The Cat Who Went Bananas

Chapter 3

`Your uncle George is coming,' Qwilleran said to the Siamese as he brushed their silky coats. 'Be on your best behaviour. Mind your manners. Don't interrupt conversations with irrelevant remarks.'

The more one speaks to cats, the smarter they become, Qwilleran believed. What one says to them doesn't matter; it's the tone that counts: serious, purposeful.

Uncle George was a private joke. A new attorney from Down Below, named George Barter, had joined the prestigious Hasselrich law firm to represent Qwilleran in all matters concerning the Klingenschoen Fund. In a slip of the tongue the WPKX announcer identified the new attorney as 'George Breze . . . uh, correction: George Barter.' Once more WPKX had slipped on a banana peel: George Breze was a local character of dubious integrity, a certified oddball. He was once quoted as saying, 'Why should I learn to read and write? I can hire somebody to do it.'

After the WPKX faux pas, the jokers in the coffee shops guffawed for a week, and the attorney changed his business cards to 'G. Allen Barter.'

He would henceforth be known to locals as Allen, although he would always be George to the IRS and Social Security.

His conferences with Qwilleran were held at the latter's apple barn. Bart, as Qwilleran called him, maintained that a visit to the barn was always like a shot in the arm.

It was a century-old apple barn - octagonal and forty feet high. A fieldstone foundation and wood-shingled siding had a mellow old patina in contrast to the bleached wood beams of the interior.

Business started that morning with Bart's report on financial and legal affairs of the K Fund, which Qwilleran found tiresome, although he was careful to conceal his reaction.

Then it was his turn to report: The Pirate's Chest was beginning to look like a bookstore. It would be ready to open in another week. The bibliocat had moved in and acted as if he owned the place. Polly had hired an assistant with bookstore credentials. Part-time helpers were available when and if needed, happy to be associated with The Pirate's Chest.

`Believe it or not,' Qwilleran said, 'there are crackpots - like me - who would work for the sheer joy of working with words and ideas and adventures in hardcover bindings.'

Bart said, 'You should write a column on that, Qwill.'

`I did. Before you came here. It was actually a tribute to Edd Smith. Books were his life. Although he never sat down and read one, he consulted books, collected them, sold them, talked about them, and repaired them.' Qwilleran paused, remembering the little grey man, his dusty shop, and his dingy living quarters in the rear, which he shared with bookbinding equipment, the ever-present aroma of sardines and clam chowder, the cracked mirror above a rusty sink, and the handgun on the shelf beneath.

`Anyway,' Qwilleran went on, 'volunteers are falling all over each other to participate in the Edd Smith Place on the lower level. They call themselves Edd Smith's People and wear ESP badges. It occupies half the lower level; the rest is earmarked for special events.'

`Of what nature?'

`Book reviews; a children's storybook hour, a literary club, and so forth. There is a new man in town who has been hired to handle these on a part-time basis. His name is Alden Wade, and he's just moved here from Lockmaster following the murder of his wife by a sniper's bullet.'

Bart recalled the case. ‘Did they ever find the perpetrator?'

`No, and survivors suffer more when there no closure. Alden came here to get away from it all. Working at the bookstore and joining the theatre club will be therapeutic. You'll see him in the Oscar Wilde play, if you go.'

`We have tickets for Saturday night.'

`And apropos of that, Bart, I think it's time the K Theatre had a better name.'

He was talking about the giant cube of fieldstone that had been the Klingenschoen mansion before being gutted by fire. Now it was a theatre for stage productions.

`I agree that the name lacks imagination,' the attorney said. `It sounds like a breakfast cereal to me,' Qwilleran said, 'or the index tab of an office file folder.'

`What would you suggest?'

`Something like Theatre Arts in the same type of signage used on the bookstore and the Mackintosh Inn. There could be classes in acting, voice control, and so forth.'

`Who could teach?'

`This same Alden Wade who's playing the lead in the new play.'

`You've done your homework,' Bart said. 'I'll move it forward.'

Little did Uncle George know that Koko had been staring at Qwilleran during the rush of ideas. Qwilleran agreed with the eighteenth-century poet Christopher Smart, who maintained that cats have a way of placing ideas in human heads - not only reminders about food.

`Meanwhile, tell me what's going on at Winston Park. I've seen the trucks, and I can't figure out what they're doing.'

Qwilleran explained with limited enthusiasm, 'It's an idea dreamed up by those eggheads in Chicago; it remains to be seen how it goes over with the folks in the so-called boondocks. The park is based on such practicalities as weather, maintenance, and human behaviour.

`First, we're in the deep-freeze zone, so a fountain in the middle of the park would be turned off five months of the year. Instead, they propose a piece of statuary as the focal point. Only Polly knows what it is, and she's not talking, except to say that it's tall and vertical.'

Bart said, 'I hope it's not an unclothed human figure. It wouldn't be well received, I'm afraid.'

`That remains to be seen. It'll be shrouded in tarpaulin until the unveiling at the press preview. Are you prepared for the experts' Decision Number Two? No park benches! They attract loafers and picnickers, who leave beer cans and lunch wrappings around instead of putting them in the trash containers, which are inevitably filled to overflowing.'

Hmmm,' the attorney murmured thoughtfully.

`Decision Number Three: ground cover instead of grass, which needs mowing and raking seven months of the year. Also, evergreens instead of deciduous trees, which are leafless much of the year and responsible for a leaf problem every fall.'

'Is there any good news?'

`Yes, we'll play it up in the paper as something new and different: a walking-and-learning park! Walking paths will curve around between the evergreens, which will represent many varieties - some new to local tree buffs - and all will be labelled. Speakers will be provided for garden clubs, and teachers will bring their classes and then give tests - with prizes for the highest scores, and photos of the winners in the newspaper.'

'I hope the experts know what they're doing,' Bart said. 'Goodbye, cats!'

'Yowl' Koko replied. He had a limited vocabulary but there was variety in his intonation. It could be agreeable, critical, apologetic, demanding, outraged, or alarming.

Bart gathered up his papers and left, followed by two cats interested in speeding the departing guest. Their noontime snack was overdue.

That evening after dinner, the three residents of the apple I, SP barn assembled for a reading session. Qwilleran had only to shout 'Read!' and the Siamese came running: Yum Yum to take possession of his lap, Koko to select a title. He was the designated bibliocat, and seemed to take his responsibility seriously.

All available wall space was covered with bookshelves, and until recently they had been filled to capacity with pre-owned books purchased from the late Eddington Smith. In selecting a book, Koko would prance back and forth, then stop and look up at the shelves, make his decision, crouch, and spring! His powerful hind legs catapulted him to the right height, as much as seven feet above the floor. Never did he overshoot his goal or fall short; his spatial instinct was amazing to Qwilleran, who was a slave to a tape measure.

Then Koko would squeeze behind the books, sniffing the pages until he found a title he wanted (no need to read the printing on the spine). Bumping it with his nose, he would knock it off the shelf. Ideally, Qwilleran was there to catch it and that was the choice for the reading.

Recently there had been some empty shelf space, since a hundred books had been donated to the Edd Smith Place. A small army of volunteers had collected books from libraries around the county. Volunteers would staff the shop, and proceeds would benefit the Literacy Council and an Edd Smith scholarship.

Donated books, in order to be accepted, had to meet the requirements of the ESP. Food-spotted cookbooks and eighth-grade algebra books did not qualify.

When the Edd Smith Place opened, Qwilleran would be the first customer.

Opening night at the K Theatre was a pleasant tradition that both Polly and Qwilleran enjoyed, but her work overload had sapped her energy and enthusiasm. Regretfully, he attended without her.

Qwilleran had no objection to attending opening night alone, when he was reviewing the play. He could use the solitude to marshal his opinions and devise catchy phrases.

Purposely he arrived at the theatre late, parking in the space reserved for the press. The audience was already seated and the houselights were beginning to dim when he strode down the aisle and slipped into the critic's traditional seat in row five.

There was a moment of silent anticipation, and then the curtain rose slowly, and during the breathless stillness Qwilleran heard two whispering voices behind him.

`That's Mr Q.'

`He's gonna write it up for the paper.'

`He's alone.'

`Where's his friend?'

`Maybe they broke up.'

The scene onstage was a posh bachelor flat in nineteenth-century London. A butler with painfully rigid dignity entered in slow motion, carrying a silver platter of cucumber sandwiches.

The whisperer in row six said, 'He owns the department store.'

When the glamorous Gwendolen entered, it was whispered, `Her dad's the police chief.'

Everyone in the immediate vicinity was restless with annoyance, and Qwilleran wondered how to squelch the commentary without resorting to violence. Then one of the actors spoke some pithy lines in a rich baritone, and the voice said, 'That's him! That's him! His wife was shot!'

And a booming voice in the same row bellowed, 'Shut up!'

The whispering stopped. The dialogue onstage never missed a beat. And the audience went on responding to the witty lines and ludicrous characters with chuckles and murmurs of delight. Lady Bracknell, with a Queen Mary hat adding inches to her height, was received with quiet amusement.

During intermission, when Qwilleran went to the lobby to stretch his legs, he met the Comptons at the drinking fountain. Lyle was superintendent of schools; Lisa was a retired educator now serving as volunteer captain of the Edd Smith People.

Lyle said, 'What did you think of the fracas in the sixth row? No wonder Lockmaster people think we're barbarians in Moose County.'

Lisa said, 'That was our intrepid Ernie Kemple who came to the rescue. It took nerve to do what he did, but it didn't faze the members of the cast.'

Qwilleran said, 'Actors can't afford to be distracted by disturbances in the audience. Once I was onstage with an actress in Noel Coward's Private Lives and a loud guffaw in the front row made her forget her lines - completely! I'll never forget that experience, and it was thirty years ago!' The lobby lights blinked. He added quickly, 'Lisa, could you meet me at the bookstore for an interview about the ESP?'

`I'll be there all day tomorrow.'

They returned to the auditorium.

-The two seats behind Qwilleran remained vacant for the rest of the show.

How Polly would have enjoyed the play! In a way it was his own fault that she was not there, he decided. He should never have had the K Fund underwrite a bookstore for Polly to manage. He had suggested it only because she was disenchanted with her work at the library. She had allowed herself to be consumed by the new challenge.

He missed dining out with Polly two or three times a week . . . weekend walks on the lakeshore and on the banks of the Ittibittiwassee, and evenings of classical music at the apple barn, where the music system was superb and the acoustics were fabulous. Once, he recalled, they were dining at the Grist Mill and spent ten minutes discussing the meaning of 'perspicuity' and `perspicacity'; then they skipped dessert in order to hurry home and consult Webster's Unabridged. Should they go to her place or his place?

She had the newest edition, the third; he had the second edition, which he really preferred. He had bought the third edition, he explained, but it was in the cats' quarters, where they used it as a scratching pad.

Soon, Qwilleran now hoped, his life with Polly would return to normal. He went home and had a large dish of ice cream - diet or no diet.