I AM THE CAT

by William Stafford

  Behind them came the largest and most ornate - some might say garish - waggon of all, bedecked with silks, trimmed with gold; it hurt the eyes to behold it as it caught the noonday sun. Flaming torches burned at each corner. Liveried minions cast handfuls of rose petals at the appreciative crowd. Was this the Lord Mayor?

  The Boy gasped as he recognised the figure seated on the throne at the centre of the display. Waving slowly and regally, in the bulky furs and ostentatious feathers we had seen him trying on in his office, Alderman Fitzwarren sneered disdainfully at the poor people as he passed. The ‘F’ insignia was everywhere - even the least literate would recognise this emblem as an advertisement for his massive shop. Beside the throne, carrying a parasol to protect her father from the glare of the sun - but not the glare of publicity - Alice, looking spectacular in the finest frock Fitzwarren’s had to offer, maintained a weary smile and was probably wishing she was anywhere else.

  The Boy called out to her as she passed but the noise of the crowd snatched his voice away. He took off his hat and waved it, hoping the bright feather would catch her eye, but onwards the waggon rolled and before long, she was gone.

  The Lord Mayor’s float was positively dingy and lacklustre in the wake of Fitzwarren’s. The old fellow, supported by walking sticks and a couple of his secretaries, nodded and smiled to the people, making eye contact with individuals and appearing genuinely pleased to see them. He was not an unpopular figure but, it seemed to me, people were more dazzled by and attracted to the showy glamour of the preceding waggon.

  In an upcoming election, Fitzwarren would walk it. Not that the populace had any say in the selection of the Lord Mayor but I suspect the aldermen would want to keep in with public opinion. The incumbent Lord Mayor was maintaining a brave face and keeping up appearances but he knew this was his last hurrah. He was on his way out as surely as a convicted murderer on his way to the gallows.

  His waggon, the last in the procession, reached Tower Hill. He lifted one of his walking sticks, signalling someone somewhere. There was a sound like cannon fire and then dozens upon of dozens of white doves were released into the sky. The crowd oohed and aahed, gazing upwards, open-mouthed - which is never wise when birds are overhead.

  The birds, with no respect for pageantry or sense of occasion, were away from the scene within seconds and I couldn’t help wondering what would become of them. Would they starve? Would they return to their coops and the men who bred them solely for this momentary spectacle? Or would they fall victim to the hawks that patrolled the skies?

  For all my concern, I couldn’t help wondering what one of those brightly flapping creatures would taste like as I sank my teeth into its neck... I’m disgusting, I know.

  With the birdies flown, you might think there was nothing more to see. Already the crowd was beginning to disperse although there was very little room for manoeuvre other than to go into the road and step onto the parade route.

  “Come on, kiddo,” I bumped my cheek against his. The Boy showed no sign of moving. He was still enrapt, transfixed by the vision of Fitzwarren’s daughter in her dazzling dress. He was rooted to the spot, gazing at the space where she had been.

  It turned out to be a good thing for there came from Tower Hill the most tumultuous uproar. At first I thought perhaps the King and his grandson had appeared on a parapet but unless this was a revolutionary mob calling for regime change, the racket from the mob was too full of anger and terror to signify a Royal sighting.

  The Lord Mayor’s float was turning around. People fled the alarmed and frantic horses as they reared up and pulled the waggon back the way it had come. Those who had broken ranks with the spectators hurled themselves back into the crowd to get out of the way of the thundering hooves and crushing wheels.

  “Kid...” I warned the Boy, who at last was returning to his senses. We tried to back away, into a shop front, anywhere as panic began to spread.

  Fitzwarren’s waggon, the largest of the lot, could not execute the turn. It became wedged where the buildings were closest. The horses strained at the yoke but the waggon would not budge. The noise of the crowd redoubled as at last we saw the reason for this abrupt and unscheduled about-face.

  A carpet - no, a sea of rats was swarming up from Smithfield. An oily, roiling mass of bodies like thunderheads invading a cloudless sky. The horses reared up and stamped in confusion. With the parade at a standstill, the rats surged onto the waggons. People jumped from the floats and into the crowd - some had more fortuitous landings than others. The crowd too was seeking a means of escape. The rats grew bolder in their onslaught, climbing up clothing, leaping from person to person. I saw several humans overwhelmed by the weight of a new coat of rodents, falling to the ground and disappearing from view.

  “Alice!” the Boy cried but such was the clamour only I could hear him. He thrust himself into the turmoil, pushing against the tide of panicking humans, forcing himself towards Fitzwarren’s float. I fell from his shoulder and got my tail trodden on almost instantly. I yowled in pain and tried to shrink as small as I could. I weaved my way through the seething forest of legs - I knew that over the road was the high wall of Saint Olave’s church. I leapt over a stream of rats, bounding off their backs and away - one misstep and they would have washed over me and shredded me to nothing, I am sure.

  I reached the wall. From this vantage point I could survey the chaotic scene playing out below. I knew at once my beloved brother was behind all this. It struck me that this was why those rats I had seen were all headed in one direction the night before. My brother had amassed a veritable army, no doubt controlling them with his superior will. There was no question of that.

  The question was: Why?

  My brother could and would have to wait. My immediate and only concern was for the Boy. He was clambering onto the Fitzwarren float where Alice and her father were trapped by a narrowing circle of rats. Fitzwarren was standing on his throne, holding his robes from the seat and kicking off each rodent that dared scale up to meet him. His daughter was doing her best to keep the creatures at bay with a flaming torch in each hand. The petal-strewing underlings were nowhere to be seen.

  “Alice!” the Boy cried out, pulling himself onto the float. I couldn’t hear him but it seems to me that’s what he would say. The Girl tossed him one of her torches and he blazed a path towards her. Rats squeaked and squealed as the flame licked their noses.

  Fitzwarren, on his perch, extended an accusatory arm in the Boy’s direction as if he somehow held him responsible for this disaster. The Boy responded by holding up his torch-free hand to placate the shopkeeper. Then he took the Girl’s free hand and together, they fought their way to the edge of the cart, singeing whiskers as they went. The Boy leapt down and threw his torch to the ground. He held up his hands and the Girl, after a brief moment of hesitation, threw the torch to her father (who dropped it) before launching herself into the Boy’s waiting arms.

  He steadied her on her feet and, hand clamped tightly on her upper arm, guided her across the road, over the carpet of galloping rodents, and towards the church wall and me.

  “Thank you, thank you!” Alice repeated again and again. The Boy was staring at her stupidly. I gave a mew to bring him to himself.

  “You’re welcome,” he said. I hoped he wasn’t drooling.

  “My father!” The Girl was looking back to the float which was now black with rats. The torches had gone out. Fitzwarren was clinging to the back of his throne and the rats were closing in. “Please, Dick!” she reached out and touched the Boy’s face, twisting his face around to see what she was seeing. “Help him!”

  The Boy began to stammer something.

  “You braved those bandits,” she reminded him. “Please! For me!”

  I don’t know if it was her plea or the touching of his face that galvanized him.

  “Look after my cat,” he smiled
and before I could signal any objection he had thrown himself back into the melee.

  The Girl and I exchanged a glance and a nod. Then she looked at me in astonishment, but I was nonchalantly licking a paw.

  We watched with mounting anxiety as the Boy returned to the float but instead of climbing onto the back and aiding Fitzwarren, he went to the horses who were still straining in their harnesses.

  What on Earth...? I thought - and the Girl said out loud.

  Risking a trampling or a cracked skull, the Boy approached the frightened beasts with his hands spread before him.

  “He’s going to get himself squashed!” the Girl predicted. I shook my head; I could do without her running commentary.

  And then something bizarre and unexpected happened.

  The horses calmed down. They stood at rest and allowed the Boy to pat their long snouts. He took their harnesses in his hands and led them. The horses complied and, working together, dislodged the float from between the buildings. The waggon came free!

  Fitzwarren’s arms were flailing about. The sudden movement of the waggon had almost toppled him from the throne. He was trying to cling to it and gesticulate wildly at the Boy at the same time. We couldn’t hear him but the Boy evidently could. He gave each horse one last pat and then climbed up onto the now-moving float.

  The horses picked up speed - the rats beneath their hooves frightened them again. Rats spilled from the cart as it began to career out of control. Others were bounced off as the wheels jolted against some obstacle or other in the road.

  The rodents fled from the relentless, churning wheels. Within seconds they were gone, as swiftly as they had appeared, vanishing like steam. It could be that I just didn’t pay attention to where they went. My concern was for the Boy and the waggon that was rushing onwards out of control. The horses’ eyes were rolling, their nostrils flaring, their mouths foaming. But it was their hooves that needed worrying about - a frenzied blur stampeding mindlessly along the street. Woe betide anyone or anything that was in their way.

  Alice and I watched helplessly as the waggon sped past us.

  “The river!” the Girl gasped. Her hands flew to her face in horror. I dropped down from the wall and gave chase. With the rats gone and the spectators reeling in shock, the way was clear for my feline footsies. “Come back here!” the Girl called out after me. “I’m supposed to be looking after you.”

  As everyone knows, cats don’t obey instructions so I kept on running. The Girl tore after me, encumbered as she was by the weighty train of her fine frock.

  We arrived at the water’s edge in time to see the waggon hurtle along a ramshackle wooden jetty. Only when they reached the very end did the horses come to their senses. They also came to a standstill so sudden the waggon behind them broke free of the yoke and was flung through the air over their heads in a graceful parabola to make a splashdown in the middle of the river. The Boy and Fitzwarren were clinging to each other as they flew away from the waggon to plummet, like stones in fine clothes, into the murky depths. Given what the Boy had told me about the gong farmers’ illicit dumping, I guessed Fitzwarren would not be best pleased by this outcome.

  Alice gathered me into her arms and carried me to the jetty, where the horses were staring blankly into space as though nothing untoward had ever happened in their lives.

  A pair of plumed hats bobbed to the surface. Alice gasped and called out to her father.

  There was an agonising wait of what seemed like hours.

  But then, oh then, the Boy’s head broke the surface. He spouted a narrow stream of brown water into the air and then made his way towards the shore, his arm holding the still form of Fitzwarren to his chest. Alice placed me on the jetty and then jumped down to wade out to intercept them. Together, the Boy and the Girl pulled Fitzwarren from the water and rolled him onto his back. The Girl was crying in distress for him to wake up. The Boy looked to me helplessly. I had to perform an improvised mime instructing the Boy to pound on the man’s chest to expel the water. It took a while but the Boy caught on. He clasped his hands together, raised them high above his head and then brought them down repeatedly on the drowned man’s sternum.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the Girl cried, trying to stop this abuse of her father. She stopped this when after a few blows, Fitzwarren began to cough and splutter. He rolled onto his side, gasping for air and expelling water and muck. The Girl knelt and rubbed her father’s back.

  Within minutes he was restored to his former self. He turned a baleful glare on the Boy.

  “You!” he accused. “You tried to kill me!”

  The Boy opened his mouth to protest but Alice interjected on his behalf.

  “He saved your life, Dad. You should be grateful. He pulled you from the water.”

  “Hah!” Fitzwarren scoffed. “He put me in the water.”

  Father and daughter argued back and forth about the Boy’s involvement in the course of events. Alice kept returning to the point that the Boy had rescued her from the waggon - wasn’t Fitzwarren grateful for that at least?

  The Boy gave up trying to get a word in. He sent me a sad look that I understood at once. Together we began to walk away from the water.

  “And where do you think you are going?” Fitzwarren’s imperious voice froze us in our tracks. I remembered I shouldn’t understand so I walked on a few paces. The Boy turned to face the shopkeeper. “You are to come back to the shop,” it was an instruction not an invitation. “We can sort you out some replacement garments at least.”

  Alice clapped her hands together. “Thank you, Daddy!”

  “And now your arm, my boy.”

  And so, the four of us shuffled through the streets towards Fitzwarren’s emporium. Normality was resuming in the streets of London, the quotidian confusion gradually replacing the extraordinary chaos of only a few minutes ago.

  I kept a wary eye out for signs of my brother. He was watching me, I was certain of it. What would he try next?

  A shudder ran along the length of my spine. As if the life of mortal beings wasn’t tough enough without some other-worldly bastard deliberately causing trouble.

  ***

  Within the hour we were back in Fitzwarren’s office. The humans were pink from their recent bathing and dressed in humbler but clean attire. A suit - well, a staff uniform - had been found for the Boy. Hardly a like-for-like replacement for his ruined prince’s outfit but this was only to be expected from someone like Fitzwarren.

  There was an awkward silence. The Boy stood before the shopkeeper who was seated behind his desk. The Girl stood at her father’s side. I was on the floor, close to the Boy’s ankles. I was keen for us to get out of there but, knowing that the Boy was helplessly attracted to the Girl, our departure would not be of his choosing.

  Fitzwarren made a speech. Men like that seize every opportunity to sound off and fill a room with hot air. I’ll spare you the complete text of his monologue and give you the main points.

  The parade had been at the forefront of his campaign to be elected the next Lord Mayor. The other aldermen were meant to be impressed with his superior, albeit more expensive, pageantry.

  The damage to his reputation, his standing, his blah-blah-blah...

  The expense!

  The risk to life and limb!

  But... the Boy had brought his daughter out of harm’s way. And he had pulled Fitzwarren from the murky Thames.

  Therefore, and with no small amount of insistence from his daughter, he was prepared to make an offer of employment. The Boy would work on the shop floor and learn the business from the bottom up.

  There was one condition.

  The cat must go.

  Well, I like that! Talk about discrimination in the workplace. I looked up the length of the Boy’s legs, trying to read the expression o
n his face. From that angle it was impossible. Which way would he jump? Would he shrug and agree? Would he declare, “Love me, love my cat” and storm out, holding me proudly aloft?

  I found I was holding my breath as I awaited his decision.

  The Girl broke the silence. She began to protest how unfair it was to separate the Boy from so faithful a companion. Fitzwarren dismissed this with a wave. “Cats aren’t loyal,” he sneered. “You’re thinking of dogs. A cat can look after itself. With all these rats in the city, he won’t starve.”

  The Boy glanced down at me and I saw he was grinning. He held up a finger.

  “There you are, you see,” he said. “There seems to be many more rats on the loose in the city at the moment. You have first-hand experience of them. You have felt them scurrying over your skin.”

  Fitzwarren and the Girl shuddered at the memory. I did too, if I’m honest.

  “What if,” the Boy continued, pacing around the office, “they got into your lovely shop? Think of the damage they would cause. Think of...” he leaned across the table and pinned the shopkeeper to the spot with eye contact, “the expense.”

  The shopkeeper gulped audibly.

  “But...” the Boy stooped to pick me up and stand me on the desktop, “with a cat in residence, those pesky rodents will think twice of getting into your food stores, or shredding your fabrics, or gnawing your gewgaws.”

  The shopkeeper blinked. He glanced to his daughter who appeared to be frozen in an attitude of encouragement. He capitulated with a sigh.

  “Very well.” He rose to shake the Boy’s hand. “On a trial basis, of course.”

  “Oh, Daddy!” Alice wailed, but she knew this was a victory. She and the Boy exchanged shiny-eyed grins.

  Fitzwarren perceived what passed between them and rang a hand bell to break up the party. Within seconds the fat man we had met on our previous visit materialised.