Mister Bigglesworth always slept on the bed, of course. Every evening his little red towel (in summer) or trusty old sheepskin (in winter) had to be spread out across the covers, hopefully leaving enough space for his master’s feet. [1]
‘Master’ – that was really the wrong word. Almost a precise inversion of the truth, in fact. Mister Bigglesworth took an increasingly weighty role in determining every question – from what to have for dinner to the more vital issues of Jay’s professional life.
The perpetual game of cat and mouse going on between him and his adjacent-but-indirect manager, Alma, for instance. Alma had, over a period of years, gradually stepped up her campaign of subtle belittlement from little moues of distaste whenever he ventured an opinion, whether in private or at staff meetings, to more comprehensive insults appended to every communication, electronic or otherwise.
These were, now, quite marked, Jay thought, but somehow not quite blatant enough for him to protest them to a higher authority. The accusation of ‘being too sensitive,’ or ‘too prone to take offense’ was one he could see would stick to him as long as he stayed in that job – or possibly even in the sector as a whole.
Hence Mister Biggleworth’s wise and purring presence had become the principal determinant of future action.
‘But see how she’s ended the email, Mister Bigglesworth ...’ One might have thought this would have been shortened, by now, to some diminutive such as ‘Biggles’ or even ‘Mister,’ but not so. Mister Bigglesworth was a cat of such presence – his majestic embonpoint, his tufty white paws, the jet black of his owl-like ears – that he required the full honorific. He reminded Jay, in fact, of the late Henry James: the air of authority and wisdom combined with a strangely vulnerable sensitivity.
‘She says here: “thinking we should spend a while seeing whether people might be a good fit for the programme in general.” But what she means is: “You’ve been unprofessional in commenting solely on the proposal’s relevance to your department. You should have followed it up further with me and the other relevant authorities.” The point is that I did! I forwarded the inquiry as soon as I got it, along with my reply. And that’s the correct procedure! Otherwise you end up with confusion – everyone pursuing the same thing simultaneously rather than getting on with their own work.’
Mister Bigglesworth looked up at him quizzically.
‘Yes, I know what you mean. She’s always like that. She just lets off these little stingers whenever she feels like it, probably when she thinks I’m getting a bit too complacent and comfortable with things. There’s probably a chapter about it in her management manual, in fact: “How to spruce up your employees by keeping them constantly off-balance and in a state of simultaneous loathing and fear”.’
Mister Biggleworth jumped down from the chair he had been roosting in, benignly, since rousing his master for breakfast (generally considerably earlier than the latter, left to his own devices, might have liked).
‘Out-ski? Or more foodie? You know what the vet said, Mister Bigglesworth. He won’t be too pleased unless you stick strictly to your diet this time.’
•
More from circumstances than from wise investments –a substantial inheritance from his parents, now some years deceased – Jay owned his own house and had a modest competence to supplement his salary.
He might almost pass for well-to-do were he to stress the fact but was, instead, on the wise advice of Police 10-4 and Mister Bigglesworth combined, careful to hide any undue signs of affluence.
On an evening such as this, though, when the office Christmas party was in full swing, and he’d been persuaded, much against his better judgement, to go on to the afterparty at a nearby wine bar, it seemed permissible to let the mask slip a little.
He was, after all, speaking, most unexpectedly, to the prettiest of the office juniors, Sylvia (‘Syl’ for short), a young woman who’d never before even offered him the time of day. Now, however, she was touchingly solicitous of his views on a variety of subjects: subjects he was scarcely conscious of having thought much about before, in fact.
Who would have thought that so much political savvy, so much life experience, would bubble up in him after the first few glasses of wine? She seemed quite disarmed by his wit and wisdom, and even the odd potentially flirtatious remark from him seemed to have passed off without a hitch.
When she proposed they share a taxi back, nothing could have seemed easier and more satisfactory. There wasn’t any wine in the house, but there was nothing to stop them pausing at an off-licence on the way ...
•
‘So all this is yours? This whole section, with the trees and the creek at the back, and the house, too?’
‘Yes. My sister died when we were both in our twenties, and my parents only had the two of us.’ ‘And you’ve never been married?’
Married! ‘No, not even close, I guess. I mean, I have had a few girlfriends along the way, but nothing really ... serious.’
‘I find that rather surprising,’ she whispered, her green eyes glinting in the dark. They’d got past the ‘would you like another drink’ to the passionate kissing, and were now in the process of moving their clinch in the direction of bed when all hell broke loose.
She’d sat down on the foot of the bed in the dark, right in the middle – it must have been – of a profoundly dormant Mister Bigglesworth!
The latter, unimpressed, let out the screech of a lifetime and, pausing only to excoriate the offending bodypart with a rake of his claws, jumped down with more speed than he’d exhibited for many a long year.
And then it happened!
Sylvia, conscious only of the pain of the wound, aimed a swift kick in Mister Bigglesworth’s direction as he ran by, adding a few curses and a threat to his life and limbs.
Drunk as he was, Jay could hardly believe his eyes. She was, admittedly, quite an arresting sight, with the beads of blood scored across her left buttock gradually blending into a trickle of gore.
‘Get out!’ he thundered, drawing himself to his full, mediocre height of five feet seven inches (and a third – he always insisted on adding the third).
‘Yes, get out, you miserable misbegotten moggie!’ she added.
‘No, you – you get out! How dare you speak to my cat like that.’
‘To your cat? Did you see what he did to me? I’m going to have him put down for criminal damage.’
‘Over my dead body. He was asleep and you woke him. It was just instinct on his part. See? He’s sorry already ...’
Whether or not Mister Bigglesworth was actually feeling sorry for his victim or for himself is debatable, but certainly he’d taken up position in the hall, back arched and paws poised ready for danger.
‘You goddamned freak! They told me you were mad on your cat, but I didn’t realise you’d take it this far. I’m a human being, for God’s sake – he clawed me!’
‘It wasn’t his fault. I’d like you to leave now. You can call for a taxi from the front room.’ ‘Don’t bother, you dickless wonder – no wonder you never get laid. I guess you’d have insisted on leaving the cat on the bed to watch – maybe even get involved ...’
‘It’s his home. He doesn’t understand about things like that.’
‘Neither do you, clearly. Don’t bother ...’ she said, pushing him away as he tried to approach her with a towel. It was, in fact, Mister Bigglesworth’s red towel, which was admittedly conveniently positioned, and of a colour that was unlikely to stain, but had the attendant disadvantage of being deeply imbued with thick drifts of cat hair. ‘I’m out of here. Don’t call me. I never want to see you or speak to you again.’
And with that she was off and out of there, pausing only to pull her leggings back on (a handkerchief over the worst of the scratches). No doubt she could summon an uber from the street outside. He turned on the outside light in case she needed it, but all that it afforded him was a final glance of her silhouette looking back, her middle finger raised.
•
‘That didn’t go so well, now, did it, Mister Bigglesworth?’
The cat, mollified with milk and some of the extra sardine treats Jay kept stored away in a high cupboard, beyond (he hoped) the former’s climbing abilities, was now back on his towel on the bed. His usual broad smile was still somewhat clouded, though, and he seemed a bit nervous. Understandably, under the circumstances.
‘She seemed so nice at the party, but then when she got back here I saw her true colours. The way she spoke to you! I wouldn’t speak to a dog like that. It’s not as if it was your fault she sat on you. I suppose it was really mine. I should have warned you, and carried you into the living room. You wouldn’t have minded that, would you – not just for one night?’
The cat looked unconvinced.
‘There’s no need to be like that. It’s not very likely to happen again. I imagine she’ll put out a bulletin among all the office staff. That is, unless I’m arrested tomorrow for common assault. Assault with a furry weapon!’
One of the major advantages of these conversations was Mister Bigglesworth’s failure to groan or make throwing-up gestures when his master ventured one of these humble witticisms. ‘To err is human, to forgive, feline,’ as Jay had more than once remarked to him.
‘So what I mean to say, Mister Bigglesworth, is that these modern women – like Alma, or Sylvia, for that matter – may seem perfectly nice on the surface, but the moment you cross them in any way, even inadvertently, like tonight, they over-react. Two old bachelors, me and you, we get on okay, don’t we, Mister B?’ Jay had occasionally, at moments of high drama or extreme emotion, such as the occasion when Mister Bigglesworth had sat down on his laptop at just the right moment to erase a week’s worth of scrupulously analysed data, ventured to abridge his name in this fashion. The cat had not seemed to resent the liberty, but neither had he exactly welcomed it. His preference, judged on a ratio of purrs and stretches, did appear to be for the complete honorific.
‘I mean, Biggles never got married, did he? Neither did Archy or Ginger. And Henry James, they say that he had a bad back, and that was what got in the way ... All I can say is, who needs it? I couldn’t wish for a better friend than you.’
And with that Mister Bigglesworth stretched out on his towel, wriggled his paws in an enticing gesture, and promptly went back off to sleep.
Notes:
[1] cf. Thomas Hardy, ‘The Son’s Veto’. Collected Short Stories. The New Wessex Edition of the Stories of Thomas Hardy. Ed. F. B. Pinion. 1977. Introduction by Desmond Hawkins. 1988. (London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1994), 402-15.
Maurice A. Lee & Aaron Penn, ed.: The Road Not Taken: A Global Short Story Journey (2023)[13/12/19-27/1/20 & 15/3/22]
[1842 words]
[Published in The Road Not Taken: A Global Short Story Journey. Ed. Maurice A. Lee & Aaron Penn (USA: Lee and Penn Publishing, 2023): 262-65.]
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