‘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.’