The Nine Lives of Montezuma (3 page)

‘Dad,' he said, wondering how best to begin. ‘Dad I found a kitten in the old granary this afternoon.'

‘Did you clear it out like I said?' His father bent over the sink to scrub his hands.

‘Yes, Dad. It's all done.'

‘And the milking? Are you sure that Iris hasn't got mastitis? She felt hard enough to me last night, in the two front quarters. You sure she's all right?'

‘Quite sure, Dad.'

‘And what about Emma? She looked as if she might calve early. Any sign?'

‘No, Dad. Dad, about the kitten ...'

‘Is there a cup of tea in the pot?' His father wiped his hands and turned around to face the oven. ‘Gad, what the divil's that in the oven?' He stooped for a closer look, hands on his knees. ‘It's a perishing kitten. What the divil's a perishing kitten doing in here? Will someone
tell me what the divil he's doing in that oven?'

‘Dad, I've been trying to tell you. That's the kitten I found in the granary. He's been deserted by that Kitty.'

‘But I drowned her last lot.'

‘Not all of them, Dad. You must have missed this one, and I found him all starved and nearly dead. Mum and me, we've been feeding him up; and Dad, I wanted to ask you if . . .'

‘Gad,' said his father, and he reached in the oven and pulled the kitten out, holding him up by the scruff of the neck.

‘Too old to drown now, dear,' said the boy's mother. ‘What'll we do with him?'

‘What'll we do with him? You can't just throw him out, wouldn't be right. You'll have to keep him, won't you? Just take care you keep him out of the sitting room, that's all.' He looked the kitten straight in the face, nose to nose. ‘Never in the sitting room, you hear me?'
And he handed the kitten to the boy.

‘All yours, Matthew,' he said. ‘What'll you call him?'

‘Monty,' said Matthew. ‘Short for Montezuma.'

‘Divilish silly name, but there you are, Matthew's not much better. Monty meet Matthew, Matthew meet Monty.'

‘D'you mean I can keep him here, Dad? He can stay?'

‘Nothing else to be done, is there? Now what were you going to ask me, Matthew? You said there was something . . .'

‘Nothing, Dad, it was nothing. Can't have been important. I've forgotten.'

‘Where's my tea then? Gad, can't a man have a cup of tea when he gets back home at night. What are you both staring at?'

And so Montezuma came to live in the farm-house. After a few days he was moved
away from the oven and into a box on the far side of the kitchen under the ironing board. But that was a long way from the stove, and he very soon found a corner of the stove by the wall where he could sleep warm and undisturbed whilst he grew slowly into adolescence.

IT WAS NOT TO BE AN EASY TRANSITION from the farmyard to the house. Growing up, it seemed, imposed certain restrictions that Montezuma found difficult to accept. He had to learn, for instance, not to jump up on the kitchen table to lick the plates, not to yowl around the table and not to be inside when he should have been outside. Every night he was obliged to go out whatever the weather. When it was raining hard he would hide in amongst the chair legs or crawl inside the kitchen cupboard under the sink in an attempt to avoid
eviction, but it did him no good. His expulsion might be postponed for a few moments but when it came it was all the more abrupt and uncomfortable. On several occasions the kitten stole away to explore the bedrooms upstairs, and once he squeezed into the pantry where all the good smells came from. But he found the rule of law was consistent and merciless. Each time he transgressed the punishment was swift and sharp; he was chased out and banished until time healed the offence and he was forgiven – again.

Gradually he was learning. He was learning all the rules and regulations, the boundaries and codes; and more and more he found it expedient to keep inside the law, ostensibly at any rate. The family all agreed that Montezuma was beginning to conform to their idea of an acceptable cat and Matthew congratulated himself upon this miraculous conversion. Even
Matthew's father was beginning to admit, albeit begrudgingly, that the kitten was losing his farmyard manners. This was just the impression Montezuma wished to convey. He had merely learnt the wisdom of cunning, of guerrilla warfare as opposed to open battle. He was developing a secret weapon that would ensure the good life, and that weapon was guile. Now he would wait until the coast was quite clear before he committed his crimes. He recognised that previously his crimes of passion and greed had led to early detection and dire punishment, so now he turned to premeditated crime, meticulously planned and executed. Now he would sleep under beds and not on top of them; now he stole from the kitchen table only when the house was deserted and the door wide open for a quick escape. The efficient criminal must understand the law and then learn how best to avoid being caught.
Montezuma might have continued all his life as a habitual outlaw had he not tangled that fateful afternoon with the tin of baked beans left behind on the kitchen table.

He would never even have seen the tin if the great white cockerel had not chased him away from the flower beds where he had been playing quite innocently among the snapdragons. The cockerel, a vicious Light Sussex, with a predatory break and a flaming comb, had clearly decided that the kitten was a threat to his cackle of hens that were mining for worms in the shrubbery behind the flower-bed. He crowed noisily but the kitten paid him no attention, so he strutted purposefully towards him, wings flapping and neck feathers fluffed out. Still the kitten appeared not to notice him, and so the cockerel ran the last few feet, his neck outstretched and pecked the kitten just above his tail. Montezuma knew
better than to mix it with an angry cockerel, so he beat a retreat, hissing and spitting back at the cockerel from a safe distance. By the back door he turned again to arch his back in a final gesture of indignation, but the cockerel had forgotten him and was feeding with his hens in the flower-bed. It was then that Montezuma spied the green tin standing like a beckoning beacon on the kitchen table. Tins, he knew from delving into dustbins, were always worth further investigation. Everyone was out of the house, that much he was sure of; because he had watched all three of them setting off down the farm track towards the sheep fields. They were gone and someone had left the door wide open. It was an invitation not to be refused. With a final look around he stole into the kitchen, jumped onto the chair by the stove and then from the chair onto the table. He was alone with the green tin and one look told him
that the tin was far from empty.

Montezuma licked the sides clean first before pushing his head further in so that he could eat his way down towards the bottom of the tin. It was a delectable feast and he did not hurry it.

Several times he came up for air to lick his whiskers and to listen out for footsteps, before plunging his head in once again. There was one layer of beans covered in sauce on the bottom that he still could not reach, just a few, but Montezuma had to have them. Determined not to waste anything he forced his head down, until the tin felt tight around his neck; then he wrapped his tongue around the last of the beans and licked the tin clean. He was searching in every corner now for the last traces of the tomato sauce and was licking around for the last time in case he had left any behind. Satisfied, yet disappointed that the baked bean orgy was over, Montezuma called it
a day and pulled his head out. It might be better to say that he tried to pull his head out, because try as he might his head would not be pulled free. Each time he tried to jerk his head away the tin stayed with it. He used his front paws in an attempt to anchor the tin on the table, but he could not grip sufficiently for the tin to hold as he pulled his head once again in an attempt to break free.

Panic was setting in by now. Each attempt that failed only increased his terror. It was becoming hot inside the tin and he found the air more and more difficult to breathe. There didn't seem to be enough of it, and he sensed that time was running out. He whipped over onto his back and with his front paws tried to prise the tin off his head. He twisted this way and that in a frantic effort scrabbling at the rim of the tin with his claws; but the tin was stuck fast. Within a few minutes he had lost the
notion of his position on the table, and stepped out into mid-air falling heavily on the corner of the chair before hitting the floor. He landed badly on his side and when he finally found his feet again he was totally disorientated. Like a blind man he staggered around the kitchen into cupboards and chair legs, tripping over bowls and brooms until he fell down the back doorstep and found himself in the cobbled yard outside.

Montezuma came out into the sun by the water tank, the tin can riveted over his face. He called out in his fear as loudly as he could and this attracted the attention of the white cockerel and his hens. With an hysterical squawking they scattered in all directions leaving Montezuma alone on the cobbles wandering in aimless circles and yowling pitifully. Every few moments he stopped and tried again to loosen the tin, but he had tried every way he could think of and it was all to no avail. He was
weakening all the time, and each effort to free himself was more feeble than the one before.

Matthew and his parents had left the house in a hurry to pick out one of the ewes that looked unwell. Matthew had thought it might be Black Udder and it needed the three of them to catch her to be sure. He had been proved right and they had treated the ewe before returning home. As they came into the yard all three saw the kitten at the same time walking drunkenly towards them like some feline Ned Kelly. Matthew reached him first and held him fast while his father pulled on the tin.

‘Mind his neck,' Matthew shouted. ‘You'll break his neck.'

‘He'll suffocate if he stays like this,' his father said. ‘Suffocated, broken neck, it's all the same. You hold him tight. Mum, you run and fetch some of that liquid soap. Might help to loosen it.'

Montezuma was only semi-conscious now
and so fought instinctively against the hands that held him. His eyes felt as if they would burst in his head and he was totally consumed by his terror.

‘Easy, Monty,' said Matthew, releasing a hand to stroke the kitten. ‘Easy, you'll be all right. We'll have it off in no time. You'll see.' The kitten relaxed, momentarily calmed, only to start up again slashing his claws wildly with renewed viciousness.

The soap arrived and within seconds Matthew's mother had dribbled in enough so that the tin could be turned. Matthew clutched the kitten firmly gathering all the legs securely together, while his father tried now to unscrew the tin from the head. This time it came away easily in his hand.

For just a second Montezuma remained still in Matthew's hands, his eyes screwed up against the light, taking the fresh air deep into his
lungs. Then he dug his claws in and sprang free. He ran as he had never run, going nowhere in particular, just away. He sprinted under the iron gate that led to the farmyard, squeezed through the sheep netting and out into the meadow beyond. There the trunk of the old beech tree loomed up in front of him and he climbed it because it was there and because to go up was to get away. He climbed until he could climb no longer, until he ran out of tree.

Matthew followed and came through into the farmyard only just in time to catch sight of the kitten scaling the sheer straight trunk of the tree. He watched, shielding his eyes against the sun as Montezuma crawled out onto an upper branch and finally came to rest some thirty feet above the duck pond.

‘Where the divil's he gone now?' said his father, still holding the baked bean tin in his hand.

‘He's up there,' said Matthew. ‘Frightened half to death.'

‘Matthew,' his mother said, ‘I haven't used baked beans in weeks. Have you been at my tins again?'

‘I was hungry,' Matthew admitted. ‘I just had a few, that's all.'

‘Gad, you're a baked bean fanatic,' said his father. ‘And you've been told often enough about tidying up after yourself. It's your fault, my lad. Could have killed that kitten you know.'

‘Didn't know you cared,' said Matthew.

‘Don't you start, you two,' said Matthew's mother. ‘There's poor Monty stuck up that tree, so don't start. We've got to get him down, he won't come down on his own – not from that height.'

‘I'll go up after him,' said Matthew.

‘You can't go all the way up there,' his mother said. ‘What happens if you fall?'

‘He won't fall,' said Matthew's father. ‘He'll be all right. He's spent most of his life climbing trees, climbs like a monkey – he'll be all right.'

Matthew felt less confident as he began the climb. The bark was slippery from the previous day's rain and the higher he climbed the more the wind seemed to gust. He climbed carefully, securing good footholds and testing each branch before he put his full weight onto it. He had climbed the old beech often enough before but always for fun. This was serious and he was not enjoying it. He had lost sight of Monty now and was concentrating on the climb. From below his father kept shouting up detailed instructions about how he would do it if he were up there, about grip and balance; and his mother kept up a chorus of: ‘Oh be careful, dear. Do be careful.'

He found Montezuma crouching at the end of a long tapering branch that hung out over
the pond. The branch looked thick enough and safe enough near the trunk, but the further away it stretched the more fragile it looked. Matthew stood in the fork of the tree and considered all the alternatives, trying to ignore the warnings and advice from below. He could not climb out along the branch to Monty – the branch would not take his weight. He needed a net to throw out over the cat, but there was no-one who could bring a net up to him – neither his father nor his mother could climb trees – at least he had never seen them. He would have to talk the kitten back to safety, that was the only way.