The Wild Road

by Gabriel King

  Before she could suit actions to words, Pengelly had nipped neatly in front of her. They confronted for a moment. Her fur was so thick and massy that for a moment it looked as if two Pengellys would be needed to make up one Sealink. But he was not so easily outfaced.

  ‘I’ll come up with you, take Old Smoky’s mind off things while you do your doings,’ he offered. ‘Since you’re not entirely inconspicuous, my handsome.’

  And he ran lightly up the steps.

  Sealink was forced to follow, in a flounce of calico. ‘Ain’t no call for you to talk so familiar,’ she told him.

  ‘No offense, my dear. I like a bit of meat on the bone.’

  ‘Well, find another bone to chaw on, Cornwall, cause we’s only ever pals, and you ain’t gettin’ them loose old implements of yours into me.’

  *

  Pertelot watched them go, then sought comfort beneath Old Smoky’s berth, where things seemed to go up and down less. Was that possible? All things were possible, she had heard, at sea.

  Old Smoky had retrieved his bedclothes the night before, the better to snore away the hours until high tide. But he had left a single soft crocheted blanket in the far corner, where it was gathering fluff balls and dust. She pulled at it with her teeth, trod around it again and again to mark it with the scent glands between her toes. Then she sat in the nest she had made, tucked her head under her paws so that the noise of the engine receded to a comfortable thud, and fell into a blessedly dreamless sleep.

  *

  Once having escaped the constrictions of the cabin, Sealink was determined not to go back. She quickly made space for herself in the litter of crab pots, lines, and buckets behind the engine housing in the stem of the boat.

  From here she had a view of the passing world.

  They had cleared the estuary by now, and their surroundings had become the blank canvas she had so recently described. The nose of the Guillemot tilted down to meet a wave head-on. White spray flew up from her bows. As the horizon – a barely discernible tonal change from sea to sky – dipped and rose with this motion, Sealink was filled with a quiet joy. Birds wheeled overhead, too far up for their cries to carry. The sun was the half-kept secret of a bank of cumulus clouds, tingeing their edges with silver and gold as it traveled westward with them.

  On the move again! She gave a deep, contented sigh.

  When she woke it was dark and cold.

  The engine had stopped. The Guillemot rocked gently on the swell, making no headway. There were lights in the distance, banks of them, rising in serried rows. They had put into port, and she had slept so soundly she had missed it!

  She looked around. No other signs of life. No one in the wheelhouse. No other boats close by. She stretched herself with languid thoroughness, taking the same pleasure as ever in the presence of her flesh. A satisfying group of dorsal extensions was followed by front, then hind legs. She arched her back luxuriously. She sat down again to attend to her toilette. Paws first, then haunches, flanks, ruff, ears, face; finally her proudest possession – the much-admired tail. Grooming complete, she shook out her coat like a white and orange flag in the moonlight.

  ‘Hey!’ she told herself quietly. ‘You look good! You look glowing! Oh but, honey, how come you’re so hungry? Well could it be because you didn’t eat since last night?’

  She nosed hopefully among the nets. She would try anything. She would welcome the head of some week-old mackerel, staring puzzledly at the stars; she was prepared to meet the intricate challenge of a discarded lobster shell.

  Nothing.

  She trotted down to the wheelhouse in case the fisherman had left the crusts of his sandwiches behind. Not a crumb. But while she was there, something made her pause on the edge of the stairway and listen.

  It was quiet down there but not silent. A soft, rhythmic sound was issuing from the cabin. Someone breathing? Hard to say. But her curiosity was up. Transferring her weight stealthily from paw to paw, she descended the steps.

  The darkness in the cabin was thick and warm with life. Old Smoky lay curled fetally on the berth, with Pengelly nestled in the hollow between his bent knees and his chest.

  They were both asleep.

  The sound continued. It came from the galley. Sealink’s pupils widened. There! There! On top of the draining board! A most peculiar shape! An elegant, whip-thin thing, its clean lines marred by a strangely bulbous head. Sealink approached, trying not to breathe.

  Then a passing light gleamed momentarily at the porthole; and for that split second, the apparition was limned in silver.

  Pertelot.

  The Queen of Cats stood with three paws braced on the galley work surface. The fourth, along with much of her head, was inside ajar of peanut butter. With every rasp of her tongue, the jar scraped lightly against the Formica, to produce the noise Sealink had heard.

  Pertelot was so absorbed in this task that when the calico landed on the counter beside her, she leapt a foot into the air in terror. The peanut butter jar sprang from her head and bounced across the floor. Old Smoky leapt from the bunk and lit the nearest gas lamp in a panic, while Pengelly sprang from the bedclothes and simply ran about. Shadows reeled upon the walls. Further unnerved, Pertelot bolted beneath the berth and burrowed under the crocheted blanket. But when Sealink tried to follow suit, she could only fit her head and front half into the space. Her rear end stuck out into the air, tail waving helplessly like a flag of truce – a view Pengelly, who had recovered his natural calm, took in appreciatively.

  ‘What are you lot doing on my boat?’ roared Old Smoky, and he grabbed Sealink’s waving tail in a calloused fist. Sealink dug in and tried to haul herself to safety – to no avail. Huge hard hands closed around her midriff. Slowly but surely she was pulled out, hissing and spitting and promising murder.

  ‘Don’t fight!’ Pengelly warned her. ‘Not if you want to avoid a swim, at any rate. He do like cats, honest.’

  Sealink gave Pengelly her hardest stare. ‘You better be right, hon,’ she said. She gave up the struggle, withdrew her claws, and gazed upward insincerely. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’m Sealink.’

  The face that loomed over her was tanned and lively. Light glinted from dark eyes caught like fish in a mesh of wrinkles. He held her at arm’s length and surveyed his catch with kindness.

  ‘Well, you’re a beauty, ent you?’

  ‘People have often noticed that,’ she said.

  ‘You old devil, Pengelly.’ The fisherman chuckled. ‘Stashing your girlfriends on my boat now, are you? This one looks big enough to eat you alive!’

  Sealink glared up at him. ‘I ain’t a girlfriend. And I’d be obliged if you’d put me down.’

  Old Smoky stared at her almost as if he had understood, and set her on the floor. There, she composed herself majestically, keeping an eye on his hands.

  Meanwhile, Pengelly was urging the Mau. ‘Come out, my dear. May as well get hung for a ham as a sausage.’

  ‘Hung?’ said Pertelot.

  ‘Sorry, my lover. Figure of speech. He’m in a good mood now; we may as well take advantage.’

  ‘Lord lumme,’ said Old Smoky, as Pertelot Fitzwilliam of Hi-Fashion emerged cautiously into the light. ‘You’re a sly one, Pengelly. Two females in one night, that’s plain greedy. And this one as scrawny as t’other one’s fat!’

  ‘This,’ said Sealink, ‘is muscle.’

  Pertelot stood near the fisherman’s boots, sniffing timidly up at him. She was ready to run. But he extended his gnarled fingers to her, and they smelled of tobacco and sealife. It was a good smell. To her surprise, she found herself rubbing her cheek against the hand. She retreated hurriedly.

  ‘You’m a bit jumpy, my lady, ent you? No need to fear me. Come up here now so’s I can see you proper.’

  He lifted her firmly but gently onto the bunk beside him and ran his big hands over her tiny frame. They paused for a moment over her belly. He probed solicitously.

  ‘Ent been eating proper, have you, sweethear
t? That won’t do at all. You sit here and I’ll see what I can find.’

  He made his way down the galley, noting the broken jar on the floor.

  ‘Peanut butter, eh? A bit rich for you in your condition, my dear.’

  He extracted some tins from the cupboard beneath the sink. ‘Better start feeding you up,’ he said, ‘if you’m going to carry them kittens to term.’

  The Fourth Life of Cats

  Beloved of the gods, from Bast and Heliopolis we came; from Attabiya markets where the finest watered silk was sold, named for the beauty of a moire tabby coat, from Abyssinia and Persia Felis cattus ranged across the world.

  Thousands of miles away, on a promontory above the sea, a chieftain had made his court at Tintagel in the ancient country of Kernow. And for reasons best known to himself, he had made known that he promised his only daughter, and a considerable bride-gift, to the first man who brought him a pair of cats.

  A young Phoenician trader planned to be that man. Cats were rare and prized – but the Daughter of Kernow with her bright red hair! Now, there was something to think about. He had just acquired a superb pair of cats, a pair that had walked right up to him in the middle of the marketplace and sat before him, blinking in the sun.

  Atum-Ra and Isis were those cats: the King and Queen of Cats in their time, and they had a mission of their own. They were to bring the magic of the Ancient Kingdom to the lost highways of the north; to revitalize the old roads made by sabre tooth and Panthera, now fallen into disuse, and to populate the cold lands once more. And with her, the Queen carried her own precious cargo on this journey away from lands of heat and trembling air, to eternal mist and rain.

  In their well-appointed quarters Atum-Ra and Isis lay and listened to the chatter of the crew as they sailed the wide ocean; while the sailors, intrigued, stole below decks to peer at them.

  One said, ‘See how at dawn the apples of their eyes are long and thin; while at noon they are quite round; and at night the entire eye shines like a lamp!’

  A second replied, ‘By day they soak up the light of the sun; at night they use it to see as if it were noon. Thus it is they secretly stalk their prey!’

  And a cabin boy laughed and said,’They lie so sweetly there together!’

  But the ship’s Christian would only say, ‘I heard they fell to Earth like Lucifer. Eyes like those can see forbidden realms.’ And he crossed himself.

  There was an Egyptian on the ship. He had once owned a cat himself, before he lost his home and went to sea. He loved to look at Atum-Ra, whom he called ‘the Little Son of the Morning.’ ‘In Egypt,’ he said softly, ‘the cat has been for centuries a sacred animal, bringing life and fertility. Like a little god, the cat walks the paths of the living and the dead.’ He smiled at the Christian. ‘No other animal can do that.’ Then he said, ‘The roads of Morning and of Evening – are those your forbidden realms?’

  The Christian stated that cats were demons in animal form. The Book of Revelation referred clearly to a cat with seven heads.

  The Egyptian said, ‘I heard cats were first created on Noah’s Ark. The Ark became infested with rats. Noah sought God’s advice. ‘Go seek out the Lioness,’ said God, ‘and strike her upon the muzzle. ‘Noah struck the lioness and she sneezed forth a pair of cats. It is not recorded what she thought of that.’

  ‘Heretical rubbish!’

  ‘It’s your mythology, not mine,’ said the Egyptian with a shrug; which incensed the Christian so much that the pair fell to fighting in the hold and had to be doused with buckets of seawater before they could be separated.

  The Queen of Cats licked her belly anxiously.

  The ship sailed the quiet waters of the Middle Sea. Three days more, and they were beating north against the restless waves of the great ocean with the Pole Star their guide by night. The weather was cold and turbulent. The King and Queen shivered and slept. The cabin boy stroked them when no one was looking.

  At last the ship made land, andAtum-Ra and Isis were carried up the steep steps to the cliff-top fortress of Tintagel.

  The chieftain welcomed the Phoenician and his sailors with great delight. The bargain was made: a great feast was spread before them. But it was clear the chieftain was a troubled, sleepless man. There were lines etched deep in his face. His eyes were dark.

  That night, when the marriage feast was at its height, he took Atum-Ra and Isis to his chamber and released them from their cage.

  He addressed the pair. ‘I am a haunted man. Every night the spirits disturb my rest. I have not slept for six long months. Yet I cannot identify my tormentors and make amends. I killed many, to win this realm. Which of them rests so uneasy they will not depart to the Isle of the Dead? Cats live in both worlds, I know, and the image of a spirit will remain for a moment or two in a cat’s eye. Stay with me tonight. Help me name these ghosts, and I will free you forever to come and go as you will.’

  Atum-Ra and Isis listened to his plea. Territorial wars are hard, as all cats know, but they must be fought. ‘And it is a good offer,’ said Isis.

  They took up positions at each end of the great bed. The chieftain swathed himself in furs and rugs and lay between them. No sooner had the moon sailed free of the clouds outside the window than the after-walkers began their nightly visit.

  First the clattering upon the roof, like iron heels on the ribs of a dead horse; then gusts of chill air that blew down the hangings and tore the chief’s hair from its gold band, so that it was like a fiery nimbus around his face; and, at last, shapes that danced about the chamber, throwing down trays and chairs. Only the cats saw figures in an icy mist, grinning with the glee of their horrible wounds!

  Atum-Ra saw a man. Isis saw a woman. Both wore saffron-dyed cloaks. One carried his head.

  The King and Queen of Cats stared at these visitants; then calmly – though the icy wind was in their fur – they padded across the bed, stood before the trembling chieftain, and gazed upward.

  He stared into tapetum lucidum of their eyes. There! Something woven deep within!

  *

  The spirits were named, and fled, never to be seen again. The chieftain was true to his word. He made amends to his enemies, erecting to their memory an ogham cross. And he gave the cats their freedom and decreed that none should harm them, or their offspring, on pain of death.

  And so the King and Queen of Cats, Atum-Ra and Isis, enjoyed – as cats prefer to do – the best of both worlds. At Spring Equinox their kittens were bom, at the heart of the wild roads, and golden light spread across the land. Which is why the headland at Tintagel is for cats a sacred place.

  12

  Loss

  Never stroke a cat backward or your luck will turn bad.

  – OLD SAYING

  For a moment, after everything stopped moving, there was silence and darkness in the van. Then Tag heard indistinct human voices outside.

  ‘Hide!’ he urged.

  The cats burrowed into the nooks and crannies formed where the cages – all dreams of flight abandoned – lay piled in confusion where they had come to rest toward the front of the van. They curled up. They tucked in their tails, then anxiously curled up a little tighter and tucked in a little further.

  The rear doors of the van were opened and flung wide. Icy air and brilliant moonlight flooded in. Tag raised his head a little and had a look out.

  The city was a long way behind them.

  A cobbled square. Silent houses on three sides. Across darkened porches the moonlight projected vague, lacy shadows. Off in the dark on the fourth side, a strip of open grass stretched away to a village pond, where slurries of ice were forming and dissolving under the hesitant fingers of air. Everything was muffled up in snow – roofs slathered with it, eaves plastered. Every hedge and tree, every thin reed at the pond’s edge, had its soft, damp windward coat, its shining plastrons of snow. As Tag watched, clouds obscured the moon. More snow began to pom-down upon the center of the square. Four swathed human figures appeared at the
open door and blotted out the view.

  One of them jumped clumsily into the van, stared straight at Tag’s hiding place for a moment, kicked one or two loose cages out of the way, then called out in an impatient tone. Outside, its companions grunted and muttered. After a pause, they began to load the van with large square objects. Feet scraped and scuffled. The air seemed to warm up a fraction and fill with the rank smell of human effort.

  Tag risked a look.

  More cages!

  He stared, then – worried that the moonlight reflecting off his eyes might give away his position – withdrew.

  More cages, he thought. But why?

  ‘What is happening?’ hissed Ragnar Gustaffson. ‘What is going on?’

  ‘Hush up,’ Tag warned him.

  ‘There are cats in these cages,’ said Ragnar. ‘What are they doing to them?’

  ‘Ragnar, shut up.’

  ‘There are cats in these cages,’ Ragnar repeated obstinately. Then he was silent again.

  The new cages crashed and rattled into position, until they were stacked high on both sides of the van. There was a brief argument, as the human that was in the van dusted its hands together and, breathing heavily, tried to get out again. The others pushed it back in. It shouted, but they shouted louder. It spat on the floor. Then it stamped its way to the front of the compartment and, with violent, overstated gestures, began to unload the original cages.

  Now we’re in for it, thought Tag. It’s the one I bit.

  For a while they remained hidden. Rage made the human incompetent, and there were a lot of cages. When two or three of them became tangled together by their doors, it wrenched and hauled at them, and threw them across the van. Finally, it picked them up again, and with a massive effort, tore the doors off them. There was laughter from outside, but it soon stopped when the cages were thrown out. This action seemed to calm the human down. Thereafter, it addressed itself efficiently to the task, carrying the cages to the open doors, from which position the others carried them off into the night.