OUR TEAM MEMBER, AUTHOR DAWN TREACHER, IS SHARING WITH US CHAPTER FOUR FROM HER NOVEL - 'THE NINTH LIFE OF NORRIS' #RWRTeamBlog #ReadWriteRepeat

THE NINTH LIFE OF NORRIS

Chapter 4

Norris was woken by the sound of the front door. A few hours earlier he had ventured, under the cover of darkness into the kitchen and reluctantly emptied his bowl. He had settled down on the window sill until footsteps on the stairs had woken him.

As the front door was pulled shut, Norris watched the figure of a man pull up the collar of his overcoat. What hair remained was swept over a crop of age spots that spread across the top of his head like a rash. As the man turned, Norris felt every hair on has back stand to attention. The last time Norris had seen this man he was nearly sixty years younger but he would recognise those haunting blue eyes anywhere. The scar that framed his left eye had silvered. His face had filled out, his nose now more bulbous and veined but for Norris it was the same man that had sat crouched in the darkness, sweat beading on his face. His eyes had pleaded with Norris then, the same eyes that now looked right through him. But all Norris could see was the gun that was pointed to his head as a warm trickle of urine ran down his leg.

The man started to to walk down the path to the gate. Norris shrank back into the shadow of the curtains, forgetting that now he was a cat and that the man could never recognise him as the ginger haired soldier, even if he did look back. Norris noted a limp in the man’s step as he made his way along Grantchester Road before being swallowed by a mist that hung low in the sky.

Norris felt sorry for Stella, who still in her pyjamas, now cleared up the cat vomit from the windowsill. Maybe she’d take him back to the rescue centre, and like Baxter, he’d get another chance, but Stella just stroked his head.

“Must be strange here for you,” she said.

It wasn’t strange, thought Norris, it was terrifying, a living nightmare of guilt from which he could not wake up, and it was only the second day. In some ways he had got used to being reborn when he thought he had breathed his last. But only on one occasion before had he been reborn into a life that overlapped a previous one. A mixture of stupidity and naivety had seen him drown in his late teens. He could have born it much better if he hadn’t had to endure another life watching his best friend marry Shelley, the girl he had loved since school. Only then he was a young child and could only watch helplessly as someone else lived the life he had dreamed of. For most of that life Norris had seen his rebirth as some kind of punishment for messing up his chances. But now Norris didn’t know what to think any more.

Stella scoped him up. “Have you seen Gramps?” She asked Mildred, as her mother carried her tea into the sitting room, still wearing her dressing gown.

“I heard him leave very early without a word. I do hope we haven’t upset him. He took my leaving your father badly, but I hoped he would understand.”

“I’ll make breakfast,” said Stella, carrying Norris into the kitchen. “I’ll make extra, in case he comes back.”

Norris felt more than a little guilty when he swiped a rasher of bacon from the pan as Stella and Mildred sat eating at the kitchen table. He had to eat something vegetarian or not and he couldn’t stomach the stuff that lay in his bowl, on which a fly now sat.

When her granddad didn’t return, Stella slipped Norris the other slice of bacon.

“You might as well finish it.” She said.

Norris had taken a liking to Stella. It was a difficult age and unfortunately he knew it well. When you were fifteen years old you didn’t really belong in either childhood or adulthood, instead you wavered somewhere between the two, but of course you didn’t realise that until years later. Dressed in her school uniform, her tie slung low over her shirt, Stella grabbed her bag and kissed Norris goodbye.

“Be good, I’ll be back at lunchtime to check on you.” Her strawberry lip balm lingered in his fur as he watched her leave.

What do cats do all day, he thought, as Mildred snatched up her car keys and ushered Stella outside, leaving Norris all alone for the first time. And what if the man came back? Jimmy Morgan, Norris remembered the name, but then how could he ever forget.

**********

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ninth-Life-Norris-Dawn-Treacher/dp/1068641274

COMING SOON: On Sunday, 17th August, we are delighted to welcome guest author, Amelia Swanney. Amelia will be sharing an excerpt from her debut novel, 'The Serpent And The Staff'.