The Shorecliff Horror and Other Stories, Page 2

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  Even as cats go, Lovecraft was a peculiar sort of creature. He wasn’t playful or obviously affectionate in any way and he didn’t particularly like to be touched or held. He would accept food when it was offered, but usually with an uncertain sort of shrug as though he didn’t want to be rude but would rather I hadn’t gone to any bother. Almost everything he did was with a similar melancholic lack of enthusiasm, as though he were congenitally incapable of taking genuine pleasure from anything, as though life itself were a chore of unfortunate necessity and not one he need pretend to enjoy.

  Described in this way you would think such an animal should make for a thoroughly unpleasant companion, particularly in a remote outpost like Shorecliff, but that’s not the way he was at all. In spite of all these mannerisms, there was something ineffably loveable about Lovecraft. Never the most attractive of cats - he was far too lean and weather-beaten for that - there was nevertheless something about him that appealed to me in such a way that it was easy to take him to heart, to think of him as a friend and to feel that a room was empty if he were not in it with me. The way the world conspired against him, the way that every new day seemed to bring a new set of inconveniences, to confirm yet again his view of life as a series of trials and ordeals to be endured with as much dignity and as little fuss as possible – all of this triggered, in me at least, an unavoidable desire to look after the poor old thing, to do everything I could to ease his load and bring a little comfort his way.

  I call him an ‘old thing’, but in truth I had no way of knowing how old a cat Lovecraft was when we stumbled across one another. His wiry build, the rich colour of his black coat, his bright green eyes – all these suggested a healthy adult cat of no more than middle age. While there was certainly no kitten in him anymore, neither was there anything about his physical appearance to suggest he was an animal of particularly advanced years. Nevertheless there remained so much about his manner - the way his tail drooped as he walked, his wearisome way of dragging himself through the day - that spoke of advanced old age. For myself, I assumed him to be a relatively young creature, in fact, but one made to feel old long before his time by the hardships of life. His whole manner, without doubt, was that of an old man, a kindly grandfather of a sort. While other cats might crave attention or be tempted to play with toys or dangled pieces of string, Lovecraft clearly viewed himself as above and beyond such things. Certainly, any efforts I made in that direction were every time doomed to complete, futile failure. No matter how hard I tried or how long I persevered I would receive no reaction from Lovecraft beyond an apologetic shrug, as though he appreciated the gesture but was sadly unable to oblige me by joining in. Such frivolous things seemed simply impossible for him to indulge in, so weighed down was he by the world and all the burdens it had put upon him.

  There is so much I could say about this peculiar cat I came to call a friend, so many vivid memories, so many fond recollections, so many quirks of personality and disposition as to make him seem to me more individual, more human than any other creature I have ever encountered. I cannot go any further, however, without also recalling the strange characteristic that was, perhaps, his most peculiar trait of all.

  Even at the best of times, Lovecraft would often give the impression of viewing his meals as an inconvenient intrusion, not at all something to which he would look forward with any relish. For days at a time, in fact, he would appear to eat barely a thing at all, surviving on water and the odd scrap or two of food he deigned to accept from the bowls I filled for him. This was not, I felt, a sign that he was a fussy or choosy eater – there seemed little in fact that he would not accept, given time – but rather an indication of his desire to lead as ascetic an existence as he could, to make as few compromises with the world as possible and to never admit to relying on any outside force so long as he could avoid it.

  Once I accustomed myself to these habits of his, I gave little thought to filling his bowl in the morning and evening, knowing that, whatever I put there, he would take what he had to and leave whatever he could and that the precise items I offered him made no difference whatsoever to how much he would eat. It was in this assumption of his indifference that I attempted to fill his bowl one evening from a can of tuna I had opened for myself earlier that day. It seemed a harmless enough thing to do, but from the first moment I placed the bowl on the ground I knew that a mistake had been made. So extreme and unexpected was Lovecraft’s reaction that to begin with I assumed that he was having a fit or a seizure of some description. His fur raised, his teeth bared, he scrambled into the corner of the kitchen hissing and spitting ferociously. His eyes lit up with a fire and colour I had never seen in him before. It was as though the animal in him, the wild creature, so precisely suppressed for most of the time, had taken over. He seemed a completely different creature and, to be frank, the sight of it terrified me. I tried to talk to him, to calm him down, but there was no recognition in his eyes anymore. I truly believe that if I had touched him or stepped too close to him at that moment he would have scratched the very flesh from my arms.

  Not until I cleared the bowl out and threw the offending items into the waste bin outside did this possession pass from him. His fur settled, his posture returned to normal and his eyes narrowed again to their habitual sleepy alertness.

  Soon enough I learned to expect much the same reaction from him whenever I brought fish of any sort into the house. The sight of it, the smell of it even was enough to send him scurrying and hiding under the nearest piece of furniture as if in fear of his life. Even that, in fact, understates the real, vivid strength of his aversion. Lovecraft did not merely refuse to eat fish, he loathed it to very core of his being, just as he loathed all sea creatures or anything, indeed, that came from the sea at all. If I brought home seashells or driftwood picked up during walks along the beach he would refuse to enter any room they were kept in. Even I myself, on days when these walks would leave me covered and washed over in spray from the wild waves that crashed into the cliffs below Shorecliff House, would be regarded with deep suspicion on my return home as though he could not quite reconcile the hated smell of the sea upon me with the person he thought he could recognise, as though he could not be entirely sure I was who I appeared to be.

  Given the strength of this powerful aversion you might have thought that Shorecliff House, perched as it was at the top of steep cliffs facing over the wild North Sea, was not the ideal place for a cat such as Lovecraft to made his home. It is the strange way of life, however, that the things we are most afraid of are often the same things we are most strongly drawn towards. So it seemed with Lovecraft. For as much as he loathed the sea and all things in it, so also was he fascinated by it. Through long hours each day he would sit balanced on the ledge of the great drawing room picture window, staring out over the cliffs, listening to the waves crash down on the rocky beach below. During stormy weather in particular (of which there was much during our time at the house) he would pace that window ledge endlessly, back and forth, flinching anxiously at each new battering from the wind, staring nervously into the grey world outside as though looking for something he was afraid to find. So regular were these habits and so predictable that I would joke that he seemed to have more guard dog in him than cat sometimes. In truth there was something about the way he patrolled that window ledge and peered out over the cliffs each day that did suggest a guardian standing at a threshold, a watchman performing a sacred duty, protecting the house from the sea and the strange things that might walk out of it.