A Cat Called Birmingham

by Chris Pascoe

  B: It wasn't a compliment. If you'd been Genghis Khan and

  you'd taken me away to cook me alive and eat me it would

  still have been the greatest day of my life.

  CP: What was the worst day of your life?

  B: Today's been pretty bad.

  CP: Don't start me on today again, what the bloody hell were

  you thinking of anyway. Sometimes you're a total . . .

  B: Okay, okay, calm down. Worst day, worst day. Hmmm, tricky

  one. Ah, I know. The day I was left dangling over the side of

  the wall for two whole hours, attached to that lead weight,

  and the RSPCA came and arrested you and you beat up that

  monkey.

  CP:None of those things happened Brum.

  B: Didn't they?

  CP:No. That was a fantasy scenario earlier in the book. You couldn't possibly even have known about that scenario.

  B: No, no, you're right. Okay, I think it would have been the day that I was stung by a wasp and fell out of the window at the flat.

  CP: Ah, so you were stung by a wasp! I wondered about that.

  B: Hmmm, anyway, that would have been about the worst.

  CP: Really, I can think of a lot worse things that happened to you than that, what about the day you . . .

  B: Can we move on?

  CP: What about the day your head caught fire? That must have been pretty horrendous?

  B: No, it was fine, I enjoyed it, can we move on please?

  CP: Or the day you got hit by the bicycle and the paperboy went face first into next door's flowerbed.

  B: That wasn't my fault, he was riding on the pavement.

  CP: He said it was your fault. The postman said you ran straight out in front of him. Poor kid grazed his knee quite badly.

  B: He was riding on the pavement. There are bye-laws, you know, bye-laws. If he wants to ride on the pavement, be should have been looking out for me. I could have been an old lady or something. If I'd been an old lady, everyone would have said 'Ooo, it's terrible, he shouldn't have been riding on that pavement, it's so dangerous.' But instead it's, 'It's that stupid cat's fault again,' regardless of the fact that I had right of way. It was my right of way!

  CP: An old lady wouldn't have jumped out of the bushes at ninety miles an hour straight in front of his wheels would she?!

  B: Move on please.

  CP: Is white your favourite colour because Sammy's white?

  B: One, white is not a colour, and two, you weren't going to ask me anything about the white cat.

  CP: You can call her Sammy. Her name's Sammy, not 'the white cat'.

  B: I know her as the white cat.

  CP: Wouldn't you have said that the day you got beaten by a

  sparrow was the worst day? t

  B: No.

  CP: It must have been the most humiliating.

  B: No. I felt much more humiliated having to watch you sitting

  in that puddle and making a fool of yourself in front of the

  farmer and his bodyguard.

  CP:Oh, very cutting Brum, very cutting. Anyway, that was his

  son, not his bodyguard.

  B: Ohhhhh, well, that's all right then. Not humiliating at all in

  that case!

  CP: You put me in that bloody puddle anyway.

  B: Well, you didn 't tell me there was going to be a snorting great

  monster in the shed, did you. If you'd shared that little piece

  of vital information with me, then none of it would have

  happened.

  CP: Right, let's calm this down a little. Next question.

  B: Hallelujah!

  CP: What's your favourite food?

  B: Oh mercy. Tuna.

  CP: Did you resent being neutered?

  B: I beg your pardon?

  CP: Did you resent being neutered?

  B: What does neutered mean?

  CP: You know . . . ?

  B: No, I don't.

  CP:Okay, next question. What is your all-time favourite film?

  B: Er, I didn't really watch television. What does neutered mean?

  CP: You watched football.

  B: Only Norwich City, and they were rubbish most of the time.

  What does neutered mean? Tell me?

  CP: Oh God, um, it's er, difficult. Didn't you think, one day, that

  things were suddenly a bit different, um y'know, down there?

  B: Down where? Back on earth? What things?

  CP: No. Down . . . there?

  B: What are you pointing at?

  CP: Let's move on. We'll talk about this later, okay. Now, wltiil made you babysit for Maya, I mean, we were very uriiirliil and everything, but what caused you to be so ... iisclul?

  B: Do you mean the small, large-headed one?

  CP:Yes.

  B: Well, she used to call for me and I used to go to her, tint's all.

  CP: Ah, so you thought she was calling to you?

  B: She was calling to me.

  CP: No, no, she was just crying. You just thought she was calling to you.

  B: Fine, have it your way. But when someone shouts out 'Brum, can you come here a moment' clear as a bell, I would say they were calling to me, but whatever you like, you're the big intelligent human who owns the world, after all ...

  CP: Wait a minute, wait a minute. Are you saying that you could understand what Maya was saying to you?

  B: Yes, most of what she said.

  CP: Which bits didn't you understand?

  B: The bits in your language. But she didn't know your language very well anyway. I told her that there was nothing you'd say that'd be worth hearing anyway . . .

  CP: This is fantastic. Maya could speak your language. All these years everybody thought that babies were just making random sounds and they were speaking . . . Cat. You know what this means don't you Brummy Boy?

  B: No. Enlighten me Chrissy Lad.

  CP:We, my furry friend, are going to be rich and famous. We need to make sure we get this patented. This is the scientific breakthrough of the century. We could make millions out of this!

  B: Too late. We're dead.

  CP:Sodit!

  B: Life's a bitch, and then you die.

  CP: No, wait, wait. You're forgetting something. We're RIGHT SQUARE BRACKET not -really RIGHT SQUARE BRACKET dead. I made it all up for this interview, remember?

  B: Yes. And - you - made - this - interview - up RIGHT SQUARE BRACKET too.

  Remember? *

  CP: That doesn't matter. No hang on, it does matter. Dammit. I

  made up the bit about babies speaking Cat too, didn't I?

  B: Yep.

  CP: I don't believe it, I could almost taste the money then Brum.

  B: Well, at least we've still got our health, that's the main thing,

  aye.

  CP: Hmmm, yes, I suppose it is.

  B: None too intelligent just then though, were you kidda?

  CP: Pressing onwards. What would you say was the worst thing

  about being a cat?

  B: The hours.

  CP: No, seriously?

  B: The worst thing for me was having to socialise with other

  cats. I just never felt like I was a cat.

  CP: Hmmm, yes, more miacis than cat really.

  B: What does that mean?

  CP: No nothing, just thinking aloud, carry on.

  B: That's it really. I didn't like cats much. Had no real sense

  of felinity. You know that dog in the James Herbert book,

  Fluke?

  CP: Yes.

  B: He didn't think he was a cat.

  CP: He wasn't.

  B: No. That's right . . . Silence

  CP: What was the best thing about being a cat?

  B: The hours.

  CP:Sigh.

  B: It really was the hours this time. Definitely the hours.

  CP: Okay. If you could bottle a smell what would it be?


  B: You wouldn't like the answer to that one. Our cultural differences would render the answer unpalatable to you.

  CP:I had no idea that you supported Norwich City.

  B: Well, I didn't support them exactly, just liked to sec tin- g.imcs. Cheer them on a bit, you know.

  CP: Why Norwich Gty?

  B: Nickname appealed first off I suppose, the Canaries, but after that I don't know really . . .

  CP: Delia Smith supports Norwich you know?

  Silence

  CP-.I supported Watford.

  Silence

  CP: Having this lively chat about football with you reminds me of another good candidate for your worst day ever. How about the day you went out with those knickers wrapped around you? You must have felt a right pillock that day. Lazing on top of the car in front of all those Wycombe supporters on their way down to the ground, with a pair of lacey knickers slung round your neck. We only realised what was going on when one lot started singing 'Are you Beckham in disguise?'

  B: The large-headed one put them on me.

  CP: We think, we don't know.

  B: For the purposes of this interview and my vanity, we know.

  CP: And the really good bit was when we opened the door and you ran up the steps with your knickers flying in the air and they all wolf whistled you and shouted things like 'Get 'em off darling!' . . . Boy, must you have felt humiliated that day.

  B: You are really beginning to annoy me Pascoe.

  CP: You know, now I think about it, the amount of things you've done like that, that haven't been included in the book, is pretty staggering. I hadn't mentioned the paperboy crash, or the knicker incident until now. Or the thing with the lawn mower. Or the thing with the inflatable banana when you broke the lamp and lost part of your left ear, or ...

  B: Right, that's it, I'm out of here.

  CP: What are your views on religion?

  B: What?

  CP: Your views on religion, what are they? I'd be very interested

  to know. Do you have a religion? What do cats believe? Is

  there a cat God? Is he the same God as ours? Do cats believe

  in an afterlife? Heaven and hell? Are certain things sacred to

  you?

  B: Are you really wanting to know or is this just the lead up to

  another piss take about things long past? Or some stupid

  question like 'What's your all-time favourite item of clothing?'

  CP: I really want to know.

  B: Well, fundamentally we believe in c

  CP: Nab! Had you going, don't really want to know. What's your

  all-time favourite item of clothing?

  B: I'm answering the first one now. Fundamentally we believe

  in the same God as you. We believe in one God, one Eternal

  Spirit who . . .

  CP: And is he furry?

  B: Could you give me your hand a moment?

  CP: Sure, why? Aaaahh! That flipping hurt. That's bleeding now.

  B: ... watches over us. We believe that upon death we go to a

  much better place . . .

  CP: What, here?

  B: No, when we're really dead, we go to a place much like your

  Heaven, only chock full of small defenceless animals and

  flightless birds.

  CP: Not much of a Heaven for the small defenceless animals and

  flightless birds is it?

  B: It's their hell.

  CP: Oh, I see. And is there a cat hell? Is that full of horrible great

  monster birds with razor talons and vicious beaks?

  B: How peculiar that you should think a cat hell would be

  peopled by your ex-girlfriends. No. We don't need a hell. Cats

  believe that a cat is perfection personified, faultless and

  blameless in every perceivable way.

  CP: And you really believe that, do you?

  B: The white cat does.

  CP:What is your all-time favourite item of clothing?

  B: I'm not doing that one.

  CP: Did you have any heroes when you were younger?

  B: You got these questions from some teenage girls' magazine didn't you? You read teenage girls' magazines, do you Chris?

  CP: When did you first start using make-up?

  B: When was my first kiss?

  CP: When was your first kiss?

  B: Hang on a minute.

  CP:What?

  B: Does neutered mean clumsy? Were you asking if I resented being clumsy? Only, I don't think I was clumsy. I think people around me were clumsy. Especially you and the small large-headed one.

  CP:Er, yes, well neutered does indeed mean clumsy, and you're probably right in what you say.

  B: I know I'm right. I think that the paperboy was neutered when he fell off his bike. I think that your friend at the farm was neutered that day I jumped on his lap, and I think that you were very definitely neutered the day you fell into the Christmas tree . . . why are you wincing like that?

  CP: Look Brum, I'll level with you here. It was only you who was neutered, and possibly the guy at the farm. What it basically means is (whispers in ear).

  B: !

  CP: You understand, do you?

  B: !

  CP: Brum?

  B: Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. / was neutered?

  CP: Yes, I thought you knew, I ...

  B: You bastard! You complete bastard!

  CP: Calm down!

  B: No! Interview closed. And all that time I thought that I'd just gone off the boil. That would have been about the time I developed that love of wild flowers and started purring a lot. It all makes sense now.

  CP: Look, just calm down will you . . .

  B: Shut it you, outside right now!

  CP: Where's the door?

  B: No idea, it's all foggy in here.

  This interview was conducted under strict netherworld conditions. A copy of the full, uncensored sound lecording is available from all good record shops at a price of ’i 50. But only in the afterlife. So if you're dying to hear it, that would be about right.