Arthur preferred a shower, but when he wallowed in the hot water for half an hour his ankle felt even better. He peeked under the bandage on his arm and saw that the stripes had scabbed over.
After getting dressed, he peered in the full-length bathroom mirror. He looked like a presentable pensioner from the waist up, but from the waist down...well! Graystock’s electric blue harem trousers were remarkably comfy—very soft and roomy—but made him look like a Scandinavian tourist.
Kate laid the table in the kitchen with fresh crusty bread and butter and a jug of orange juice. Again the walls of the large room were adorned with photos and paintings of her tigers. An open fire flickered but the room was so large that the heat barely reached them. Outside he could see that the sun hadn’t yet warmed up the morning. Kate wore a tartan blanket wrapped over her shoulders and a long white cotton nightie underneath. “We buy very little meat now, except for the tigers to eat. Graystock would prefer to feed the girls than to feed us.” She laughed as she sat on the bench next to him.
“How on earth did you end up living with the, er, girls?”
“My father was a showman. He traveled with circuses around Italy, France, America. All around the world. And he took me with him. I used to dress up as a little clown. My job was to run in the ring with a bucket of water to throw over the big clowns. It contained glitter really, but always got a laugh from the audience. My father was a drinker. His temper would turn when he hit the bottle. He used to strike me, too. One day, he was training a new tiger cub to perform. It was too young to learn, to understand properly what he wanted. He took up a crop and was about to strike the poor thing. I ran in and scooped up the cub. My father warned that he would beat me, too, unless I let it go. Or else I was to get out of his sight and never show my face again.
“Arthur, I hugged that cub to my chest and ran. I knew of Graystock through friends and I turned up on his doorstep. I was only eighteen. Both Graystock and the tigers needed looking after, protecting. The little cub I rescued was like our first child. We had many more after that.”
“So you didn’t have children of your own?”
Kate shook her head. “I never felt the need to reproduce. I had many friends with babies and I liked to cuddle and rock them to sleep, but it never happened for Graystock and me. I’ve never regretted it. The tigers are my family, though we just have the three adults now. There’s Elsie, who you had the pleasure of meeting. Then there is Timeous and Theresa. Plus... Come over here, Arthur.”
He stood and followed her to a corner of the kitchen to the side of a huge black iron range cooker. There was a large, flat wicker basket full of crumpled blankets. In the middle a tiger cub slept.
Its beauty took his breath away. It didn’t seem real, like a soft toy left there by a child. Except he saw its white chest rise and fall and the corner of its mouth twitch as if jerked by a piece of twine.
“Isn’t he beautiful?”
Arthur nodded.
“He’s been a little under the weather and Elsie is a bit grumpy at the moment, so I let him stay here last night. I kept a close eye on him while I was looking through the photographs for you.”
Now, Arthur had never liked cats. To him they were demanding, crapping things that laid in wait, then leaped and took great delight in digging up his rockery. But this little fellow was incredible. “May I touch him?”
Kate nodded. “Just a little. I don’t want to wake him.”
Arthur tentatively reached out to touch the little tiger’s chest. “Wow,” he said. “It’s so soft.”
“He is three months old now. His name is Elijah.”
Arthur crouched beside the tiger. He could see now why Miriam would be attracted to this place.
Kate laid a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Let’s see if we can find anything out about your wife, shall we?” She pointed to several shoeboxes which sat on the table. “I woke up early so started to browse through some old documents, photos and letters,” she said. “I forgot that we had so many. My husband is so untidy but luckily I like to label things. All my photos have dates on the back.”
“Thank you.” Arthur eyed the pile and wondered where to start. “Is Lord Graystock up yet?”
Kate shook her head. “He’s a late riser. I won’t see him until past lunch, especially after all the drinking he did last night. He’s not used to it these days.”
“I enjoyed the evening.”
“Me, too. After breakfast, and after we’ve looked at the photos, I will give you a lift to where you want to go.” She handed him a handful of photographs. “These are all dated 1963. I also included 1962 and 1964 to be certain. You have a browse and see what you can find.”
Arthur took the photos. There were lots of images of girls wearing flowing dresses, or with smooth beehives and wide kohl’d eyes, laughing, partying, posing. Part of him didn’t want to discover that his wife had been part of Graystock’s harem—another number, a gifter of something that had won her a tiger charm. “Why did so many people come here?” he mused aloud.
“I was the Kate Moss of the day,” Kate said. “Graystock was devastatingly handsome, albeit eccentric. Our house was open for artists, performers, for dreamers, for travelers. Some were attracted by our glamour, others needed a retreat. Some loved the tigers. It went on for many years, until Graystock began to take too many drugs. He became paranoid and aggressive. Slowly, people began to disappear from our lives. I’m the only one who stood by him. I loved him and so did the tigers. We fit together somehow. It works.”
Arthur almost flicked past the photo of the handsome man wearing a black turtleneck jumper and tight black trousers. His hair was slicked back and he stood with confidence, with one hand on his hip, staring at the camera with smoldering intensity so at first Arthur didn’t notice the petite lady who stood to the side of him. Then he saw that it was Miriam. His wife was standing with this strutting peacock of a man and gazing at him, her eyes full of admiration.
A wave of nausea flooded over him at the sight of her with another man. He took a gulp of his orange juice to wash it away. He had no idea he was capable of such jealousy, but the thought of Miriam and this man curled up in bed together made him want to clench his hands into fists and punch something hard. He turned the photo to show Kate. “Do you know who this is?”
Kate gave a short, sharp laugh that didn’t suit her. “That is Fran?ois De Chauffant aka the most arrogant man who ever lived. Graystock and he were friends in the sixties. He stayed here many times, with many different women. One night he and Graystock sat in the front room drinking too many brandies and Graystock told De Chauffant a family story that had been passed down through generations. A year later De Chauffant published his new book—and it was Graystock’s story. He called it Stories We Tell. It should have been named Lies I Tell. He had the audacity to claim that it was his own family story. Tsk. After that, the men did not speak any longer. In my view, this was no loss.”
“He was a novelist?” Arthur took the charm bracelet from his pocket.
“Ha. So he said. He was a stealer of ideas. A pompous Frenchman who broke Graystock’s heart.”
Arthur had felt uncomfortable yesterday, as he thought of how Miriam had acquired the tiger charm from Graystock. Since then he tried to convince himself the charm was just one of many that Graystock gave away willy-nilly. But now it was leading to his discovery of another chapter of Miriam’s life, to what might be a love affair with this De Chauffant fellow.