opener, bottle opener, saucepans, candles, clothing, bedding, two clocks (the ticking had nearly driven him crackers for the first few days - he didn't even notice it now), a calendar, and a twelve-gallon drum of water (the water never used for washing dishes, cutlery, or drinking, without his Milton and Mow's Simpla sterilizing tablets).
And oh yes, one more recent acquisition, a dead cat.
Just how the wretched animal had got into his tightly-sealed shelter he had no way of knowing (the cat wasn't talking), but he guessed it must have crept in there a few days before the bombs had dropped.
Rising tension in world affairs had been enough to spur Maurice into final preparations stage (as four or five similar crises had since he'd owned the shelter) and the nosy creature must have sniffed its way in as he, Maurice, had scurried back and forth from house to shelter, leaving open the conning-tower hatch (the structure was shaped like a submarine with the conning-tower entrance at one end rather than in the middle). He hadn't discovered the cat until the morning after the holocaust.
Maurice remembered the doomsday vividly, the nightmare impressed onto the back of his brain like a finely detailed mural. God, how frightened he'd been! But then, how smug afterwards.
The months of digging, assembling, equipping - enduring the taunts of his neighbours! - had paid off.
'Maurice's Ark' they had laughingly called it, and now he realized how apt that description was. Except, of course, it hadn't been built for bloody animals.
He sat bolt upright on the bunkbed, nauseated by the foul smell, but desperate to draw in the thinning air. His face was pale in the glare of the gas lamp.
How many would be alive out there? How many neighbours
had died not laughing? Always a loner, would he now be truly alone? Surprisingly, he hoped not.
Maurice could have let some of them in to share his refuge, perhaps just one or two, but the pleasure of closing the hatch in their panic-stricken faces was too good to resist. With the clunking of the rotary locking mechanism and the hatch airtight-sealed against the ring on the outside flange of the conning tower, the rising and falling sirens had become a barely heard wailing, the sound of his neighbours banging on the entrance lid just the muffled tapping of insects. The booming, shaking, of the earth had soon put a stop to that.
Maurice had fallen to the floor clutching the blankets he had brought in with him, sure that the thunderous pressure would split the metal shell wide open. He lost count of how many times the earth had rumbled and, though he could not quite remember, he felt perhaps he had fainted. Hours seemed to have been lost somewhere, for the next thing he remembered was awaking on the bunkbed, terrified by the heavy weight on his chest and the warm, fetid breath on his face.
He had screamed and the weight was suddenly gone, leaving only a sharp pain across one shoulder. It took long, disorientated minutes to scrabble around for a torch, the absolute darkness pressing against him like heavy drapes, only his imagination illuminating the interior and filling it with sharp-taloned demons. The searching torch beam discovered nothing, but the saturating lamp-light moments later revealed the sole demon. The ginger cat had peered out at him from beneath the bed with suspicious yellow eyes.
Maurice had never liked felines at the best of times, and they, in truth, had never cared much for him.
Perhaps now, at the worst of times (for those up there, anyway), he should learn to get along with them.
'Here, moggy,' he had half-heartedly coaxed. 'Nothing to be afraid of, old son or old girl, whatever you are.' It was a few days before he discovered it was 'old girl'.
The cat refused to budge. It hadn't liked the thundering and trembling of this room and it didn't like the odour of this man. It hissed a warning and the man's sideways head disappeared from view. Only the smell of food a few hours later drew the animal from cover.
'Oh, yes, typical that is,' Maurice told it in chastising tones. 'Cats and dogs are always around when they can sniff grub.'
The cat, who had been trapped in the underground chamber for three days without food or water or even a mouse to nibble at, felt obliged to agree. Nevertheless, she kept at a safe distance from the man.
Maurice, absorbed more by this situation than the one above, tossed a chunk of tinned stewed meat towards the cat, who started back, momentarily alarmed, before pouncing and gobbling.
Tes, your belly's overcome your fright, hasn't it?' Maurice shook his head, his smile sneering. 'Phyllis used to be the same, but with her it was readies,' he told the wolfing, disinterested cat, referring to his ex-wife who had left him fifteen years before after only eighteen months of marriage. 'Soon as the pound notes were breathing fresh air she was buzzing round like a fly over a turd. Never stayed long once the coffers were empty, I can tell you. Screwed every last penny out of me, the bloody bitch. Got her deserts now, just like the rest of them.' His laugh was forced, for he still did not know how secure he was himself.
Maurice tipped half the meat into a saucepan on the gas burner. 'Have the rest later tonight,' he said, not sure if he was talking to the cat or himself. Next he opened a small can of beans and mixed the contents in with the cooking meat.
‘Funny how hungry a holocaust can make you.' His laughter was still nervous and the cat looked at him quizzically. 'All right, I suppose you'll have to be fed. I can't put you out, that's for sure.'
Maurice smiled at his own continued black humour. So far he was handling the annihilation of the human race pretty well.
'Let's see, we'll have to find you your own dinner bowl. And something for you to do your business in, of course. I can dispose of it easily enough, as long as you keep it in the same place. Haven't I seen you before somewhere? I think you belonged to the coloured lady two doors along. Well, she won't be looking for you any more. It's quite cosy down here, don't you think? I may as well just call you Mog, eh? Looks like we're going to have to put up with each other for a while ...'
And so Maurice J. Kelp and Mog had teamed up to wait out the holocaust.
By the end of the first week, the animal had ceased her restless prowling.
By the end of the second week, Maurice had grown quite fond of her.
By the end of the third week, though, the strain had begun to tell. Mog, like Phyllis, found Maurice a little tough to live with.
Maybe it was his weak but sick jokes. Maybe it was his constant nagging. It could have been his bad breath. Whatever, the cat spent a lot of time just staring at Maurice and a considerable amount of time avoiding his stifling embrace.
Maurice soon began to resent the avoidance, unable to understand why the cat was so ungrateful. He had fed her, given her a home! Saved her life! Yet she prowled the refuge like some captive creature, shrinking beneath the bunkbed,
staring out at him with baleful distrusting eyes as if ... as if ... yes, as if he were going mad. The look was somehow familiar, in some way reminding him of how ... of how Phyllis used to stare at him. And not only that, the cat was getting sneaky. Maurice had been awakened in the dead of night more than once by the sound of the cat mooching among the food supplies, biting its way into the dried food packets, clawing through the cling-film-capped half-full tins of food.
The last time Maurice had really flipped, really lost control. He had kicked the cat and received a four-lane scratch along his shin in return. If his mood had been different, Maurice might have admired the nimble way Mog had dodged the missiles directed at her (a saucepan, canned fruit - the portable own-flush loo).