The Golden Cat

by Gabriel King

  Sealink stretched and yawned. She bent her head to groom her copious ruff, and at that moment a cry shattered the still air.

  Red sped out of the hollow and leapt onto a fencepost. Every muscle taut with concentration, he stared into the distance, his tail lashing in agitation.

  Sealink listened intently. The delay in the reception of the sound between one ear and the other enabled her to pinpoint the source of the cry with remarkable exactitude. She was on her feet at once, full of pent vigour.

  ‘That’s a cat in trouble, hon. Boneyard, north of Rampart.’

  Red turned to stare in amazement. ‘That’s some pair of ears you got on you, sister.’

  But Sealink was already running.

  *

  New Orleans, City of Good Times, City of Lost Care, City of Cats is also the City of the Dead. There are boneyards everywhere, each a miniature township dedicated to perpetual sleep. It might appear that these cemeteries are the true residential zones of the city; grimly enduring, elaborate and monumental, this is where the masons of Louisiana have lavished their craft; these are the areas that will outlast the charmingly distressed clapboard houses of the French Quarter and the shining modern towers of the Central Business District. Built above ground to defy the mighty river and the sucking drainage of the swamp, row upon row of windowless mausoleums line dusty, weed-strewn paths. Winged stone women hover massively among the tombs, suspended forever in watchful stasis. Cold white men, crowned with thorns, spread-eagled on crosses, appear suddenly at the intersections. Many gravesites are fenced around with iron stakes, fantastic and ornate, perhaps to ward the eye from their very functionality; but whether this gesture is designed to keep the dead in, or the living out, it is hard to determine. Walkers in these boneyards may sense they are being watched, not with the blind scrutiny of marble, but by quick, lambent eyes – little bundles of anima with sharp faces and slitted pupils.

  And when the last of the breathing human visitors leave, the feral cats come out. This has become their domain.

  *

  In the old St Louis Cemetery there were many such cats. Sick and scared, they cowered in the shadows behind the palmettos, hid in the dark recesses of the disused oven-tombs where the brickwork had collapsed under the weight of years, or lay still, all energy gone, amongst the curious offerings people had left for long-departed relatives – dried roses and ferns, crayon drawings of the dead and strings of plastic beads, even, bizarrely, a construction flag in yellow and black, proclaiming the legend ‘SAFETY ALWAYS’.

  *

  Sealink and Red leapt the crumbling wall just opposite the plaster statue of St Jude (patron saint of lost causes). The originator of the desperate wail was a small bicolour female who was running in tight, mournful circles in the far corner of the boneyard, all the while issuing heart-breaking whimpers. The other cats had formed a wide, ragged circle around her and were watching her antics with a sort of tired resignation.

  ‘Hey, honey—’

  Like a great ship breasting a wave, Sealink breached the circle, which immediately broke and scattered. Those ferals that could run, ran. Those that couldn’t crawled into the shadows. From their hiding-places they stared suspiciously as the calico reached out a paw to the distressed female.

  ‘Honey, tell Momma your troubles.’

  The bicolour stared up, and taking in Sealink’s great and well-fed bulk cowered away in terror. Teeth chattering and ears flat, she struggled to speak.

  ‘Wh— what m— more do you want?’

  At this point Red intervened. ‘Take it easy, babe. It’s OK.’

  She backed away distrustfully. ‘You’ll get nothing from me—’

  ‘We ain’t here to do you harm.’

  The bicolour looked from Red to Sealink and back again. She quivered. ‘You ain’t here to take me away?’

  Red shook his head.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Sealink saw movement around the boneyard. The other ferals had started to creep out again, curiosity having got the better of their fear. They were painfully thin, like the cats outside the restaurant. Gaunt and hollow-eyed, their ribs showed through slack, dull coats like the staves of an old wooden boat. Underfed kittens huddled in unnatural silence in the long grass, the early-morning sun shining off their great round eyes.

  Sealink whistled through her teeth. ‘My, my. You guys all look sicker’n a dead dog.’

  One of the ferals was bolder than the rest. He shouldered his way out into the open and stood there, his eyes watering in the light. ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘We heard this lady—’ Red turned to the little bicolour. ‘Hey, honey – what’s your name?’

  ‘Azelle.’

  ‘We heard Azelle cry out – came to see if we could help.’

  He turned to the bicolour, who was now keening wordlessly again, and, reaching up, licked her head in the most soothing way he knew.

  At once, there was a movement beneath the palmettos. A little black and white cat with bright green eyes and a confident manner stepped out between the fronds and looked Red up and down appraisingly.

  As if in reaction to this scrutiny, Red was all attention, his whiskers fanning the air. He dropped his forefeet back to the ground and stood there, his coat glowing in the ruddy light. Then he leaned forward. His features sharpened with sudden recognition.

  ‘Téophine? Is that you?’

  The little black-and-white smiled slyly. Then she opened her pink mouth wide and yelled, ‘Hey, girls! He’s a live one. Still got his cojones!’

  At once there was a flurry of activity. From all over the boneyard, emaciated females emerged into the light, popping their heads out of broken tombs, stretching scrawny necks over their neighbours.

  ‘Really? You ain’t kiddin’, Téophine?’

  ‘He still entire?’

  ‘Wow! Let me at him!’

  ‘I can’t see: let me see!’

  ‘Hey, Azelle: this ’un’ll sort you out—’

  ‘Give you a whole new litter—’

  Red’s moment of glory turned to flustered desperation. If you could see a cat blush through his fur, Sealink decided that under Red’s fine ginger coat his skin would be as red as a beetroot. As it was, he backed away from the mob of curious females, sat down heavily with his back to a gravestone and covered his private parts with his paws.

  ‘Now, ladies, please—’

  The leader of the harpies pushed forward.

  ‘One at a time, s’il vous plaît. And I seen him first.’

  ‘Téophine, it is you.’

  Sealink regarded her with interest. So this was the little minx who had been the cause of Red’s heartache, the reason he had left the Big Easy in the first place. It looked as if she had always been small-framed, but now her legs were emaciated, the skin above her eyes showed pink where the fur had thinned and fallen out, and dark runnels of watery matter ran down the sides of her nose. Yet she retained a kind of waifish prettiness; and a certain scent in the air left no doubt as to the fact that she, too, was still entire. The calico felt a sudden painful stab of jealousy.

  ‘Why, if it ain’t ol’ Rumby-Pumby.’ Téophine started to purr.

  Red bristled. ‘They call me Red, now. Just plain Red,’ he growled. ‘It’s been a long time.’

  Despite everything, Sealink felt her spirits rise. ‘Rumby-Pumby?’

  Red glared at her. ‘So I was a little chubby in those days. It’s kind of a nickname they gave me, OK?’

  Sealink sauntered out in front of Red, fluffed out her gorgeous ruff and tail and addressed herself to the little black-and-white. ‘Now, honey: you’ll just have to hold fire with ol’—’ she looked around, grinned evilly over her shoulder at Red ‘—Rumby-Pumby here for a moment or two, ’cause there’s something weird going on and whatever it is disturbed my morning; so I mean to find out exactly what caused Azelle here to howl so loud.’

  The bicolour had stopped her melancholy circling and now sat, head down in exhausted defeat.<
br />
  ‘They stole my kittens.’

  Kittens. It all came back to kittens, again. Something dark and forbidding rose in her soul.

  ‘Who stole your kittens?’

  The bicolour mumbled something.

  Sealink stared at her, aghast. ‘You let other cats steal away your kittens?’

  Azelle nodded. ‘Weren’t nothing I could do ’bout it.’ She lifted mortified eyes. ‘There were so many of them…’ Sealink was appalled. Furious, she turned to face the group. ‘You let them take her kittens? You didn’t try to help? What kind of cowards are you? Look at yourselves. Ain’t you got no self-respect, to let yourselves get like this? I ain’t ever seen so many filthy, starving cats, certainly not in the Big Easy. I seen a few on my travels – dying of cat flu in the slums of Calcutta; begging for scraps in the tourist joints of Skiathos; lining up for filthy leftovers in the arches of Coldheath: but you’re the sorriest-looking bunch I ever did encounter – pardon my directness.’

  This seemed to unleash a tide of explanation.

  ‘They bin stealin’ our kittens for weeks now—’

  ‘These few are all that are left—’

  An old grey cat bobbed its head out of an oven-tomb. ‘Takin’ them in broad daylight—’

  Red stared around him. ‘And y’all just let this happen?’

  The old grey wheezed. It took a while for Red to realize it was laughing at him. ‘Take a look at us, sonny. Y’all t’ink we any good for fightin’?’

  Another voice. ‘We all sick, boy.’

  ‘Hell, we ain’t just sick, we’s dying.’

  ‘Ain’t got the strength we was born with.’

  ‘Cain’t barely stand up.’

  A cacophony of voices.

  ‘Ain’t ate in a week—’

  ‘People don’t feed us no more.’

  ‘Ain’t no rats to eat, neither.’

  ‘They ain’t putting the garbage out like they used to.’

  ‘I heard there’s a price on all our heads—’

  ‘Kiki La Doucette—’

  A silence fell suddenly and everyone turned to look at the last speaker – a large stripy feral who had once been a fine tom, to judge by his big bony frame and frilled ears.

  ‘Hey, you: Mouth of the South! You ain’t got no balls now, so don’t act like you do!’ Téophine squared up to him. The striped cat rose up menacingly as if to clout her. Half his size, nevertheless, she was undeterred. ‘Tais-toi! Kiki hear you mention her name around this, you get us all killed.’

  The stripy male subsided shamefacedly.

  ‘Sorry, Téo.’

  Sealink stared at the black-and-white. Little pieces of information were starting to fit together in her head, but not in any way that made sense. ‘Why should Kiki La Doucette give a damn what a load of mangy ferals have to say about her.’

  Téophine squared her bony shoulders and regarded the calico with an hauteur remarkable for one so frail. The white star on her nose seemed to blaze with indignation. ‘You are very rude, for a newcomer. But, since you ask, you should know that we – this small and ragged group you see before you – are the last free cats of the French Quarter of New Orleans.’ Her voice dropped to a barely audible hiss. ‘For weeks now we have been under siege. Our kittens have disappeared one by one. The few that you can see here are all that are left. Sometimes other cats; sometimes the Pestmen. The hand of every human – tout d’un coup – is suddenly and inexplicably raised against us and we have done nothing, riett, to deserve such treatment. And all because we will not join a certain queen’s court of murderers and fools. So here we are, déguenillés and ill-used, shabby and dying of a sickness we do not understand, our kittens sont disparus; while all the time the yellow queen grows fatter and fatter and her court strut around showing off their pretty new collars like they own the city. We may be sad and oppressed; but we are our own cats, still holding out in whatever way we can. There is no need to insult us in our last remaining domain.’

  Sealink looked at her feet, for once in her life lost for words. Red stepped forward and bowed his head politely. ‘Téophine – honey – I’m real sorry if we’ve given offence. Sealink here ain’t exactly diplomatic—’

  The calico opened her mouth to object, thought better of it, and closed it again.

  ‘We only came here to help whoever was in trouble, but it looks to me as if that means all of you. We’d sure like to help in any way we can, but I have to say I’m findin’ it kinda hard to take it all in. Perhaps we could sit down somewhere quiet and you could take us through things nice and slow?’

  Téophine regarded him thoughtfully. ‘Well, you’re the only two able-bodied cats I seen in a long while, so I guess you could be useful—’

  ‘Wait!’

  A spindly-legged Siamese had pushed through the throng. Its little triangular head bobbed on its neck like a flower heavy with dew.

  ‘I seen her yesterday.’ The Siamese fixed Sealink with bright blue crossed eyes. ‘I seen her dragging some great package up the street behind the French Market—’

  ‘That’s where the Bitch Queen hangs out—’

  ‘Seen her go right on in there, and come out again, unscathed.’

  Someone hissed.

  ‘Spy!’

  Another growled; others showed their teeth, yellow with rot. Even in their diseased state, they gave off an air of considerable menace.

  Téophine put her head on one side. ‘So. Why you hangin’ out wit’ Kiki La Doucette? What you bring her? What you got to say?’

  The other ferals crowded around.

  The calico drew herself up to her full, impressive height. ‘I don’t have to defend my actions to you. I was trading clawmarks with that old yellow queen before you was even born—’

  There was a gasp from the crowd.

  ‘That’s right: I was one of the Moonwalk cats in my time. Back then she was known as—’

  ‘The Delta Queen—’

  The old grey cat scrambled inelegantly out of the broken tomb and came sniffing at Sealink. ‘It is. It’s the Delta Queen. Hey, chile, remember me? Not so old in those days. I remember you.’ He leered at her. ‘I remember you well.’

  Sealink stared at him with dawning horror. The last time she’d seen him he’d been a sixteen-pound tomcat with a retinue of female followers. Tulane – a slick-talking, quickstepping street-fighter. Moreover, a slick-talking, quick-stepping street-fighter that she’d mated with, more than once…

  ‘Jeez, honey, you don’t look so good.’

  Tulane cackled. ‘Comes to us all in time. Come to you, too, if you stick around here for much longer.’

  Téophine regarded Sealink with a glint in her eye. ‘So, cher, you got roots here, huh? That still don’t explain what you were doing at Madame Kiki’s.’

  Sealink sighed. ‘Honey, I don’t want to get caught up in all this covert action stuff. I ain’t got no allegiances here no more, but I always hated that old yellow, and recent events sure ain’t changed my attitude. Came back lookin’ for my lost kittens; found two of ’em, thanks to the Bitch Queen; big disappointment; no idea what was in the parcel – what else can I say?’

  ‘It ain’t enough.’ The little black-and-white withdrew into the crowd. There was a lot of muttering, some sharp glances at the two newcomers. Eventually, Téophine re-emerged. ‘OK, come with me.’

  *

  As the sun rose in an empty cobalt sky, the cats of the bone-yard took refuge in the shady places, away from curious eyes. Sealink and Red followed Téophine and a group of other ferals into a large collapsed tomb on the east wall of the cemetery. Here it was cool and comfortable, while outside temperatures soared into the high nineties and an enervating humidity drained the life from all who moved in the stifling air.

  As Sealink’s eyes adjusted to the twilight of the tomb, she scrutinized the other occupants. Besides the little black-and-white, there were two other female cats – a scruffy tortoiseshell and a little colourpoint with a flattened fa
ce and matted coat – and the big striped male with the frilled ears. His masculine beauty was certainly marred now: not only by the fact that he’d been neutered, but also by a tail that hung at a curious angle, and the effects of the wasting sickness, which made his skin hang slack on dwindled muscles. All at once Sealink remembered her encounter with Blanco, the big white male outside the Farmer’s Market whose skin had slipped away under her gripping teeth in such a disconcerting manner. She shuddered. Whatever it was these cats were suffering from, she sure didn’t want to catch it.

  Red was ensconced with Téophine in the far corner of the tomb, and the neutered male was watching possessively out of the corner of his eye. They had their heads down and were talking in low voices. Clearly catching up on old times, the calico thought waspishly. To distract herself from uncharitable thoughts, she turned to the striped cat. ‘So tell me, honey: what the hell’s been going on in this town?’

  This animal, who had awarded himself the simple but grandiose title of the Hog, after the motorbike that had damaged his appendage, was obviously flattered by Sealink’s interest. He dragged his eyes from the little black-and-white, and, with his fur puffed up and his ears pricked, started to talk:

  ‘It bin happenin’ for months now, lady. First of all people took grown cats, give ’em the operation, then let ’em go. Then when they take the ladies, they put ’em in a box and let ’em cry out till the little kitties come runnin’ to find out why they momma’s cryin’. Then they takes the kitties. To start wit’ they just put a needle in the kitties, then bring ’em back, give ’em food, too. The next thing we knows, the Pestmen comes with their boxes and kitties started to disappear in they ones and twos. Then it was whole litters, out playin’ in the street – next t’ing, they gone – shoom – like they was never there.’

  The colourpoint piped up, ‘And then it was the chirren, y’know—’

  ‘Chirren?’

  ‘Ouai, the chirren. The human chirren. The little ’uns. They start to lure the kits away. C’est l’argent. That’s what they say. Take ’em to the Pestmen. They get money for kittens. It not right. C’est mauvais… And then the other cats, other ferals, they start to steal our babies, too. Now that, that ain’t for l’argent, you know? Somet’ing very evil is happenin’ here.’