Later, when we thought about it, nobody could remember how, or why, she had come to live with us, that interlude one summer. “You don’t own a cat, they own you,” Mammie pointed out, as if we were selected beneficiaries of the cat’s presence.
There was the cat one morning on the back porch, a bundle of fur, long fluffy wisps the colour of nougat, darkening at some of the ends to cinnamon or the sunset sky behind the Blue Mountains.
“And eyes the colour of a pomegranate,” observed Mammie, from her wooden rocking chair, shelling peas into a basin balanced on her flower-flecked pinafore in the ample space between parted knees. “Isn’t that so, Pomegranate?” Mammie asked the supine cat across her feet.
It was true. Unseeing, or perhaps all-seeing eyes, eyes that might have glimpsed beyond horizons, glinted amber, copper, blood red, before snapping shut as if to say, ‘That’s enough peering at me. Leave me my space. Get on with your life.’
Pomegranate. The name stuck. The cat spent much of the day lying across Mammie’s feet on the back porch, Mammie in the rocker, made by her father, she told us. We pasted notices on lamp posts and in the window of Hicks’ store, arguing over whether Pomegranate was Persian or Angora, and how we should describe her colour, whether cream would do, or even just pale.
Mammie, meanwhile, gazed through misted eyes at the Blue Mountains, air heavy with the sweet catch of woodsmoke, and maintained an occasional one-sided conversation with the cat: “Ain’t that so, Pomegranate?” or “Reckon we’re in for some rain before nightfall, Pomegranate. You can see darker blue along the mountain outline. That’s why them called Blue Mountains,” as if she were instructing a visiting grandchild. Pomegranate had a dread of thunder. At the first rumble she would, in one balletic leap, land in the open doorway and pad to Mammie’s bedroom downstairs and sanctuary beneath the bed.
We weren’t even sure if Pomegranate was ‘she’. The cat never lay on her back or did anything as undignified as inviting a tickle, for Pomegranate was an imperial cat, incapable of inelegant movement, swaying in heavenly symmetry on perfectly-placed paws when she deigned to leave Mammie and venture round the yard. Offerings of mice, or birds with stiff legs no thicker than a yard broom bristle, waited by Mammie’s rocker on the porch each morning.
Mammie cooked morsels of chicken which Pomegranate accepted in an enamel dish, and a smaller one of milk. After each meal, Pomegranate groomed her paws, legs, face, all of her, long sensual sweeps like a girl brushing her hair before meeting a beloved. Pomegranate spent the evenings on Mammie’s bed, across the bottom of the patchwork quilt, worked by the fingers of a younger Mammie, an interlocking, geometric design in green, white, two shades of crimson and a flowered print. Pomegranate always placed her head where the two crimsons met in star-shaped glory.
By the second week, Pomegranate was lying in Mammie’s lap, when the pea-shelling, gooseberry top and tailing, and strawberry hulling were complete. With arthritic fingers, Mammie stroked the long fur, murmuring, “You know things, eh, Pomegranate. You ain’t telling,” and Pomegranate purred.
One morning, Mammie’s necklace was missing from its box on her vanity table. We wondered if we should put up posters notifying its loss, but Mammie was becoming absent-minded and the necklace wasn’t valuable: shiny metal rosettes pasted alongside each other to form a collar. Mammie used to tell us her first sweetheart, who became her first husband, won it at the fair when they were sixteen. She sometimes wore it on Sundays. Mammie went through the drawers in her closet and the cushioned boxes in her bedroom until retreating, defeated, to her rocker on the porch. “Reckon I put that necklace somewhere, eh, Pomegranate? Something like that don’t just disappear. Where would a body leave a necklace?” Pomegranate purred. The following four Sundays, Mammie wore a cameo brooch across the top button of her scarlet blouse.
The next Monday morning, Pomegranate was not in her position at the bottom of Mammie’s bed. Mammie shuffled into the kitchen. “Pomegranate!” she called, as if summoning a child for tea. She opened the back porch door, called again, and a third time. Leaves hung golden, defiant, on the trees. There was a nip of autumn in the air, not a morning to sit out in the rocker. Mammie made jam from the last of the strawberries, muttering to herself. The sticky smell of boiling fruit and sugar filled the kitchen. “Pomegranate?” Mammie ventured every so often, turning round from stirring the bubbling mixture in the preserving pan in case the cat had come back.
Around mid-day a confident sun blazed overhead. Mammie went out to the porch, shoulders hunched, shaking her head, some knitting in her hand. She paused before sitting in the rocker. On the faded cushion, the same patchwork as the bedcover, in the centre of the crimson star, lay the necklace, metal rosettes glinting.
There was the cat one morning on the back porch, a bundle of fur, long fluffy wisps the colour of nougat, darkening at some of the ends to cinnamon or the sunset sky behind the Blue Mountains.
“And eyes the colour of a pomegranate,” observed Mammie, from her wooden rocking chair, shelling peas into a basin balanced on her flower-flecked pinafore in the ample space between parted knees. “Isn’t that so, Pomegranate?” Mammie asked the supine cat across her feet.
It was true. Unseeing, or perhaps all-seeing eyes, eyes that might have glimpsed beyond horizons, glinted amber, copper, blood red, before snapping shut as if to say, ‘That’s enough peering at me. Leave me my space. Get on with your life.’
Pomegranate. The name stuck. The cat spent much of the day lying across Mammie’s feet on the back porch, Mammie in the rocker, made by her father, she told us. We pasted notices on lamp posts and in the window of Hicks’ store, arguing over whether Pomegranate was Persian or Angora, and how we should describe her colour, whether cream would do, or even just pale.
Mammie, meanwhile, gazed through misted eyes at the Blue Mountains, air heavy with the sweet catch of woodsmoke, and maintained an occasional one-sided conversation with the cat: “Ain’t that so, Pomegranate?” or “Reckon we’re in for some rain before nightfall, Pomegranate. You can see darker blue along the mountain outline. That’s why them called Blue Mountains,” as if she were instructing a visiting grandchild. Pomegranate had a dread of thunder. At the first rumble she would, in one balletic leap, land in the open doorway and pad to Mammie’s bedroom downstairs and sanctuary beneath the bed.
We weren’t even sure if Pomegranate was ‘she’. The cat never lay on her back or did anything as undignified as inviting a tickle, for Pomegranate was an imperial cat, incapable of inelegant movement, swaying in heavenly symmetry on perfectly-placed paws when she deigned to leave Mammie and venture round the yard. Offerings of mice, or birds with stiff legs no thicker than a yard broom bristle, waited by Mammie’s rocker on the porch each morning.
Mammie cooked morsels of chicken which Pomegranate accepted in an enamel dish, and a smaller one of milk. After each meal, Pomegranate groomed her paws, legs, face, all of her, long sensual sweeps like a girl brushing her hair before meeting a beloved. Pomegranate spent the evenings on Mammie’s bed, across the bottom of the patchwork quilt, worked by the fingers of a younger Mammie, an interlocking, geometric design in green, white, two shades of crimson and a flowered print. Pomegranate always placed her head where the two crimsons met in star-shaped glory.
By the second week, Pomegranate was lying in Mammie’s lap, when the pea-shelling, gooseberry top and tailing, and strawberry hulling were complete. With arthritic fingers, Mammie stroked the long fur, murmuring, “You know things, eh, Pomegranate. You ain’t telling,” and Pomegranate purred.
One morning, Mammie’s necklace was missing from its box on her vanity table. We wondered if we should put up posters notifying its loss, but Mammie was becoming absent-minded and the necklace wasn’t valuable: shiny metal rosettes pasted alongside each other to form a collar. Mammie used to tell us her first sweetheart, who became her first husband, won it at the fair when they were sixteen. She sometimes wore it on Sundays. Mammie went through the drawers in her closet and the cushioned boxes in her bedroom until retreating, defeated, to her rocker on the porch. “Reckon I put that necklace somewhere, eh, Pomegranate? Something like that don’t just disappear. Where would a body leave a necklace?” Pomegranate purred. The following four Sundays, Mammie wore a cameo brooch across the top button of her scarlet blouse.
The next Monday morning, Pomegranate was not in her position at the bottom of Mammie’s bed. Mammie shuffled into the kitchen. “Pomegranate!” she called, as if summoning a child for tea. She opened the back porch door, called again, and a third time. Leaves hung golden, defiant, on the trees. There was a nip of autumn in the air, not a morning to sit out in the rocker. Mammie made jam from the last of the strawberries, muttering to herself. The sticky smell of boiling fruit and sugar filled the kitchen. “Pomegranate?” Mammie ventured every so often, turning round from stirring the bubbling mixture in the preserving pan in case the cat had come back.
Around mid-day a confident sun blazed overhead. Mammie went out to the porch, shoulders hunched, shaking her head, some knitting in her hand. She paused before sitting in the rocker. On the faded cushion, the same patchwork as the bedcover, in the centre of the crimson star, lay the necklace, metal rosettes glinting.