I AM THE CAT

by William Stafford

  The Boy, curled up beneath his scratched and bitten counter, was the only member of staff not gathered around Fitzwarren.

  “Going to earwig what they’re saying,” I told him, “I won’t be far. I’ll never leave you again.”

  The declaration startled me. I meant it - of course I meant it; I was just surprised to hear myself say it. The Boy gave no sign of acknowledgment. He needed time to get over his horrific ordeal.

  I slunk over to the gathering of shop staff. I climbed inside a decapitated manikin, lending it my head for the duration of the debriefing.

  I couldn’t believe my fluffy ears. Without exception, these people, the Boy’s colleagues and co-workers were pointing the finger in his direction. The blame was firmly laid at his door - well, at his counter. The rats were after him, they said. He was the cause of it. They wouldn’t be surprised if he had let them in.

  I was finding it increasingly difficult to bite my peace and hold my tongue.

  Fitzwarren took all this in, directing a glare across at the textiles counter. A quick signal directed the burly doormen over to that department. One lifted the counter with one hand while the other man pulled the Boy out and planted him on his feet. Fitzwarren strode over. Sensing blood, the crowd followed.

  “Well, boy?” Fitzwarren tapped his foot with mounting impatience. “I am waiting.”

  The Boy seemed hypnotised by the tapping shoe. Fitzwarren’s fur-covered slipper was like a rat...

  “Nothing to say for yourself?”

  Someone threw a tattered hat. It glanced off the Boy’s shoulder. Someone else chucked a hunk of gnawed bread. This rebounded squarely off the Boy’s head and gave rise to much derision.

  “You’ve put us all out of work!” someone called out.

  “Nice going, Rat boy!” jeered another.

  The abuse and the brickbats continued, building to a crescendo, until the loud clanging of a gong (an actual gong, not gong as in farmer!) resounded above all the din and everyone froze. At the top of the staircase that led up to Fitzwarren’s office, the Girl was repeatedly banging the gong with a frying pan.

  Satisfied she had everyone’s attention, she cast both items to the floor and, when they had stilled and become silent, she addressed her father and the mob of employees.

  “Leave him alone!” she bellowed. “Do you seriously think he is responsible for all this mess? Where were you, Simon Garter,” she pointed at a chubby chappie in a baker’s apron, “when the rats got in? And you, Elinor Partridge? Why didn’t you raise the alarm?”

  She took each member of staff in turn, asking them why they had let things get so out of hand, and why none of them had thought to help the Boy. She shamed them into looking disconsolately at their feet.

  “Um, sorry, Miss Fitzwarren,” muttered somebody. This gave rise to a few apologetic grunts.

  Alice came down the stairs to stand by the Boy’s side. She made him sit on the counter and winced when she saw the extent of his injuries.

  “Water!” she snapped, “And flannels!”

  The items soon appeared. The Girl set to washing the Boy’s hands and face. The cloths and water were soon pink with his blood. Everyone else just stood and watched.

  The Boy was tense at first but he gradually relaxed under her ministrations. I kept my distance.

  “See,” Alice announced when she had cleaned him up as much as she could, “Mess can be tidied up. Order can be restored.”

  “You’ve made your point,” said Fitzwarren, “but I don’t think the staff will like to continue to work alongside such a - a - jinx.” He looked to his employees for support. To me, they didn’t seem particularly fussed either way, having been subdued and abashed by Alice’s intercession. “No one wants to work with a jinx. Do they?” Fitzwarren prompted. Gradually, the staff took their cue.

  “There you see,” Fitzwarren gestured at his workforce smugly.

  Alice was aghast. And so was I. She reminded her father of how the Boy had saved both of them, but this was dismissed with a roll of the eyes and a yawn. How were we to know that the boy hadn’t roused the rodents to disrupt the parade in order to stage the so-called rescue?

  The Boy was in no condition to speak up for himself and the Girl seemed temporarily dumbstruck by this latest outlandish allegation.

  “It is better that the boy leaves at once,” Fitzwarren tried to look sad but only succeeded in increasing his smugness levels. “We are not completely hard-hearted; he may have some clothes - provided any can be found, that is.”

  With that, he turned his back. He left Mortis to oversee the tidying-up and almost floated up the stairs to his office. The mob disbanded. The clean-up operation began in earnest. The Girl went from department to department, collecting items that she proceeded to wrap in a large handkerchief.

  “Just some bits and pieces. Food and so on,” she explained, as she fastened the handkerchief to a stick. “Tide you over.”

  The Boy accepted this bundle of goodies without speaking. He lay the stick across his shoulder and took a long, last look around the shop. His eye caught mine. He beckoned me with a nod. Suddenly, I was full of air. I sprang from the manikin, sending it crashing to the floor, narrowly missing the unfortunate Mortis. Oops.

  I darted across to the doorway where the Boy - my Boy - was waiting for me. He nodded to the Girl and we both walked away, across the quad and through the archway.

  The Girl’s voice carried through the air behind us. “Where will you go?”

  Under the arch, the Boy turned and called back. “To seek my fortune,” he said.

  I looked back to see her reaction and suddenly I felt sorry for the Girl, left behind with that awful man.

  ***

  “Where are we going, kiddo?” It was a reasonable question but not, apparently, reasonable to ask out in public earshot. The Boy pursed his lips to shush me. I sat down in defiance, heedless of what I might be putting my backside onto. The Boy picked me up and carried me. This was preferable to picking my way through the muck but I was none the wiser.

  We appeared to be following the route of the Lord Mayor’s ill-fated parade, heading towards the Tower. My idea of the Boy finding work there was rekindled as we approached the impressive edifice but no, we kept moving, past the Tower and further eastwards.

  The docks at Billingsgate were visible to us long before we got there. Masts of ships from all over the known world reached for the skies, creating a landmark for miles around. With their sails tightly furled, they were as stark and barren as a forest in winter.

  “Wow!” The Boy made his usual response.

  “Wow!” I echoed. My stomach lurched. “Is that fish I smell?”

  I tried to steer the Boy towards the fish market and the Boy tried to stuff me into his shirt. I burst free and, as though magnetised, was drawn to the nearest stall. The fishmonger proved sympathetic. He tossed a fish head towards me. It landed kersplat on the greasy cobblestones. One of its staring eyes flopped out on impact. Suddenly I had no appetite.

  “Come on, Puss.” The Boy picked me up again. I looked longingly at the rows of stalls as we left them behind.

  The stalls gave way to offices and warehouses as we moved along the water’s edge.

  “It must be along here somewhere,” the Boy said, although I think he was trying to reassure himself.

  “What must?” I asked.

  “You’ll see,” he laughed. I recognised the light in his eye. I had seen that look before, that blend of wonder and optimism. The last time I had seen it he had been talking about arriving in London. Now we seemed to be moving out of the city, I couldn’t think what had lit his candle this time.

  As we neared the docks we became caught up in a flurry of purposeful activity. Men were busying to and fro, taking supplies and equipment onto a ship, like birds featheri
ng a nest. Provisions, including livestock, were being carried or led up the bending gangplank. As they boarded, a little man with a huge ledger counted them off and made marks in his book. Decks were being scrubbed, sails unfurled and lashed and a fresh lick of acrid-smelling pitch was being applied to barnacled planks by sailors suspended by ropes over the sides.

  “This must be it!” the Boy announced. He walked along to the prow to read the nameplate.

  The Bow Belle.

  “What are we doing here?” I whispered. “Picking something up?”

  “Ssh!” the Boy urged me. “We’re going on a cruise.”

  “Wha-?” But before I could get the question out he had whisked me from his shirt and placed me at the foot of the gangplank.

  “Come on, Puss!”

  At once, all activity on the Bow Belle ceased. The Boy froze, one foot still in the air. All eyes were on him; suspicious, hostile.

  “Um, hello, sailors?” He gave them a nervous grin, wobbling on one leg. The seamen made no response but continued to stare. They might have been carved in wood like the figurehead.

  “Uh-oh,” I thought, and probably said out loud. I ran to his side. All eyes dropped to me - and everyone seemed to relax. A little bit. Some of the men even turned away and resumed their tasks.

  “Kiddo,” I snaked between his legs. “What are we doing here?”

  The Boy dropped to one knee so he could speak to me directly under the guise of scratching my head. “Remember that man I met?”

  “No. Given up on Alice, have you?”

  “No! Not like that! He came into the shop, ordering supplies for a sea voyage.”

  “I must have been asleep.” The chances of that were highly probable.

  “Well, when he told me about the places he’s been, the riches he’s found -”

  Hmm. I was about to point out that this man, whoever he was, couldn’t have found that many riches if he was still fetching supplies for someone else’s ship, but we were interrupted by the sudden arrival of a sailor who appeared to have dropped from the sky.

  He landed on the deck in front of us, heavily but steadily.

  “Who might you be then?” His face was red and leathery with wrinkles scored deeply into the skin. He stared at the Boy with piercing eyes, fixing him to the spot. I curled around the Boy’s shin, protectively.

  “I’m Dick,” the Boy managed to get out. To his credit, he maintained eye contact with old Stary Red-face. “Mister Bottle is expecting me.”

  “Oho! Is he now?” the man exclaimed in too patronising a manner for my liking. And I couldn’t help wondering who the hell was Mister Bottle.

  “Yes, sir!”

  “’Sir’” The man threw back his red face and laughed in a hearty manner that almost seemed affected. It drew the attention of some of the others and my discomfort increased exponentially. “Sir? Me? That’s rich! I’m just a topman, me laddo.” He pointed to the rigging high up a mast. “You look up to me -everybody does - but they talks down to me all the same.”

  “Topman?”

  “Spends my days in the rigging,” he jerked his head upwards at the cat’s cradle of ropes and canvas. He seemed to be fond of it. “Perhaps I’ll take you up there some time. Show you the ropes.”

  “Heh.” The Boy didn’t know whether this was a joke.

  “One word to the wise, though,” the topman leaned in, confidentially. “Best keep that cat out of the cap’n’s sight. He don’t care for ‘em.”

  Well, really! I thought. Must I face prejudice at every turn?

  “But I thought he could be the ship’s cat,” the Boy protested, with just a hint of petulance in his tone.

  “That he can, laddo, that he can.” The topman crouched to give me a tickle. I did my best to ignore him. “The men like to see a cat on board. It’s lucky, see. But Cap’n Codd don’t hold with no superstitions. He’s turned against the ways of the sea.”

  He let those words to hang there as if we understood their enormity. Then he stood up straight and arched his back. “Well,” he stretched his arms and stuck out his chest, “it’s him as pays the price.”

  The Boy, like me, was intrigued. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, you’ll know when you sees him. You just don’t want to cross him, that’s all.”

  With that, he was gone. He shinned up a mast like a monkey in a hurry and within seconds was a small speck high above the deck. He waved down to our upturned faces. The Boy waved back. I licked a paw.

  “Come on, Puss; let’s get you stowed.” The Boy gathered me up and we went in search of this Mister Bottle.

  I didn’t like the sound of being stowed. In fact, I didn’t like this ship idea at all. But the light in the Boy’s eyes was still there, still glowing, so of course, I would go along with it. I would go along with anything.

  We followed some barrels that were being rolled towards and then lowered into an open hatch. The Boy peered over the edge. I don’t know about him but my superior eyes could clearly make out a square-shaped man in a pointed hat. He was supervising the storage of the provisions and making notes with a charcoal pencil.

  “Hello?” ventured the Boy.

  The man looked up. “Gaah!” he complained. “Don’t stand in the light, you cretinous limpet.”

  The Boy backed away but not by much. “Mister Bottle?”

  “Aye,” said the man, gruffly, “unless I be impersonating myself.”

  “Mister Bottle, sir! It’s Dick. From Fitzwarren’s?”

  At first this cut no ice with Mister Bottle. Then something inside his cube of a head clicked and his whole tone and manner changed for the better.

  “Dick! Dick! Dear boy! Come down, come down! Yonder rope.”

  The Boy located the rope in question and seized it in both hands. I almost slipped from his shirt and stuck my claws in as a safety measure - then I thought, ‘What am I doing? I’m a cat!’ I sprang from the Boy’s chest and dropped nimbly to the lower deck. This Mister Bottle was startled to see me. I licked my paw and wiped my ear.

  “You didn’t mention no cat,” Mister Bottle called up as the Boy clambered ungainly down the rope, achieving more in the way of swinging from side to side than any downwards progress.

  “Is it a problem?” the Boy called down. He dropped the last three feet and then fell over. I hoped I didn’t look smug.

  “Not for me,” Mister Bottle replied, “Reckon we could do with a bit of good luck. Only keep him out of the Cap’n’s way.”

  “Yes,” said the Boy, giving me a scratch. “I’ve heard.”

  “Glad you could join us,” Mister Bottle’s jaw moved in a smile. It was like a drawer jutting out of a dresser. “Now...” he moved away, expecting us to follow. “With your shop keeping experience, I can use you down here in the stores. You answer to Master Bobbin and he answers to me, the quartermaster. He’ll show you the ropes when he’s finished logging the inventory up top.”

  More ropes! Although, I surmised, these were figurative ones.

  “And you,” he turned his tiny eyes to me, “you can keep the rats off the vittles.”

  I just about managed not to say, “Aye aye sir.”

  Mister Bottle laughed. “Look at him; you’d think he understands every word.”

  “Heh,” said the Boy. He smiled with gritted teeth.

  “Now, I’ll take you up top to sign the indenture and we’re all set.” Mister Bottle scaled a rope ladder beneath a second hatch with an agility that belied his bulk. The Boy was not so graceful, with his feet missing the rungs and the ladder twisting in the air. Mister Bottle waited patiently above. He knew what it was like to be a landlubber.

  They left me then to survey my new domain. I begin a tour of the perimeter. So far, the crew members we had encountered had seemed friendly enough bu
t I was still uneasy. That the captain was averse to cats was one thing. That the men were concerned about me bringing luck was another.

  I don’t believe in luck. That is, I know chance can have positive or negative outcomes but I don’t believe you can manipulate those outcomes with special objects or words or gestures. I didn’t like the idea that expectations were being placed upon me, expectations concerning something I couldn’t control.

  Perhaps my presence would be enough.

  But I doubted their faith in my propensity to attract good fortune would persist if they discovered I wasn’t what you might call a ‘real’ cat. Mind you, if that came to light, they’d have other things to think about.

  The smells in the hold were fresh and clean. I knew this wouldn’t last. On the other side of a wall, the livestock were being kept. They would be butchered at some point and their meat salted to last out the journey. I guess I was lucky after all. I could have been forced to live as one of those unhappy creatures.

  ***

  While the Boy was away signing the ship’s indenture and officially becoming a member of the crew, I took advantage of the opportunity to have a kip. So sue me.

  In my dreams I was my old self again. I was above the Earth, riding currents of air. I could see London below me, expanding outwards as its population grew and upwards as its buildings reached for the clouds, pointing up at me like the fingers of titans. Ah, the freedom to move through time and space - it was exhilarating to have the ability restored to me.

  My brother was there too. I could sense him. He floated alongside me for a couple of centuries before he condescended to speak. His words formed in my thoughts.

  Welcome back, brother. Isn’t this marvellous? Back where you belong! I know you love it as much as I do.

  And am I back? Am I restored to what I was? Am I free of fur and claw?

  It’s not that simple, brother mine.

  It never bloody is.

  There is a way for you to come back forever, you know, a way to atone for your interference in mortal affairs.