No, not ‘might’, I decided, as his grip on me tightened further. Had just made a terrible, possibly fatal, mistake.
‘You know what, Blackie?’ he said, lowering his voice a little, and confirming my worst fears. ‘I reckon you’d fare a lot better coming with me than staying here.’ And with that, I was suddenly gripped even tighter, and plunged into the fusty darkness inside his shirt.
If I’d been frightened before, I was petrified now. The assault on my nose was the first thing – it was shocking. I’d never felt such an intense, frightening animal smell before. If that wasn’t enough to make me wriggle and squeal in terror, the lack of air, the furious rub of my whiskers against what felt like his skin – and other whiskers, the total blackness, the huff and puff and thump of his own breathing… it was all I could do to not succumb to the powerful instinct to claw and scrape and bite my way free.
Yet some other instinct stopped me. It was inexplicable, but it prevailed. I don’t know if it was the constant firm but gentle pressure of his hand against my flank – now back outside the fabric that contained me – or just the voice in my head that had brought me back to him at the docks. Either way, it reassured me that he wouldn’t hurt me. And as we hurried (for we were definitely hurrying) to wherever it was that he was taking me, the scared part became, if not exactly less scared, more pragmatic. I’d made a choice. I’d been curious. And if my curiosity killed me? Well, then, so be it. After all, why had cats been gifted all those lives if not to use them?
‘Here we are!’ the man called Hickinbottom whispered, just as I was bracing myself for whatever was going to happen to me. ‘Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like ’ome!’
Then he chuckled, causing the whiskers on his chest to jiggle against me and gusts of that strange human odour to prickle in my nose. I was glad to be fished out from under his clothing and plonked down in front of him, not least because there was a great deal more air for me to breathe. Though I was now so stunned that it didn’t even occur to me to run away. He rubbed my chin again, with a little finger, looking pleased with himself. ‘Welcome to the Amethyst, little feller,’ he said, pushing his cap back from his forehead. ‘And my humble abode. It might not look much, but you’re honoured, you know. These here are very superior accommodations for an ordinary seaman, I can tell you. On account of me being Captain of the Fo’c’sle, you see. I get all this to myself –’ he waved an arm around the tiny space he’d brought me into – ‘because it’s my job to make sure everything’s shipshape and in good order. Which is why I get berthed up here –’ he jabbed a thumb behind him – ‘right up front, next to the captain’s cabin. And you, me little feller, get first-class accommodations as well. Well, at least for the moment,’ he added. ‘I dare say you won’t want to stay cooped up with me for long; be all over the place like a rash before we know it.’
Having no idea what sort of ‘accommodations’ might be classed as inferior, I looked around me to get a sense of where I was. On a ship, in the harbour – that much I’d already worked out, and everything I could see around me definitely bore that out. White. Everything white. Just like the ship was on the outside. Everything straight lines, hard angles, sharp edges. Cold to touch, most likely, both to the nose and to the paw. And a faint metallic tang in the uncannily still air.
But where he’d placed me felt particularly, well, peculiar. I took a tentative step, and was immediately frozen in fear again; for the grey ground beneath me, which seemed to be made of some kind of matted hair, felt almost alive under my paws. I tried to get my balance, which was no easy feat. And just as I’d done so, the man called Hickinbottom slung his cap down beside me, sending tremors once again beneath me. And I wondered, pulling a memory from somewhere in my brain, if we were already rolling on high, stormy seas, of the kind Mum used to tell me stories about. I pinged my claws out and hung on for dear life.
‘You daft ’a’p’orth!’ Hickinbottom said, placing the flat of his hand beside me, then pressing it into the softness a couple of times and watching me wobble once again. ‘This here’s me hammock,’ he explained. ‘Me bed. It’s where I sleep. And, if you behave yourself, little Blackie, you’ll be sleeping here too. Though right now I need to stow it, quick smart,’ he said, scooping me up and plopping me down on the floor, ‘or the old man up there will have my guts for garters.’
To my quiet satisfaction (because cats were supposed never to be wrong about anything) the floor I’d been put down on fulfilled all expectations, being slippery, unyielding and cold. Still, now I was here and fairly certain the man called Hickinbottom meant no harm to me, any lingering anxieties about what might become of me – I had, I supposed, been officially kitnapped – were buried beneath what I could only describe as a feeling of happy recklessness and glorious potential; I was on a ship, bound for the ocean and certain adventure. To a life beyond the island I had only ever dreamed about. Despite having so many reasons to be terrified, I couldn’t help but feel my spirits soar.
Well, to a degree. If I thought too long, it was also very easy to remember that I was a very small, not-quite-yet-fully-grown animal, that I was alone with a human in a very confined space, and that I seemed to have no visible means of escape. I couldn’t help but wonder how such little birds and animals as the ones I had successfully stalked must have felt when I had had them gripped between my teeth or claws.
So I did the sensible thing, and tried not to think too much about that, and to instead remind myself of all the good things that might come of this, and the kindnesses the man called Hickinbottom had already shown me – to try to focus on the excitement I couldn’t help feel about everything being so different and new.
‘Come on, move yer harris, Blackie,’ he said, interrupting my philosophising. He appeared to be engaged in some unfathomable and complex manoeuvre, requiring a number of very strange contortions. It was hard to be sure, but he seemed to be trying to turn the thing he called his bed into what looked like something else altogether, though whether he was achieving it was anyone’s guess.
So, to be obliging, and because I definitely didn’t want to be stepped on, I quickly scuttled out of harm’s way, squeezing myself into the space between two strange metal objects that protruded from the wall, from where I could both keep an eye on his progress and take a proper look at the place I would also call home till such time as he decided it would be safe for me to venture out again. Though how long that would be, I had no idea.
‘Right, that’s me done,’ he said, finally, tugging at his tunic. ‘They’ll be weighing anchor soon so I’d best be skedaddling. I’ll be back in a bit, with some food.’
Then he was gone. He was gone for some time, as well; time that I spent making circuits of the strange, tiny space, investigating every last inch of it. That done, I spent an even longer time washing my fur, and then monitoring the progress of a tiny, flitty fly, which, evidently much too high up to be concerned about my presence, went quietly about its business; something that seemed to involve bobbing back and forth just below the ceiling, and often knocking into it, for whatever reason flies did such kinds of things.
And it was fine. It was pleasant having no pressing need to go anywhere (though, as for needing to ‘go’, I had to be judicious about that, opting, after some indecision, for a clean, obvious corner). I was happy enough, because I had grown used to enjoying my own company. Even before my mother died, I’d already known that I would have to leave her eventually, because the life of a cat was generally a solitary one, out of both nature and necessity. Cats – or so she’d told me – needed something called territory. Because cats didn’t really like sharing.