All the men and women of the village were fishing that day, out of sight behind the river-bend. Only old villagers were left, sitting at their doorsteps in the sun. The children were playing along the river bank, sailing paper boats, bathing, fishing tiddlers with jars. The old men and women looked up, bright-eyed, at the stranger.
The black cat strolled down to the splashing, laughing, weeping, echoing river bank.
An old woman said, “You’re too early. If you want to buy a fish come back at sunset. The boats won’t be home till sunset.”
The Empress said that she would like to buy a fish. She was sorry she was too early. Perhaps she could wait.
“What’s your man, a lawyer?” said the old woman whose hand was like a bird’s claw. “Prosperous ladies like you don’t usually come down to the fish market. They send one of their hoity-toity servants.”
The Empress said the village and the river were so beautiful, she was glad she had come.
All the old ones of the village laughed, some like frogs, some like reeds, some like gurgling water.
“Oh dear,” said the old woman, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. “That’s the first time anybody has said that! Beautiful, indeed – what could be more plain and ordinary than this village?”
An old man wheezed, “You’re a strange person, right enough. But there’s something familiar about you, I can’t just put my finger on it ...”
Down at the river shore, all was suddenly silent. The children were gathered round the black cat, some kneeling, some crouching, some dancing on one foot.
The Empress said, “Are the people of this village happy? Apart from a bad fishing season now and then, are they contented?”
She was answered by a chorus of cries, so confused that she could make nothing of it; all she knew was that it was a harsh music ... At last the old woman spoke for everyone.
“Happy?” she shrilled in her thin cracked voice. “We old ones happy? Who cares about us? Nobody. We can’t work any longer. We’re useless. When the young ones come in with their baskets of fish, they might throw us a head or a tail. Well, we don’t blame them. They must do the work, they must keep the village going. They have to eat and be strong. But, lady, everybody here would be well content if it wasn’t for the officials and the tax collectors. They come in their boats twice a year and they bleed us dry. They knock at every door with their parchments and purses. And all to keep the Emperor and that filthy woman, his wife, in luxury, somewhere far in the north. They don’t have to worry. Their silks and goblets of wine and harps make old age pleasant for them ... But even so, stranger, it might be a happy village, imperial taxes or not, if it weren’t for the warlords who come and go with their armed bandits, leaving ruin and smoking houses behind them. This is happening all over the land. It happened here six years ago. Lady, why are you crying? This has nothing to do with you.”
The children at the river bank were all suddenly looking up at the steps where the Empress and the old village ones were holding their dialogue.
The Empress couldn’t speak for a long time. She covered her face with her hands. But the tears oozed out between her fingers.
The old man said, “She’s the strangest lady I ever came across. And yet, I don’t know, there’s something about her. Her voice – she has the river-sounds in her voice. She doesn’t come from some posh quarter of the city, that’s sure.”
The Empress said, “I think I don’t have time to wait for the fishing boats. But I’d like to buy something in the village. Have you any of your little grass cages for sale, where people used to keep butterflies and grasshoppers?”
The old villagers shook their heads.
The old woman said, “No grass cages have been made here for a long long time. There was only one person who could make them properly anyway, and her name was Bat-ye. After Bat-ye died, there were no more beautiful grass cages.”
The eyes of a few old men shone like boys’ eyes. One old man said, “Bat-ye. Bat-ye was the sweetest girl who ever lived in this village. I loved Bat-ye. I can say it now. My old woman died last winter.”
“Bat-ye was more beautiful than any flower,” said another old man. “Her hands were like lotus blossoms.”
A third old man said, “We might have known we couldn’t keep Bat-ye. She was too rare and beautiful for a poor village like this.”
“What happened to Bat-ye in the end?” said the Empress.
“She was drowned one day in the river,” said the old woman. “She was reaching down for a strong reed when the water covered her face. The river floated her out to sea. Her body was never found.”
“Not a day has passed,” said an old man, “that I haven’t thought of the beautiful hands of Bat-ye.”
“No, she wasn’t drowned,” said another old man. “The bandits took her away to their cave in the mountains. A peasant saw her being forced on to a horse’s back, bound and weeping. I shudder to think what those wicked men did to our Bat-ye.”
“I think,” said the old woman, “the truth is simpler. Bat-ye got tired of this poor place. One day she left everything and went away to the city. I’d have done the same but I hadn’t the courage. What Bat-ye did in the city I don’t know. Someone like her might have opened a prosperous silk shop. I expect she’s dead now. She never came back to the river, at all events, and I don’t blame her.”
The children, the black cat among them, were coming: through the reeds and the rocks towards the village. The children had eyes only for the strange woman standing at the steps. The eyes of the children were round, as though they had heard a wonderful fairy tale. Two of the children were lustrous from the river water.
“Bat-ye, Bat-ye,” said an old man, and smiled like a boy.
“That’s what happens to the poor river people,” said the old woman. “They’re hungry most of the time, they grow old, the salt of taxation is rubbed again and again into their sores. If a villager chances to be beautiful she is either dragged away, or she goes of her own accord to the city to better herself.”
The children stood around the group of old ones in a wide ring. “The Empress,” breathed a little boy. “Why is she not wearing gold and ivory?” “The Empress,” said a girl whose hand was full of river-flowers.
“So, stranger,” said the old woman, “we can’t oblige you today, either in the way of a tasty fish or a grass cage for butterflies. Thank you, all the same, for stirring up such fragrant memories in us. Our hearts have been dead stems for a good few winters past.”
The old ones smiled all around the Empress.
The children murmured, “Empress”... “Em-press” ... A boy blew melodious air out of a reed.
“Get back to the river, you children!” cried an old man.
“This lady is nothing to you. Stop that whispering. I’ll tell your fathers when they come back with the fish at sunset.” The children only came closer.
The river gleamed between the reeds. Far off, fishermen called to hidden fishermen round the river-bend.
The Empress took a purse out of her bag. She said, “This is the happiest day, almost, of my life. I would like to give you something in memory of it, so that you won’t be poor again until you die. I remember all your faces, though time has put beautiful traceries on each one.”
The old villagers were quite bewildered by this speech. They had never seen gold coins before; that bewildered them further; what bewildered them most of all was that the stranger, as she laid a large gold coin in each withered palm, murmured gently the name of the recipient: “Green-Fin” ... “Tide-Sparkle” ... “Silver-Scale” ... “Hook-in-the-Gut” ... She was putting an Imperial guinea in the hand of the smiling old man, and trying to remember his name, when he seized her fingers and cried, “Bat-ye! I think of the hand of Bat-ye every day. I would know Bat-ye’s hand anywhere! Friends, our Bat-ye has come back to us!”
But what the children chanted, through strands of reed-music, was “Empress!” “Empress!” “Empress!”
&
nbsp; “She doesn’t look like the Empress,” said the smallest boy. “She looks just like the salt merchant’s wife, in that grey coat.”
“Bat-ye” ... “Empress” ... “Bat-ye.” The fresh voices and the withered voices mingled under the sun, with notes of music.
“It’s a wonderful day,” said another boy, who had been bathing. “A cat has told us a story. The Empress of the four kingdoms has come to visit our village.”
The mouths of the old ones were clustered like bees about the gold-shadowed fingers of the lady who had once plucked river-reeds. Their eyes brimmed with love and wonderment and remembrance.
The girl whose hands were full of blossoms went up to the Empress and threw them over her. Petals clung to her coat, the scent of water lilies drifted about her.
“My dear, dear friends,” said Bat-ye.
The children were still dancing round their guest when the first river boat returned, a lantern in her stern.
On the verge of the river a black cat yearned towards the smell of new-caught fish.
Moon Animals
An old lady is busy in her house. She seems to be expecting visitors.
She has been baking. The room is full of good smells. A tray of little cakes – cheese cakes, pancakes, rock cakes – smokes fragrantly on the sideboard.
She has been very busy. One or two patches of her flagstone floor are still damp from the washing.
Now she is putting wild roses in a vase in the window where a bluebottle sings and bumps.
Important visitors they must be.
A small airplane flies overhead. The old lady goes to her open door. She looks up, shading her eyes against the sun. She waves her hand, cries a welcome. Her visitors are in the plane.
They have come, three shouting children, two boys and a girl. They come out of the taxi, burdened with cases, duffle bags, coats.
“Grandma!” they shout. “Thanks,” they shout. “We’re here!” they shout.
The old lady enfolds them, one after the other. She has many smiles, but no words yet. “I’m Sam. That’s Roger.” “And I’m Margaret.”
“Grandma, we’ve got presents for you.”
After pancakes and rhubarb jam and milk, and such confusions of words that only a little sense emerges, they want to be outside in the sunshine.
There are butterflies and birds and waves, and wild flowers among the green grass.
The children from the city laugh and shout in a distant field. A dog barks.
The grandmother gathers the dishes to the sink. The pancakes have been eaten, every one. The jam pot has been scoured clean. “I keep forgetting how hungry bairns get,” she says.
She gathers the dazed and battered bluebottle from its window-pane prison into a duster and releases it into the wind. “Stupid thing,” she says. “The door was open all the time.”
***
Sound of a sob at the corner of the house, a weary footdrag, a sniffle. (The world is full of pain, from infancy to age.)
Roger stands at the corner of the house, intent on stones. The day has been cruel to Roger.
The grandmother probes, gently, the source of the trouble. Was it Glen, the dog of Smedhurst? “Glen barks, and jumps up, but he likes bairns. Glen’s an excitable dog. I’ll take you to Smedhurst tomorrow. We’ll make friends with Glen.”
Sam and Margaret are a mile away, on the hillside. Their voices come, green and clear, mixed with bleatings of sheep.
“Tell me this, Grandma, were you ever a little girl?”
“Oh yes, I was, a long, long time ago.”
“Where did you stay then, when you were little?”
“I stayed in this very house where we are now.”
“In Inquoy?”
“Yes, indeed, and my own father and grandmother were born and lived here before me.”
“That must be my great-great-grandmother. What was her name?”
“She was called Betsy. I remember her. She had cheeks like apples.”
“Can I have another bit of your toffee, please?”
“Just one more piece. I don’t want you to be sick on the first night of your holiday.”
The voices of two children drift up from the shore, remote and blue and cold.
“Are you the oldest lady on the island, Grandma?”
“The second oldest. The oldest is Miss Tweeddale. But she’s only three months older than me. Miss Tweeddale lives in that big house there against the sky.”
“Did you have a dog like Glen when you were little?”
“When I was peedie – that means small – there was a dog here at Inquoy called Robbie. He was old and lazy. I had a cat for a whole year.”
“What was the cat’s name?”
“He was called Fankle. He was a beautiful cat, black as coal. His eyes were like diamonds.”
“Tell me all about Fankle, Grandma.”
“Oh dear, that would take all night, and you’re far too tired. That’s twice now you’ve yawned. Bedtime for you.”
“I didn’t yawn. I was just stretching my mouth. I sometimes do that. Tell me about Fankle.”
“I’ll tell you a few things. Fankle was found in the back of a grocery van, among sacks of potatoes. Fankle was a kitten. Mr Strynd found him. Mr Strynd was the general merchant in those days, a long time ago. He’s dead now.”
“Did Mr Strynd not want to keep Fankle?”
“Oh no. Mr Strynd hated cats.”
“How did you come to own Fankle, Grandma?”
“Mr Strynd said, if I didn’t take Fankle, he would drown Fankle in the millpond.”
“That was a terrible thing to say!”
“Wasn’t it terrible? So I took Fankle home to Inquoy, that same day.”
“Did Fankle like being in this house?”
“Oh yes, he loved it. Well, most of the time. Sometimes he was in trouble. He couldn’t resist fish. He would steal a fish from under your nose.”
“Did you give him a row then?”
“Not me. My mother would give him a row. That’s your great-grandma. Fankle was scared whenever she shouted at him. She had a very sharp tongue. Fankle would leap in the air with terror. Fankle would cringe in the corner. Sometimes she would flick him with a dish towel.”
“You must have been very angry with him sometimes when he was bad.”
“Well, he sometimes disappeared for days on end. Then, when he came home at last, I’d give him a piece of my mind.”
“Fankle must have been a rather bad cat.”
“Oh no. Not at all. Certainly not. Most of the time he was good. He was very wise. He was the wisest cat I ever saw.”
“What did the wise cat do all day?”
“Well, he drank three saucers of milk a day. He got a dish with bits of fish on it. Not always fish – sometimes chopped liver, or chicken giblets. He slept a lot of the time in front of the fire. In summer he slept in the sun. He slept under the teacher’s desk in the school.”
“Not much fun, just eating and sleeping, Grandma.”
“There’s another enormous yawn! Bed for you, my boy.”
“I was stretching my mouth. I don’t think I’d like a stupid cat that only ate and slept.”
“Ah but, Roger, you never saw Fankle catching the rat! That was something. A great monster of a grey rat, as big as himself. That rat, it destroyed everything my mother did, one summer. It even ate her knitting. She was so annoyed she got asthma. She didn’t know what to do. Fankle saved the day. Fankle hunted the brute down.”
“What else did Fankle hunt?”
“Well, birds, sometimes. Starlings and sparrows. Once he tried to eat Mrs Crag’s budgie. That was the wickedest thing he ever attempted. We won’t speak about Fankle and the birds.”
“What happened to Fankle in the end?”
“What happens to all of us, he died. He was run over.”
“How was he run over?”
“Fankle was crossing the road one day. Round the corner came Mr Strynd’s grocery van. Mr S
trynd was in a hurry that day. He had a box of eggs and a box of cheese to put on board the Thor. Thor was the name of the steamer that went between the island and the town. Mr Strynd was late that day. The steamer was due to leave in five minutes. Round the corner came that old rusty chariot, in a cloud of dust and fumes. Fankle had no chance. Of course I knew nothing about it. I was at school. I remember, we were reading Robinson Crusoe in the school that afternoon. I’ve never liked Robinson Crusoe since that day. Well, I came home, and there was a small black heap on the doorstep, with streaks of grey and red on it. It took me a while to recognize Fankle. I thought at first he’d been hunting in the quarry and was asleep. It took me longer to realize Fankle was dead. When I saw my mother crying at the sink, I knew the thing on the doorstep was Fankle, and that Fankle wouldn’t be telling any more stories again.”
“Did you cry, Grandma?”
“Yes, of course I did. I cried all that night. I was still crying in my sleep, my mother said.”
“Poor Grandma.”
“Poor you. If you stretch your mouth any more, you’ll crack your face. Off with the shoes first. It’s time your brother and sister were in. It’s beginning to get dark.”
“I wish I’d known Fankle.”
“I have a photograph of him. I’ll show you Fankle’s photo in the morning. It’s too dark now. He’s buried under the cabbage patch, in a shoe box. Now, your jersey.”
“Did you cry for days and weeks, Grandma?”
“No, just that one night. Next morning I realized that Fankle wasn’t dead at all.”
“The van went over him. He was put in a shoe box. He was buried under the cabbages.”
“He was. But you see, precious, cats have nine lives. And as far as I could gather, Fankle still had three to go.”
“Where is he now then?”
“I wish I knew. Some amazing place, you may be sure of that. Fankle always went where there was glamour and power and excitement. The thing that amazes me, Roger, is why he ever chose to come to a quiet poor place like this, and live for a year with a plain girl like Jenny ... You won’t be getting a bath tonight, you’re too tired. Now then, where are those pyjamas?”
Six Lives of Fankle the Cat Page 9