Tiger face line drawing

The tiger did not argue. It sat on the mat, its fur flattened by the rain into long points, and looked at her with eyes that seemed painted in with great care. Its breath smelt of salt and of the tar the fishermen used on their nets.

It had come, people said, off a steamer that put in for coal and never sailed again. Mr Hollis, the carrier, swore he had seen a crate split open on the quay. Nobody could say how long the tiger had walked the coast road, only that the gulls fell quiet when it passed the harbour wall and the dogs crept under the boats.

Ada gave it the back room over the kitchen, where the range kept the warmth. Each morning she left a pan of herring on the step and found it empty, the bones laid in a neat row like a kept promise. Three guests left before Sunday. The fourth, a widowed schoolmaster named Tobias Frane, stayed on and took his breakfast beside the range to watch the striped shoulders rise and fall.

The sea came over the steps in November, the worst surge anyone could remember. Ada found the tiger at the front window at midnight, pressed to the glass, watching black water climb the lamp posts. When she opened the door it walked past her into the dark, and the schoolmaster swore afterwards that it turned once at the gate, its eyes gone bright. In the morning the house was dry, the herring pan was full of rainwater, and nobody on Carrick Steps ever again asked where the stripes had gone.