Cuthbert often saw children, of course, chasing each other, kicking hurtballs and flying on speedfins down the sticky floor tiles. Some were the offspring of refugees; some came from poor, ignorant locals who distrusted foreigners, who were vulnerable to hatred. They all lived together and, somehow, muddled on.
A gaggle of older women and young children were walking down the hall, about to go past him, carrying baskets of flowers.
One of the girls carried a tiny black and brown Chihuahua closely in her arms. The dog looked used to cuddling.
It gazed at Cuthbert and said, in a docile voice: We are waiting for you, St. Cuthbert.
“We?” he said aloud.
The animals, the dog said, sounding slightly weary. Listen for us.
Another Indigent girl, who was missing an eye, thrust a spray of pink and purple campanula flowers into his hand. He felt dizzy with shock. He took the campanulas, and held them to his nose, but there was no smell.
“Take,” said the girl, tugging his sleeve.
The old women stopped in the hallway and grinned at him. Between Buildings 3 and 4, several older Indigent women—English, Chinese, Pakistani—had cultivated a small flower and herb garden in a disused sandbox. Hyacinth and gold whisper blooms grew in tall, proud stalks.
“I’ve hardly any money,” he said. He pointed at the Chihuahua. “Your little dog. She speaks.”
“Yes,” one of the youngest of the old women said. “You are so funny.” With her black hair and Middle Eastern features—and her poverty—he guessed she was Kurdish. “It’s a he. His name is Osman.”
“Osman,” he said. “’E’s a good dog, I can tell. What can I give you for the flowers?”
“We don’t take money!” the woman said, still smiling. “Keep money.”
“Isn’t there something?” he asked.
“Just be careful,” the woman said. “The Watch is around.”
She’s right, said Osman. Be careful, St. Cuthbert.
Why do you call me that? he asked the dog. Why?
Because you have almost reached the bottom, and it has almost reached you. Do you not acknowledge your own sins against the animal world? You must, or the Otter Prince will not come.
the evils of rotten park
IN THE DISORDERED, UNHOLY TIMES IMMEDIATELY before and forever after Granny died of a stroke, in 1974, the Handley household’s last ties to the Wyre and its folkways—and the Wonderments—dissolved. His father’s beatings and punch-ups had long moved from the vaguely disciplinary, but they lacked the pure, chaotic malice of Cuthbert’s last year at home. At grammar school, three or four boys saw the bruises, but no one said a thing to anyone.
A few months before she died, Winefride had started setting food out for a brindled mog named Sally who lived in their neighborhood. She was always feeding local cats, but she especially loved this mog, and eventually, Sally grew enormous. Soon, Winefride found a clowder of kittens with Sally in the back garden, behind a plastic bucket. Winefride seemed especially captivated by the lot, but she warned Cuthbert to stay away from them and let Sally tend to them and, above all, not allow her son-in-law to find out about them.
When Henry Handley finally did find out about the kittens, they and Sally disappeared.
Almost anything could set Henry off, but petty acts of rebellion or inattention—slamming a door too hard, loudly slurping at tea, kicking a football into the kitchen—seemed especially to goad him.
A few weeks later, this time on Sunday, after the pub’s afternoon closing, Cuthbert’s gran was plastering the leg of a new tuxedo moggy kitten she’d found limping in the garden. She expertly wrapped its paw onto an ice-lolly stick that still smelled of black currant.
Cuthbert watched closely for a while, but he grew bored, and just as his father stumbled into the kitchen, drunk, Cuthbert flicked another lolly stick across the kitchen table.
“What the fock is that then? ’Oos brought this dirty thing into the kitchen, and why did yow throw that stick?”
“It’s just a kitten, Daddy.”
“We’re almost done here,” said his gran sternly. “This kit will be gone soon enough.”
“Why did yow throw that focking stick?”
“You’re drunk as a mop,” said Gran. “Let us be. Please, Hank.”
“I day mean to, Daddy.”
“Yow useless focking yam-yam*!” he screamed. He started kicking at his son, then unhitched his belt and began whipping him. “Yow’re focking off your focking chump!”
His grandmother set the kitten aside and tried, pathetically, to soothe her son-in-law, as a diversion, placing her fat hands on his shoulders, but Henry simply stepped around her and continued.