Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell Read Free Book Online

bottom of the stairs, at the back door, at the mouth of the old rotting barn. She rattled the box of its rank-smelling food. She opened and shut the fridge door, with ostentatious volume. But nothing.
    Monica clicked her tongue with irritation. She had on the apron she reserved specially for this task. And the rubber gloves. She had the metal-toothed cat comb all ready, soaking in Dettol. Where was the creature?
    She called a few times more, then gave up, took off the special apron and gloves and began to attack the mantelpiece with a duster.
    But later, as she was taking out the rubbish, a dark shape in the flower bed startled her. At first, she thought one of the children had dropped something, or someone in the lane had thrown something over their wall—a hat, a shoe, perhaps. She shaded her eyes against the sun and realized it was the cat, hunched oddly, awkwardly, at the base of the yellowing jasmine plant.
    “There you are,” said Monica, but her voice was faltering.
    A filmy glaze over the cat’s eyes, the chest expanding and contracting with a rapid, fevered in-out, its head bowed low. Monica bent her knees into a crouch and saw, on its hind leg, skin torn like fabric, a clotted mass of red, a patch of something white. She let out a small shriek and staggered back onto the path. She looked up and down the lane, as if seeking help, then ran into the house, hands working at the cloth of her apron.
    The phone was ringing as she burst into the hall and she snatched up the receiver.
    “Hello, Camberden three eight three—”
    Her mother’s voice was mid-sentence: “… and so I was wondering if you had any idea of where he might have gone because—”
    “Mammy, I can’t talk now. Oh, it’s terrible and—”
    “What’s happened?” Her mother snapped into the situation instantly, scenting danger near her child. “What is it? Is it Peter?”
    “No. The cat.”
    “What about the cat?”
    “Its leg. It’s all mangled and bleeding. It’s sitting out there now, hunched up and strange and I don’t know what to do.”
    “Ah, the poor thing. Hit by a car, maybe. Alive, is he?”
    “Yes. It’s breathing, anyway. I don’t know what to do,” Monica said again.
    “Well, you’ll need to bring him to the vet.”
    “The vet?”
    “Yes. They’ll be able to help him. Poor thing,” Gretta said again. Her mother’s soft heart, when it came to small mammals, preferably helpless ones, always took Monica by surprise.
    “I can’t.”
    “Why not?”
    “I can’t pick it up. Not like that.”
    “You’ll have to, darling. Drape a towel round him, if you really can’t touch him. Just put him in a cardboard box and take him along.”
    “A cardboard box?”
    “Yes, pet. Do you have one?”
    “Probably. I don’t know.”
    “You’ll be fine. Do you remember when Aoife found that kitten? And she—”
    “Mammy, I can’t talk now. I have to—”
    “Before you go, I just need to ask you something. It’s about the shed key. You see, your father—”
    “I have to go! I’ll ring you back.” Monica put the phone down and pulled open the door to the cellar. She was going to rescue the cat, she was, nobody else: it was to be her triumph. She felt a righteous excitement flooding through her veins. She could tell the story to the girls at the weekend and they would listen gratefullyand perhaps a little bit tearfully. They would see the cat; it would have a bandage on by then and would be sitting docilely by the range, and they would know that she, Monica, had saved it.
    She scrambled down the cellar steps, into the damp dark. She was sure she had a cardboard box down there, left over from Christmas.
    ·  ·  ·
    Monica couldn’t understand what the vet was saying. He didn’t seem to want to help her, not at all. She’d got herself and the cat there, in one piece, in this unbearable, white heat. She’d got it into a box, she’d got herself and the box to the bus stop; she’d sat on the bus, looking