even the compilers of dictionaries, the author has used both variants in this short novel. If he had consistently used Miaow the author would have antagonised those on the Meow side of the debate and vice-versa. And there is no point asking a cat for a definitive spelling, because as any cat will tell you neither version has a place in a cat s vocabulary. When they open their mouths cats are communicating and not every utterance is merely miaow/meow. Indeed if we could understand cat communication we would doubtless be appalled by their language. As a species they are cunning, manipulative and unscrupulous and you cannot be all that and only have a single word in your vocabulary.
Greville Book, the central human in the story, is not a cat and therefore it is possible he may have an extensive vocabulary lurking within his foggy intellect. His wife doubts the possibility; having not seen him read anything beyond a tabloid newspaper in twenty years of marriage. Muriel, as many a husband can testify, can be cunning, manipulative and unscrupulous. But then, as Greville suspects, she is quite possibly a cat in human form.
Eight Cats At Number Twenty-Seven is a novel about the waning of married love, the long-forgotten mystery of Elisabeth Norbutt s disappearance, bigamy and tips on cat husbandry. It comes quite close to being described as humorous.
The author would like to take this opportunity to dedicate this novella to the woman who for some clouded reason would like to be known as his better half , who in filling the house with the unwanted and unloved of the local feline population, inspired the writing of the story.
Chapter 1

Tilda Comes and Goes


Unaware, we live our lives in the steady drift of history. We may go unnoticed and be affixed to history in undetectable lower case, yet we all live and breathe in continuity of those who have gone before. Horotio Nelson may forever be a giant of history but he did not win Trafalgar or successfully blockade Corsica or scuttle the Spanish fleet in the Gulf of Genoa on his own. He was aided by invisible heroes, by unknown combatants, the forgotten and ordinary crew who manned the cannon, scaled the rigging and gave their blood in sacrifice to his greater glory.
The people who served the thrust of legendary history lived and will continue to live at the recorded and feted apex of immortality. Yet the rest of humanity lived amongst the same events either in prayer for their cessation or in reflective glory, seeking redemption for the casualties or rejoicing in a victory which must be held to the heart as thine own.
Not that all of history is of the flag-waving variety. Small history can also be cause of intrigue.
Greville Book is immersed in small history; he has it strewn throughout the modest two-bedroomed terraced home he shares with his wife Muriel. In files and folders, on scraps of paper in immediate risk of being lost or consumed to the rubbish bin every time Muriel gets around to tidying up, he is collating the life-span of his house. Even with its old age the historical lineage of number twenty-seven, Nelson Terrace is, by any stretch of the imagination, insignificant. Yet Greville has the faith and zeal of the aesthetic. The deeds of the house stroll through over two-hundred years of history. In its humdrum, ordinary continuation number twenty-seven has provided a roof for a mayor, a war-hero and the victim of a mystery disappearance, ingredients, he believes, only the most inept writer could fail to illustrate into a page-turner.
The only literary fly in the literal ointment, though, as Muriel is over-prone to point out, is that Greville is not a writer in the professional sense of the word. It is absurd that he should think himself capable of turning his hand to the composition of history when all his working life he has struggled to write dull and straight-forward reports on the quality of river water. Her husband, she believes, writes as if English is a second language to him and apart from the basest of newspapers she has never seen him read with the smallest degree of enthusiasm. He is, at least by occupation and training, a marine biologist. Until he fell headlong into a sewage tank she was of the opinion his only ambition was to make life as difficult as possible for the polluters of the local environment. She could understand if he was using his new-found enthusiasm for the written word to campaign for a more inventive and enlightening method of sewage disposal. The knowledge that it is disgorged into the river - whether it is squeaky-clean is irrelevant to her - to make life unpleasant for mullet, salmon and otter, appals her. But the fate of river creatures does not concern Greville anymore. He is more interested in digging up the past and drooling over mysteries which are not his concern.
To Muriel, Jilly Cooper qualifies as a writer, as does Michael Bond and Shakespeare and it cannot be possible or desirable for someone to simply wake up and declare himself a writer, which in effect is what Greville has done. If it was not so piteous, it would be laughable to think of Greville as a cohort of the creator of Harry Potter. This is the line of literary succession which Greville Book believes he is capable of joining.
It is one of the more advanced changes brought about by his industrial accident, and it seems no amount of money, nor specialist in toxicology, will return to her the persevering husband who set out for work that morning as the Greville Book she had known for nigh on twenty years only to return from hospital a writer, artist and singer of everything musical from Slim Whitman to Green Day.
Greville, Muriel calls, her voice raised as if her husband is several floors above her rather than in the back bedroom, or the study as he now prefers it to be called.
Yes, my sweetheart, he replies, the endearment historical and habitual, the sincerity not as vibrant or as heartfelt as it once undoubtedly was.
This bit of paper with dates and names on it, do you want it or can I bin it?
If he were not at home and not upstairs she would have consigned the scrap of paper to the bin without either a second thought or impingement of her conscience. Sabotaging her husband s indulgence is an exquisite temptation which she must tease and play with as if she were a kitten and his writing a small soft toy. Not that she would resort to the open-warfare of wiping clean the hard drive of his computer or setting fire to the copious amounts of hand-written documents which clutter his desk. Giving way to that sort of behaviour would be tantamount to criminality, a temptation she will never again be prepared to sink to. He is, though, to her annoyance, in the general habit of leaving important, to him, sheets of paper around the house, paper-clipped together or single leaf, which to her mind is proof of his intention to undermine her efforts at keeping the house tidy and presentable, even though they are natural born misanthropes and only entertain visitors when unable to find a reason not to.
Muriel, as the main breadwinner of the household, is firmly of the opinion that as Greville has more free time he should do the majority of the housework. It is a wrinkle in their relationship which Muriel acknowledges and accentuates but which Greville in his vexing sang-froid way of dealing with domestic skirmishes closes his mind to. It is the cats, my dear, who make most of the untidiness. It is a truth we should have come to terms with by now, is his latest retort to the charge of disorderliness.
The serendipitous joy of the Mills and Boon aspect of their marriage is now, sadly, superseded by whatever revelation springs next from the flowering of the previously unconsidered creative side of his personality. Disagreement and one-upmanship are the new union; an acceptance of ever lowering expectations of fulfilment. Cats do not leave foolscap on the arms of chairs. Cats do not leave dinner plates on the floor. Cats do not leave tea mugs on coffee tables, she reminds him, her defence of her cats as steadfast as any fanatic s defence of faith or football.
I wondered where that had got to, he tells her, reaching the bottom step, snatching the dog-eared document from her grasp without thanking her.
It was down the back of the sofa.
As safe a place as any, he jokes as he re-ascends the stairs, the heartstrings of