Read Online One-Eyed Cat by Paula Fox - Free Book Online Page A

the pale storm-light looked like a picture of a castle in a book. He couldn’t remember from which window that face had looked out at him that night. It might not have been a face, after all, he thought; it might have been the old gondolier’s hat which hung from a nail in the attic. The hat couldn’t have moved itself to a window. It must have been Mrs. Scallop. It seemed to him now that if she’d seen him carrying the gun, she would, somehow, know about the cat. Yet it wasn’t like her—not to let him know what she knew. He shivered suddenly the way he did when Papa opened the cellar door.
    He stayed on the porch a moment looking down at the river. A single line of birds drew a black thread across the swelling gray clouds. His mother would know what kinds of birds they were. She was probably watching them, too, from the bay windows. Suddenly, he wanted to see her more than anything in the world.
    â€œCome in, Neddy,” whispered Mrs. Scallop from behind the screen door. “I have some nice cold milk for you. How’s Mr. Scully? He looked very feeble to me when I saw him last week puttering around his house. They’ll come to take him away one of these days.”
    He didn’t want to ask her but he did. “Who? Take him where?”
    â€œAh, well …” she said, sighing. He pushed open the screen door and she backed slowly away toward the kitchen entrance. He clenched his jaw; he wouldn’t ask her again. As he put his hand on the newel post of the staircase, she said softly, “To the old folks home, of course. That’s what happens to all of us when we get old and useless. Yes, Ned. That’s why I’m so tolerant of folks. What I say is—people suffer enough in this life. Why should I add to their suffering? But then I’m like that—I wear my heart on my sleeve.”
    Ned took the stairs two at a time.
    â€œDon’t be so noisy!” thundered Mrs. Scallop. “Think of your poor mother!”
    Mama was looking toward the river. A tremendous longing rose up in him. If she would only stand and walk to him and put her arms around him! He had seen her walk—not only in memory or in dreams—but with the help of a cane and Papa’s arm. But so rarely!
    She turned to look at him. She barely lifted the fingers of her left hand from the tray to wave at him. He walked to her. “Ned,” she said, saying his name strongly the way she would say yes or river .
    â€œMrs. Scallop says that Mr. Scully is going to be taken away to the old folks home,” he told her. “She said she wears her heart on her sleeve.”
    â€œMrs. Scallop knows nothing about the future,” she said, touching Ned’s wrist with her warm, crooked fingers, “and you must beware of people who wear their hearts on their sleeves; it’s not the natural place to keep your heart—it turns rusty and thin, and it leaves you hollow inside.”
    There was a book on the tray, Middlemarch . “What’s that about?” he asked, suddenly very tired. He felt his shoulders droop. Even his knees felt tired.
    â€œNearly everything,” she said. “It is about lives. I think you’ve had a hard day, Ned. Is there something on your mind? Something worrying?”
    There was a good deal on his mind. His mother’s fingers had slipped from his wrist. What if he told her about the cat? He imagined how she would look if he told her—horrified!
    Mr. Scully had said the winter cold could affect their eyes. It might have been in a fight, just as the old man had suggested. If the cat came back to the yard while he was there, maybe he would get a closer look. Maybe the eye was there after all! Maybe another cat had scratched its lid so severely it only looked as if the eye had been torn out.
    â€œThere’s Papa,” said his mother. Ned heard the Packard struggling up the long slope and rounding the north side of the house