Six Lives of Fankle the Cat Read online

  This essay could not be read out. Mr Tindall pinned it – Fankle’s heraldry – to the blackboard.)

  ***

  Fankle slept all through this recital, but from time to time

  Snow

  The snow came early that year. It came in the night, in great black whirls. It was still coming, at dawn, in great grey whirls. It was coming at noon, in great dazzling whirls.

  When the children were let out of school at lunch time, their island was pure enchantment. Their island was all crystal and silver and swans-down. They ran into the snow, shrieking with joy ... They gathered snowballs; they pelted each other; they wept and laughed. Norman Fell got a snowball in his eye. Instead of scooping it out, like any other boy, he bawled as if he had been struck by an arrow, and he ran into the school to report Sammy Ingison for throwing the snowball at him.

  Mr Tindall gave him a couple of sweets, and that silenced him. But when he came out to the ringing playground once more, the other children turned their backs on him. Norman, with a snivel or two, turned and began to trudge home through the great folds of whiteness.

  Which was purer and colder that afternoon, the snow or the children’s laughter, it would be difficult to say.

  Every time the boys and girls laughed or shouted, their breath made little ghosts in the air.

  At last they stopped the chaotic snow-fight. They were exhausted. Their hair and jerseys and trousers were covered with white crumbs. Their cheeks shone like apples.

  “What we’ll do now,” said Sammy Ingison, “is, we’ll make a snowman!”

  So, all twenty of them, aged between five and twelve, piled a snowman five feet high. They would have liked to make him ten feet high, or as high as the moon, but five feet was as high as they could manage. There he stood, a shapeless silver mass, only half-made, when Mr Tindall rang his bell for the resumption of classes.

  ***

  “Norman, dear,” said his mother, “what are you doing out of school? Is something the matter?”

  The little blue-faced wretch, that was all the encouragement he needed. He burst into tears. Between sobs, he told how he had been deliberately hit in the eye by a snowball flung by Sammy Ingison.

  “That Sammy Ingison!” cried Mrs Fell. “A wicked boy he is, that’s the truth! I’ll have a word with his mother.”

  “I was half-blind for a minute,” said Norman.

  “No wonder, you poor dear,” said his mother. “You’re too delicate for rough games like that. Just wait till I get my hands on Sammy Ingison. Winter’s not a good time for your health. You’ll stay at home beside the fire, dear, and read books and listen to the wireless, till the snow’s all gone. Yes, you will. I’ll write a note this very afternoon and send it along to Mr Tindall.”

  ***

  The blackest shape on the island that day flowed silently down the hill in the direction of Inquoy. Fankle hated snow much more than Norman Fell did. He lifted his delicate feet through the white cold alien stuff. He thought with joy of the fire at Inquoy, and a saucer of warm milk. Fankle would not have been out at all, on such a dreamlike morning; but he was interested in certain young hares he had recently noted on the hill. As a matter of fact, his journey had been fruitless. The hares – he might have known it – were snug in their burrows.

  Fankle’s way home led past the school. Would he go in? No, he needed that warm milk. Fankle saw that the children had piled a great mass of snow in the centre of the playground. It could have been anything – a white monster, a ruined crystal castle on the moon, a frozen ghost. Fankle considered it for a while. He disliked it, even though Jenny must have had a hand in it. He gave the half-made snowman a baleful glare, then he flowed on, a black snow-hindered shape, in the direction of Inquoy.

  Twenty blackbirds sang along the telegraph lines, “Look, we’re the blackest things in the world, now the snow’s here! There’s no blackness in the world like ours! There isn’t! We’re intense blackness, thrilling blackness!”

  Then they saw Fankle coursing home through the snow, and they stopped their boasting.

  ***

  “I’ll tell you what that boy is,” said Alistair Fell, “he’s a coward! You pet him, you mollycuddle him, you give way to every whim that takes him. I’m ashamed of that boy. He’ll go to the school tomorrow. What would do Norman the world of good is a fight – a fist fight, with black eyes and bloody noses. Hit by a snowball, was he? Hit in his precious eye? By Sammy Ingison. What the precious darling should have done was take a fistful of snow and ram it down Sammy Ingison’s jersey. And then ram another fistful between his teeth. The coward!”

  Mrs Fell sighed over her knitting needles. She loved her husband almost as much as she loved her son. But he had that coarse brutal streak in him. He did not seem to understand how delicate the boy was. The poor little blue hands that he had brought home to her that afternoon – so sensitive and shivering. She was knitting a pair of mittens for him at this very moment. She wondered that those thin fingers didn’t break off at first touch of the snow. She sighed again. Her knitting needles clacked.

  “The well’s frozen over,” said Alistair Fell. “I’m going out now to break the ice.”

  From the bedroom next door Mrs Fell could hear Norman playing his little matchbox-size transistor.

  At home he was safe and happy. She smiled.

  ***

  The school children could hardly pay attention to their lessons for thinking about the snowman. Mr Tindall had a hard time of it, trying to get them interested in the seven times table and the imports and exports of Norway.

  When four o’clock came they almost broke each others’ ribs to get out at the door.

  They stood in a cluster round the half-made snowman. “Of course he’s like nothing on earth,” said Sammy Ingison. “He hasn’t got his uniform on, that’s why. Now, we’ll have to think about this very carefully.”

  So the children laid their heads together around the naked creature from the purple clouds, and to each was assigned a duty. Such as:

  From Mr Martin at the manse Jenny Thomson was instructed to ask for the loan of a black hat. It so happened that Mr Martin had a black broad-brimmed ecclesiastical hat, now turned somewhat brown and mouldy, that he had been thinking of putting in the fire. He had worn it in the first flush of his ordination. The hat was found; it was put into Jenny’s hands by the plump kind hand of the minister. In due course it was placed, with reverence, on the snowman’s head. It looked rather severe and clerical to begin with, but Sammy Ingison gave it a slight sideways tilt, and then the snowman suddenly acquired a rakish look.

  It had been decided that lumps of coal would do for the eyes. The trouble was, all the houses in the island burned peats; all, that is, except the schoolhouse. Mr Tindall was tentatively approached. In no time at all two blue-black eyes stared out of the blank face.

  A scarf, to keep the snowman warm – that was the next necessity. Jenny knew where a long scarf was, in the chest under the bed at Inquoy. She decided that she had better ask for it, although it was darned and moth-eaten and useless. It had belonged to her grandad, and he had worn it, sitting in the straw chair beside the fire, the winter before he died. She told her mother about the snowman, and how cold he would be that night under the stars. Her mother nodded. The long red-and-white scarf was brought from the chest; it had new moth holes here and there in it. But it was regarded by the children as a wonderful addition to the snowman’s wardrobe. It was wound five times round his fat neck.

  The snowman crackled with the first frost of sundown.

  “An overcoat,” said Alice Tweeddale. “Every snowman has an overcoat.”

  Of course that was only an illusion. (Everybody knew that the snowman’s overcoat was the thick quilting of snow itself.) But it added enormously to the illusion when Alice Tweeddale borrowed five red buttons from her grandmother. “See you take them back here when the snow melts,” said the old woman. The five large red buttons were stuck all down the front of the snowman, in
a line. He looked like a jolly fat man coming home from a party.

  “Not without a pipe,” said Sammy. “No snowman would be seen dead without his pipe.”

  It was known that Barney Bell’s father, the ferryman, smoked black twist in a pipe. “He has two pipes,” said Barney. “An old rank one, and a sweet-smoking one he got from mam for his birthday.” A pipe was brought from the ferryman’s house through the star-shine, and stuck, upside-down, in the middle of the snowman’s face.

  There had never been a jollier presence in the island. His jollity infected the children. They laughed under the first stars, they danced around him, they kissed his overcoat, they showered each other with handfuls of snow. Tommy Wilson found a twig that became a walking stick for him. The eyes of the children shone like stars under the glittering sky.

  ***

  In the house at the jetty, Neil Bell the ferryman said to Isabel his wife, “What’s happened to it? Where’s that pipe? I just don’t understand it.”

  “There it is, man,” said Isabel.

  “Not that thing,” said the ferryman. “That’s pure poison. I’m looking for the pipe you gave me for my birthday, that tastes like honey. Where have you put it?”

  “I never touched it,” said Mrs Bell. “Barney was here after the school came out. He was wanting a pipe for a snowman or something.”

  “It’s a terrible thing,” said Neil Bell, “when a man comes in cold from his work, and the thing he’s most looking for, his pipe, isn’t there. I’ll warm that boy’s ears!”

  Neil Bell, tired though he was, walked the half-mile to the school. He met children, singly and in groups, drifting silently homewards through the purple and silver night. He did not see his own miscreant. When he got to the school yard, there the new king of the snow island stood, fatly and whitely gazing out over the fields and crofts, and the frozen wells and burns and waters. “Sorry, man,” said Neil. He took his good pipe from the crackling mouth. “See if you can do something with this other one,” said Neil. He put his putrid pipe where the sweet pipe had been (upside down, of course: all snowmen smoke their pipes upside down: Neil Bell remembered that from his boyhood.) Then he turned and went home, for a decent smoke and a mug of sleepy ale.

  When he did get home, Barney was prudently in bed.

  ***

  There was an innocent at that school called Fred Kringle. Fred was more delighted with the snowman than any other child.

  Fred got up very early on the third morning of the big snow. Not a single person in the island was astir. To the south-east the first light was spreading a flush over the snow. As Fred trudged schoolwards, he saw a diamond eye glittering in the window of Inquoy. Fankle at least was awake. Fankle was glaring disapproval at the snow. Fred couldn’t understand why Fankle didn’t like snow. Jenny had told him Fankle refused to go over the doorstep. That first day had been enough for Fankle.

  The snowman was, of course, in the school yard; he hadn’t moved an inch. There was a new powdering of snow over one of his blue-black eyes, and a drift of snow in the rim of his hat; otherwise he was unchanged.

  “Mister Snowman,” said Fred, “here I am.”

  The snowman acknowledged Fred in silence.

  “Please come home and have breakfast in my house,” said Fred.

  The snowman neither accepted nor declined the invitation.

  “It’s not good for you,” said Fred, “standing out here in the cold, night after night. You’ll get your death.”

  A crystal of snow glittered on the snowman’s cheek. The rim of the sun had risen over the neighbouring island. The church belfry stood black against the dawn.

  “I tell you what you’ll get,” said Fred. “Porridge, and an egg – two if you like – and oatcakes and tea.”

  The snowman seemed to take a long time thinking this out. He said nothing. A little flush came on his forehead.

  “You’re shy, that’s what it is,” said Fred. “You don’t need to be shy. My mam’ll make you feel at home right away.”

  Still the snowman lingered.

  “Come on,” said Fred. “Please.” He put his small hand into the shapeless hand of the snowman. “I’ll walk with you all the way.”

  Fred urged with his hand, gently, and the snowman’s hand came off. In five or six fragments it broke and scattered. “Oh, goodness,” whispered Fred. “What have I done? I’ll get into trouble for this, for sure. I wonder if I should get the doctor.”

  But the snowman seemed to feel no pain or anger or resentment. Suddenly he took the risen sun full in the eyes. His face flashed.

  ***

  Norman Fell was sick to death of books and wireless programmes and ludo. (What fun was there in playing ludo against yourself?) For three days he had listened, with envy, to the merriment drifting across the hillside from the school playground. He was sorry now he had told his mother about Sammy Ingison’s snowball. He would certainly not get back to school till the last of the snow had melted; and by that time, of course, all the magic and fun would have melted into the light of common day.

  Norman, before going to bed the previous evening, in the nest of hot water bottles his mother had prepared for him, had filled in a form which promised him, by return of post, a booklet that would let him into the secret of strength. He was promised thick shoulders and huge muscles. “I will soon be the strongest boy on this island,” thought Norman, as he fixed the stamp on the envelope and licked down the flap. But he didn’t want anybody to know about it.

  He got up, therefore, when his mother and father were still in bed. Stealthily he opened the outside door. A hinge squeaked like a little mouse, then all was silence again. It was a hundred yards from the farm to the red post box at the side of the road.

  The snow crackled and snapped under Norman’s feet. The island looked beautiful under the early sun. It looked like an island out of some fairytale. Norman thought how terrible it was that he should have missed all that, shut in his prison of a room (and all through his own stupid fault). Well, it would never happen again.

  He stopped at the post box. He was about to drop the letter inside when his back, from neck to shoulder blades, was possessed by cold flames. The suddenness and shock took his breath away – he nearly fell among the snow.

  There was a laugh behind him – a cruel contemptuous laugh – and at the same time more coals of ice were poured down inside his shirt. Sammy Ingison was saying ‘good morning’ to Norman Fell in his own special way.

  Norman turned and his clenched fist took Sammy on the forehead. Sammy was so surprised that his knees collapsed and he sat down on a snow hummock. Norman flung himself at the tormentor. He took him by the shoulders and pressed him down into the drift. Sammy’s mouth was a red smoking O. Norman scooped up a handful of snow and stuffed it in. Sammy kicked him awkwardly and scrambled to his knees. He spat out his cold gag; while he was doing that Norman rammed two fistfuls inside his shirt. Sammy yelled with the thrilling pain of it, or else with the shock of being set upon by this gutless nambypamby, mumma’s little darling, who had now seized him by the lapels and was shaking him like a rat!

  Sammy had had enough. It was more than a man could endure, especially before breakfast. He broke free, and ran. He turned at the end of the road. “I’ll get you for this, Fell,” he shrilled across the silver of the morning. “You fudge that you are.”

  When Norman got home his mother was stirring about the fire, getting the tea and the porridge made. She saw the flush on the boy’s face, and the excited glitter in his eye. “I’ve been out posting a letter,” he said. “I fell in a drift. I got my shirt wet. But it doesn’t matter. I feel very well this morning. I’m going to the school as soon as I’ve had my porridge.”

  “Good lad,” said his father.

  ***

  “Fankle dear,” said Jenny, “what’s wrong? You simply must come and see our snowman. It’s the loveliest snowman in the world.”

  Fankle let on not to hear. He sat with his back to Jenny, as if sno
wmen, snow-women, snow-children – all the barren wintry breed – were a matter of supreme indifference to him.

  “Goodbye, Fankle,” said Jenny. “I must go to the school now. Won’t you walk with me down to the gate?”

  Fankle did not so much as turn his head. He was obviously very displeased with his friend.

  ***

  The snow remained, day after day, but after the fourth day it no longer had its swan-plumage and crystal. Instead it hardened and grew grey. The road became dangerous. The ferryman Neil Bell slipped on it, coming up from the pier, and broke his leg. The helicopter came, hovered over the island, dropped down, hovered; and, huge insect of mercy, drew Neil Bell into itself and bore him to the hospital in Kirkwall.

  Old Andrew Gray was never done telling the children about the great snowfalls in his time. The snowfalls of the last fifty years were poor things in comparison. Why, when he was a boy, the loch in winter was a solid sheet of ice! Farmers had driven horses and carts across it. Boys had played football on it, night after night. This generation, said old Andrew Gray scornfully, had only seen the fringes of the loch frozen. But “No,” said his grandson Ollie, “the loch’s frozen across this winter. But we’re feared to go on the ice, in case it gives way.”

  The old man snorted, and struck match after match into his dead pipe.

  That afternoon old Andrew Gray told his daughter he was going out for a walk. Maurya told him to be careful, the roads were very slippery. Old Andrew took his walking stick in his hand and went out into the grey air. Instead of keeping to the road, the old man crackled his way across two fields to the loch shore. Across, on the other side, lived Sander Black, his contemporary, whom he only saw once a year, on the day of the agricultural show. They were both getting very old. He was determined to pay Sander a winter visit. It wasn’t that he liked Sander Black all that well, but more than likely Sander would have a bottle of whisky in his cupboard, and he would get a dram or two before dark. Old Andrew set out over the loch ice. Once or twice he skidded and slithered here and there, but he never lost his balance. At the centre of the loch the ice broke under him, and old Andrew disappeared into a black star of water. He would have died that day, only Sander Black happened to be on the opposite shore of the loch, stropping his appetite on a breath or two of frosty air. He looked across the still grey loch, and he could hardly believe his eyes when he saw the small black figure approaching from the opposite shore. “It’s that old idiot,” said Sander Black. (Sander had excellent eyesight, for an old man.) “What does he think he’s doing? He must be in his dotage. I hope he isn’t coming to visit me. I don’t like him all that well. Once a year, at the agricultural show, is enough ...” The old bent black figure on the ice came nearer. There was a loud crack, like a rifle shot, and Andrew Gray disappeared.