The City Cats Page 5

  ‘I have another one to bring,’ she murmured. ‘I daren’t leave him alone any longer. I must go.’ Then she had an idea. ‘His father’s gone hunting,’ she fibbed. ‘He may be back by now and he may not.’ She thought the tom would be more cautious if he believed another male was around.

  ‘You fetch the youngster,’ Toby told her. ‘I’ll keep guard while Father’s not around.’ He didn’t sound in the least concerned.

  Pinkie knew she must go. There was no help for it. She must simply hope this Toby was to be trusted.

  ‘You haven’t told me who you are,’ the grey tom reminded her.

  ‘I’m called Pinkie,’ she said. She took a last look at Moss and Fern and then vanished.

  Toby jumped down from the wall and stepped over to the kittens’ new nursery. They were already settling themselves amongst the straw. When the strange cat’s big round face peered into the box they backed away, making little hissing sounds. Toby was amused. ‘What a fuss,’ he commented. ‘I’m quite harmless, you know. Just standing guard whilst your mother goes for the other one. We’d make a good pair, don’t you think?’ He sat down by the side of the box muttering, ‘Toby and Pinkie, Pinkie and Toby. Father’s away hunting. . . . ha ha, I know better than that.’

  Minutes later Pinkie was back. Little Sammy was heavier than his sisters and she was tired. She quickly checked that Moss and Fern were safe. They were asleep but they woke up when Little Sammy was introduced to the box.

  ‘It seems you were true to your word,’ Pinkie remarked, glancing at Toby who was sitting rather like a sentry next to the box.

  ‘Of course, why should you have doubted it?’

  ‘Well, we’re strangers, aren’t we? How could I be sure?’

  ‘Hm. You certainly took a risk then, if you weren’t sure, leaving them in such an exposed position.’ He indicated the kittens. ‘And besides, we’re not such strangers really, Pinkie. At least, I don’t think of you as a stranger.’

  ‘Why, what do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve been keeping my eye on you for some time. I’ve seen you about in the park, usually near the lake. I’ve been admiring the grace and delicacy with which you go about finding food. I’m delighted we’re going to be companions.’

  Pinkie gaped. This cat had watched her in the park! How was it she had never seen him? She didn’t like the way he was insinuating himself into her company. She hadn’t asked for it.

  ‘I don’t think we can be companions – ever,’ she said. ‘I have my kittens to look after and you – you have your life.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Toby purred, ‘we’ll just be like one happy family, you wait and see.’ His voice had taken on a barely detectable harsher note. But Pinkie had noticed it.

  ‘We couldn’t possibly be like a family,’ she assured him coolly. Her temper was kindled and it gave her courage. ‘You can’t have two adult males in a family of cats.’

  ‘Two?’ Toby queried. ‘Two toms?’ He pretended to be mystified. ‘Where’s the other one?’

  ‘I told you the kittens’ father was out hunting,’ Pinkie said. Now there was an edge to her voice. ‘You see, I have a mate – Sammy.’

  ‘Oh-ho, come now, Pinkie. I wasn’t born yesterday. There’s no Sammy or any other mate. Not any more. If there were I’d have seen him, wouldn’t I? I can’t blame you for trying but really, how many toms stay around in one place for long, with one mate? Especially when there are kittens! It’s just not in our nature. Sammy’s gone, hasn’t he? You’re on your own – or you were.’

  Pinkie was silent. Her tail swished. She was angry, yet she was, in a way, caught. Sammy wasn’t around any more. That much was true. But she objected strongly to this animal’s assumption that he was going to take Sammy’s place. She daren’t risk upsetting the grey tom in case the kittens were to pay the penalty for it. He was quite capable of doing them harm if she tried to thwart him. So it would be best to play along for now and then take the first opportunity to get away from here with the kittens. She realized with a pang that the park could no longer be considered a safe haven. She looked steadily at Toby.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ she enquired.

  ‘Why, I told you,’ he answered. ‘Your company!’ He knew she was in a corner. ‘Your company and your – cooperation,’ he finished, leaving Pinkie to make up her own mind what that meant.

  Pinkie gave a low growl. ‘I suppose I can’t avoid your company,’ she said. ‘But I can’t answer for the consequences when Sammy comes back.’

  ‘Don’t you mean if he comes back?’ Toby asked subtly. ‘It’s perfectly obvious you don’t know where he is.’

  Pinkie didn’t say any more. She got into the box she had chosen and the kittens settled themselves against her. She purred. This place was beautifully dry and snug, so much better than the muddy park.

  ‘A picture of contentment,’ Toby remarked wryly.

  Yes, thought Pinkie. It would be that, if only you weren’t around.

  Pinkie and her little family didn’t stir from the box during the rest of the night. The grey tom wandered away when they were all sleeping. By morning the kittens and Pinkie were quite dry. She gave Moss, Fern and Little Sammy a thorough washing, then she set about her own coat. Her fur began to look something like its true white colour again. Pinkie was relieved to see that Toby was nowhere in evidence.

  ‘It’s a pity I’ve got to move away from here when we’ve only just made ourselves comfortable,’ she said to the kittens. ‘I really think we must go, though. I don’t like strange cats coming around us uninvited.’ She stopped speaking as she heard noises coming from the shop to which the yard was attached. She pricked up her ears. A door in the rear of the premises was opened and a man stepped out. He called back to someone who was inside. Pinkie tensed. ‘Quickly, hide yourselves,’ she hissed to the kittens. She hustled them deeper into the straw until they were more or less covered by it. Then she slunk away from the box in order to make it less conspicuous. She secreted herself behind a pile of cartons and waited until all was quiet again.

  Suddenly, a voice she recognized said, ‘I’m flattered. How did you know to find me here?’ It was Toby whose grey head she now saw peeping from the flap of one of the cartons.

  ‘I wasn’t looking for you,’ Pinkie declared irritably. ‘People are about and I didn’t want to lead them to the kittens.’

  ‘Oh, now I’m disappointed,’ said Toby with a cat grin. He of course knew this quite well.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Pinkie said scathingly. ‘I haven’t any inclination to listen to your nonsense.’

  Toby’s eyes glinted. ‘But you must listen to me!’ he snapped so sharply that Pinkie was startled. He went on in smoother tones. ‘It’s part of being a companion, isn’t it?’

  Pinkie said nothing for a while, then she asked, ‘Is that where you sleep, in that thing?’

  ‘Here or another, it’s all the same to me,’ the tom told her.

  ‘How long have you lived here?’

  ‘Long enough to know loneliness.’

  Pinkie blinked. Toby sounded different – subdued. ‘Are there other cats on your territory?’

  ‘There was one,’ Toby said softly. ‘She was lovely. She looked very like you – glossy white fur, smart, and fast on her feet.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘She was killed. Run over on that busy road.’ He indicated the road Sammy and Pinkie had crossed to get to the park. ‘She wasn’t very old. She was running to join me and the next minute she was struck and tossed into the air. It was a horrible thing to see.’

  Pinkie looked sympathetically at the tom. She guessed that the white cat had once been his mate. She also guessed that he was looking to her to act as a substitute. Before she could comment Toby continued. ‘That’s why I used to come and watch you, you see. You reminded me so much of her.’

  ‘I understand,’ Pinkie said quietly. ‘Actually I – we,’ she hastily amended, ‘we don’t come from these parts
.’

  ‘I thought as much,’ Toby said. ‘You talk differently – with an accent. Tell me about yourself.’

  Pinkie related how she and Sammy had arrived in the city unexpectedly and she described her old home and the life she had known amongst the vagabond cats.

  Toby listened without interruption. ‘It was the same here when I was young,’ he said afterwards. ‘Lots of animals. But most of them were rounded up by the humans and taken away. I think there were just too many and they didn’t like that.’

  ‘You survived.’

  ‘Yes. Oh yes. I’m the great survivor.’

  ‘Are you content here?’

  ‘No. That is, I may be now,’ he said meaningfully.

  Pinkie quickly changed the subject. ‘I want to go back to my home,’ she said, ‘but I don’t know how to do it. It seems so far away.’

  ‘Your first duty is to your youngsters,’ Toby remarked.

  ‘Of course it is. They need me and I must get back to them now. There’s no danger at the moment and they’ll need feeding.’ She paused. ‘Er – I’m glad you told me about yourself,’ she said. ‘I understand better now.’

  ‘Good. You know, I can help you–’ Toby repeated, ‘with feeding, and other things too.’

  ‘Feeding? How can you?’

  ‘I know where there’s plenty of meat. I’ll show you. There’s a place where humans fetch their own meat. At the back the man throws a lot of it away. Come with me now, we’ll bring some back.’

  ‘My babies don’t eat meat yet,’ Pinkie said with some amusement at Toby’s eagerness. ‘They’re still suckling.’

  ‘But you – you’re not a great hunter,’ he observed. ‘I’ve seen you collecting the scraps. You could benefit.’

  ‘I could,’ admitted Pinkie.

  ‘Well then?’

  ‘Wait for me here. I’ll return as soon as I can.’

  7

  Along the canal

  IGNORANT OF EVERYTHING that had affected Pinkie’s life, Sammy was on his way back to the park. He took the route along the canalside and once more reached the crossroads he had examined the night before. In the daytime the constant stream of nose-to-tail traffic made it impossible to continue. To attempt a crossing in the rush hour would be to invite almost certain death. He was forced to bide his time. He wandered up and down the road. If Lizzie Reed had been home she would have been astonished to discover just how close to her flat Sammy had remained. The black cat kept out of sight but every time Sammy passed its house he adopted a sort of swagger, as though to vaunt his superiority. He was in danger of his vanity making him careless. He remembered his other conquests back in Quartermile Field – of Brindle, and the strong ginger cat Sunny who had hated him, and then of the king cat, Brute, whose relationship to himself he hadn’t understood until after their fight. He had conquered them all. He was a great fighter and he feared nothing except what he had recently experienced – a loss of freedom.

  Later in the morning, Sammy returned to the crossroads. The tabby was eager to get back to Pinkie. He recalled how he had crossed that other road. There were now occasional lapses in the motor traffic. When it was quiet Sammy shot forward. The road was clear. Then, from a side turning, a cyclist swung out without warning. In the middle of the road Sammy froze. He had good cause to fear bicycles. It was the worst thing he could have done. Once more the traffic bore down in both directions. Sammy couldn’t go back and he couldn’t go on. He was stuck between lanes, a tiny forlorn figure dwarfed by roaring metal monsters on either side. As they whizzed past, drivers glanced curiously at the cowering cat. But nobody stopped. Passers-by, unable to enter the mêlée, clapped hands to mouths in horror of the seemingly inevitable ghastly end to the cat’s predicament. But Sammy was a lucky cat. Almost level with where he was crouching a huge lorry squealed to a halt. The driver leapt out and ran round to the back, holding up his hands to the vehicles behind. Amid a barrage of hoots and shouts Sammy bolted to the other side of the road, completely unharmed.

  Without a second thought, Sammy careered along the pavement, tail flying, dodging people and dogs, and hugging a wall or fence wherever he could, eager to put as much distance as possible between himself and his terrifying experience. He kept a straight course past houses and a corner shop, always in the direction of Pinkie. But, when he was sufficiently calm to notice, he realized that his guide and pointer, the canal, seemed to have disappeared. How could Sammy know that this stretch of the canal was built over, that there was no towpath for him to follow?

  He paused at the end of the road of terraced houses, opposite a large and busy pub. The air was mild and suddenly the unmistakable smell of stagnant water wafted across to him. That was the smell he was searching for! He recognized it instantly from the canal reach opposite Lizzie’s flat. Sammy sniffed and followed the scent. For a while it didn’t get any stronger but, as he rounded a corner by a block of flats, the full rich ripe scent of the dark water assailed him. He edged forward, stepping circumspectly, and there below him was the familiar serpentine wind of the canal. Sammy bounded down some wooden stairs, then some steps to the canalside path. A lone jogger ran towards him from the distance.

  Sammy was sure now that if he kept to the waterside he must eventually come to the park. He knew this could prove to be a long journey but the path looked empty and free from danger. He must find food where he could on the way. He concentrated his thoughts on Pinkie. Would she still be in the park? What if the strange wild animals had discovered her? Oh, what was he going to find when he got back? It was so long since he had seen her and so much could have happened.

  As the jogger approached, Sammy took the precaution of hiding himself in a mass of weeds that grew against a high wall on his left. He needn’t have bothered. The track-suited man didn’t even give him a glance. Sammy remained sitting for a moment.

  ‘How peaceful it is here,’ he said to himself, remembering the din and rush of motor traffic. ‘I don’t think there will be much to hinder me along the way. But I must steer clear of humans, I can’t afford to get trapped again.’ He jumped clear of the weeds, amongst whose dead stalks new growth was already beginning to show, and went forward again. Now, the path was entirely devoid of people. Occasionally a sparrow or two alighted on the path and hopped about, in search of seeds or crumbs. Sammy was eager to practise his hunting techniques after such a long period of dependency. Each time he saw the birds he squatted and watched. If they stayed around long enough he began to slink forward, hopeful of reviving his old skills. The sparrows never remained on the ground for more than a few moments. They were supremely wary of any sort of movement. Sammy was unable to come anywhere near them.

  ‘They must know I’m fast,’ he told himself to compensate. ‘They’ll know all about cats, that’s for sure. And if they’re cagey about the pets round here, they’ll need to be especially heedful of an expert like me. Oh, I’d like to show them!’ Sammy snarled, picturing himself stalking rabbits back in the overgrown allotments near Quartermile Field.

  The path stretched ahead several hundred metres and then disappeared into a short tunnel. Sammy’s progress was rapid, broken only by the periodic interruptions of the sparrows. The darkness of the tunnel didn’t alarm him. It was still light enough in there to see everything he needed to see – what was ahead of him, what was behind him, what was approaching on the canal – and indeed he saw absolutely nothing to disturb him. He did see boats but none of them moved.

  They were houseboats, moored in a line against the near bank. People lived on them. Some of the occupants had made little gardens of flowers along the border by the footpath. Nobody was stirring just then but Sammy sensed their presence and he slunk along stealthily, careful not to arouse any interest. However, there were not only people living on the houseboats. A small brown mongrel, not unlike a Staffordshire terrier, had been dozing on deck on one of the craft. He awoke as Sammy stole past. He jumped up, instantly alert, and yapped.

  ‘Hey – you!
Wait!’ The dog strained at a short chain secured to the deck. ‘Don’t run!’

  Sammy hesitated. He looked across at the dog and saw that the animal was restricted by its chain. He relaxed. ‘What do you want?’ he asked.

  The dog replied with a question. ‘Can you catch mice?’ it demanded unexpectedly.

  ‘Of course I can catch mice,’ Sammy answered indignantly.

  ‘Any sort of mice?’

  ‘What sort of mice are there? They’re all the same.’

  The dog disagreed. ‘Oh no,’ it said, ‘they’re not at all. Perhaps you’re not such a great mouser after all, if you think that.’

  Sammy was becoming impatient. ‘Look, what’s all this about? I haven’t got time to waste, I’m on my way back home.’

  ‘All right, I’ll tell you,’ said the dog. ‘You see this chain?’ He turned and snapped viciously at it as if it were a live thing. ‘I’ve been attached to this hateful object as a punishment because I can’t catch mice – or, at any rate, not one particular one. But a cat now – that’s different.’

  Sammy was interested despite himself. ‘Cats are different,’ he concurred, ‘especially where mice are concerned.’

  ‘Yes. Well, my mistress hates them. She’s got a thing about mice. They bother her where she goes to work. I’ve been there. Mice everywhere. It’s in an old building, you see. Mice love those, don’t they? And now there’s one on this boat. Oh, and it’s so clever! I was set to catch it – and failed. The commotion it caused! I tried everything and I did do my best. What a fuss. Now I’m out here in disgrace and my mistress is refusing to feed me. I think she thinks if I get hungry enough I’ll be more determined to catch the mouse.’ The dog broke off to give a howl of misery. ‘I shall never catch it,’ it resumed. ‘I’m called Smartie but I’m not smart enough for this mouse. It’s too quick and nimble for me. I just crash into things and upset everything. And it’s so cheeky! It pinches food right in front of your eyes and then it sits and laughs at you. I’ll never get it, never,’ the dog moaned. ‘I’ll starve first. I know I will.’