Saturday 15 October 2011

CATS AND GHOSTS


          More ghostly tales then…
          Close the curtains against the dark, and draw your computer chairs closer to the virtual fire...
          Tales of cats this week…
          My aunt (she of the spooky tales) moved back into her parents’ house, to care for them as they died. She brought with her a black cat, named Charny.
          My grandad had always been fond of cats, and Charny soon learned that he was sure of a welcome, and much stroking and ear-rubbing, if he jumped up on the bed in the front room. All the months my grandad lay dying, the cat hardly left the bed. He would jump down to eat or use his tray, perhaps take a quick stroll up and down the garden, and then immediately return to my grandad’s side where he lay, night and day.
          Until two days before grandad’s death, when Charny jumped down, left the room, and wouldn’t go back into it again.  If picked up and carried inside, he struggled, and ran away as soon as put down.
          After grandad died, my aunt had to move, and Charny went with her again – but would not stay in the new house.  He ‘went mad’, running to every door and every window, crying and scratching, not resting until let out into the yard. If carried back inside, he panicked and ran about in fright until the door was opened.
          After a time of sleeping rough, Charney settled happily with a neighbour, and would come back to visit my aunt – but would not set paw in the house.
          I can personally vouch for the fact that almost every cat my aunt has kept in that house developed a habit of freezing and staring fixedly at a spot about half-way up the stairs.  I also heard heavy footsteps climbing the stairs one night when I was house-minding the place.
My parents' wedding
          My mother, too, told a tale of a sensitive cat. When my parents were first married, they lived in the old house where my father had been born.  Mom always disliked it.  It was creepy, she said.
          It was gas-lit, and you had to put money in the meter.  If the gas ran out and you didn’t have any sixpences or shillings, you had to sit in the dark.
          Mom was often alone in the evening, when Dad worked late.  She would sit reading on the sofa, with her cat, Tiny, who lay on her lap for hours, purring.  But when the gas sputtered out, Mom said, and it was  instantly dark, Tiny jumped from her lap and ran under the sideboard, squeezing herself right to the back, cowering against the wall.
          A cat, scared of the dark? You can imagine how my mother felt, as she groped for her purse and scrabbled for a sixpence.  Quite often she didn’t have a sixpence, and had to sit in the dark, wondering what had frightened the cat…
          Other things happened in that house that made her like it even less… but that’s for another blog.
         Have you any good creepy tales of ghost and animals, or ghostly animals?  Or beastly ghosts.  Come on, come to the virtual fire and share them…
          My new ghost story collections, NIGHTCOMERS and HAUNTINGS will be published as e-books, on Hallowe’en.

And here's Blot, with Hallowe'en games...
 
   Bobbing for ideas can certainly be like that....

10 comments:

Penny Dolan said...

A brilliant Blot! Loved the worrying story too.

Stuart Hill said...

Hi Sue,

I have an animal ghost story. Once again it's a fleshing out of one I mentioned briefly in my blog on the Do Authors Dream of Electric Books site:

A few years ago I stayed overnight with two friends of mine. At the time their children were very young and had a huge selection of small animals in cages, ranging from a truly vicious Russian hamster, to some very gentlemanly rats. During the night I needed to empty my bladder so I set off for the loo. But on the way I spotted one of the kids' white mice running around the corridor. I spent a good few minutes trying to catch it, but only succeeded in waking up Jane, my friend. She asked what I was doing and when I told her she just said "Oh, don't worry about that, just go back to bed and I'll explain in the morning."
At breakfast the next day I reminded her about the incident and she just said. "Oh yes, that was our ghost mouse."
As you know Sue, I'm a believer in all things-that-go-bump-in-the-night, but for some reason I found the idea of a ghost mouse a bit too much to accept. So I pointed out that it could quite easily have been an escapee from the kids' collection of fluffy rodents. It was then that I was invited to inspect the cages and report back on how many mice there were.
Well there were hamsters, (both Russian and Golden), fancy rats and gerbils, but not one mouse.
"That's right," Jane said when I admitted to the absence of anything small, fluffy and white. "The only mouse we have is a ghost."
I doubted my friend's sanity for a while after that, but there's a postscript. A few months after this event, the entire family and rodent zoo moved house, and one night I was staying over once again. This time I was sharing my bed with the family's very large tomcat who rejoiced in the name of Caliban. Like all cats, he was managing to occupy two thirds of the duvet, and was performing his nightly wash before settling down for a well earned snooze. But in mid-leg, he suddenly froze and glared rigidly at my boots that stood in a pool of moonlight cascading through a chink in the curtains. I followed his line of sight, and there, playing on my boots, was a tiny white mouse.
Caliban's muscles stood out in relief all the way along his powerful back as he prepared to strike, but just as I grabbed him, we both watched as the mouse slowly disappeared, like a fade-out shot in a film.
Next day at breakfast I told Jane about the visitation.
"Yes," she said brightly. "When we moved house, the ghost mouse came with us."

Joan Lennon said...

That is such a touching photo of your oh-so-young parents - thanks for sharing it.

madwippitt said...

I feel the need to balance up this blog with something a bit canine ... I won't bore you again with my story of the ghostly dog I met, but here for your delight and delectation give you instead the story of John Galsworthy's (yes, THAT Galsworthy) beloved black Cocker Spaniel, Chris. In 'Memories', he writes of an occasion after Chris had died:
"My companion tells me that, since he left me, he has once come back. It was Old Year's Night, and she was sad, when he came to her in visible shape of his black body, passing round the dining-table from the window-end, to his proper place beneath the table, at her feet. She saw him quite clearly; she heard the padding tap-tap of his paws and very toe-nails; she felt his warmth brushing hard against the front of her skirt. She thought then that he would settle down upon her feet, but something disturbed him, and he stood pausing, pressed against her, then moved out toward where I generally sit, but was not sitting that night.
She saw him stand there, as if wondering; then at some sound or laugh, she became self-conscious, and slowly, very slowly, he was no longer there. Had he some message, some counsel to give, something he would say, that last night of the last year of all those he had watched over us? Will he come back again?"
Makes all the hair stand up on the back of my neck - but in a good way. And how poignant and hopeful that last sentence ...

And as for Blot - well! Have you considered sacking him and getting a wippitt muse?

Katherine Langrish said...

Creepy....
I'm sitting alone in the house as I write this, and can feel the hairs stirring at the base of my neck...

How old was your mother in that photo? She looks so sweet, and about twelve!

Susan Price said...

Give up Blot?!! No, no, no, not even for a whippet. But loved the story of Chris, and of the white mouse.
My mother may look very sweet in that photo, Kath, but she lived up to the legend of fiery-tempered red-heads. Not so long after that picture was taken they were coming home from a night at the pictures, and Dad chose to run and an arriving bus rather than buy fish and chips. Mum wanted the chips and, when they got home, chipless, she opened the cupboards and methodically smashed every single plate and dish because, 'If we've got no chips we don't need plates!'

Leslie Wilson said...

I do adore Blott!

No animal story, but our house in Kendal was haunted by a little old lady. My brother and my mother both saw her; I place more reliance on my brother's sighting than my mother's, as she had a gift for invention not corralled into fiction. She looked very like my grandmother, who was depressed and reclusive, but it wasn't my grandmother. I always think that maybe, in some way, my grandmother's self had split and a shadow or shell of herself had deposited itself in the house. Next time I'm in Kendal, maybe I should knock at the door of the house and ask the present occupant.
I didn't see her. I don't see ghosts and have no desire to, either.

Leslie Wilson said...

Actually, I've just realised that last comment isn't true. The only ghost I've ever seen was an animal ghost. I was visiting Hilary Mantel, and saw her three cats. Later, I asked what the third one was called. 'There are only two,' she said. She then said that several other people had seen the third cat, which was, presumably, a ghost cat. It isn't surprising, though, that the only ghost I ever saw was at the house of the (then) future author of BEYOND BLACK..
It wasn't a scary cat.

Sue Purkiss said...

Delightfully shivery tales. (Or tails... sorry!)

Like Leslie, I don't see ghosts. Well, I haven't yet, and I don't want to!

Susan Price said...

I've never seen a ghost either - but I'd love to!