by Guy N Smith
Caracal - Kindle Version 1.0
(c) Guy N Smith 1980 - 2010
Published by Black Hill Books, January 2011
ISBN : 978-1-907846-137
First Published by New English Library (NEL) February 1980.
Converted to Ebook from original paperback by Scan2Ebook.com
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Contents
Title
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
The End
Chapter 1
All day the youth had lain on the old chipped and broken door placed across the rafters. Sometimes he slept, sometimes he just lay staring up into the semi-darkness of the dusty attic.
The heat of the day had built up in this small space, and his lean brown body was bathed in perspiration. Any slight movement sent up clouds of dust which hung in the shafts of light filtering through a gap in the roof. He choked, and nearly retched as he tried to stifle his coughing. No noise, the man Hoyle had said, and don't walk about or else you'll probably fall through the ceiling. Bilal hated the big red-haired man, apparently the self-appointed leader of this isolated commune. The others didn't seem to like him much, especially Lansdale; the two of them were always arguing, and obviously detested each other.
He sat up, running his fingers through his long black greasy hair. He felt helpless, lonely, disillusioned. Right now he'd give anything just to be back in Pakistan, but he'd parted with everything he had just to come here. Conned by promises of wealth and employment, he'd thought it was all above board and even signed a sheaf of official-looking documents. Only when he was on the boat, crammed in the hold with all the others like galley slaves, had he realised. Then it was too late, and ever since landing he had been a fugitive.
The address which he had carried on a torn slip of paper had brought Bilal to Knighton. He had lain low until dark, but it had taken him two nights to find ‘Pentre’. It was some distance from the nearest human habitation, a rambling old stone building, set in an acre of dense weeds, half of the windows missing or broken, doors warped so that they would not close. Once a prosperous country home, it had fallen into such a state of neglect that no attempt had been made to evict the squatters who had moved in. Some had left, others had arrived, a constant flow of comings and goings, spurned by the community but generally left to their own devices. That was all they asked. Wes Lansdale had given Bilal a brief summary of the set-up, and Lester Hoyle had made it clear that there were no free lodgings at Pentre. ‘You'll have to work,’ he'd said, ‘but most important of all, you'll have to keep out of sight.’
A faint scratching attracted Bilal's attention. He leaned over, dragged a cardboard carton towards him, and opened one of the flaps. Something inside moved, purred softly as he spoke to it in his own tongue, stroking the soft fur gently before picking it up and cradling it into his lap. It nestled against him nervously, kitten-like but larger than a fully grown domestic cat, deep brown in colour, the hairs tipped with grey, ears long and upright tapering to a fine tip.
‘And as for that animal,’ Lester Hoyle had kicked the closed carton, ‘it can't stay here. What if it's carrying rabies?’
‘It is not,’ Bilal had snapped. ‘It was my pet in …’
‘Yeah, in Pakistan,’ Hoyle sneered, hastily pushing back the chestnut-coloured hair which flopped on to his forehead. His small eyes narrowed, his lips tightened. He was in his forties although he persisted in telling everybody that he was thirty-five. ‘It isn't an ordinary cat. A Paki-cat, dark brown all over.’
There was laughter from the adjoining room, mirth with an undercurrent of cruelty. Then a chair scraped back and a slim dark-haired man in his early twenties appeared in the doorway. The rimless glasses resting on the bridge of his nose had been repaired with sticking plaster, the red T-shirt and Wrangler jeans needed a wash. Yet to Bilal he had an air of gentleness, a compassion not apparent in any of the others. The newcomer stepped forward, opened the lid of the box and peered inside, closing it again quickly just in time to avoid the slash of a paw.
‘It's a caracal,’ Wes Lansdale said.
‘A cat, in other words,’ Hoyle kicked the box again, ‘a dirty stinking wog cat that will rake the flesh off your leg or try to scratch your eyes out. It can't stay here,’ he, turned away abruptly. ‘You'll have to get rid of it.’
He went on to make various suggestions which Bilal did not understand, but his meaning was plain and Bilal hated Lester Hoyle from that moment. Although he began to wish he hadn't brought the caracal kitten with him, it was the last link with his native country, and no way was he going to part with it to please Hoyle.
Now he licked his dry lips and wished he could go downstairs to find some water. He briefly considered leaving altogether, but where would he go? This was Britain, a strange country, where there were no wild places to hide anyway. The police would catch him - he would have to stay.
Somewhat reluctantly he returned the caracal to its box. It scratched at the cardboard angrily, yet lacking the strength to try escape. Bilal wondered about making some sort of cage for it; it was growing fast, but surely there was plenty of time yet.
He heard raised voices somewhere down below. Hoyle and Lansdale were quarrelling again; his English was not good enough to pick out the words at a distance, but it could be over the girl, Wendy. It was none of his business, though.
Wes Lansdale had been struggling with his typewriter for half an hour, a battered old ‘Royal’ that was solid enough to give a few more years of service yet. A spring had come off one of the keys; twice he'd had to search the floor on hands and knees to find it.
He broke off, scribbled a few words on a jotter pad on the table. Two or three sentences had come to him. If he waited until he had the typewriter working again they would have gone.
‘Having trouble?’
He glanced up, then slammed his pencil down. Wendy stood in the doorway, long dark hair below her shoulders, a red and white striped blouse open so that her bra was just visible. Faded jeans which clung to her thighs and legs revealed the perfection of her slim figure. She didn't even have to try to be sexy, those buttons had come undone on their own; the style suited her, casual but not scruffy.
‘Yes,’ he began to roll a cigarette. ‘I'm always having trouble, one way or another.’
‘Most of it's your own making,’ she stepped forward and picked up the loose spring. ‘You don't have to be so aggressive with Lester even if he is constantly looking for an argument’
‘I'm not aggressive. He won't let me alone. Follows me around as though I'm the prodigal son who might decide to take off again.’
‘He's probably worried about you, like I am.’
‘Look,’ he struck a match and drew heavily on his cigarette, ‘I don't need anybody breathing down my neck the whole time. I can look after myself. All I want is to be left alone.’
‘There!’ She pushed the spring into place, replaced the top of the typewriter and tapped the key, ‘All it needed was nimble fingers and a bit of patience.
’
He sighed and blew out smoke.
‘Tobacco,’ she sniffed the cloud as it enveloped her, ‘just tobacco!’
‘Like hay,’ he grinned wryly, ‘Don't know why I bother to smoke it at all.’
‘You haven't touched the hard stuff for nearly a week now … as far as I know.’
‘I'll have to go back on it if this book doesn't pick up. Five thousand words have to be rewritten - if I'd been on grass, that wouldn't have been necessary.’
She stared at the mass of tiny punctures on his right arm, ‘You didn't need drugs when you wrote Whispers’
‘Which was why it was a load of crap.’
‘It sold fifty thousand in paperback.’
‘But it would still have been a load of crap, even if it had topped the ton.’
‘Fifty thousand people can't be wrong. Anyway, does it matter so long as it sells?’
‘It matters to me’ His temper was rising, two red spots on his cheeks and fists clenching. ‘I don't care if it sells a million. It's what it is to me that counts.’
‘You're pig-headed and stupid. Your next two books would have made it to the top if you'd kept off the dope. Instead, they ended up as remainders.’
‘Rubbish,’ he blew smoke in her direction as though to reject her unwanted advice. ‘They were doomed before I'd completed them. Now I'm back to square one, and this book has got to make it otherwise I'm finished.’
‘This one?’ she laughed harshly. ‘You've started three books in as many months. A few thousand words and they've finished up on the fire. It isn't only the drugs - you take too much notice of Lester, and he's never written a book in his life.’
‘He's got a degree in English. Lectured at Cambridge.’
‘You know as well as I do that degrees don't produce best-sellers. Anyway, look what drugs did to him - Cambridge to Knighton in one easy lesson.’
‘Lester went downhill because his wife walked out on him.’
‘Yes, but that was because of the effect drugs were having on him. That's why we're all here - you, me, Lester, Rodney, Jon, Trix and the others. We're kidding ourselves that we want to opt out of society and be unconventional. That's just an excuse, an apology for the way we are. You and I might just buck the heroin, at least we're fighting.’
‘We'll never get out of here. I don't think we really want to; we're just conning ourselves and everyone else.’
‘I'm on the way back,’ she reached for his makings and began folding a paper. ‘And I'm getting out of here … eventually. Hopefully with you, but without you if it has to be.’
‘Then take Lester with you,’ he snapped angrily. ‘God, I've seen he can hardly keep his hands off you.’
‘He fancies me,’ she grinned, almost blushed. ‘So do the other guys. I'm flattered but I wouldn't go with them. It's when nobody eyes your girl that you want to worry, Wes.’
‘He's a dirty old man. I shall warn him off soon if he doesn't pack it in.’
‘I heard the two of you having a good go at each other earlier. What was that about?’
‘About that Paki and his damned pet cat.’
‘Bilal,’ she expelled twin streams of smoke from her nostrils. ‘He seems OK. I thought one of the conditions of this commune was no racialism?’
‘It's nothing to do with colour. They can fill the place up with every nationality in the world for all I care, so long as it's all straight and above board.’
She lowered herself into the vacant chair. ‘Why so sanctimonious all of a sudden?’
‘I couldn't give a toss personally,’ he stubbed out his cigarette. The anger seemed to have left him, his brow now furrowed thoughtfully. ‘Illegal immigrants spell trouble, especially in a place like this. One dark face in the main street and half the population are barring their doors and peeping out from behind the curtains. If the cops start checking they'll tear this place apart, and we'll all go inside for being in possession of drugs whether you or I are trying to throw them or not.’
‘Why did he come here?’
‘Some contact of Hoyle's in Birmingham. I don't know the full story, but no doubt there was some buckshee dope in it for Lester if he took the man. And now that he's got him he's wondering how to get rid of him. Probably didn't realise in the first place that the kid was an illegal immigrant.’
‘Well, he's not doing any harm if he keeps out of sight.’
‘But for how long? And he's not contributing anything.’
‘We can use him in the garden. There's plenty of work there, especially as some of the others are not pulling their weight. Nobody will see him there. We're right off the beaten track and yet Lester wants to keep him in an attic like the Black Hole of Calcutta.’
‘And where better to shut up an idle wog?’ A harsh voice cut into their conversation.
They whirled round to see Lester Hoyle standing in the doorway, a sneer on his face, a glazed look in his eyes. They could see he was in urgent need of a shot, a dangerous state to be.
‘We have just been discussing racialism,’ Wendy snapped. ‘It's a pity you weren't here.’
‘It's not a question of racialism,’ Hoyle's eyes ran over her, his expression softening a little as they rested on her open blouse. ‘He's an illegal immigrant and obviously he can't stay here indefinitely. And there's that damned cat of his …’
‘Caracal,’ Lansdale interrupted him.
‘What d'you know about them?’ Hoyle asked.
‘I'm not an expert, but I do know that they're mainly found in Persia and Africa, and full-grown they're larger than a fox. In the wild they hunt in packs, running down their prey, and they're so fast that sometimes they'll even catch a low-flying bird on the wing. In India they're tamed like dogs and kept to hunt deer, gazelles and so on.’
‘So they're dangerous?’
‘Could be. Though I wouldn't think so if kept in captivity - much the same as any other cat.’
‘Huh!’ Hoyle moved towards the table, trying to read the typewritten sheet by the typewriter, ‘Well, that guy and his pet have got to go.’
‘But where to, Lester?’ Wendy asked. ‘We can't just turn him out.’
‘Can't we?’
‘Of course not. The pigs will soon pick him up, he'll tell them he came from here and the next thing we know the pigs will be down here ripping the place apart.’
Hoyle fell silent, picking at an ear with a forefinger, a habit when he was uncertain of himself. ‘We'll have to think of something,’ he said at length. ‘In the meantime, he can start work in the garden tomorrow. There's a stack of broad beans to be picked and shelled. Peas too. By the time he's done that maybe I'll have figured out how to get rid of him. By the way, Wes, I think you're over-writing a bit, too much lengthy description.’
Wes Lansdale reached for his makings again as Wendy turned on her heel and brushed past the leader of the commune. For one brief second a retort hovered on her lips but she checked it. This wasn't the time to start another argument with Lester Hoyle, not when he needed a shot so badly.
The heavy shower during the night had cooled the atmosphere, and the sun shone without the blistering heat of the past few days.
Bilal had worked steadily in the overgrown garden all morning. His shorts were saturated from the wet foliage and his bare feet were muddy. Two sacks filled with broad beans now rested up against a tumbledown moss-covered stone wall, and a third was half full. He had eaten a few handfuls, and some raspberries, too. No food had been offered him, and he was still hungry.
A scratching sound made him glance round to see the dilapidated carton tremble as claws scraped the cardboard from inside. He knelt down and opened one of the flaps a fraction. Green eyes stared up at him, lips drawn back to show the strong sharp teeth.
‘I must find you a home soon,’ he muttered, pity welling up inside him, recalling his own feelings in that attic the previous day. Claustrophobia. Fear. ‘Be patient, little one.’
He closed the flap and set out on a tour
of inspection. The garden was large, and untended except for a square plot housing a variety of vegetables, crops that struggled to grow amidst the weeds, seedlings that wilted and straggled because they had not been thinned out. A row of elms overhung the area, two already dead from disease. A wood pigeon cooed contentedly in the firs beyond, its crop full from an early morning feed on ripening barley.
In the far corner he found an old chicken run. Some of the woodwork had rotted and fallen off, and the door hung on a single rusted hinge, but basically it was stable. He went back to the outhouse that adjoined the end of the house, and by forcing the door was just able to squeeze inside. The interior was dark and gloomy, piles of junk shutting out the light from the single broken window.
Rummaging amongst the contents, he found some bent nails and some old netting. Ten minutes' further research produced a hammer.
He set off back to the poultry house. Carpentry was something new to him, and driving in a bent nail presented problems particularly when the wood was rotten. Several times he banged a finger by mistake and cursed, but at last the boards were fixed in place; then he patched up the holes in the mesh by bending the broken strands over and hooking them on. This took him a couple of hours, then he set about cleaning out the interior, sweeping out piles of solidified poultry droppings with a piece of wood.
Bilal pulled up some dead grass for bedding. The caracal would be all right in there, at least for the time being, but food would be a problem. Doubtless the animal was already hungry - the bats which he had killed in the attic would hardly be enough to satisfy it for long.
He fetched the box. The creature was restless and as he went to lift it out one of the claws raked his hands so that he cried out, the deep scratches filling with blood. Holding it by the neck, he flung it inside the run and shut the door. There was no catch, just a length of plastic string tied to a staple.’
The caracal crouched on the grass watching him, the hairs on its back raised.
‘You'll be all right,’ Bilal sucked his wound. ‘I'll try to find you some food. Maybe …’