The Imaginary by A. F. Harrold Page A

good look Rudger had got at his…at his what? His new friend? His saviour? His new problem? It was hard to say.
    From the ring of Zinzan’s voice Rudger had assumed he was dealing with a cat of refinement, a gentleman, an aristocrat. If he had known anything of cat breeds, which he didn’t, he would’ve pictured a Siamese or a Burmese. But what sat on the bin before him looked more like a cat put together from the leftover parts of several other cats who’d been in a war, all on the losing side.

    Its fur was matted in places and missing in others. Its tail bent at a right angle halfway down. Its right eye was red and the left was blue. Parts of it were brown and parts were white and some parts Rudger couldn’t begin to guess the colour of without first offering the cat a bath. And Zinzan didn’t look the sort of cat you could bathe without a great deal of effort, soap and courage.
    Zinzan looked like nothing less than a boxer, a bruiser, a brute. A dangerous person to know.
    And he was, Rudger also realised, in fact hadn’t stopped realising as he took this all in, the only person Rudger knew. Until he got back to Amanda, that was.
    â€˜What happens now?’
    â€˜ I take you somewhere you’ll be safe,’ the cat replied, its tone suggesting that this was obvious.
    â€˜Where?’
    â€˜Oh, hereabouts,’ the cat said slowly, gazing round the alley as if looking for something. ‘It’s just a case of finding the right door at the right time.’
    â€˜What does that mean?’
    The cat yawned. Its teeth glinted yellowly (the ones that weren’t missing).
    â€˜So many questions,’ it said, before yawning again. ‘I’m merely a helper, Rudger. A Good Samaritan. If I had the answers, well, do you think I’d look like this?’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ Rudger said. ‘That’s why I asked. Amanda always asks questions.’
    â€˜And does she always get answers?’
    Rudger thought.
    â€˜No, not always.’
    â€˜And when she doesn’t get answers?’
    â€˜She makes it up, usually.’
    Zinzan laughed. It was a strange laugh, somewhere between a purr and a cough, but it wasn’t cruel.
    â€˜That’s probably why she thought of you,’ the cat said. ‘As the answer to a question she got no other answer to.’
    It licked its shoulder, twitched its whiskers and jumped down from the bin.
    â€˜ Come,’ it said. ‘I smell a door opening. Follow me.’
    And with that it ran further into the alley, off into the dark.

    One alley led to another alley and that alley led to a third and the third led on to a fourth.
    It was hard to see Zinzan up ahead, but the cat said, ‘Come on,’ and, ‘This way,’ and, ‘I see you,’ just often enough for Rudger to not lose track of it.
    He had the most peculiar feeling that they’d run down too many alleyways. An alley had to lead somewhere, lead you back out to a street, surely? With Zinzan, however, alley led to alley led to alley. But it was dark and it was late and Rudger was tired and today had been dreadful, so he just followed the cat and pushed any doubts he had to the back of his head.
    One thing he knew though, for sure: if he had been lost before, he was impossibly lost now.
    â€˜Here we are,’ Zinzan said, stopping suddenly.
    â€˜Where?’ asked Rudger. It looked exactly like the alley they’d started in. It even opened out on to the same road they’d come in from. Rudger could see the neon sign of the kebab shop opposite.
    â€˜At the door to your new life,’ the cat replied, licking a paw and rubbing it across its nose.
    â€˜What door?’ Rudger asked, looking round. ‘I don’t see it.’
    â€˜Ah,’ Zinzan said, between licks of its tail. ‘But I see it.’
    As the cat spoke a light flickered into life on the wall beside them. It lit a plain wooden door. The door