Shamanka (14 page)

When Sam held the cat charm last night in the hope of finding Kitty via psychometry, nothing happened at first. It was only in her half-asleep, half-awake state that the name Eel Pie Island sprang to mind. It was such a strong feeling, she sat up in bed and, unable to stop herself, shouted, “Eel Pie!”

It woke Lola, who hooted anxiously, but when she realized that the outburst had been caused by her darling girl, she gathered Sam in her arms, and together they fell back to sleep.

There was a dream about a painted barge covered in cats. There were so many cats, it looked as if the deck was lined with fur. It vibrated with the sheer volume of purring. It was dark and the barge was strung with green fairy lights; only they weren't fairy lights; they were cats' eyes.

Sam pushes the wheelchair up a ramp and explains to Lola that they're looking for a barge with cats. The orang-utan has taken Mrs Fraye's hat off and is licking the cherries which decorate the brim. Sam puts it back on her head and ties it firmly under the chin.

“You're supposed to be in disguise, remember?”

Lola hides her face in the rug, but she's smiling. She likes it in the wheelchair. Orang-utans aren't very keen on walking.

There are several houseboats moored at the water's edge. Some have dogs and Sam tries to steer clear of these. While it's easy enough to fool people that she's taking her granny for a stroll, she can't fool the dogs; they have an excellent sense of smell, and grandmothers smell nothing like orang-utans.

Sure enough, as they turn the corner, a burly hound with little red eyes gets a whiff of ape and barks loudly. Sam breaks into a trot. “Next time I take you out, remind me to rub you with Ruth's oil, Lola!”

Once the dog is far behind them, Sam stops to catch her breath and is greeted by gales of laughter coming from a blue barge. Attached to its mast is a huge inflatable bird held together with patches from a puncture kit; it swoops in the breeze, trying to escape from its tether. Sam guesses it's an albatross. She once read a poem – The Rime of the Ancient Mariner – in which a sailor shot an albatross and was cursed forever, because seafarers believe the birds are the spirits of drowned mariners.

She's just wondering how such superstitions come about when several men dressed as pirates rush onto deck armed with bows and arrows which they fire at the inflatable bird. Most of the arrows miss, but suddenly, there's a loud pop followed by a chorus of hurrahs as the air escapes from the albatross, causing it to fold like a pancake.

“That was lucky, my hearties!” cries the captain.

“That was
very
lucky, Captain!” agree the rest. They all perform the Sailor's Hornpipe, kicking each others' buttocks with gusto as if to celebrate a great victory.

Suddenly, they realize they're being watched.

“Ah,” says the captain to Sam, “you mustn't worry, you know.”

“Mustn't I?” says Sam.

There's a chorus of mumbling from the crew. Oh, no, she shouldn't worry. That was the whole point of shooting the albatross; they did it to prove that no bad luck would befall the sailors, and to make a mockery of the ancient belief.

“How can you be sure?” asks Sam. “You've only just shot it! Isn't it too early to tell?”

Not at all, they reply. We shoot the same albatross every year and nothing's happened so far. True, the captain has corns, but that's not bad luck; it's because he wears pointy boots.

The captain and his crew are all members of the Eccentrics Club of Great Britain, a group that gathers on the blue barge every Friday the thirteenth to deliberately flout superstition.

“Come aboard!” says the bo'sun, “There're only eleven of us, so if you two ladies would join us for lunch, we can smash the theory that thirteen diners is an unlucky number.”

“I'd love to,” says Sam, “but my granny's rather shy. I think she'd prefer to sit by herself on the deck if you don't mind.”

Nobody minds. They carry the wheelchair onto the barge, park Lola in the sunshine and take Sam down below. The entrance to the galley is blocked by a ladder propped up at such a shallow angle, she has to limbo under it. The pirates encourage her with handclapping and chanting: “Under the ladder! Under the ladder!”

“Isn't it unlucky to walk under a ladder?” she asks.

“Nonsense!” cries the captain.

“Rubbish!” roars the bo'sun. “People only assume it's unlucky because a ladder bears a resemblance to the gallows. But it's
not
the gallows, is it? I bear a resemblance to a pirate, but I'm
not
a pirate, am I?”

“No, you work for the Council,” snorts the captain. “There are no pirates in the council.”

The bo'sun stops clapping and half closes his eyes.

“There are no pirates … but there are sharks!”

Sam is about to ask the bo'sun to explain himself when she sees a black cat being chased by an old man in baggy shorts. He's leading a conga of ladies who are yelling instructions at him.

“Faster, Albert! Puss is getting away!”

“You catch him, we'll stroke him!”

“Almost got him… Dang! He's gone under the seat.”

Sam kneels down and peers at the cat. It peers back and she strokes its head.

“You didn't ought to do that!” wheezes Albert sarcastically. “Stroking a black cat? That's dicing with death, that is!”

Sam scoops the cat up and rocks it like a furry baby. “Superstitious nonsense,” she says.

“Of course it is!” agree the ladies. “We stroke that cat on a regular basis and no harm has come to any one of us, has it, girls?”

“No, no harm … although Gladys did slip over outside the butchers.”

“Yes, and Sylvia Pugh was struck by lightning.”

“And Mavis Meredith's boarding house slid down the cliff into the sea.”

But none of these tragic events were in any way brought about by stroking black cats; and as if to prove it, they line up and take it in turns to caress the captured cat until the bell rings for lunch.

There are thirteen chairs, but as Lola isn't joining them, the cat is placed on the spare seat next to Sam to make up the numbers. By each chair is an umbrella. The captain sits at the head of the table and as soon as Sam is seated, he bellows, “Brollies up!” There's a whooshing sound as eleven umbrellas are opened and the odd scream as someone is poked in the eye.

The bo'sun nudges Sam with his elbow. “Put your umbrella up. And the cat's while you're at it.”

“Why? Does the roof leak? There don't appear to be any holes.”

“The opening of an umbrella indoors is dreadfully unlucky!” mocks the captain.

“Ludicrous!” shouts the bo'sun.

“Folly!” wheezes Albert. “I always open my umbrella indoors and I've never had an accident because of – arghhhhhh!”

As he speaks, the leg of his chair falls off and he's deposited on the floor, grabbing the tablecloth as he falls, causing the crockery to slide off and smash.

Sam rushes to help him up. “No broken bones, touch wood!” she says, tapping the table, which outrages the seated members of the Eccentrics Club.

“
Don't
touch wood! We don't do anything that's supposed to be lucky.”

“We don't believe in it,” agrees Albert, who now has nowhere to sit and is trying to share a small-bottomed chair with the large-bottomed lady next to him.

Sam says that surely Albert was lucky not to be hurt, but he insists luck didn't come into it. The fact that he fell has
nothing
to do with the umbrellas; the leg of his chair had woodworm.

It's not easy eating a meal while holding an umbrella, and the pie tastes odd to Sam.

“That's because it's Mag-Pie,” says the bo'sun.

“
Magpie
Pie?”

“Yes, that's why it's mostly gravy and not much meat. There isn't much meat on one magpie.”

“Why not make it with more magpies?”

The bo'sun rolls his eyes. “Don't you know the rhyme about magpies?” He starts to sing:

There's a round of applause, and the captain leans across the table and explains that to see a single magpie is about the unluckiest thing that can happen, so imagine how unlucky it is to eat one. Sam puts her fork down. “It tastes awful.”

“Have some wine,” says the bo'sun, slapping her on the back and pouring the pale green liquid into her glass.

“Is it unlucky wine?” she asks.

“It made from four-leaf clovers,” he whispers, “which
would
be lucky, only we pulled a leaf off each one, so then they were
three
-leaf clovers.”

“How unlucky can a wine be? Cheers!” hoots Albert, deliberately spilling the salt.

“You have gravy round your face,” says Sam.

“Do I? Does anyone have a mirror?”

The big-bottomed lady produces one from her handbag. Albert looks at his reflection and, having taken care to wipe off every trace of magpie gravy with the corner of the tablecloth, he smashes the mirror to pieces with a ladle. “Seven years bad luck, my friends?” He grins.

“Not on your
Nelly
!” holler the guests in unison. “Well done!” “Bravo!”

The black cat climbs onto Sam's lap, lured by a scrap of magpie meat, and sits there purring.

“This is such a sweet cat, Captain. Does it live on this barge?” asks Sam.

The captain shrugs his shoulders.

“I don't know. We only hire the barge. It might do and it might not.”

“Not!” shouts Albert, who's had too much clover wine. “That cat doesn't live here, it lives on the Cat Barge.”

“The Cat Barge?”

Yes. There's a barge full of cats of all shapes and sizes moored somewhere round about. Albert can't remember where exactly, but he remembers seeing it once.

“When he was drunk!” says the big-bottomed lady, upon whose lap he is now sitting.

“That cat,” continues Albert, “lives with the Cat Woman. But I can't tell you what she looks like, because … because…”

The lady snatches his glass away. “Because you're drunk, that's why!”

“No, no, no … because she wears a
mask
.”

A mask? A shiver runs down Sam's spine. “Did she tell you her name, Albert? Was it Kitty?”

“I never asked,” he replies. “It's very rude to ask a lady her name.”

“No, it's rude to ask a lady her
age
!” insists the woman, whereupon Albert promptly tries to guess how old she is, causing great offence. The rest of the ladies leap to her defence, assuring her that she doesn't look a day over ninety, and, while the captain and the bo'sun try to stop them lynching Albert on the ladder with his own tie, Sam slips away from the table with the black cat in her arms.

With any luck, she will be able to follow it back to the barge.

T
he black cat sits in front of Lola's wheelchair and washes its whiskers. When Sam releases the brake, it trots off down the towpath with its tail held high. Sam hurries after it, but the wheelchair isn't easy to steer. It keeps veering towards the water like a wayward supermarket trolley and she's afraid that she'll tip Lola into the Thames, or lose the cat.

She shouldn't worry; this Friday the thirteenth is a lucky day for her. The black cat doesn't climb up a tree, nor does it disappear under one of the many overturned canoes on the slipway; it heads straight for home.

Following its silent paws, we arrive at a place untroubled by houses and left to grow wild. Apart from the whine of mosquitoes rising in clouds above the river and the monotonous
squeak, squeak
of Lola's wheelchair, all is peaceful. Deserted.