Cocky the Fox (20)

The truth was that beasts had been dying for order. Tough as Billy was, no one ever believed he was truly in charge; he was too self-interested fundamentally, too much of a wide boy, chasing vixens and throwing his weight around. Poorly counselled by Blandley, he never understood that the Borough is not a place but an idea: something for beasts to think about when they’re cold and hungry. Under him beasts fretted and sniped at each other, and there were the inevitable encroachments from the Northside. The food chain was disrupted: foxes were forced further afield, risking runovers, shootings, beatings, poisonings, dog-maulings. Numbers dropped. So our modest show of force at the Yard, and then later that night at Twat’s Bridge, had a large impact. There was also, I believe, a buried respect for Cocky from the old pre-aftershave days, when he ran with Holiday Bob: older beasts dimly recalled his enterprise and savagery, younger heads lapped up the legends of his time in exile — the slaying of Jackpot, the visit to Barbecue Towers and so on.

Naturally we had some mopping-up to do. I’ve since discovered that there’s always some mopping-up to do. The night after we took the Yard, Cocky put me in charge of a mission to, in his words, “suppress the Horde.” He had been particularly offended, I think, by the presence of rats in Champion’s hutch, although rat-ness as a whole seemed to have a private significance for him: long after the Horde had been broken up he would still darken when the subject of vermin arose. (His secret phobia, of course, never mentioned, was moles.) At any rate, I was ordered by my father to “demoralize” the local rat population, with further instructions from Weasel Paul to leave it “politically disabled”. I was a young fox at the time, fresh from my first rat-kill but desperate to impress, and this was all something of a bewilderment. I was sweating, afraid to ask questions. My stomach jumped. How grateful I was taken to be aside by the perspicacious Shakes, who told me in a low voice to just kill as many rats as I could!

Cocky assigned me the dubious escort of Robo and Duncey, both of whom had “flipped” overnight and were now working for us. I asked my father: Could I trust them? “Muscle does what its told,” he said. Robo would go on to have a difficult time in our crew — my mother despised him, and few opportunities were missed to confound and humiliate the big fox, who in my opinion was preserved from nervous collapse only by his own deep stupidity. Duncey, on the other hand, grew close to my father, who prized him for his “Northside brain-patterns”, as well as an apocryphal fighting move known as The Rarefactor. (I never saw it.)

As a Northsider, Duncey was more in tune with rat life than Robo or I, and as we approached the Horde’s building-site lair he briefed us on background. Mother Mercury, my father’s rodent nemesis, had been assassinated the week before – torn to pieces by her own courtiers — and a huge black long-tailer by the name of Mr Phillips now sat on her throne. “Discipline’s gone,” observed Duncey. The sentry rats did seem remarkably unfazed by the appearance of three foxes on their perimeter. Even after Robo had bitten one of them in half, they continued to spit and hee-haw and regale us with insults, and no warning was given to those below ground. I made a rush for the mouth of the lair, but was knocked aside by Duncey — at this stage, he was twice my size. “Block it!” he shouted over his shoulder. So I stationed Robo by the hole, and went in search of other exits. I found one beneath a pallet of bricks, and as Duncey penetrated the great Chamber below, needling stinks of rat-fear came out of it, followed in bursts by the rats themselves. Within minutes I was a seasoned rat-killer. Duncey would later claim to have “smeared” Mr Phillips down there in the earth, but I saw a large, smirking black rat slither his way past Robo and strike out for the darkness and slime of the canal.

After that it was open season on rats. Cats and dogs had a go, even fox cubs, and within a week or so the Horde had become a sort of mobile pariah state. The rats themselves didn’t seem too put out: this is how a rat expects to have it in the world.

I’ve lingered too long perhaps over this small episode of rat-cleansing. But it was the first mission I undertook for my father, and when I returned, heated and metallic with rat-blood, I sensed his pride. In the months that followed I did a lot of work with Robo and Duncey, inside the Borough (enforcement, menaces) and then — when Cocky identified a threat from the Ramble-Ons — out in the fields. That winter war with the Ramble-Ons was bloody but brief: supplied with a steady stream of talent from Aunt Patsy’s Finishing School, where Popjoy and Rumpy were turning the young belligerents of the Borough into cool-headed battlers, we were the superior force.

My mother quietened down considerably after her bout with Billy on the bridge. It’s fair to say that it took something out of her, that fight: at any rate we would see no more of Bloody Nora. As Popjoy grew too frail, and Rumpy’s great energy faded, she took over the running of the Finishing School: my brothers Fester and Lester assisted her there. My father never again took up residence at the family den. Instead he dossed down in the Yard, which he renamed the Velvet Lodge, alongside Shakes and Weasel Paul and whichever young foxes formed the goon squad of the hour. He spoke often and wistfully of his time in the country, and the talk between him and Shakes achieved the density almost of a private language. To a fox in his position plenty of vixens were available but he seemed to have no interest.

One summer evening my father summoned me to the Lodge. I was not a regular visitor there: the atmosphere was not particularly to my taste, and I preferred to stay busy with the small crew I had assembled. There was always work to be done on the edges of the Borough. My father on the evening in question was in a state of strange excitement; his single eye glowed, and his ears were pricked and trembling. Shakes meanwhile, most uncharacteristically, appeared to have groomed himself, and was shining with a vulgar sleekness.

“It’s like this, boy,” said Cocky. “We’re off.”

I asked where they were going.

“Out. Away. It’s your show now. You run it.”

“Bin runnun it anyway more or less,” said Shakes. “Good lad. Serious.”

I requested more information.

“We’ll need an escort as far as the Barrow,” said Cocky. “Couple of game foxes who know the terrain. After that you won’t have to worry about us.”

At this point I understood. I said: “You’re going back to the Black Pond, aren’t you?”

Cocky and Shakes looked at each other.

“Old friend of ours needs assistance,” said Shakes.

“Those stories?” I said. “Come on.” After the fight with the Ramble-Ons, foxes had returned from the fields telling tales of distant wars: of a badger-world, ruled by a white rabbit, that had divided against itself.

“Bit of travel,” said Cocky. “Do us good.”

“You don’t know what’s out there,” I said.

“Nor you dont neither,” said Shakes.

“Any problems or queries, ask the weasel,” said Cocky. “Now let’s get organized.”

We set off that same night. Duncey and I, Cocky and Shakes. Beasts were restless, along the towpath and into the woods, scenting change, but we were just ahead of the mood: my father had made no announcement and kept his goodbyes to a minimum. The journey was trouble-free. Duncey killed a cat, rather unnecessarily: I think he was feeling anxious. Cocky and Shakes on the other hand were genial and complacent. By dawn we had reached the Barrow — untenanted, as far as we knew, since the departure of Popjoy and Rumpy. Climbing towards it in the changing light we heard the shout of a raven — friendless, premonitory, a black ricochet. Duncey froze, but Cocky laughed.

“This ull do,” said Shakes. “Go on from here ourselves.”

Still chuckling, my father stumped briskly up the rise. “Come on, Shakes!” he called over his shoulder.