The Cat Page 8

  ‘Hullo,’ said the Cat weakly, and pressed his nose through the cat-flap, showing the bandages.

  ‘You poor darling!’ said Mrs Digby, and swept him up in her arms.

  The Rat looked up the stairwell. Above him, the old house seemed to rise into the gloom. The wall was stained with damp, and a deep crack had appeared, running down the gable end.

  ‘We’ll need a work party, Mouse,’ said the Rat, stepping aside to avoid a patch of fallen plaster, and brushing some mould from the sleeve of his new Italian suit. The Mouse stood in the twilit gloom. Outside, the crows were calling in the treetops. The Mouse could not quite shake an image from his head, of the Cat in Mrs Digby’s arms, his claws in, purring.

  The Rat paused, reading his thoughts.

  ‘No, Mouse,’ he said firmly. ‘We can do better. We can do much, much better than that.’

  The Cat slumbered on. The hedgerow before him rose like a dark cliff from the lawn, its interior dark and cool (away from the heat of the August sun) beckoning, promising reward. The Cat leapt forward, like a tripped rat trap. Yes! He cried. A quick bite and then a toss. Rat! Up against the hedgerow. A left hook, a right hook, a bite to the neck, and then proudly out across the lawn to lay the corpse triumphantly upon the mat! The Cat’s tail twitched.

  ‘Sign of a guilty conscience,’ said Mrs Digby, softly, stroking the Cat where he lay beside her on the comfortable deep settee.

  Mrs Digby stretched and yawned. It was nearly time for bed.

  She went to the window, and peered out. The moon was up. Next door, ‘Chez Maupassant’ was shuttered and dark. The turrets rose in the blue moonlight, like a ghostly castle from an ageing film. Peering closer, into the darkness, Mrs Digby caught her breath. Were there lights there? She screwed up her eyes, but in the darkness, the reflection from the fire on the cold windowpane obscured her vision, and she could not be sure.

  ‘Come on old boy,’ she said to the Cat, easing him off the sofa. ‘Time for bed.’

  The kitchen was warm, the lino clean, the fridge hummed in the corner. A new tin of special rabbit portion was laid out carefully on the counter for the morning, with the tin-opener beside it. Carefully she laid some more old newspaper in the Cat’s box by the boiler.

  The Cat tried to purr. It was odd, what a limp could achieve, with women, he thought. His joints ached. He could never adjust to newspaper. Or cardboard boxes.

  ‘Want some FOOD,’ he rumbled.

  ‘In the morning,’ said Mrs Digby, and switched the light out.

  The Cat lay in the darkness. He could hear the noise of the boiler, and the sounds of taps, in the upstairs bathroom and then silence.

  ‘Old boy!’ he thought. He could not sleep. There was something out there, he knew. Some tasty bit of nibblies, like a dictionary, with the place marked off in it with a turkey sandwich. Slowly, he crept to the cat-flap and peered out.

  Outside the concrete patio was covered with a thick rime of night frost, and empty.

  ‘Brrr!’ said the Cat, feeling oddly lonely, as if the lap of Mrs Digby were not quite enough, now that he had it.

  ‘Brr!’ he said again, and retired to bed.

  ‘He brought it on himself,’ said the Rat. ‘He never could control his urges. I mean, Mouse, it’s not as if we made him do anything he didn’t want to.’

  The Mouse was older now, and more white hair showed through the grey, around his small pink nose. He peered over at the Rat, who lounged by the fire, with his feet in bedroom slippers, a stout walking cane by his side on the chair. His chest had been bad, and the Mouse heard him cough.

  ‘Still. I suppose he got what he wanted,’ he said.

  Outside, the wind howled. The dark bulk of ‘Chez Maupassant’ stood out, its windows shut tight. But the Rat and Mouse were snug, deep in the Rat’s burrow. The fire crackled in the grate.

  ‘Odd how he got up again, after the accident. I’ve never seen that. Have you Mouse?’ The Rat pondered.

  ‘Tenacious of life,’ said the Mouse. ‘We all are. Us animals.’ He stared deep into the fire, its heart red.

  The Rat yawned. The Mouse poked the fire by his feet. The Rat sighed. It had been another very tiring day, he thought. The Rat sighed again. As time went on, he was finding the administration of the garden harder; the constant rows and arguments which seemed to erupt about the exact needs of fieldvoles, or the special requirements of pregnant moles, arguments which were not only dull, but exhausting to resolve. He would try to make fair decisions, but everyone would complain, and then he would change his mind, and then …

  The Mouse sat quietly. The fire crackled, spitting red hot embers out onto the carpet, where they sizzled, burning holes. Outside it was snowing on the lawn and in the trees and in the hedgerows.

  ‘Mouse,’ said the Rat.

  ‘Yes,’ said the Mouse.

  ‘I was just going to say, Mouse, that when I’m gone …’ And here, the Rat paused, as if surprised by the very notion of mortality in himself. ‘That when I’m gone, I’d like you to take over.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ said the Mouse, and dropped the poker with a clang in the grate.

  ‘You are the one,’ said the Rat, firmly. ‘You’ve always been cleverer, and better than me, you know.’ The Mouse stared at the Rat. The Rat was looking into space, with a wistful expression. The Mouse opened his mouth to disagree, but then stopped himself. It was true, thought the Mouse. It was really true. He was cleverer and better and more modest than the Rat. He was the one. The Rat was right, for once.

  ‘Look, why don’t you get some more cheddar and think about it?’ said the Rat. But when the Mouse returned from the larder, the Rat had fallen into a deep sleep. His snout faced the ceiling, and his eyes were firmly closed. Gently, the Mouse stepped forwards, and kissed him on the cheek. Then he untied the silk cravate from around the Rat’s neck, and tied it round his own.

  ‘Nice,’ he said, looking in the mirror, his eyes filled with tears. ‘I’ve always wanted one of these.’

  COPYRIGHT

  Published in the UK by Dedalus Limited,

  24-26, St Judith’s Lane, Sawtry, Cambs, PE28 5XE

  email: info@dedalusbooks.com

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  ISBN printed book 978 1 873982 08 2

  ISBN e-book 978 1 909232 71 6

  Dedalus is distributed in the USA & Canada by SCB Distributors,

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  Publishing History

  First published by Dedalus in 1997

  First ebook edition in 2013

  The Cat copyright © Pat Gray 1997

  The right of Pat Gray to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Printed in Finland by W. S. Bookwell

  Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.