CHAPTER 1
From The Purging of Ruen, Chapter 13
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In which Oscar returns from a day of traipsing around the beautiful seaside city of Ruen, only to find the hotel he’s been staying at has been cordoned off in preparation for an exclusive dinner for the city’s councillors.
OSCAR frowned at a sign in Hotel d’Ruen’s foyer. It was not a complicated or confusing sign. It had only six words, and three of them were one syllable. After a day of wandering around He frowned because he was thinking about things that were complicated: his bizarre conversation with a cyclopic dog, and a freak encounter with a manure-smearing cat. The former hinted at something unruly brewing, while the latter provided an illustrated example.
The sign wasn’t helping him understand either.
Which only highlighted his day’s frustration.
He’d spent most of it perusing cafés, all of which made excellent hot-fin, but had offered no further curiosities. In them, he’d deliberated his options, which ultimately revolved around perusing more cafés. He’d asked waiters about pooh-smearing animals and nasty things brewing, which they assumed were references to their cafés. As a result, he’d been thrown out of them, which was another reason for the number of cafés frequented.
After a day unconstructive and indiscrete, Oscar was left convinced he was about as useful as a bucket with no bottom, and he failed to recall any Catacomb’s training regarding bottomless buckets. The manure-scrawling had been rinsed away and its author was about as famous as one of his poems. Were it not for the audience who’d seen the graffiti, he might have dismissed the encounter as dream. Moreover, a day spent wandering through the city had revealed nothing to illustrate Horace’s concerns either. Indeed, Ruen seemed wonderful, particularly if one aspired to being thrown from cafés. He sighed, feeling to have pieces of puzzle from two completely different puzzles. He was keen to throw them back in their boxes and go home. But he was on curiosa, so he couldn’t. And anyway, he didn’t have the boxes either.
Instead, he continued glowering at the sign.
He wondered whether Horace’s offer of ear-consolation might elucidate more clues, but felt the dog had already divulged more than intended. Perhaps he could admit to being a Velvet Paw of Asquith. But because that would be about as discreet as wiping faeces on a wall, he refrained. Disheartened, he realised that tomorrow he’d probably just peruse more cafés.
He read the sign again.
Dining Room Closed For Private Function.
He scowled. It might as well be referring to his competence, except that he hadn’t any. After a day of being useless, he’d been looking forward to another excellent meal of food to compensate.
“Are you having trouble with it, sir?” a staff member asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“The sign,” the animal said, pointing at it. “Are you having trouble with any part of it in particular?”
“Trouble?”
“Yes. It’s just that you’ve been staring at it for some time, and I was wondering what bit of it you were struggling with.”
“I am not struggling with any of it, thank you,” Oscar said, not in the mood for convivial hoteliers. “Not with the sign, anyway.”
“Are you certain? You’ve been looking at it for quite some time.”
“I was thinking about something else.”
“In relation to the sign?”
“What?”
“Were your thoughts in relation to the sign, perhaps?”
“Are you trying to be annoying?”
“No, not at all,” the animal assured him. “It’s my job to ensure that things at Hotel d’Ruen run smoothly. Here, let me help you.” He proceeded to read the sign aloud, stopping at each word and peering at Oscar to ensure he understood.
“I can read perfectly well,” Oscar said. “I’m just disappointed that I can’t dine here tonight.”
“So your thoughts were in relation to the sign?”
“No,” said Oscar patiently. “The comment was an adjunct to your recital, not an explanation for its need.”
The animal blinked at him.
Fed up, Oscar said, “One of those words is very badly misspelt. Can you tell which one?”
When the animal turned and perused the sign, Oscar fluffed his pantaloons in annoyance and strode to the lift. After it pinged, he got in and rose two floors to alight no more appeased. He trudged along the hallway, muttering things about signs that are muttered for a reason. Inside his room, he stood bereft of ideas, finding again that peculiar limbo of arrival even more than he’d found upon arrival. He wandered to the window and slumped his chin upon a paw. Purple shadows of evening had grown long, and beneath them, couples strolled along the foreshore. Waves crashed in thump and hissed in retreat, leaving him to find that strange relief from immediacy that dozing affords.
Encumbered and shackled I’m weary in wait,
Afternoon spent in a peculiar state,
For betwixt the hours I did try to discern,
Yet arrive home with nothing, for nil have I earnt.
The verse took him by surprise, and when he tried recollecting its stanza, he was unable to. Not that it mattered, as he had little inclination to write it down.
Outside, faint blue strobes began lighting darkness, growing brighter until becoming a distinct flashing. He stared out the window to see police cars arrive and mount the pavement. From them, officers alighted. Some hurried to cordon off the street, while others ran around in circles, lapping the vehicles they’d arrived in. It was peculiar behaviour, and he watched intrigued until there was a knock at his door.
Opening it, he was greeted by two police officers.
Both of them stared at the top of his head.
“Are you alone, sir?” one asked it.
Oscar nodded.
“May we peruse you room for reasons of security?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Your room,” the second one said, still intrigued with his head. “May we peruse it for reasons of security?”
Indignant at having his missing ears addressed, Oscar said, “In what way could repeating the question possibly serve as explanation?”
“What?”
He folded his paws. “If it is apparent that I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, “how can asking the same question after rearranging two of its words possibly improve my chances of grasping it?”
The officers glanced at each other, doubting that hotel security sweeps involved giving comprehension lessons to strange cats with peculiar heads.
“We were being polite,” the first said.
“What?” said Oscar, wondering if this might go on all night.
“We were being polite. It was made to sound like a request even though it wasn’t one.”
“Oh.”
“Now get out of our way so we can search your room.”
They were big and strong, so Oscar stepped aside. They checked his room very badly; under the mattress and behind the curtains, with one taking far too long perusing a waste paper basket considering it was empty. He watched them with growing bewilderment, convinced that having no crime to fight left them in dire need of some. When he asked what all the fuss was about, they explained that the hotel was hosting an important private function and that they had to check for things. Waste paper, presumably. When enquiring who the guests were, he was told that it was none of his business, which Oscar advised was the premise behind asking. The officers, however, didn’t care. When their search was complete, despite it being nothing of the sort, they thanked his missing ears and left.
Intrigued, Oscar decided to have a look downstairs. He fluffed his pantaloons and donned a smart blue scarf, before attempting to spike his fur into makeshift ears. The mirror suggested it worked on one side, though only from a distance provided he didn’t turn his head. But because it was impossible to get the spikes symmetrical, he was left looking even more bizarre than when earless. He
sighed, flattened his fur and wondered whether he should wear a sign that read I know.
When he arrived downstairs, the dining room had been cordoned off, as had half the foyer, and guests were being forced to leave in a manner bordering on deportation. Apart from a cluster of staff leafing through dictionaries beside the sign, the place no longer looked like a hotel foyer and instead resembled one of the early rehearsals for What The Hell Are We Doing—The Musical. Caught in the tide of extradition, Oscar was bustled from the place to discover that things were even worse outside. Rather than a coordinated security sweep, it was more an over-reaction of astonishing proportions which left him staring with a sort of clinical disbelief.
Police were everywhere.
Their cars, flashing and bleating, filled the street. Between them, officers hurried, escorting guests and spectators in a manner that was clearly non-negotiable. Police vans arrived and squeezed between police cars until side-mirrors broke and doors became wedged, which forced those in them to extricate themselves through windows. A lamp post was backed into, and fell onto a van, the driver of which began sobbing when unable to release her seatbelt. Several officers went to her aid, some of which became overwhelmed themselves and accompanied her wails with an admirable chorus of their own.
Oscar was pushed aside when police hurried up the steps with masses of cordoning tape and unrolled the stuff in a manner suggesting they intended to mummify the place. Several tried cordoning anything they could get their paws on, which included each other, resulting in some of the more severely tangled being forced to congregate on the pavement and wait for scissors. He was jostled again by several officers bounding down the steps, who pointed at things while talking into radios, and then by others bounding up them who talked into radios while pointing at things. He was forced aside altogether when the foyer’s pot plants were dragged down the steps, interrogated and then arrested for loitering.
It looked like a bizarre crime scene bereft of any crime.
“Move along. There’s nothing to see here.”
He turned to see another officer addressing his missing ears.
“Tell me,” said Oscar, his indignation bordering on criminal, “do they teach discretion particularly early in your training?”
“I’m sorry?” the officer said, glancing at him in a more traditional manner.
Oscar very much doubted he was sorry at all and ignored him, which was appropriate considering the officer hadn’t addressed him, so much as the air above his head.
“I said move along. There’s nothing to see here.”
When a police car backed into another, mounted its bonnet and set off its sirens, Oscar looked at him in a manner suggesting he might like to retract the statement.
“Nevertheless,” the officer said, “no animal is to remain in the vicinity of the hotel this evening.”
“I presume that’s to keep casualties to a minimum,” said Oscar, an observation suitably illustrated when a police van backed over a second one and crumpled it, forcing the driver to arrest himself.
The officer hurried away to cordon both.
An argument erupted further up the street where a police car had become wedged on the pavement after attempting to avoid becoming wedged on the pavement. Several officers tried lifting the vehicle. When unsuccessful, they decided to use a second car to drag the first free—which might have worked, had the officer driving remembered to disengage reverse. Because he hadn’t, the second was backed into the first and consequently shoved halfway up a telegraph pole. While blame was appointed, a third police car arrived and tried squeezing past the first two. When forced to mount the pavement, blame apportioning was suspended, as pavement-mounting had been responsible for the problem in the first place. Although it managed to scrape past, it lost a door and two hub-caps in the process, which resulted in a small round of applause and a frantic issuing of traffic infringement notices between all involved.
At the street’s other end, an officer had locked his keys in a car, which was apparent when a senior animal began shouting at him and gesticulating wildly. When the first began sobbing, the gesticulations became even more avid, accompanied with screams that if the car wasn’t moved immediately, neither of them would have to worry about keys or gesticulations, wild or otherwise, for much longer. In a bid for reprieve, the sobbing officer pulled out his baton and smashed the car’s window. Although this afforded acquisition of the keys, it set off the vehicle’s alarm. This left the senior animal even more furious and his gesticulations bordering on epileptic—especially when the first refused to get into the car because the glass would hurt his bottom.
While Oscar stared at the charade, a fire hydrant exploded and some furniture fell out of a window in the building across the street. How Ruen managed a non-existent crime rate with police like this was beyond him. It seemed Ruen ought to import a few criminals, just to give the poor creatures something to work with.
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Hotel Scenes from the Velvet Paw of Asquith Novels Page 3