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Wednesday 30 May 2012

The Farm Cat


Potkin and Josie passed beyond the barrier, through the cavernous, concrete, hangar-like chamber behind it and emerged into a lush, green, rural landscape.   An iron fence marked the edge of the unmade lane and the land beyond fell away across fields and hedgerows to woodland bathed in gentle sunlight.   Josie wondered if they were still in an enchanted world, or if the affection he felt for this view was prompted by relief and the pleasant weather.   Perhaps now they could have a leisurely stroll without too much weirdness.   Potkin had found a patch of sunlight at the side of the road and was sitting with his back against a low wall washing the remnants of his nether regions.
“This scented pile, this tea-set in a sylvan jewel.” Josie was warming to an upwelling of creativity.
“I wonder, bony oysters crowd? A lot of yellow flowery things.”
He was wistfully studying a freshly plucked buttercup, lightly held in a delicate paw. Perhaps he should buy a floppy hat and a large crimson cravat.
With his bum hair now sleek and clean, Potkin was walking towards him.
“Are you feeling OK?”
Josie slowly surfaced from his reverie.
“Ask not fortune. Furball toils, it toils for tea.”
“Whatever.” Potkin was keen to get on. “Let’s go and look for lunch.”

They were approaching a brick arch when they heard a shrill whistle and a stream of cotton-wool puffs rose above the foliage.   Out onto the small viaduct emerged a clanking, hissing and rattling shiny black steam engine.   Closely following the engine was a string of drab olive carriages with a serial number stencilled in white on the side of each.   Transparent circles had been rubbed into the grubby windows and out stared the hollow faces of khaki uniformed youth.   Each conscript pressed to the glass peering out into the countryside.   Each saw only a doomed imagining of his own future; his dread and terrors. Again the whistle sounded and swaying jerkily, the train rushed busily onward, out of sight amongst the dense trees that climbed the steep bank; out of the world of gentle hills, clear streams and birdsong; towards a land of sulphurous, jaundiced sky, adhesive mud, stagnant water and blast shattered tree stumps.
 At the first hint of an approaching train the two cats had rushed quickly under the vaulted bridge to meow loudly against the rumbling din of its passing.   A warm, damp cloud of thinning steam enveloped them briefly.   A shower of mortar and small flakes of brick fell within the archway.   With the last echos of their meows trailing after the receding train they proceeded beyond the viaduct.   Josie found the sensation of brick dust in his fur rather invigorating.   Spontaneously he flopped down and began to roll around, rubbing his head on the ground.   Potkin looked on with mild disdain, unaware that a small cone of red dust on top of his head mocked his austere demeanour.
“Feel better for that?”
“Yes thanks.” replied Josie as they set off yet again at a brisk pace.   A low wall along the roadside held back a steep bank.   The hills around were wooded.   Soon they came to a place where the now rocky bank split into a deep, narrow gully. It dripped with greenery and was home to lush ferns.   Josie put his forepaws up onto the wall and peered over.
“I think there’s a cave.”
Potkin leaped up onto the wall.
“Shall we explore?”   His neck was extended as he sniffed the air, “It looks as if it goes back a long way.”
“Not unless you can give me a bunk up.   You know I’m no good at mountaineering.” Josie replied. “I think there’s a building ahead.   Can you see from up there?”
Potkin could see a brick building and a pond. “I think it’s a farm.   Shall we see if they’ve anything for lunch?”
They came to the pond first.   It was a perfectly circular artificial farm pond in the corner of a field where the road divided.   Some sheep ignored them in the field and a horse stuck its head over the fence to observe them.   There were pieces of old farm machinery rusting in the hedgerows.
“Are we still going to the farm?” Josie asked of Potkin.   The horse nodded and then shook its head.   To their left was the long wall of a two-storey brick building and beyond it a less than picturesque tubular steel gate.   Through the gate was a straw strewn, muddy farmyard and across the yard was a very old, very large wooden barn.   It was high, long and twisted.   There was a tall, open entrance in the centre of its long side and a matching gap in the wall beyond.   The pair crossed the yard and as they approached the barn noticed the earth beneath it dipping at a point towards one corner.   From the resulting gap protruded a long, thin, pink worm like thing.
“Perhaps this would do for lunch.” pondered Josie.   He was now sufficiently hungry to consider experimentation.   He pulled on the worm, but as more of it emerged from the hole it bulged out into something wet, black and hairy.   The bulge was followed by a paw.   The paw did not belong to the dead rat, but to something else.   It was a very large, menacing paw with hook like claws and it was being followed by a muscular arm and, slowly, a horribly scarred nose.   After the nose came a head, a ginger head, its fur in tufts and one eye glazed and crossed by another deep scar.   The ears were notched and tattered.   As the farm cat menacingly pulled the rest of its body into the open its true size became apparent.   It was enormous.   It towered above Josie whose diminutive figure seemed to have shrunk until it could almost hide behind the carcass whose tail he still held in his mouth.
“That is my rat!”
Josie’s jaw dropped and the tail fell from his mouth.   Then he hissed.   Why on earth did he hiss?   He did not even want the rat.   It was of course a terrible mistake.   With a nimbleness and speed that belied his size the thug rolled Josie over, pinned him to the ground and began to pluck him.
Potkin coughed.
“I think your rat’s escaping.”
The ruffian turned slowly.   “Its dead, dead rats don’t escape.   It’s been dead for three days.”
“Well I don’t know about that,” Potkin replied, steadily, “perhaps it was pretending, but it’s just legged it down the yard and under that gate.”
“Sucrose!” muttered the giant ginger tom and forgetting Josie he set off in high-speed pursuit towards the yard gate .
Potkin quickly rose and pealed away the unappealing mass of fur and decayed rodent that he’d been sitting on. He jerked Josie to his feet by the scruff of his collar.
“Come on.   I don’t think we’ll hang around till he comes back!”

They each cleared the tubular gate in a single vault, wheeled tightly to their left and passed the horse at speed.   Its chin was still resting on the fence as it observed them with little enthusiasm.   Some way down the lane as the cats approached a pair of cottages they slowed their pace.   Josie was wheezing slightly and Potkin was gasping for air as his heart pounded.   The dwellings were cold and silent, windows stark and dark.
"All looks pretty empty."
The pair were sitting, now, in front of the forbidding homes, shoulders hunched and chests heaving slightly out of time with each other.
"Best try anyway."  Josie moved to one of the doorsteps, knocked loudly and and sucked in his cheeks. If anyone opened the door he was sure he would look close to starvation.   Perhaps he should sway gently as if about to swoon.   Potkin jumped onto a windowsill and peered in.   There was a television in one corner, but no-one watching.   An empty sofa was littered with socks and newspapers.  Nothing looked particularly clean.   He jumped down again to Josie.
“Very convincing, but nobody’s coming.   We really could starve if we hang around here.   I think we’d better try further down the road.”
Josie sighed, but followed Potkin and soon they were striding out with fresh hope in their hearts.   Not far down the path they glimpsed fragments of a massive, solid, gleaming white structure through gaps between the trees.   The track opened out onto a crossroads and before them towered a stone built gatehouse with the largest, pair of gnarled and battered oak doors either of them had ever seen.   A small wooden sign bearing the legend “FOOT PATH” pointed to the firmly closed doors.   They approached the barrier, both in some doubt as to what to do when they reached it and Potkin had just turned towards Josie to ask, “Shall we knock?” when the timbers swung back groaning and banged to a plank-quivering stop; with a deafening clattering of iron on cobbles, a gun carriage drawn by six horses swept closely by them.   The cats pressed their backs to the oak and something wet and disgusting, thrown up by the iron rimmed wheels, spattered their fur.   With a shrill creak a tiny cat size postern gate opened behind them and Josie fell through.
A voice said. “Come this way, man.”