The Wild Road

by Gabriel King

  After a mile or so, the Mau began to struggle. Sealink failed to notice this. Her pace was robust. Her head was up and her ears were alert. She loved a journey.

  Down Cathay Street and along Spice Walk they passed, between Cuckold’s Point and Ratting Stairs. Near Pickle Herring Lane, Sealink cut northward. They emerged suddenly on the riverfront, and ahead of them a huge structure loomed over the river in the night. Glowing in its array of lights, the twin towers of a great bridge rose in a mass of struts and chains. It was cold, massive, and forbidding.

  ‘Must we cross here?’ called Pertelot fearfully.

  But Sealink was already trotting briskly over the paved footpath that flanked the road. The Queen stopped nervously; she raised a paw, dithered. In the end though – more frightened of being stranded on the opposite side of the river from the calico than of this appalling structure with its stink of fumes and machine oil – what could she do but persevere? Halfway across a movement caught her eye, and she stared down through the ornate railings to the dark water far below. By the time they reached the other side, she was trembling with vertigo and exposure, and terror had stiffened her gait. Ahead lay the open paving and rusting chains of Russia Dock; beyond that a great stone keep above a lawned moat.

  Sealink sat down abruptly. ‘Rest here, hon. See that?’

  ‘The tower?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s a kind of cruelty place humans have. They been cruel to about everyone in there, one time or another.’

  They contemplated the tower together.

  Sealink shrugged suddenly. ‘Never been in there myself, of course.’ Then she said, ‘I been around, and I seen some stuff, but I never seen anything real scary till I met you folks. The things that happened in that warehouse!’ She gave the Queen a direct look. ‘I don’t pretend to understand what’s going on and I don’t much want to. Sometimes you’re best not knowing.’ She got to her feet. ‘Developed a nose for trouble in my years on the road, hon, and this shit sure stinks.’ And with this pronouncement she was off again, heading for the maze of streets behind the great tower.

  Pertelot stared miserably after her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly. But Sealink was already too far off to hear, and all the Mau could do was gather her failing resources and limp along behind.

  After some minutes of scurrying between tall glass-walled offices, Sealink stopped suddenly.

  ‘Best take the highway from here,’ she announced.

  They were on the steps of a gray-spired church. She opened her mouth, flehming the air for an accurate scent map. She shook her head impatiently. ‘You never did get the hang of this,’ she scolded herself. She faced several directions, her whiskers twitching. Then, choosing a line two or three points off north, she moved a couple of paces forward and started to strain against what seemed to the Mau to be some kind of invisible membrane. Almost at once, her head and left front foot vanished.

  Pertelot grew agitated.

  ‘I’m sorry!’ she said loudly. ‘Please go on without me. I shall stay here.’

  There was a moment of silence from the headless cat, as if she were held in suspended animation. Then, with a pop Sealink withdrew her head and paw from the highway and looked at the Queen in disbelief.

  ‘You stop, I stop, hon,’ she said. ‘But look here – what’s the matter?’

  ‘Please. I just don’t want to travel with you anymore.’ The Mau looked down. ‘You’ve been kind,’ she said, ‘but we must part now. It’s better if I go on alone.’

  Sealink narrowed her eyes. ‘Forgive me for being blunt, hon, but I never met a cat less able to look after herself than you. You need me.’

  Pertelot Fitzwilliam drew herself up.

  ‘I am the Queen of Cats—’

  ‘This is crazy, hon!’

  ‘—and I could command you if I wanted. But I don’t need anyone.’

  Sealink looked amazed. ‘Command?’ she said.

  She laughed. ‘I don’t think so, sugar. I don’t answer to anyone in the world, you understand?’ She pushed her face close to Pertelot’s. ‘No human,’ she said, ‘no tomcat, and no frigging Queen. Understand?’

  To make the point, she leaned up over the Mau like the side of a house. But the Mau stood her ground, trembling with distress, until Sealink, awed by her determination, added more quietly, ‘Look, do what you want, but don’t kid yourself: without me you don’t stand a cat in hell’s chance.’

  ‘A cat in hell’s chance,’ the Queen repeated softly. ‘Indeed, I am in hell. Even so, I prefer to be there alone.’

  Sealink stood, looking down curiously at Pertelot for a long moment, then arched her back, flicked her tail, and declared, ‘Have it your own way, hon. We all got to make choices. See you around.’

  And with that she was off, her outline so broken up in the moonlight that in seconds she was a few disconnected harlequin patches flouncing away down the church steps and into the shadows of an alley.

  The Mau watched this departure with a mixture of fear and relief. She had been raised under bright laboratory lights. Still, she would rather be alone in the dark, in the unknown city, than travel the highway with Sealink. Whether it understood their nature or not – whether it could enter them or not – the creature called the Alchemist would hear her slightest step on the wild roads. The moment it knew she had escaped the cat catchers in the melee at Piper’s Quay, it would be relentless.

  Such a poor reward for Sealink’s bravery and kindness to put her in further danger.

  Pertelot scanned the shadows warily. Without the calico – without even the comfort of a voice in the night – how could she survive this inimical place? She lacked the practical skills to find her way to safety.

  The buildings here were the usual city mixture. To the east, gleaming towers of glass and steel: no help there. To the west, the architecture of another age, a shambles carved and blackened by hundreds of years of polluted air. Rows of small shops had the air of having been mined out of larger buildings; above them, poky storerooms or smelly curtained apartments where the human denizens of the area slept. Neon signs blinked in the night. It was mazy, jumbled, confusing.

  And yet I must start somewhere, Pertelot thought.

  She followed Sealink’s scent trail until she reached a corner. Here, the calico had gone straight on: not fair, then, to follow her.

  Pertelot hesitated, then turned off into a dark lane with tiny shops, each dusty little window crowded with yellowing, handwritten notices, old advertisements, aging produce. A depth of gloom, a quality of inhabited vacancy caused her to quicken her step each time she passed a doorway or an intersecting passage.

  In this way she came to a shop full of animals. She stopped, head turned, one paw raised, to stare briefly into its window – where birds slept with their heads tucked under their wings and small, warm mammals ran with a kind of frantic diligence around their cages in the window – shocked by so much captivity. She was about to run on, when something made her pause.

  There was some other animal behind the closed wooden door.

  She smelled power and rank old age. Her nose wrinkled. All along her back the fur began to rise, a prickle of electricity from her ears to her tail. Still as a stone, barely breathing, she waited to see what would happen. Whatever lay beyond was asleep, but its dreams…

  Oh, its dreams!

  She felt the air around her move subtly. Every smell was suddenly distinct and clear. Traffic fumes, humans and animals in close quarters, the dank salt of the river – a sudden sickening wave of decay and waste and teeming life that came up from things as she stood there with her hocks quivering, pressed against the old bricks of Cutting Lane; and, slowly but surely, the dreams of the creature inside the shop overwhelmed her.

  First this unspeakable clarity. Then a sudden sense of breaking away from things. The outlines of the very street began to shift and merge until the buildings appeared to be overlapping one another. They stretched away, down the hill, all the way to the south horizon. As far
as the eye could see, silhouette lay upon feathery silhouette, shadow and sunlight in a constantly shifting dapple, as if the skies of a dozen different ages were scudding overhead. Ghostly shapes moved up through the layers, quick and slow: a legion of cats, old and young, fit and scabrous, trapped and free. The cats of Cutting Lane!

  They all looked like her…

  Dizzy and disoriented, the Queen slumped to the ground, her paws over her ears and eyes, and tried to shut them out.

  She was surrounded by reflections of herself: slanted green eyes, rosy taupe coats with flecks of sorrel, and black feet; tails like whips, and legs with a sharp delicate curve. The ghost cats of Cutting Lane wreathed themselves around her, their silent miaows communicating a terror so profound it could barely be expressed, never be ignored. Yet how could she help them? They were dead, and she was only Pertelot. Was this her heritage? Was this the burden she would have to bear once she set foot on the wild roads?

  There in the street, she began to struggle. She fell on her side. Her little black paws kicked out erratically. Mewing sounds escaped her as she fought to escape her ancestors.

  She heard a voice quite near her say, ‘Come to me. Come to me now, and no harm will befall you.’

  She shook herself awake and ran.

  She ran.

  She thought, I will not go into the dark with that one-eyed black cat and his band of ghosts. I will not go with him. My ancestors went with him, and look at them now. Look at them now!

  ‘Come back,’ called the black cat. ‘I can help you. You are in danger in this city…

  The sound of the voice died away like fading light as Pertelot raced down Cutting Lane and into a maze of randomly selected back streets. She ran, and as she ran, she chanted over and over, ‘I’m Pertelot Fitzwilliam, Queen of Cats.

  ‘I’m not a ghost,’ she told herself. ‘I’m Pertelot Fitzwilliam, Pertelot Fitzwilliam, Queen of Cats.’

  In this state – less a Queen than a panic fully clothed in one – she hurtled around a corner and into a large, stationary calico cat, who was sitting on the ground and nonchalantly cleaning an extended hind leg.

  ‘You having an identity crisis here, hon?’

  ‘Sealink?’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘Oh, Sealink, is it you?’

  ‘Who else, babe?’

  ‘Sealink, I’m so pleased to see you.’

  ‘I can kinda tell that.’

  The Mau hung her head in exhaustion. ‘I’m sorry I was so rude,’ she said at last.

  ‘Think nothing of it.’

  ‘I was afraid for you.’

  The calico seemed amused. ‘That’s caring of you, hon.’

  ‘Don’t laugh. Please listen. It’s me the Alchemist wants. You’re in danger all the time you’re with me. If I go on the highway with you, he’ll find me – and you, too.’ She stared emptily into space. ‘I’ve put enough cats at risk already,’ she said. ‘I can’t bear that responsibility along with all the others.’

  ‘Honey, life is choices. You think I didn’t know the risk I took? I make my choice; that’s a gift you got to be gracious enough to accept from me. Hey, hon, you’re a Queen. Ain’t that what they do?’

  There was a silence.

  ‘But—’

  ‘Come here to me.’

  Pertelot Fitzwilliam of Hi-Fashion bowed her head. Relief washed over her.

  *

  At that moment, some streets away, the door of a shop swung open on Cutting Lane, and the black cat called Majicou walked out into the night. He looked up the lane and down it. He sniffed the air.

  Nothing.

  A dream, then. Only a dream.

  *

  A cold, rosy light had just started to touch the east of the city. All along the riverside, pigeons huddling in leprous-looking plane trees examined the winter dawn, then tucked their heads back under their wings. It was very cold.

  Sealink padded purposefully through the dead leaves, potato chip packets, and fast-food wrappers strewn across the river walk. She was as immune as ever to the weather. Pertelot followed closely in those comforting footsteps, shivering so hard that her velvet fur seemed to ripple in the cruel new light. They kept an eye out for food as they went.

  Junk food was Sealink’s specialty.

  She would interrogate each paper bag and hamburger package encountered along the way, give a judgmental sniff, and then announce, ‘Haddock in batter’ or ‘smoked saveloy’ or ‘flame-grilled burger with cheese. Mmm-mmm.’ This would be followed some moments later by the declaration, ‘Sure wouldn’t mind some breakfast.’

  She got up on her hind legs to crane over the edge of every waste bin.

  ‘It pays to be big, hon,’ she advised. She thought, Of course, that’s, you know, kind of a genetic thing.

  A hot dog came to light, cold and congealed. Pertelot looked on in disgust as the greasy paper and ketchup-stained remains were dragged forth. Down on the pavement, Sealink wrestled briefly with the sausage until she had maneuvered it into a position in which she could chew it noisily with the side of her mouth. Soon there was nothing left but a small red stain on the ground. Sealink licked her face carefully, savoring the last of the mustard, while Pertelot crouched uncomfortably beside the bin.

  ‘Ain’t nothing like junk food for filling a corner,’ said the calico cheerfully. ‘But I guess a pedigree like yours don’t allow the force of that. Well, you got to learn to eat what you find in this life. Can’t expect to get that fancy tinned stuff out here.’

  ‘I’m not very hungry, anyway,’ said Pertelot, who thought she was going to be sick.

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘I’m not—’

  ‘Queenie, you always hungry out here. Always hungry, always tired. You sleep when you can, eat whatever you find. Even if you ain’t hungry you eat when the opportunity arises. Hon, you’re already far too skinny for health. Lord knows how you managed to attract that tom of yours! Wait here.’

  She leapt lightly onto the rim of the bin, teetered there briefly, and vanished inside to begin a further trawl through the rubbish. Time passed. Aluminum cans clattered to the ground, followed by polystyrene cups and chocolate wrappers. Eventually the calico emerged again, to nudge a blue Styrofoam box over the edge. This dropped to the pavement with a damp thud; the top sprang open to reveal half a piece of battered fish in a chewed bun. A gooey white substance was oozing out of the middle.

  ‘There you go,’ declared Sealink generously. ‘Real healthy eating, that, real gourmay. Go ahead, be my guest.’

  Pertelot Fitzwilliam, Queen of Cats, nosed at the fish doubtfully. Her lips drew back. ‘It smells a little sharp,’ she complained.

  But Sealink – engaging in a postprandial wash, her big pink tongue following the long fur of her ruff from chest to tip in a wide arc – only said, ‘Why, that’s the relish, babe, chef’s sauce. Eat!’

  The Mau’s nostrils narrowed. She pulled the slice of battered fish out of the soggy bread and bit off a tiny morsel. She chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then sank her teeth in and started to eat it as fast as she could.

  She said something unintelligible.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Delicious.’

  Two seconds later every trace of the filet had vanished, except for a small crescent of tartar sauce across the Queen’s nose. Then a small sharp tongue whisked that away too.

  *

  Early morning sun was clearing the rooftops as the two cats neared the Old Fish Market.

  Sealink abandoned the riverwalk, slipped under some railings, and, pushing once off the stone wall, jumped athletically the ten or twelve feet down onto a dank wooden jetty beneath. Skidding slightly on the weed, she looked back at the Queen.

  ‘Come on.’

  Pertelot gathered all four feet onto the edge of the wall. The old jetty looked dark and slippery, and much too close to the water’s edge. What if she were to fall into the river? Reminded of near death in the canal the night before, she coul
d only teeter uncertainly. Sealink, meanwhile, had given her an irritable stare and was disappearing amid the pilings at the end of the pier.

  The Mau looked over the edge. I hate this, she thought.

  She closed her eyes and launched herself into space. The old wooden boards came up and hit her so hard she pitched forward onto her nose. She clung on hard for a moment, then, carefully not looking down at the water, ran after the calico. Together they rounded the last of the piers.

  There were men everywhere.

  Men on the quay; men down on the moored boats, handing up plastic crates of lobsters and cod, crabs, herring, mackerel, and sea bass; men heaving great sacks of ice and huge wooden boxes over to waiting lorries and vans; men packing the opensided market building, where the fish were displayed in labeled piles and on pallets. There was so much activity that no one noticed the two cats cross the cobbles, slip through the shadows at the side of the building, and insinuate themselves behind a stack of piled wooden pallets.

  ‘Men!’ said Pertelot, her ears flattened to her head and her spine raised in knobs all the way to her lowered tail.

  The calico cat, though, was in her element. She opened her mouth to capture the rich aroma of fish. Her eyes were narrowed with pleasure. Her toes kneaded the damp cobbles with unashamed sensuality.

  ‘Ain’t it great?’ she breathed, more to herself than her charge. ‘Man, I love this place.’ And, tail high, she sashayed out into the confusion.

  ‘Don’t leave me!’ cried Pertelot in horror.

  ‘Just wait here, hon. I’ll be back directly.’

  And off through the market she strode, to collect her dues. She was, as she said later, a popular cat in those parts. Two or three paces into the activity, and a young man in dark green overalls had already bent to stroke her.

  ‘Hey there, angel!’

  Sealink dipped her head and walked on so that the end of her tail brushed his hand, murmuring, ‘Honey, you know me. I don’t get out of bed in the morning for less than a sprat.’