Christmas at the Cat Cafe

by Melissa Daley

‘It’s not just Linda you’re putting up, though, is it, Debs?’ she pointed out softly. ‘It’s Beau, and now Ming as well. Quite the menagerie she’s brought to your door, when you think about it.’

  My ears pricked up at the mention of Ming’s name.

  ‘She knows I’m cross about that,’ Debbie said, rolling her eyes. ‘I mean Beau is one thing – he’s Linda’s pet. But to dump a new cat on us,’ she shook her head disbelievingly, ‘and make out that she’s doing it for the business. I mean, really, she just has no idea!’ Debbie had drained her first glass of wine and seemed to be warming to her theme.

  I was warming to her theme too, and found myself feeling better than I had all day, as she began to open up about Ming.

  ‘I mean, really – a bloody Siamese!’ Debbie pulled an incredulous face. ‘What was she thinking?’ She laughed, and I preened with delight on the cushion. ‘You’d be proud of me, though, Jo. I made it quite clear this is a trial period, just to see how Ming settles in.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Jo muttered sarcastically.

  Debbie set her wine glass down on the table and fixed Jo with a stare. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ she asked flatly.

  Jo grinned. ‘Debbie, you and I both know that, when it comes to cats, you are the absolute definition of a pushover.’ Debbie blinked at her in astonishment. ‘You’re more likely to give Sophie up for adoption than you are to hand Ming over to a rescue shelter,’ Jo elaborated through a mouthful of naan bread. ‘Debbie Walsh turn her back on a homeless cat? I don’t think so. Not in a million years.’ She gave a derisory snort.

  Debbie took a moment to compose herself. ‘First of all,’ she began in a reasonable voice, ‘I am not a pushover when it comes to cats. Or when it comes to anything else, for that matter. And secondly,’ Debbie’s voice was getting louder as she struggled to be heard over Jo’s escalating laughter, ‘this isn’t just about me and what I want. I’ve got the welfare of the cats to consider and THEY COME FIRST!’ Debbie was practically shouting, and her face was a picture of hurt indignation. She sat back in her chair and took a slug of wine.

  Jo, sensing she had hurt her friend’s feelings, backed down. ‘Of course they do, Debs,’ she said in a conciliatory voice. ‘I know that. I was only teasing.’

  My eyes flicked between the two of them, unsure whether I should feel reassured or alarmed by their exchange. Debbie’s reaction had suggested that, like me, she saw Ming’s arrival as an unwelcome imposition; but Jo was right about Debbie’s proclivity towards taking in homeless cats. It was, after all, this very instinct that had led to her taking me in. And later, of course, she had done the same for my kittens. And for Jasper. I exhaled slowly through my nose. Perhaps Jo had a point: history showed that, when it came to cats in need of a home, Debbie found it difficult to say no. It had never occurred to me previously to consider this a shortcoming in her, but then I had never before found myself facing the prospect of living with an aloof Siamese.

  Debbie and Jo continued to eat in silence for a few minutes, in unspoken agreement that they should let the subject of Ming drop.

  Eventually Debbie put down her fork and said warmly, ‘Speaking of pets, how’s Bernard?’ Bernard was Jo’s dog, an ageing, arthritic black Labrador who spent his days snoozing by her feet in the shop.

  Jo looked wistful and her eyes began to redden. ‘Oh, he’s hanging on in there,’ she replied, trying to muster a smile. ‘We’ve been back to the vet again this week. His hips are really playing up, and he’s got a couple of worrying growths. They’re going to do tests.’

  Jo’s eyes had turned glassy, and Debbie leant closer. ‘Oh, Jo,’ she said, giving her friend’s arm an encouraging squeeze. ‘He’ll be okay.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Jo answered shakily.

  Some time later, when Jo had gone home and Debbie had trudged upstairs to bed, the swoosh of the cat flap jerked me out of a doze. I looked drowsily across to see Jasper on the doormat, silhouetted in the semi-darkness. Still smarting from our encounter in the churchyard, I watched through half-open eyes as he moved stealthily across the room and jumped noiselessly up onto a table next to the cat tree. For several moments he stared at Ming’s motionless, sleeping form on the platform. Then, perhaps sensing my gaze, he turned and glanced towards the window. I closed my eyes to feign sleep and, when I looked again, Jasper was grooming himself on the flagstones in front of the stove. I continued to watch him until he had completed his wash and I was quite certain he had gone to sleep.

  9

  When I awoke the following morning, Jasper had gone from the café, but Ming remained on the platform. She was sitting serenely with her eyes closed, her paws aligned and her tail neatly curled around the base of her body. Feeling fresh stirrings of envy in the pit of my stomach, I averted my eyes from her elegant profile, jumped down from the window and made my way outside.

  The tip of my tail flicked indecisively as I stood on the doorstep considering my options. I knew I should seek out Jasper and make amends for snapping at him, but something about the way he had looked at Ming as she slept riled me, and I couldn’t bring myself to apologize for my testiness just yet. Instead, I took a certain peevish satisfaction in setting off in the opposite direction from the alleyway, picking out a meandering route around the town’s deserted back streets, which would give me time to ruminate in private on my grievances.

  The raw sense of injustice I felt at Ming’s arrival had brought fresh vigour to my simmering resentment towards Linda and Beau. I paced the streets for a good couple of hours dwelling on my woes before I felt ready to return to the café. When I finally made my way upstairs to the flat, I rounded the top step to see Debbie wrestling with the contents of the hallway cupboard. The ironing board had toppled out, along with the box of Christmas decorations, and Debbie appeared to be fighting with the hose of the vacuum cleaner. When she caught sight of me around the cupboard door, however, she smiled.

  ‘Shall we go and see Margery, Molls?’ she asked, finally yanking the cat carrier free. I let out an involuntary purr of delight, as the irritability that I had been carrying was suddenly lifted from my shoulders.

  Before I had come to Stourton, my owner had been an elderly lady called Margery. In her devoted care, I had grown up with the unassailable confidence that comes from being an adored only pet. The cosy bungalow we shared had been my entire world, and it never occurred to me that there might be more to life than hunting in Margery’s compact, tidy garden, or napping on the sofa while she watched television programmes about antiques.

  As I grew older, however, there were occasions when Margery’s behaviour began to unsettle me. They were infrequent at first: a sporadic forgetfulness, or a vagueness about the task in hand. But as time went on, her confused episodes became more frequent until, eventually, the decision was made by her son, David, that Margery could no longer live independently. Her bungalow – our home – was sold, Margery moved to a care home, and I was left distraught and alone.

  Through a combination of perseverance and luck, I had been offered a second chance at happiness with Debbie. Nobody could ever replace Margery but, in time, I had accepted that, for me, she would exist only in my memories. And so, when Margery had appeared out of the blue in the café one afternoon, on an outing from her care home, it felt as though a part of me that had died had somehow come back to life.

  After that blissful reunion, Margery had returned to the café every few weeks with her carer, invariably bringing a small bag of cat treats tucked inside her handbag, which she scattered onto the flagstones for the kittens, while I purred blissfully on her lap. When Margery’s increasing frailty meant she was no longer able to come and see us, Debbie had persuaded the carer to let us visit her in the care home instead.

  On the back seat of Debbie’s car, I listened to the thrum of the engine and watched the clouds scudding past the front windscreen. Excited as I was about seeing Margery, I could not keep my thoughts from returning to Ming. Was that simply an over-developed
territorial instinct, or was I right to be suspicious of her? Debbie’s insistence that the cats’ welfare was her main priority gave me hope: if she knew I was unhappy, surely she would have no choice but to rehome Ming? And Debbie knew me well enough to recognize my horror at having to share my home with a pointy-faced, sneering Siamese – didn’t she?

  The sun had broken through the clouds by the time Debbie pulled up outside the care home, but there was a distinctly autumnal chill in the air as we made our way across the car park. In contrast to the freshness outside, the atmosphere inside the care home felt overheated and stuffy, and the air was pervaded by the pungent smell of boiled vegetables. Debbie carried me through the vast lounge in which a television played loudly, but was largely ignored by the residents, who were seated in high-backed wing chairs, chatting to visitors or dozing with crossword puzzles on their laps.

  We proceeded down a long, carpeted corridor lined on both sides with doors. Debbie rapped gently on one of them and, as she eased open the handle, the food smells in the hallway gave way to the scent of lavender. More than anything else, it was this fragrance that instantly transported me back to my life with Margery, when every item of clothing and piece of furniture was infused with her lavender eau de toilette. I inhaled deeply, and peered through the wire door of the carrier at the L-shaped room, which was like a pared-down version of the bungalow we had shared. All around me were familiar pictures, ornaments and knick-knacks; the bed was draped with the same blue-and-yellow crocheted blanket that I used to sleep on, and the darkwood chest of drawers was covered with framed photographs of her family, just as I remembered it.

  A recess next to the bathroom had space for two armchairs in front of a window that overlooked the care home’s landscaped grounds. Margery sat hunched in one of the chairs, silhouetted by the bright light pouring through the windowpane beyond. As we moved closer, I made out the wispy waves of her silver hair, which appeared almost translucent in the sunlight.

  ‘Hello, Margery – it’s Debbie from the cat café. How are you?’ Debbie said brightly.

  Margery lifted her head slightly and her papery skin creased into a smile. ‘Well now, who’s this?’ she asked, catching sight of the carrier. My heart swelled at the sound of her soft, tremulous voice.

  ‘This is Molly. She used to be your cat,’ Debbie answered.

  ‘Molly, what a lovely name!’ Margery said.

  Debbie fiddled with the clasp on the carrier door and I walked over to sit by Margery’s feet. She tilted the top half of her body sideways to look at me over the arm of her chair, her watery blue eyes gazing into mine. When she lowered a shaky hand towards me, I immediately rose up on my hind legs to rub her knuckles affectionately with my cheek.

  ‘Molly, eh? What a pretty cat,’ Margery cooed.

  ‘She used to be your cat, Margery,’ replied Debbie from the corner of the room, where she was filling a kettle at the sink. ‘She lives with me at the café now, but I’ve brought her to visit you.’

  ‘Oh, how lovely,’ Margery clucked, tickling my ears as best she could with her stiff, crooked fingers. ‘She looks like she’s wanting a cuddle,’ she smiled, leaning back in her chair and smoothing down her pleated wool skirt. I hopped up, making sure that I landed softly on her thin legs, with my claws fully retracted. I steadied myself in the centre of Margery’s lap and gazed up at her face, allowing a deep purr to rumble in my chest as she stroked me.

  Debbie carried over two cups of tea and sat down on the armchair opposite Margery’s. ‘I’ve brought you a Cat’s Whiskers Cookie from the café. I know they’re your favourite.’ She pulled a paper bag out of her handbag and handed it to Margery.

  ‘Oh, how lovely,’ Margery repeated, carefully placing the bag on the arm of her chair.

  They sipped tea and Margery took delicate bites of her cookie while Debbie chatted about the café, the kittens and the weather. As they talked, I allowed myself to drift into a doze on Margery’s lap, savouring the fact that, for the first time since Linda had turned up at the café, I felt truly relaxed. There was something inherently comforting about Margery’s small, tidy room overlooking the manicured lawns; whenever I was here, I felt as if all the responsibilities and irritations of adulthood had fallen away and that I was a kitten again, and life was simply a matter of feeling safe, warm and loved. I let out a contented noise that was part purr, part chirrup, and stretched out luxuriously on Margery’s legs. I would have been happy to stay in that calm, sweet-smelling room, with the two people who meant most to me in the world, forever.

  My purring stopped momentarily when Debbie drew her phone out of her bag and brought up a picture of Ming. ‘We’ve got a new cat staying with us at the moment. A Siamese – look,’ she said, handing the device above my head to Margery.

  ‘A what?’ Margery said, her brow furrowing. She plucked her glasses from the cord around her neck and pushed them onto her nose. ‘Ooh, very fancy,’ she remarked, and I felt my fur begin to bristle as she studied the screen. She handed the phone back to Debbie with pursed lips. ‘But those fancy-looking cats are terribly fussy,’ she added gravely.

  ‘Well, you might be right, Margery. We’ll have to wait and see.’ Debbie chuckled, dropping the phone back into her bag. My purr resumed even more loudly than before, and I burrowed my face into the folds of Margery’s skirt.

  The comforting ambience of Margery’s room stayed with me for the entire journey home, right up to the point where Debbie pushed open the café door and carried me inside. I was greeted by what, at first, appeared to be the usual Sunday afternoon scene: Maisie was scratching vigorously at the trunk of the cat tree, and I was aware of Abby and Bella racing up the wooden walkway that zigzagged up the wall by the door. As Debbie lowered the carrier to the floor, I saw Jasper washing on one of the armchairs in front of the stove, while Eddie chased a catnip mouse across the flagstones. My eyes followed him as he scampered towards the window, deftly batting the stuffed mouse back and forth between his front paws.

  Only when Eddie reached the skirting board did I notice Ming watching him, motionless and sphinx-like, from the windowsill above. From my cushion. Eddie crouched victoriously over the mouse, and I saw him glance up at Ming. The look he gave her was one he had given me on many occasions. It was a look that said, Want to play? Ming stared back at him, her head tilted, her blue gaze curious.

  I was seized by a sudden feeling of panic that, locked inside my carrier, I seemed to be invisible to all the other cats in the room. The warm feeling of well-being that I had carried since seeing Margery was giving way to an ice-cold rage. I had been gone for just a morning, and already Ming had taken my place, both literally and figuratively, while all I could do was watch from behind the bars of my carrier. And the worst of it was that neither Jasper nor any of the kittens appeared to think anything was wrong.

  10

  ‘Because it’s my cushion, that’s why.’

  Jasper had followed me out onto the doorstep and was looking at me with a mixture of bafflement and concern. ‘But, you weren’t here. How was Ming supposed to know the cushion’s yours?’

  My tail thrashed angrily by my feet; my initial shocked dismay had been replaced by unadulterated fury, and Jasper’s attempts to reason with me were making things worse. ‘You could have told her!’ I hissed, turning to face him, my eyes narrowed. ‘But then I suppose you were all too busy playing happy families to think about me.’

  I turned away to look down the parade, feeling my eyes prickle and my heart thump. I was cross not only with Jasper, but also with the kittens, for not telling Ming that the window cushion belonged to me; they should have known I would not take kindly to such an invasion of my personal territory. But it wasn’t just the fact that she had been on my cushion that had upset me. It was something intangible that I had sensed as I observed them from the carrier: an atmosphere of relaxed familiarity, which had seemed to pervade the whole room and suggested, to me, that the kittens and Jasper felt quite comfortable in Ming’s p
resence, and she in theirs.

  Jasper sat beside me, looking contrite, but I was not in a forgiving mood.

  ‘Oh, never mind,’ I muttered, pushing past him and back through the cat flap. With as much dignity as I could muster, and keeping my eyes fixed on the flagstones in front of me, I strode through the café and upstairs to the flat.

  I awoke on Monday morning to a queasy feeling of dread. I had spent the night at the end of Debbie’s bed, flitting between feelings of self-pity at the unfairness of having to share my home with a rival feline, and rage at everybody else’s apparent inability to recognize my distress. In a few hours’ time Debbie would open the café and I would have to bear witness to Ming’s moment of glory, as she was unveiled to the public. Of course I could avoid the café altogether and spend the day outdoors but, after the previous day’s trauma, I worried that to absent myself completely might have even worse consequences. Not only was there a high likelihood that Ming would lay claim to the window cushion again, but people might assume she had taken my place as the café’s figurehead. So, after eating a breakfast for which I had very little appetite, I crept downstairs.

  Ming was on her platform, surveying the room regally while Debbie prepared to open the café.

  ‘We’ll need to keep a close eye on Ming today,’ Debbie told Linda, emptying a bag of coins into the till drawer. ‘I don’t know how she’ll react to the customers.’

  I padded past the cat tree with my eyes averted from the platform, as had become habitual for me since Ming had taken possession of it.

  ‘If she looks like she’s distressed, we’ll need to take her upstairs,’ Debbie continued, ‘and that might mean putting Beau in his carrier. We don’t want her being frightened by him, either.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure that won’t be necessary,’ replied Linda airily, avoiding Debbie’s gaze as she pulled her Molly’s apron over her head. I pictured Beau’s bulging carrier in the living-room alcove and knew there was no way he could use it, unless Linda removed all her shopping first. Linda walked up to the cat tree and smiled approvingly at Ming. ‘Besides, I have a feeling the customers are going to love her.’