The Cat Who Came In From The Cold

by Deric Longden

  ‘You know he lost his wife just before Christmas? He says it was only getting your notes and thinking up replies that’s got him through these last few months.’

  As I walked back to the house I felt as though I had just been hit over the head with two green-tops and a red-top. I collected Thermal from the airing cupboard and together we worked on tomorrow’s note.

  Sorry, but I’ve been ill – normal service has now been resumed and I must take you to task over a very serious matter.

  Thermal has brought to my attention the fact that yesterday you did spitefully, and without provocation on Thermal’s part, kick his ping pong ball under the garden shed so that it was well out of the reach of an individual with such short paws.

  If this sort of behaviour continues, Thermal hereby gives notice that he will consult his solicitor on the matter and you would well be warned that Thermal’s solicitor is much bigger than you are.

  Thermal’s solicitor has a black belt at karate, a green belt at judo and two pairs of extremely smart red and blue braces in a sort of paisley design.

  Thermal’s solicitor specializes in dealing with stroppy milkmen who terrorize small cats, he has made a career out of it and has a list of successes as long as your arm. You would be well advised to settle out of Court.

  The aforementioned Thermal has indicated that he is willing to accept your word in writing as to your future conduct and will accept a small carton of double-cream in lieu of damages.

  Would you also note that the ping pong ball is not now the same shape as it was before you kicked it under the shed – it is now a square ping pong ball. However, since it is much more fun that way, we do not intend to make an issue of this.

  Signed – Thermal Longden in the presence of his owner.

  I read it over a couple of times and Thermal checked the spelling.

  ‘What a load of old rubbish,’ I thought as I put it out with the milk bottles. But then, you never know just how important a load of old rubbish can be – do you?

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Arthur sat just inside the hall doorway. Apart from the one pork chop in the kitchen when his legs had gone it was as far as he ever ventured into the house. He had often been invited to sit by the fire, but he always refused.

  He was a cellar cat, as had been his father before him and his father before him, and he just popped upstairs every now and then to borrow a saucer of milk or to ask us if we would kindly keep the noise down.

  Thermal and Tigger sat either side of the suitcase on the Chinese rug and looked as though the world were coming to an end.

  ‘They’ll be as right as rain once they’re there,’ Aileen told me, but she couldn’t see those eyes that were accusing me of everything from simple neglect to genocide.

  Arthur stood up and, with as much dignity he could muster, made his position on the matter quite clear.

  ‘Well I’m going nowhere.’

  He was filling out, was Arthur. His bald spots were covered with a precarious fluff and the more established fur had taken on a healthy sheen. For all that, he still looked like a badly stuffed night-dress case and his dignity made you smile.

  Bridie was going to look after Arthur. His needs were few, just a drop of milk, a kind word every now and then and a shovelful of Whiskas twice a day. He would toast himself by the boiler in his cellar over the long weekend, but the rest of the house was wired up with a series of burglar alarms that would have taken Bridie a month to work out.

  We put the bags in the boot and the cats in the car and set off for the five star Cat-Motel of which we had heard good things.

  I don’t know quite what I had expected. A single room perhaps, with en suite shower, a colour television and full use of the cruet.

  Looking back I suppose it was a bit much to expect all that for £1.75 a day and the accommodation turned out to be a couple of small apartments in a sort of high-rise rabbit hutch.

  There was a double-sided feeding bowl with a portion of dry mince in one half and water in the other. Tigger hadn’t touched water since she was a kitten and she’d be damned if she was starting now.

  Thermal was appalled. His floor was lined with newspaper – the Independent dated 23 February. He’d read it and he was not at all pleased.

  Mrs Kaufman tipped the balance. She seemed a kindly old soul and her cardigan was covered with so many cat hairs that you could have stuffed Arthur all over again. She must give them the odd cuddle.

  ‘We let them have a run twice a day,’ she told us, and the two cats looked at one another. I knew what they were thinking – a tunnel, that’s what they were thinking.

  But their eyes had lost that momentary glow by the time we turned to leave. ‘How could you?’ they said, and I felt like something that had just crawled out from under a stone.

  They wouldn’t have let them into the Savoy Hotel. They wouldn’t let me in – not to the Women of the Year Luncheon anyway, and Aileen was spirited from my side the moment we set foot in the River Room entrance.

  I hovered on a small landing, waiting to catch a glimpse of her as she was escorted up the main stairway to be presented to the Duchess of Kent.

  I hung around for a while, but then my little landing began to fill with luncheon guests who had taken a wrong turning through the hotel and who were now queuing up to squeeze through the narrow doorway.

  I made my excuses and left, cutting through the hotel towards the main entrance. A door burst open and a familiar face, looking all flustered, flew out of a room marked private.

  ‘Excuse me love,’ said Su Pollard, ‘have you any idea where this women’s do is?’

  ‘Yes – I’ve just come from there.’

  ‘Would you take me, only I keep getting lost.’

  I tried to steer her back towards the landing, but I lost her twice within a hundred yards and had to go looking for her again, and so I took a firm hold of her hand to make sure we both went the same way.

  She was wearing a wondrous outfit and she was probably the only woman in the whole wide world it would have suited.

  ‘Do you work here?’

  ‘No – my wife’s at the luncheon.’

  ‘That’s where I’m going.’

  After a few false starts I made it back to the landing. It was empty now, but a guard stood on duty at the door. She put her arm out and stopped us.

  ‘You can’t come in here.’

  ‘Not me – just the lady.’

  She turned to Su and seemed to assume she was wearing some African national costume. She spoke loudly and clearly so that the actress would understand.

  ‘Have you got an invitation?’

  ‘Yes, love – it’s on the sideboard at home.’

  ‘What about a badge?’

  ‘It’s on the sideboard – with my invitation.’

  ‘Then I’m very sorry.’

  ‘Can’t you make an exception this once, only I think I’m quite famous.’

  She couldn’t, and we stood there on tiptoe for a while, watching the passing parade through a curtain of swinging earrings and a solid mass of shoulder pads. I whispered to my new found friend.

  ‘I wish I was six foot four – I should be able to see my wife then.’

  She thought that was terrible – that I couldn’t see my wife.

  ‘Here, love,’ she cried, ‘you can sit on my shoulders if you like,’ and she bent down double so that I could climb aboard.

  I didn’t though. I just watched the top of Aileen’s head as it talked to the top of the Duchess of Kent’s head and then drifted off once more. They let Su Pollard in before I left.

  ‘She’s from Hi-De-Hi,’ a companion told the guard.

  The guard nodded. Geography wasn’t her strong point, but judging from the costume, she’d guessed it would be somewhere exotic.

  I wandered round Covent Garden for a while with a beef sandwich in one hand and a carton of sweet tea in the other, but soon it was time to make tracks back to the Savoy.

  I h
ad arranged to watch the speeches on a BBC television monitor in the press room and I sat down behind a row of reporters. The camera zoomed in on Aileen as she struggled with her Pear Belle Helene.

  She chased it round her plate but it was a tricky little devil and it wasn’t giving up easily. She gave it a thwack with her spoon, stunning it, and then dug in deep while the pear was still wondering what had happened. The spoon came up empty, but she sucked it anyway.

  ‘I liked her,’ said a reporter, ‘she was nice.’

  ‘The writer?’ asked her companion.

  ‘Yes – I hope she wins.’

  ‘So do I.’

  I leaned forward. I wanted to give them both a kiss, but I didn’t.

  ‘She’s mine.’ I told them, as Aileen frowned in close-up and then went after the pear again. A hand, holding a fork, appeared in the bottom left hand corner of the screen and waited until the pear came round once more. Then it moved in, like lightning, pinning it to the plate.

  Aileen smiled at her off-screen benefactor and then quickly disembowelled her pudding.

  ‘We’ll keep our fingers crossed,’ the reporters said.

  She was still fizzing with champagne the next morning as we turned off the motorway towards the Cat-Motel. A Daily Telegraph lay on the back seat of the car, open at page four with its large photograph of Aileen and the headline, ‘Blind novelist is Woman of the Year.’

  We had talked non-stop all the way from London and we hadn’t finished yet. Aileen floated about an inch above the passenger seat and wore a smile that had oncoming drivers swerving out of the way.

  ‘The Duchess said she was a reader of mine.’

  ‘Good for her.’

  ‘She said she liked my shirt.’

  ‘It’s a nice shirt.’

  ‘I hope the cats are all right.’

  ‘Did she say that?’

  ‘No I did.’

  ‘To the Duchess?’

  ‘No – just now.’

  They weren’t all right. They were decidedly not all right and they didn’t hestitate to let us know about it.

  ‘They’ve been very naughty,’ Mrs Kaufman told us, and Thermal scowled.

  ‘She threatened me.’

  ‘He pushed all his food out through the bars.’

  ‘Best place for it.’

  ‘He scratched me on the arm.’

  ‘I think I’ve got blood poisoning.’

  ‘Next time you leave them here I shall …’

  But there wasn’t going to be a next time. When I had to leave them again it would be at home with Bridie to look after them. I had three months to teach her how to handle the burglar alarm – Aileen could teach me and then I would teach Bridie.

  Arthur had had a wonderful time. He’d hardly moved from his boiler – he’d eaten seconds and thirds and fourths and fifths, so Bridie told us, and he looked as though he might explode any minute.

  Thermal was so excited to be home that he forgot to be miserable and the moment he laid eyes on his sultana he went berserk. They clattered around the house together, Thermal like a small pit pony, the sultana like a small pit pony’s tame sultana, and they toured all their favourite window-sills, upstairs and downstairs, until they were exhausted. Then they sat on the fax machine and warmed their bums.

  I put some fish in the microwave oven and on the second ping they were both in the kitchen, the sultana somewhat unwillingly – he never felt comfortable in the kitchen. He had been told as a child of the great Eccles cake massacre of ’87 in which most of his family had been wiped out.

  He never spoke about it, but I believe a mixing bowl and an egg whisk were supposed to have been involved. It was all a bit hazy now – he was no more than a currant at the time.

  Tigger wouldn’t eat, she wouldn’t do anything. She just sat under Aileen’s desk with her back to us and made us suffer. She wasn’t sulking – she was hurt, and she couldn’t understand how we could have put her in that terrible place. I tried my best.

  ‘Come on, love – come and have something to eat.’

  Her head turned slowly and her eyes met mine. There was a simple depth to them, more eloquent than any words, and they told me that she needed time to think about this – if I wouldn’t mind.

  Patrick rang and invited us round. He and Sarah had watched Aileen on the television and they wanted to celebrate with a drink.

  We celebrated with one and then another and then several more as the evening went on. Aileen knocked over her usual glass quite early in the proceedings and so I was able to relax and enjoy myself. She always breaks one glass, but I’ve never known her break two.

  We got up to leave in the early hours and as Patrick opened the door into the porch there was a clattering noise.

  ‘What was that?’ Aileen asked.

  ‘The cat-flap,’ Patrick told her.

  ‘Cat-flap? I didn’t know you had a cat?’

  ‘We haven’t,’ said Patrick, glancing at me as he stood back to let us through. ‘But we did have – if you remember.’

  Tigger was still under Aileen’s desk when I looked in on her – she hadn’t finished thinking about it yet and I left her to it. I just hoped that it wouldn’t be too long.

  As Aileen pushed open the bedroom door I could see Thermal flat out on the duvet. I decided to tackle him right away.

  ‘You never told me you had a cat-flap.’

  He was obviously too embarrassed to answer.

  ‘When you were little – you could have gone indoors.’

  He continued to ignore me.

  ‘You were putting it on, weren’t you?’

  He snored – he was fast asleep and I decided to leave it for now and have it out with him over breakfast.

  It must have been somewhere around five o’clock in the morning when I experienced that strange sensation that tells you a cat is walking up the entire length of your body.

  The sensation nuzzled my cheek and then shimmied down inside the duvet, tucking itself into the crook of my arm. I could feel a warm naked bottom from Aileen’s side of the bed and warm fur body up against my chest.

  I moved my legs slightly and there was Thermal’s sturdy weight, still lying heavily across my feet.

  Then a muffled purr ruffled the single hair on my chest and I smiled to myself – it looked as though Tigger had thought it over and I was forgiven.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Thermal and Tigger were charging round the courtyard, playing one and a half-a-side football with Chico – it’s a version of the game you don’t see all that often these days.

  Arthur was sitting on the balcony, proudly shampooing the nervous black fluff that sprouted from his legs and chest. I can’t be absolutely sure, but I could swear that before he started to sprout he had the words ‘Mother’ tattooed on one paw and ‘Millwall’ on the other.

  He was a very contented cat, and he liked to sit up there and preen himself as his former fellow travellers snuffled around the dustbins below.

  ‘I told you I’d make it one day – this is my place now, so push off.’

  Bridie sat on the bottom step with me, coaching Chico from the sideline. He had a natural talent for the game, spiced with just a touch of Irish individuality – his ball control was exceptional and time and time again he burst through the opposing defence only to be flattened at the last minute.

  ‘That wasn’t fair, Thermal.’

  ‘Worked though, didn’t it?’

  Only a few minutes earlier I had been an integral part of a BBC television crew who were up in Aileen’s study filming an interview.

  There was a producer, an interviewer, a cameraman and a lighting man, a sound engineer, the producer’s assistant and me, all of us working together as a team.

  ‘Who’d like a cup of tea?’

  ‘Two sugars please – no milk.’

  ‘No sugar and just a drop of milk.’

  ‘Very weak, lots of milk and no sugar.’

  ‘Do you have lemon?’

&
nbsp; ‘Coffee please, sweeteners if you have them and very little milk – just show it the jug.’

  And I’d got every one right. I couldn’t remember which one was whose, but they sorted it out eventually and their grimaces faded as the original order hit the spot. A television crew marches on its bladder and I felt there might be an opening for me here.

  But Thermal blew my big chance of a move into the media. He chased into the room after a trailing cable and was thrilled to see such a crowd.

  He loves nothing better than a party, he’s your ‘life and soul’ type of cat and he leapt up on to Aileen’s knee to find out what was going on. The interviewer ploughed on regardless. ‘With your sight problem – how do you manage to research your novels?’

  ‘Well – I …’

  Aileen tried to finish the sentence, but Thermal had just spotted the tiny microphone she had so enjoyed having threaded up the inside of her dress and clipped to her lapel.

  ‘That shouldn’t be there.’

  First he stunned it with a right cross and before it knew where it was he had the little button clamped between his teeth. Then he saw the wire disappearing between Aileen’s breasts and decided to go down after it and sort it out once and for all.

  The sound man’s eyeballs were revolving at a rate of knots as he ripped off his headphones. The producer leapt forward and went down Aileen’s dress after the cat.

  It was some time before normal service was resumed, and then the producer showed his growing faith in my talents by appointing me to the post of official cat-controller in addition to my already onerous duties as tea-boy.

  ‘I’m sorry about that …’ Aileen began.

  ‘Was I all right?’

  ‘Shut up,’ I muttered.

  ‘Did they get my best side?’

  ‘Sit still.’

  ‘… only Thermal often sits oh my desk and watches me type.’

  ‘That’s not a bad idea,’ the producer mused, ‘let’s give it a try.’

  They should have known from his earlier performance that Thermal wasn’t born to be an extra.

  He sat for a moment or two watching Aileen’s fingers as they flew across the keyboard, but then, as she turned to explain a point, he marched across it himself – stamping words in pure Hungarian up on the screen.