Six Lives of Fankle the Cat

by George Mackay Brown

  “Well,” said Jenny, “I thought at first you came from Tom Strynd’s grocery van. But it seems you’re a Liverpool cat – or so you said.”

  “I am not,” said Fankle. “I lived for a time in Liverpool, that’s all. I had come down in the world.”

  “Is that so?” said Jenny.

  “I’ll give you three guesses,” said Fankle, “as to the place of my origin.”

  After a pause, Jenny said, “Paris,” for Fankle had a certain style and sophistication about him.

  “Wrong,” said Fankle. “It’s true, I lived in Paris for a while. I belonged to Marie Antoinette’s fourth lady of the bedchamber. But I didn’t come from there.”

  “Maybe, Peru,” said Jenny.

  “You’re just making wild guesses,” said Fankle. “Every girl of intelligence knows that cats – the best strain of cat, that is – come from Egypt.”

  “I suppose,” said Jenny, with a touch of sarcasm, “you belonged to Cleopatra’s servant.”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Fankle. “I lived thousands of years before Cleopatra. As a matter of fact it was a rather humble beginning I had in life. First thing I remember, I was a little thin cat wandering about on the mudflats of the Nile, eating maybe a stranded fish now and then. Nobody in Egypt seemed to like cats at that time. I got more kicks than ha’ pennies.”

  “Poor Fankle,” said Jenny.

  “I wasn’t called Fankle then either. I had a name you couldn’t pronounce. It means this, roughly – ‘little thief with the whiskers that eats fish fins.’ I didn’t mind. I had faith in myself. I knew that in the end all those peasants and fishermen would be forced to call me by a better name.”

  “And did they?” asked Jenny.

  “Don’t rush me,” said Fankle. “All in good time. Just listen.”

  “I am listening,” said Jenny. “But you’d better hurry. Mother might be back from the shops at any minute.”

  “One day,” said Fankle, “as I was slouching along the left bank of the Nile, I heard singing from the Temple of the Sun God, a chant. As you know, I have a very poor opinion of the human voice as a lyrical instrument, but I paused and listened for a while to this choir of men and boys. Usually their hymns were as gay and cheerful as human beings can manage, but this piece was full of the most awful desolation. It was a sponge dripping with pain and grief and terror that they offered to the sun’s benign golden eye. What could be the matter? The provinces were at peace. The harvest had been gathered in and it was a plenteous one. As far as I knew, there was no plague in the city. So I said to the priest’s dog, who was squatting at the temple door and blinking his stupid eye, ‘Hound,’ I said, ‘what’s got into them?’

  “‘Go away,’ said the dog. ‘Be off. Or I’ll tear you limb from limb, Little-thief-with-the-whiskers-that-eats-fish-fins.’

  “Who could be bothered reasoning with a churl like that?” said Fankle. “Not me. I strolled down to the reeds and I said to the monkey that was sitting on a rock there, ‘What’s eating them?’ I said. ‘They’re in a blue funk about something.’

  “‘Haven’t you heard?’ said the monkey, whose name was Flower-face, ‘It’s the rats from Persia, the new strain. That’s what’s biting them.’

  “‘I thought,’ said I, ‘that the official poisoners with their thousand different kinds of venom could easily deal with a tribe of rats.’

  “‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ said Flower-face. ‘Because this rat, you see, from Persia, eats the poisons and seems to thrive on them. Of course they like corn better, and now they’ve taken up residence in the great granaries.’

  “‘Good luck to them,’ I said. You must understand, Jenny, at that time there was no ill-feeling between rats and cats. None at all. We went our separate ways. We left each other alone. The only animals we cats disliked were dogs.”

  “I never knew that,” said Jenny. “I thought –”

  “What you thought or think is irrelevant to this story,” said Fankle. “You are ruining the story with your interruptions.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sure,” said Jenny.

  “To continue,” said Fankle. “It seemed, from what Flower-face told me, that the entire nation of Egypt was threatened with starvation. The Persian rats had got into their granaries. They were devouring everything. They were breeding like arithmetic gone mad.”

  “How terrible!” said Jenny.

  “Terrible for human beings,” said Fankle. “Nice for rats. It had nothing to do with me. I could always get my bit of fish out of the river ... Well, now, that same afternoon as I was sitting on a wall giving my face a bit of a wash, along come three councillors of the city, very grave and important men. They stopped right in front of me. It looked like business. This was the first time human beings had ever tried to negotiate with me, except in the way of kicks, insults, and the flinging of stones.

  “The oldest senator addressed me. ‘Little-thief-with-the-whiskers-that-eats-fish-fins, a word with you.’

  “‘When I have a better name,’ I said, ‘I will speak with you. Not before.’ Nobody likes being called a thief, really.

  “The councillors turned their backs on me and conferred in whispers. Then they turned again to face me. ‘We have a new name for you,’ they said. ‘It is this: Little-subtle-one-with-the-bright-claw-that-will-sit-at-our-fires.’

  “‘That’s better,’ I said. ‘That sounds very promising as far as my future is concerned. What do you want me for?’

  “‘You must have heard about the Persian rats,’ said old white-beard.

  “‘Yes, I have,’ I said. ‘They are said to be very clever, very hungry animals. They eat poison along with corn and seem to enjoy the mixture. These rats will go far.’

  “‘They will destroy the greatest civilization on earth,’ said the senators. ‘They will eat the manuscripts of most ancient wisdom. They will destroy all things beautiful and good.’

  “‘Yes,’ I said, ‘they are very efficient.’

  “Jenny, dear friend, to cut a long story short, these wise men made certain proposals to me; and through me, of course, to the whole species cat. It was this: that the cats of Egypt should suddenly declare war on those voracious corn-eating rats, and root them out, and thereby ensure that men and women and children could eat their bread in peace, for ever and ever ... Of course I saw to it there was another side to the bargain. My name from that day on was to be, I decided, Little-happy-and-subtle-one, friend-of-households, drinker-from-fireside-bowls.

  “Once the bargain had been signed and sealed, I went into swift action. I summoned a cat congress. They came to Thebes from all over Egypt – tall cats, one-eyed cats, scented cats, skinny cats, cats without tails, hill cats, river cats, sand cats. Once I had explained to the vast concourse the new treaty as between cats and men, they responded with a wild enthusiastic huzzah of ‘miaows.’ I think I have never heard such a thrilling sound. Thenceforth cats were no more to be scavengers and outcasts – they were to lead easy pampered lives, they were to be the well-loved friends of mankind, especially girls and boys.

  “But first, of course, the war had to be fought. We entered the great state granaries secretly, at night. You know what a marvellous place a barn is, with all its fragrance and heaviness of stored corn. In the darkness, the army of cats heard a steady grinding and gnawing, a rustling and belching. The Persian rats didn’t want to waste time sleeping, when all that corn was to be eaten. For many of them – for most of them – for all but a handful of them, it was to be their last meal on earth. The cats’ eyes gleamed like jewels throughout the granary. I gave the signal. We flung ourselves on the despoilers. They did the best they could. (Rats are very brave and fierce.) But they were crammed with corn, and besides they were unprepared for such a subtle secret massive assault. When dawn broke over the dunes and pyramids, the battle was all but over. There remained only a few stragglers to be rounded up. A huge pit was dug in the desert by a band of slaves, and there the rats were buried, grey layer upon
layer of them. It was a joyous hymn that the choir sang in the temple that morning.

  “Jenny, I hate to run down human beings in front of you, but there were actually some of them, including one of the three councillors that had come to me in the first place, who wanted now to renege on the treaty. Of course, knowing men the way I did, I had made certain provisions for that. Just when one of those citizens was in the middle of addressing me by my old name, Little-thief-with-the whiskers-that-eats-fish-fins, I happened to remark, ‘Look at those two little lovely rats over there playing by the sewer, a male and a female! They should have a growing family quite soon now.’ For you see, I had kept half-a dozen rats alive, just to encourage the citizens. Then, and only then, was the treaty implemented. All the cats of Egypt were allocated homes – each one was adopted by a family – and the children of the household and the household cat quickly became friends. And that’s the way it has been ever since.

  “I found myself, Jenny, being gathered into firm slim beautiful arms. A face looked down at me so kind and sweet and happy my heart melted to her. I would have loved her even if she had been a beggar. I knew she was no beggar, by the silver and emerald rings on her arm, and the fine embroidered linen of her kilt. That was all she wore. And her hair was black and her eyes slanted like fish in a tank and she had a deep cleft in her chin. Her breath was all roses and honey. The princess, whose name means ‘She-who-will-bake-cakes-for-the-poor,’ took me to her father’s big white house. She poured me out a bowl of milk beside the fire. She kissed me. She said, ‘You are to have a new name from now on. It is Little-subtle-friend-of-princesses – with-coat-of-midnight-and-eyes-like-diamonds’.”

  “Oh dear,” said Jenny after a while, “what a comedown for you to have a name like Fankle and to live in a little stone croft on an island!”

  Fankle rubbed gently against his friend’s wrist. He purred, “Jenny, I like you every bit as much as I liked that Egyptian princess.”

  Jenny stroked the black head. “Oh, well,” she said smiling, “thank you for saying that, Fankle.”

  They heard the car stopping on the road outside. “Quick, tell me before mother comes,” said Jenny, “ – how did you get from Thebes to Liverpool?”

  “By the way of extinction,” said Fankle. “The princess’s cousin, a bad jealous girl called Green Eyes, threw me down a well in the palace yard. Of course I was an old cat then, and tired. I no longer liked fish and milk as much as I had done. I was glad enough to let the water cover my head. Death is sweet, Jenny, once you know that when you wake up from the dark sleep you will be young again, and in a new place, and full of curiosity about everything.”

  Roses and Moonlight

  A very worrying thing indeed happened just before harvest. Fankle vanished. Jenny was quite prepared to have her treasure disappear for a day and a night. That happened quite often when the hunting mood was on him. Then he would drag home, his tummy tight as a drum with surfeit of mouse, bird, or rabbit – lie down on the rug before the fire – groan once or twice and go to sleep.

  But this was the third day that Fankle was not seen creeping through the fields of Inquoy, or sitting in the barn door. The milk in his bowl turned sour. Jenny searched every corner and outhouse for him. Nothing. It was a serious business.

  “No,” cried the children in the island school, “we haven’t seen Fankle.” They were perturbed too. They all liked Fankle, even though he had scratched most of them at one time or another.

  On Friday, after tea, Jenny could bear it no longer. (And she didn’t eat much of a tea either, a half slice of bread and butter with a sprinkling of sugar on it.) She decided to go and make enquiries.

  The obvious person to go to, first of all, was Ma Scad, who kept a dozen cats and knew as much about the movements of cats as mariners did about tides and astronomers the drift of the stars.

  “Lost him, have you?” said Ma Scad in the door of Troddale, her cottage. “Is that a fact? Come in, lass. Dear, dear me. It has happened before. The world is full of wickedness. What a sad thing, your cat gone a-missing! What did you say his name was? Fankle. Poor Fankle! Yes, I know Fankle. He’s been up here visiting my beauties more than once. A brave cat.”

  The dark interior of Troddale seemed to be full of soft gliding shapes, and brilliant eyes. “Cats,” said Ma Scad, “have you seen Jenny’s cat? Have any of you seen Fankle? Speak up, now. There’s not a moment to be lost.”

  There was not a murmur from any of Ma Scad’s cats. They looked at her with large wise inscrutable eyes. “They know nothing,” Ma Scad assured Jenny. “If they did they’d have told me.” (Indeed it was said in the island that Ma Scad had long talks with her cats and sometimes a singsong or a quiz game. But Jenny did not believe that – only Fankle, of all the cats on earth, could talk.)

  “They haven’t seen sight or sign of Fankle,” said Ma Scad. “Let me see now.” She leaned her head to one side, narrowed her eyes, put three fingers of her right hand into her mouth, and pondered. “Cat soup,” she said at last.

  “Beg pardon?” said Jenny.

  “There’s a certain person in this island that makes cat soup. He’ll eat no soup but cat soup. I’m mentioning no names. What colour was Fankle?”

  “Black,” said Jenny.

  “Oh, dear,” said Ma Scad, “that’s bad. That’s very bad. This party eats nothing but the soup of black cats. Look for cat bones in a certain midden as you go home. I’m mentioning no names.”

  “That’s impossible, surely!” cried Jenny.

  “Then there are folk that hate cats,” said Ma Scad. “There are. A certain other party hunts cats with his shotgun. He hunts them over the hill and along the shore. No cat has ever harmed him or his. He shoots cats to please his evil heart. Black cats, that’s the ones he likes best of all to shoot.”

  “Who is he?” asked Jenny.

  “No names,” said Ma Scad. “I don’t want to get into trouble, lawyer’s letters and all that kind of thing. I saw him with his blunderbuss no later than yesterday. Fankle is lying full of shotgun pellets in a ditch.”

  Jenny began to cry softly. The dozen cats of Ma Scad looked as if it was all the same to them whether she laughed or cried or sang Three Blind Mice.

  “Tears’ll not get Fankle back,” said Ma Scad. “You’ll just have to learn to carry on without Fankle. Life is very hard. You must be brave. I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

  “No, thank you,” wept Jenny.

  “Let me see,” said Ma Scad, adopting once more her meditative stance. “Let me see now. Who was it told me? I believe it was Walter the fisherman. No, it wasn’t. It was Scroggie the beachcomber. Why didn’t I think of that first of all? I’m getting old. Scroggie told me, none other. Alas!”

  “What did Scroggie say?” asked Jenny in a little damp whisper.

  “Scroggie found a sack with the neck tied with string. Scroggie took his knife to it. What do you think Scroggie found in the sack?”

  “I couldn’t say,” said Jenny.

  “I’ll tell you what Scroggie found,” said Ma Scad. “A black cat. Dead and salt and stiff. So Scroggie told me. And Scroggie tells the truth more often than not.”

  “Will Scroggie still have the body?” said Jenny. “I would know Fankle if I saw him, dead or alive.”

  “What Scroggie would have done is this,” said Ma Scad. “He would have made a fire and he would have burned the cat on the shore. If you were to go down to the beach –”

  But Jenny could take no more of this kind of talk. She ran out of Troddale without so much as a thanks or a goodbye. By good luck, half way down to the shore she met Scroggie himself. Scroggie regarded her with a kind eye. “Please, Scroggie,” she said, “is it true that you found a black cat dead on the shore, in a sack, and burned him?”

  “No, dear,” said Scroggie. “I never found any black cat. Is it Ma Scad that told you? According to Ma Scad, I find a hundred drowned cats a week down at the shore. I think I’ve maybe found one in my time, years ago. Is it F
ankle you’re worried about? He’ll turn up, never fear. That Fankle of yours is not the vanishing kind.”

  ***

  Jenny knocked at the door of the merchant’s house in the village. The store was locked for the night. Tom Strynd listened to Jenny’s story with a long face. Had Fankle maybe got tired of her and Inquoy? Jenny wondered aloud. Had he maybe missed the fine smells of brown sugar, coffee, and apples in the yard where he had first appeared? “No,” said Tom Strynd. “Fankle hasn’t come back here to live. I’m sorry, Jenny. I’ll send you word if he does.”

  Jenny thanked the merchant and turned away. It was getting dark. There was a star over the chimney. How would she ever find Fankle in the darkness?

  “If you should ever want another kitten,” Tom Strynd called after her, “I’ll keep you in mind, supposing Silas Ingison ever dumps another one in the back of my van.”

  Jenny shook her head and moved on.

  ***

  Mrs Martin, in the manse sitting-room, was very concerned to begin with. Had Fankle ever been gone so long before? Had Fankle been quite well recently, and lapped his milk and licked the fishbones clean? (She poured Jenny a tall glass of lemonade that she had made herself. Jenny sipped the lemonade gratefully; her throat was dry with grief and over-much speaking.) Mrs Martin smiled when Jenny told her about Ma Scad and her elegies. (Jenny took a big gulp of lemonade and felt more cheerful at once. She didn’t know whether it was the lemonade or the kind old lady that made her feel better.) Mrs Martin declared that Fankle was the cleverest cat on the island – no, in Orkney – no, in the whole world. Wasn’t it Fankle who had cured her of her trouble, with his antics in the garden that fine day? Fankle had unlocked in her the little spring that had lain hidden and dark for so long. (“Drink up, Jenny, there’s plenty more lemonade ...”) That cat was so wise he seemed to have known what ailed Mrs Martin. Did Jenny think for one moment that an extraordinarily intelligent cat like Fankle could vanish into thin air? Fankle was unique. Fankle would be home in the morning. (Jenny drained the lemonade glass to the last drop. She did like this wise old lady who had suffered so much.) They exchanged goodnight kisses. The sky was thick with stars. Somewhere through the night, Jenny knew now, Fankle was moving, the essence of night and secrecy and wisdom.