Solomon's Tale

by Sheila Jeffries

  Joe wrenched the door open, his eyes glittering with rage.

  ‘Don’t call ME a pig! I happen to like a pint and a pasty for my lunch, if you weren’t too mean to give me the money.’

  ‘What you mean is six pints and a pasty,’ said Ellen. ‘I thought you were going to look for work, Joe? You keep off the drink when you’re driving.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Stop nagging me, woman.’

  Joe looked at Ellen as if he hated her. A glow of strength came into Ellen’s eyes. I felt like cheering. The real Ellen was back, good and bright and very stubborn. She marched to the caravan door and stood there like a warrior, her golden hair rippling in the wind. Beside her was the tallest of angels, its brilliance sparking across the grass and lighting up the moisture that hung from the trees, turning the raindrops into fairy lights. The angel brandished a sword of light and stuck it into the earth between Joe and Ellen. I could see the jewelled handle sparkling and I heard the angel cry out, ‘It is done.’

  Ellen looked ready to explode with the words she wanted to scream at Joe. But the angel had wrapped a shimmering cloak around her, and she stayed silent. She turned her back on Joe, swept into the caravan and shut the door.

  ‘Sanctimonious cow,’ he yelled and flung himself into the car, fired the engine and left in a screech of tyres. Meanwhile, Jessica stayed under the caravan picking the tinfoil off the Marmite sandwich in little strips of silver.

  I followed Ellen into John’s bedroom, and his teddy bears had a conspiratorial twinkle in their eyes as if they shared some secret knowledge. Ellen sat down on John’s bed with me on her lap. She didn’t say a word but just rocked me and stroked my tingling fur, her hands moving from my head to the tip of my tail.

  We stared out of the window at a hard shower of rain which passed over, leaving a dark cloud with a beautiful rainbow. Ellen seemed to stop breathing as she gazed at it, and then she began to tell me a story.

  ‘They say that a rainbow is a promise, Solomon,’ she said in her bewitching storytelling voice. ‘And there’s a legend that the rainbow is really a bridge, and when dogs and cats die they go over the rainbow bridge into a beautiful land where they wait for their loved ones to join them. When you die you’ll wait for me, won’t you Solomon?’

  I purred and stretched my paws out, one on each side of her neck as if I was hugging her. Today she needed me to be extra loving. But when Ellen told me why, I didn’t believe her. I thought it was part of the story.

  ‘I’m going away, Solomon, with John, and I can’t take you …’ She started to cry. ‘I can’t take you. No one will let me have a cat, and I have to leave Joe, Solomon, I have to. Do you understand?’

  I did, but I didn’t believe her.

  ‘I want you to stay here, Solomon, and wait for me, like the cats by the rainbow bridge. You and Jessica must stay here. And when I’ve found a place, I’ll come back for you and … and we’ll be together again. I promise.’

  I purred and snuggled into her neck, but still I didn’t believe her.

  Everyone except me seemed to know what was going to happen that day. My angel tried to talk to me but I wouldn’t listen. It was something I didn’t want to face.

  Suddenly Ellen put me down. She rummaged in her handbag and fished out a plastic card with numbers and letters on it. She stared at it for long minutes. She turned on some loud music and pranced around, picking things up and piling them on the table. She opened a cupboard and dragged out a big bag, unzipped it and put the stuff inside.

  Ellen put some of John’s toys into another bag. His shoes and wellies, his pyjamas and two teddies were stuffed in and zipped up. Ellen lugged the two bags outside and hid them under the caravan. She spread a map out on the table and studied it, talking on the phone with the plastic card in her other hand. She kept looking at me, and several times I heard her asking ‘Do you take cats?’ and the funny little voice inside the phone was saying, ‘No.’

  Joe came back in an ugly temper. He chucked the car keys on the table and headed for the fridge.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ he growled at Ellen. ‘Just let me have a drink.’

  He didn’t kiss her or ask how she was. He didn’t even look at her.

  ‘I’m going to fetch John.’ Ellen took the keys and I followed her outside. She picked me up, and I could feel her heart beating very fast and she was trembling.

  ‘You go and hide, Solomon,’ she whispered to me. ‘Go and be with Jessica. And whatever happens, I promise I’ll come back for you. You must stay here, Solomon. Promise you will stay.’

  I stared at her, and she started to cry and put me down on the grass. Moving furtively, she slid the two bags out and loaded them into the car.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Joe towered in the doorway.

  Ellen stood very straight and looked back at him.

  ‘I’m leaving you, Joe,’ she said firmly. ‘And I’m taking John. And I’m NEVER coming back.’

  She had the car engine running and she jumped in and drove away.

  Joe roared and raged. He ran after the car, hurling beer cans at it. I escaped into the hedge and watched, terrified, as he stomped back into the caravan, swearing. There were bangs and crashes as he hurled things around, breaking china and kicking doors. The whole caravan was shuddering. I felt I could never go in there, ever again.

  Ellen had gone. She had left me behind.

  I was devastated.

  But Jessica was still under the caravan unwrapping the Marmite sandwich.

  ABANDONED

  I felt betrayed. I’d done my best, my very best, and now I’d been abandoned. I’d been loyal, and kind, I’d set off alone as a tiny kitten to find Ellen, and then I’d been brave and visited her in hospital. And look what happened. She abandoned me.

  I was deeply upset, but I couldn’t sit around crying like a human. It seemed easier to be angry.

  My angel tried to intervene.

  ‘It will get worse,’ she said. ‘But you must try to survive and wait for Ellen.’

  I didn’t want to listen. Flicking my tail in annoyance, I turned my back on the shining angel and went to find Jessica. She would teach me how to be angry, and how to survive in the wild.

  We sat up for most of the night on the mossy branch watching the caravan. Joe ranted and thundered around for hours. He kept flinging the door open and chucking things out into the night. Between showers the moon was bright and we could see Ellen’s stuff lying in the wet grass: her clothes, her books, her pot plants, her CDs.

  Nick came plodding down the path with Paisley on a lead. Paisley didn’t want to go near the caravan, and Nick had to drag him.

  ‘You useless great mutt. Daft as a brush you are.’ In the end Nick tied Paisley to a lamppost. ‘Stay there.’

  He hammered on the door and Joe wrenched it open. In the lamplight his eyes were red, and he had a bottle in his hand.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Nick asked. ‘I’ve had complaints. And what’s all the stuff doing out here?’

  ‘She’s left me. That’s what’s wrong. And she’s taken MY son.’

  ‘Well I don’t blame her if you carry on like that,’ said Nick. Joe started ranting and swearing. He sat down on the caravan steps.

  ‘Now you quieten down,’ Nick said calmly. ‘It’s no good carrying on like this, Joe. I’m sorry for you, but this is my campsite and if you don’t calm down and pick up this mess, then we’ll be having a serious talk in the morning about whether I can let you stay here.’

  Joe put his head in his hands and sobbed like a child, sobs that shook his big body. Normally I would have run to him and calmed him down with my powerful purr. But I was an angry cat now.

  ‘Come on, inside. You’ve had a skinful.’ Nick spoke kindly to Joe, steered him into the caravan and shut the door. Paisley was whining and winding his lead round and round the lamppost until he’d nearly strangled himself.

  The door opened again and Nick came out.

  ‘You sleep it off, Joe. We’ll
sort it out in the morning,’ he said, and turned off the caravan lights. He unwrapped Paisley from the lamppost and plodded off into the dark, tutting and grumbling.

  Jessica was cold, so we headed for the badger hole and curled up together, trying to sleep. Our fur was wet, and we were hungry, but at least we had a safe place out of the rain. My angel tried to talk to me again, but I refused to listen. I blocked my mind and sank into a deep sleep.

  In my sleep I dreamed a beautiful dream. I dreamed of the previous life I had had with Ellen, when she was a child, and I was her cat.

  When Ellen was a child she wouldn’t speak. She knew how to talk but chose not to, and that got her into lots of trouble. People thought she was being sullen, or snobby, or even rude, and Ellen was none of those things. She was telepathic, and that’s why I was the perfect cat for her – we could read each other’s silent thoughts.

  In that lifetime I was devoted to Ellen. I followed her down the road to school, and in the afternoons I ran to meet her when she returned, her face pale and her eyes full of pain. As soon as she saw me Ellen came alive again and we danced in the garden, or she let me sit on the piano while she played the black and white keys with her small hands. I loved music and the vibrations of it tingled in my fur. Sometimes Ellen played sad music and I’d lie with my chin on the piano top, watching her eyes and sharing those deep feelings with her. Then she’d play fast melodies that rippled through the house and through my bones.

  I heard the same music now, in my dream, and I was a dancing cat, whirling on the lawn with Ellen who loved to dance so much. The air was alive with coloured ribbons and we were generating happiness. It was billowing out from the garden in clouds of stars, all fizzing and popping, and crowds of people were gathering round us in a circle. They had come for healing, bringing their sad faces and their troubles, and Ellen and I were a wild child and a wild cat turning sadness into joy.

  Ellen’s face shone in my dream, she was looking at me, holding me and saying, ‘Wait for me, Solomon. Wait and I will come back for you.’

  The music in my dream changed and I awoke to the sound of pouring rain, the whole copse dripping with silvery drops and water that gurgled down the lane.

  When the rain was over Jessica gave me a demonstration of how to hunt mice. Catching them was no problem for me, but finding them in a copse full of soaking wet leaves was difficult. Jessica knew exactly where they were and she quietly caught two and gave one to me.

  ‘It’s no good just practising pounces,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to watch and smell out the places where they live.’

  ‘I’d rather have Whiskas rabbit,’ I said.

  ‘Poof,’ she said. ‘Tinned stuff? This is the real deal.’

  Later that morning we went to look at the caravan. Joe’s bedroom curtains were still drawn and it was quiet. Pam was outside talking to Nick, and they were picking up the dripping wet things Joe had thrown out, putting them all into a black bag. I wanted to run to Pam. She would give me a cuddle and a compliment, and probably a meal.

  ‘No,’ said Jessica. ‘Look what’s happening now. They’ve got the cat basket.’

  Pam was dragging our travelling basket out from under the caravan.

  ‘I can catch them, easy,’ she said. ‘They know me.’

  ‘You hang on to the basket then, Pam,’ said Nick. ‘It’s a bit premature to catch the cats yet. Wait till Joe’s sober and he might want them. But he’ll have to go. I can’t be doing with this.’

  ‘Ellen worshipped those cats,’ said Pam. ‘But if she’s not coming back and she can’t find a place to rent that takes cats, they’ve got to go somewhere. The RSPCA will find homes for them.’

  I knew that word. RSPCA. Pam stood there swinging the cat basket, and I remembered how firmly Joe had stuffed us both in there. Jessica and I looked at each other. We didn’t need to say it. We would have to disappear, go deep into the countryside and live like wild cats.

  I watched Pam for one more minute. She’d been a good friend, and I would have liked to say goodbye. I saw her walk across to something else that Joe had thrown out of the caravan. She picked it up slowly.

  ‘Eee. Ellen loved this. What a shame.’ She held up the amber velvet cushion. It was sopping wet and the drops glistened on the beautiful velvet.

  ‘I’ll look after this,’ Pam said to Nick. ‘I’m going to wash it, dry it out and make it nice again.’

  She walked away with the cat basket in one hand and the amber velvet cushion in the other. I so wanted to run after Pam. If only I’d known what was going to happen, I would have jumped into that cat basket and dragged Jessica in with me.

  Jessica was already trotting purposefully through the copse however. Her instinct was strong. She wouldn’t hang around. I followed her dubiously over the far hedge and across the fields, on and on she led me, and she wouldn’t turn around. She paused only once, to hiss at a cow who had lowered her head to sniff at her. At the far end of the field we crossed a stone stile into the deep woods. My angel tried to speak to me, and I ignored her. She was trying to tell me to let Jessica go, but I wouldn’t. Jessica needed me, and I needed her.

  The stone stile seemed like a bridge to another world: green pathways, and mossy banks and ferns. Ancient trees with roots curling into stone walls, hollows, and holes full of leaves. I was aware of tiny faces watching us, other creatures who lived in the wood, fairy folk and gnomes. Jessica had obviously been in the enchanted wood before. She led me to a dry cave under a beech tree. It was lined with springy moss and a deep bed of rustling beech leaves.

  Our place. It was OK. Even better than the badger hole, which was too close to the caravan. We didn’t want to be found and put in that cat cage.

  That first night, I couldn’t sleep. Jessica curled up and tucked her tail neatly around her pink paws. Looking at her sleeping face I felt the need to be on guard like a dog. I listened to the noises of the wood, the wind whistling in the treetops, the familiar shuffling of badgers, the brisk trot of a passing fox, and the smaller scrabblings of mice and birds. There were no human sounds at all.

  I’d never been a wild cat in any of my lifetimes. It spooked me. I’d always had a human to turn to. I’d never before had no owner to love. Now I had gone twenty-four hours without purring. I ached inside. I wanted Ellen and John. But I didn’t tell Jessica.

  Gradually we became used to being cold and wet most of the time and hunting for our food. We developed a routine of eating, washing and sleeping. In the early days we had some fun times too, chasing each other and climbing trees. Jessica seemed different from the way she had been with humans.

  ‘What about your dream of going to live with an old lady?’ I asked her.

  ‘Oh that can wait,’ she said. ‘Right now I’m having fun.’

  ‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘It’s not what I want to do with my life.’

  ‘But this is a holiday,’ said Jessica. ‘Can’t you enjoy it?’

  I thought about it.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I feel angry, and abandoned.’

  ‘You’ve got me.’ Jessica gave me a sweet little kiss on the nose and I felt better.

  The morning was still and sunny. We wanted to be out of the shady wood with the warmth of the winter sun on our fur. Instead of going back towards the caravan site, Jessica chose to head out of the other side of the wood. We trotted along a tarmac lane and over a high bridge spanning a busy road.

  Seeing the road disturbed me. We crouched down and peeked through the railings at the lorries and cars roaring and swooshing along below us. My psi sense was suddenly activated and I turned to face north and stare at the long road curving into the distance. The road home. The road back to the beautiful house where we had lived with Ellen. I stood up and stuck my head through the railings, wondering if it would be possible to jump down onto the roof of a speeding lorry.

  ‘Don’t do it,’ said Jessica, and she led me firmly away from the bridge. She turned and looked at me cheekily, sparking her golden eyes i
n the way she always did when she had a secret.

  She ran on up the lane and round the edge of a stubble field. The light was changing to an electric brilliance, and there was a new sound in the air, a sound I’d never heard before. Where was Jessica taking me?

  We ran up a hill covered in tufty wiry grass, and the horizon was so bright now it was like running up to the sky. I followed Jessica right to the shining edge of it. We sat down and gazed in astonishment at the expanse of glittering turquoise water. It stretched far away to where the horizon was a dark blue line, and all of it was singing and swishing with waves.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked Jessica.

  ‘It’s the sea.’

  I was awestruck. Now I understood why John had always jumped around and screamed with excitement when Ellen said they were going to the sea. Seeing such a feast of dazzling light and space was incredible.

  ‘How did you know about it?’ I asked.

  ‘In my last lifetime I was a ship’s cat,’ said Jessica, ‘and I loved it. The ship was like a big floating house and I was the only cat. But once, I fell in and a brave sailor jumped over the side and rescued me. I was freezing cold and my fur tasted salty. After that they spoilt me and I got fat and lazy.’

  ‘So why did you bring me here today?’

  Jessica looked thoughtful. ‘Every cat should see the sea just once before they die,’ she said. ‘You need to know what wonderful things are out there.’

  I looked at Jessica with new respect. She had brought me here as a treat, to distract me from my sorrow at losing Ellen.

  We stayed on the cliff top, dozing with the sun on our faces, and I kept opening my eyes a crack and soaking up the energy of the sparkles that danced on the water.

  Jessica was hungry, and she knew exactly where to go. She led me along the cliff path, winding between gorse and heather and rocks, a long way down to a cove with a harbour and boats. People were strolling about in the sunshine but she avoided them and ran along the harbour wall. I followed, nervously. The water was deep and so far below the wall, with splashing waves on one side and translucent green on the other. It looked cold. The stone quay smelled of fish and there were piles of rope and lobster pots lying around.