The Cat Page 3

  ‘Hullo,’ said the Rat’s voice.

  ‘Go away,’ said the Cat, ashamed and confused, his mind boiling with the horror of what he had been about to do. Horror yet it had felt RIGHT! That was what was horrible!

  ‘Can’t you see I’m doing my exercises, my calisthenics, Rat. At my age, one must keep fit.’ The Cat frowned as the figure of Rat came to meet him across the grass. The Cat stood up, stretching thoroughly, loosening every muscle and tendon. The Rat moved swiftly, surefooted, then sat down, very close to the Cat.

  ‘Hullo Catty,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Rat!’ breathed the Cat.

  Some vague memory of upbringing stirred in the Cat’s mind: rats were dirty, rats were diseased. Although the Rat wore a waistcoat, the Cat believed he could still smell the drain and the outfall. The Cat began to wash himself very slowly. The wind strengthened, whistling in the silent telephone lines that reached from beneath the eaves of ‘Chez Maupassant’, making them sing.

  ‘Now see here Cat,’ began the Rat, edging himself closer, his tail nonchalantly laid out behind him in a perfect, motionless line.

  ‘I don’t have to talk to you,’ said the Cat jumpily. The nerves in his forepaws twitched uneasily, making the fur flex as if a fist were being clenched inside a warm winter mitten.

  ‘We need an understanding,’ said the Rat.

  For a brief moment the Rat thought there might be progress, but there was the matter of the Cat’s ruffled fur, and a slight shiftiness in his manner to consider. Cats were strange, snobbish, isolated types, not even happy with their own kind, and their unhappiness made them bad, the Rat knew. It was beginning to rain, and the rain was running in his eyes.

  ‘An understanding about the kitchen, and Mouse,’ he said. The Cat raised one eyebrow.

  ‘The kitchen’s mine,’ he said. ‘And the Mouse better watch out.’ And with that the Cat reached out, and opened his paw like a fistful of razors. ‘See how sharp they are,’ he said, simply.

  That night the Rat lay low, turning uneasily on his bed, and trying to understand. There was no way that the Cat could succeed in his plans, he knew. It was incredible and impossible that the Cat could even think of returning to the old ways after years of sleepy ease in which his every wish had been catered for. Was not the entire garden built upon a system of mutual understanding too, that those things had been wrong?

  The Rat’s mood swung between elation at the thought of what power he might gain through the Cat’s ill-judged threats, and a nagging fear for the Mouse. Pacing to the window, he flung it open to let in a little of the night air from the garden, the faint scent of nicotiana, blended with that of drain-water. The garden was unnaturally quiet. The Rat cracked his knuckles and made his way up the hall towards his front door. Before opening however, he hesitated and glanced in the mirror which hung there, strangely tilted, so that it looked upwards, towards the ceiling at an angle of 45 degrees. Some feet above, another smaller mirror, cunningly concealed, looked out through a section of pipe onto the garden by the back door. Outside, he could just make out a figure, Cat-like in the night, practising jumps and runs in one of the flowerbeds.

  The Rat turned from the door and slipped back down the corridor, down a flight of spiral steps, towards the sound of rushing water. At the foot of the steps, an old clay pipe bulged from the earth, a hole in its surface revealing the foul water main. The Rat gripped a comb between his teeth, and silently dropped down into the noisome gloom below, disappearing with a gurgle and a plop from view:

  The Mouse – pulled from bed by the Rat’s knocking – wore pyjamas against the cold, but his teeth still chattered in the darkness as he bumped and stumbled along the skirting towards the kitchen.

  ‘It’s just up here!’ whispered the Rat, his voice urgent and sombre, his manner mysterious. Then it was that the Mouse’s foot struck something soft, and he almost fell. The Rat stopped.

  ‘It’s not a pretty sight,’ he said.

  At first the Mouse thought that it might be the edge of the carpet, but then he remembered that the carpets had all been rolled up. He felt in the blackness with his paw, and jumped back as it touched a diminutive shoulder, then small, slender legs which were unnaturally stiff, and an icy nose at the end of a long thin face. The Mouse tried forlornly to see in the darkness. The body wore a shirt, and some kind of bathers or shorts from which the tail, stiff and inflexible, spilled out across the floor, dead as old string.

  The Rat stood with his face shrouded in shadow. Just then a stray moonbeam passed through the uncurtained windows, for a moment illuminating in ghastly detail the body on the floor, and the face of a fieldmouse, like Mouse himself, but with coarser features, and thick brown hair. A pool of blood, black in the moonlight, congealed upon the underlay. Then a cloud passed over the moon, blocking out the awful scene.

  ‘Shine a light, Mouse,’ ordered the Rat. The Mouse held a guttering taper high, skipping to avoid the dark spreading pool on the floor as the Rat turned the body. Then, peering between his fingers he recoiled, clutching at the Rat for support, for upon the corpse’s face there was a look not of fear alone, but of quizzical doubt, even indecision, tinged with anticipation, as if some special treat had been offered, yet a treat not without strings, before the deadly blow was struck.

  The Rat, he noted was strangely excited. He rolled up his shirt sleeves, slicked back his hair, and checked his image in the glass of the French windows.

  ‘This is an opportunity Mouse. He’s gone too far this time,’ said the Rat. ‘What time is it, Mouse? Quick, get me some paper and a pencil. Drawing pins? Have we any drawing pins, Mouse?’ But before preparations could go any further, both animals were halted by the sound of a wild and awful song from the garden outside. The Cat was singing in the darkness, supported by four or five other voices, all equally out of tune, from time to time punctuated by a terrible banging of dustbin lids and cheering.

  ‘So I wrapped him up in a sycamore leaf,

  With a dash of salt and a sprig of thyme,

  Ate him up, like a slice of beef,

  Nowt like a vole with a glass of lime,

  Miaooow! Miaooow! Miaooow!

  Nibbled his buttocks and munched his knees,

  Gobbled his guts and gulped his eyes,

  Munched his bones with mushy peas,

  Left the rest for steamed pudding and pies,

  Miaoow! Miaoow! Miaoow!’

  It was not singing for the pleasure of song however, but for the pleasure of being able to sing without limit, taste, or restraint. It was singing to show that Cats had the power to sing and keep others awake.

  And that night, the Cat did not sleep. He paced manically to and fro, with long steps, the breadth of the French windows, muttering to himself and swearing. He, Cat, so clever as to be nearly human. That he, the finest and closest to man should be driven by such urges, no … should condone such urges … should wish to act on such urges … but WHY NOT? The question seemed written in the stars of nighttime neon across the sky. Why not, when no-one cared? Was it not a felt need, a requirement of his condition and circumstance, that he should eat? What was it the other cats had said. ‘A nice bit of Mouse’. The phrase was expressive. ‘A nice bit of mouse.’ The Cat savoured it, and the image of the Mouse’s plump pink belly and well-turned thigh passed before his mind. But NO! He had plans and schemes that were greater, for the house. His stomach rumbled. He caught a glimpse of himself in the darkened glass of the French windows, the eyes wild and weird, the fur slightly dulled. Suddenly, he leapt sideways, and up across the lawn, through the hedge, and out into the meadow beyond, his hindquarters skittering on the dew-laden grass, his tail playfully erect and nostrils flared. The moon shone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE MOUSE DISAPPEARS

  The Mouse busied himself setting up a small card table while the Rat paced to and fro, folding the notes for his speech into various shapes; first a paper trumpet, then a telescope, and finally a truncheon, which he slapped no
isily against his thigh as he paced, waiting for the crowd to grow to its intended size.

  ‘There’s a few of them here, at least,’ said the Mouse. The animals stood, stamping their feet, and coughing in the cold; a few Moles, a gang of field-voles, the Mouse family from the house next door, and some creatures from the meadow beyond the fence that the Mouse took for squirrels.

  ‘Comrades!’ began the Rat, without any warning or introduction, and abandoning the sheaves of rolled paper. ‘Comrades, death is a cruel punishment for innocence!’ The Mouse looked up to the grassy knoll the Rat had clambered upon. The Rat’s fists were clenched. Never had the Mouse seen him speak with such conviction. Several times he referred to the dead fieldmouse as ‘that poor boy’, and ‘the young innocent’, although the Mouse well knew that the Rat had no idea how old the fieldmouse was. ‘Yes, friends,’ continued the Rat. ‘A fieldmouse, rent asunder like the bad old days. Yes, who remembers? Who remembers, eh? Who remembers the days before the Professor, eh?’ As he spoke, the Rat grew more and more animated, shaking his fist, raising his voice, then lowering it dramatically.

  There was a long pause after the Rat’s question. Many of the animals looked blank – few were old enough to remember that far back, and no-one had taken the trouble to keep records.

  ‘Well the bad times are back!’ shouted the Rat.

  In the background, one of the Rat’s hurriedly drawn posters fluttered in the wind. ‘HORRIBLE MURDER. MANY EATEN BY CAT. MEETING TONITE’

  The Mouse could tell the Rat was disappointed at the crowd’s response. They nibbled pensively at small pieces of worm, listening attentively, but overawed by the novelty of the meeting, and incredulous perhaps of the strange events the Rat was describing. Sensing this the Rat – mesmerised perhaps by the sound of his own voice – embarked on ever more complex and logic defying feats of rhetoric.

  The Mouse could see a group of fieldmice sitting at the back, together, faintly haughty.

  ‘So what are you going to do about it?’ one cried, as the Rat paused for breath.

  ‘Do about it?’ said the Rat, dramatically. ‘We must organise and fight!’ he screamed. ‘So that never, NEVER! will the Cat attempt such a thing again!’ The Rat paused for breath, and the Mouse could see that he was pleased with himself. Some of the younger animals clapped, and murmured. ‘That’s right’. The older members seemed less impressed. Their eyes were glazed, and some of the Moles were creating a commotion, at the back, where a bucket of worms had been overturned.

  At which point the Mouse spotted the Cat himself in the distance upon the patio by the back door, sinking to his stomach, and beginning to slide across the garden towards the crowd. The Mouse from his position was the first to notice the Cat, and tugged at the Rat’s sleeve, but the Rat had started speaking again.

  ‘So, what shall we do about this bloated velvet undertaker?’ asked the Rat, still unaware of the Cat’s presence. There was a noise of stumbling animals in the back rows, from where the Cat’s advance had first been spotted, as the audience fought with each other to break for the cover of the hedgerows.

  The Mouse saw the Cat hesitate, making some slight adjustments to his posture at the end of the concrete path which reached out like a runway towards where the animals were gathered. The Rat was distracted by a question about acorns. He spun around on one heel.

  ‘What about the acorns?’ The Rat repeated the question stupidly, seeking its source, with his mouth hanging open. A grey squirrel had stood up, and was drawing breath.

  ‘Mice eat acorns. They like ’em,’ chipped in another voice.

  ‘How do you know what we like!’ shrilled the remaining fieldmice. There was the noise of someone being knocked over in the back row.

  ‘Here!’ said another voice.

  ‘Cat!’ said a mole. The Mouse jumped up and began to dismantle the card table even as the Rat leant upon it. Several more creatures at the edge of the crowd darted away. The Cat leapt in one fell bound from the edge of the concrete path, clean into the middle of the crowd itself.

  ‘Stop!’ shouted the Rat. ‘This is a private meeting. Damn you Mouse, leave the card table alone!’

  ‘Stay! Stop! Unity is strength!’ shouted the Rat as the smaller and less well equipped creatures stumbled away into the safety of the long grass.

  The Cat calmly sat down, his eyes glinting in stray moonbeams that trickled down through the branches of the trees, making him appear beautiful. The Mouse tried to run too, but found to his dismay that the Rat had gripped his tail firmly in both hands. The Cat looked down at them all, and smiled a pleasant, relaxed, out-for-an-evening-stroll kind of smile that belied the stalking way the Mouse had seen him creep upon them. A few voices wished him good evening, deferentially, as they struggled upright from where the Cat’s landing had knocked them. The Cat acknowledged their presence with a very slight inclination of the head, as if well acquainted with certain members of the crowd. Indeed the Mouse was surprised and taken aback at just how many seemed to know the Cat.

  ‘Carry on,’ said the Cat, with a regal wave of the paw.

  The Rat seemed to draw in a deep breath, and turned to face the Cat.

  ‘Yes,’ said the Rat. ‘And there is the animal responsible.’ Small faces turned and looked at the Cat, who continued smiling in a manner which seemed to the Mouse both smug and gloating at one and the same time.

  ‘And why not?’ asked the Cat simply. The question hung there in the air.

  ‘Mice breed. You’ve seen how many Mice there are,’ the Cat said. Appallingly, there was a low murmur of agreement from the front row. The Mouse felt a rush of anger and resentment, a defensive urge on behalf of the dead fieldmouse and the Rat too, who now stood back, nobly, one hand upon the card table, his tail lashing with a noise like a whip-crack in the long grass.

  ‘Let me ask you this,’ asked the Cat, and his tone was a favourable contrast to that which the Rat had adopted. ‘Let me ask you this. What has the Rat got hidden in his burrow? And why did he not distribute it to those who needed it most?’ The Mouse felt suddenly guilty. It was true! The Rat’s burrow had been stuffed with food. The Rat’s teeth were out, yellow in the gloom. ‘Come on, what has the Rat got in his burrow?’ repeated the Cat.

  ‘What’s the Cat got in his tummy,’ shouted the Rat. ‘Ask yourself that. Ask yourself why he’s relaxed like this. What’s Cat been eating? Come on Cat, what’ve you been eating?’ The Cat ignored the question, and changed tack completely.

  ‘Let me show you something,’ he said, in a mysterious and superior tone. ‘Let me show you ALL something.’ The remaining animals were perplexed, perhaps pleased that the Cat had changed the subject. They looked from one to the other, then to the Rat for guidance, who shrugged to show he didn’t understand what the Cat was talking about.

  ‘Come on!’ said the Cat, encouragingly, and took several paces out across the lawn, beckoning for them to follow. Some animals stepped after him, unsure which course of action presented the least danger. The Mouse wavered. The Rat’s meeting had come to a standstill.

  ‘Let me show you all something MARVELLOUS,’ said the Cat. And then slowly they began to creep after the Cat across the weed choked lawn of ‘Chez Maupassant’, towards the hedge dividing it from the house next door, and out onto the lawn on the other side, the Cat’s paws noiseless on the soft new-mown grass, the Mouse lugging the Rat’s table and briefcase as best he could.

  The Cat pointed to the lawn as they passed, with its finely mowed and even surface, striped as in the best weedkiller advertisements, and then to the garage up ahead.

  ‘Y’see Mouse, that’s what ownership does for you. Ownership and responsibility,’ said the Cat. The Mouse followed silently, by now caught in the general curiosity that had overtaken all the others.

  ‘It’s in the garage,’ said the Cat.

  ‘What’s in the garage?’ whispered the Mouse, bemused and suspicious. The Cat seemed a little light-headed, overconfident, and over-relaxed, thought th
e Mouse. The Cat stopped by the garage door, his head nodding the Mouse forwards past his feet, almost across his front paws.

  ‘No, Mouse. Don’t look at me like that,’ he admonished. ‘Let me promise you that there is something quite fantastic in the garage.’ All the animals had clustered around. The Mouse found to his dismay that he had somehow come to be nearest to the Cat, and their bodies were pressing him on.

  ‘Go on Mouse, take a look. He won’t try anything,’ shouted one, anxious that the mystery should be resolved, yet not wishing himself to be eaten as the price of knowledge.

  The Cat leant forwards, and the foul odour of his last lunch beset the Mouse’s nostrils once more.

  ‘Mouse, just come on. None of your questions, no IFS and no BUTS!’

  The Mouse blinked, and followed the Cat to the garage door, keeping cautiously out in the open. The Cat expertly slipped the catch, pausing as he did so, addressing his words not to Mouse alone, but to the audience backed up around him, their whiskers twitching, noses sampling the faint odour of petrol and new leather.

  ‘Isn’t it fabulous!’ said the Cat as the door swung open, to reveal the gleaming flanks of a motor car filling the doorway, the animals distortingly reflected in its silver hubcaps.

  The animals gasped. The Rat stood back, haughtily feigning disinterest.

  ‘And we could all have one Mouse,’ said the Cat. ‘If only …’

  ‘If only we could drive,’ suggested the Mouse, and then regretted it. The Cat’s body seemed beset by a faint, all encompassing tremor, as if some reaction had been intercepted and suppressed only by a monstrous, near invisible effort of will. He glared at the Mouse, as if to say that the Mouse’s comment reflected a lack of vision, maturity and taste.

  Then the Cat stepped back out of the garage on velvet paws, right up to the Mouse, who tried to step back too, but found himself hemmed in by the crowd behind him.