Cat Kin (5 page)

‘Oh the shark has,
tam ta-daa
, pretty teeth, dear…’

Ben walked more slowly as he drew near home. Someone was singing.

‘And he shows them,
ta ta-daa
, pearly white…’

Suddenly wary, Ben stepped behind a parked yellow van and shaded his eyes. The evening sun was flaring off the shop windows in Albion Road.

A figure in a pale suit strolled into view. He could only have come from Defoe Court. Where the flat was. A passing lorry blocked the sun glare and he saw the man clearly. It was John Stanford.
By a silver car parked on the pavement he fumbled for keys.

Ben’s heart was sticking in his throat like a chunk of gristle. Stanford had come while he was out. He cursed himself. He should have stayed at home—stood behind the door with his
cricket bat. If anything had happened to Mum…

‘On the sidewalk, oh yeah, Sun-day morn-ing…’ Stanford clicked his fingers, opening the car boot to put a carrier bag inside. ‘Lies a body, oozing
life…’

He got behind the wheel. The engine gunned and music sprang from powerful speakers inside. A big band sound.

When the shark bites…with his teeth, dear…

The song grew fainter. The instant Stanford’s car accelerated round the corner, Ben dashed down Defoe Court and into his block. He beat on the flat’s unpainted door.

‘Mum!’

She opened it, startled.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Are you all right? What did he do?’

‘Who? What did who do?’

‘Mr Stanford. He was here!’

‘No, he wasn’t.’

‘Outside! I saw him.’

Getting his breath back, Ben explained. Mum sat down, sucking thoughtfully on a chocolate wrapper. When he told her about Stanford’s singing, Mum gave a bitter smirk.

‘I never figured him for a Frank Sinatra fan. Likes to do things his way, I suppose. Well, I don’t know why he was snooping around, but he didn’t come in here.’

‘Maybe he was hassling someone else.’

Mum shook her head. ‘All the neighbours have gone. Haven’t you noticed how quiet it is now? We’re the only ones left in these flats.’ She touched the tiny scar at the
corner of her eye, something she always did when she was sad. She’d cut herself late one night, four years ago, walking into a door when coming home in the dark.

‘We could leave too,’ Ben burst out. He was sure he’d had a bright new idea. ‘Sell the place properly to someone else and get away!’

‘Berk.’ Mum poked him, not unkindly. ‘Who’s this mystery buyer with piles of cash and half a brain cell? You couldn’t give this flat away. And we can’t rent
anywhere, and we can’t buy another flat on what Stanford would pay us. We have no choice except–’ she gripped his hand, ‘–be brave.’

That night, Ben lay awake in the streetlamp-stained darkness. The words of Mr Stanford’s song writhed like maggots in his head. For a second, hiding behind the van, he had been sure they
referred to his mum. The horror of that thought was still with him. Every passing car was the silver saloon. Every creak was Stanford’s footstep in the hall.

He had long since despaired of sleep when his restless mind washed up some other words. He could not immediately remember where they had come from, but they brought a strange, lonely kind of
comfort.

He slept.

‘I want you to imagine,’ said Mrs Powell, ‘that you are balancing on top of a thin wooden post. The post is no wider than your wrist and is as high as you are
tall. If you wobble, it will sway and tip you to the ground.’

Tiffany sneaked one eye open. Her fellow pupils stood, like her, on tiptoe, one foot overlapping the other. Cecile was already tottering. Tiffany shut the eye quickly as Mrs Powell glided past
her.

‘Now you see a second post, just as tall, just as thin, one stride ahead of you. Beyond that is another post and beyond that, another. See that row of tall posts in your mind. You are
standing on the first.’

Tiffany heard a sharp breath as someone almost overbalanced. It was getting harder to believe in the sturdy wooden floor underfoot.

‘When I say,’ Mrs Powell went on, ‘take a single step forward onto the next post. You
must
tread precisely on the top. Anything else will make the post bend and you
will fall.’ She paused for two of Tiffany’s heartbeats. ‘Step now.’

Tiffany placed her right foot blindly ahead of her and brought her left foot to join it. She was steady. She could feel the imaginary stake beneath her, trembling but upright. Slowly she
breathed out. There was a thump as somebody fell. It was followed by another.

‘Ugh.’ Olly picked himself up. ‘Have I only got eight lives left now?’

‘It’s really hard!’ whined Cecile.

‘Back on your post. Start again. Eyes
shut
please.’

Although Mrs Powell snapped at them like a games teacher, Tiffany didn’t mind. She couldn’t remember enjoying a physical activity so much. She was also adding to her (rather small)
circle of friends. Once she’d found the confidence to introduce herself properly, she’d recognised several of the class from her year at school, although none of them had lessons with
her. Susie seemed nice and chatty, and Olly promised to be a laugh. Tiffany had proudly told her parents that she’d found a suitable Thursday-night amusement, and that her expensive,
neglected ballet leotard would finally get some use.

Not that pashki seemed anything like as energetic as ballet. Their lesson last week had been almost totally still. Mrs Powell had taught them cat meditation. One technique, Pur, involved
crouching like a Sphinx and trying to make a strange rumble in your throat. Deep meditation, or Omu, meant curling up with your legs just so. This had caused amusement at first, but in a room with
Mrs Powell no-one laughed for long.

Arriving at that second lesson, Tiffany had been surprised to find Ben the cat-hater still among them. No, that was unfair. He must be open-minded or he wouldn’t have come at all. She
wondered what had happened to change his attitude. This week she’d even tried saying hello to him. All she got back was a grunt. Still, he had seemed pretty wrapped up in his thoughts.

Today’s challenge was Eth, or cat walking. There were, Mrs Powell said, nine rudiments of pashki that every novice had to learn. Eth was the third.

‘When you have mastered one step,’ said Mrs Powell, ‘take another. You should be able to walk from post to post without swaying. Don’t hurry. It takes time to
come.’

To an outsider, it would look as if they were merely walking along the floor. Yet people were finding it incredibly difficult. Olly had fallen three times and Yusuf had to keep windmilling his
long arms to stay upright. And he kept catching Susie’s eye, making her grin stupidly until both of them were giggling.

‘Eight out of ten for effort, Suze,’ said Yusuf, his American accent even stronger than usual. ‘But one out of ten for impressing the boys, you know?’

Daniel was compact and obviously pretty agile, yet even he was getting frustrated. Tiffany couldn’t believe it.
I’m the only one doing it well
, she thought.

Or had she thought too soon? To her surprise (and slight irritation) she saw Ben taking one step, another, then a third, lowering each toe with the precision of—well, a cat. His closed
eyes, under their strong dark brows, were a picture of serenity, spoiled only when he walked smack into the wall.

Tiffany couldn’t stop the laughter spurting out of her, unfortunately just as he turned her way. He glared. But everyone was chuckling a bit and Mrs Powell was trying not to.

‘Do this,’ Mrs Powell called to Ben. She made a great show of rubbing her fists against her mouth, the way a cat licks its paws. ‘It says you don’t care. When a cat makes
a mess of things, dignity pulls it through.’

‘Thanks for that,’ Ben muttered. He checked to see if his nose was bleeding and gave Tiffany another black look. She was sorry she’d laughed. Despite her twinge of jealousy, it
would be a shame if he got the hump now, just as he was getting into it.

‘Now you see why cats have whiskers,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘But that’s for later. We’re going to get this Eth walking right.’

She stood in a corner of the studio and crossed to the far window. Everyone stared. She had covered the space in a twinkling, without seeming to move fast at all. And she had made no sound.

‘Your feet are getting there,’ she said. ‘But you’re thinking like bipeds. Cats are four-limbed. When you walk, your arms should move too. Don’t swing them. They
are your forelegs. Tiffany, come and demonstrate.’

It took a moment to sink in. She was being chosen. If her PE teacher ever singled her out, it was only to show her up as useless. Terrified and delighted she joined Mrs Powell at the front.

‘Eth uses all four limbs.’ Mrs Powell angled Tiffany’s arm so the others could see. ‘The cat’s pace is a diagonal pattern in four beats. Right fore, left hind, left
fore, right hind. Nature has no better way of moving over the ground. Tiffany, show us.’

She pictured the tall posts in her mind and took a few steps. She found that by thinking of Rufus and how he walked, the rhythm flowed naturally to her legs and arms. Her hands were like
paddles, pushing the space behind her.

‘A perfect example,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘Everyone walk the posts again.’

Having two extra things to think about wreaked havoc with most people. Yusuf managed three steps before getting muddled. Daniel did five and Susie, with gritted teeth, reached six. Olly
couldn’t stop falling over, eventually getting the giggles so badly he had to sit gasping by the wall. But Tiffany let herself glide across the room. She widened the gap between the imaginary
posts, until she was no longer stepping but striding. Her pace quickened, she pivoted from tiptoe to tiptoe, as light and bouncy as a spring.

Those ballerinas could keep their pirouettes.

‘I’m home!’

No-one answered. Tiffany looked in the lounge then the kitchen. Rufus ran to her with a
mrrp
of welcome. She put her stuff in the washing machine, found herself a cereal bar and
wandered upstairs.

‘Anyone in?’

The study light was on. Mum and Dad were squashed on one chair at the computer.

‘It’s really, really great, that class,’ said Tiffany. ‘It’s sort of like dance and a bit like yoga only miles better. And it’s been around for thousands of
years but only a few people know it now. And I’m good at it already. Most of the others were falling over but I can do Eth now which is cat walking and it’s so weird, you hardly even
feel like you’re moving but you are. And that lovely silver cat likes Parmesan cheese.’

‘Did you have a good time, sweetheart?’ Mum murmured. ‘That’s lovely. There! See?’ She pointed at something on the screen.

‘Okay, give me a chance to read it.’ Dad frowned at the monitor.

Tiffany draped her arms over their shoulders and hung between them.

‘What are you looking at?’

‘I may have found something interesting,’ said Mum.

‘Is it to do with Stuart?’

‘Can you back-page?’ Dad asked Mum. ‘Show me the article you found first.’

Oh well. At least they weren’t telling her not to interrupt. Curious, Tiffany stood behind them and tried to read through the gap.

On the screen was an article from the New Scientist magazine. It talked about a Dr J. Philip Cobb and his research into traditional ethnic remedies. There was a fair bit of fluff about his life,
which she skimmed over: as a child he’d mangled his arm in some accident that killed his mother, while they were travelling in Asia. His father took him for treatment in England, but the
muscle in the bad arm never grew properly. That was when the article got interesting. Cobb had grown up to study biology and herbology. He searched for nutrients that could repair muscles damaged
by accident or disease. This was the hook that had snagged Mum’s internet search (she compulsively trawled Google for the phrase ‘muscular dystrophy’).

‘And look, Peter,’ said Mum. ‘He has his own company that makes these treatments. There’s a link.’