The Spying Cat (ONC 2023 Shortlister)

Chapter 13

Joey and Kitty relocated to the modest shrubbery in Ezra's small garden, where the thorns and petals of crawling roses shrouded them from view. They sat on a stone bench, holding hands. Joey's rough fingers, hardened in the sun, traced tentative patterns on Kitty's soft, smooth skin, unexposed to the ills of the world.

How could he taint her innocence with his tales of heedless depravity?

"Tell me," Kitty urged him, as firm as her hold on his hand.

Joey gulped. "It started in London, before I even set foot on a ship. It started with Jeremy."

Kitty sucked in a sharp breath. "How so?"

"He took me to a brothel when he learned – " Joey licked his lips. "He took it upon himself to remedy my lack of experience. I didn't particularly mind, except... I was too nervous to go through with it. But not to worry, Jeremy had a solution for that, too. Opium."

"Oh, Joey..."

"By the time we set sail for New York, I was hooked on the stuff. It fuelled some of my worst decisions."

Joey unbuttoned his sleeve and showed Kitty the anchor tattoo on his forearm. Much to his relief, she savoured the sight and ran her delicate fingers over the ink.

"This one I don't regret as much." He lifted the leg of his trousers to reveal a cat head tattooed on his calf.

Kitty laughed. "Goodness, Joey! Where did you get that idea from?"

"It's one of Louis Wain's cats. Made me think of you."

Kitty leaned forward, wincing, to kiss him on the cheek. Joey straddled the bench and closed in, to spare her the effort. At the last second, he turned his head, but she must have read his mind faster than he could think. Her lips stopped a mere poppyseed away from his own. She smiled and pecked him on the cheek, anyway.

"And then?" she whispered, bringing him back on track. "What happened in America, Joey?"

Joey cleared his throat. "We sailed to China, is what happened. The motherland of opium."

He pulled away. In order to keep speaking, he needed to get her scent out of his nostrils. The putrid odour of his reminiscences imbued him instead.

"I was foolish. A foolish, cocky landsman. I used more opium than I could afford, safe in the notion that I would soon leave port and never return. Never have to pay my debt. And to all appearances, it worked. So I did it again in San Francisco."

Joey's hands began to quiver of their own accord. Kitty stilled them in her palms.

"But Chinatown knows the white man's despair. His foolhardy conceit. The Tongs have learned to profit from it. And through them, my debt caught up with me. It was the Chinamen who robbed me, to pay off my dues. They didn't find enough. I told them I would get the money, but they knew better than to trust an English sailor. So they sold off my debt to a businessman, who took me away."

He withdrew his hands to wipe at his sniffling nose with his sleeve.

"I don't even know where I was. Middle of nowhere, laying railroad tracks. Working off my debt. Ben and Mo had to track me down. It took a hard bargain to buy my freedom back from the man who owned my debt."

Joey gave a dry chuckle.

"I guess Ben owns me now. And here I am, trying to steal you from him."

Kitty bristled at his remark. "Don't talk like that."

"I owe him my life, Kitty. My life and too much money to ever hope that I could repay him."

"I'm sure Ben does not miss the money," Kitty attempted to comfort him.