Stray

by A. N. Wilson

  Anyway, the bin which I approached, definitely did contain a chicken carcass, and from the delicious smell I thought it quite possible it might be encrusted with a decent relish of lice or worms. I jumped and got the lid off the thing with no difficulty, and in that split second, I am thankful to say, I looked back over my shoulder before sinking my teeth into the joint. It was, indeed, quite rotten, and what is more there was a lot of meat left on it. But there, in the yard behind me, I saw hostile eyes. A dog? But a dog would have barked. And then it sprang out into the moonlight, and made for me. I saw that it was a large dog fox, with sharp yellowing teeth. It gave off the most appalling stench, incidentally, almost human in its disgustingness. It had some of that human mustiness – you know what I mean. And there was no doubt at all that it meant, not merely to scare me off, but to get me.

  Foxes are dangerous beasts. Like cats, they enjoy hunting for its own sake, but they don’t play fair. We very rarely kill something which we would not want to eat, or which it is not perfectly good sportsmanship to kill. I know that there are cats who are so pathetically ‘humanized’ that they teach their children that it is wrong to kill hamsters and guinea-pigs. Personally, I have no sympathy with this anti-hunting lobby. What are our victims for if they aren’t to be chased? A good day’s sport is the finest exercise which a cat can have. But your fox is quite a different creature. He plays dirty. He treats us as he might treat a vole or a mouse. He is prepared to terrorize and maim us before he kills us. With us, this is all part of the time-honoured ritual of hunting, and for my part I think it would be a crying shame if it were ever altered. But there is something very disgusting about creatures who would play the same pranks on us. What is more, I do not think that foxes ever eat cats. They merely bite us in the throat, after playing with us, because they are jealous of our vitality and wish to reduce us to the Great Stillness.

  This fiendish fox really flew at me. My tail even brushed its filthy face as I jumped in the air. Mercifully, there was a windowbox above the dustbin, and above the windowbox a drain pipe. Having climbed up the drain pipe a little way I could jump onto a wall, and look down at the fox in the yard, staring up at me and baring its revolting teeth. How would they like to be chased and hunted as if they were vermin? I bet they have never thought of that!

  You sometimes hear older human beings telling their children about cunning foxes or clever foxes. This one wasn’t cunning. It stood there, like the stupidest dog, waiting for me to come off the wall. Oh yes, Reynard! Very likely, isn’t it, that I am going to jump down into your jaws.

  Just to show what I thought of the brute, I hissed and spat a bit. After a while, however, it seemed sensible simply to sit quietly until he got bored and sloped off. As indeed he did. But now, would you credit what happened next? A man opened the back door of the house and peered into the darkness. Then a voice – a woman’s voice – came from the lighted hallway. ‘Can you see it?’

  ‘No, but I’m sure it’s here somewhere. I’ll go and look at the dustbins.’

  I have heard it said that people train dogs to hunt foxes. They put peaked black helmets on their fur, and red coats on their backs, and they ride round fields on horseback blowing trumpets, while their dogs chase the fox to his lair. It is amusing to us to think that they can think of this as hunting. For me, the very essence of hunting is to do it yourself, and not to train a pack of silly hounds to do it for you. If a man had the excitement, first of smelling the fox, and then of creeping up on it unawares, then of pouncing upon it and playing with it; finally, killing it and eating the meat fresh and warm, then I could understand his desire to hunt. But I do wonder whether it is true that man is a hunting animal. My evidence is all to the contrary. Man is too clumsy and too unobservant to be a hunter. While I can believe that some men enjoy killing foxes for pleasure (and killing for pleasure is hardly the same as hunting) I have the evidence of my own eyes to show that some men believe these horrible animals to be their friends.

  The man went down to the dustbins where I had been eating the chicken joint and called back, ‘Certainly some animal has been trying to get at it.’

  ‘It might have been a cat,’ called the woman.

  ‘Mmmm.’ The man made a noise which was meant to show how clever he was. ‘Could be,’ he said sagely. ‘But I am sure I saw a fox.’

  ‘I’ve got some of that meat. He’ll come back if we leave it by the back door,’ said the woman.

  ‘Poor creature. If that was him trying to get into our dustbin, he must have been starving.’

  ‘I hope he didn’t get that chicken. It was almost rotten.’

  I could hardly believe my ears during this conversation. The man went into the house once more, and after a short while, he re-emerged with a tin plate and something on the plate which looked very appetizing indeed.

  ‘He won’t come if he thinks we’re looking at him,’ said the woman.

  ‘I know,’ said the man. ‘We’ll put the plate so that we can see it from indoors, then we’ll switch off all the lights in the house and watch.’

  They put the plate down by the back door, and then did as they said they would. This was too good an opportunity to miss! I came down off the top of the wall with the speed of light, grabbled what was on the plate into my jaws, and climbed up on to the top of the wall again.

  The lights went on in the house once more.

  By the back door, the man and woman appeared.

  ‘Did you see that?’

  ‘Can you match the cheek of it?’

  ‘It shouldn’t be too difficult to find.’

  ‘A cat? You must be joking. There are hundreds of strays living in this neighbourhood. They even form themselves into colonies, you know, and go out scavenging. But I’ve never seen anything quite so blatant as that.’

  ‘Well, I think we’ve lost our fox for tonight, darling.’

  ‘It’s so annoying to think of it going to Mrs Vaughan-Townsend’s garden.’

  ‘I know, darling. But he’s our fox really.’

  ‘Of course he is.’

  I promise you that this is what they said. They really did think that because this greedy fox had strayed into a dustbin near their back door and was willing to eat their food that he was theirs. Can you understand this property-mania? I can’t. I did not think that I owned them, merely because I had between my jaws an absolutely delicious piece of meat. Nor, come to that, did I particularly think that I owned the meat. But of one thing I was certain. I was going to eat that meat all by myself.

  The top of the wall is no place for a feast. So, keeping to the shadows as much as possible, and treading with the lightest of steps, I made my way out through a hedge at the back of these people’s garden. Then I got to a species of rough ground, and for the first time in my flight, I thought it was safe to let the meat drop from my jaws. You will think I am exaggerating when I tell you that it was very good lean meat, the size of a kitten like yourself. These idiots had put a pound and a half of good raw meat for Mr Reynard! Can you credit it?

  There is one thing that I envy the human race, and that is that it wears clothes with pockets. Even for a cat with my voracious appetite, it would have been out of the question to eat all of this meat in one go. On the other hand, I knew that if I ate my fill and then hid it, coming back for more when I was hungry, the meat would be found by someone else. If only I could have had a pocket in which to keep the extra meat until I was hungry again.

  Anyway, I put the steak on the ground, and took a small mouthful of fat from the edge. It was delicious. Very gingerly, I tugged at a bit of side gristle, and then I sank my teeth into a succulently red piece of the meat itself. It was the sort of meat which they often eat in their kitchens; from which beast it comes, I cannot guess, though I think it might be a big dog. It is anyhow delicious. But my enjoyment of this particular piece of meat was to be short lived, for in the middle of my mouthful I was suddenly conscious that I was being watched, and the voice of a rather uncultivated cat s
aid, ‘Like to share that, friend?’

  I digested my mouthful while, instinctively my hackles rose, and my tail became straight as a poker. I grabbed the meat into my mouth. I sensed from that voice and that question, that there was danger, very great danger in the air.

  ‘Now, come on, friend, be reasonable,’ said the voice.

  I, with the meat between my jaws, said nothing.

  ‘You have been living too much among the Yoomans, you ’ave. Share and share alike’s our motto. Each cat has no identity of himself. He merely exists to share and help other cats. Now this grabbing all the meat for yourself. It’s a Yooman thing to do. So drop it, brother.’

  I looked into the darkness, and I could see some red eyes glaring at me. They were expressionless, horrible eyes. I saw no reason for sharing the meat with him. This was not because I regarded the meat as mine and mine alone. It was a lucky find, and if I met a cat who made himself – or herself – agreeable to me, I should have shared the meat quite happily. It was this sinister tone of voice which made me angry, and the knowledge that he meant me no good.

  Instinct was right. The voice had turned to a hiss.

  ‘I must ask you again, brother, to drop that meat.’

  Now the horrifying thing about this, was the voice came from behind me. The red eyes into which I was staring were silent. So, there were two of them. At least two of them. The truth of this had only just dawned on me when I felt a tremendous blow on the back of my head. A filthy and strong cat with claws out had jumped on my back and was trying to pull me over backwards. In turning, I wrenched a shoulder – not badly, but the momentary twinge of pain was enough to give him an advantage over me. I struck out with my claws, but my blow was off target. I hit his side. He’d got the back of my head. By then, red-eyes was coming at me from the front. I did manage to get in a good blow against him, to judge by the screech of pain he let out. But by then, of course, I had dropped the meat and started to squeal myself.

  I could not see in the dark exactly how big they were, but they were obviously full grown and every bit as big as me. The loss of the meat was sad. But by now I was not thinking of it so much, as of how to get away from these cats as quickly as possible. I decided that I would let them have the meat, and while they were fighting over it among themselves, I should be able to escape into the unknown darkness of the night.

  I had completely misjudged the situation. The cat who had attacked me from behind, and who had, in the course of our fight, bitten off half my ear, had been joined by a second, and with the pair of them sitting on my back, I had nothing for it but to sit – or rather lie down quietly. I assumed that the cat on my back had been joined by red-eyes, but when I opened my own eyes, those horrible red eyes were still staring at me.

  ‘Not a bad fighter,’ said red-eyes. ‘Not bad, that is, for someone who has been completely corrupted and adapted himself to Yooman values. You must learn to share everything with your brother cats, brother.’

  ‘My brother is dead,’ I said. ‘He was killed by human beings in the most brutal way. I am no friend of man. I live in no human household. I acknowledge no master beneath our great mother the moon...’

  At the mention of the moon, one of the thugs on my back cuffed my bleeding half-ear.

  ‘That’s Yooman language, brother,’ said red-eyes. ‘Indypandants is what they calls it. They lies, and we do not talk of the moon, brother.’

  ‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘It is she who lights our night. It is she who shines down upon us when we make love, and who guides our path...’ But I wasn’t allowed to finish the sentence. What was the point, anyway, with this oaf and his bully-boys?

  ‘Cats isn’t indy or pendant,’ said red-eyes.

  ‘Independent? But all creatures are independent,’ I said. ‘Some, like the human race and the ants seem to need to huddle together in clusters or cloisters in order to survive. Others, like cats, are essentially loners...’

  Once more I was cuffed on the head from behind.

  ‘Cats isn’t indy or pendant,’ said red-eyes again. Since he was, strictly speaking, talking nonsense, there was nothing to argue with. Even if I had felt inclined to dispute his point of view, the presence of the two bullies on my back acted as a powerful disincentive.

  ‘Shall we finish him?’ asked one of the cats on my back.

  ‘Like I said,’ said red-eyes, ‘this is not a bad fighter. He isn’t an old cat. How old are you?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I said truthfully.

  ‘You’re a young cat,’ said red-eyes. ‘You haven’t learnt to count.’

  On closer acquaintance with red-eyes, I found that he had adopted – albeit crudely and stupidly – a whole range of human assumptions and values, including his desire to compute cycles of our mother the moon and call them Time. But he was so acclimatized to the human world (while thinking himself independent of it) that he did not know what had happened.

  ‘You are young,’ red-eyes repeated, ‘and our brotherhood needs youth. You are young and you can unlearn the Yooman nonsense which you have been taught by your corrupt and bombinabel Yooman masters. You are welcome to join our brotherhood, brother.’

  This was terrible. Evidently these low-grade cats had ganged together into some kind of club and were expecting me to join them. The reason was not hard to seek. It lay before us in the moonlight, on the rubble and rough ground, in the shape of a juicy piece of steak.

  ‘Anyone who can provide nourishment like this is a welcome member of the brotherhood,’ said red-eyes.

  ‘I’m most awfully grateful for the offer,’ I said.

  ‘Good,’ said red-eyes.

  ‘But I think I would be happier... that is to say, I think it would be more suitable if I continued to strike out on my own. There’s nothing I would like more than to belong to your brotherhood —’

  ‘Good,’ said red-eyes. ‘Then that settles it. You come along with us.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Hear me out.’

  ‘No is not a word which a younger brother says to an older brother,’ said one of the oafs on my back, digging his claws into my shoulder blade.

  ‘I was going to say that while I was – ouch – flattered to be asked to join you – I really want to stay on my own.’

  ‘Indy-pandant?’ red-eyes said the words as a joke.

  ‘We likes steaks,’ said the two oafs on my back in unison.

  ‘You have already proved yourself useful, brother. Now you must come along and see where you lives.’

  ‘Move,’ said one of the oafs. The other had jumped off my back and picked up the bit of steak and put it into his own mouth.

  ‘Now mind, Twinkle,’ said red-eyes to the oaf with the steak in his mouth. ‘We want all that meat brought home to the Commune. No nibbling along the way.’

  ‘Right, Tom-Cat.’

  It was with horror that I soon discovered that all the cats in the Commune called each other by names. Some actually chose to be called by the name they had been given by their human masters. Others who had lived in the wild all their lives pathetically tried to ape this habit, like red-eyes, who had never lived in human ownership, but who was most insistent that we should all call him Tom-Cat.

  ‘But it is just what they call male cats,’ I said to one of the younger cats in the Commune.

  ‘There is only one Tom-Cat,’ said this young sycophant, and the pathetic thing is, he really believed it.

  Sometimes, they called him Our Father Tom-Cat, and sometimes, Our Tom.

  The brotherhood encamped in the remains of an old concrete garage which stood on the edge of a desolate bit of ground where red-eyes (or Tom-Cat as I now learned to call him) and his two henchman brought me. I went with them that night because I was a fool. It might have involved a nasty fight, but I think that I could have got away from them that night in the dark. But the moral pressure of red-eyes, and the actual pressure of Carrot’s claws made it difficult to refuse their offer of accommodation for the rest of the night. When we go
t there, it was, in fact, rather welcoming. The meat was torn up and shared round among what seemed, in the dark, like a lot of cats. After that, without any more worry, I fell asleep. It was light when I woke up.

  And it was in the light, during the first few days of my membership of the brotherhood, that I began to size the whole thing up.

  chapter twelve

  There was one thing which you would find it hard to understand about the Commune; and that is, why we all submitted to it – for day after day, month after month. Some of the cats had been there for years. They had lost all desire for freedom or independence or a proper feline existence and they accepted Tom-Cat’s authority without question. The Commune was described as a brotherhood, and we were all obliged to call each other brother (even the female cats were called brother). But nothing was less like brotherhood. The whole structure of life in the Commune was hierarchical. Tom-Cat ruled it with an absolute authority which would have been the envy of any human sultan or tyrant. If any cat threatened to step out of line (and few did), Tom-Cat’s bullying guards made them pretty soon regret it. Absolute rebellion was almost unheard of, though a poor thin cat, about my colouring, half my size, once tried to whisper to me the story of how six cats had, years before, attempted to overthrow Tom-Cat, and been themselves defeated. They had mysteriously disappeared one night and afterwards it became a crime to name them – even though they had once been Tom-Cat’s favourites. Soon enough, their memory faded and there were no cats old enough to remember The Rebels. The smallest insubordination was punished. If you complained about the mingy food rations you might find yourself being starved for two or three days. If you chased after a beautiful female cat you had to make sure that she was not ‘answered for’ by one of the thuggish brutes in Tom-Cat’s good books. And, of course, straying ‘outside bounds’ was strictly forbidden. Any poor cat who thought of escaping the Commune was dragged back by Tom-Cat’s henchmen, and beaten and starved and made to repeat Tom-Cat’s nonsensical formula which they called his ‘thoughts’.