The noise of the city became oddly distant. They had entered a yard full of ruined cars crushed flat, piles of them like geological features: strata of old Volvos and Fords and Saabs. The cars teetered around them, leaving only narrow alleys through which to pass.
They wound through these walkways.
Suddenly the man stopped and Saul heard another’s voice: a strange, vain, musical voice colored with a European accent he could not specify.
“You did find him, then.”
“Yeah, man. Caught the lickle bleeder down south from here, not far you know.”
There was no more speaking. Saul suddenly felt the ties that bound him slipping, and he fell in a heap to the dust. He was still wrapped tight in his own rope swaddling. The fat man picked him up and carried him in his arms like a bride.
Saul caught a glimpse of the newcomer: thin and very pale, with red hair, a sharp hawkish nose and wide eyes. Saul was borne towards his destination, a huge steel container like a vast skip ten feet high, over which loomed a yellow structure something like a crane.
His eyes flitted about as he was carried, he saw the cars all flattened around him, and he realized that this was a car-crusher, that the lid of the dark container would bear down on whatever was inside, and squeeze it, press it like a flower into two dimensions. And as he was borne inexorably towards it Saul’s eyes widened in horror and he began to struggle, to shout through his gag.
He flopped pathetically in the man’s arms, tried to roll out of his grip, but the man held him firm and kissed his teeth in disgust, did not break his stride, no matter how Saul emitted frantic humming protests and jack-knifed. The man hauled Saul over his shoulder, Saul staring for a moment into the insane looking eyes of the redhead behind them. Saul was held, bending and unbending at the waist pathetically, till the tall man heaved him upwards and he sailed over the edge of the ominous gray container…hung silent and still for a moment…fell, passing into the shadow of its metal walls, feeling the air cool and still, slamming into the pitted floor.
He landed hard on the shards of metal and glass which littered the dark.
Only because he was a rat was he not unconscious or dead, he decided, as he lay moaning. He struggled to sit upright, trickles of blood discoloring the cords which held him. Something approached him, footsteps clanging on the metal floor, and he tried to turn, and fell again, banging his head, only to feel himself grabbed around the shoulders and pulled upright. He opened his eyes and stared into a face glaring balefully at his, a dark face, darker than the shadows in the deadly car-crusher, a face boiling with anger, teeth gritted hard, scoring lines around the mouth, and the familiar stink of old wet animals and rubbish made acrid with anger.
King Rat looked at him and spat in his face.
T
W
E
L
V
E
The spittle slid down around Saul’s nose. His gaze was bouncing off the walls of the crusher, vibrating back and forth, trapped. King Rat stared at him unflinching and angry. Why was he angry, Saul wondered frantically, the thoughts crowding around each other in his head. What was happening? They’d both been caught by the Ratcatcher, that was why they were here, about to be crushed, so why was King Rat still? He wasn’t trapped like Saul. Why did he not leap out of the container and save them, or flee?
With his breath fast and ugly in his ears, Saul saw the suspended weight of the lid hovering above them, hideous with potential energy, full of pent-up momentum. King Rat was trying to hold Saul’s eyes, was muttering something, but in his panic Saul stared briefly at his uncle, then up at the lid, back down and up again, waiting for it to descend.
King Rat shook him and growled, a quiet bellow of rage.
“What by damn do you reckon you’re playing at? Off I go for my constitutional, on the lookout for some victuals, leave you akip like a babe, and what happens? You up and piss off.”
Saul shook his head frantically and King Rat impatiently yanked at the rope around his face, tearing it free. Saul spluttered, breathed deeply, spraying mucus and spit and a little blood at King Rat.
King Rat did not move, did not wipe himself clean.
Instead he slapped Saul in the face.
Saul felt so abused, so sore and bloodied, the sting of it was nothing to him, but his anger and confusion overflowed. He exhaled, and the breath turned into a long shout, a yell of incoherent frustration. He wriggled and felt his muscles bunch up against his bonds.
“What are you doing?” he yelled.
King Rat pushed his hand over Saul’s mouth.
“Stow your parley, you little fucker. Don’t come the misunderstood. Don’t ever be fucking off on your tod, got it?” He was motionless, staring at Saul, pushing him hard with his hand, driving his point home. “Care to share the whys and wherefores of your little exhibition, eh?”
Saul’s voice emerged muffled from behind King Rat’s hand.
“I wanted to look about, that was all; wasn’t looking for trouble. I’ve been learning, haven’t I? No one saw me, and I climbed like…you would’ve been proud.”
“Enough of your crap!” King Rat bellowed. “Trouble’s got its eyes peeled for you, sonny. There’s a roughneck out there wants you dead! Like I told you, you’re wanted, you’re prey, someone’s out for your hide…and mine.”
“So fucking tell me what’s going on,” spat Saul, suddenly jutting his chin into King Rat’s face. There was a long silence. “You go on and on, talking in riddles like you think you stepped out of a fucking fable, and I don’t have time to wait for you to tell me what the moral of it is! Something’s after me? Fine. What? Tell me, explain to me what the fuck is going on, or shut up.”
The silence returned, stretched out.
“He’s right, rattymon. He have to know wha’appen. You can’t keep him in the dark. He can’t protect himself.”
The voice of the man who had carried him from the Westway dropped from above, and Saul glanced up to see him crouched like a monkey on the corner of the car-crusher. As he watched, the redhead appeared, arriving suddenly next to the black man, with his legs dangling into the container, as if he had jumped up from below and landed perfectly on his bum.
“And who are they?” said Saul, jerking his head at the watchers. “I thought the Ratcatcher had caught me. I’m walking along and suddenly that geezer’s got me trussed up, tripped up. I thought he was going to crush me in this thing.”
King Rat did not look up at the men sitting on the rim above, even as one of them spoke.
“Not just Ratcatcher, you know, bwoy. The one want you, him the Ratcatcher and the Birdcatcher and the Spidercatcher and the Batcatcher and the Humancatcher and all tings catcher.”
King Rat slowly nodded.
“So tell me,” said Saul. “Listen to your mate. I need to fucking know. And get me out of these!”
King Rat reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a flick-knife. It emerged from its case with a snikt, and he shoved it under Saul’s bonds and pulled. The ropes fell away. King Rat turned his head and paced to the far end of the container. Saul opened his mouth to speak, but King Rat’s voice emerged from the darkness, pre-empting him.
“I want nary word fucking one to emerge from your gob, boy. I’ll give you the whole spiel then, my old son, if that’ll quell your hankering.”
Saul could dimly see that he had turned to face him. The three men now faced him in a row: the two above—one squatting, one swinging his legs like a child—and the one below glowering in the corner.
Saul pushed the ropes away from him and backed into the opposite corner, pulled up his knees like protection for his brutalized body, listened.
“Meet my mates,” said King Rat. Saul looked up. The man who had caught him was still motionless on his haunches.
“Me name Anansi, pickney.”
“Me old China Anansi,” interjected King Rat. “The gent who most likely saved your skin from the ruffian out there on the hunt
for you.”
Saul knew the name Anansi. He remembered sitting in a hushed circle, surrounded by other tiny bodies all sucking lukewarm milk out of tiny bottles, listening to his Trinidadian teacher tell the class about Anansi the spider. He could not remember any more.
The redhead was standing now, balancing without effort on the thin metal edge. He gave an exaggerated bow, sweeping one arm out behind him. He wore suit trousers in burgundy, tightly pressed and perfect, a stiff white shirt and dark braces, a floral tie. His clothes were immaculate and stylish. Again he spoke in that peculiar accent, a composite of all the European intonations Saul could think of.
“Loplop presents Loplop,” he said.
“Loplop, aka Hornebom, Bird Superior,” said King Rat. “We go back a long way, not all of it friendly. When I saw you’d slung your hook, I called on this pair of coves. You put us to a lot of strife, sonny. And you want the story of the Ratcatcher.”
“Spidercatcher,” said Anansi softly.
“Birdcatcher,” spat Loplop.
King Rat’s voice held Saul still. King Rat settled back.
“We’ve all had our admirers, you know, your uncles ’Nans and Loplop and I. Loplop chased a painter for a while, and I was always partial to a snatch or two of verse. If you know some poesy you might know this story already, acos I told it once before to another, and he wrote it down for the Godfers—a child’s story he called it. I didn’t mind. He can call it what he wants. He knew it was for honest.”
“I haven’t always lived in the Smoke, you know. I’ve lived all over. I was here when London was born, but it was measly pickings for a long time, so I took my flock and jumped ship long time gone. Your ma was entertaining herself elsewhere while I bing a waste to Europa for a shufti with the faithful, going hell for leather over land in packs with me at the head, my coat sleek. One twitch of my tail and the massed ranks of Rattus went west, east, wherever I gave the word. We run through the dews-a-vill, through the fields of France, the high-pads of Beige, through the flatlands near Arnhem, and on through to Germany—not that those were the names they used.”
“Next thing you know we’re looking around, bellies on the growl. We’ve found a place where John Barleycorn’s been most generous…The crops are high and golden, ripe and ready and fit to burst. We took a Butcher’s. ‘Yes,’ I says, ‘this’ll do,’ and on we trog, slower now, on the skedge for a place to set us down.”
“Through a forest, tight-clumped together under me the boss-man, afeared of nowt, on the hoof through lightmans and darkmans. By a river we found us a town, not too gentry a gaff, mind, but with silos that fair creaked at the seams, and knockabout houses with a hundred holes, nesting nooks, eaves and cellars, a hundred little corners for a knackered rat to rest a Crust.”
“I gave the word. In we marched. The populace dropped their bags, gobsmacked and agog. Next thing they’ve lost their marbles, running around hither and thither, and letting loose with such a damned caterwauling… We were an impressive phalanx: we spewed in and didn’t stop till the whole town was chock with me and my boys and girls. We herded the squealing civvies into the square, and they stood clutching their pathetic duds and children. We were bushed, been on the go a long time, but we pulled ourselves up proud in the sun and our teeth were magnificent.”
“They tried to give us the heave-ho, flailing around with torches ablaze and paltry little shovels. So we bared our teeth, sank them in deep, and they ran screaming like yellow-bellied ponces, disappearing as quick as you like. We had the square to ourselves. I called the troops to order. ‘Right,’ I says, ‘quick march. This town is ours. This is Year One: this is the Year of the Rat. Spread out, make your mark, set the stage, find your places, eat your fill, anyone gives you any gyp, send them to me.’”
“An explosion of little lithe bodies, and the square’s empty.”
“Rats in the rub-a-dubs, the houses, the kazis, the dews-a-vill, the orchards. We gave them what for. I did walkabouts, with nary a word said, but all and sundry knew who ran things. Any burgher raised a hand against one of my own, I took them down. People soon clocked the rules.”
“And that was how the rats came to Hamelin.”
“Saul, Saul, you should’ve seen us. Good times, chal, the best. The town was ours. I grew fat and sleek. We fought the dogs and killed the cats. The loudest sound in that town was rats talking, chattering and making plans. The grain was mine, the gaffs were mine; the tucker they cooked, we took our cut first. It was all mine, my Kingdom, my finest hour. I was the Kingpin, I made the rules, I was Copper and jury and Barnaby and, when occasion demanded, I was Finisher of the Law.”
“It turned famous, our little town, and rats flocked to us, to join the little Shangri-La we put together, where we ruled the roost. I was the boss-man.”
“Until that Ruffian, that bastard, that peripatetic fucking minstrel, that stupid tasteless shit with his ridiculous duds, the prancing nancy, until he strolled into town.”
“First I knew of it, one of my girls tells me there’s a queer cove with the mayor, furtive at the gates, dressed in a two-tone coat. ‘Hallo,’ says I, ‘they’re about to have a go. They think they’ve a trick up the sleeve.’ I settled back to piss on their parade, and it all went a little sorry.”
“There was a note.”
“Music, something in the air. Another note, and I prick up my ears to hear what’s going on. Little sleek brown heads appear from holes all over town.”
“Then the third note sounds, and apocalypse begins.”
“Suddenly I could hear something: a body scraping tripe from a bowl, a huge bowl. I could see it! I heard apples tumbling into a press, and my Plates start moving forward. I could hear someone leaving cupboards ajar, and I knew the jigger had been sprung on the Devil’s own pantry… the door was wide open, and I could fair sniff the scran inside, and I had to find it, and I had to eat it all.”
“I started forward and I could hear a rumble, a shaking, a scamper of a hundred million little feet and I saw the air around me heaving with my little minions, all shouting for joy. They could hear the food too.”
“I do a leap from the gables into the Frog. Splashdown in a stream of rats, all my little boys and girls, my lovers and my soldiers, big and fat and small and brown and black and quick and old and slow and frisky and all of them, all of us after that food.”
“And as I troop ravenous onwards, I suddenly feel queer horror in my gut. I was using my nous, and I saw there wasn’t no food where we were going.”
“‘Stop,’ I shrieks, and no one listens. They just bump my bum from behind to get past. ‘Don’t,’ I yell, and that starving stream just parts around me, rejoins.”
“I felt that hunger waxing, and I scamper over and sink me Hampsteads fast into the wood of a door, hard as you like, holding myself back with my good strong gob. My pegs are dancing, they want that music, that food, but my mouth’s holding strong. I feel my mind go slack and I gnaw some more, locking my jaw…but disaster strikes.”
“I take a bite from the door. My mouth snaps free and, before you can say knife, I’m in the stream of my subjects, my brainbox weaving in and out of hunger and joy for the tucker I can all but taste—and the despair, I’m King Rat, I know what’s happening to me and my kind, and no one will listen. Something dire’s in the offing.”
“On we march, willy-nilly, and from the corner of my eye I can see the people leaning out the windows, and the bastards are clapping, cheering, giving it all that. We’re trotting in time, all four legs stately and sharpish to that…abominable piping, tails swaying like metronomes.”
“I can see where we’re headed, a little journey to the suburbs I’ve taken more times nor I can think, on a beeline for the grain silos beyond the walls. And there behind the silos, bloated after the showers, hollering like the sea, roaring and pelting down through the dews-a-vill, wide and rocky, filthy with swirling muck and mud and rain, is the river.”
“There by the bridge I catch sight of th
e swine playing his flute in his fatuous duds. His Loaf bobs up and down, and I clock a revolting grin all over his North while he plays. The first ranks of rats are at the bridge now, and I can see them troop calmly to the edge, nary a hint of disquiet, eyes still narrowed on that lovely mountain of scran they’re headed for. I can see them getting ready and I’m screaming at them to stop, but I’m pissing in the wind, it’s a done deal.”
“They step off the stone walls of the bridge into the water.”
“The most almighty cacophony of squeals starts up from below the bridge, but none of the sisters and brothers can hear it. They’re still listening to the dance of the sugarplums and bacon rind.”
“The next in line jump on their comrades, and more and more—the Fisherman’s is seething. I can’t bear it, I can hear the screams, every one a blade in my gut, my boys and girls giving up the ghost in the water, fighting to keep their Crusts over the waves, good swimmers all but not built for this. I can hear wails and keens as bodies are swept downriver, and still my goddamn fucking legs keep moving. I pull back through the ranks, trying to turn round, going a little slower than the others, feeling them pass me, and the squire on the bridge looks at me, that infernal flute still clamped to his gob, and he sees who I am. I can see him see I’m King Rat.”
“And he smiles a little more, and bows to me as I march on past onto the bridge and into the river.”
Loplop hissed and Anansi breathed something to himself. The three were locked into themselves, all staring ahead, all remembering.
“The Fisherman’s was icy, and the touch of it cleared the bonce of nonsense. Every splash was quick-echoed by a screech, a wail as my poor little minions fight to keep their I Supposes in the air, thinking What the fuck am I doing here? and busy dying.”