Total Loss

by Sylvia Townsend Warner


When Charlotte woke, it was raining. Rain hid the view of the downs 
and blurred the neat row of trees and the neat row of houses opposite 
which the trees had been planted to screen. This was the third wet 
morning since her birthday a week ago. There would be rain all 
through the holidays, just like last year. On her birthday, Charlotte 
was ten. 'Now you are in double figures,' said Professor Bayer. 'And 
you will stay in them till you are a hundred years old. Think of 
that, my Lottchen.' 'Yes, think of that,' said Mother. Charlotte 
could see that Mother did not really wish to think of it. She was 
being polite, because Professer Bayer was a very important person at 
the Research Station, so it was a real honour that he should like 
Father and come to the house to borrow _The New Statesman._

Charlotte's cat Moodie was awake already. He lay on the chair in the 
corner, on top of her clothes, and was staring at her with a thirsty 
expression. She jumped out of bed, went to the kitchen, breaking into 
its early morning tidiness and seclusion, and came back with a saucer 
of milk. 'Look, Moodie! Nice milk.' He would not drink, though he 
still had that thirsty expression. 'You silly old Moodles, you don't 
know what you want,' she said, kneeling before the chair with the 
saucer in her hand. Moodie had come as a wedding present to Mother. 
His birthday was unknown, but he was certainly two years older than 
Charlotte. Ever since she could remember, there had been Moodie, and 
Moodie had been hers -- to be slept on, talked to, hauled about, 
wheeled in a doll's perambulator, read aloud to, confided in, wept 
on, trodden on, loved and taken for granted. He stared at her, 
ignoring the milk, and forgetting the milk she stared back, 
fascinated as ever by the way the fur grew on his nose, the 
mysterious smooth conflict between two currents of growth. At last 
she put down the saucer, seized him in her arms and got back into 
bed. 'We understand each other, don't we?' she said, curling his tail 
round his flank. 'Don't we, Moodie?' He trod with his front paws, 
purring under his breath, and relaxed, his head on her breast. But at 
the smell of his bad teeth she turned her face away, pretending it 
was to look out of the window. 'It's raining, Moodie. It's going to 
be another horrible wet day. You mustn't be a silly cat, sitting in 
the garden and getting wet through, like you did on Tuesday.' He was 
still purring when she fell asleep, though when her mother came to 
wake her he had gone. Sure enough, when she looked for him after 
breakfast he was sitting hunched and motionless on the lawn, his grey 
fur silvered with moisture and fluffed out like a coat of eiderdown. 
She picked him up, and the bloom vanished; the eiderdown coat, 
suddenly dark and lank, clung to his bony haunches. 'Mother, I'm 
going to put Moodie in the airing cupboard.'

'Yes, do, my pet. That's the best plan! But hurry, because Mr. and 
Mrs. Flaxman will be here to fetch you at any moment. They've just 
rung up. They want you to spend the day with them.'

'And see the horses?'

The cat in the child's arms broke into a purr, as though her thrill 
of pleasure communicated itself to him. Though of course it was 
really the warmth of the kitchen, thought Meg.

'Yes, the horses. And the bantams. And the lovely old toy theatre 
that belonged to Mrs. Flaxman's grandmother. You'll love it. It's an 
absolutely storybook house.'

'Shall I wear my new mac?'

'Yes. But hurry, Charlotte. Put Moodie in the airing cupboard, and 
wash your hands. I'll be up in a moment to brush your hair.'

She had made one false step. The Flaxmans lived twenty miles away, 
and if they had just rung up they could not be arriving immediately. 
Luckily Charlotte, though brought up to use her reason, was not a 
very deductive child; the discrepancy between the prompt arriving of 
the Flaxmans and the long drive back to Hood House was not likely to 
catch her attention. But perhaps a private word to Adela Flaxman -- 
just to be on the safe side.

'Mother! Mother!'

At the threatening woe of the cry, Meg left everything and ran.

'Mother! There's a button off.'

The Flaxmans arrived, both talking at once, and saying what a 
horrible day it was, and Oh, the wretched farmers, who would be a 
farmer? in loud gay voices. Mrs. Flaxman was Mother's particular 
friend, but today Mother didn't seem to like her so much, and was 
laughing obligingly, just as she did with Professor Bayer. As 
Charlotte stood on the outskirts of this conversation she began to 
feel less sure of a happy successful day out. She would be treated 
like a child and probably given milk instead of tea. Moodie hadn't 
drunk that milk. 'Mother! Don't forget to feed Moodie.' 

'Charlotte! As if I would --  -- ' At the same moment Mr. Flaxman 
said, 'Come on, Charlotte! Come on, Adela! The car will catch cold if 
you don't hurry,' and swept them out of the house.

Meg went slowly upstairs, noticing that the sound of the rain was 
more insistent in the upper storey of the house. The airing cupboard 
was in the bathroom. She glanced in quickly and closed the door. She 
gave the room a rapid tidy, went down, and turned on the wireless.

Meg believed in method. Every morning of the week had its programme; 
and this was Thursday, when she defrosted the refrigerator, polished 
the silver and turned out her bedroom -- a full morning's work. But 
today she did none of it, wandering about with a desultory, fidgeting 
tidiness, taking things up and putting them down again, straightening 
books on their shelves, nipping dead leaves off the houseplants, 
while the wireless went on with the Daily Service. There was bound to 
be a _mauvais quart d'heure_.  In fact, everything was well in hand; 
Charlotte was safely disposed of with the Flaxmans, Moodie was asleep 
in the airing cupboard and the vet had promised to arrive before 
midday. It would be quite painless and over in a few minutes. But it 
was, for all that, a _mauvais quart d'heure_.  There are some women, 
Meg was one of them, in whom conscience is so strongly developed that 
it leaves little room for anything else. Love is scarcely felt before 
duty rushes to encase it, anger is impossible because one must always 
be calm and see both sides, pity evaporates in expedients, even grief 
is felt as a sort of bruised sense of injury, a resentment that one 
should have grief forced upon one when one has always acted for the 
best. Meg's conscience told her that she was acting for the best: 
Moodie would be spared inevitable suffering, Charlotte protected from 
a possibly quite serious trauma, Alan undisturbed in his work. Her 
own distress -- and she was fond of poor old Moodie, no other cat 
could quite replace him because of his associations -- was a small 
price to pay for all these satisfactory arrangements, and she was 
ready to pay it, sacrificing her own feelings as duty bid, and as 
common sense also bid. Besides, it would soon be over. The trouble 
about an active, strongly developed conscience is that it requires to 
be constantly fed with good works, a routine shovelling of 
meritorious activities. And when you have done everything for the 
best, and are waiting about for the vet to come and kill your old cat 
and can't therefore begin to defrost a refrigerator or turn out a 
bedroom, a good conscience soon leaves off being a support and 
becomes a liability, demanding to be supported itself.

The bad quarter of an hour stretched into half an hour, into an hour, 
into an hour and a quarter, while Meg, stiffening at the noise of 
every approaching car and fancying with every gust of a fitful rising 
wind that Moodie was demanding with yowls to be let out of the airing 
cupboard, tried to read but could not, looked for cobwebs but found 
none and wondered if for this once she would break her rule of not 
drinking spirits before lunchtime. She was in the kitchen, devouring 
lumps of sugar, when the vet arrived. She took him to the bathroom, 
opened the cupboard door, heard him say, 'Well, old man?'

'Is there anything I can do to help?'

'If you could let me have an old towel.'

She produced the towel, and went to her bedroom where she opened the 
window and looked out on the rain and the tossing trees and 
remembered that everyone must die. At last she heard the basin tap 
turned on, the vet washing his hands, the water running away.

'Mrs. Atwood. Have you got a box?'

'A box?'

He stood in the passage, a tall, red-faced young man, the picture of 
health.

'Any sort of carton. To take it away in. A sack would do.'

She had not remembered that Moodie would require a coffin. In a 
flurry of guilt she began to search. There was a brown paper carrier; 
but this would not do, Moodie could not be borne away swinging from 
the vet's hand. There was the carton the groceries had come in; but 
it was too small, and had Pan Yan Pickles printed on it. At last she 
found a plain oblong carton, kept because it was solid and 
serviceable. Deciding that this would do, she glanced inside and 
realized that it would not do like that. Moodie could not be put 
straight into an empty box: there must be some sort of lining, of 
padding. She tore old newspaper into strips and crumpled the strips 
to form a mattress; and then, remembering that flowers are given to 
the dead, she snatched a couple of dahlias from a vase and scattered 
the petals on top of the newspaper. The vet was standing in the 
bathroom, averting his eyes from the bidet, the towel neatly folded 
was balanced on the edge of the basin, and on the bathroom stool was 
Moodie's unrecognizably shabby, degraded, dead body. Before she 
realized what she was saying, she had said, 'If you'll hold the box, 
I'd like to put him in.'

Yet what else could she say? She owed it to Moodie. She lifted him on 
her two hands, as she had lifted him so often. The unsupported head 
fell horribly to one side, lolling like the clapper of a bell. She 
got the body in somehow, and the vet closed the lid of the carton and 
carried it away. She knew she ought to have thanked him, but she 
could not speak. She had never seen a dead body before -- except on 
food counters, of course.

She went downstairs and drank a stiffish whisky. Her sense of 
proportion reasserted itself. One cannot expect to be perfect in any 
first performance. She had not behaved at all as she had meant to 
when Charlotte was born. It was a pity about the makeshift box; it 
was a pity not to have thanked the vet; but the essentials had been 
secured, Charlotte was safe and happy at Hood House, Alan was happy 
and busy in his laboratory; neither of them need ever know what agony 
is involved in the process of rationally, mercifully, putting an end 
to an old pet. She would make a quick lunch of bread and cheese, and 
then be very busy. She heard a distant peal of thunder, and welcomed 
the thought of a good rousing thunderstorm. Something elemental would 
be releasing. After a few more long, grumbling reverberations the 
storm moved away, but when she went to defrost the refrigerator she 
found it darkened and cavervous, and the current off throughout the 
house. The power lines on Ram Down were always getting struck. She 
left the refrigerator to natural forces, and as she couldn't use the 
Hoover either, she polished the silver and sat down to do some 
mending. She was a bad needlewoman; mending kept her mind occupied 
till a burst of sunlight surprised her by its slant. She had no idea 
it was so late. Charlotte would be back at any moment.

Just as the current had gone off, leaving the refrigerator darkened 
and cavernous, the support of a good conscience now withdrew its aid. 
Charlotte would be back at any moment. Charlotte would have to be 
told. Time went on. Suppose there had been a car smash? Charlotte 
mangled and dying at the roadside, and all because she had been got 
out of the house while the vet was mercifully releasing Moodie? Meg's 
doing -- how could one ever get over such a thing and lead a normal 
life again?

She was sitting motionless and frantic when Alan came in, switching 
on the light in the hall.

'Well, Meg -- Why are you looking so wrought up? Didn't the vet come? 
Couldn't he do his stuff?'

'Oh, yes, that was all right. But Charlotte's not back.'

'When did they say they'd bring her?'

'Adela didn't say exactly. She said, a good long day. But it's long 
over that -- Adela knows how particular I am about bedtime.'

'Why not ring up?'

'But I am sure they must have started by now.'

'Well, someone would be about. They've got that cook. What's their 
number?'

She heard him in the hall, dialling. Then he came back saying the 
line seemed to be dead. Ten minutes later, a car drew up and 
Charlotte rushed into the house, followed by Mrs. Flaxman.

'Mother, Mother! It's been so marvellous, it's been so thrilling. We 
were struck by lightning. There was a huge flash, bright blue, and 
the telephone shot across the room and broke ever so much china, and 
there was an awful noise of horses screaming their heads off and Mr. 
Flaxman tore out to see if the stables had been struck too, and then 
ran back saying, "They're all right but our bloody roof's on fire." 
And there were great bits of burning thatch flying about everywhere, 
and Mr. Flaxman went up a ladder and I and Mrs. Flaxman got buckets 
and buckets of water and handed them up to him. And I was ever so 
useful, Adela said so, wasn't I, Mrs. Flaxman?'

'I don't know what we'd have done without you, my pet,' said Mrs. 
Flaxman to Charlotte, and to Meg, 'She got very wet, but we've dried 
her.'

'And then people came rushing up from the village and trod on the 
bantams.'

'No, nothing's insured except the portraits and the horses. Giles 
won't, on principle. Yes, calamitous -- but it could have been worse. 
No, no, not at all, it's been a pleasure having her.'

Adela was gone, leaving the impression of someone from a higher 
sphere in a hurry to return to its empyrean.

For the present, there was nothing to be done but listen to Charlotte 
and try not to blame the Flaxmans for having let her get so 
over-excited. Both parents lit cigarettes and prepared themselves for 
a spell of entering into their child's world; after all, fifteen 
minutes earlier, they had been fearing for her life. They smoked and 
smiled and made appropriate interjections. Suddenly her narrative ran 
out, and she said, 'Where's Moodie?'

For by the time one is ten one knows when one's parents are only 
pretending to be interested. Back again in a home that had no horses, 
no bantams, no curly golden armchairs, no portraits of gentlemen in 
armour and low-necked ladies, was never struck by lightning and gave 
her no opportunities to be brave and indispensable, Charlotte 
concentrated on the one faithful satisfaction it afforded and said, 
'Where's Moodie?'

Mastering a feeling like stage-fright, Meg said with composure, 
'Darling. Moodie's not here.' 

'Why isn't he? Has he run away? Has anything happened to him?'

'Not exactly that. But he's dead.'

'Why? Why is he dead? He was quite well this morning. Why is he dead?'

'You know, darling, poor Moodie hasn't really been feeling well for a 
long time. He was an old cat. He had an illness.'

Charlotte saw Moodie's broad face, and his eyes staring at her with 
that thirsty expression. Moodie was dead. Mother had explained to her 
about death, making it seem very ordinary.

'You remember how horrid his breath smelled?'

'Yes. That was his teeth.'

'It wasn't only his teeth. It was something inside that was bound to 
kill him sooner or later. And he would have suffered a great deal. So 
the vet came and gave him an injection and put him to sleep. It was 
all over in a minute.'

Moodie had gone out and sat in the rain. The child's glance moved to 
the window and remained fixed on the lawn -- so green in the sunset 
that it was almost golden. It was a french window. Without a word, 
she opened it and went out.

'Poor Charlotte!' said Alan. 'She's taking it very well. I must say, 
I think you rubbed it in a bit too much. You needn't have said he 
stank.'

Meg repressed the retort that if Alan could have done it so much 
better he might perfectly well have done so. In silence, they watched 
Charlotte walking about in the garden. It was a very small garden, 
and newly-planted, and the gardens on either side of it were small 
and newly-planted too, and only marked off by light railings. To Meg, 
whose childhood had known a garden with overgrown shrubs, laurel 
hedges, a disused greenhouse and a toad, it seemed an inadequate 
place to grieve in; but from the 18th century onwards people have 
turned for comfort to the bosom of nature, and Charlotte was doing so 
now, among the standard roses and the begonias. She walked up and 
down, round and round, pausing, walking on again. 'Going round his 
old haunts‚' said Alan. Moodie, as Meg knew, shared her opinion of 
the garden; he used it to scratch in, but for any serious haunting 
went to Mopson's Garage where he and the neighbourhood cats clubbed 
among the derelict cars. A sense of loss pierced her; knowing 
Moodie's ways had been a kind of illicit Bohemianism in her 
exemplary, rather lonely life. But it was Charlotte's loss she must 
think of -- and Charlotte's supper, which was long overdue.

'I wish she'd come in -- but we mustn't hurry her.'

Alan said, 'She's coming now.'

Charlotte was walking towards the house, walking with a firm tread. 
Her face was still pale with shock, but her expression was composed, 
resolved, even excited. I must give her a sedative, thought Meg. 
Charlotte entered, saying, 'I've chosen the place for his grave.'

After the bungled explanations that one couldn't, that the lawn would 
never be the same again, that it wasn't their garden, that the lease 
expressly forbade burying animals had broken down under the child's 
cross-examination into an admission that there was no body to bury, 
that the vet had taken it away, that it could not be got back, that 
it had been disposed of, that in all probability it had been burned 
to ashes as her parents' bodies would in due course be burned; after 
Charlotte, declaring that she would never forgive them, never, that 
they were liars and murderers, that she hated them and hoped they 
would soon be burned to ashes themselves, had somehow been got to 
bed, they sat down, exhausted, not looking at each other.

'That damned cat!'

As though Alan's words had unloosed it, a wailing cry came from 
overhead.

'O Moodie, Moodie, Moodie!

'O Moodie, Moodie, Moodie!'

Implacable as the iteration of waves breaking on a beach, the wailing 
cries rang through the house. Twice Meg started to her feet, was told 
not to be weak-minded, and sat down again. Alan ought to be fed. 
Something ought to be done. The mere thought of food made her feel 
sick. Alan was filling his pipe. Staring in front of her, lost in a 
final imbecility of patience, she found she was looking at the two 
dahlia stalks whose petals she had torn away.

'O Moodie, Moodie, Moodie!'

The thought of something to be done emerged. 'We must put off that 
new kitten,' she said.

'Why?'

Completing her husband's exasperation, Meg buried her face in her 
hands and began to cry.

'O Moodie,' she lamented. 'Oh, my kind cat!'