Moby Jack & Other Tall Tales (14 page)

It was not so much that I was hunted down, or even openly reviled, but I was
here
. Yes, I had been treated with contempt, forced to eat from the gutter, made to sleep in filthy corners, but this was more a matter of neglect than open hostility. No one cared about me. They lived their lives around me, their indifference to my suffering hurtful, but there was no positive attempt to degrade or
physically
harm me.

‘Do you want to come home with me for the night?’ asked the dog. ‘I can find you a place to sleep.’

I nodded, all my pride gone.

When we left the tavern, I went out first, and two footpads carrying cudgels—dogs by the look of them under the lamplight—crossed the street towards me. However, when they saw my terrier they dropped their eyes and changed the direction of their walk. Soon they had gone, down one of the slick black
alleys which
led to the river, where they could ply their trade in the fog.

‘You see,’ said the terrier, patting a bulge in his waistcoat pocket. ‘You have me to thank for your safety.
Or rather my position as a Constable of the Watch.
Did I not mention that to you? Well then, we have known each other for such a short period of time.’

He led me to a modest town house in the area of the prison and unlocked the door with a huge iron key. Inside the rooms were not unfriendly but sparsely furnished. I wondered what I had let myself in for, but the terrier did not seem overly interested in me except to see me bedded down in a corner of the kitchen, just behind the stove, on warm flags.

I pulled the ragged blanket over my head, hoping, as always when I fell asleep, that I should awake in a morning where the nightmare had gone. It was a
hope which
was never fulfilled, but I still nurtured it. This city, peopled by beasts in clothes, was a horrible dream. It seemed to me as if there were something I had to remember, which would be the key to my escape, but since I did not have an inkling of what it was I could do no more than pray some revelation would come to me.

The dog had mentioned the Council of Beasts.

Perhaps they could help me?

‘It’s funny,’ said the terrier, as he left the kitchen with a lighted candle, ‘we used to be under your domination. Now you look to me for sustenance, shelter,
comfort
. Our roles have been reversed. I find that funny, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Most peculiar.’

‘And funny,’ he said, leaving me.

The next day he took me to the town hall, in the cobbled square. It was a Gothic building, with round turrets, spires and narrow windows. Shadows lurked in the corners of its deep sills and arches. The windows were filthy. A trail of dung led from the great doorway, out into the square, where it filled the cracks between the cobbles. On a hot day this square stank of drying straw and animal droppings. There was a pile of steaming hay in the hallway as we entered, whose damp heart must surely have been about to combust.

‘Up the stairs,’ said the terrier. ‘Our appointment is for noon.’

That could have meant just about any time between 8 o’clock in the morning and mid-afternoon. Since there were no clocks here it was immaterial. The beasts only had four times—midnight, dawn, noon and dusk. They had no need of exacting seconds, minutes or hours. Midnight was the most flexible, since there was nothing to mark it except perhaps a vague knowledge of where the moon and stars should be at such at time.

We sat on a long wooden bench outside a set of tall narrow
doors which rose
to three times my height. On the bench there were a goat, three pigs all in open-necked shirts with dirty collars, a fox and several rats. It seemed they were all waiting to get in to see the council.

I sat next to the goat in the torn cloak
who
was chewing a wad of hay the whole time, occasionally spitting the juice across the corridor at the wall opposite, where it dribbled down to the skirting beneath. Once or twice he inclined his head to stare at me curiously, but said nothing.

The pigs were talking in low, urgent voices together, as if they were concocting some story on which they had to be consistent and word perfect. Occasionally their mumblings were audible, so that I caught a partial sentence.

‘…
so
then
you
say,’ murmured the saddleback hog, ‘“I have no need of a third of a whole acre...”’

The rats remained nervously quiet, not looking at each other, scratching themselves impatiently.

Suddenly the doors to the council chamber flew open and a small dog appeared.

‘The visitor!’ he called.

The terrier nudged me and I got to my feet. On the bench there was some shuffling of hooves and paws, and mutterings about jumping the queue. These I ignored as I entered the large council room. On the way across the bare floor I passed a dejected-looking poodle
who
gave me such a look of disgust I felt that whatever his petition had been, he blamed me for its failure. Since he no doubt had to blame
someone
I was as good a choice as any. The doors were closed behind him.

I was invited to sit in a wheel-backed chair before a great mahogany desk. I stared around the room. It looked much like the council chamber in my own town hall, back in the real world. Behind the desk, piled with papers and books, ink and quills, was a goat in a stiff, high collar and a cat in a creased blue dress.
They were attended by two dogs in black suits
. There seemed to be much conferring between the dogs as they put various papers before the two judges, but none between the
goat
and cat themselves. Eventually the cat looked up over the top of her metal-rimmed spectacles.

‘You wish to return to your own city?’ she said. ‘Is that correct?’

‘Yes, er, ma’am,’ I mumbled.

‘Cat, not
ma’am
,’ she corrected me.

‘Yes, cat. This dog here...’

She stared at the terrier in an unblinking fashion.

‘Your counsel, yes.
Have you come to an arrangement for his services?’

I felt the flutterings of uncertainty in my breast.

‘Arrangement?’

‘Yes, has he made his terms known to you?’

The terrier said, ‘No—not yet.’ He turned to me and said, ‘You must take care of one of my kind, my breed, when you go back.’

‘Anything,’ I said, desperate to be home again.

‘It doesn’t have to be you. Just make sure a terrier gets a good home. Do you agree?’

It seemed simple enough. ‘Yes.’

‘Good,’ said the goat, speaking for the first time. ‘Now, you were brought here for . . . hmmmmm,’ he studied a piece of paper in his hoof. ‘Yes, the assassination.’ He stared at me hard. ‘You must promise, you see, to kill someone when we allow you to go back.’

‘Kill someone?’ I faltered, horrified.

‘Yes,’ said the cat. ‘There is a man who has been responsible for a lot of cruelty—animals have suffered terribly under his hand. He is called...’ and she gave me the name of a well-known pharmaceutical manufacturer about whom I had read in the newspapers. His laboratories had been in the newspapers regarding animal experiments.

‘I have to shoot him?’ I queried, my mind spinning with the thought.

‘Shoot him, stab him, suffocate him, poison him—we do not care. The method of the murder is left up to you. What must happen is the man must die by your hand. Otherwise, you will remain here for the rest of your days.’

‘There are no other choices?’ I cried, in despair.

‘None.’

‘I see,’ I said, looking down.

‘You will of course,’ remarked the goat in rather ponderous tones, ‘receive the city’s highest reward possible—once the deed has been performed to our satisfaction.’

‘What is the nature of the reward?’

‘It will be your action which will decide
that
,’ said the cat. ‘You will determine your own reward.’

Finally, I agreed to their terms, and the next morning found myself back in the real world.

Now when one has undergone such an experience, one is naturally shaken at first. One wakes, in one’s own sweaty bed, thankful the nightmare is at an end. One looks back on the horrible events in one’s dream and makes resolutions.

‘I shall be a better person in the future. I shall be careful of making judgements on my fellow creatures. I shall not be hasty in my actions.’

Trembling and physically exhausted from the night’s happenings, I rose and made a cup of tea. I sat in the bleak grey rays of dawn and drank the same, wondering if I would keep my promise to the terrier in my dream. In the end it made sense that I should, if only for my own peace of mind. There was a nephew who had requested a dog. I would purchase him the self-same breed as the
hound which
had acted for me in the matter concerning the Council of Beasts.

This I did, but also visited a psychiatrist, who gave me due warning of what was to come.
His name was given me by a friend, a politician whose acquaintance I had recently made by chance
. This man recommended the doctor as being one of the foremost authorities on displaced states of mind.

‘He won’t laugh at me?’ I said.

‘Not at all,’ said my political friend. ‘He is thoroughly professional concerning such matters and treats them with all proper seriousness.’

Fortunately, the doctor lived in the district. It was a short walk from the politician’s house to the psychiatrist’s door. In my anxious state my steps were quick and eager. On being admitted I fairly flew through the hallway and into the office dominated by a brown leather couch. I lay on this item of furniture, conscious of it once having been a bull.

‘These things usually come in threes,’ said the doctor, on hearing my confession. ‘I don’t know why, something to do with the brain’s obsession with that number. You will no doubt return to this strange kingdom of the mind, where beasts rule over mankind, and there have to account for yourself again.’

I had told him nothing about the man I was supposed to kill, only that the beasts had also demanded kindness and consideration from me in future years as further payment for my escape.

‘Is there nothing you can give me, which will forestall such a return to that state?’

‘I can give you medication, drugs, but these will only work in the short term. Once you stop taking them, you will experience the illness again— probably. I’m not saying it’s certain. Nothing is certain in this business. However, I would be very surprised if you went back to this dream world of yours. Perhaps another, but not the same one.’

I agreed not to take any medication, though I was very frightened of having another breakdown. On the way out of the doctor’s office I walked more slowly than when I had entered. In this more casual frame of mind I noticed a print on the hallway wall. It said it was ‘From a painting by Cornelis Saftleven (1607-1681) called
The Council of Beasts
(Prague Museum of Art).’ It had strangely clothed animals standing or sitting in groups—a goat, standing upper centre-left side, a cat sitting lower right side, both attended by dogs.

I went straight back into his office, almost hysterical, and demanded to know why he had not mentioned this picture to me. The doctor looked acutely surprised and told me he had forgotten he had it. ‘It’s been on the wall for so long, perhaps thirty years. I’ve stopped looking at it. I didn’t even recall its content when we were talking about your dream. You know, it’s like the wallpaper, after a while it blends into the wall itself, becomes a blank in your mind, even when you spend eight or nine hours a day in its company. Do you understand?’

I tried to recall the
wall-covering
on the living-room of my grandparents’ house—and failed—even though I had been raised in that house.