Carbonel: The King of Cats

by Barbara Sleigh

  ‘Carbonel has gone off on his own. He does sometimes, you know. I’m afraid he is cross with me about that spell yesterday. But there is the broom… oh, please be careful!’

  John had picked it up without ceremony, and was examining it with an incredulous expression.

  ‘What a mouldy old thing!’ he said cheerfully.

  ‘It’s not!’ said Rosemary hotly. ‘And if it was it would be very unkind to tell it so. You must be very gentle with it.’

  ‘Well, how do I make it take me for a ride?’

  ‘You don’t make it. You ask it very politely, in rhyme.’

  ‘Do you mean to say that I’ve got to make up poetry?’ said John in the same voice he would have used if he had been asked to jump over the moon.

  ‘I’ll do it, because it is my broom,’ said Rosemary. ‘At least, I’ll try. It must be only a tiny ride because of not wearing out the magic. I should think round the sitting room.’

  They fetched a piece of paper, and after much argument and biting of the pencil they produced a rhyme that they both secretly thought rather good.

  ‘Now, stand astride the handle, say it aloud, and then hold tight!’

  John did as he was told and said loudly:

  Round and round the sitting room

  Kindly take me, magic broom.

  With a jerk that nearly threw him off, the broom rose into the air with John astride, and swept into the sitting room. Round and round it went, about three feet from the floor. It was not very comfortable, because unless he kept his legs straight out in front they bumped into the furniture. As it was, he knocked the cornflowers over, so that the water streamed over Mrs Brown’s best tablecloth that Rosemary had taken without permission. The broom took the corners with a violence that would not have disgraced a Dodg’em. But John held on and went careering round with shining eyes, making penetrating jet plane noises.

  Rosemary was delighted. Now he would have to believe that the story she had told him was true! Round and round went the broom. Presently John stopped making jet noises, and a little later he stopped smiling.

  ‘I say, Rosie!’ he called, ‘I think I’ve had enough. How do I stop it?’

  ‘Oh, dear!’ said Rosemary. ‘We didn’t say in the rhyme how many times round we wanted it to go.’

  ‘Well, hurry up and tell it now… I’m not feeling very well.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ said Rosemary anxiously, ‘but I shall have to get some paper. I can’t do poetry without.’

  She had no idea what they had done with the pencil, and when she found it at last under the bed she was so flustered she could think of no rhymes at all. By this time a very pale John was clinging on to the broom with both arms. Rosemary bit the pencil and screwed up her eyes until it hurt, but it was no use. She could think of no poetry at all. John was just saying faintly:

  ‘I think I’m going… to be…’ when Carbonel walked silently into the room.

  Rosemary fell on her knees beside him.

  ‘Oh, Carbonel, darling! Please, please stop the broom! We forgot to say how many times round it was to go, and now it won’t stop! And John looks as if he’s dying. Whatever shall we do?’

  There was no reply, only a faint moan from John, and Rosemary added:

  ‘But it is no good telling me because I can’t hear!’

  The cat struggled free from her enclosing arms and stalked into the centre of the room. There was a pause, and then, haltingly, as though he was waiting to be prompted, John said faintly:

  Forgive my rude untutored tongue,

  Remember I am very young.

  On the bed I pray you lay me,

  Or my ride will surely slay me!

  And at once, gently as a boat sailing on a peaceful sea, the broom skimmed the bedroom and settled down on Rosemary’s bed, where John lay beside it, thankful for the feel of solid, if rather lumpy, mattress beneath him. Rosemary, wide-eyed and anxious, followed with Carbonel. The black cat put his front paws on the bed and looked at John’s closed eyes and pale face, and Rosemary quickly put her hand on the broom.

  ‘He’ll be all right in a minute. It all comes of showing off,’ said Carbonel severely. ‘First it was yesterday, you saying the Summoning Words, and me just settling down to my dinner… as nice a bit of liver as I’ve ever seen… to hurry six miles in the sweltering heat, and for what? Nothing at all,’ he added bitterly. ‘If you wanted to show what you can do, why couldn’t you have done something flashy… like turning this boy here into a beetle, or something…’

  ‘No fear!’ said John, struggling into a sitting position. The colour was returning to his cheeks.

  ‘Besides, I don’t know how to turn people into beetles,’ said Rosemary.

  ‘I suppose you don’t,’ said Carbonel grudgingly.‘But there is no excuse for showing off with the broom, when the poor old thing wants all the rest and quiet she can get. I saw several more twigs on the floor next door. And you must have offended her into the bargain. That’s why I put in that bit about “Pardon my untutored tongue.” She only takes her corners like that when she is upset.’

  ‘I expect that was me,’ said John. ‘I called her a… a mouldy old thing, but I’m awfully sorry. I think it’s a simply wizard broom!’

  Rosemary felt the broom wince in a bridling sort of way under her hand.

  ‘There you go again! It isn’t a wizard broom. Don’t you know a witch’s broom when you see one?’

  Rosemary put out her hand and stroked carbonel rather shyly on the top of his head with one finger.

  ‘Please don’t be cross any more. I said the Summoning Words because I couldn’t bear John not to believe about you. I only half thought they would work when I said them, and I promise never to say them again, unless it’s really important.’

  Carbonel looked a little less severe. Rosemary transferred her stroking finger to the soft part underneath his chin, and he did not seem to mind.

  ‘But it is no good you doing slovenly spells like that,’ he said more gently. ‘The idea of not saying when you wanted the broom to stop! If I had not come back it would have to have gone on going round and round until all the twigs fell out of its tail, and it might have taken months!’

  John shuddered.

  ‘Or until I could think of a rhyme, I suppose,’ said Rosemary.

  ‘Which would have been much the same thing, seemingly,’ said Carbonel tartly.

  12

  Carbonel Explains

  ‘I say,’ said John. ‘If you want to take care of the twigs on the broom, why don’t you wrap something round them – brown paper, or something.’

  ‘It might help,’ said the cat doubtfully, ‘but not brown paper. The broom has got its feelings same as anyone else.’

  ‘I know,’ said Rosemary. ‘My shoe bag!’

  She ran to the wardrobe, tipped out her gym shoes, and brought it to the bed. It was made of scarlet flannel.

  ‘Not a bad idea,’ said Carbonel grudgingly, as they slipped it carefully on. Rosemary drew up the strings and tied them securely.

  ‘What magic runes are on the side?’ asked the cat suspiciously.

  The words ROSEMARY BROWN were embroidered in white chain stitch. ‘We have to have that, so that it won’t get lost at school,’ said Rosemary.

  ‘That is the practical sort of magic that I like to see.’

  By now John had completely recovered from his ride on the broom, and was bouncing up and down on the bed.

  ‘I say, I am hungry. Let’s fry those sausages.’

  So they went into the sitting room. When they had mopped up the flower water which John had knocked over in his wild flight, the feast still looked pretty good. Carbonel seemed genuinely touched by the sprats which were piled up on a soup plate. Rosemary showed John how to prick the sausages and he fried everything they could find – two onions, some cold potatoes, and a slightly squashy tomato that made the fat splutter, as well as the sausages. It was a delightful meal, eaten in friendly silence, and neither of them
minded that the potatoes were a bit burnt, or that all of the sausages had burst. Carbonel, replete with all the sprats and two saucers of milk, purred sleepily while they ate the cream buns (a little soggy here and there with flower water, but otherwise delicious). When they were comfortably licking the gob-stoppers, Carbonel got up, arched his back, delicately stretched first one front paw and then the other, and sat down, very upright, with his tail curled round his toes.

  ‘I have something to tell you,’ he said. ‘Today I went to see my People… Strictly incognito, of course.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Rosemary.

  ‘I think it means pretending you are not yourself,’ said John.

  ‘That was where I went the night before,’ went on Carbonel, ignoring the interruption.

  ‘Goodness!’ said Rosemary. ‘You never told me!’

  ‘You never asked,’ said Carbonel shortly. ‘I told you that I am a Royal Cat, and that as soon as I am free I must return to my kingdom.’

  ‘But where is your kingdom?’ asked John.

  ‘Come here and I will show you.’

  Carbonel trotted into Rosemary’s bedroom and jumped on to the window ledge.

  ‘Behold!’ he said dramatically. Rosemary looked down.

  ‘Do you mean the back yard?’ she asked doubtfully.

  ‘Good gracious, no! Don’t you see the roof tops, plains and valleys and canyons of them? And the forests of chimney stacks and wireless aerials stretching away and away into the golden afternoon? That is my kingdom, the undisputed territory of the cats. Now look down. What do you see?’

  ‘The dustbins in the yard,’ said John cheerfully. But Carbonel did not seem to be listening.

  ‘You see the garden wall stretching along the end of all the gardens in Tottenham Grove? All walls, like that one, are our highways. What else could they be there for? So many humans seem to think that the proper place for a cat is on the hearth-rug. You might as well argue that the proper place for a bird is in a cage. No, it is on the roof tops that we are our true selves. There we live our secret lives, there we skirmish, we royster, we sing songs. Songs of such beauty that men throw up their windows and shout applause.’

  Rosemary was not sure that it was always applause she had heard, but she did not say so. The houses of Tottenham Grove were taller than the ones on to which she looked from her bedroom window. She had always liked the huddle of roofs, with different shaped chimney pots, some with cowls that twisted and twirled with the wind, some clustered together in all shapes and sizes, and some in neat rows like sand pies on the beach. It might almost be some strange country, she thought. Below her she could see the top of the wall that stretched along the back of all the smutty little gardens of Tottenham Grove, with the side walls joining it like tributaries. She could see a couple of cats now trotting along, one of them in a purposeful way.

  ‘A lot of cats come into the garden,’ she said.

  ‘We colonize, of course,’ said Carbonel loftily. ‘But my poor People!’

  ‘Why, what has happened?’ said John.

  ‘When my father died,’ went on the cat,

  ‘mourned by all his subjects, I am told – Carbonel the Good he was called (may I be worthy of him) – there was no Royal Kit to take his place, since the rightful heir had been stolen.’

  ‘You?’ asked John.

  Carbonel inclined his head.

  ‘What did they do?’

  ‘A couple of cousins tried their hand at ruling, but what could they be expected to do? Mere tabbies. Very distant cousins they were. Well, of course, the inevitable happened. They had no proper authority, and things began to get slack, and then, of course, the Alley Cats got restless. Always on the look-out for making mischief, they are.’

  ‘But who is King now?’ asked Rosemary.

  Carbonel drew himself up, and surveyed the roof tops through half-closed eyes.

  ‘There can be no King until I return. Once a month since time immemorial we have held the Law Giving at the full moon. There my father, and his father, and his father’s father before that, dispensed justice and wisdom. These fellows make a mockery of it. They brawl and fight and challenge anyone to dispute their leadership. Of course, at first there were plenty of good and bad cats to cross claws with them. They fight for it every month till the strongest one wins, the winner calls himself King, and there he sits on the throne of my fathers until the next Law Giving, when another animal will dispute his claim. A sorry, battered collection of animals go limping home, I can tell you!’

  ‘How did you find out all this?’ asked John.

  ‘By getting into conversation with all sorts and putting two and two together. Mostly honest, decent house animals they were. There are plenty of them about, I can tell you, who are loyal to “The Cat Among the Stars”, as they call me. But the Alley Gats have got the upper hand. I heard today that for the last three months the same great ginger animal has been in command. He fights like a tiger, and levies I don’t know what taxes of kipper heads and sardine tins.’

  ‘But now you can go and turn him out, and it will all be right again!’ said Rosemary.

  ‘I bet you could beat him with one… one paw behind your back!’ said John. Carbonel graciously inclined his head.

  ‘No doubt. But what use is a King who is at the beck and call of somebody else? I am still a slave.’

  ‘Do you mean to me?’ said Rosemary. ‘But I wouldn’t beck and call, ever!’

  ‘So you may think now. But power does queer things, you know. The original Binding Spell is broken. Rosemary did that when she bought me with her three Queen Victoria farthings. But there still remains the second spell, the one SHE made when I tried to escape.’

  ‘Then we must set about finding the hat and the cauldron straight away!’ said Rosemary. She felt a little uncomfortable that the fun of meeting John had made her forget how important this was to Carbonel.

  ‘What do you do when you have got them?’ asked John, who was a practical person.

  ‘That is the worst of it. She made a Silent Magic, just to make it more difficult, so of course I never heard it. She is the only one who can tell you how to undo the spell.’

  ‘Oh dear!’ said Rosemary uneasily, thinking of the queer old woman.

  ‘Well, I tell you what,’ said John. ‘When Jeffries comes to fetch us this afternoon, let’s ask him to take us to that address you got at the market. You know, the man who bought the hat.’

  ‘What a good idea! Come on, let’s wash up quickly, so that we shall be ready when he comes.’

  ‘Do we have to?’ said John.

  ‘We do,’ said Rosemary firmly.

  13

  The Occupier

  While they washed up the dinner things they discussed their plans. What sort of person would have bought the witch’s hat from Fairfax Market? They did not even know his name. All they had to go on was the address on the envelope with the soap powder coupon in it, and that merely said:

  To the Occupier, 101 Cranshaw Road, Netherley.

  ‘Youngish,’ the old man at the second-hand stall had said he was, wearing clothes that were ‘good but wore’.

  ‘Well, anyway, the first thing is to get Jeffries to take us there,’ said John. ‘I expect he will. He is a friend of mine. He can waggle his ears when he’s off duty. He let me help change a wheel once.’

  ‘You’d better leave me and Broom behind,’ said Carbonel. ‘Best draw as little attention to us as possible, and cats and witch’s besoms on buses are a bit conspicuous. You and your mother will be coming home from Tussocks by bus this time, I suppose, and it will be the rush hour.’

  Jeffries was more amenable than they had dared to hope. He was a large, freckled young man who grinned readily.

  ‘You’re in luck. I know Cranshaw Road quite well. Pass it when I go to see my young lady,’ he said, flushing slightly.

  ‘Do take us there on the way home,’ said John. ‘Be a sport!’

  ‘You could leave us at num
ber hundred and one, and then go and see your young lady, say for half-an-hour. It would be a lovely surprise for her!’ said Rosemary tactfully.

  ‘What are you young limbs up to?’ said Jeffries, but without malice.

  ‘Very important business,’ said John gravely. ‘Look here, couldn’t you leave us there for even twenty minutes?’

  The prospect of seeing his young lady was more than the chauffeur could resist. He laughed. ‘All right, you win!’ he said, and turned the car in the direction of Netherley.

  ‘Only half-an-hour, mind!’ called Jeffries, as he left them outside number hundred and one.

  It was a large, comfortable Victorian house with a circular drive leading to the front door. Above the bell were three names, which seemed to indicate that the house was divided up into flats.

  ‘Don’t let’s stop to think, or I shall want not to,’ said Rosemary, clutching the envelope tightly. ‘Try the bottom bell.’

  John nodded. He was already feeling ‘want not to’, but nothing would make him admit it; with the result that he rang the bell rather harder than he meant to. It rang sharply in the distance, and a rather cross-looking woman in an overall opened the door.

  ‘Now go away,’ she said sharply. ‘’E doesn’t want any juveniles! As if I ’adn’t enough to do!’ she added mysteriously, and slammed the door.

  Rosemary looked at John with dismay. But curiously enough with the ringing of the door bell his courage had revived.

  ‘Well, we’ve come all this way, so don’t let’s give up just for that. Let’s explore. Look here, that gate at the side is open and I can hear someone moving about. Let’s go and look.’

  Cautiously they pushed one of the double doors and looked in. There was a paved yard flanked on one side by the kitchens of the house, and on the other by a building that must once have been stables, but was obviously used now as a garage. In the middle of the yard was a large, pale blue lorry, which said in newly painted scarlet letters, ‘The Netherley Players’. Sticking out from under the lorry was a pair of legs in dirty grey flannel trousers. John and Rosemary advanced cautiously. They waited for a pause in the exasperated noises that were coming from underneath, and then John said: ‘Excuse me, but are you the Occupier?’