The Call of the Cat Basket

by James Barrie

  ‘Can you go down and change the barrel?’ the landlord said to the barman.

  The barman looked up from his book. ‘I’m reading,’ he said.

  ‘That’s not a book,’ the landlord said. ‘That’s a comic.’ He laughed.

  ‘It’s not a comic,’ the barman said. ‘It’s a graphic novel.’

  ‘It’s got pictures in it. Therefore it’s a comic. Now go and change the barrel.’

  The barman snapped his book closed.

  Theodore noted the Guy Fawkes mask on the cover and the title ‘V for Vendetta’. He wasn’t a fan of graphic novels either; he preferred paw-etry.

  The barman put on a diver’s mask and strapped tanks onto his back. He opened a trapdoor in the floor. Then he dropped down into the flooded cellar to change the barrel.

  The customer at the bar, who had ordered the pint of bitter, held up something brown between his thumb and forefinger. ‘I have a pig’s nipple in my pork scratchings,’ he said.

  ‘Not so loud,’ the landlord said with a laugh, ‘everyone will want one.’

  ‘It’s not a laughing matter,’ the man said. ‘I paid 79p for them.’

  ‘There’s probably a phone number on the back of the packet,’ the landlord said. ‘If you want to complain, complain to them…’

  ‘I might do just that,’ the man said.

  He had a rucksack perched on the barstool next to him. He unzipped a side pocket and removed a mobile phone. He scrutinised the back of the packet of pork scratchings and then tapped a phone number into his mobile.

  He swivelled round on his stool and placed the mobile to his ear.

  ‘It’s Miles!’ Milton said, still peering through the window. ‘What a stroke of luck!’

  Theodore stared at the man with the mobile phone.

  ‘I have a pig’s nipple in my pork scratchings,’ the man complained.

  He remembered the man with the rucksack from outside the Yummy Fried Chicken, the litter lout with mayonnaise on his chin. So this was Miles: Milton’s older brother. The one who might be plotting some terrible event for this evening.

  ‘It’s not a laughing matter,’ Miles said. ‘I paid 79p for them.’

  Milton was already making his way to the front door. Theodore jumped down and followed Milton.

  On the door of the pub was a large sign that read, ‘Don’t Open this Door! Use Side Door!’

  But Milton didn’t read the sign. He opened the door and the floodwater poured out onto King’s Staith to be reunited with the Ouse.

  Theodore braced himself as a tidal wave of black water passed over him. When he opened his eyes, he spied Milton standing in the entrance to the pub, his trousers drenched from the waist down.

  ‘Look what you’ve gone and done!’ the landlord shouted. ‘You’ve only gone and let the floodwater out…’

  Milton ignored the landlord. ‘You!’ he shouted across the bar room at Miles.

  Miles, recognising his brother, smiled to himself. Then he slipped his mobile phone into his jeans, grabbed his rucksack and made for the side entrance.

  Milton was straight after him.

  ‘Not so fast!’ the landlord shouted, his hand on Milton’s shoulder.

  Milton spun round and hit the landlord across the head with his fist.

  The landlord went down and hit the wet floor.

  The barman stuck his head up out of the trapdoor, removed his breathing apparatus and said, ‘the water’s going down.’

  Theodore looked him in the face, eye to eye. You don’t say.

  ‘Did you not lock the front door?’ the landlord shouted, still lying on the floor. ‘I’ve told you a thousand times. The front door must always be kept locked… Otherwise something like this will happen!’

  Then Miles slipped out of the side door, Milton close behind him.

  As the barman struggled up through the trapdoor, Theodore noticed something small and brown on the stone floor in front of him. It was the sodden deep-fried pig’s nipple. Theodore wondered for a moment whether to eat it or not. He decided not.

  Outside he heard footfalls on cobblestones passing by the front entrance of the pub.

  He glanced again at the pig’s nipple and then made for the door.

  As he exited onto King’s Staith, he turned to see Miles taking the stone steps up to Low Ousegate, two at a time.

  Milton was not far behind. But on reaching the bottom of the steps he stopped.

  Theodore looked back up at Miles. Miles slowed down as he passed between two police officers standing at the top of the steps. Then he disappeared into the crowd, many of whom were wearing Guy Fawkes masks.

  Milton turned away. He met Theodore’s questioning gaze. Then he held his hands up to his face. He had left his Guy Fawkes mask behind, Theodore realised; back in the Well House. The police would no doubt recognise the escaped convict. Milton could not continue the pursuit. The police would recognise him and arrest him again. He would be back at Full Sutton by nightfall.

  Milton turned and retreated towards Theodore, a look of hopelessness in his eyes.

  Theodore walked forwards to meet Milton. When they were a couple of feet apart, Theodore sidestepped him and continued towards the steps.

  He knew what Miles looked like. If Milton could not follow him and stop his brother’s Bonfire Night Plot, it was down to him.

  Don’t do it, came the voice of the cat basket. You have no idea what you’re getting yourself caught up in. Miles is probably just going to let some fireworks off… You should keep out of it and come home. Bonfire Night is not a night for pets to be out. It’s a night to stay at home and be glad you’re not outside…

  Do be quiet, thought Theodore. I have to stop this man.

  His tail held aloft, though sodden and bedraggled, he made his way across the wet cobbles towards the stone steps.

  Battle of the Buskers

  As you may know, the collective term for buskers is a cacophony. In recent years a cacophony of buskers has descended on Coney Street, many of them with very little talent. Some of them have also brought amplifiers in order to compete sonically with their neighbours and amplify their lack of talent.

  As Miles passed the Spurriergate centre, he noticed the old guy on the stool with his guitar. He hadn’t seen him for maybe twenty years. Back then he had two Border Collies; they would whine and howl at appropriate parts of the song. He used to have a blow-up doll dressed up in ladies clothes beside him. His little entourage had a name too. On a rectangle of cardboard, he had printed Heartbreak Candy.

  ‘More like Deadbeat Cranky,’ his father had muttered as they passed by one day.

  The teenage Miles had paused to watch the performance. The busker had been playing How Much Is That Doggy in the Window, and after every time he sang the title, the two dogs would begin whining and barking. Miles thought it very clever. He had a fifty pence piece, his weekly pocket money, in his trouser pocket. He reached in and withdrew the coin.

  The busker finished the song and people approached and threw coins into the guitar case on the ground. Miles looked at the coin in his hand and then at the guitar case. Then he felt his father’s hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Don’t you be giving your money away,’ his father Maxwell said.

  Miles looked up at Maxwell.

  ‘You go giving it away,’ Maxwell said, ‘and you’ll never have any. It doesn’t grow on trees.’

  Miles nodded and slipped the coin back into his pocket.

  Over forty years later, the middle-aged Miles noticed that the busker no longer had the dogs or the doll. He no longer had the Heartbreak Candy sign. His band was no more. There was just an old man struggling to be heard above the noise of the rival buskers.

  He was playing The Man Who Sold the World, the Bowie song that Nirvana had nailed, many, many years ago. Both Bowie and Kurt Cobain were dead, Miles thought, but this busker, who had been, or he had supposed had been, old when he was just a boy, was still alive. In fact the old busker didn’t look an
y older now than he did forty years ago. How did that work? Miles wondered.

  Miles stopped in front of the busker, thinking about aging and death. He didn’t notice the grey cat that had darted into the doorway behind the busker.

  Theodore stared across at Miles. He noticed that Miles was mouthing along to the song, deep in thought. When the song ended, he reached into his pocket and plucked out a silver coin. He approached the busker and dropped the 50 pence coin into the guitar case. He turned and walked away.

  Theodore followed.

  Further down Coney Street, there was a Tina Turner tribute act. She was singing along to Private Dancer. Miles didn’t stop and give her any money. She wasn’t even singing in tune.

  Then there was a group of students, playing to a large crowd. They even had a drum kit set up in the street. They were playing Don’t Look Back in Anger, as Miles walked past.

  ‘Don’t look on with languor…’ Theodore thought he heard him say.

  Miles paused in front of the Starbucks on the corner of Coney Street and New Street.

  This building used to be a branch of the National Westminster Bank. It was where his father Maxwell had begun his career, aged 16, as a clerk; before he had departed for London and a career in investment banking; a career that Miles would also pursue.

  On the building’s corner, there was still the sculpted, red and gold coat of arms, with boars standing on either side of a shield that bore three boars’ heads and the motto PRODESSE CIVIBUS. Maxwell had told Miles that the boars symbolised hospitality and the motto meant ‘to benefit the citizens’.

  His father had evidently been misguided. Boars were far from hospitable, from what Miles knew about them, and banks were not set up to benefit the citizens; they were created to benefit the bankers.

  He glanced at St Martin’s clock, which overhangs Coney Street; the Little Admiral standing on top, pointing his strange instrument at the sky. It was almost five o’clock. It was time he had tea.

  As he turned right into St Helen’s Square, he was almost run over by a pram.

  ‘Hey!’ he shouted at the young mum. ‘Watch where you’re going!’

  He stepped around the pram and carried on his way with an angry shake of his head.

  Emily stood and let the crowd pass around her. What was it they said about never feeling more alone than when in a crowd?

  Then baby Joseph began to gripe. She was going to have to find somewhere to feed him.

  She took her mobile phone from her coat pocket. She had a new message. She opened it.

  ‘Theo not here,’ Jonathan had texted. ‘Have you had any luck?’

  She messaged back. ‘No. Nothing. I am really worried now.’

  Before she could put her mobile away, Jonathan messaged back. ‘Come home.’

  ‘But what about Theo?’

  ‘He’ll come back when he’s ready.’

  ‘He’s probably terrified. I can’t believe he’s disappeared on Bonfire Night.’

  ‘He’ll be hiding somewhere… I think you should come home now. It’s getting dark.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Emily texted back. ‘Not until I find Theo.’

  Then she put her mobile back in her pocket.

  Joseph looked at her and sucked his thumb and Emily knew that she would have to find somewhere to feed him.

  ◆◆◆

  Theodore had lost Miles in the crowded street. He took refuge in the doorway of an empty shop. He stared out at the passing people, trying to locate the man with the rucksack.

  Then he heard a whisper above the noise of the crowd. ‘That way,’ it murmured. ‘He went that way.’

  Theodore looked across the street. On the second floor windowsill of the building facing him there was a sculpture of a black cat.

  The cat had been installed on the windowsill by York architect Tom Adams in 1979. In the same way that Leonardo da Vinci signed his sketches with a mouse, Tom Adams bestowed a cat upon the buildings he worked on. These days there are many Tom Adams cats adorning the city’s buildings and more erected after his death in 2006 by others wanting to carry on the tradition.

  ‘He went that way,’ the cat sculpture murmured to Theodore, flicking its tail further down Coney Street.

  Theodore blinked his eyes in disbelief; there is a lot I do not understand about this world, he thought.

  He emerged from the dark doorway and carried on down the street in the direction that the stone cat had flicked its tail.

  Up ahead he spotted Emily pushing Joseph in his pram. Her face was creased with worry. Her eyes darted from left to right but she failed to see him. He stopped in his tracks. He watched as she passed by. He turned round and watched as she disappeared among the crowd. He had to carry on the pursuit. He turned and made his way into St Helen’s Square.

  Another busking band was playing and a large crowd had formed, many of whom were wearing Guy Fawkes masks, others were wearing cow or badger masks.

  He tried to navigate a way through the hundreds of feet. A cigarette end landed in front of him and he darted to the side, narrowly avoiding the smouldering butt. A toddler in red wellies spotted him and made towards him stamping his little feet. Fortunately the child was reined in before he could stomp on Theodore.

  Theodore closed his eyes a moment. He wished for an empty bedroom. A windowsill in the sunshine. A laundry basket of newly-dried and folded clothes, preferably woollens. He wished for his cat basket by the radiator in the kitchen of his home. He wished he was far from this madding crowd.

  I told you so, the voice of the cat basket said. You should never have left the safety of home. What did you hope to achieve? The humans will always wreak havoc upon the outside world. They cannot be stopped.

  The humans will eventually destroy themselves by their selfish and destructive nature. But until that day comes, you must wait. You must wait patiently until you hear the call.

  Theodore opened his eyes, only to see a large burgundy Dr Marten’s boot about to come down on his head. He dashed to the right but the boot landed on his tail. He cried out in pain: Bastet!

  He took refuge in the doorway of the Edinburgh Woollen Mill, beneath a rack of woolly jumpers. He took the opportunity to examine his tail. It was kinked. His wonderful tail was deformed; he would never be able to hold it up with pride again. He already had a torn ear that folded down on itself: the result of a feline skirmish in a previous adventure. If this went on, his handsome looks would be gone with his youth.

  He peered back at the crowded square. He needed to get back out there or he would lose track of Miles. He crossed the shop entrance and hugged the side of Bettys Café Tea Rooms. There was a queue that snaked around the corner. Even the rain did not deter people from a tea at the renowned Bettys. He watched as Miles walked past the queue. He darted after him. Between the shoes and boots he ran. He was closing in on him.

  Then he stopped. Miles had entered Bettys.

  Sand Dogs

  Milton walked down High Ousegate and stopped in front of a stall that had been set up in front of the Spurriergate Centre. The stall sold cheap plastic Guy Fawkes masks, aimed at those attending the march that evening. The plastic mask had become an icon of popular culture, used to protest around the world against tyranny and the status quo. Cashing in on anti-capitalism, Milton thought with a sneer.

  He asked how much the masks were.

  Five pounds, he was told by the Chinese man. They probably cost five pence to produce in Asia, Milton thought, remembering he didn’t have any money.

  A teenager approached and also asked how much the masks were. As he was rummaging in his coat pockets, Milton snatched one of the masks and began to make his way into the crowded street. But he’d been spotted.

  ‘Tony!’ a Chinese woman shrieked. ‘He’s taken one without paying…’

  Milton heard footsteps behind him. He turned and raised his fist.

  Tony came to a halt in front of the raised fist. He had only paid fifty pounds for a thousand masks. Five penc
e each. He had taken over five hundred pounds already and sales were increasing as the day went on and the streets became more crowded. He looked at the clenched fist held inches in front of his face.

  Then he heard his wife Sue yell from behind him, ‘Get it off him! He is a thief!’

  Tony thought of the bills he had to pay. His daughters were at the Mount School. Not only had he the school fees to pay but also the costs for boarding. Then there would be their university fees to come. It was not easy having girls at the Mount School.

  ‘Police! Police!’ Sue screamed from behind him.

  Tony felt a bead of sweat trickle down his face. Was it worth being hit in the face over five pounds? He took a step backwards, away from the man with the clenched fist and troubled stare.

  ‘Take it,’ Tony said. ‘Please just take the mask.’

  Milton lowered his fist. He turned and walked away, snapping the Guy Fawkes mask over his face.

  Sue screamed, ‘Don’t let him get away! Police! Police!’

  ‘Let it go,’ Tony said. ‘We have plenty more.’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ Sue snapped. ‘It’s the principle. Whatever would the twins think if they knew what you were really like? Weak! That’s what you are! Weak! Weak! Weak!’

  ‘That’s enough, Sue,’ Tony said, walking back to his makeshift stall, where a queue of people had begun to form. ‘Enough…’

  The streets were crowded but Milton knew that Miles was carrying a large rucksack. He couldn’t be hard to spot in the crowd.

  He noticed that British Home Stores had closed down. An Eastern European man was squatting down in front of the empty shop. He had created a dog out of sand. Milton was impressed.

  This young man had taken a bag of sand and with only a little knife he had created a sculpture of a labrador. What skill and talent had gone into that? The young man was making the final touches to the dog’s head, absorbed in his task, a little pile of sand in front of him.