The Cats of Butterwick Sands

by Gabriella Thomas

  “Never mind,” Mrs Ravioli would say, “it keep Papa fit and outta the kitchen,” as Grand Papa had a habit of coming in the kitchen and telling his son and wife how to cook, which naturally led to huge screams and insults and pans and utensils being thrown in the air. Once Luigi was knocked out by a flying colander! So Grand Papa spent his days reading the ‘Racing Greyhound’ and ‘Racing Times’, and putting small bets on the dogs and the horses. Every day he would go to the Barrow Arms for a ‘swift ’arf’ with his old friend Bruno from the bakery next door, often joined by Sid, Bruno’s mongrel dog. Sid and Dalingo would lie side by side under the table in the pub or by the log fire, saying nothing and just giving an occasional big sigh.

  Grand Mama still helps out in the kitchen despite being in her eighties; in fact that is why the food is so good! She also spoils Luigi and kisses him at any opportunity. Now, if you listen very carefully when Mr Ravioli is singing, you will hear another voice, high-pitched and very loud. The voice belongs to the Ravioli’s cat Mario, named after the great tenor singer Mario Lanza. Mario knows all the great aria’s and songs from all the operas, as he has heard them all from when he was just a kitten. Mario looks a lot like Mr Ravioli; he is rather portly with ginger and white long fur, green eyes and a small black blob under his nose which looks like he has a moustache, just like Mr Ravioli. When Mario sings, he tilts his head back and opens his mouth very wide. Of course, humans just hear a loud wailing noise and don’t realise Mario is singing an opera piece; only Mr Ravioli understands so he lets Mario share ‘the stage’ with him. “Ah that pussy cat ’e luv the opera,” he says. The locals were used to this racket by now and eat their dinners without batting an eyelid but visitors and holidaymakers think it is very funny and take lots of pictures with their cameras.

  At the end of the night when all the customers have gone home and Mrs Ravioli had gone upstairs to bed and when Luigi had gone out, Mr Ravioli and Mario would sit at one of the tables and share spaghetti and meatballs with grated cheese on top.

  Now there is one customer who comes in for dinner at Pasta Fazoulle quite regularly and that is Mr Brewster… he is the gentleman who the readers now know, DOESN’T LIKE CATS! He always comes in every Tuesday evening for a meal before going on to the Barrow Arms for a pint on his own. Although Mr Brewster lives in Butterwick, he has been banned from the Old Sea Dog for being generally rude to everyone but especially for kicking the pub cat Percy once in the pub garden. “Darn things,” he would say, “Bloomin’ cats everywhere. Why, if I was in charge of this place, I would get a big gun I would and get rid of the bloomin’ lot of them!”

  Now the people of Butterwick had got used to his ways, “Miserable old goat,” they said, “how his poor wife (god rest her soul) put up with him, lord knows and his poor kids… making them work in that arcade every hour god sends, it’s a crying shame!” The only one who had any time at all for Brewster was his sister, Amelia Brewster, who lived in Fairmile. Every week she would visit him with a home baked cake and every Sunday, he would go to her house for a Sunday roast, but Ms. Brewster had to ensure her cat Sooty stayed in the shed until he left.

  Ms. Brewster when asked why her brother was so miserable just says, “He’s always been that way, miserable baby, miserable child, can’t understand it. Maybe it’s because our dad was always laughing!” Once Miss Potter’s cat, Salt, got in his way and he kicked him; Salt responded by biting Brewster hard in the leg and when Miss Potter ran out with salt water to help, the things that Mr Brewster said cannot be repeated here… but the two have not spoken since. All the cats in Butterwick, Fairmile, and Barrow now give Brewster a wide berth but some, like Gripper and his gang liked to play tricks on Brewster just for fun.

  Mario, from the restaurant, belonged to the Barrow Cats Choir. All cats who can sing and (quite a few that can’t) are welcome. The choir meets every Tuesday evening in Barrow’s St Agatha’s church hall. The cats go in once the hall is shut at 8pm. The other cats who are in the choir include Ollie from the bakery, Eugene the church cat, Oatmeal from the health food shop, Vince, the porter’s cat from Fairmile District Hospital and Lana from the wool shop. From Butterwick there was, Hamish from the chip shop; Martha from the fairground; Pebbles, Miss Parr’s cat; Salt, Miss Potter’s cat; Luke the Reverend Batty’s cat; Malutky from the supermarket and Tallulah from Raymond’s coiffures. We also have Ernie from Barrow Railway Station and Percy from The Old Sea Dog in Butterwick, who has a fine tenor voice and finally but for some unknown reason, Bingo the arcade cat from Butterwick Pier, who doesn’t really sing and none of the other cats knew why he comes along to the choir at all. One Tuesday evening they were all discussing it, as Bingo had not yet arrived.

  “What’s he doing here?” enquired Salt. “He just sits at the back looking miserable.”

  Eugene who, as St Agatha’s church cat organises the choir replied. “Well we must be kind and welcome everyone; after all he does no harm.”

  “Yes,” said Salt, “but we have to look at him and it puts me off my singing!”

  “Now, now,” said Lana, “Eugene is right, give the fellow a chance.”

  “Yes,” agreed Luke, the Reverend Batty’s cat from St Luke’s in Butterwick, “you are right, after all he does have to put up with that rather disagreeable chap, Brewster, who we all know, doesn’t like us cats. It must be really hard for him.”

  “Well I wouldn’t put up with it,” said Malutky, the Polish cat from the mini-mart, “I would give Brewster a good bite on the leg.”

  “Already done that,” said Salt.

  “Well we can’t ban him,” added little Martha, one of Lala’s kittens who was growing into a rather fine semi-Persian; Martha was good friends with Tina, another fairground cat, and they were both soft-hearted creatures. “He is probably lonely.”

  “Well I for one, don’t really care, whatever,” said Tallulah, the spoilt Turkish angora belonging to Raymond, the hairdresser of Raymond’s Coiffures of Butterwick. She was washing a long leg with her fast little pink tongue, “If he’s lonely it’s his own fault. I never get lonely, my Mr Raymond is always talking to me.” Mr Raymond, by the way, looks a lot like Tallulah, he has his hair in a high ‘quiff’ with long waves of hair on the side to which he adds lots of hairspray. He always wears a spotted bow tie. “He looks like his cat,” the locals say.

  “Ochs, can we no git on with the singing,” said Hamish with irritation, “I hav’ to git back before the fryers are switched off for me hot fish supper.”

  Oatmeal from the health food shop in Barrow, piped up, “Surely as it’s a choir, it must be based on whether he can sing?”

  Pebbles, an old and rather sarcastic she-cat belonging to old Miss Parr from Butterwick answered back, “None of us can sing – including you!” and poor Oatmeal looked suitably crushed at this and kept her head down.

  Mario was outraged, “’Ow dare you, I canna sing like a bird! Pebbles just sniffed at this. “Come on, you lotta, I just wanna sing!” While the cats were talking and chatting, Ollie from the bakery, a rotund ginger tom, was polishing off a sausage roll he had brought with him.

  “What do you think, Ollie?” said Malutky, eyeing what was left of the sausage hanging out of Ollie’s mouth.

  “Well um, er,” Ollie couldn’t speak as his mouth was full.

  “Really,” remarked Tallulah, “he is such a pig!”

  “That’s enough!” exclaimed Ernie, “Let’s ask Percy.”

  Percy had been sitting on the small raised stage in the hall with his paws tucked under him watching and listening to the proceedings. The hall was heated by radiators which were now slowly going cold and outside, snow had started to fall steadily in the darkness. Percy would rather have been back in the warm Old Sea Dog, sitting by the open log fire, but would never let his good friends Ernie and Eugene down. Percy narrowed his eyes and gave that inscrutable look that Bilko found frustrating. “Well as I see it, he comes he
re for a reason, whether it’s for company or to listen to singing, he may join in in one day, he may not, but we are not operating an exclusive club here.”

  “Hear, hear!” cried Vince, who was a trades union cat and had been on strike once with his human, the hospital porter. All the cats murmured in agreement and nodded their heads, all except Ollie and Hamish. Ollie swallowed his sausage roll in a gulp and burped, much to Tallulah’s disgust; he could never understand what Percy was talking about as he had never been a very bright animal but he nodded his head just the same.

  Hamish said, “I dae not understand what he’s goin’ on aboot, speak English mon.”

  Percy ignored this remark, “I think we should just get on with the singing, are you ready, Eugene?” and right at that moment the door creaked open and there covered in snow was Bingo, There was night lighting left on in the hall every night and so in the dimmed light, Bingo padded up behind the cats who were all sitting in a circle, he sat down and said, “OK, right then.”

  And with that Eugene lifted his paw, “Right we will sing Christmas carols tonight, let’s start with ‘Good King Wencelesspuss’,” and so they all started to sing. Lana and the girl cats sang in high soprano voices, all except for Tallulah, who had a mezzo-soprano tone. The male cats sang in tenor and baritone voices but Mario’s was the voice you could hear above all the others, much to Eugene’s dismay; he had really tried to get him to sing more softly but his loud miaow and very high notes meant that Mario’s voice boomed out and shook the rafters. The locals walking past in the cold night air heard very, very loud caterwauling and they just ignored it, but if a child or children were running past they would stand on tippy toe and look in the window to where there was a small gap in the closed red curtains and there all the cats would be singing at the top of their voices. At the front, puffed out with his whiskers rippling, his head thrown back and mouth wide open is Mario the loudest and proudest of them all, and in the corner is a dull rust coloured cat, looking mournfully on. But wait!, if you look closely the cat is moving its paw up and down, a small ripple is playing with his mouth and his tail is waving in time to the music and yes… his mouth is forming into an ‘O’ shape; yes Bingo is singing!

  12

  The Cats’ Blanket

  The party season was in full swing and today, a party of policemen from the police station in Barlington were enjoying their Christmas ‘do’. They had arrived at 1pm and were still there at 4:30pm in the afternoon. They had danced with Mrs Ravioli and sang with Mr Ravioli and Mario and told rude jokes to Luigi. Mario the cat had fallen asleep in a policeman’s helmet that had been brought along for a laugh.

  At 5pm the policemen full of Mr Ravioli’s home-made wine and six courses of Mrs Ravioli’s fine food came lurching out of Pasta Fazoulle, singing and dancing kissing Mr and Mrs Ravioli, Luigi, Dalingo and even Mario who was still in the helmet. Chief Inspector Mold had Grand Mamma’s apron on he was singing, “Just one Cornetto,” as he fell out the door. As the last policeman left, Papa Ravioli looked at his watch, “No pointa shutting now we justa stay open.”

  They were all tired but happy especially Mr Ravioli as he said, “We maka lots of money today!”

  At 6:30pm as regular as ever, Mr Brewster arrived. It may not surprise readers to know that Mr Brewster did not like Christmas. If he had his way he would have his arcade open even on Christmas Day, but he knew there would be no business. Instead he would go with Gerald and Sue to his sister’s house in Fairmile for Christmas dinner. Sue would have to sneak poor Bingo under her coat otherwise he would be all alone. She would run to her aunt’s shed, deposit Bingo with Sooty and run back into the house. Throughout the day, Ms. Brewster, Sue and Gerald would sneak bits of festive food to the shed for the cats and in the end the cats had a better time than the humans!

  The corner table near the small bar at Pasta Fazoulle was always reserved for Mr Brewster. He always has minestrone soup to start, followed by veal Milanese and sauté potatoes and then tiramisu for pudding. Today was no different Mama came out with the soup, “’Ello Mr Brewster, ere you are,” putting the steaming bowl on the table. Now whether the calamity about to befall Brewster was as a result of the heat inside the restaurant or the cold outside no one ever knew, but most probably it was the endless glasses of ‘ome made vino’ that Mr Ravioli kept pouring for Brewster and saying, “Come on it’s a Christmas, enjoy yourself!” As the restaurant started filling up again, Mr Brewster and Mr Ravioli kept drinking the vino and then out came a bottle of lemon liqueur from Naples called Limoncello and after several glasses of the yellow liquid, Mr Brewster was asking Grand Papa Ravioli who was ‘helping out’ to call him ‘Archibald’ and offering to buy a share in Dalingo’s future.

  “’E will win one-a-day you will see, ’e ’ave the face of a winner!” said Papa.

  Brewster looked at Dalingo’s mournful face looking back at him underneath a table. He clicked his fingers and called, “Here boy,” but Dalingo just got up and promptly ran out the back door. At 8pm Mario left the restaurant and went the few yards to the church hall, where the other cats had already gathered. Mario had tried a lick of Limoncello once; he didn’t like it! He had left that nasty Mr Brewster saying to Mr Ravioli, “Call me Archibald,” and Brewster had even tried to stroke Mario! He wondered why human became very strange after drinking ‘beers’ and ‘wines’… cats had a plant called ‘catnip’ which they would chew on special occasions and it smelt and tasted wonderful, like all the best foods in the world!

  Mario and the rest of the cats carried on with their choir rehearsal and Bingo was now a fully-fledged member of the choir. He still only says, “OK then,” or nothing at all but he loves to sing and has a rather good contralto voice. Little Tina, who had always had a soft spot for Milo the fairground cat, but he was now a father and husband, had struck up a friendship with Bingo and they give each other little sideways glances whilst singing; both are still very shy, they don’t speak much but understand each other. Once the choir practice is over Bingo will walk with Tina and see her safely back to her fairground home, before going down the cliff and along the seafront to the arcade. These days Bingo is a changed cat; he has a spring in his step and grooms himself constantly, Gerald wondered what was wrong with him, these days he doesn’t sleep all day but runs around the arcade letting the customers stroke him!

  “Don’t know what’s got into him,” Gerald said to Sue, “he looks happy!”

  “Wish it was catching,” replied Sue.

  Tonight, as they sang the snow was falling again and it was bitterly cold, in fact the coldest night of the year. It was so cold that the cats could see their breath whilst they were singing. Eugene felt that they should finish a bit early and, to tell the truth, he wanted to get next door to the vicarage which, although draughty and cold as there was no central heating, he knew that the vicar would let him sleep under the covers of his bed; and he always made a cup of cocoa for himself and a bowl of warm milk for Eugene.

  “Let’s call it a night,” he said, as they had just finished singing ‘The Holly and the Fur.’

  “Yes, I agree,” agreed Percy, “it is rather nippy tonight and I want to get home to a nice fire.” And so the cats called it a day; next week they would sing at the cat’s concert at the fairground.

  ”Goodnight everyone,” called out Ernie as he left. “Next week is our concert with the other cats’ choirs, meet at the old fairground next Tuesday 8pm.”

  All the cats ran off in their different directions, Martha and Tina headed toward Butterwick with Bingo, who kept close to a giggly Tina; he felt so proud his tail in the air. Martha, as Tina’s friend thought Tina could have picked a nicer looking tom, but then little Tina was quite plain herself and, she thought, he did look after Tina very well; maybe there would be more fairground kittens! The cats started running as fast as they could, their paws sinking into the deep snow. It was still snowing. Behind them the other cats who had
come from Fairmile, Lana and Vince and the other cats on their way to Butterwick, Hamish, Salt, Tallulah, Pebbles, Luke, Percy and Malutky were also trying to find the best way to run up the hill from the church, round the backstreets of Barrow and towards home. Meanwhile, going down the hill toward the Pasta e Fazoulle and the other shops on the High Street and the railway station were Ernie, Mario, Ollie and Oatmeal, as Eugene had already gone home to the vicarage. As they came down the hill, they saw a strange lump on the path, the snow was continuing to fall heavily and there was not a soul about. The lights were on upstairs at the restaurant, with the Christmas tree lights from the Ravioli’s tree twinkling from the window. In the distance, could be heard the sound of laughter and singing as people left the pub. On this narrow street there were no houses or shops at all, just a few parked cars, now turned into snow covered mounds. The cats ran to the strange shape and there on the ground with his trilby hat lying next to him was Mr Brewster! His eyes were closed and there was a small red trickle running down the side of his head and the snow was covering Mr Brewster by the minute.

  “Iz ’e dead?” asked Mario.

  “Let me have a look,” said Oatmeal

  Oatmeal is a beige and white Cornish Rex, which is a breed without any fur and therefore her doting mistress, knits little waistcoats for her to keep warm. Tonight she was wearing her festive season red waistcoat with a green trim, the other cats often stifle giggles when they see her because she can look a bit of a sight, but Oatmeal is blissfully unaware. Now, because she lives in the health food shop, she believes she knows about ‘medical matters’. “No he’s not dead yet, but he will soon freeze to death out here!” Well, whilst none of the cats liked Mr Brewster they were noble animals at heart.

  Ernie took charge, “Mario go and see if you can get your human to come round here.”

  “But ’ow?” said Mario. “He will notta understand.”