The Marmaduchess of Pontefract
Introducing a Marmaduchess
This book came about as a result of a visit to Rome many years ago in the company of my son, who was then twelve. In those days the Forum swarmed with stray cats. The local authorities at the time were embarked on a scheme to rid Rome of its rat population. Sitting out the afternoon heat in our hotel one day, we put these two factors together and began to concoct a story of a timid little cat from the north of England who travels to Rome by mistake, is befriended by some shady Roman cats, and gets involved in their long-standing dispute with a rival gang. The book is about old Rome and cats and mafia-style criminals. Nor is the heroine lacking in feminist credentials. The story is really a lark, a jeu d'esprit, for readers of all ages.
The sample below is the opening three of the novel's eleven chapters.
1
The early summer dusk gathered over a shabby street in Huddersfield. In the back bedroom of a small terraced house, Fillet, a little coffee- and-cream coloured cat, had spent all day trying to sleep in a pool of sunlight that kept moving away from her. The ugly ginger tom, Stinker, had taken over the warmest spot in the house - the patch of wall against the next door neighbour's hot-water tank.
As the sun lurched behind the gasworks, Fillet stretched out four thin, creamy limbs with coffee-coloured toes and yawned. Rising unsteadily, she arched her back and then padded down the stairs. It was half-past six. She was hungry. The house was empty, and as no one was likely to feed her that evening she would have to forage for herself.
Ignoring the ignominious catflap on the back door, she made her way into the kitchen, where someone had left a window a little open. A leap took her slinking out and down the alleyway. She was going to visit her friend Cleo, the refined grey-blue fluffy cat (Papa was a Persian of very high breeding) at No. 31, who was forever preening her whiskers and draping her tail round her neck as if it were a feather boa. Cleo, who had once known a cat who had spent a few months in the stables at Buckingham Palace, allowed Fillet to visit her only because the plain little cat made Cleo feel superior.
Padding down the road, Fillet fell into step with a number of cats from the neighbouring alleyways. They were not well-fed, much-loved pets but strays that hung round the dustbins outside the paper mill and the tinned-tuna factory. At night, they skipped over the rooftops and in and out of the chimneys, screeching at the moon and keeping an eye out for basins of cold water and catapult pellets.
Fillet had a sort of a home, but her owner had moved, and so she now found herself in the unloving care of the Grumble family, who were always arguing about whose turn it was to feed her, with the result that none of them ever did.
Glad to part company with the gang of scavengers, Fillet turned off down a passageway between No. 27 and No. 25 . A leap onto a garden wall, and from there it was quick work to a bathroom window that was left open for Cleo to slither under.
Fillet found Cleo in her usual place, asleep on a cushion in an armchair beside the kitchen stove. Compared with the Grumble house, Cleo's pad was chintzy. There were rugs and tablecloths, a special blue bowl marked 'Cleo', and, best of all, no Stinker, no smelly ginger tom. Fillet curled up on a rug at the foot of Cleo's chair, waiting.
After a moment or two, Cleo began to utter genteel squeaks. Her pink tongue popped out of her mouth, and she yawned and licked her silky chest. Stretching lazily, she said, 'Hello, darling. I was just having a little snoozywoozy. So tiring, this weather. Should you like a bite of dindins, then?'
Fillet, who had not eaten for two days and was so hungry she thought she might faint, managed to say, 'Yes, please, Cleo.'
'If you'd care for a pilchard, darling, you'll find one under the chair. Can't stand the things myself.'
Before Cleo had finished speaking, Fillet's jaws were clamped on a tomato-sauce-covered pilchard that was smeared with feathers and bits of hair. Too hungry to care, she flicked off the worst with her paw and settled down to scoff the fish as fast as possible.
Cleo watched her as a princess might watch a beggar to whom she had thrown a scrap of food. 'Awful to be you, darling,' she remarked.
'It's very kind of you, Cleo,' Fillet muttered humbly, cleaning her whiskers and front. She knew how important it was to flatter her fluffy friend.
'Noblesse oblige, that's French for . . . for cats like me helping unfortunate things like you, don't you know,' smirked Cleo.
Fillet did not know. She was a timid little cat who knew hardly anything about the world. Most of her life had been spent in Violet Street, Huddersfield.
'Your trouble is', Cleo went on, 'you don't make the best of yourself. That coffee-coloured streak down your back now. Might be a touch of Siamese there.'
'Do you really think so?' said Fillet in excitement.
'You nevaire know,' said Cleo. 'As my dear mother used to say. She came from a very upper-class family of French cats who lived in their own château, which of course is French for a castle.' She sighed deeply. Life was so unfair.
Fillet was growing very confused. All these foreign words were making her head swim.
'I've just had a super idea, darling,' Cleo went on. 'I'm about to visit a gentleman friend whose name is Robertson. He lives with his grandfather, who's extremely old and knows everything. He's titled, my dear. A real marmaduke. If there is a remote chance you have a pedigree, he will know.'
Fillet was thrilled. 'Oh, can I come with you?' she said eagerly, though she had no idea what either a marmaduke or a pedigree was and dared not ask.
Cleo looked at Fillet in surprise. Would the illustrious Marmaduke of the Crescent be interested in seeing anyone so scruffy and dull? And yet, why not? Noblesse oblige, after all.
2
It was the most astonishing room Fillet had ever seen. In every direction there stretched a forest of legs - spindly legs, metal legs, curly fat wooden legs. The floor gleamed in the moonlight, and flames from the fireplace lit up a chandelier so that its hundred crystals winked and glittered.
On a stool by the fire lounged a very remarkable cat. He was so old that his ears were fringed with white, and his huge head lay sunk on his front paws as if it were too heavy to lift. Age had given a greenish tint to his soot-black coat. Next to him, on a thinner cushion, lay an elegant, orange gentleman cat, his eyes slitted almost to nothing.
Waving her tail like an ostrich plume, Cleo picked her way towards the fireplace. Head low, Fillet slunk along behind.
'Charmed to see you, Cleo, my dear,' purred the orange cat. 'And who is your delightful friend, may I ask?'
'So kind of you to invite one, my dear Robertson. One does so enjoy paying one's respects to His Lordship in your magnificent home.'
The orange cat blinked slowly. Cleo began to whine in a silky sort of voice.
'My friend has a question,' she said, 'and knowing your distinguished grandfather's vast experience, I was sure he was the only cat who could help.'
The patriarch did not move or seem to hear.
'Is he awake, my dear?' Cleo whispered to
Robertson. 'I mean, you don't
think - ?'
'Of course he's awake,' sniffed the orange cat tartly. 'And no, he's not dead. He's a shade deaf, that's all. Now, what was it your friend wanted to know?'
'She's not really a friend. She just lodges in a house near mine - well, rather a long way away, actually.'
A log on the fire crackled, shooting sparks up the chimney. Fillet leaped backwards, and, as she did so, the fire lit up the coffee-coloured streak that ran down the centre of her coat.
Robertson started with surprise. 'Come nearer, my dear,' he purred. 'What is your name?'
'Fillet, Your Lordship,' whispered the little cat.
'No, no, no,' said the orange cat crossly. 'That's His Lordship, the Marmaduke. I'm Robertsons-Marmalade. My friends call me Robertson. How did you come by your curious name, my dear?'
Fillet looked round the room at the blue and gold furniture, at the pictures on the walls, at strange bright objects in glass cases, and she smelled a luscious mixture of aromas. Many years of Sunday joints, game pies, and smoked salmon hung in the air. She felt too cowed to reply.
Just then, the sage opened his eyes a slit, raised his head, and began to speak in a strange, husky voice.
'A long time ago,' he rasped, 'I and many other cats lived in a series of mighty tunnels called catacombs. They were dark and well stocked with mice. That was far beyond the sea in a place called Rome.'
Here he gave a terrific snore and his head drooped slowly back onto his paws.
'Come on, grandfather,' Robertson urged. 'Please don't drop off.'
The huge cat lifted his head again, shook it, and frowned. 'Robertson,' he said, 'why don't you go and catch yourself a mouse? At your age I was out on the tiles, not squatting by the fire like a geriatric. Where was I? Oh, yes. My family was among the most illustrious in the catacombs. All marmadukes and marmaduchesses. Then came the great Catastrophe. We were forced to flee by hordes of vandals called Tourists, who wished to steal our home. In the company of a very grand Italian lady, I made my way to this country. We settled in a noble residence in a town with an Italian name, where we both could feel at home.'
Here his voice faltered again and his eyes closed. He gave a colossal yawn and fell fast asleep. This time no amount of poking or shouting could budge him.
'Oh, how tiresome,' said Robertson. 'He'll sleep for hours, and we shan't get another word out of him.'
'He must have told you the story,' said Cleo, who was itching with curiosity.
'Of course,' said Robertson fussily. 'I know all about the family and the properties in Pontefract and the coffee-coloured streak and all that.'
'Coffee-coloured streak? Pontefract?' Fillet stammered, her eyes growing wider and wider.
'Yes, yes, my dear. My grandfather settled down in Pontefract in a mansion belonging to a wealthy Italian family. One night there came to the door a beautiful lady-cat who bore a distinctive coffee-coloured streak down the centre of her back. Funny thing, when the fire flared up just now I thought I saw a similar streak on you, my dear. I wondered . . . well, never mind; it doesn't do to revive the past. Let sleeping cats lie.'
But excitement made Fillet bold. 'Please go on with the story,' she begged.
'Indeed, why not?' said Robertson, flattered. And seeing that he had nothing better to do, he settled down to tell the tale.
'My grandfather, the Marmaduke, fell in love with the mysterious lady-cat. She told him that centuries ago her coffee-coloured streak was first painted on an ancestor of hers by a Chinese scribe. But one day, nobody ever found out why, she left the mansion, taking her kittens with her, and for a long time no one knew where they had gone.'
Here Robertson gave a long sigh.
'They found her on the road,' he continued. 'A very sticky end. Squashed flat. And no sign of the kittens. The marmaduke was devastated. For weeks on end he wandered over hill and dale, until he was found on the outskirts of Huddersfield by my grandmother. She brought him here and looked after him. After they settled down, no one mentioned again the lady with the coffee-coloured streak.'
'But I was born in a place called Pontefract,' Fillet put in. 'In a fish-and-chip shop. That's why I'm called Fillet. When mother was thrown out for stealing two pounds of haddock we followed her, us kittens, all the way to Huddersfield. She had a coffee-coloured streak just like mine.'
'You can't be suggesting you're related to the marmaduke,' Cleo sneered. 'How ridiculous!'
'But I could be, couldn't I?' Fillet said to the orange cat. 'My mother was very pretty. The fish-and-chip man thought so - until she stole the haddock.'
Robertson rose to his feet and began to pace up and down the hearth, his tail erect, the tip making circles in the air as if he were writing with it.
'There is the minutest possibility,' he remarked. 'The very minutest. On the other hand, my dear, this fish-and-chip shop ... No, no use dreaming that you're a cat of any importance.'
Cleo sniggered. Fillet got up and padded off miserably. For two whole minutes she had been a cat with a romantic history and now she was just plain Fillet again. It was sad, very sad, but there was nothing to be done.
She was at the door when the venerable marmaduke stirred and opened his eyes. 'Where's Beatrice?' he called out in agitation. Then, seeing Fillet, he rose slowly to his feet and in a voice choked with emotion he cried, 'Beatrice! Beatrice! My marmaduchess. Ti adoro.'
With a voluptuous shudder, he rolled off the stool onto the floor and lay there on his back, feet in the air, stone dead.
3
Not long after, her brain in a whirl, Fillet found herself on the edge of Huddersfield, running blindly along a country lane. She couldn't even tell if she were lost. A monstrous, birdlike thing with winking lights roared over her head, and in terror she cowered under a hedge.
It was some time before she plucked up enough courage to come out again and continue on her way. Soon she saw lights and heard voices and the sound of engines. There was a long, low building, outside which stood a large machine on wheels. Men climbed up and down, in and out of it, carrying boxes, crates, and suitcases. From inside the machine, there wafted towards her a faint but unmistakable smell of fried fish. Flattening herself to the ground, Fillet slunk closer. At the top of a flight of stairs stood a man eating something out of a brown paper bag.
Talking loudly and waving their arms about, six more men came down the steps. The moment they reached the bottom, Fillet slipped out of the shadows and glided like a ghost up the stairs and through the open doorway. Hungrily, she pounced on a scrap of paper lying behind one of the crates and began to lick up the remains of the first man's fish supper. Just then, without warning, the door clanged shut, and Fillet was alone in pitch darkness.
She sniffed along the bottom of the closed door, patted it with a paw, and whimpered. No one came. Disconsolate, she sat and licked the remains of the fish supper off her paws. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, she saw that the room was stacked to the ceiling with crates and boxes of all kinds and shapes. Fillet could not imagine where she was.
Suddenly a mighty roar almost burst her brain, and the room of boxes began to shudder and jerk and bounce as if it were alive. Overcome with fright, Fillet cringed, all her fur standing on end.
The roaring turned into a high-pitched whine, and the room seemed to move. Faster and faster it went, shaking and juddering, until Fillet thought the piles of boxes would collapse on top of her. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the shaking ceased, the movement changed into a sort of gliding or floating, and the noise died down to a dull throb. But now the air became intensely cold.
Shrinking, and settling against a suitcase, Fillet ruffled her fur to create a warm pocket around her. It was useless. Gradually her eyes closed; her legs went limp and then stiff. Her tail sticking out like a bent pipe cleaner, Fillet felt nothing more.