Carbonel: The King of Cats

by Barbara Sleigh

  ‘Rosie! Get dressed, darling. Breakfast is nearly ready and I don’t want to be late on my first day.’ So Rosemary hurried.

  Although they could use Mrs Walker’s kitchen with the big black cooker, there was a gas ring and a fire in their room which they used whenever it was possible. With miracles of timing they managed to cook most of their meals here. Rosemary made the toast while her mother tidied the bedrooms.

  ‘I meant to go and ask Mrs Walker about your Pussums before I went this morning,’ called Mrs Brown through the open door, ‘but I doubt if I shall have time.’

  ‘He isn’t here, Mummy. When I woke up this morning he had gone. But I am quite sure he will come back. And please don’t call him Pussums, he doesn’t like it. His name is Carbonel.’ Her mother laughed again.

  ‘What a grand name! You know, if you brush him and feed him up I think he will be a beautiful cat… If he comes back. I had better wait until this evening, then if he is here I will go and see Mrs Walker. I do hope I can persuade her. It would be such company for you. Rosie, darling, do be careful!’

  Through the half-open door drifted the unmistakable smell of burning toast. The idea that Carbonel really might not come back filled Rosemary with such alarm that she forgot what she was doing. But of course he would come back! All the same it was a worrying idea. A second piece of toast was smoking ominously when her mother camé in.

  ‘Rosie, how careless of you! Sitting there looking at it burning!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mummy, I really am. I was thinking how awful it would be if Carbonel didn’t come back. I’ll eat the scraped bits of toast myself, really I will.’

  ‘Are you sure you won’t be lonely while I’m away, darling?’ said her mother anxiously over their boiled eggs.

  ‘Not a bit!’ said Rosemary, with such conviction that her mother was comforted. ‘When Carbonel comes back,’ Rosemary said to herself, ‘we will search the town until we find the hat and the cauldron, and I expect it will take days.’

  ‘I want you to take the dressing-gown round to Miss Withers for me this morning. I finished it last night,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘You had better go by bus, and be careful to change when you get to the Town Hall.’

  To spend the morning going with a parcel to the other end of the town was the last thing that Rosemary wanted to do, but as she could not explain why, there was no help for it.

  After her mother had gone Rosemary tidied the rooms and washed the dishes. Egg, as everyone knows, is one of the most clinging of things to wash away, and it all seemed to take her a very long time. When at last she had finished Carbonel had still not returned. She set out with her parcel, after leaving a saucer of milk in case he came back while she was away. She had half thought of using the broom again, and had got as far as peering into the gloom of the wardrobe, but the faint quiver she felt in the handle, without Carbonel to advise her, was a little alarming, so she said as carelessly as she could, ‘I just looked in to see if you were all right,’ and shut the door again rather hurriedly.

  It took her a long time to find the right house, but when she did Miss Withers gave her a piece of seed cake, which she did not much like, and sixpence, which she did. The sixpence she took to the fishmonger on her way home. He was a large man with large rubber boots and large hands permanently spangled with fish scales. As he was an old friend of Rosemary’s she told him what she wanted the fish for. He gave her half-a-pound of Coley and three shrimps, and he would only take fourpence.

  ‘The Coley’s for bread, as you might say, and the shrimpses is for jam,’ he explained.

  Rosemary burst eagerly into the room when she reached home. The saucer she had left on the hearthrug was empty and polished clean, and Carbonel was lying curled up beside it. Rosemary dashed off for the broom and came whirling back.

  ‘Carbonel, you are very, very naughty! I’ve been so worried. Where have you been?’

  The black cat stretched himself and yawned so that she could see his magnificent white teeth and his pink tongue, frilled like a flower petal, between.

  ‘I don’t know what you are making a fuss about,’ he said. ‘You could have said the Words and called me back again any time you wanted to.’

  ‘What Words?’ said Rosemary.

  ‘Oh, didn’t I tell you?’ She shook her head. ‘The Summoning Words. You simply say…

  By squeak of bat,

  And brown owl’s hoot,

  By hellebore,

  And mandrake root

  Come swift, and silent

  As the tomb,

  Dark minion

  Of the twiggy broom.

  ‘The merest doggerel I know, but it works. It wouldn’t be so humiliating if it were better poetry,’ he said bitterly. ‘Whenever you say it I’m bound to come, no matter how important the business I may be engaged upon. Have you never seen a black cat hurrying relentlessly along as though he’s being pulled by an invisible string? Well, that is what has happened to him, not a doubt.’

  Rosie repeated the rhyme until she had learned it by heart.

  ‘It doesn’t sound very polite,’ she said doubtfully. ‘I wouldn’t quite like to call you, “minion of the twiggy broom”.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to get over that if you want to summon me. You can’t expect magic to be ladylike. And that reminds me. I was looking at the broom before you came in and there is precious little life in the old thing.’

  Rosemary looked at it thoughtfully. It was indeed a sad sight. It reminded her of a parrot she had once seen that was moulting.

  ‘When the last of those twigs drop off, her power has gone, and it will be too late to find the cauldron and the steeple hat, and I shall be your slave for ever whether you want it or not.’

  ‘Couldn’t we mend it somehow?’ said Rosemary. ‘I could tie on the twigs with string or raffia or something.’ Carbonel was horrified.

  ‘Good gracious, no! You can’t mend magic with string!’ he said in a shocked voice. ‘You will be suggesting glue and tin-tacks next. A few weeks ago the cauldron sprang a leak, and SHE insisted on filling up the hole with one of those pot-mender things you get at an ironmonger’s, at sixpence a card. And what was the result?’ He paused dramatically.

  ‘What?’ breathed Rosemary.

  ‘Her spells worked out lumpy. But I tell you what, we’ve no time to lose. We’d better start searching this afternoon.’

  They had their dinner first. Rosie cooked the fish on the gas ring, and then she warmed up the stew that her mother had left her. They ate together in companionable silence on the hearth-rug. Carbonel seemed really touched by the three shrimps.

  ‘A Prince of the Royal Blood,’ he said with emotion, ‘and yet nobody before has given me shrimps. I shall not forget.’

  When they had finished they decided on the plan of action. It was agreed that they would do best to go back to Fairfax Market.

  ‘We must take the broom with us so that I can talk to you, but we mustn’t ride on it. I’ve still got tuppence from this morning so we can take a bus there, but we shall have to walk home.’

  5

  The Search Begins

  They reached the market without any adventures. The bus conductor was quite nice about Carbonel going on top, and insisted on calling Rosemary ‘Miss Whittington’, which made everyone in the bus laugh. When they reached the Market it was looking as she had expected to find it the day before. There was a jolly bustle of busy people with bulging shopping bags and baskets, with the noise of people chatting, and stallholders crying their wares. Rosemary could have happily spent the afternoon just looking round, but she knew that more serious work was on hand. They had agreed to go round all the stalls that sold second-hand things first, in the hope that Mrs Cantrip might have sold the hat or the cauldron to one of them, and all the time they were to keep a lookout for the old woman herself. There was always the chance that they might find her there. Rather regretfully Rosemary left the cheerful stalls that sold fruit and groceries, and cotton frocks, and chin
a ornaments. The second-hand stalls were on the edge of the Market, near the spot where Rosemary had bumped into Mrs Cantrip.

  They were a little forlorn, these stalls, like the people who kept them. There were rickety bedsteads and lumpy mattresses for sale, chipped chests of drawers, and piles of old shoes and gramophone records, and bundles of spoons and forks tied up like bunches of flowers. There was an old-fashioned hip bath full of oddments marked ‘All in this lot sixpence’ which Rosemary would have liked to explore.

  ‘Isn’t it funny how old clothes seem to go on being like the people who have worn them,’ she said to Carbonel, looking at a limp hat with feathers on it that was perched jauntily on top of a large chipped china jug.

  ‘That is just what I say,’ said an old man who was sitting on a chair behind a trestle table covered with old books. Seeing no one else near, he thought she was addressing him.

  ‘There’s more profit on new ’uns, but not the interest, I always say. Was you wanting something, dearie?’

  He looked a kindly little man, and Rosemary plucked up enough courage to say, ‘Please, have you got such a thing as a witch’s hat?’ The old man began to laugh, and he laughed until the laugh turned into a wheezy cough. When he had recovered, he wiped his red-rimmed eyes and said, ‘No, dearie, nor no fairy wands, neither. They’re in short supply at present.’ And he went off into another wheezy laugh at his own joke.

  Rosemary moved on to the next stall. Quite clearly, she decided, she must use more guile.

  ‘Why don’t you use your eyes more!’ said Carbonel crossly. ‘That’s the worst of humans. They will talk too much.’

  But use her eyes as she would, Rosemary could see no trace of the hat or the cauldron. There were half-a-dozen possible stalls, but she looked and looked and hung about until she felt she could write down from memory exactly what was for sale on each one. So she decided to walk round the Market on the chance of seeing Mrs Cantrip again. She walked all the way round, which took some time because she could not help stopping to look at most of the stalls, and then she found herself back at the wheezy old man. All this time Carbonel had padded quietly after her. Her legs were aching by now, so she sat down on an empty packing-case, and because she felt it was too public to talk to Carbonel she just stroked him instead. Suddenly the wheezy old man said:

  ‘Like an apple, ducks?’

  It was rather a hard, green apple, but Rosemary was very grateful for it. She thanked him gravely and munched away.

  ‘That your cat?’ asked the old man. Rosemary nodded. ‘I don’t know when I see such a big ’un, except it was one I saw yesterday on this very spot. Belonged to an old woman. She was a caution!’ He broke off to laugh wheezily again.

  ‘You see some queer things in my trade, but I never see’d a queerer than she was. Like an old rag bag, with a little hat on top smart as kiss yer ’and. What’s the matter, ducks, a bit of apple gone down the wrong way?’

  Rosemary nodded and wiped her eyes.

  ‘Was she selling anything?’ she asked as carelessly as she could when she had stopped coughing.

  The old man wheezed again, but this time with indignation.

  ‘She stands next to me, and all she’s got to sell are an old hat – you never saw such a wreck of an old thing, black it was, with a point – and an old coal-scuttle, one of them with three feet and a handle over the top. Fair crocked with soot, it was.’

  ‘How queer,’ said Rosemary. ‘Did she sell them?’

  The old man went off into such a prolonged wheeze that she could have shaken him with impatience. When at last he emerged he said, ‘Ah, she sold ’em right enough. There’d me been ’ere since nine o’clock, and all I’d sold was a book of sermons marked down to tuppence, and a pair of button boots, and ’ere is this old besom setting up for ’alf an hour, and blessed if she don’t sell ’er ’at and ’er coal-scuttle right off! Some people don’t reckernize ’igh class goods when they sees ’em. Ah, and where was ’er licence I should like to know?’ he added darkly, dusting a glass case full of moth-eaten birds as he spoke.

  ‘But what sort of people bought them?’ asked Rosemary, quite surprised at her own cunning.

  ‘Well, I didn’t see who bought the coal-scuttle. I’m not a one to go Nosey Parkering. But business being slack, I noticed a youngish fellow bargain with ’er for the ’at. Something artistic I’d say by the look on ’im. You gets to be a student of ’uman nature in my job. First thing I sizes up their clothes. ’Is was good but wore. Fifteen bob I’d ’ave given for ’is coat, and a tanner for ’is ’at, not a penny more, but a gentleman, mind. And would you believe it, when she asked a pound for her old ’at, ’e didn’t beat ’er down more than a couple of bob. Eighteen shillings ’e paid ’er for it, and looked at it all the time as if it was a picture of ’is long-lost ma. “Most interesting,” ’e kept saying, “A genuine seventeenth century beaver wotsit.” And the old woman grinning and cackling like a lunatic’

  ‘Who ever could it have been?’ said Rosemary.

  ‘Well, that’s what I says to myself. A chap wot’s silly enough to cough up the best part of a quid for something the cat might ’ave brought in, is too good to lose sight on. So I says wouldn’t ’e like to ’ave a look at some of my ’ats? But, bless you, ’e wouldn’t even look at my Leghorn with the roses. But when ’e’d gone I did find an old envelope. Dropped it, as like as not, when ’e got out ’is note-case.’

  ‘Did it tell you his name?’ asked Rosemary.

  ‘Did it tell you his name?’ asked Rosemary, hardly able to hide her eagerness.

  ‘No! Just my luck. It only said “To the Occupier”, and ’is address underneath. It was one of those powdered soap coupons to buy a monster packet of Lathero for the price of a little ’un. I’ve got it somewhere.’ The old man rummaged about in his many pockets.

  ‘’Ere it is. The Occupier. You can ’ave it if you like. I daresay it would come in handy for your ma. My old woman don’t hold with these newfangled things.’

  ‘Oh, thank you!’ said Rosemary, and there was no doubt she meant it. She skipped off, clutching the envelope, and sat down on an upturned bucket behind a battered wardrobe where she was unlikely to be overheard talking to Carbonel. ‘It says “To the Occupier, 101 Cranshaw Road, Netherley”.’

  ‘You really handled that quite creditably,’ said Carbonel.

  ‘I wish we could go there straight away, but it is four o’clock already, and I promised I would have tea ready for Mummy when she came home. We had better go.’ Rosemary jumped up and started to walk rapidly the way they had skimmed so easily the day before on the broom-stick. But with the letter in her pocket, the feeling that they had achieved something made the way home seem quite short. Carbonel padded silently on in front.

  6

  Mrs Walker Says ‘No’

  Mrs Brown arrived just as Rosemary had finished laying tea. The kettle was boiling, and they sat down to a companionable meal of buttered toast and strawberry jam, with a large saucer of milk for Carbonel.

  ‘I hope it wasn’t too dull all by yourself, dear,’ said her mother anxiously.

  ‘Oh, no, Mummy, Carbonel and I went for a walk after we had had our dinner and it was… most interesting.’ Her mother smiled.

  ‘Well, I’ve got a surprise for you. You know how you have always wanted to see Mrs Pendlebury Parker’s house? Well, tomorrow she wants you to go with me and spend the day.’

  ‘Goodness!’ said Rosemary. ‘How lovely.’

  And then she remembered how she had meant to spend the next day looking for Cranshaw Road.

  ‘But shouldn’t I be in the way?’ she said uncertainly.

  ‘Good gracious, not a bit in a house that size! You see, Mrs Pendlebury Parker has a young nephew coming to stay with her, and as she doesn’t know any children she asked if you would come and play with him. He is just about your age.’

  Now in any other circumstances Rosemary would have been delighted at the very idea of seeing for herself the
glories of Tussocks, which sounded from her mother’s description like a fairytale palace. It never occurred to Mrs Brown that there could be anything that her young daughter would rather do next day, so that she did not notice Rosemary’s lack of enthusiasm.

  ‘You had better wear your new gingham frock. It is lucky it is clean. Now as soon as we’ve cleared away I’ll go down and ask Mrs Walker if we may keep the cat. He is a handsome animal. I do hope she will say “yes”.’

  ‘I’ll wash up the tea things, Mummy, if you will go and ask her now,’ said Rosemary.

  Mrs Brown went down the six flights of stairs and Rosemary folded up the cloth and got out the enamel bowl for washing up. It took rather a long time to clear away as she was only using one hand. The other was holding the broom so that she could talk to Carbonel.

  ‘If only I could have gone to Tussocks another day!’ she complained. Carbonel seemed unruffled.

  ‘As long as you don’t use the broom and go wearing it out for nothing, there is no need to get into such a fantod about it. If you are going to do magic, even elementary stuff, you’ll have to learn that time is merely a figure of speech.’

  ‘Is it?’ said Rosemary. Half her attention was concentrated on the wobbly pile of cups and saucers she was carrying with one hand, and at the same time she was wondering if she could tell Miss Pettigrue that time was merely a figure of speech next time she was late for school.