Six Lives of Fankle the Cat (3 page)

As quietly as she could, Jenny reported the disaster to her mother.

It was more than flesh and blood could bear. Mrs Thomson groaned. Two large tears, like pearls, gathered in her eyes and coursed down her stricken face. She was beyond speech. It was all sighs and groans with her. At last she managed “doctor,” and “brandy,” and “Why do I have to suffer like this?” and finally, at the peak of pain, “That was the loveliest cheese I ever made!”

And she looked at Jenny as if Jenny was personally responsible for all her sufferings.

At this point Jan Thomson came in. The two women of the house poured out to him, in broken phrases, the sum of troubles that had happened. Jan Thomson listened with sympathy (for he was a kind man), and he went over and kissed his wife on the cheek, and stroked her hair, and murmured kind words.

“Now,” said Jenny to herself, “now is the time to slip away and find that cat and return him to the boatshed!”

But, as it turned out, Jenny did not have to go to that trouble, for Fankle presented himself at the open door – softly, subtly, secretly, a jet black shadow. The cat was carrying across his jaws a creature as big as himself, a long grey sinister shape. The beast was dead. And it was a rat.

As if Fankle knew what was what, he dragged his prey over the flagstone floor and, with the greatest of courtesy, laid the rat at the feet of Mrs Thomson. Then he went over to the other side of the fire, gave his paw a long sweep with his tongue, and began to wash his face. (You have to clean yourself well after a battle with a rat.)

Most ladies, presented with a rat, even a dead rat, would have screamed and gone rushing round the room. Not Mrs Thomson. After a first amazed minute, she fixed the grey shape on the floor with an amazed and satisfied eye. There was no doubt in her mind that here lay the pirate who had ruined the summer for her.

“Good gracious!” cried Jan Thomson in a false voice, “where on earth did that cat come from? Put him out at once, Jenny. I'll take the rat out to the dunghill.”

“The cat is to remain here, beside the fire,” said Mrs Thomson. “I like this cat. Isn't he sweet? Isn't he clever? To have killed that demon of a rat! I must say he has a nice kind face. Jenny, this cat, whatever his name is, is to be given a saucer of milk at once.”

“His name is Fankle,” said Jenny.

“Fankle can bide here,” said Mrs Thomson, “for as long as he likes. He looks as if he belongs here, anyway. Pretty puss cat.”

One morning Jenny discovered, not entirely to her surprise, that Fankle the cat could speak. From the very beginning, of course, Jenny had spoken to Fankle, and Fankle had seemed to understand very well what the girl was saying to him. “Fankle, here's a bit of bacon for you” – that would bring Fankle running from the furthest corner of the croft. “Fankle, you thief, who stole the cream that mother was keeping for the sponge cake?” – at that Fankle hung his head in shame, and he slunk away among the shadows. “Fankle, dear, I love you, nice little black thing that you are!” – Fankle's eyes would melt with purest joy, and he would purr under the girl's caressing fingers for an hour.

It was a Saturday morning, and Jenny had brought a saucer of warm milk for the cat to lick at the barn door. Fankle curled his tongue round his morning meal, once or twice, speculatively. Then he said, as distinctly as any budgie, but in far more musical and exquisite diction, “This milk is from Millie. I've never liked Millie's milk so much as Effie's milk. I wish Jenny would bring me Effie's milk always in the morning for my breakfast. How can I let Jenny know I like Effie's milk best? Still, I suppose I ought to be thankful. Some cats – for example, the half-dozen strays on the hill – never get any milk at all, except when they can steal some ...” Fankle sighed, and his tongue went at Millie the cow's milk with a sure greedy rhythm.

“Fankle, you spoke!” cried Jenny.

Fankle waited till he had curled the last drop of milk round his tongue. Then he strolled over and rubbed against Jenny's shinbone. “Spoke,” he said, “of course I spoke. I've been speaking for a very long time. Human beings are rather stupid. You think cats can do nothing but miaow. Of course most of them
can
do nothing but miaow. Silly things. But I and a few other special cats can speak as well as you. Jenny, I thought you'd never understand me. How very glad I am! Now we can have an interesting talk now and again.”

Jan Thomson appeared round the corner of the barn, driving his old tractor. The steading was rank with noise and petrol fumes.

“I hate that tractor,” said Fankle. “A stupid blundering thing. I hate machines of all kinds.”

“Father,” cried Jenny. “Just listen to this! Shut off the engine for a minute. Fankle can speak.”

Jan shut off the engine.

“Fankle, say hello to my dad,” commanded Jenny.

“Sir, your servant,” said Fankle half-mockingly, half obsequiously; but all that Mr Thomson heard was a miaow.

“Don't be stupid, Jenny,” said her father. “Get out of the way, now. I have a lot of work to do this morning.”

Again the yard was possessed by a frightful din and fumes, until the tractor had disappeared in the direction of the hay field.

“They don't
all
understand,” said Fankle. “I don't care if he is your father, he's like all the rest of them, very insensitive. Shall I tell you some things about me – where I came from to this place, for example?”

“I know quite well where you came from,” said Jenny. “I brought you here in my two hands. You were found in Mr Strynd's van.”

Fankle chose to ignore such a common pedestrian statement.

“Marvellous things have happened to me,” he said. “I could write a book about them. Some day I might. I don't suppose you know, for example, that I was once a ship's cat, and no ordinary ship's cat either, but a pirate ship's cat. You might say I belonged to Mustacio the pirate. Equally, of course, Mustacio and the ship and the crew belonged to me. Mustacio was a swarthy swaggering man, always half-cut on rum. But I liked him a lot. He was a great success, as a pirate, to begin with.”

“Did they catch him and hang him in the end?” said Jenny.

“Catch Mustacio!” said Fankle. “Certainly not! Mustacio was far too clever for them. I don't think I'll continue with this story. Clearly you are not interested.”

“Yes, I am,” said Jenny. “Go on, please.”

“The pirate Mustacio and I first met in the port of Liverpool,” said Fankle. “I had taken a stroll down to the docks, to see which ships were in. That was in the year – let me see – 1702. And there, among all the common barques and brigs, was this black coffin of a ship, with dangerous-looking men coming and going. They didn't shout across the water, like the sailors on common ships. Oh no – they whispered secrets to each other, dark intense bits of intelligence. It was clear to me that this was no ordinary ship. The other seamen in the other ships didn't seem to notice – I tell you, most human beings are stupid. However, as I was sitting on that jetty, relishing the dark poetry of that ship, I became aware that two other men were also casting speculative eyes on her. I knew who they were alright. They were harbour commissioners, men trained to smell out whatever was strange or unlawful – for example, smuggled cargoes, concealed guns, wanted criminals. Oh yes, they were interested in the
Esmeralda
alright.
Esmeralda
, that was the name of the ship.
I am certain of it
, said one commissioner to the other.
I would wager my life on it. It's Mustacio's ship, none other. Listen carefully, Mister Boothroyd. We will act swiftly, and at night. That ship is not to be given clearance before nightfall. Otherwise act as if everything were normal. At seven o' the clock that ship is to be boarded. You are to see, Mister Boothroyd, that the port officers are armed. There will be, I assure you, a fine display of hangings along this same waterfront before Michaelmas ...

“A sailor with a cunning look was leaning on the rail of the
Esmeralda
, smoking a clay pipe, and his smouldering eyes were on the commissioners. He guessed, from long experience no doubt, that these two men were no friends of the
Esmeralda
. He guessed, but he couldn't be sure – not yet. Now, I have never been a friend of lawyers and policemen. On the contrary, I am fascinated – always have been – by vagabonds and gypsies and outlaws. I crouched there on the edge of the jetty – I tensed – I leapt softly on to the deck of the
Esmeralda
. I approached the clay-pipe-smoking sailor. I said, ‘Take me to your skipper. I have some urgent information for him.' I'm glad to say, that Tomas – that was the sailor's name, he was a Basque – Tomas understood cats and their language. So, in fact, did nearly all the crew, except Sawbones the surgeon, a stupid old thing. Tomas picked me up. He smelt of tar and gold. Tomas brought me to the skipper's cabin. Mustacio lay on his bunk, half-seas across with rum, but drunk or no he was a marvellous-looking man, with scarlet and silver broideries on his coat, and a nose flattened over his face where he had been struck in Sicily by a bandit's whipstock. And
he
, Mustacio, understood cat language. He listened to what I had to say. He nodded. He kissed me. He gave me a couple of starfish to eat. He gave me a bowl of curds laced with Jamaican rum. When I woke up after that feast, we were on the broad free Atlantic, headed west.”

“How wonderful,” said Jenny. “I never knew that, Fankle.”

“I could tell you things about Mustacio and the
Esmeralda
,” said Fankle, “that would make your flesh tremble like butterflies in a summer breeze. Some other time. Old Mrs Crag of Greenglen, she has a budgie I'm very interested in. She lets her budgie out of its cage every morning at half-past ten. Time I was off.”

“But what happened to Mustacio in the end?” pleaded Jenny. “At least tell me that.”

“It is a brave beautiful tragic story,” said Fankle, and his amber eyes flashed in the sun. “Mustacio became a king in the Caribbean. He had enough gold stashed away in chests under the sand to bribe island after island. Besides which, of course, his crew were the bravest sailors in the ocean. They cut a thousand throats to clear Mustacio's way to the throne. Mustacio had six queens. He generally had kingfisher eggs for his breakfast. His coffee was half rum. King Mustacio was well loved by those he gave gold to. All the rest of the world of course hated him.

“As for me, I was the Royal Cat. I drank gazelle's milk. I ate goldfish, nothing but goldfish, with a little bit of peacock's brains now and then. I was curled and scented twice a day by a little boy called Mint. He loved me, Mint. When Mint spoke to me, it was a sweet dark growl, like mulberry.

“I thought such splendour and luxury must go on forever. How quickly the wheel of fortune turns! The pirate king, as I said, had many powerful enemies in the islands round about, rulers who hated him for his cruelty and good luck and barbaric splendour. These ordinary rulers – men who spent sleepless nights wondering what taxes to impose this year, or whether the flagship needed caulking, or whether to hang or reprieve this or that criminal – these thin-lipped calculators formed an alliance against the great King Mustacio. They called up armies in secret. They rigged their navies. They proceeded to blockade the great city of Port of Buccaneers – Mustacio's capital.

“My lord and master was now drunk nearly all the time, and he had ten queens instead of six, fine plump girls who stroked his fat shoulders and stole pearls from his bedside drawer when he was asleep. Word was brought to his majesty by Tomas – Tomas was Prime Minister now, also Admiral of the Fleet. ‘The island confederacy have cut our lifelines, Mustacio,' said Tomas, with a low bow. ‘They will starve us into submission. They have landed an army of mercenaries in the northern part of our kingdom.'

“‘Never mind, pet,' said the newest queen, rubbing oil-of-turtles on the vast chest of the king. ‘Just wait. This trouble will pass.' And the other queens drifted about Mustacio, cooing.

“Mustacio pondered for a full half-hour, while Tomas stood at the edge of the scarlet carpet, sombre and melancholy. Then suddenly the king made up his mind. He threw his queens from him. He got to his feet. By now, what with luxury and laziness, Mustacio had grown as vast as a young African elephant. ‘By heaven, Tomas!' he roared. ‘Threaten me, would they? Insult the sacred soil of this island with their rabble of conscripts! The thin-faced prevaricators! By heaven and hell, they'll hang from hooks along the palace wall. Tomas, how is it with our good old ship
Esmeralda
?'

“‘Majesty,' said Tomas, ‘she's been five years rotting at the wharf.'

“‘Make her ready!' shouted Mustacio. ‘Clean the guns – put brass mouthpieces on them. Rout the sailors out of the taverns. Tell my people their finest day is about to break!'

“Within a week the ship was careened, patched, painted, and fitted with new sails and guns. She was launched. New young sailors mingled with the old pin-legs and hook-hands and one-eyes of Mustacio's original crew. All was gaiety and excitement in Port of Buccaneers, even though food was low in barn and larder, for the enemy's blockade was beginning to have its effect.

“At last the day came for the
Esmeralda
, a splendid lithe powerful ship once more, to sail out of the harbour. I said to Mint, my boy, ‘Take me to his majesty.' So Mint carried me, on his shoulder. There on the quarterdeck stood King Mustacio in all his magnificence. ‘Your majesty,' I said, ‘do me the honour of letting me sail with you.' And he said, taking me from Mint, ‘Dear Quichicuto' – Quichicuto was my court name – ‘dear Quichicuto, you will sail with us. Did you not save us from the Liverpool hangman? You will come, dear cat. You will see what Mustacio does with the enemies of romance and poetry.'