The Call of the Cat Basket

by James Barrie

  ‘So I said that I would drive him back to York and your dad should have a strong cup of Yorkshire Tea. He should never have brought Oliver back to Acaster Mildew in the first place. The man is beyond hope. But you know your father. When he gets something in his head…

  ‘So here I am. Would you like some parkin?’

  ‘Parking?’ Emily said.

  ‘Parkin,’ Trish said. ‘It’s traditional. On Bonfire Night.’

  ‘Oh, parkin,’ Emily said. ‘No, I think I’m all right.’

  ‘I made a batch this morning. Your father and I were going to go to the village bonfire this evening.

  ‘Any luck finding Theo?’

  Emily shook her head. ‘I’m so worried.’

  ‘It’s awfully busy,’ Trish said. ‘All these people… There were hundreds more coming out of the station when I drove past.’

  ‘It’s an awful night,’ Emily agreed.

  ‘How about I take Joseph back to Acaster Mildew with me? You know your dad would love it. They can watch Mr Bean DVDs together. We have the car seat plugged in and ready to go.’

  ‘Would you? That would be so kind. We could pick him up in the morning.’

  ‘You’ll need to fold up his buggy,’ Trish said. ‘You know I’m hopeless at that.’

  Five minutes later, Joseph was strapped into his car seat, the pram folded up in the back of the car, and on the way to spend the night at his grandparents. He gurgled happily in his car seat and even managed a wave through the car window at his mum, as the car pulled away.

  Emily and Jonathan entered through the gates of the Museum Gardens.

  ◆◆◆

  Milton wondered what had happened to the peacocks that used to live in the Museum Gardens. Then he thought of his brother Miles. No doubt he was lying low until a decent-sized crowd had gathered in front of the Minster. He would want to maximise the damage.

  He shivered. His jeans were still wet from the King’s Arms. He needed to get warm. He needed to build another fire.

  He found some dried leaves and created a large pile. Then he went into the shrubbery and emerged minutes later, his arms laden with twigs. He placed them over the leaves and then went looking for branches. Once he had built a fire, he realised that he needed a light. He spotted some people in the distance and from the glowing orange dots, knew there were smokers among them. He approached and asked for a light.

  Taking the proffered lighter, he said, ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

  As he was lighting the fire, the man whose lighter it was approached.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m building a fire,’ Milton said.

  ‘A bonfire?’ the man said. ‘What a good idea. Let me help. We’ll go and get lots of wood. We’ll make a massive bonfire!’

  He walked back to his friends. ‘We’re making a massive fire!’ he said. ‘A bonfire! Come on! We need wood!’

  ◆◆◆

  Twenty feet below the ground, Theodore heard a movement behind him. He glanced back. He saw a pair of red eyes glow in the darkness. The creature had a glistening black coat and white fangs. It was a giant rat.

  He began to run. The rat gave chase, its claws scratching against the stone floor behind him. It was gaining on him. Ahead of him, Theodore saw a light coming from the roof of the tunnel.

  The Roman Bath

  The Roman Bath is probably the only public house in the world to have a Roman bath in its basement.

  During renovations to the tavern on St Sampson’s Square in 1930, the remains of the Roman bath including a caldarium, or steam room, and also a plunge pool, were revealed. Two thousand years ago, Roman soldiers would come here to relax and leave cleaner than when they arrived.

  Miles had ordered his meal at the bar and was sitting at a table nursing a pint and waiting for it to arrive. It was a pity that he hadn’t got to eat the chicken schnitzel back at Bettys. It was a pity he had been interrupted while he was making the final preparations for this evening. It was a pity he had had to cut the American’s throat and leave his body in the toilet cubicle. He’d only just managed to squeeze through the gap between the cubicle walls and the ceiling and make his escape.

  He glanced at the rucksack on the floor by his feet. Then he glanced at his watch. He wanted to make sure that it had the maximum impact. He planned to wait until the crowds of protestors converged on York Minster. At nine o’clock these protestors would realise that their protests were a waste of time. Direct action would always win the day. He grinned to himself.

  Miles had spent five years in prison for manipulating bank-reported interest rates, in order to enhance his own trading results; he had been sent down for ten. His brother Milton had got less time for murder. The world was truly unfair.

  Five years is a long time to stare at the walls. He was separated from the other prisoners for his own protection. The guards had also taken an instant dislike to the over-educated banker, who had been rewarded more in bonuses in one year than they would in their entire unrewarding working lives.

  Miles never regretted anything he had done. In his mind he had done nothing wrong, except for trusting his colleagues and managers. They didn’t say anything when he was making money for them. He had done what was expected of him at the time. He had been no different to the hundreds of others working in finance and lining their pockets. Why else would you work in finance unless you wanted to make some money?

  When the system finally came unstuck, he got no support from any of them. He must have had scapegoat tattooed on his forehead. They singled him out and made an example of him. It was his face on the cover of the papers.

  Miles kept his head down while inside, conformed to the rules and was released on licence three months ago. His wife had already moved on, filing for divorce within months of his being put away. When he was finally released, he had nothing but a letter from the Child Support Agency setting out how much he was to pay his ex-wife for the maintenance of their three children.

  That was also the time when he had got a letter from his brother asking for money. The letter went straight in the bin.

  A week later he got another letter from his brother Milton. This letter also went straight in the bin. Then he had a phone call from an unknown mobile number. He answered it. It was Milton. He had somehow managed to get a mobile in prison. He asked for money again; that he wanted to take his case back to court and was going to represent himself. Miles told him what he could do. Then he told him he was coming up to York to pay a visit soon. He had his own plans for the night of the Million Mask March. Bonfire Night was going to end with a bang, he told his brother. Then he hung up.

  And now his brother had somehow managed to escape from Full Sutton prison and was no doubt going to try to put a stop to his plans.

  A plate of sausage, mash and peas was put down in front of him. ‘There you go, love,’ the barmaid said. ‘Knives and forks are on the bar.’

  At least he had a decent meal in front of him, he thought, thinking back to the grub back inside.

  ◆◆◆

  Downstairs Theodore emerged from a hole in the basement floor and stepped into the caldarium. The floor of the steam room had been removed, exposing the short stone columns that had once supported the floor. The giant rat emerged a moment later, drool hanging from its sharp fangs.

  Theodore weaved between the stone columns, the rat snapping its teeth at his tail. He saw steps leading upwards. He flew up them.

  He was in a crowded bar room.

  Someone screamed: ‘There’s a stray cat!’

  Someone else shouted: ‘There’s a giant rat!’

  ‘I’m never eating here again,’ someone muttered.

  Theodore ran under a table. He was face to face with a large blue rucksack. He had seen it somewhere before. The rucksack ticked.

  Then the rat was upon him. It locked its jaws onto his tail. Theodore swung around and hissed at the rat.

  The man whose table they were under jumped to his fee
t.

  The cat and the rat were battling it out on the pub floor, jaws biting into furry flesh.

  Miles raised his foot and kicked out at the skirmishing animals. He caught the rat below the belly.

  The rat flew through the air and landed on the bar, in front of several barstool drinkers. Stunned, it lay on a beer towel and closed its eyes.

  There was shouting, screaming and cursing. People began to make their way outside to St Sampsons Square.

  In the ensuing confusion, Miles picked up a sausage from his plate, popped it into his mouth like a cigar, picked up his rucksack, slung it over his shoulder and made for the door.

  Theodore followed.

  The Peacocks of the Museum Gardens

  The peacocks of the Museum Gardens are no more.

  For over seventy years they resided in the gardens: loitering in the ruins of St Mary’s abbey, strutting about in the botanical gardens, screaming at people from the safety of trees, stopping the traffic on Museum Street when they decided to go for a wander down Coney Street.

  In 2000 there were four birds: two males, a peahen and a chick. But the peahen decided to relocate with her chick, leaving the two males by themselves. For a peacock to be happy, he needs a harem of six peahens, so to ensure the continued presence of peacocks in the gardens, it would require a total of fourteen or fifteen birds to sustain the population.

  The city was divided on the issue. Many didn’t like the screaming the birds made. Many didn’t like their journeys interrupted when they decided to stray onto the roads. Bus drivers didn’t like it when the birds decided to hop a lift on the bus roof to visit their peacock friends in Bootham Park. Even the gardeners complained that they scratted up their plants. So it was decided after some debate that new birds would not be introduced and the remaining ones would be left to dwindle and die. It is unclear who made this final decision regarding the fate of the peacocks. They were evidently not peacock fans.

  In February 2001 one of the peacocks was found dead in the gardens. The other carried on a solitary existence until 2009. On the fifth of November, the local paper reported that the last peacock had died.

  That is what happened to the peacocks of the Museum Gardens.

  Milton wished they were still there. They had brought colour to the gardens even in the middle of winter. When he was a teenager, drinking cider in the bushes, he would listen to them calling out to each other in the darkness, and he would copy them, calling out, ‘Bu-kirk! Bu-kirk!’ It had made him feel better.

  He looked into the flames of the fire he had built and screamed, ‘Bu-kirk! Bu-kirk!’

  Some younger people who were standing by his fire backed away from him and made their way back into the darkness.

  ‘We need a guy,’ a man said.

  Milton turned to his companion. It was the same man who had helped him collect firewood.

  ‘A guy?’ Milton said.

  ‘You know… A penny for the guy and all that. A figure to burn on the fire. We should make a guy and then parade it through the streets. We might make a bit of money.’

  ‘There will be no guy on this bonfire,’ Milton said, staring into the flames.

  Milton had attended St Peter’s School on Bootham until his A Levels, when his father had refused to carry on with the cost and then ended up under a bus. It was St Peter’s policy not to burn a guy on their annual bonfire as Guy Fawkes had gone to St Peter’s some four hundred years earlier. It is usually not a good school policy to burn effigies of your former pupils on bonfires each year.

  Milton stared into the flames, remembering. ‘Remember, remember…’ he murmured, ‘the fifth of November.’

  ‘A toast!’ Sylvia slurred from her sofa, her Dachshund Dolly on her lap. ‘A toast for my big boy!’ Both Milton and Miles referred to the worn pink chaise longue as ‘her sofa’, as their mother spent most of her waking as well as sleeping hours on it, either sprawled out watching television or sitting up reading Hello magazines.

  Milton took a sip of tea. He had always been an avid tea drinker. And he knew that Yorkshire Tea was the best.

  Sylvia, undeterred, raised her glass in the air. Dolly squirmed to her paws and jumped down from the chaise longue. Miles raised a can of lager to his lips.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re going off to university,’ Sylvia said. ‘It only seems like yesterday that I was bottle feeding you, right here on the sofa.’

  She patted the seat beside her and managed to spill some wine on the upholstery. Dolly scampered under the sofa.

  Milton noticed several dark brown chipolatas on the parquet floor beneath the sofa. Dolly needed to be let out more often, he thought. He looked across at his brother. It was three weeks since they had seen their father put into the ground.

  Miles was pacing up and down, distracted. He was taking a train down to London the next day. His mother didn’t drive, so he had little choice in the matter.

  ‘I’ll have to come down and visit one weekend,’ Milton said. It was his attempt at making the peace; he doubted he would ever go and visit; he had never been to London.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Miles said.

  ‘Don’t be like that, Miles,’ Sylvia said. ‘Not on your last night at home.’

  She got up and went into the kitchen to pour herself another glass of wine.

  ‘I meant it,’ Miles said. ‘I never want to see you or her again.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Milton said. He shrugged.

  ‘You don’t get it,’ do you? Miles said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Don’t you see? You’re ginger…’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Did you not do biology in school?’

  Miles took a drink of beer and stared out of the window, at the house opposite. ‘The Ginger Ferret… That’s what dad used to call him.’

  Milton was confused. ‘Who’s this Ginger Ferret?’

  ‘He was the neighbour,’ Miles said. ‘He upped and left. You’re not one of us.’

  Sylvia came back into the lounge.

  ‘Now, where were we?’ she said. ‘A toast! That’s right. A toast to my son. A toast to my big boy!’

  Miles stood up. ‘Oh, do be quiet,’ he said. ‘I’m going to bed.’

  ‘But it’s not even nine.’

  ‘I’ve had enough,’ Miles said. ‘Of you. Of him. Of this house. I’m going to bed now.’ Then he went upstairs.

  Milton sipped his tea. His mother would be dead by Christmas. He would be seventeen and left to live on his own in that awful house. He would never sit on her sofa though. It was left like a forgotten museum piece.

  Twenty five years later, he stared into the flames of the bonfire. The fire was dying down. He was going to have to find some more firewood. He turned his back to the fire and made his way over to some trees.

  ◆◆◆

  ‘Do you really think he might be in here?’ Emily asked.

  ‘If I were a cat,’ Jonathan said, ‘it’s where I’d go. Somewhere dark and out of the way. The less people, the better.’

  A firework went off with a bang and the sky was momentarily lit up with white light.

  ‘It’s very smoky,’ Emily said.

  ‘There must be a fire.’

  ‘In the gardens?’

  ‘Somebody must have started a fire. A bonfire… It’ll be one of the protestors. Come on. We need to look in the bushes. That’s where I’d hide. In the darkest places.’

  Jonathan headed off towards some dark shrubbery. Emily followed.

  It was only once Jonathan had entered the shrubs did he realise he was not alone. A man was stooping down, picking up sticks. His arms full the man turned and came towards Jonathan. It was only when he was almost on top of him did the man see him.

  He was wearing a Guy Fawkes mask pushed back on top of his head, an old army coat, a red and black checked shirt and jeans that were too short for him.

  Jonathan recognised the man from the news that morning. He also recognised his shirt and jeans
.

  ‘I know who you are,’ he said. ‘You’re Milton Macavity.’

  ‘That’s my name,’ Milton said. ‘Don’t wear it out.’

  Milton moved to the side to step around Jonathan.

  ‘Not so fast,’ Jonathan said. ‘I’m making a citizen’s arrest.’

  Milton shook his head, looked Jonathan up and down. ‘Well, well, well. Who do we have here? The Corduroy Kid…?’

  Jonathan looked down at his clothes. He was dressed entirely in beige corduroy. When he had returned home to check for Theodore, he had taken off his denim jacket which was soaked through with rain. When he had left home again to rejoin Emily he had put on his corduroy jacket, not realising he was doubling up on the corduroy.

  Suddenly he was angry that his fashion faux pas had been called out by this escaped convict.

  ‘You’re right,’ he shouted. ‘I’m the Corduroy Kid and you’re under arrest!’

  Milton laughed. He dropped his pile of firewood. Then he punched Jonathan in the nose.

  Emily screamed.

  Jonathan dropped to his knees, blood spilling down his corduroy jacket.

  Milton pushed his way past. ‘Nice meeting you,’ he called out, disappearing into the smoky night.

  ‘I can’t believe how bad this day is turning out,’ Jonathan said.

  ‘Well, we all have our sartorial mishaps,’ Emily said, crouching down beside him. ‘I was going to point it out earlier but I was more concerned about Theodore.’

  ‘I meant being punched in the face by an escaped convict.’

  ‘You mean that was Milton Macavity?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jonathan said. ‘And he was wearing my shirt and jeans, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘We need to find the police and let them know,’ Emily said. ‘They need to catch him… Then you can get your clothes back. We can’t have you going around in double corduroy, can we?’