Cat Kin

by Nick Green

  Bit by bit his senses returned. Smashing up a scrap yard was not the answer. It was a waste of anger. He got shakily to his feet.

  An idea had been lurking in his mind for some time, but he had avoided it, like a suspicious package. While in the grip of a strange power he had hurt someone he loved. Well, then, if he had no choice but to hurt people, he could at least choose the right ones. He had a weapon. He had spent the past few months learning how to use it. Now was not the time to cast it away.

  Ben drew deep breaths and bent in the Arch On Guard stance. His legs were stiff; it was a fortnight since he’d done any pashki. After a few warm-up poses, which twanged his tendons like the first PE lesson of term, he knelt to run through his catras. At first he saw only darkness. After an age a blue glow flickered on his retinas. He tried the others, green Mandira, golden Parda. All he saw were faint blotches, as if he had stared too long at a light. What was the matter?

  He was out of practice. That was all. Best to start from scratch, with the pashki rudiments. He picked a clear path through the junkyard and Eth walked along it, imagining thin posts under each foot. Halfway, he wobbled. Something tripped him and he went sprawling.

  He lay for a long time, a fan belt snagged around his ankle. Out of practice? It was worse than that. A simple Eth walk had defeated him. The pashki movements were clear in his head, but his muscles were on strike. He strained one last time to summon up a catra and saw nothing but the black of his own eyelids. It was as if his Mau body had withered away like a disused limb.

  A sound roused him. His mobile phone. He plucked it from his pocket and saw the name on the screen. Tiffany. It continued to play the James Bond theme at him. At the fourth repetition it fell silent.

  With a cry of disgust, at himself, at everything, Ben hurled the phone into the mountain of scrap metal.

  MOTHER CAT’S SECRET

  ‘Ben…’ A soft click. ‘Doesn’t answer. Please leave a message at the tone.’

  Tiffany hung up. That was it. If she ever got the chance to speak to him again, she wouldn’t. The one person she thought she could rely on had let her down.

  She checked her phone messages just in case her parents (or Ben) had tried to call. They hadn’t. A proper mum or dad might have wondered where she’d got to by now, but no. Hardly surprising. She turned the phone off.

  Seeing Theobald Mansions she walked faster. After a whole day dithering and killing time in clothes shops, she knew who she had to see. Please, Tiffany wished, please be back from India.

  She reached the entrance of the run-down block and pressed the entry buzzer, leaning close to the speaker for an answer. She buzzed again and waited a long time. Nothing. Mrs Powell wasn’t there. Tiffany turned from the doorway with a sniff, ready to burst into tears. She stopped. She breathed in again. A familiar scent hung in the air. She couldn’t have described the sensation in human words, but she knew it was Mrs Powell as surely as if she’d seen a photograph. She’d stood on this spot in the last twelve hours.

  Tiffany stepped back from the entrance and looked up at the top-floor flat. Her heart rejoiced to see the balcony window ajar. Perhaps Mrs Powell had only popped out for cat food. Tiffany sat on the step for half an hour before the other, fouler smells from the lobby got the better of her. This was no place to linger. She considered the open window, five floors up. It would be silly to try and climb up there. She’d promised not to do anything silly.

  The next thing she knew, she was running next door to the leisure centre. Partly for the convenience, and partly so she could practice slipping past the attendant unnoticed, she’d got into the habit of storing her pashki kit in one of the lockers. She donned it quickly in a deserted corner of the changing room, daubed her face-print with blue and grey paints and pressed the tabby patterns onto her skin. Thus camouflaged, night-black from neck to ankle, she slunk out of the fire exit into the lowering twilight.

  The flats in Theobald Mansions had square, concrete balconies, like giant window boxes. Tiffany looked at them and they became, in her mind, a ladder.

  A short, sharp run took her across the forecourt. She sprang for the lowest balcony and after a moment’s wriggling panic pulled herself up. Balancing on the balustrade she worked out her route. She’d have to jump to the balcony diagonally above, one-along and one-up, and carry on like that, in zig-zags, all the way to the top.

  Which meant truly heart-stopping leaps. She was risking her life quite unnecessarily, yet there was no question of turning back. Her nerves were alive with the same fire that had caused near disaster on Hampstead Heath: the bloody-minded determination of cats to finish whatever foolish adventure they started.

  A jump, a moment’s delirium, and she was clinging to another ledge and not lying broken on the ground. That was good. She quivered on her perch, gathered her strength. The exact same leap again. Third floor. There was a rhythm to it. On the fourth landing she slipped, but brushed it off as lightly as if she’d tripped on a step.

  It was with a cheeky pirouette that she vaulted over the side of Mrs Powell’s balcony. Stairs, who needed them? She reached through the open window, unlatched the French windows and parted the curtains. Her eyes adjusted to a gloomy room she’d never entered before. There was a bookcase, a telly and an ancient record-player. Jim’s scent hung in the air and his hairs coated the sofa like hoar-frost. She hoped Mrs Powell wouldn’t mind her coming in like this.

  ‘I heed no words nor walls,’ Tiffany said aloud. She picked a pamphlet off the coffee table, attracted by pictures of tigers. It was a glossy newsletter about a place called the Periyar Reserve in Kerala. That must be the wildlife park Mrs Powell had been visiting. Tiffany lapped up the snapshots of Indian rainforests, of flame-coloured beasts lurking through the leaves, forgetting her troubles in a fleeting daydream. Mrs Powell had said she was a patron of the park, so Tiffany hunted for mentions of her name, but found none. She put the pamphlet down and the hairs on her scalp stiffened as one.

  On the coffee table, previously covered, was a copy of New Scientist magazine, open at a centrefold. Tiffany didn’t have to read a word to recognise the man in the full-page photograph. Clad now in a white coat, with a jar in his shrivelled left hand, was Dr. J. Philip Cobb.

  She couldn’t hold the magazine steady. She also seemed to have forgotten how to read. Stumbling through the article, as if she were fleeing a vampire in a dream, she caught only snatches: sensational wonder-supplement, groundbreaking research, Panthacea, Only Nature’s Own, soon to be expanding. Multi-million pound new laboratory. It wasn’t the article itself that had made her brain crash. It was the fact that she’d found it here.

  The sofa creaked as she sat heavily. Her thoughts, which had frozen like packed ice, began to move again. Soon they were in avalanche. Why had Mrs Powell been reading an article on Doctor Cobb? What had Cobb said to Stanford?

  ‘Where did I get them all? Private collections. Imports. One or two I’ve had for years…’

  It made a horrible sense. If Cobb needed to import more big cats, as he surely would, who better to ask than someone who really understood them? Mrs Powell lived within sight of the derelict factory. And she had access to a steady supply of exactly the creatures Cobb desired. Tiffany jumped up from the sofa, feeling as if the walls were closing in on her. Could Mrs Powell really be in league with that monster? It was impossible. It was unspeakable. It…

  It meant she had to get out. Now.

  She burst onto the balcony, panting for breath. One look over the side told her it was hopeless. If she hadn’t been afraid before, she was now. Climbing down the way she had come up would be suicide. She ran back inside. It would have to be the stairs. The room had darkened, as if her cat eyesight now ran on fading batteries. A hard tug opened the door (the rug had wedged under it) and she was in the hallway. The flat’s front door—was it left or right?

  Before she could choose, her legs were swept from under her by a scything low kick and an unseen figure pinned her to the carpet, press
ing a knee in the small of her back.

  Tiffany squirmed and cried out. To her amazement the weight lifted off.

  ‘Tiffany Maine! What in the name of Anubis are you doing here?’

  Tiffany scrambled away before twisting round to face the dark figure. ‘N—nothing. I was just leaving.’

  Mrs Powell held up a hand. ‘You know I’ve no patience for this sort of thing. Just skip the fibs and get to the facts.’ She turned on a light and tightened the cord on her dressing-gown. Underneath it she was wearing pyjamas. Her hair was a mess but her lined face had a healthy olive tan. ‘Well?’

  It would be safer to stay silent. Then she’d merely be told to leave, never to return. But Tiffany had to know.

  ‘Did you…’ she whispered. ‘Are you…are you part of it, then?’

  ‘Part of what?’ Mrs Powell shot back.

  ‘Only Nature’s Own,’ Tiffany said. ‘Dr Philip Cobb. Panthacea. Are you in on it? Please tell me,’ she swallowed, ‘please tell me you’re not.’

  Mrs Powell looked her in the eye.

  ‘I’m not,’ she said. ‘Anything else, while you’re here?’

  The relief that flooded her was so great, she could have wept. ‘You’re not helping him? You’re really nothing to do with that man?’

  ‘You know of him.’ It was half-question, half-statement. ‘And Panthacea?’

  ‘A lot, yes.’ Tiffany began explaining about Stuart and his illness, then stopped.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Tiffany. ‘You said we should stay out of trouble.’

  It was a physical effort to tell the story. She related what had happened when she and Ben followed John Stanford. Where they had gone, what they had seen. ‘I had to talk to someone,’ she finished. ‘You were the only person I thought might help. But then I saw that article about Doctor Cobb on your table, and I…’

  ‘You assumed I knew him personally,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘The logic of young people. So if I were to find a poster of Elijah Wood in your bedroom, that would mean he’s your boyfriend, would it?’

  Tiffany blushed. Well, she could dream.

  Mrs Powell smiled tenderly. ‘Come on, girl.’ She led Tiffany into the small but spotless kitchen and put the kettle on. Jim appeared with a chirrup of recognition, rubbing his silver coat around Tiffany’s calves and rumbling like a bulldozer.

  ‘Give him this.’ Mrs Powell handed her a pale yellow fragment. Tiffany fed the parmesan cheese to the cat, who squirmed in ecstasy as he gnashed it down. Mrs Powell poured tea for the two of them and a little, diluted with milk, into a saucer, and sat at the kitchen table.

  ‘Now then,’ she said. ‘One more time. Cobb is holed up in the old factory?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tiffany. ‘That’s where he works. I don’t know if he sleeps there or goes home.’

  ‘If it really is him, you’ll find that he doesn’t sleep. Or hardly at all. Not enough to go to the trouble of owning a bed,’ said Mrs Powell.

  ‘How do you know about him? Who is he?’

  ‘I’ve been trailing him for many years,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘He has tried schemes like this before, although nothing so vile. Last time I and a few friends managed to get him stopped. But he disappeared. Then two years ago I heard that he’d ended up back in London. I bought this flat so I could watch and wait, and prepare. And it turns out I was right. Too right. He’s made his move too soon.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Mrs Powell set her tea upon the table. Her stern face softened and for a moment Tiffany saw it as a great pool of sadness.

  ‘You wanted me to tell you that I was nothing to do with Doctor Cobb,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘But, Tiffany, I’m afraid I can’t do that. Because I am everything to do with him.’

  Tiffany’s cup rattled in its saucer.

  ‘You see, that piece of human filth…that pus-caked hairball…’ Mrs Powell heaved a long breath, ‘is my son.’

  ‘You have to imagine me aged twenty-two,’ said Mrs Powell, tidying her grey hair with her fingers. ‘Hard to do, yes?’

  Tiffany could make no sound. Mrs Powell went on.

  ‘We were a footloose couple, Terence and I. Not the type to settle down in a cosy home together. Nor did I ever become Mrs Cobb. I walked by myself, and all places were alike to me.’

  The phrase rang a bell with Tiffany. Rudyard Kipling, of course.

  ‘I had James,’ said Mrs Powell, ‘while we were backpacking round the world. Yes, his proper name is James. We simply took him along, extra luggage. He lived in airports and hostels and, at the age of four, had not seen England. He loved every minute.

  ‘The longest we stayed anywhere was eight months, in Sri Lanka. I’d always been fascinated by cats, so I found work at the Yala Colombo leopard breeding programme. Terry put up with his girlfriend being a bit loopy. Didn’t understand the whole cat thing. Bear in mind this was years before I’d heard of pashki. Though it’s true that what happened next almost certainly threw me onto that path.

  ‘It was my fault. I never pretended otherwise. I was a feckless young miss. Wouldn’t wear shoes or socks and kept shredding my feet on bits of glass. Drank the tap water everywhere and got sick at both ends. And I let James play where he liked, with whatever local children were around. Let him grow up independent, like me. It used to drive Terence round the bend.’

  Mrs Powell’s voice was dry. She refilled her cup and drained it.

  ‘One day I was in the leopard enclosure, helping sedate an animal that had a suppurating ear. James wasn’t with us, I was never that stupid. He was outside the fence playing with a coconut husk. I’d forgotten that three baby leopards were roaming at the other end of the compound.

  ‘Poor little Jamie. He stuck his arm through the wire to touch them. Oddly enough, the kitten he chose to stroke didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. It was its mother who minded.

  ‘She was at the wire in a flash and had Jamie’s arm in her jaws. A second longer and she would have torn it off. But I heard him cry out—’ Mrs Powell paused and shut her eyes before resuming. ‘Such a cry. I ran over. I jabbed the mother leopard in the face with my ward-stick, half blinding her. Something I still feel sorry about. She was just another mother, protecting her child.

  ‘The doctor didn’t know if James would make it. His arm looked like it had been mashed in a machine. When at last he was stable, Terence took him back to England and told me not to follow. The surgeons in London saved the arm, but it never grew properly after that.’

  ‘And did you never see him again?’ Tiffany asked, softly.

  ‘Of course I did. You don’t tell a mother not to follow her sick son. I waited as long as I could, which was four days, then got a direct flight with all the savings I had left. I visited him every day in hospital.’

  Tiffany’s skin broke out in goosebumps as she thought of Stuart.

  ‘I watched him get better. That is, until,’ Mrs Powell smiled bitterly, ‘Terence got a court order preventing me from seeing James unsupervised. They said I was an unfit parent. And I believed them. I let myself be shut out of his life. He wasn’t even James by then. Terence was using his middle name. He said he’d always preferred Philip to James. I ask you! No-one prefers Philip.’

  ‘Mrs Powell,’ said Tiffany, ‘I read something. On Doctor Cobb’s website it mentions his accident. It says his mother died.’

  ‘That’s what he tells people,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘It might as well be true. His father made sure James—sorry, Philip—knew who to blame for his injury. For all I know, he ended up thinking I’d fed him to a leopard deliberately. He grew up hating and fearing me as much as he feared and loathed cats.’

  ‘If he’s so afraid,’ said Tiffany, ‘how can he bear to have a factory full of them?’

  ‘They can’t hurt him now,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘He uses them, he tortures them, and they make him rich and famous. Do you not know the word for it? It’s revenge.’

  The kitchen windows had become ghostly mir
rors, as if the darkness outside was wrapped close to imprison the light within. Tiffany and her pale reflection stared at each other. Minutes had passed since Mrs Powell stopped speaking. How late was it? She ought to ring home.

  ‘So. What now?’ she heard herself ask.

  ‘I go tonight,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘There is no point waiting.’

  ‘But what will you do?’

  Mrs Powell paused on her way out of the kitchen.

  ‘Why, stop him, of course.’

  INTO THE PRISON

  It took Tiffany a moment to recognise the shape that detached itself from the other shadows in the hall. Mrs Powell had changed into a close-fitting outfit quite different from the one she wore to teach. The pattern reminded her of Jim’s dappled silver coat, but in night-blues and greys. The biggest change was her face-print. Stripes streamed off the central M like lines of magnetic force. This was no mere camouflage; it was war-paint, framing eyes green and cold as a dusky winter sky.

  ‘The hot water’s on the blink again,’ she remarked. ‘You’ll have to use the Swarfega soap by the sink to wash your face. You can go in my bedroom to get changed. Where have you put your street clothes?’

  ‘Er…they’re in the leisure centre,’ said Tiffany. ‘It’ll be closed now. But I thought…’

  ‘Best leave the face paint on, then’ said Mrs Powell, ‘and go home as you are. If anyone sees you, they’ll assume you’ve walked out of an amateur production of Cats.’

  ‘I’m coming too, aren’t I?’ Tiffany burst out.

  ‘You most certainly are not,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘I will have enough on my mind without you to look after.’

  Tiffany bristled.

  ‘I know everything you’re about to say,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘You don’t need looking after. You can take care of yourself. You’re not going to be told what to do. Etcetera. It’s my fault. I’ve trained you too well.’