Random reminder

Press, 23 September 1980, Page 24

Random reminder

DISCIPLINE

She and her friend who flatted with her were addicted to ghost stories and horror films, and at the end of each week in their highly-paid professional occupations they used to sneak off to the local picture theatre and watch the midnight horror double feature — praying that neither their employers nor their clients would recognise them and so diminish their reputations. Her friend had a cat, a Siamese, that was like something out of a horror-film. It was quite nice during daylight hours but used to behave oddly at night, when its eyes glowed like coals. This particular night her friend was out of town and she went off to the horror double-feature on her own. It was- run of the mill stuff, very spooky, with maidens chained to stakes and vampires with blood dripping, etc. Afterwards she made her way home, unlocked the flat, and went down to the kitchen to make a warm drink before going to bed. ' Suddenly, she was transfixed. She could hear someone using the toilet. There was a moment’s silence, and then she heard it again: quite

unmistakable. Pausing for a moment to gather her wits, bottling up the scream she could feel coming up her throat, she grabbed her handbag and raced past the toilet for the door. As she fled past she allowed her panicstricken eyes one fleeting glance at the intruder before she got to the door. She saw the Siamese perched at an impossible angle on the edge of the toilet seat, and doing its business in the manner any well-bred cat should? She later told her friend what had happened, some hours later when her heart beats had sunk back to a mere 200 pounds per minute. Her friend laughed at her powers of imagination, and plainly did not believe her. She told others too, and they laughed in a derisive manner. So now she doesn’t tell that story any more. But she swears it is true ... and sometimes at night, when the wind moans outside and the leaves on the trees’ branches rustle outside her window, and she hears a strange noise, she lies rigid with fear, wondering if it really was the cat, or what it was, and whether it might come back . . .