Hiro Arikawa - The Travelling Cat Chronicles

Sounds great! I wonder how many of the delicacies in my usual gourmet seafood blend are really in there?

So the silver van headed towards the beach. Too much bother to stay in the basket, so I balanced on Satoru’s lap as we bumped down the rough lane towards the sea.

When we got out of the van, Satoru scooped me up and hoofed it down the slope that led to the shore, but me, I clung on for dear life.

‘Hey, Nana. What are you doing with your claws? It hurts!’

No way. No. Way. What is that rushing sound? I’ve never heard anything like it! What is it, that monstrous roar?

And there it was. The sea – spread out before my very eyes. An endless expanse of water rolling relentlessly towards us.

‘Look, Nana. The sea. Aren’t the waves fabulous?’

Fabulous!? What are you talking about? How optimistic humans can be, to think that this enormous mass of rolling water, this soaring energy – is fabulous !? I don’t know about humans, but if any cat got caught up in it, that would be the end of it, for sure!

‘Let’s go down by the water’s edge.’

NO. WAY.

‘Nana! Ouch! That hurts!’

I slipped out of Satoru’s arms, struggled to grasp higher ground, and leapt right up on top of his head, where, I have to admit, there wasn’t much hair.

‘Your claws! Nana, don’t scratch me with your claws!’

This is no good. I need a safer place than Satoru’s head! Humph!

I pushed off and landed on all fours on the ground. Then, scuttling as fast as I could, I dashed in the opposite direction from the shoreline.

‘Nana!’

I ran straight up on to a nearby bluff and settled down at the base of a pine tree growing at an angle from the bare rock.

‘Why do you have to go all the way up there? Come down here!’

Not gonna happen. If I’m not careful, I’ll get swept away by a wave and die!

‘Come on down from there, Nana. It’s too hard for me to climb up!’

In the end, Satoru, with great care and awkwardness, clambered up the bluff to rescue me.

From my first experience of the sea, I learned a valuable lesson.

The sea is where you go to reminisce when you are far away from home.

Delicacies of the sea are not something cats should catch by themselves. It’s quite acceptable to allow humans to prepare them for us.

‘My scalp is full of scratches. It’s going to sting when I shampoo, that’s for sure.’

Satoru muttered a couple more complaints, but then gave a little chuckle.

‘But you know, I never imagined you’d be that afraid of the sea. I’ve seen a side of you I’ve never witnessed before, but it’s good to know you don’t like it.’

I do like it, viewed from a distance. The sea, that is.

The van drove smoothly along the shoreline. I gazed at the glittering dark-blue water, my tail happily raised to the sky.

Until then, my life had been limited to the modest territory of Satoru’s apartment and a small area around it. A decent-sized territory for a cat, really, but pretty modest compared to the vastness of this world.

A cat could never see all the sights the world has to offer in one lifetime. There’s just so much out there.

Satoru?

Since we had embarked on our journey, I’d seen the town where you spent your childhood. And a farming village. And the sea.

I wondered what new scenes we would see together before this journey was over.

R ELAX WITH YOUR beloved pet while enjoying a breathtaking view of Mount Fuji .

This was the slogan with which Shusuke Sugi and his wife Chikako launched their bed and breakfast three years ago.

The whole thing came about when the company Sugi worked for started to struggle and began to explore the idea of voluntary redundancy. Around that time, a B&B next to the fruit orchards owned by Chikako’s parents came up for sale at a greatly reduced price, and the couple bought it, lock, stock and barrel, and opened it up for business. They considered part of its appeal would be to offer a discount to guests wanting to do pick-your-own in the orchards next door. This worked both ways, for it would benefit the orchard business to have customers referred to them, which was another reason they decided to take the plunge.

In the end, though, the B&B’s biggest selling point was that they allowed pets.

It was Chikako who came up with the idea.

Using the first and second floors, plus a small cottage in the grounds, they were able to lodge guests with dogs or cats separately. Dogs and cats each had their own floor and, as long as they got on with their own kind, they could enjoy life off the lead or outside their basket. Issues of compatibility were left to the owners’ discretion.

Very few B&Bs in the area allowed both dogs and cats; most places catered just for dogs. Some of the larger inns accepted both, but most of them demanded that pets remain on a lead or in a basket.

Sugi was more of a dog person, so at first he wasn’t sure about his wife’s idea, but after the B&B had been running for three years he had to admit she’d been very perceptive.

In addition to Chikako’s family business, there were plenty of other orchards and wineries nearby, and within their prefecture this area attracted a lot of tourists – but a B&B where cats could stay, stress-free, was almost unheard of. Word of mouth and repeat business led to an increase in cat-owning guests, and these days, guests with cats outnumbered those with dogs.

Chikako loved all cats, and cat-owning guests always received a warm welcome, but she’d never been happier than with the guests who were arriving today.

Chikako had been on the second floor making the bed in the sunniest twin room and now, dirty linen in hand and humming a tune, she made her way downstairs.

‘You seem pretty upbeat,’ Sugi said. He’d tried to make it sound casual, but it came out sounding oddly churlish. Chikako looked at him, puzzled.

‘Aren’t you happy? Satoru Miyawaki is bringing his cat for the very first time.’

‘Of course I am, but…’ Sugi said hurriedly, trying to gloss it over. ‘I was just wondering if his cat will get on with our pets.’

Their own pets were a dog – a Kai Ken breed – and a brown tabby cat. The Kai Ken was a three-year-old male named Toramaru, while the brown tabby cat was a twelve-year-old female named Momo. Toramaru ( tora meaning ‘tiger’) got his name from the distinctive orangey brindle fur that certain Kai Ken dogs have, while Momo, which means ‘peach’, was named after the main crop of the orchard.

‘Don’t worry so much. It’ll be fine. Our little ones are used to having guests.’

Sugi persisted, despite Chikako’s teasing smile. ‘Satoru is giving away his cat, you know. I’m sure he can’t be too happy about that.’

The man they were expecting was their mutual high-school friend Satoru Miyawaki.

An email had arrived in Sugi’s inbox saying that, though Satoru loved his cat very much, there was a compelling reason why he couldn’t keep him any longer, and he was looking for someone to take care of him.

No explanation of what this compelling reason was, but when Sugi noticed in the newspaper that a large corporation had started to lay off employees, he didn’t pursue the matter. Satoru’s company, as he recalled, was a subsidiary of that corporation.

If an organization that big is beginning to lay people off, Sugi pondered, then I guess it’s only to be expected that my old company would do the same. He was lucky to have left his local firm when he did.