The Golden Cat
Page 37
‘You promised me,’ it said.
Tag had no idea what to say. He looked at the Dog. The Dog looked back.
‘I don’t know what to give you,’ said Tag.
‘The Old Majicou fulfilled his promises,’ commented the Dog.
At that moment, there was a disturbance in the oceanarium tank. Between the skeins of ivy and masses of white convolvulus flowers, shoals of mackerel and herring could be seen darting this way and that in unsynchronized panic. Suddenly the water had turned the colour of ocean-floor mud, through the greyish swirls and coils of which could be discerned an eye as big as an orange and as expressionless as a black beard; a white wing-tip upcurved; and gill-slits the size of intakes on a jumbo jet (as Sealink might have put it). Something large had arrived.
‘It’s Ray!’ cried Cy the tabby. ‘He’s back!’
To the bemused Dog she confided, ‘When Ray gets here, that’s when the party really begins.’ She added, ‘He’s a fish, but he’s, like, also my friend.’ And she ran up the spiral stairs to welcome him.
Below, a curious silence prevailed. The Dog continued to stare expectantly at Tag. The King and Queen stared puzzledly at the Dog. Then the Dog seemed to become aware of the fox. It studied him as closely as it could. It said, ‘This is not a cat. But it is not a dog, either.’
Loves A Dustbin hung his tongue out amusedly.
‘Don’t get trapped in simple oppositions,’ he advised, ‘if you intend to enjoy life’s rewards.’
Hearing only the word ‘reward’, the Dog forgot him instantly and turned its attention back to Tag. Just then, Cy came down the stairs. In five minutes, all the joy had gone out of her.
‘What is it?’ said Tag.
‘Oh, I love that Ray-guy, but sometimes he’s just so irritating. I ask him to the wedding, but no, he wants to go on somewhere else. I say, “Where’s that?” He says, “Just down the road.” I say, “Oh yes?” And he says, “It’s the stars. Little Warm Sister. It’s out among the stars!” I go, “What? What’s out there?” Tag, he can’t even say what! So I go, “No way, Ray, I never liked it much the first time.” There’s nothing out there but cold and like that.’
She shook her head.
‘These fish!’ she said.
‘I would have stayed here anyway,’ she told Tag. ‘Even without the special reasons I got now.’ Nevertheless, she seemed bereft. ‘I’ll miss that Ray, when he goes swimming back to the stars for kicks. I never had a fish for a friend before. I just ate them.’
‘He’ll come back,’ Tag reassured her.
‘Oh yes, in another thousand years.’
Suddenly Tag had an idea.
‘Ask him not to leave for a moment,’ he told her.
To the Dog, he said, ‘I am the Majicou.’
‘You are the New Majicou,’ the Dog corrected him. ‘I liked the old one better.’
Tag heard Loves A Dustbin laughing quietly.
‘I promised you a reward,’ he went on, ‘and this is it. You can go to the stars with the big fish.’
‘I would like something to eat, too.’
There was a silence.
‘Ah,’ said Tag.
Pertelot Fitzwilliam stepped forward. ‘Mercury,’ she said, ‘I’m not sure you should be sending this animal to the stars at all. You certainly cannot send it unfed. Remember that the world is made anew.’
Tag stared at her.
‘I don’t think we’ve got anything to give him,’ he said. ‘Wait, Ace!’ said Cy the tabby, ‘I got this idea!’ And she began to burrow through the dense vegetation at the base of the oceanarium, wriggling into the space between the tank and the concrete floor until only her bottom showed. After some excited scrabbling about, she backed carefully out of the convolvulus, dragging a single bicycle spoke.
The Dog studied this item without much hope.
‘Look at that!’ encouraged Cy.
But the Dog concluded, ‘A dog does not eat bicycle spokes.’
‘More fool you,’ said the tabby; and she was back under the tank like a shot. In quick succession, she brought out one condensed-milk can (empty); one plastic clothes-peg; and two small fragile white shells. After some thought she added an empty crisp packet from the floor of an arcade, ancient breadcrusts she had won off a herring-gull. She pulled out a square of disintegrating linoleum, and part of a broken picture-frame glimmering with gold and cinnabar paint. She brought out a deflated tennis-ball, one white piano key, and a bunch of plastic anemones. The Dog examined each of these items as it appeared, giving them full and proper attention. But in all honesty it could only shake its head, and say, ‘Dogs don’t eat that.’
‘Neither do cats,’ said Tag, in a heartfelt way which made everyone look at him.
‘I don’t know what people have got against my food,’ said Cy angrily. ‘Well, there’s one more thing, Ace—’ here she gave Tag a significant look ‘—then the cupboard’s closed.’ And she drew forth her chef-d’oeuvre: two squares of milk chocolate still in their blue foil wrapper.
‘This is all we have,’ said the Queen to the Dog, with the generosity of the very royal.
The Dog sniffed the chocolate.
‘Mm,’ it said. ‘That’s nice.’
With its great blunt claws and yellow teeth, it stripped off the silver paper, its muzzle creasing up, its lips wrinkling. Then it ate the chocolate. It ate very slowly and carefully, so as to prolong the sensation as long as it could, looking up at the cats every so often and chewing with its mouth open. Then, with equal care, it licked the ground where the chocolate had been, relishing every crumb. Its energetic tongue propelled the silver paper into the air, where, caught by a breeze from the sea, it seemed to turn into a small butterfly with blue wing-tips. Cy chased off after it, clapping her paws in the air. She looked like a kitten again. The Dog watched her with something like appreciation on its face.
‘Well?’ asked Tag. ‘Was that good?’
The Dog considered.
‘It was. It was good. One thing about a dog – a dog knows about chocolate. Now,’ it said, ‘for the stars.’
It got itself turned about in an almost lively way on its three legs, and stared up the spiral steps. Its gaze carried on past the rusty viewing platform and into the sky.
‘This is a good reward,’ it said to Tag. ‘Anything could be out there.’ It lowered its voice. ‘I would never admit this to any cat but you: but it can get boring, being so dependable.’
With great effort, blunt claws clicking and scraping, it made its way up the spiral staircase to the viewing platform. There it stood panting for a moment, looking around as if it might change its mind. Then it seemed to shrug. There was a flash brighter than the sun. The oceanarium water thickened to pearl. When it cleared again, fish and dog had gone.
*
After that, things were quiet. Later there would be stories to compare, boasts to be made, tales to be told. Everyone would catch up. Everything would be put in perspective, so that it could be narrated to kittens as the story of the Golden Cat. For now, though, they all seemed quite tired.
Sealink and Mousebreath, returning from the harbour, argued desultorily about the places they would visit when they started travelling again. The fox scratched himself in the warm sun, thinking that if he found the right vixen he could still settle down and have cubs.
‘I’m not too old,’ he thought. ‘I would have a lot to pass on, especially about Chinese food – what to eat and what not to eat, and so on.’
And the King and Queen of Cats, about whom the whole world had pivoted for a while, had simply curled up together and gone to sleep. (Their children never slept. It was their delight to weave the bright tapestry. But that is another story.)
As for Tag, he was tired too. He looked at his friends with love. ‘We’re all just cats in the sun now,’ he thought. He remembered himself as a kitten. ‘All the way from a cloth mouse under the Welsh dresser,’ he thought, ‘to this.’ He sat with Cy, washing her ears companionably
, and after a while he said, ‘What was it you wanted to tell me?’
She purred and rubbed her cheek against his.
‘You got to guess, Ace,’ she said.
A white gull swept over the harbour and sped away inland.
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Acknowledgements
About Gabriel King
The Wild Road Series
An Invitation from the Publisher
Acknowledgements
Thanks go to all the Kates at Century/Arrow, but especially to Kate Parkin; to Ron Beard; to Jonathan Lloyd and Russ Galen; to Veronica and Ellie and Ku, and to everyone else who has helped with the research and given the encouragement that fired this book along.
About Gabriel King
A lifelong cat lover, GABRIEL KING has shared a home with every variety of feline from stray moggy to pedigree. Born in Cornwall and raised in Warwickshire, the author now lives between London and Shropshire.
The Wild Roads Series
Behind the realm of man lie the wild roads. Weaving through time and space, these hidden pathways carry the natural energies – the spirits, the dreams – of the world.
No creature can slip into the shadows and travel the wild roads better than the cat. For millennia, cats have patrolled the tangled paths, maintaining balance and order, guarding against corruption and chaos. It is dangerous territory: for those who control the wild roads hold the key to the world.
Amid the struggle between the purest good and the darkest evil, here are tales of duty and destiny, of courage and comradeship among the extraordinary creatures who brave the wild roads…
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First published in 1999 by Arrow Books
This eBook edition first published in the UK in 2017 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Gabriel King, 1999
The moral right of Gabriel King to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (E) 9781786699367
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