How to cook a cat
Fergus Blaine sat on the ‘guest’ stool at the Court Room bar. Gabriel’s elderly ex-boyfriend sat on Gabriel’s old stool. I sat on my usual bench in the judge’s stand battling the irony. Three bottles of Yorkshire’s finest Black Sheep Riggwelter ale sat empty on the bar beside tall, full glasses. Two dogs slept just as soundly as they always had by a slowly building fire, just as they had when Gabriel had held sway on the high stool; just as they did now she was gone. Nothing against Kurt and Courtney – dogs didn’t move on any faster than people did, they were just better at bottling their emotions.
And right now I’d have paid top dollar to bottle Marcus Friend’s entire repertoire of emotions and stick them somewhere Fergus Blaine’s prying mind couldn’t touch them. The harsh reality was this: I was harbouring a terrorist and an ocean-going stool pigeon had just dropped anchor in our cove. I didn’t know how to deal with this other than to ply Fergus Blaine with full strength beer masquerading as shandy in the hope he fell off his stool before Friend said anything damning. Blaine, it had emerged during his brief, unfortunate stay at Hartley Castle House, was not a big drinker – two shandies and he was an embarrassment; three and he passed out.
‘What’s this?’ said Blaine fingering the glass of dark fluid before him on the bar.
‘Shandy,’ I said. It was, in fact, Black Sheep Riggwelter, 5.7% alcohol by volume, watered down with Absolut vodka.
‘It’s a bit dark for shandy.’
‘It’s dark beer, Fergus. Lemonade can’t touch it. Trust me on this one.’
And so we proceeded into the night, our dysfunctional little threesome becoming more dysfunctional by the blurted Blaine utterance: Upon discovering that his new friend was a singer, songwriter: ‘Really, Marcus? That surprises me, considering your age and everything, and I don’t mean that in a nasty way, just I’ve never heard of you and I follow the local music scene pretty closely. I mean, you’re hardly Mick Jagger, been there, done that, made millions, are you? Even if you are about the same age. I reckon you must be just starting out in music. Not that I’m suggesting a midlife crisis or anything. Good for you giving it a go. You might as well. You’re pretty much unemployable at your age. Those tattoos won’t help either. You know what? I really hope it works out for you, I truly do.’
Scattergun critique complete, Blaine sucked furiously at his ‘shandy’.
Marcus Friend was too stunned to say anything.
Fergus Blaine, on discovering (with a little help from me) that his new friend had, in fact, done nothing before music, was, in fact, a serial failure as a singer, songwriter, a no hit wonder who had recently resorted to covering Doors songs: ‘I don’t mean to be funny, but don’t you feel a bit of a fraud playing other people’s songs?’
Friend opened his mouth.
‘Why The Doors? Aren’t they a bit seventies? And don’t you think you’re a bit fat to be Jim Morrison? You know what? Pillion Passengers on the Storm doesn’t do it for me either. Isn’t it a bit gimmicky? A bit childish?’
‘The name is a play on the greatest Doors song ever written,’ said Friend, surprisingly obviously, surprisingly flaccidly, unsurprisingly over-
wrought.
‘I realise that, Marcus. I think everyone else realises it too. It’s just a bit try hard, a bit Douglas Adams. The movie, not the book. Which actually wasn’t Douglas Adams fault, because he’s dead at the moment. So’s Jim Morrison. Not that I’m trying to draw any parallels. Does anyone advise you on this stuff? Baring in mind we’re probably talking very limited budgets and poor crowds, you probably do it all yourself. It must be so hard, so humiliating. I’d change that name if I were you.’
Fergus Blaine on discovering that Gabriel was also Marcus’s ex-squeeze: ‘Really? Why should that impress me, Marcus? And I don’t mean that in a patronising way; I just don’t share this attraction for midgets.’
I laughed. ‘Say what you mean, Fergus!’
‘I did, Bailey. Speaking of midgets, where is she?’
I cleared my throat. ‘She, ah, left me.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Bailey. Sexual issues?’
‘Fuck off!’
‘It usually is.’ He grimaced, discoloured, mismatch teeth like a cattle train derailing in his mouth. ‘Not wanting to alarm you, Bailey, this must be a trying time for you. But you’ll struggle to meet someone else at your age.’
I scoffed. ‘I’m thirty-five! Marcus is the one with the bloody age problem!’
‘What is this fixation with age?’ Marcus Friend rediscovered his voice. ‘Master Blaine. Among your peculiar cache of attributes, do you have the capacity to shut up?’
Blaine gawped at him.
‘Good! Now may I please direct the conversation back to where we were an hour ago!’
‘Fergus wasn’t here an hour ago, Marcus,’ I said.
‘I can only reminisce,’ Friend said with a melodramatic sigh. ‘Fergus?’ He waited until Blaine turned squinted eyes his way. ‘If it’s all right with you, I wish to resume a debate rudely interrupted, the subject matter of which was flies.’
‘Oh God,’ said Blaine. ‘Don’t start me on flies!’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Friend said flatly.
The paperback he had extracted in the Great Hall an hour ago reappeared from a coat pocket. He suddenly sat higher on his stool, higher in general demeanour, pet subject, perhaps his only subject, at the ready, perhaps, as he saw it, on the verge of restoring the balance.
‘I quote,’ he said, ‘from a book I happen to have brought with me entitled Animal Ethics by Robert Garner, Reader in Politics at the University of Leicester. This short, sharp extract describes a charming little scene filmed in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant. It reads…While the cat claws and screeches, the cook hits her several times with an iron bar. Clawing and screeching more now, she is abruptly submerged in a tub of scalding water for about ten seconds. Once removed, and while still alive, the cook skins her from head to tail in one swift pull. He then throws the traumatized animal into a large stove vat where we watch her gulp slowly, her eyes glazed, until she drowns. The whole episode takes several minutes. When the meal is served, the diners eat heartily, offering thanks and praise to the cook.’
He flopped the book face down in his lap with a loud slap, looked up for a reaction. I gave one amid waves of revulsion: ‘That would have to be the most shocking thing I’ve ever heard.’
‘That,’ said Friend, ‘is what we in the west might call won ton cruelty. Hideous. Quite literally beyond the realms of western sensibilities.’ He raised a finger. ‘Careful though. That Asian chef? Try telling him he shouldn’t cook live cats. Or cook cats at all! That cat is his fly.’
‘His what?’ said Blaine, slit eyed, jaw slack.
‘Drink your shandy, Fergus,’ I said. And he drank.
‘You know,’ said Blaine coming up for air, the shrill cries of cooking cats still ringing in my ears, ‘they do the same thing with lobsters in some countries.’
‘Lobsters? Really?’ Friend said sarcastically with a tired gaze my way.
Blaine nodded as vigorously as his deteriorating coordination would allow. ‘Terrible,’ he said. ‘I tried it once and it cost twenty quid! I mean it was a real treat choosing your own live lobster from an aquarium and every-thing. That’s how they did it, live lobsters from an aquarium, boiled alive and brought to your table fresh as you like. And I was just thinking, wouldn’t it be nice if you could choose your own cat. Not from an aquarium, be-cause cats can’t swim. But they might have a pit of kitty litter next to the buffet full of Siamese and whatever other cat brands there are. And tabbies if you couldn’t afford a pure bred and kittens for entrees and the kiddies menu. I think that would be really nice, don’t you?’ He squinted drunkenly from me to Friend and back again. ‘What?’
Marcus Friend spoke in measured, if tremulous tones. ‘Mister Blaine. With any due respect, you are exactly the sort of person that makes people like me necessary.’
‘You what?’ said Blaine.
‘Ahm! Nothing, Fergus.’ I glared at Friend, who offered a bemused shrug. ‘Marcus was just leaving. Weren’t you, Marcus?’
‘No? But I think he might be.’
At which point, a barely conscious Fergus Blaine fell off his stool.
‘You spiked his drinks?’ Friend said incredulously as we carried Fergus Blaine to the Jury Room.
‘His one drink,’ I said. ‘It was just a nip of vodka.’ A nip to a normal man. Clearly the bite of a rabid dog to Fergus Blaine.
We dumped him on the floor, stuffed a jacket under his head.
‘I honestly think he means well, you know,’ I said standing over his foetal, dribbling form. Friend just grunted. ‘I want to believe he means well anyway. All that before? I honestly don’t think he intended any harm by it. He was trying to help. He just can’t articulate like a human being. He says what he thinks…As it occurs to him…Sometimes even before it occurs to him. Believe me, there’s the basis of a good person in there just crying out for etiquette lessons.’
*****
‘Bailey, do you think I’m stupid?’ Friend said once we were settled back at the bar, our own consumption turning opposite minds introspective.
‘I don’t just think it…’
‘Bailey, dear.’ He sighed effeminately, all slumped shoulders and neck. ‘How do you think I’ve stayed out of prison ‘til this ripe old age, sweets? Mmmm? I play in a band. All those band members, not to mention roadies. Yes we do have roadies. Two of them.’ He rolled his eyes, smacked his lips. ‘We’re big…All of those people are dear, dear friends. None of them,’ he paused for effect, ‘have the slightest inkling of what I do. One of them I’ve known since he was twelve.’
‘Fine. I stand by what I said. You were baiting me through Fergus Blaine.’
‘I was not baiting you through Fergus Blaine! The man was non compos!’
‘He was clearly conscious!’
‘He was clearly leaning!’
‘His eyes were open!’
‘His eyes were focussed on another planet! Bailey, listen! I am an activist! My entire reason for being revolves around animals! Saving animals! Liberating animals by whatever means! Changing attitudes by whatever means! I spend nine tenths of every day breaking the law! Do you honestly think I spend the other tenth telling people about my day?’
‘You told Gabriel.’
His entire demeanour sagged at the mere mention. ‘Yes, I told Gabriel. Gabby. I told her a lot of things.’ He fixed me with a demonic grin, perhaps expecting a reaction. When none came, he broke eye contact and stared wide eyed at the fire. The demonic smile faded as fast as the glaze came. He turned his head even further away, swallowed hard. ‘She was a good girl, you know.’
My turn to stare at the fire and swallow hard. ‘She’s still alive as far as I’m aware.’
‘Not as far as you or I are concerned.’
‘Sorry, but I still hold a bit of a candle, Marcus. You’re welcome to the burny end, but…’
He chuckled. ‘You’re of the half glass full mentality, aren’t you, Bailey?’
I thought about this, shrugged. ‘I hope so.’
He nodded sagely. ‘I wish I shared your outlook.’
I nodded less than sagely back. ‘Help yourself.’
So there we were. Blackmailer and blackmailee, jilted adversaries both, sharing a beer in the court room of a broken down castle on the North York Moors. I resented Marcus Friend on every rational level I could muster. He was as detestable as Charlton Heston, as dangerous as George W. Bush and as passionately misguided as Osama Bin Laden. Yet, we were kindred spirits in our mutual quests for a better, more animal friendly world. A quest I was only now taking past the hypothetical. A quest Marcus Friend had long since taken into the hysterical. Most of me was appalled at the lengths Friend would go to save an animal or bird. The rest of me was ashamed at the lengths he had gone already, before I’d even raised a fully functional finger in anger.
‘There are hundreds of cowboys and their sons running roughshod over the Australian outback every night,’ he said accepting yet another beer with a polite dip of his head. ‘Killing under the cover of darkness. Killing with the total approval of their government. Killing under a code of practice no one in that government has the slightest interest in ensuring they keep. But then we are talking about a government who wilfully left a boatload of illegal immigrants to drown. This is not a nice government, Bailey. They don’t care how kangaroos find their way onto tables and feet so long as they do. They are politicians and a politician pulled a Parker pen from a coat pocket and signed a document endorsing the forcible removal of a suckling joey from a shot mother, the administering of a solid blow to that joey’s head. I’d like to know who that politician was, wouldn’t you?’
I scoffed. ‘Yes, Marcus. But shaming him out of office would be preferable to hanging his kids from a tree.’
‘Or her.’
‘What?’
‘Or her. Women are just as capable of grotesque behaviour as men.’
We shared a slow, knowing nod.
‘These are the people who hosted the 2000 Olympics, Bailey! Who present their country to the world as a sunny, happy place full of beautiful beaches and bronzed life savers and jovial country folk with mile long driveways! What they fail to reveal with such sunny pride are the fathers and sons who perpetuate the cruellest, most unpoliced and, not a word of a lie, largest massacre of wild animals anywhere on the planet!’
I didn’t question him on his facts. I now knew them to be true. Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe, none of them shot a single species of their own wild animals at the rate of six million a year. Not even the two hundred million war crazy citizens of the US of A under the enthusiastic tutelage of Charlton Heston and the National Rifle Association could pop animals as fast as the twenty million sunny citizens of Australia.
‘I’d gladly grab that little, sandy haired Satan by the Asok trainers and swing him at a wall if I thought it would help,’ Friend continued, eyes darkening. ‘Sadly, that child is no more to blame for his beliefs than an Asian chef. I doubt his father is to blame either. Or even his father.’
‘We dwelled on this moment. ‘So,’ said Friend. ‘How to stop this ugly trade, my oddly hirsute friend. Attack random farmers? Mmm, useful, but awfully fiddly. Target the largest market for those random farmers and the Australian government, that market being Asok? More than useful. Less fiddly. Target the one man who means everything to that brand, and without whom that brand would surely perish? Perfecto!’
I gasped. ‘Andrew Sandham?’
He grinned demonically, nodded.
‘You’re not going to target Andrew Sandham.’
‘Through a telescopic sight, my friend. Alas, those charged with ending this slaughter have been sadly ineffective, their softly softly tactics falling on deaf ears. Need I tell you moderate action brings moderate results. Time,’ he said toasting me with his bottle, ‘for the extremists to have a go.’
‘No, Marcus.’
‘Yes, Marcus. If memory serves me correct, one is a little hamstrung by his own desire to stay out of prison.’
‘What are you going to do?’ I felt like a twitchy western reporter in an Afghanistan mountain cave.
‘Absolutely no idea. And I wouldn’t be telling you if I did. I suggest you keep an eye on the papers, my dear Bailey. And not the middle pages where most of our work tends to get buried. This, whatever it may be, will be front page news. I guarantee that. Because, in this country, the only thing bigger than Andrew Sandham, the footballer, is Andrew Sandham, the celebrity.’
