Chapter 16; Nightmares

Humbert couldn't answer for a moment. The shock of what had just happened, the tears streaming down his face, the feeling of the whole world crumbling around him, rendered him incapable of speech.

"Oh, there now," the young woman said, moving to his side and wiping at his tears with the sleeve of the robe she was wearing; his robe. Gently, just gently, she stroked his hair, and when he started crying into her shoulder, she let him.

His breathing changed, and she knew he was asleep again. The poor man, he really was exhausted.

She sighed and shifted him so that his head was on his pillow again, then tucked his blanket around him so that he wouldn't feel chilled. If she could have, she would have taken him up to his bed, but it would have been awkward and she would probably have dropped him more than once if she tried it.

"My dear Humbert," she said, brushing a little of his orange hair out of his face, a slightly sad smile on her own almost porcelain features. "You both dreaded her and loved her, and now you don't know what you feel. Take refuge in sleep, sleep can't hurt you."

It was different this time, before he had always stayed awake, watching her, until she wasn't there any more. This night, he wasn't able to, didn't want to – being awake meant being aware of a world that had irreversibly altered, forever changed. Change often frightened people, and sometimes the fear did more damage than the change.

She left him to sleep, padding up the stairs in bare feet. In his room, she removed the robe and left it lying neatly on the bed, then she wasn't there any more.

Humbert slept peacefully for half an hour after that. Around midnight, he started to toss and turn in the chair.

Haru jumped up into his lap, waking him. Concern was written clearly on her brown, furry features, even though there was hardly any light to see by. She raised her paws up and planted them on his chest so that she could look him in the face, her brown eyes level with Humbert's green ones.

"Haru," Humbert breathed, laying a relieved hand on the cat's back. "Thank goodness, I dreamt I'd lost you too. Everyone was gone, Mother, Dad, Louise, Greg, Cousin Jemima, even the dream girl was gone, then you walked past me into the darkness and wouldn't come back. I'm so glad you're not gone."

The lonely man will cling to those with whom he shares his days, and a cat is most companionable. Humbert had become, through much exposure to women in whom he had no interest, a lonely man. The parade of eligible young ladies caused him to realise that the fairer sex and he had little in common, and those with which he felt any slight compatibility he was more inclined to be "just friends" with. If he had to share his life with someone, it seemed to him, it ought to be someone he could see himself growing old with.

Ever since he had let the cat into his life, Haru had become his companion, his confidant, and now she was taking care of him too. Humbert hoped she would have a long life, cats, he had read, often didn't make thirty years.

Haru jumped down from his lap, took a corner of his blanket in her teeth and started to back away.

"The phone call's come, so now I should go to bed, is that it? All right my lovely," Humbert said, pulling himself out of the chair. He was surprised at how stiff he had become from sleeping in an upright position. "Let me do all the carrying, you brought it down," he added, bundling up his blanket under one arm and hefting his pillow under the other.