The Cat Who Went Bananas

Chapter 13

It was Monday morning, and The Pirate's. Chest was officially open for business. Furthermore, Qwilleran had promised to buy the first book at Eddington Smith's Place. He had to be there with a fat chequebook, and it had to be fatter than he thought.

Meanwhile, the Siamese were fed early, and he himself grimly prepared a bowl of cereal and sliced bananas, monitored by Koko sitting atop the bar.

At nine-thirty Lisa was waiting with the key to the jelly cupboard for the first customer. 'I knew you wouldn't want publicity, Qwill, but it would have made a front-page story -"Prominent citizen buys rare book for his cat to open ESP!" But then you'd have to have Koko here, too, and he might not get along with Dundee.'

'You're dreaming, Lisa!'

'Violet wanted to be here, but she has a doctor's appointment in Lockmaster. Someone is driving her there.'

'I hope she's not unwell.'

'It's just an ongoing thing that she has to check occasionally. I think they'll have lunch at Inglehart's and make a party out of it. Are you ready?' She drew the precious book from the cupboard and handed it to her first customer.

It was the usual size of a child's book, with a glossy paper jacket in bright blue and a cartoon of a cat with a tall hat striped in white and red. The sixty-odd pages had storytelling verses and more cartoons.

`Will Koko like it?' Lisa asked.

`He likes thin books because they're easy to push off the shelf. So much for his literary taste! But this one will be locked up and displayed occasionally on the coffee table, where he'll sit on it as an expression of respect. He senses when a book is valuable.'

Looking unconvinced, Lisa said, 'Well . . . if you say so! . . . And now I have a surprise for you! Violet has asked me to break the news . . . Her father was a great admirer of the journalism profession, and he collected books written by and about journalists - forty or fifty titles—'

`I'll buy them!' Qwilleran interrupted, pulling out his chequebook.

No! She's giving them to you as a thank-you for doing the book about the Hibbard House!'

`Tell her to give the whole caboodle to the ESP - and then I'll buy them. She'll get a tax break, I'll get the chance of a lifetime, and ESP will get a big contribution. It's simple arithmetic! Are the books here?'

No. They're at the house - four or five boxes of them. She intended that Alden could deliver them to your barn later this afternoon.'

`I'll be there. I'll write a check to ESP. You and Violet can decide how much.'

Qwilleran walked home with The Cat in the Hat. Lisa had put it in one of the plastic bags donated by the drugstore. When he entered the barnyard, both cats were cavorting in the kitchen window, no doubt expecting some meat loaf from Lois's. At any rate, they were disappointed when the rare book was presented - sniffing, looking up in mystification, and sniffing again in apparent disbelief. Even Koko, the chief bibliocat, had no interest in the new acquisition.

That Koko! Qwilleran muttered to himself; he'd probably rather have The Life of George Washington!

He went back downtown to do errands, and there, in front of the Sprenkle Building, he saw Maggie Sprenkle looking up and down Main Street.

'Waiting for a streetcar?' he asked.

`Oh, Qwill!' She laughed. 'You always cheer me up. I couldn't make up my mind where to go first - post office or bank.'

`Considering the way the postage rates are going up,' he advised, `go to the bank first . . . You're looking fine, Maggie. I how are your ladies?' He noted cat hairs on her dark blue outfit; she was a dedicated cat hugger.

`Our dear Charlotte died of old age, and we miss her, but we have a little grey lady from the humane shelter. We call her Emily. Would you like to come up and meet her and have a cup of tea?'

`I'd like to go up and discuss something with you . . . but no tea, thanks. I've just had three cups of coffee.' It was a fib but a nice way of refusing Maggie's weak jasmine tea - with one or more cat hairs floating in it.

The Sprenkle Building dated from the early years when merchants sold their goods on the ground floor and raised large families on the upper floors. Now there were real estate and insurance offices on the ground floor, while Maggie lived in a Victorian palace on the second and third levels. After the death of her husband, Jeremy, she had sold their country house, parted with his lavish rose gardens, and moved downtown, close to her numerous volunteer efforts.

She asked Qwilleran if he wanted to walk up the front stairs or go around to the elevator in the rear. The stairs were steep and narrow in the old style, and thick carpet made the shallow treads even shallower for a size-twelve shoe. The elevator, accessible from the parking lot in the rear, had been a recent innovation.

'I'm feeling reckless - I'll take the dangerous short cut,' he said.

The stairs were carpeted with red roses; the walls were deep red, hung with myriad framed engravings. The interior designer, Amanda Goodwinter, had explained to Qwilleran, 'I give the customers what they want! It's their money, and they have to live with it.'

Upstairs there were more red roses wall to wall and more red walls hung with large oil paintings in gilt frames.

The discussion took place at a richly carved marble-top table around which were velvet-tufted chairs.

'Sure you don't want a cup of tea?' Maggie asked.

Qwilleran declined again and began: 'I'm writing a book on the Hibbard House, to be published by the K Fund—'

'I know! Violet told me! I'm delighted! Is there any way I can help? I'm older than she is, but we grew up together.'

'A perfect setup, Maggie! I'm collecting memories of Hibbard House from longtime residents of the community.' He placed a pocket-size tape recorder on the marble table.

'Oh, I remember going up in the tower to see the lake ten miles away . . . and tobogganing down the Hibbard hill in winter . . . camping out in sleeping bags on an upstairs veranda in summertime . . . sitting around the fire in the library while Violet's father read to us.

`She went away to college and then to Italy, but I married my Jeremy and was deliriously happy. He loved growing roses, and every day he would bring me one perfect floribunda from the garden and sing "Only a Rose" from the Rudolf Friml operetta! He had a beautiful baritone voice! . . . Violet and I corresponded while she was in Italy, and I was thrilled to hear she was marrying an artist over there. But when her parents found out that he wasn't only an artist but a foreigner . . . they had fits! Violet was told it would kill her mother! She came home.'

`And never married?' Qwilleran asked.

Maggie nodded soberly. 'Out of spite, I think. She was an only child, and it meant the end of the direct Hibbard bloodline ... But I'll never forget how she cried, day after day, when she first came home from Italy. I cried with her!'

Tears welled in Maggie's eyes, and Qwilleran said, 'I believe I would like a cup of tea.'

When Maggie returned with the tea tray, her face was composed.

'I felt doubly sorry for Violet because Jeremy and I were blissfully married and he was raising roses with a passion. Then one day he sent her a single long-stemmed rose with the famous Hafez of Shiraz poem that you probably know.' She recited the lines from the thirteenth-century poem:

Give never the wine bowl from thy hand

Nor loose thy grasp on the rose's stem

'Tis a mad bad world that the fates have planned.

Match wits with their every stratagem!

`Mmm,' Qwilleran murmured. 'An inspired gesture!'

'It was just what she needed, Qwill. I don't know whether it was the poem or the rose. Jeremy started rose-watching twenty years before it became fashionable in Lockmaster. He raised long-stemmed roses for the purpose, in a hothouse. They're a special hybrid, you know, planted close together so they grow tall. I wish you and Jeremy could have known each other.

'Do you know about Violet's health problem, Qwill?'

'I know she went to Lockmaster for a checkup today.'

`She's known for several years that she has an aneurysm. It could strike her down without warning.'

For a moment Qwilleran could only stare. 'I'm shocked! And greatly saddened! And amazed that she faces the world with such poise and enthusiasm.'

'She's learned to make the most of every day,' Maggie said. `And so you know why I'm glad that you're working on a Hibbard House book. On the other hand, she could live to be a hundred. I'll think of some more early memories.'

`Keep adding them to the tape, Maggie, and I'll check back with you in a week.'

When Alden, in the official Hibbard House van, pulled into the barnyard, Qwilleran went out to suggest backing up to the kitchen door for efficient unloading. Koko and Yum Yum were watching in the kitchen window but scattered. Qwilleran liked to say that only two Siamese know how to scatter in three directions at once.

The men carried the boxes to one side of the fireplace cube, where Alden offered to help shelve the books.

Qwilleran said, 'Since they're going to be catalogued first, I'll unpack, and you go up the ramp to check out the acoustics of this dump. Recite some Shakespeare.'

'Chance of a lifetime!' his guest declared as he faced a complete set of Shakespeare plays in individual volumes. 'I see you have the Arden collection, you lucky dog!'

'Take Henry the Fifth and read the prologue,' Qwilleran suggested. Then he listened with genuine fascination as thirty-four lines resounded from the roof of the barn, starting with 'O! for a Muse of fire . . .’

The barn had never sounded so good! Perhaps the actor had never sounded so good!

'Sing something, Alden!' he shouted from the ground floor. Alden sang, 'Give me some men who are stout-hearted men . . . Qwilleran applauded, and with exultation Alden started back down the ramp. Within seconds his feet shot up, and he landed with an ominous thump.

Shouting, Qwilleran raced up the slope, seeing a blur of fur disappear as he did so. 'Alden! Are you hurt? What happened?'

'I don't know, but I'm all right. In theatre studies we teach how lo fall onstage.'

'How about a little drink for your nerves?'

'My nerves are okay. Thanks, but I have to get home to uncork the wine.'

'Tell Violet I'm writing a profuse thank-you note!'

Qwilleran was glad the drink had been declined; he wanted to start organizing his bonanza of journalists, bridging the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There were names like Mencken, Hearst, Patterson, and Luce . . . women like Nellie Bly and Ida Tarbell . . . Mark Twain, Artemus Ward, Irvin S. Cobb, Will Rogers, George Ade, Stephen Crane, Ambrose Bierce, and more.

The Siamese were encroaching on the scene, sniffing inquisitively. But Koko walked with that peculiar stiff-legged gait denoting guilt, leading Qwilleran up the ramp to the scene of the crash, and there - as he might have suspected - was a narrow strip of banana peel.

Thinking about it later, over a cup of coffee, Qwilleran had to chuckle when he thought of Alden's nasty spill. Since the beginning of burlesque there had been humour in slipping on a banana peel. Putting two and two together, he had to conclude that Koko simply did not like Alden Wade, despite his fine speaking voice and polished manners. In fact, Qwilleran was inspired to compose a parody of the well-known Samuel Johnson verse:

He does not like thee, Mr Wade,

No explanation has been mode.

I only know

The status quo.

He does not like thee, Mr Wade.