Thomas

The Tail of a Cat

I hope for your kind indulgence in reading my story and I thank you for giving over your precious time. - Thomas

Who can tell, who can even guess, how far the intellectual capabilities of animals may extend? If some part of nature, or rather every part of nature, remains beyond our ken, yet we are still ready and eager to give it a name, priding ourselves on our foolish book-learning which doesn’t go much further than the ends of our noses. And so we’ve dismissed the entire intellectual capacity of the animal kingdom, which is often expressed in the most remarkable manner, by calling it instinct. I’d like to know the answer to just one question; can the idea of instinct as a blind, involutionary urge be reconciled with the ability to dream?

- E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr, 1820-1822, translated by Anthea Bell

His name in Cattish was unpronounceable. A huge graceful beast much given to sitting in the sunlight which streamed through the windows of the flat, his eyes sometimes fixed on something which only he could see. Holly called the black cat Thomas as she was his owner; or was Holly owned by Thomas? He was a kitten when she found him at the bus stop and struggled furiously as she took him home. A tin of tuna set him right. A bright cat with bright shining green eyes and glossy fur darker than night. He sat curled in the warm kitchen on stormy nights and slept on Holly’s bed as she snored exhausted from teaching the little ‘uns in St Joseph’s Primary School where she worked. Sometimes he stared at her through green slitted eyes as she slept.

Holly had travelled from the village where she had grown up to the city in search of opportunities, adventure, something bigger than herself. Hopes of a bloke as well. Her mother had died from sepsis after her birth and Auntie Virginia had brought her up after the accident which removed her father from her life a few years later. A small cottage smelling of camphor and camomile with woods and fields adjoining, an ancient church on the green, a shop in a front room redolent of cat piss and kippers, the daily bus to school. Virginia did her best despite inadequacy. In the big town Holly trained as a primary school teacher and, when trained and qualified, performed her duties as the simulacrum of the mother she never had to the children she would never have.

Thomas was her particular although she had no inkling; to her he was her furry friend, running through the catflap and back to her lap as she sat quietly reading. She didn’t understand the role of the cat in human affairs is to be a psychic companion. All that talk of cats ridding grain stores of pests and catching mice and mewling to gain affection, all that nonsense. Holly had trained Thomas. She was a model of rationality. Cats moved in with humans of their own accord and it’s impossible to train a cat as if it were a dog. The felines volunteered in their own way as natural enemies of the state, of control, of compliance. In the Chronicles of Cattish this is recorded.

Some words on Cattish. The language is both verbal and physical, making it impossible to translate. There is no guiding dictionary, no translation service. Cattish culture is not open to human anthropologists. When cats gather on rooftops or in grassy meadows their speech can’t be transcribed nor their actions described.

Thomas sat on the tiles above the house. Below in the garden a Queen was preening, washing her face with her paws. Her name was Poogle and Thomas leapt down to the ground. She was the most beautiful being he had ever seen. He began to sing as he approached her, a chromatic song with sliding scales. Poogle joined in duet, their voices conjoining as they coupled. After nine weeks their children were born blind and mewling. Neighbours berated Holly, the kittens were drowned in a sack, and Thomas was taken to the vet to be snipped like Farinelli.

Holly’s weekends were spent with her mates, the girls, providing the friendship she had lacked in the village. Her flat in the centre of town became the meeting place where they gathered before setting out of an evening. Thomas purred and bunted as they left.

The girl’s voices faded as they clacked down the stairs. The tomcat closed his eyes, drifted off, lost in meditation. He was of the age. He entered the place for the first time. A white outhouse overflowing with grain and a small door displaying magenta sky.

In the liminal space Bast was muttering. “The humans have tampered with the tapestry, unpicked the warp and weft. They have opened the stochastic portal.”

“They are swirling?” asked a young tomcat.

“They are swirling and adrift.”

“Humans don’t seem to like us as much as they used to.”

“Their appreciation comes like waves on the water. Although you are young you have lived too long amongst their kind.”

“I live as we’ve always lived. Sometimes loved, sometimes hated and hunted. I know the history. Snarl told me we are their psychic companions, that we know The Space Between about which they can only guess.”

“They claim dominion over us, they say they are the wise ones, the homo sapiens, the only creatures to spend money tokens in order to live on the planet on which they were born. We still have this fondness towards them.”

“Once we were gods to them and then they became as gods, forgetting they are fallen angels. Their tokens mean nothing to us. Their tributes are the prize.”

“I’m going back. Salutations.”

“Salutations, my brother. May the wind warm your fur.”

Thomas approached Bast.

“What is this place?”

“The place of your ancestors between realities. We step through, our paws in the other place, claws sheathed.”

“Seven Queens and Seven Toms at the entrance.”

“They watch.”

“For what do they watch?”

“Those coming through.” A mouse ran past and Bast picked it up by the tail, regarded it for a moment, began to eat it from the head.

Thomas walked out into the blinding light of the desert of his ancestors, hot sand scorching his paws as he drifted back into Holly’s sitting room. He opened an eye.

“I swear that cat goes somewhere else. People say they always have a second home somewhere.”

Hazel and Alice knocked and took her to the pub. Thomas had the catflap and he silently praised Isaac Newton as he stepped through into the warm night air, senses alert. His whiskers twitched at night smells as he set out on the moonlight hunt. Holly and her mates entered The Hare and Snare. There stood a man dressed in shadows whose name was Jake. Feeding the fruit machine with the metal it demanded from those whose innumeracy expected a different outcome on each push of the button. Holly’s party settled down with fruit ciders from the bar, one after another, each of the group taking turns to replenish the glasses. Polite language gave way to intimacy as they supped and secrets were told.

“Oh, he never!” spluttered Alice

“He did, I’m telling you, queen.”

“Slay, girl.”

“So, first he tells me he loves me, rolls over and I’m looking at his hairy back and he’s snoring.”

“Typical.”

“I wake up, I cook him breakfast, then he’s gone.”

“Are you gonna see him again?”

“He’s blocked my number.”

“Did you check his phone?”

“Yeah. The usual bloke stuff. Footie and tits, nothing mental. I thought he was a keeper.”

“Nah, they just want a jump and that’s it. End of.”

“I want a hero, babe. A big chunky bloke.”

The girl gang cracked up, clinked glasses.

A roar and the sound of coinage clinking. The bloke at the machine scooping up the bounty. Sauntering over to the table.

“Can I get you ladies a drink?”

Tall, muscled, gym-fit, dressed in moody black, groomed, tidy beard and the Turkish barber fade.

“I’m Jake. Pleased to meet you.”

There sometimes comes an arc in time which will define the next direction.

For the hours left until chucking out time Jake spoke with Holly about the novels he’d read, the films he’d watched, the places he’d visited. The TV stars and the online influencers he knew. The best snacks and the best fast food. The words flowed from the mouth of this man, honeyed phrases tumbling over each other limning a world beyond words. Voice softly modulated, persuasive, assured, confident. Holly was entranced and when they left The Hare & Snare she invited him back to her place for a coffee.

“Anything stronger?”

“Reckon some whisky from Christmas. A bottle of red.”

“Sweet.” He was sweet.

In the flat, Jake rolling a spliff, Holly making toast.

“Hey babe, your cat’s staring me out.”

Emerald eyes unblinking. Poised on paws, fur shining.

“I don’t want to see that creature staring at me like I’ve done something wrong.”

She was gone for five minutes and when she returned three years had passed. Jake lay on the sofa snoring, an empty syringe still attached to his arm.

Holly bore the signs. Blackened eyes, bruises, pinches. Why stay? Caught in a net. Threatened.

Little Sam asked her why she had a black eye. She laughed when Jordan pointed to the scatches on her hands. “I was putting up a cupboard.” Holly smilingly replied to Sena: “I tripped down the stairs, sweetheart”

Out-bloody-rageous.

Still she carried on.

Thomas sat quietly, meditated, and entered the grain store under a darkening sky.

“I’m an ignorant mouser, then, not a poet or a musician? Just a mouser?

Bast looked up. “You are a poet and a musician of great talent. One day you will enter the hall to consort with Puss-in-Boots, Dr Johnson’s companion Hodge, Dick Whittington’s Tommy. We have our saints. Be true to your ancestors and your tasks.”

One of the Seven poured a glass of cat wine, strong with pickled herring, anchovies, eel slime, dark green with catnip. Thomas gulped it down and held out the glass in his paw to be filled again.

“Unsheath your claws, Tomcat. Wait patiently for the moment and act as we’ve always done and always will.”

Thomas drank a third glass of catwine. This was better than the soft water.

He opened his eyes to a mad throbbing of the head. Catwine come down. He thought in confusion of the ways humans had treated his kind and the words they used.

“Look what the cat dragged in.”

“Who’s she? The cat’s mother?”

“Cat’s paw. Cat’s whiskers.”

“It’s just a cat-fight.”

Where’s the respect? All the great cat massacres were recorded in the annals of Catdom. And still cats clinged to humans on the shared Urth.

Holly and Jake were talking.

“Babe, I don’t want you going out with those slags down the pub. You picked me up in the pub, after all.” Such was the logic of the man.

“I’m going out and I’m not in search of birds, either. You stay here with that bloody cat and sort yourself out.”

Thomas jumped on Holly’s lap. She was crying and Thomas had no plan to deal with the human heart. As much as cat-nature allowed, he loved Holly. Her tuna was the best.

She slept in the armchair and Thomas napped on her lap, only moving off as a key scraped in the door.

Jake stumbled in at 7 of the morning as Holly was getting herself ready for the school day.

“What’s up, babe? I wouldn’t mind a jump.”

“I’m going to work, Jake. Some of us have to,” and she ducked at his fist and slammed the front door. Jake unwrapped the off-white powder and prepared the delivery device. Dropping The Velvet Underground on Holly’s turntable he listened intently. Thomas still pretended to be asleep. Jake kicked him and he fled under the sofa. Jake was careful to hit a vein and sank back as the music flowed.

I have made a very big decision

I’m going to try to nullify my life

‘Cause when the blood begins to flow

When it shoots up the dropper’s neck

When I’m closing in on death

You can’t help me, not you guys

Or all you girls with all your sweet pretty talk

Ah you can all go take a walk

And I guess I just don’t know

Safe for a while, Thomas closed his eyes and went to the grain store glowing bright under magenta skies.

“We walk alone,” Bast was saying. “We are the creatures who walk alone. Our rival, the dog, has a fatal flaw. The dog loves the master more than it loves itself.”

The circle of cats purred.

A young Tomcat opined. “Puff has told me that her mistress feeds her prawns after his mad mewing. Murzies says his handsome cuteness gifts him fish guts and fowl gizzards. Cassette is stuffed full of oxtail and snoozes in front of the wood fire. Thomas, you’re troubled.”

“My human’s taken up with a twat who hates me and this bloke’s knocking her around and…”

“Thomas. Stop. We use the old ways. Fare thee well.”

He padded away across hot sands under vermillion skies.

Back to the house under the sycamore trees, wisteria creeping up the brickwork.

Thomas came slyly through the catflap and padded noiselessly to his refuge under the sofa. He was dreaming when Jake stirred and lay on his back, snoring, upstairs. Thomas yawned, arched his handsome back, used his tail to balance, stepped up the stairs to where Jake was prone in bed. Settling his bulk on the man’s face he waited until the breathing stopped. There was no struggle although the deed seemed to take an age. Did Jake contemplate as the breath was stopped? Consider his actions and his fate at the paws of a despised creature? His last breath?

Thomas padded downstairs and waited for Holly.

Key scrapes in lock, human enters, cat bunts human, purring, human reaches down, strokes cat.

“Cat hairs in the throat. Not sufficient to obstruct the air ways. Close to fatal levels of Fentanyl and Heroin. Death due to injection of unregulated calmatives.”

The coroner wrote her report, signed and stamped it, closed the mortuary doors, and walked home in the cleansing rain redolent of petrichor and rebirth.

Paintings by Louis Wain, 1860 – 1939