Cat Kin (7 page)

Dad’s face was stone. He tapped an unlit cigarette on the table.

‘And I told her,’ Ben went on, ‘that she should call you, but she ignores me. I said, if Dad was here he’d knock Stanford’s head off.’

‘What did she say to that?’ Dad asked, after a pause.

‘Nothing. Just gave one of her laughs that make you feel about two inches tall.’

‘I remember them.’ Dad stared for a while out of the window. Then he leaned forward and squeezed Ben’s arm. ‘Ben. She’s had a rough time. And there are some
things…’

He didn’t finish. They sat in silence. Dad got another beer for himself and water for Ben. Finally he crushed the unsmoked cigarette into the ash tray.

‘Listen, Benny,’ he said. ‘This prat Stanford, you don’t worry about him. He knows he’s in the wrong, or he’d have got the law involved long ago. He’s
all bark and no bite.’

‘But he smashed the door. And he really scared Mum. And,’ Ben glanced out of the window, ‘he’s been creeping around. I saw him near the flat.’

‘Stanford and Associates,’ murmured Dad. ‘I know where they’re based. Islington somewhere.’

He stared into space.

‘Dad?’

‘I’d tell my solicitor to write him a rude letter,’ said Dad. ‘But it’d end up in the bin. No, Stanford’s a bully. Bullies speak one language.’

Ben felt hope and alarm swilling round inside him.

‘You can’t go round there and beat him up. He’d get the police onto you.’

‘Not him. Anyway, I don’t like to hit people outside of boxing rings.’ Dad fell silent and pulled out another cigarette. He grimaced and put it back. ‘Sometimes all these
thugs need is the fear of God putting into them. I’ve seen it a hundred times.’

‘What are you going to do?’

Dad ruffled Ben’s hair.

‘Never you mind. You stop worrying. And Lucy can stop worrying too. I might not live there right now, but I bought that flat with your mum and I still have fond memories. And you’re
more important still. No-one messes with my family, understand?’ Dad downed his drink and pushed back his chair. ‘No-one.’

Mrs Powell’s ten-minute sequence of stretches usually lasted a year or so. Hunched in a Long Reach, Ben felt his shoulders about to catch fire, and began to wish that
he’d stuck with his original plan never to attend a pashki class again. (Why he did keep coming back, he was still not absolutely sure.) After that came more punishing poses, Arch On Guard,
Scratching Tree and Falling Twist, until Ben was one of only two left standing. Despite the agony in his calves he wouldn’t let himself wobble. Out of the corner of his eye he was watching
Tiffany. He would crack when she did.

At last Mrs Powell showed mercy and let them rest. Ben lay flat on his back, too tired to check if Tiffany was doing the same. Then came a fresh mystery. Cecile and Olly were sent to fetch some
paper-wrapped bundles. These turned out to be slabs of grey clay. Ignoring all questions, Mrs Powell handed them out: ‘Press it over your face.’

The clutch of the clay on Ben’s skin was cool and refreshing. It made him feel once again that everything, somehow, would be all right. He eased the clay off to see a perfect mould of his
features, eyes closed and calm. After that they had to queue outside Mrs Powell’s bathroom to wash the silt from their pores and eyebrows. When Ben returned to the studio, the clay moulds of
their faces were gone.

The class sat before Mrs Powell. Ben knew the routine now: this was her pashki lecture. Last week she had begun to tell them of the ‘Mau body’, which she claimed was the invisible,
feline part of one’s self. It was all Greek to Ben (or at least, ancient Egyptian), but in his relaxed state he was happy to listen.

‘In most human beings,’ said Mrs Powell, ‘the Mau body is no more than a cat-shaped spark in the soul. In others, it burns more brightly. With training we can feed it, until it
fills our whole being. Turn your heads to the right.’

Mrs Powell pointed to the cork noticeboard. A poster showed two outlined figures: a sitting cat and a human. Down the centre of each ran a line of six coloured dots. Cat eyes.

‘The Mau body springs from six points of power,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘Call them catras. Each catra channels a particular kind of energy and appears in a different zone of the
body. Balance is Ptep and resides in the head. Agility springs from Ailur, in the base of the spine. Face front and close your eyes.’

Ben did so. A speck of clay was gumming one eyelash.

‘Picture the colour blue. The blue of a clear evening sky.’

She paused. The studio whispered with breathing.

‘Draw the blue together. Squeeze it to a point. It becomes richer, sharper. It is burning blue.’ She waited. ‘A blue fire against the blackness. Stare at it. Stare at it. It is
the eye of a cat.’

Relaxed though he was, Ben flinched. As she spoke it appeared like a waking dream: a blue cat’s eye, staring back. Fear came sharp as a bee sting and he had to blink. The first things he
saw were Mrs Powell’s eyes, and these too were fixed on him.

‘You saw it?’ she said.

Ben nodded.

‘It scares you?’

‘No,’ Ben lied.

‘Interesting. All right,’ she said to the others, ‘you can open your eyes now. What we have been visualising is the head catra, Ptep.’

‘I got purple splotches,’ confessed Olly.

‘Not all of you will succeed at first,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘But you have learned the principle. We invoke each catra as an eye of a particular colour.’

‘What do they do?’ asked Cecile.

‘They do not
do
,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘They just are. We try again.’

She made them picture a red eye, which she called Oshtis. Heat welled in Ben’s stomach. Kelotaukhon, smouldering copper, brought a tingle to his throat. The golden Parda cut through the
dark like a sun, filling his chest with light. He found he couldn’t look at any catra for more than a few seconds. Those glowing irises spooked him more than any cat’s gaze.

‘Good,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘Some of you are getting there. We will try an experiment. I need a good subject.’ She cast about. ‘Ben. No, sorry Ben. Tiffany,
we’ll use you.’

Ben had a sense of being elbowed aside.

‘Now there’s a surprise,’ he whispered to Olly.

‘Hey,’ Olly breathed, ‘as long she doesn’t come near me, I’m happy.’

‘When you’re finished talking,’ said Mrs Powell. She stood before Tiffany. ‘As I explained, Ptep is the head catra, governing balance. The cat’s main senses, such
as sight, hearing and smell, reside in the face catra, Mandira, which is green. But what happens when we combine them?’ She knelt. ‘Tiffany, begin. Let it all go black.’

Ben found himself hoping Tiffany would mess up. It was childish, but he couldn’t help it. He’d been enjoying today. Though the catra exercises rattled him, he had started to suspect,
to his astonishment, that he liked pashki even more than pinball, and that he might get just as good at it. Yet Tiffany was chosen, as usual. Jim wasn’t the teacher’s only pet.

‘Hold the blue Ptep in your mind, Tiffany,’ she said. ‘Now. Summon your Mandira. Let the green eye appear.’

Tiffany’s eyebrows twitched in concentration.

‘Now, Tiffany,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘Bring the blue eye and the green eye together. Head and face, head and face. Let them merge. Become one. Hold it.’

Mrs Powell raised her hand. Ben craned forward. The hand crept towards Tiffany’s face and came within six inches.

Tiffany opened her eyes. ‘Hey! That tickles!’

Mrs Powell turned to the group.

‘Did you see? Cecile, tell me. Did I touch her?’

‘No.’ Cecile was slack-jawed. ‘She never even touched you, Tiffany!’

Voices chorused in agreement. Mrs Powell made her try it again. This time Tiffany reacted to a single finger passing by her head. To everyone’s amazement, she sneezed. Ben didn’t
know what to think. If this was a conjuring trick, it was a clever one.

‘It’s almost like I’ve got…whiskers!’ gasped Tiffany.

‘You have.’ Mrs Powell gave one of her rare smiles. ‘Your Mau body has them, and you have helped them to appear. Mau whiskers work like an extra sense, reaching beyond your
head.’

Susie snorted. ‘That’s impossible.’

‘Implausible,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘Like everything else in nature.’

At that moment Jim trotted into the studio. Mrs Powell
miaowed
at him. Swishing his tail, he padded through the bead curtain into the kitchen, leaving a trail of clammy grey paw
prints.

Mrs Powell sighed. ‘What’s
impossible
is training your cat not to go sitting on the modelling clay.’

Clissold Park stayed open on these early summer evenings. Ben had an urge to wander around the ponds. He didn’t like admitting to himself that he was putting off going
home. The flat was no longer a cosy place. Mum had grown so snappy.

He stroked his face. The last part of the class, learning to develop Mau whiskers, had left him light-headed. When he fused those blue and green eyes in his mind, had he really felt the air
stirring to life? Imagination could do a lot. Yet it was as if musical strings had been strung to his skull, each buzzing with its own note. And those notes had translated to pictures in his head,
as if he were
seeing
the whole studio as a landscape of vibrations. He could see (feel? hear?) the people around him, blurred shapes through a fog, growing fainter with distance. For those
brief moments he could have run blindfold around the room. Had Mrs Powell hypnotised the lot of them? Or was it something more?

Wandering by the deer enclosure, where a baby-faced doe nosed up to the wire, he toyed with his mobile phone. Dad had hinted that Thursday might be D-Day on the Stanford front. Ben had been
half-expecting a call all afternoon. His voicemail was empty. He selected
Dad
and pressed the green key.

Brrrr brrrr

He let the deer nuzzle his fingers through the fence.

Brrrr brrrr

Dad hated a ringing phone. He always picked up by the third ring.

Brrrr brrrr

Ben looked at his watch. Five to eight. Too early for Dad to be at the pub. The phone continued to ring. Might he be eating out? There was always the possibility—galling though it
was—that Dad had a girlfriend.

Brrrr brrrr

He moved his thumb to the red hang-up button.

‘H-hello?’

‘Dad!’ Ben grinned. ‘Did I get you out of the bathroom?’

‘Er—yes.’ There was a moment’s silence on the line. ‘You okay, Ben?’

‘Yeah, great. So…any news?’

No answer. Ben started to feel uncomfortable.

‘It’s not a bad time to call, is it?’ he asked.

‘No, no, Ben. It’s just…’ Dad cleared his throat. ‘I guess you want to know if I spoke to Mr Stanford.’

The line was thick with static. No, not static. But Dad’s voice sounded odd. Slurred. As if he’d had a lot to drink.

At eight in the evening?

‘Hello?’ Ben held the phone more tightly.

‘I’m here.’ Dad’s breathing rasped in the earpiece. ‘Ben. I have to tell you something important. Listen. You and your mother can’t stay in that flat. You
must get out. I can put you up at my place for a while.’

‘What? But Dad—’

‘Ben, this is important. Tell your mother to accept Mr Stanford’s offer. Sell the place and cut your losses.’

Thell the place
. It sounded like
thell
.
Cut your lothes.

‘Dad? Dad, what’s wrong?’

‘I’m sorry Ben. I really am. I made a mistake. Try to help and I only make things worse. I’m…I’m not much of a dad, am I.’

The concrete path seemed to wobble under Ben’s shoes.

‘What happened? Did you go round there? What did he say?’ A horrible thought took shape. ‘What did he do? Did he—’

‘Don’t worry about me.’ Dad paused a moment. ‘Stanford had this guy with him. A big bloke. I wasn’t about to start any trouble with him there. I
wasn’t.’

A big bloke. That caveman Toby.

‘Did he…hit you?’

Dad made a sound, like a shred of a laugh.

‘I’m okay. Still here.’ He went silent for a while. ‘People mend.’

Ben sucked in deep breaths. He knew that as soon as he turned his phone off he would throw up all over the footpath.