The Cat and the Fiddle by Anne Howkins
Night air’s thick with fiddle’s scraped notes, old man’s tunes singing wild through the dark. Cow’s wide awake when she should be asleep, head crazy full of the old man’s tunes. Tom cat’s all a-twitch, his mouth yowling-wide, and sickle moon smiles, so high in the sky. Old woman shouts that the cow’s milk will curdle. She begs him down his bow, come up to their bed.
Dark deep night fills with clang-clatter-clanging as the unwashed pans shiver in the sink. Wooden spoons whisper while the old woman snores, sick and tired of her husband’s frantic fiddling. She dreams of spooned nights and a baby’s hungered mouth. Daughter kitten-paunching at her empty breast. Tiny nails scratching at her desolation. There’s screaming, endless screaming, and there’s fiddling, endless fiddling, and the dancing cow and the shrieking cats, and there’s not knowing who screamed the loudest.
Then comes a screeching from the slate roof above her. Old tom cat, stirred up by the fiddling, goes a-prowling and a-howling after indoor she-cat, and he slips and he slithers down the slippery slate, while cow kicks her heels, and old man fiddles, deep in the dark.
Old woman stirs, dreaming of the lighter days. Her wee lassie and how many kittens, all of them scrabbling at the Jersey’s teats, mouths opened wide for their shot of yellow cream. Husband’s tunes are gentle, and she dances with her daughter, and all’s as well as it might be.
Lassie finds her voice in the dark deep nights, singing and a-dancing to her daddy’s tune. Along comes a handsome lad, heard tell of the fiddler. Sings with the lassie, his voice smooth as cream. Then there’s all the dancing, and the lassie wants romancing. She’s all after spooning ‘neath a smiling sickle moon.
Old woman dreams of an apron getting tighter. The fury of her husband at his wanton daughter’s lusting. Lassie said was daddy’s fault, all that fancy fiddling. Laddie said he’d set things right, but old man wasn’t hearing. He went and threw a fist or two, and then they’re off and leaving. She tried to keep her lassie close, pleading with her husband. In the deep dark night she calls out a name – the one the old man cannot stand.
Old man fiddles faster, and the catgut screams. Cow can’t help but go leap-leap-leaping. She’s high as a kite beside the silver sickle moon. Both wide-eyed, looking for a lassie.
Somewhere across the world, there’s a mother and her daughter, rocking in a chair on a moonlit porch. Laddie’s lullabying on an old violin, and lassie sings of sickle moons and cows that can’t stop jumping.
The dawn air’s thick with an old woman’s tears. Her moaning and her longing misting out the sun. Cow’s fast asleep, the cats between her hooves. Fiddle’s lying in the dirt next to old man’s shoes.
Old woman sees that her husband’s bowed his last, and off she slinks, like a moonlit cat, away to find her daughter.
Anne loves the challenge of telling stories in very few words. Her stories have appeared in print and online at WestWord, Flash 500, Reflex Fiction, Flash Fiction Magazine, National Flash Fiction Day, Lunate, Strands International and Bath Flash Fiction. When not writing, Anne looks after the finances of a charity, walks a lot and spends as much time as possible with her adored grandson.
Illustration by Katie Gill – @katierose_gill
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