Christmas at the Cat Cafe
Page 18
‘I know!’ she shouted, as if in mid-argument with some invisible adversary. ‘I heard you the first time.’ She grabbed the clock roughly and switched it off, before heaving herself out of bed.
The kittens were pacing the hallway, waiting for breakfast with their tails expectantly aloft.
‘Oh, all right, cats,’ Debbie said, treading a careful path between them and the pile of coats still lying on the carpet. She was squeezing out a cat-food pouch with an expression of mild nausea when the living-room door opened.
‘Morning,’ Linda croaked groggily across the hall. The pristine baby-pink cashmere sweater she was wearing looked somewhat incongruous against her sallow skin smudged with make-up, and her scarecrow hair.
‘Lovely top, Lind. One from Beau’s carrier?’ Debbie asked huskily, registering the telltale crease marks where the sweater had lain folded for the past few weeks.
Linda picked up the kettle and edged past Debbie to the sink. ‘Perhaps,’ she answered offhandedly, her cheeks flushing the same shade as her knitwear.
With the help of several strong coffees and a couple of paracetamol, the effects of the previous night’s drinking seemed to subside, and Linda was back at work in the café as soon as she had fetched her belongings from her friend’s house. The café was busy and Linda worked the room like a party hostess, asking customers about their plans for Christmas and chatting to them as if they were old friends. Her enthusiasm for Ming’s Fortune Cookies was as ardent as ever, and soon the tables were littered with the telltale red cellophane wrappers and paper mottoes.
‘You know what, Debs,’ she said proudly, as she rooted around inside the Tupperware box of paper slips behind the counter, ‘I’m going to have to print off a new batch of mottoes soon. We’re nearly out.’
In an effort to prove she had abandoned her favouritism towards Ming, however, Linda made an impromptu addition to the Specials board – the ‘Molly & Chandon Champagne Tea’ and persuaded several customers to order it on the basis that, ‘If you can’t treat yourself at Christmas, when can you?’
By closing time, both Linda and Debbie looked worn out. Blue shadows circled Linda’s eyes as she wiped down the tables, and the sound of Debbie’s yawns emanated from the kitchen at regular intervals. With her chores completed, Linda pulled up a stool to the serving counter, climbed wearily onto it and let her eyes settle on Ming, who was absorbed in a leisurely wash on her platform.
‘Do you ever wonder what Ming’s thinking?’ she mused when Debbie came through from the kitchen.
‘Can’t say I’ve had the time to give it too much thought,’ Debbie replied distractedly, searching for something on the shelf beneath the till. ‘Why?’
‘No reason,’ Linda said lightly, stifling a yawn. ‘It’s just that, compared to the other cats, Ming always seems to be . . . in a world of her own. But then I don’t really know much about cats, so it’s probably nothing,’ she added, self-deprecatingly.
Behind the counter, Debbie straightened up and looked over at Ming. ‘Well, she hasn’t fully integrated into the colony yet,’ she said, but there was a note of concern in her voice.
Ming was cleaning her face with her eyes closed, licking the inside of her slender wrist, before using it to groom her whiskers punctiliously. She seemed oblivious, or indifferent, to their scrutiny. After a couple of moments of deliberation, Debbie peeled off her rubber gloves and stepped around the side of the counter. ‘Ming?’ she called tentatively.
Ming continued to wash, unperturbed. Making sure to keep out of Ming’s eye-line, Debbie stepped nearer to the cat tree, held out her hand a few inches from the back of Ming’s head and clicked her fingers. There was no reaction: Ming didn’t startle and her ears didn’t flicker.
‘Oh my God,’ Debbie said, turning to face Linda with a dismayed look. ‘Linda, you’re right. I think Ming might be deaf!’
I felt a dip in my stomach, of shock mixed with incipient guilt. I spooled through my memories, desperately trying to recall an occasion when I had seen Ming react to something – anything – that she had heard. None came to mind. I vividly recalled our first meeting, when she had snubbed my attempt to introduce myself and Eddie in the café. She had looked down at us from the armchair, and I had read imperious disdain into her expression and had taken her silence for rudeness. It had never crossed my mind that there might be another explanation: that she hadn’t answered me because she hadn’t heard me.
The following morning Debbie phoned the vet first thing, and shortly after lunch she hung up her apron and fetched the cat carrier from upstairs. Ming reacted with her usual placidity as Debbie lifted her into the carrier, her deep-blue eyes remaining entirely impassive as she gazed out through the wire door.
I watched them leave with a feeling of apprehension. Seeing Ming in the carrier brought back a strange stab of memory, of the time I had been to visit Margery. I had returned to find Ming on the window cushion, seemingly having made herself at home in my absence. I cringed inwardly as I recalled how the sight of Ming and the other cats looking relaxed in the café had driven me into a jealous rage; I had been so sure – so utterly convinced – that Ming had been talking to Jasper and the kittens while I was away. How ludicrous and mean-spirited my suspicions would prove to have been if it turned out that she was deaf.
As I awaited Debbie and Ming’s return, my eye kept being drawn to the empty platform on the cat tree, and I found myself unable to settle. As the afternoon wore on, the chatter of customers began to grate on me, and the continuous chug and hiss of the coffee machine made my head ache. Craving fresh air, I slipped out outside and stood on the pavement, grateful for the chill breeze in my fur. The snowfall of the previous week had largely thawed, leaving only the occasional patch of grey slush on the pavements. A dustbin lorry turned the corner onto the parade and began its slow, growling progress up the street, so I ran along the pavement and darted into the recessed doorway of Jo’s hardware store. Waiting for the lorry to pass, I peered through the door. With the shifting reflections of passers-by in the glass, I found it difficult to be sure, but I thought I saw a glimpse of a tabby cat striding down one of the shop’s aisles.
The dustbin lorry pulled up outside the hardware shop and two men in luminous yellow jackets made their way towards the wheelie bins by the kerb. Keen to escape the lorry’s ear-splitting hydraulics, I nudged at the shop’s door. It swung open with very little resistance and, relieved, I slunk inside.
I had never been into Jo’s shop before. I was struck by its musty smell and the fact that, although it was similar in size to the café, the piles of stock that cluttered every surface made it feel smaller. I took a few tentative steps on the faded linoleum, past the serving counter on my right, where Jo was on the phone, complaining about an unpaid invoice. I could hear Bernard’s snuffly snores as he slept by her feet. I padded slowly up the central aisle, past shelves lined with cardboard boxes full of screws and hooks. At the back of the shop, next to a wire rack full of tea towels and dusters, I sensed movement and spun round to find myself almost nose-to-nose with Purdy.
‘What are you doing in here?’ Purdy asked, her tone faintly accusatory.
‘I thought I saw a cat through the window,’ I said, somewhat pointlessly.
At that moment, the door swung open and a man leant in. ‘Got any WD-40?’ he said gruffly. Jo nodded and gestured towards the back of the shop. The man began to head in our direction, his face set in a stern grimace. Purdy and I instinctively darted away from him, dashing down the outer aisle and through the door, before it could swing shut.
In the parade, spots of rain had started to fall, adding to the urgency with which people strode past us. I stood facing Purdy on the cobbles outside Jo’s shop.
‘Do you come here a lot?’ I asked.
‘A fair bit. Why?’
For some reason I couldn’t quite articulate, it stung to think of Purdy spending time in the hardware shop rather than at home. But there was something about her manner t
hat made me want to proceed warily; she seemed to be avoiding my gaze, and her face wore a mask of impatient defiance.
‘I know it’s been difficult lately, with Ming, and Linda and Beau,’ I prompted, feeling that she needed encouragement.
‘It’s got nothing to do with them,’ Purdy replied evasively. ‘This is just somewhere I can come to get away from . . . things.’
‘Oh?’ I said and, in the silence that fell between us, I felt the first tremors of misgiving in my stomach.
Her alert green eyes held mine for a moment and then she said, ‘I just don’t really like being in the café. I’m not sure I ever have.’
‘I had no idea . . .’ I replied, stalling for time while I digested her words.
Perhaps Purdy sensed my inner turmoil, because she began to explain. ‘I don’t like being on display, with strangers fussing over me all day. It’s not really my thing. And sometimes there are just too many . . .’ She trailed off, looking at the ground, uncertain whether to continue.
‘Go on,’ I urged.
‘Too many . . . cats,’ she said, glancing up at my face anxiously.
The rain was falling with increasing force and, all around us, people were shaking open umbrellas and quickening their pace.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, feeling a sudden surge of remorse. ‘I had no idea you were unhappy.’
‘I’m not unhappy,’ she corrected me, droplets of moisture glistening on her whiskers like crystals. ‘I’m just . . . not as happy as I could be, I suppose.’
I knew our conversation would soon be curtailed by the weather, but I desperately wanted to say something to show that, although I was saddened by what Purdy had said, I was grateful for her honesty. But, instead, I heard myself say, ‘Please, don’t run away.’
The disappointed look in her eyes let me know that I had catastrophically misjudged my response. Purdy had found the courage to tell me how she felt, but rather than listen to her, I had panicked. Instead of reassuring her, I had put my own anxiety first, and sought reassurance from her.
‘Of course I won’t run away,’ she replied breezily. Her tail had started to twitch and she glanced back over her shoulder, making no effort to hide her desire to be on her way.
I opened my mouth, wanting to undo the damage caused by my clunky, ill-chosen comment, but it was too late. A car had passed too close to the kerb, splashing passers-by with murky water; and, in the ensuing commotion, Purdy turned and trotted away. Within seconds she had disappeared over a wall and I was left standing on the cobbles, with cold rain beating down on my back, and Christmas shoppers rushing past me.
27
I returned to the café and, ignoring the customers’ good-natured overtures, headed straight for my window cushion. I turned my back on the room and stared out of the glass, castigating myself for the way I had handled the encounter. In my fretful state, Purdy’s and Ming’s suffering became conflated in my mind. I was convinced I was to blame for both, and that my self-absorption had blinded me to what they had been going through. If life in the café had been making Purdy unhappy, then surely, as her mother, I should have noticed? Similarly, as the colony’s matriarch, I should have been less quick to judge Ming’s odd behaviour. With both Purdy and Ming out of the café, however, I could do nothing except stare watchfully out over the damp street and wait for their return.
The rest of the day seemed to drag on inexorably, and it was not until after closing time that Debbie finally brought Ming home.
‘I’m back,’ Debbie called, crouching down on the flagstones to unlock the cat carrier.
Ming crept out cautiously, glanced in both directions, sniffed the air uncertainly, then dashed towards the cat tree.
Linda came out of the kitchen with a querying look.
‘We had to go to the animal hospital for tests,’ Debbie explained as she made for the nearest chair and sat down.
‘And?’ Linda asked, pulling off her apron and hanging it on the peg.
‘She’s deaf,’ Debbie replied sadly. ‘Almost certainly since birth. A congenital defect, probably.’
I felt my breath catch in my chest.
‘Poor Ming.’ Linda sighed, pouting with concern.
Looking relieved to be back on her platform, Ming had started to wash, unaffected by the melancholy mood in the room.
‘Do you think it’s okay for her to stay in the café? I mean, is it cruel, if she can’t hear anything?’ Linda asked, looking sorrowfully at Ming.
‘It’s something to think about,’ Debbie agreed. ‘Perhaps she would be happier somewhere less . . . busy.’
Linda walked over to the cat tree and reached out her hand to touch Ming’s back. Startled, Ming turned towards her and, when Linda gently caressed her spine from her shoulders to her tail, blinked in pleasure.
‘You know, if you think it would be for the best, I’d be happy to take Ming with me to Margery’s cottage,’ Linda said diffidently, as the room began to fill with Ming’s rumbling purr. ‘I should be the one to take responsibility for her, since it was me who brought her here in the first place.’
From her chair near the door, Debbie watched her sister closely. ‘Thanks, Linda, I’ll bear that in mind,’ she said appreciatively.
Later, when Debbie and Linda had gone upstairs, I stared across the dimly lit café at Ming. She lay in a neat circle, the perfect arc of her body disrupted only by the single, angular protuberance of her left ear. I was struck anew by her effortless elegance, and the uncomfortable realization that Ming’s beauty had been a major factor in my distrust of her. The adulation she had received in the café had stoked the flames of my envy, and I had never stopped to consider what coming to the café must have felt like for her. She had been an outsider, unexpectedly introduced to a colony of cats in an environment where privacy and solitude had not been an option. Any cat would have struggled in such circumstances, let alone one who couldn’t hear. I felt a wave of pity rise up inside me. I had been determined from the outset to read disdain into Ming’s reserved demeanour. Now I had to accept that, though there had been disdain, it had been on my side, not Ming’s.
Sporadic twitches seized Ming’s paws and whiskers as she dreamt, then she awoke with a sudden jerk. Her enormous eyes sprang open and she looked around in alarm, catching sight of me watching her from the window. Her dream had left her with a disorientated look, but I held her gaze for a few moments. Then, for the first time since meeting Ming, I blinked at her, slowly, in a sign of friendship. She tilted her head quizzically to one side before responding with a blink of her own, her azure eyes disappearing momentarily behind chocolate-brown eyelids.
I was overcome by a bittersweet elation. There was something so mundane, and yet so momentous, in that silent communication – the simple gesture of nonaggression that had passed between us. But my happiness was tinged with regret that it had taken me so long to attempt this most basic of feline signals, that I had wasted so much time looking for evidence to confirm my prejudices, rather than give Ming the benefit of the doubt.
Ming continued to look at me for a few moments, her cerulean gaze as steady and intense as ever and yet, this time, I saw it for what it was: curiosity about a baffling, soundless world, rather than an expression of her superiority. With a look of serene contentment, she lowered her head and licked the tip of her tail a few times, before tucking it neatly under her chin. Then she closed her eyes and swiftly fell back to sleep, to return to the world inside her head, perhaps the only world she would ever fully understand.
Sleep proved more elusive for me and when, after an hour of half-hearted washing and repositioning myself on my cushion, I did eventually doze off, I fell almost immediately into a dream. I was back on the rain-soaked street outside the hardware shop, watching Purdy disappear over the wall. I tried to call after her, but my voice was drowned out by growling lorries, and when I turned to run back to the café, I saw Ming cowering on the doorstep, staring at me dolefully through the rushing legs of pedestrians.
Now I just had to wait for her to come home.
‘But we thought you didn’t like Ming,’ Abby said, with a look of puzzlement. I had intercepted the kittens at the bottom of the stairs later that morning. They stood around me on the flagstones, listening attentively.
‘We thought you didn’t want us to talk to her,’ Bella chipped in, trying to be helpful.
I looked from one inquisitive face to the next, acutely aware of the hypocrisy of asking the kittens to be friendlier to Ming when, in the past, I had sulked if they went anywhere near her.
‘I never said I didn’t like her,’ I protested unconvincingly. If cats had eyebrows, Bella’s would have shot up.
‘But you were the one who . . . ’ she began, but trailed off when she noticed my thrashing tail.
‘That was before I knew she was deaf,’ I replied sharply, aware that such a justification was feeble at best. ‘I didn’t realize that was why she was acting so . . . standoffish.’
I felt my cheeks burn beneath my fur as the kittens looked back at me with identical expressions of bemusement.
‘I just thought she was shy,’ Eddie remarked diffidently.
‘Me too,’ concurred Maisie.
Their guileless reaction compounded my guilt, confirming that I was the only one to have read superciliousness into Ming’s silence. But I was grateful for their sweet-natured willingness to do as I asked, and for the fact that, if they did judge me for my hypocrisy, they kept it to themselves.