Molly and the Cat Cafe

by Melissa Daley

  The café was lit only by the glow of the street lights outside, but even in the dark I knew that my initial impression of a rundown establishment had been well founded. Much of the floor area was taken up with an ugly glass-and-metal serving counter, its plastic shelves yellowing with age. I tiptoed between wobbly aluminium tables and sniffed at the musty linoleum underfoot. There was a black stove in the stone fireplace, but it was cold to the touch and, judging by the dust that coated it, looked like it had not been used for a long time.

  It felt strange to be inside again after so long outdoors. The atmosphere seemed enclosed, the background soundtrack of birds in distant treetops replaced by the electrical hum of kitchen appliances. I turned and walked towards the curved bay window at the front of the café, jumping onto the windowsill to look out through the square panes of glass. The street outside was deserted, and raindrops bounced silently on the wet cobbles.

  Debbie switched off the kitchen lights and walked through to the café. I hopped down from the window and approached her with my tail up in greeting. She sat down at a little table and held a hand out towards me, smiling. I trotted over and leapt up onto her lap, purring my gratitude that she had finally taken me in. The sound of sniffing made me look up, and I was dismayed to see that tears were sliding down Debbie’s cheeks as she stroked me. I blinked slowly at her, trying to communicate that she might feel better if she talked to me. She sighed and rubbed me behind the ears.

  ‘You know, puss, you’re the first one to show me any affection in a long time,’ she whispered. I licked her hand to reassure her that, if it was my affection she wanted, she had come to the right cat. She nuzzled her face against the back of my head while I kneaded her lap with my paws and we remained that way, sitting in the dark, silent café until eventually I dozed off. I was only vaguely aware of Debbie standing up underneath me, then carefully placing me back on the chair while I remained curled in a ball. I rearranged myself on the seat, which was still warm from her body. She whispered, ‘Night-night, puss’, before climbing the flight of stairs that led from the café to the flat above.

  The next thing I knew, sunlight was streaming through the bay window and I could hear footsteps and voices through the ceiling. Startled momentarily to find that I was not under the fire escape in the alley, I sat up and looked around me. The drab greyness of the floor and dirty walls was even more apparent in the bright morning light. The woodwork, which had once been white, was yellow and peeling in places, and the metal tables were scratched. I heard a footfall and voices on the stairs.

  Sophie was the first to appear in the café, glowering suspiciously at me. ‘How do you know it hasn’t got fleas, or worse?’ she scowled.

  ‘I’m sure she’s perfectly healthy,’ Debbie reassured her daughter from the stairwell. ‘I just need you to keep an eye on the café for a couple of hours.’

  ‘Well, she looks dirty to me,’ Sophie replied in a surly tone, not taking her eyes off me.

  I observed Sophie quizzically. She was a little taller than Debbie and her long blonde hair was streaked with pink. It was a Saturday, and she was wearing a floral summer dress – somewhat incongruously, given the weather outside – over thick black tights and clumpy boots. I had seen her in the alley on many occasions, but never at such close quarters. She was a pretty girl, but her attractiveness was somwhat tempered by a permanent frown. Her blue eyes reminded me of Debbie’s, but rather than kindness, they conveyed irritation and hostility. I was in no doubt that she was going to prove more of a challenge to win over than her mother.

  A couple of moments later Debbie appeared behind Sophie at the foot of the stairs. Her face was obscured behind a large plastic box, which I immediately recognized as a cat carrier. My reflexes kicked in and I leapt from the chair with such force that it almost toppled over behind me. Sophie shrieked as I shot past her. Desperate to find somewhere to hide, I squeezed under the metal serving counter, pressed between its base and the dusty floor. The appearance of the cat carrier could mean only one thing: I was to be taken away, just as I had been from Margery. I cursed myself for being so naive.

  I heard Debbie groan. She placed the carrier on a table, then knelt down next to my hiding place. One side of her face appeared, sideways, in the gap between the floor and the edge of the counter. ‘It’s all right, puss, please don’t be scared,’ she pleaded. I remained stony-faced.

  ‘What if it bites you and gives you rabies?’ Sophie asked scathingly.

  Debbie’s right cheek was pressed against the floor, and I saw her eye roll. ‘Of course she hasn’t got rabies, Sophie, don’t be ridiculous. This is the Cotswolds.’ She stretched her arm out awkwardly, wiggling her fingers at me in an effort to coax me towards her. ‘Come on, puss, please come out,’ she implored, but I stayed put. I knew that, if called upon, I could maintain my position much longer than she could, with her bottom in the air and her face wedged under the counter.

  ‘I guess you won’t be needing me to watch the café after all,’ Sophie sneered. ‘Doesn’t look like you’re going anywhere this morning.’

  I heard her heavy boots stomp upstairs to the flat.

  Debbie sighed and looked me in the eye. ‘Please, puss. I just want to take you to the vet to get you checked over. I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.’ I stared back impassively. She sighed and, with a few noises of discomfort, got to her feet. Dropping onto a nearby chair, she stretched out her legs and began to rub her knees.

  Relieved to have some privacy, I took a moment to consider my options. I could make a dash for freedom as soon as the café door was opened, but where would I go? Would I have to start all over again – find a different alleyway, or another potential owner to charm? Or could I trust that what Debbie had said was true, that she was not planning to have me rehomed, but was simply taking me to the vet? Margery had done the same on a regular basis. It had never been the highlight of my year, involving needles being stuck between my shoulder blades and fingers prising my mouth open. But it was an ordeal to which I had become accustomed, and I appreciated that Margery did it with my best interests at heart.

  I squirmed forward on my belly to the front edge of the counter. Debbie was still massaging her knees, gazing idly out of the bay window. I took a deep breath and sidled out from my hiding place. The cramped space had left my joints stiff, so I stretched out from nose to tail on the café floor, before padding over to Debbie and patting her shin with my paw.

  ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, shocked to see that I had come out of my own accord. ‘Oh, puss, look at the state of you!’ she added, wiping the cobwebs and dust from my fur. ‘Okay, puss, shall we get you to the vet?’ she asked, looking me calmly in the eyes. I blinked at her.

  Debbie called Sophie back downstairs, then lifted me gently into the carrier and walked me to her car. Talking to me in a low, soothing voice, she placed me on the passenger seat, before starting the engine. Being inside her car brought back memories of driving to Rob’s house, and I was unable to stop myself from yowling in distress. Debbie responded to each yowl patiently. ‘There, there, it’ll be all right, puss.’

  At the vets, Debbie explained that she had found me in the alleyway and wanted to keep me. The vet checked me over and pronounced me ‘in remarkably good health for a stray’. She then ran a device that looked like a television remote control across my body to scan for a microchip. When the device started bleeping, Debbie’s face fell. She shot a questioning look at the vet, who began to tap at her computer keyboard. ‘According to the chip, her name’s Molly,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, what a lovely name,’ Debbie replied, a smile lighting up her eyes. ‘I suppose she must be lost. Her owner’s probably looking for her,’ she continued. The smile had faded and she looked as if she was about to burst into tears.

  ‘Let’s call the number and find out, shall we?’ the vet asked gently, and Debbie nodded.

  The vet left the room and we waited, Debbie drumming her fingers on the black examination table while I tried
to ignore the unpleasant smell of disinfectant. I wanted to reassure Debbie that I knew Margery wouldn’t be able to look for me, and I very much doubted that Rob would have made any effort to. But we were both at the mercy of the vet and her phone call. There was nothing we could do except wait.

  After what felt like an eternity, the vet came back into the room. ‘The number’s no longer in use, and without a current contact, there’s not much we can do.’ A grin began to spread across Debbie’s face. ‘Molly is officially a stray, and yours to rehome if you want to.’ I’d never felt so happy to hear myself described as a stray, and there was no mistaking Debbie’s elation as she burst into tears of relief and hugged me. I was given an injection before being returned to the cat carrier where I waited patiently while the vet typed Debbie’s details into her computer. Once the registration process was complete, Debbie thanked the vet, picked up the handful of leaflets she had been given, and we were free to go.

  ‘What do you think about that, Molly – you’re officially my cat!’ Debbie said cheerily as she placed me on the passenger seat of her car.

  There was not much I could do to communicate my delight through the plastic of the carrier, but the happiness that rushed through my body made me feel like I was floating. I was so ecstatic that I didn’t even mind when Debbie cranked up the volume on the car radio and sang along loudly for the entire duration of the journey home.

  16

  ‘Guess what, Soph. We have a new member of the family!’

  Debbie swung the café door open triumphantly, brandishing the cat carrier in front of her. Sophie was sitting on a stool behind the serving counter, frowning as she swiped her thumb across her phone. A slight rolling of her eyes was the only indication that she had heard Debbie’s words. Her apathy did nothing to dent my euphoria, however, as Debbie released me from the carrier into the empty café.

  She gave me a quick rub behind the ears, before pulling an apron over her head and disappearing into the kitchen. Without acknowledging either of us, Sophie wordlessly grabbed her coat and vanished out onto the street. Realizing that I was free to explore, I headed upstairs, keen to see Debbie’s home, and the rooms I had fantasized about for so long.

  The flat was low-ceilinged and felt rather cramped, as if more rooms had been fitted inside than there was space to accommodate. A narrow hallway opened into a tiny kitchen and bathroom on one side, and a square room that overlooked the alley on the other. The room was fairly large, but was dominated by the dining table and chairs immediately in front of the door, and by a deep three-seater sofa along the wall. A modest television set stood in the alcove next to the open fireplace, which, I was disappointed to note, showed no signs of recent use. There was yellowing woodchip paper on the walls and a threadbare carpet underfoot, but Debbie had gone to great lengths to make it homely, with flowers on the dining table, soft rugs placed over the carpet and colourful pictures on the walls.

  A short flight of stairs led from the hallway to Debbie and Sophie’s compact bedrooms, tucked under the building’s eaves. I poked my head around the door on my right, peering into what I deduced must be Sophie’s room. I picked a fastidious route between the dirty clothes, balled-up tissues and damp towels that littered the floor. As I brushed past a chair I dislodged a messy heap of clothes, which had been thrown onto the seat-back. The pile toppled over, startling me as they hit the floor behind me. I dashed out of the room, hoping that, given the state of the rest of the bedroom, Sophie wouldn’t notice the additional mess.

  Debbie’s room was no larger than Sophie’s, but was much more welcoming. The bed was covered by a pretty patchwork quilt in shades of blue and silver. I padded across the floor to the dressing table, on which bottles and jars stood in neat rows. A heart-shaped wreath of dried lavender hung from the window above. I breathed deeply, detecting the faintest trace of a scent that would forever make me think of Margery.

  Heading back down to the living room, I heard the radiators tick unevenly as the central heating slowed, and I took a moment to savour the fact that, since entering the café the previous day, I had not once felt cold. In the living room I jumped onto the sofa and washed thoroughly, in preparation for a nap, which I knew would be more comfortable than any I had had for months.

  Over the next few days I began to settle in, and the flat and café gradually started to feel like home. Sophie was the only obstacle to my complete assimilation to life in the flat. She had been unimpressed by my arrival and remained stubbornly impervious to my attempts to charm her. She rarely noticed my existence and, if she did, her attitude was invariably hostile.

  One afternoon, during my first week in the flat, I was asleep on the sofa when she got home from school. She flung her rucksack across the room at the sofa, where its flying plastic clips caught the back of my head. I flew into the air in panic, my hackles raised and my tail fluffed. She did not apologize for her clumsiness, nor did she even acknowledge my presence. As I tried to wash away my mortification afterwards, the thought crossed my mind that she had known I was there and had thrown her bag at me deliberately. I could not understand why Sophie would have a grudge against me, but her behaviour left me in no doubt that she disliked me.

  Debbie had placed a cardboard shoebox in the café’s bay window for me, which was where I often spent my mornings, observing the people who walked along the cobbled street in front of the café. The first to appear every day were grey-haired couples in waterproof coats and sensible shoes, on their way to the market square. Late morning was the time for young mums pushing buggies, with small children trailing behind them distractedly. Whenever the children noticed me in the window, they would drag their mothers over and point at me through the glass: ‘Look, Mummy, cat!’ and their mothers would smile wearily before pulling them away, with no time to dawdle.

  There was one old woman who walked past the café on a daily basis, always wheeling a shopping trolley behind her. Something about her appearance perplexed me. Her posture and lined face reminded me of Margery, but rather than Margery’s silvery-grey waves, the lady’s hair was a strident reddish-brown, set fast around her head like a helmet. Her hair fascinated me as it never seemed to move, even when a strong wind was whipping up the canopies along the parade. Every time she saw me in the café window she scowled at me and, intrigued by her curious hair and angry expression, I would stare back.

  Hardly any of the people who passed by on the street stepped foot inside the café, and it didn’t escape my notice that the café attracted very few customers at all. A few workers from nearby shops and offices would pop in for a quick sandwich at lunchtime, but other than that it was not uncommon for the café to remain empty from dawn till dusk. I understood now why there had always been such generous quantities of leftovers in the dustbin in the alley. As an alley-cat, it had been a blessing, but now I realized that it had been a sign that the café was struggling.

  Almost a week had passed before it even crossed my mind to go outside and return to the alley that had, until recently, been my home. There was no access to the alley from the flat, and Debbie did not like me using the kitchen door, so my only route in and out was through the café’s front entrance. I waited till the café was about to close, reasoning that I would catch the tomcat as he came in search of the day’s leftovers. As soon as the church bells announced six o’clock, I slipped out of the café and around the corner to the alleyway. It was strange to see it again, through the eyes of a house-cat rather than a stray. I was struck by how exposed it was, and how draughty it felt, compared to the cosy flat up in the eaves. I sniffed the wall for the tom’s scent marks, but there was no trace of him. I jumped onto the dustbin lid to look for the tell-tale rips in the rubbish bags that would indicate his presence, but the black polythene remained intact.

  Puzzled, my tail twitched. Surely the tomcat would arrive soon, I figured, so I sat down on the dustbin to wait. I waited until my paws felt stiff with cold, but still he did not appear. It was only now that I understood how mu
ch I had been looking forward to seeing him again, and telling him everything that had happened since I had crossed the café’s threshold. I was disappointed and hurt, feeling irrationally as if he had abandoned me. But my hurt quickly turned to guilt as I remembered the sudden nature of my departure, and that I had never told him of my plans. Had he wondered what had happened to me – maybe even worried for my safety? I felt a sharp pang of remorse for being so self-absorbed that I had not sought him out before now to explain what I had done.

  I found my old sleeping place under the metal fire escape and settled down, determined to wait until he returned. But, apart from a squirrel dashing along the top of the dustbin, there was no sign of any other living thing in the alley apart from me. Eventually the café’s back door opened and Debbie poked her head out. ‘Molly, where are you? Here, puss.’ I could hear alarm in her voice; this was the first time I had left the café since she had taken me in, and I had been out for hours.

  For a moment I didn’t know what to do: whether to stay out of sight under the fire escape and wait for the tomcat’s return, or follow Debbie back into the warmth and security of the café. Debbie stepped out into the alley in her slippers, shivering with cold as she called my name again. I caught a glimpse of her face through the paint tins – a shadow of panic was plain to see in her eyes. My mind was made up. Regardless of what the tomcat might think of me, I couldn’t bear to see Debbie so concerned for my well-being. I crawled out from the fire escape and trotted towards her, mewing in greeting. ‘Oh, there you are, Molly!’ she smiled. ‘You naughty thing, I thought I’d lost you.’

  She shepherded me quickly through the kitchen and I waited by the serving counter while she locked up. Sophie had gone out for the evening, so the flat was uncharacteristically quiet and peaceful. Debbie and I curled up side by side on the sofa, and she stroked me until we both began to nod off in front of the television, her bare feet cushioning my head. It felt just as I had imagined it would – an easy intimacy in which we were each soothed and reassured by the other’s presence. And yet something niggled at the back of my mind, taking the edge off my happiness. It was the guilt I felt for the way I had treated the tomcat, for abandoning the alley with no thought for the impact it might have on him.