Shamanka (15 page)

There, to the left, is the Cat Barge. It is moored alone, its hull bumping against the bank behind a lacy screen of cow parsley. If you look closely, you'll see that the barge is decorated with hieroglyphics, and although the paint work has faded, the gilt on the figurehead is too bright to look at when the sun strikes it; shield your eyes – it is Bastet, the Cat Goddess.

Lola has slipped out of the wheelchair and is sitting in the long grass with her arm around Sam. They watch as the black cat leaps effortlessly onto the barge and sinks into a sea of fur. There are so many cats, the outline of the barge is fuzzy with whiskers.

There's no sign of Kitty yet. Sam puts her finger to her lips, beckons to Lola, and they climb on deck. That part is easy; it's knowing where to put your feet once aboard that's the problem. The barge is carpeted with cats and it wouldn't do to tread on that huge tabby one because it is bound to let out an ear-splitting…
MIAOWWWW!
The startled tabby cartwheels through the air, hissing and spitting, causing the other cats to explode simultaneously like a furry firework display. The fallout of fur is building up to unleash a gigantic sneeze – Sam has to pinch her nose… But someone's coming! Sam stands like a statue; Lola ducks and hides among the cats.

A woman rushes up from below deck, the sleeves of her long robe frothing around her fingertips. Her hair is waist length and dark and although her figure is youthful, it's impossible to tell how old she is because of her mask. It's tight-fitting – almost like a second skin – with the features painted on in Egyptian style. Only her eyes are animated; troubled eyes that flick from cat to cat, wondering what's caused all the excitement.

The masked woman clutches a kitten to her breast. It's so young, its eyes are still blue; but to its mistress's shock, it has already mastered human speech, because suddenly, it gazes up at her and in a snuffly voice says: “Hello, Kitty!”

The woman holds the kitten at arm's length, stares at it quizzically then presses its face close to her ear. Its eyes widen and it speaks again: “Look behind you, Kitty.”

The woman turns and is so startled to see a girl in a ringmaster's hat, it throws her off balance. Sam catches her as she falls.

“You
are
Kitty, aren't you?”

The woman doesn't reply.

“You are Kitty Bastet?”

Perhaps it's not Kitty. Or perhaps it
is
Kitty but she can't remember who she is. Perhaps her memory never returned – or is she playing games? Suddenly, the woman speaks.

“Who in Ra's name are
you
?”

“My name is Sam. Sam … Tabuh.”

She hesitates with her surname because she has been brought up as Sam Khaan. She'd kept her mother's maiden name. She was known as Sam Khaan at school but now she wants to be Sam Tabuh.

The woman's mask remains expressionless, but behind it, her mouth drops open in disbelief. A shudder escapes through the mouth slit. “You are not Sam. You're an illusion!”

Sam takes a blue pencil out of her pocket and rubs it with her fingers; the pencil turns red. It's basic magic: the red pencil had a thin tube of blue paper over it. Sam slips it off and puts it in her pocket faster than the eye can see.

“
That
is an illusion, Kitty; I'm real.”

She takes off her hat and points to her wild, blonde streak. “See? Now do you believe I'm John Tabuh's daughter?”

Kitty claps her hands to her mask and shakes her head in denial. “No, you are a … ghogle!”

Kitty struggles to find the right word; although most of her memory has returned, there are peculiar gaps in her vocabulary.

“A ghogle? Don't you mean ghost?”

“You died in a fire when you were a booby. I was up a ladder, I couldn't reach you. The flans were too fierce. I screamed out to Lilo, ‘Save the booby!' But the flans blew out the top widow. I remember falling … falling.”

She meant flames, not flans. Widow meant window. Saving the booby? Ah, the
baby
. Sam finds it hard to keep a straight face. Kitty squats down, her fingers over the eyeholes in her mask and groans. “Have you come back to haunt me?”

“How can I haunt you? I'm not dead! The reason Lola and I are here is to ask if you know where my father—”

“Lilo? Is Lilo here too?” Kitty thought she'd died in the fire with Sam. She'd grieved for both of them.

“Yes,
Lola
's over there, trying to hide among the ginger cats. You can't miss her – I had to disguise her as a granny, and the blouse is rather bright.”

“But I do miss her,” wails Kitty.

Lola swings across the deck and throws her arms around Kitty, who is overcome with emotion. “Oh …
oh
! My darling pet grape! My sweet meringue-utan!”

Sam notices tears spilling down the elegant nose of the mask. She pretends to watch the seagulls and waits for the crying to stop. “Now do you believe I'm who I say I am, Kitty?”

Kitty dabs her mask with her sleeve. “I want to believe it more than anything but I dare not. What if this is just a beautiful drama and I wake up? My hat will break. I'll go mad.”

“Let's do a deal,” says Sam. “I will trust that you are Kitty if you trust that I am Sam.”

“But I'm
not
Kitty; I am Fey Ra! High Prancess to the Giddiness Bistet.”

Sam has been wondering for some time why Kitty's name doesn't appear on the witch doctor's list. She has a quick glance in the notebook. There's her real name, smouldering away at the top. Fey Ra, Priestess to the Goddess Bastet.

“But you can call me Kitty if you like,” announces Fey Ra.

She holds out her arms to embrace Sam. “I primrosed your father I'd look after you, but I failed – I'm so sorry.”

Sam puts her arms stiffly by her sides. As I've explained, she can't recall ever being held by a person, and although Kitty held her when she was a baby, she's forgotten it and the embrace feels awkward. Lola comes to the rescue and puts her arms round both of them.

This is not the first time Lola has come to Sam's rescue, and now it is time for you to learn about her Heroic Deed. Kitty didn't witness it – she'd already jumped out of the window – but I can tell you that it was Lola who lifted Sam out of the burning crib and it was then that Sam dropped her silver rattle.

But how did the flames start? Why was Kitty up a ladder? Who was the blonde woman Ruth Abafey saw running from the scene?

“Ruth who?”

Kitty can't remember her at all. Sam sits her down.

“
Try
Kitty. Concentrate! She's the witch who pulled you out of the wharf. You left this under her pillow.” She shows her the cat charm. Kitty touches it with her fingertips.

“So
that's
where it went. I never knew the witch was called Ruth.”

“Why did you leave without saying goodbye to her, Kitty? Where did you go?”

“To look for you!”

Kitty tells Sam exactly what the witch had told her; the blow to her head had deprived her of speech. For a time, she couldn't remember who she was or how she came to be in the witch's waiting room. Then one morning, her memory began to return; there had been a fire in the warehouse. She remembered who started it.

“It was Candy Khaan!”

Sam feels as if she's been hit on the head with a frying pan. “
My
Aunt
Candy?”

“Yes! Your Aunt Candy has the most violent teapot—”

“I know she's violent,” grumbles Sam. “I lived with her for twelve years.”

Kitty throws her hands up in disbelief. “You did
what
? But I looked for you there! Hope against hope, I went to St Peter's Square to see if Lola had managed to rescue you and take you to Candy's.”

But the windows were boarded up. No one answered the doorbell. Kitty thought Candy had flown, like John Tabuh.

“I was there all the time,” says Sam. “I don't know how I came to be there though…”

She breaks off. Something Aunt Candy had said suddenly begins to make sense.
Your only friend, the orange monkey, turned up with you on my doorstep like rubbish blown in from the street…!
Aunt Candy was the woman Ruth saw running away from the burning warehouse. She'd slammed the door behind her so that Kitty, Lola and Sam would be trapped in the flames. Lola had climbed out of the window with Sam in her arms and followed Aunt Candy home. They arrived safe and sound at St Peter's Square, and despite Aunt Candy's fury, she was no match for an orang-utan with a grudge; she had no choice but to let them in.

Sadly, Kitty hadn't known this. Consumed by grief, guilt, and utterly confused – for her memory would never be quite the same – she went to live as a recluse on Eel Pie Island, where no one would ever find her.

Or so she thought.

The masked magician guesses a secret word which someone has written on a piece of paper – how?

THE SECRET

You need: a pencil, paper, a white envelope, lighter fuel, matches, a fireproof bucket full of sand
.

NB Ask permission to use matches and lighter fuel if you are a minor or an arsonist.

1. Choose a volunteer. Explain that you can read their mind.

2. Ask them to write a word down on the piece of paper – they mustn't tell you what it is.

3. Ask them to put the paper in the envelope and seal it.

4. Pour lighter fuel over the envelope; it will go transparent so you can see the word written on the paper inside.

5. Memorize the word, put the envelope in the bucket of sand and set fire to it.

6. Reveal the secret word to your amazed audience.

N
o matter what opinion you might have formed about John Tabuh, you should know this: it was
Kitty
who persuaded him to leave his baby daughter in her care while he went to Scotland. He would never have gone if he'd thought Sam was at risk. If only he could see her now, eating oranges with Lola below deck on the barge.

“So he thinks I'm dead too, Kitty.”

Kitty nods sadly. “As for your poor mother – the grief must be killing her.”

Sam juggles a handful of oranges and explains that there's no chance of that; her mother died when she was born. Aunt Candy told her.

“Oh,
did
she?” Kitty starts muttering in Ancient Egyptian: “Oh, mighty Bastet, by your infinite grace protect the sanity of this unhappy child!”

“I'm fine about it, honestly,” insists Sam. “I never knew my mother; I've had thirteen years to get used to the fact that she's dead.”

“It's
not
a fact!”

Sam continues to juggle oranges as if she hasn't heard correctly. “What's not a fact?”

“Your mother didn't die in childbirth.”

“How did she die then?”

“She didn't.” To Kitty's knowledge, Christa left the warehouse in a box, but she was alive and well at the time.

The oranges plop to the floor and the colour drains from Sam's face. You'd think she'd be delighted to hear that her mother was alive, but the truth – if it is the truth – takes a while to sink in.

“Say something,” Kitty implores.

Sam is speechless. If her mother is alive, why has she never tried to find her? Does her mother think she's dead too?

“There's a very good raisin—” begins Kitty.

“What good reason could there be for my mother to leave the warehouse in a box!”

“Well … ooh… There was a good reason. It'll come to me in a minute…”

Is Kitty struggling with her memory or is she afraid to tell Sam the truth? Sam grits her teeth.

“Try to remember! Did Aunt Candy know my mother was alive?”

No, Aunt Candy was tricked into thinking Christa was dead. For once, she hadn't lied to Sam.

“Who tricked her? Tell me, Kitty!”

“Your father, your mother and, er, me.”

Why would they do such a thing? Why would anyone want to fool Candy into thinking her own sister had died? Kitty holds up her hands:

“Candy brought it on herself. We had to make her believe Christa had been killed.”

Killed?
What dreadful secrets had gone up in smoke all those years ago? John and Christa aren't here to explain; it's down to Kitty to reveal everything.

She admits to Sam that the witch doctor really had sent his son on a global quest. That much is now indisputable. Unfortunately, things didn't go quite as John had expected. Hardly surprising. The chances of crossing the Pacific in a mwa sawah and surviving are very slim. The witch doctor must have known the canoe would capsize, so, given that he was desperate for his only son to step into his shoes, why would he send him to his inevitable death?

I suspect Yafer Tabuh
knew
a ship would be passing the right place at the right time to save his son from the shark-infested water. He could read the patterns of the waves. Even if the ship was far out to sea, its ripples could be read at the upper end of the Sepik, and he could judge its position with amazing accuracy.