The Call of the Cat Basket

by James Barrie

  His body would be washed ashore on some remote river bank, where his remains would be feasted on by vermin. Or carried out to the North Sea, where fish would nibble on his bloated corpse until there was no meat left and then his bones would descend to the sea floor where they would become one with it.

  Everything became black. Everything became silent.

  This was the end. The end of Theodore.

  The Long Nap

  Theodore was not the lightest of cats. Rather than being dragged down the Ouse by the currents, he descended through the water until he reached the sludgy bottom of the Ouse.

  Among the near surface sediments, there was recent waste: shopping trolleys, rusted bicycles, bottles, cans, plastic debris and branches of trees brought downriver.

  Further down he sank. There was an unexploded bomb dropped by a German bomber as it followed the Ouse back to the Humber Estuary in 1942.

  Even further down and further into the past, there were watches, lighters, bottles, clay pipes, ceramic fragments, all dating from the early twentieth century.

  Then, from the long reign of Queen Victoria, there came more bottles, jam jars and a ceramic doll thrown from a pram into the river by a spoilt Victorian child.

  Images flashed through Theodore’s mind as he sank deeper into the river sediments. He remembered the newsflash that morning, announcing the escape of convicted murderer Milton Macavity. He remembered being hit on the head by a dirty nappy just before he went downstairs to check on his food bowls. He remembered waking that morning.

  Broken pipe fragments were all that marked the seventeenth century. Theodore sank back deeper into his own past.

  ◆◆◆

  He dropped through the air and landed on the woman’s head. The woman screamed. She dropped the candlestick onto the floor with a clang. She roughly pulled him off her head and threw him to the floor.

  Then the woman picked up the large candlestick she had dropped. Theodore ran into a corner of the church. He cowered behind the altar.

  The woman held the candlestick in the air. ‘You are going to regret ever setting eyes on me,’ she said.

  She held up the candlestick, ready to strike.

  Theodore closed his eyes and tensed his body, waiting for the end.

  He felt a warm liquid splash over him; it was not what he had expected death to be like.

  He opened his eyes. Emily was standing in front of him, the other candlestick in her hands. She dropped it to the floor.

  Ellen lay on the floor beside him. She was dead. He realised that the warm splash had been blood. Her blood. Emily had rescued him from Ellen.

  ◆◆◆

  That had been back in Acomb when Theodore had tracked down and brought murderer Ellen Black to justice. He had been a cat’s whisker from death, Theodore thought, reflecting on this previous outing into bringing a criminal to justice. He had come close to having his brains splashed against the church walls. One of his nine lives spent.

  Theodore sank further into the riverbed.

  Passing through the medieval age, there were fragments of pottery: French jugs, German cups and mugs, Dutch cooking vessels; remnants of medieval York’s trade links with Europe. There was a leg bone of a goose carved into a whistle. York at play was symbolised by dice and gaming pieces carved out of bone and jet.

  Theodore passed further back into his own past.

  ◆◆◆

  He could see Emily and Jonathan crossing the road ahead. He waited until they had reached the footpath on the other side before approaching the kerb.

  He didn’t bother looking in each direction before stepping out into the road. His technique was to dash across as quickly as he could. So far his technique had served him well. He was alive, wasn’t he?

  Emily and Jonathan were walking along the footpath on the other side, further and further away from Theodore. He couldn’t lose sight of them. He chose his moment and dashed into the middle of the road.

  There was the screech of car brakes and the smell of burned rubber.

  Theodore was lying flat against the tarmac. He opened his eyes. A little blue car had driven over him and come to a stop several yards ahead.

  ‘Theodore!’ he heard Emily cry.

  She ran over and picked him up.

  Theodore stared back into Emily’s face, his eyes bulging, his heart thumping. He tried to wriggle free.

  ‘I think he’s all right,’ Emily said, holding onto him tightly.

  The door of the car swung open and a woman with short dark hair got out.

  ‘Is that cat yours?’ the woman asked, her voice high-pitched, verging on hysterical.

  ‘He must have followed us,’ Emily said, still clutching him.

  ‘I could have killed him,’ the other woman said.

  Emily hugged Theodore to her chest, beginning to cry. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘He gave me the fright of my life.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Emily said again.

  Theodore tried to wriggle from Emily’s grasp but she held onto him. ‘You’re not going anywhere, young man,’ she said.

  ◆◆◆

  That had been another of his lives used up, Theodore realised.

  He then began his descent through the sediments of Viking York. There were wooden cups, knife handles, combs carved from antlers, a leather shoe, wooden panpipes, beads and rings made from amber and jet, metal pins and fish hooks, a silver brooch, a handful of silver coins, some showing Thor’s hammer or Odin’s raven; others dedicated to St Peter, patron of York’s cathedral. Theodore sank deeper, travelling further back into his own past.

  ◆◆◆

  He was trapped in a metal cage. The cage was in a darkened room, the curtains were never opened. He had been separated from his mother but still had some of his siblings for company. They were content to sleep most of the time, devour the food when placed in the corner and play among themselves. Theodore would stare out from the cage, between the thin metal bars. He wanted out. He knew there was more to life than this prison he was kept in.

  Then one day the human came and carried the cage downstairs. There was a large dog in a cage at the foot of the stairs; Theodore’s fur bristled. Then there was a room flooded with white light. The door to the cage was opened. Here was his chance.

  He pushed past his siblings. He flung himself out into the world. Here I come! he thought, rolling across a soft carpet, before finding his paws. He heard the human’s scolding voice. He began to run. In circles around the room, he ran. The door was closed so he carried on, circling the room. He didn’t want to be put back in the cage. But there was no way out of this room.

  After circling the room for some minutes he came to a panting halt. He lay on the carpet to get his breath back.

  Then he heard a different voice. A different human.

  ‘He’s adorable,’ a voice said. The voice was soft and kind.

  He allowed the new human to approach him. He was ready to set off any second and begin his circling of the room again. But when a hand slipped beneath his stomach and another was placed on his back, he allowed the new human to pick him up.

  ‘He’s certainly a lively one,’ the usual human said.

  ‘Hello, little man,’ the new human said.

  Theodore pushed himself against this new human instinctively on hearing the voice.

  ‘Can I take him home today?’ the new human said.

  Theodore looked up at her face. It was Emily’s face. He purred with happiness. He knew he had found his human partner.

  ◆◆◆

  Where was Emily? Theodore wondered. She was the only one who could save him. Down and down he went. He had taken his last breath several seconds before. He sank deeper.

  Roman times were represented in the muddy bottom of the Ouse by a silver denarius embossed with the head of Emperor Septimus Severus, a bronze helmet that had once belonged to a Roman legionnaire killed in a gladiatorial battle with a lion, a gold earring missing its partner, a fragment
of an amphora bearing part of a human face. Then there were seeds and fruit stones: all that remained of the foods that had been brought from the Mediterranean to feed the Romans resident in Eboracum, their name for modern-day York.

  Theodore sank deeper into the muddy bottom of the Ouse and further back into time. He was near the end of his journey. His thoughts were of his earliest memories.

  ◆◆◆

  He was beside his brothers and sisters, the siblings he would know only for a few weeks. They snuggled together against the warmth of their mother, vying for position against her furry body, trying to get at the soft nubs that gave them liquid life.

  He felt a peace begin to consume him as he drank of his mother. He breathed in the scent of his family. A calmness transcended. Life was but a struggle. Peace was found in death.

  He realised that this was not another one of his lost lives playing out in his head. He had returned to the beginning of his life, to the very start of his existence. It could only mean one thing. His life had come full circle.

  Then came a familiar voice: You should never have left me. You should have stayed at home where it was safe. Now you will visit the Great Cat Basket in the Sky. There can be no return from the heavenly bed. You will be watched over by Bastet. You will sleep the longest of naps. That’s right: this is the Long Nap, from which there is no return. The Long Nap will give you the peace that you did not find in life.

  But before Theodore could give in entirely to the serenity of death and the voice of the cat basket, he was yanked upwards. Up through two thousand years of history.

  Pussy’s in the Well

  A short distance beyond the Blue Bridge, there is a well, known as the Pikeing Well. Over the well, there is a building called the Well House.

  The Pikeing Well and the Well House were built in the eighteenth century for promenaders along the then fashionable New Walk. The water was said to possess medicinal properties, so many would come and drink it and even wash their eyes with it.

  It wasn’t until 1929 that they realised that the water was poisonous and the Ministry of Health declared it unfit for human consumption. Following this announcement, the well was neglected and abandoned until its restoration in recent years. It was in this little building that Theodore came to.

  He slowly felt his senses begin to return. He didn’t know where he was. He only knew he was not in the river. He was not drowned. He had not ascended to the Great Cat Basket in the Sky.

  There goes another life, Theodore thought. I really need to be more careful with them. He understood that Bastet can only allow nine lives per cat, which is plenty more than what humans are allowed.

  Then he heard a voice.

  ‘Ding, dong, dell,’ it sang. ‘Pussy’s in the well.’

  Theodore opened an eye.

  ‘Who put her in?’

  There was Milton Macavity squatting in front of him. ‘Little Tommy Thin,’ he sang.

  His knees were pulled up below his chin.

  ‘Who pulled her out?’

  He stared past Theodore, at the stone wall that surrounded them.

  ‘Little Johnny Stout.’

  He was hugging himself to try to keep warm.

  ‘What a naughty boy was that,’ he sang in a broken voice, ‘to drown the poor, poor pussy-cat…’

  He twitched and blinked. ‘Who never did him any harm… But killed the mice… in his father’s barn.’

  Milton jerked his head up, returning to the moment. He noticed that the cat had come to its senses. It backed away from him against the opposite wall of the Well House.

  ‘I saved you, little pussy cat,’ he said. ‘You would’ve drowned if it weren’t for me. I pulled you out. Are you not going to say thank you to your Johnny Stout?’

  ◆◆◆

  Milton’s whole body was shaking from cold. At least he had found temporary shelter, in this old well.

  In the debris on the floor of the well, he spied an old box of matches. There were also some cigarette ends. Kids, he thought.

  He then remembered a short story his teacher had read to the class when he was at school.

  It was set on the Yukon trail. A man walked alone to join his camp. It was so cold his spit crackled before it met the ground. Bad luck struck when his feet smashed through a skin of ice, into the freezing water below. If the man didn’t light a fire, he would die.

  So the man gathered twigs and moss and managed to light a fire using matches and a scrap of birch from his pocket. But he built the fire beneath the boughs of an overhanging spruce tree and his actions caused the snow to cascade from the boughs and the fire to be extinguished. The man desperately tried to light another fire, but his fingers were too numb, and he dropped his matches into the snow. He lost the ability to move his fingers but he managed to light the whole bunch of matches. Ultimately his final attempt at a fire failed. He ran along the trail on frozen feet in desperation. He collapsed into the snow. Finally he succumbed to the cold and died, out there in the vast snowy whiteness.

  As the teacher read the story, it was as though the temperature in the classroom had dropped.

  Milton felt a shiver run through him and the hairs on his bare arms stood erect. He looked out of the classroom window. It had begun to snow outside, and it was only the beginning of November.

  Now, that’s a writer, the young Milton had thought: a writer who could make it snow.

  He couldn’t remember the writer’s name. Jack or John Somebody. Johnny Stout? No, that was something else. He glanced over at the sodden grey cat he had pulled from the Ouse.

  He needed to get warm and dry out his clothes. He looked at the discarded box of matches. He glanced around the well house. There was dried moss on the walls, and twigs and leaves that had found their way in to this gated cave of stone.

  ‘I’ll light a fire,’ he said. ‘That’ll keep us warm!’

  He grinned at his companion.

  ◆◆◆

  Theodore agreed that it was a good idea with a raspy miaow of approval from his side of the well.

  But what if Milton was planning on cooking him on a spit? If he had missed his morning porridge, he would be starving by now.

  You’re going to be barbequed, came the voice of the cat basket. Roasted on a spit over a campfire. That’s what comes of your getting involved in human affairs. You must learn to let them do what they do.

  Theodore looked outside. He heard fireworks in the distance. The skies were already beginning to darken. He got to his paws and made for the entrance of the Well House.

  ‘Do you not want to get warm?’

  Theodore turned. Milton had gathered up the materials with which to build a fire and placed them within a square hollow in the middle of the Well House.

  Milton placed a lit match at the base of the fire and within seconds it had taken hold. ‘Well, that was easier than in that story,’ he said. ‘We’ll soon be nice and warm… And then, as soon as darkness falls, I’ll be on my way. I’m on a bit of a mission, you see.’

  Theodore looked at Milton with apprehension; then inched closer to the fire. He could feel its warmth on his fur. Through the flames, he eyed Milton cautiously.

  Milton noticed his nervous stare. ‘You got me wrong, little pussy cat,’ he said. ‘I’m not really a bad sort. The press made me out to be much worse than I am. All that Napoleon of Crime business…’

  Theodore widened his eyes. Oh, yes?

  ‘Well, inside it worked to my advantage. The other inmates kept their distance. I cultivated the image of a hard man so that the others would leave me alone. And it worked. You bite someone’s ear off, they don’t pick on you again.’

  Theodore continued to stare at the convicted murderer.

  ‘I’m not a bad sort really,’ Milton said. ‘I am just a victim of my environment.’

  Theodore could understand that one’s environment could affect one’s behaviour and attitude to life. He had learned that from his few hours on the street.

  ‘I
n prison, it was beat or be beaten,’ Milton went on.

  On the street, it was eat or be eaten, Theodore agreed with a slight nod of his head.

  Milton removed his socks and shoes. He placed them close to the fire. He then removed Jonathan’s black and red checked shirt, so that he wore only his prison-issue underpants. The pants were shapeless grey boxers, with the stains of a hundred other inmates of Full Sutton. Milton had never earned the privilege of wearing his own underpants while inside.

  He then noticed a triangle of pink plastic poking out from beneath a heap of leaves.

  ‘Now, what do we have here?’ he said.

  He picked up the pink corner and recovered a half-eaten bag of marshmallows.

  ‘Well, that’s a bit of luck,’ he said with a grin. ‘Must have been the kids, hiding goodies…’

  He grabbed a twig, broke it into two and speared two marshmallows.

  Theodore stared at the grinning pink man with ginger stubble on his head and chin, squatting over the camp fire in just his prison-issue underpants, toasting pink and white marshmallows. When I woke up this morning, I never expected this, he thought to himself.

  ‘There you go!’ Milton said, tossing a toasted marshmallow towards him.

  Theodore sniffed at the toasted sugary offering. Marshmallows were not near the top of his list of favourite foods, but it was energy. Energy that he had expended while on the trail and energy that he would need before the day was done. He wolfed down the sugary snack.

  Then he noticed the crescent moon of an appendix scar on Milton’s lower abdomen. Milton followed the cat’s stare.

  ‘That’s how I knew how to fake an appendicitis,’ he said. ‘Problem was, as soon as they saw the scar, they knew I had faked it. You only get one appendix, don’t you? That’s why I had to make a quick getaway from that hospital.’

  Theodore narrowed his eyes. Probably not the greatest of criminal minds we are dealing with here…