‘You wouldn’t like that. Going up – fourth floor, six large eggs, bottle of french dressing, cranberry sauce, box of cherry tomatoes and …’
‘What’s that?’
‘Garlic sausage.’
‘I’ll try that.’
He loved it, and by the time the kettle had boiled he had eaten two slices. I gave him a third slice, took my cup of tea into the study and spread the Independent out on the floor.
I can’t read the newspaper sitting in a chair, I have to squat on all fours. It dates back to my early days with the Beano and the Dandy and causes all sorts of problems for me on the Inter-City trains to London.
The kitten put his head around the door and wanted to know where the hell was his milk. I apologized and followed his indignant little rump back into the kitchen – then slipped him a slice of Allinson’s wholemeal bread under the grill.
We waited. It takes ages and then it’s all done at once. You have to catch it while the smoke is still a bluey grey. I smiled down at him – he glared up at me.
‘It won’t be a minute.’
He glared up at me.
‘It’s wholemeal – it’s good for you.’
He glared up at me and the penny dropped.
‘You wanted milk, didn’t you?’
He glared up at me.
‘You didn’t want toast.’
He glared up at me.
‘I’m sorry.’
He glared up …
‘Stop it!’
He rolled his eyes.
‘And you can stop that as well. Who the hell do you think you are?’
The eyes widened in amazement.
‘What’d I do?’
He didn’t drink his milk right away – he waited for his toast. I felt rotten about being sharp with him and so I split it between us, marmalade on my half, Marmite on his and went back to the Independent.
He joined me a few minutes later and, with milk dripping from his chin, sat down on Nelson Mandela.
‘I was reading that.’
He burped, and from the very depths of his soul a great wave of second-hand garlic sausage bubbled up and surrounded us. I went green and Nelson Mandela went white.
Even the kitten couldn’t stand it. He tried to walk away from it, but the garlic followed him around the study like a low lying cloud and it took four high speed laps of the room before the cloud gave up and went off to take it out on the ozone layer.
He stretched out for a few moments on the windowsill and then came over and sat on Melvyn Bragg.
‘Look – you are going to have to learn one or two ground rules. And the first one is this: in the mornings I like a little time on my own with the newspaper – got it?’
He nodded – he’d got it. He moved over and sat on the racing page.
I’m not at my best in the mornings. I have been known to clean my teeth with Savlon and I have sprayed under my arms with Elnett. I wasn’t up to coping with a kitten who had bad breath.
I adapted the famous tablecloth technique where you yank a newspaper out from underneath a kitten without the aforementioned kitten knowing a damned thing about it – I yanked and he fell over, stuck his claws in the racing page and hung on.
I dragged him all the way out into the hall. He thought it was a wonderful game and he slashed out right and left at the bucking newspaper – bits were falling off all over the place as he shredded it to pieces.
I slipped my hand under his stomach and lifted him in the air for a nose-to-nose confrontation. The racing page came with him and he hovered in mid-air like an eagle with a rabbit.
‘Right – that’s it. I’m taking you home.’
‘Can’t you take a joke.’
‘I should have done it last night – I can’t think what I was playing at.’
He began purring and his undercarriage vibrated against my palm.
‘And that won’t get you anywhere either.’
He pushed his anxious little face closer to mine as he tried to work out just where he had gone wrong. I didn’t mean to grin – it sort of escaped, but it was enough.
His face exploded and he smiled a smile that came up all the way from Cheshire. My heart melted and I leaned forward and touched his nose with mine.
Then he burped a burp that came up all the way from Hades – and the world began to spin.
Aileen curled up in the armchair, a cigarette in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other and, poking his head out of her dressing-gown, a small white kitten snuggled up against her naked breasts.
‘There’s nothing more sensuous than feeling warm fur against bare flesh,’ she murmured.
So not content with waking me halfway through the night and shredding my newspaper first thing in the morning, this kitten was now taking over my role as a sex object.
‘He reminds me of that cat in the Garfield cartoon – what’s his name?’
‘Garfield,’ I told her.
‘No – not him. The kitten, the cutest kitten in the world?’
‘Nermal.’
‘That’s it – Nermal.’
She bent and kissed his head. He preened and, closing his eyes, pressed up for more attention. She kissed his nose – if he burped now she would discover that he was also the most toxic kitten in the world.
‘We ought to take him home.’ I said. ‘I’ll drop him off on the way out.’
Then I could apologize to Patrick, tell him that I had lied and beg his forgiveness.
Better still I could tell him that I had searched high and low for his kitten, rescuing it at the very last minute from the slavering jaws of a vicious Dobermann. That should have him round cutting my side of the hedge on Saturday afternoon.
‘You’re too late. They’ve gone out – I heard the gate click.’
‘Damn.’
The kitten frowned – swearing again.
‘Don’t worry,’ Aileen said, straightening out his ears, ‘he’ll be company for me. I’ll take him round when Sarah comes home.’
Time was galloping on. I was due in Newcastle at twelve and I hadn’t showered yet.
‘I shall be late.’
I folded the newspaper as best I could and laid it in strips on the table. To his credit the kitten looked embarrassed.
‘Right then – I’m off upstairs.’
I walked slowly across the study, half hoping to hear the clatter of tiny hooves as a faithful kitten bounded after his beloved master. He slipped a couple of inches further down Aileen’s cleavage, yawned and turned over on to his back.
‘Me too,’ said Aileen, ‘I must get cracking.’
He was up like greased lightning, dancing across the carpet, ever watchful of her feet, and for one brief moment I thought he was going to open the door for her. He would have too, had he been able to reach the handle.
He waited for her in the hall like a small policeman on point duty, steered her efficiently round a disappointed Chinese rug and headed her off towards the staircase.
‘Isn’t he beautiful?’
‘He’s all right.’ I agreed.
‘He’s lovely.’
‘He’s not bad.’
‘He’s very intelligent, you know.’
He sat on the bottom step and waited for a lift, as smug a kitten as ever sat on a bottom step and waited for a lift.
‘Give him a hand, he can’t manage it.’
For one brief moment I considered giving him a foot instead, but I am basically a kind man and so I scooped him up and placed him in a look-out position on Aileen’s shoulder.
They took their time climbing the stairs and I moved ahead of them and turned towards the landing.
Behind me I heard Aileen break out into her Long John Silver impression, whilst the kitten sat bolted to her shoulder and pretended that he knew what a parrot was.
He laughed hollowly at her ‘Ar, Jim lad’s and rather nervously at her ‘Shiver me timbers’, but he must have felt very vulnerable up there as she affected the most outrageous limp.
Perhap
s it was the relief of reaching the topmost step, for it was there that the kitten burped and the woman staggered and the kitten jumped and landed on the white sheepskin rug.
He knew then that his short career as a kitten was over – sheepskin rugs are the worst, most vicious kind of rug – and he froze and awaited his fate.
‘What the hell’s he been eating?’
‘Shhh.’
He stood stock still for some time and then, as it began to dawn on him that this rug was probably one of the few friendly rugs in captivity, his fur relaxed and his ears went limp and his two front paws began to pound and pound and pound.
‘What’s he doing?’
‘He’s pounding.’
The description didn’t do him justice. His back was in spasm, his head was bowed, in fact the whole of his tiny body was a monument to ecstasy. Even the rug seemed excited.
‘What’s he doing now?’
‘Still pounding.’
I had a shower and Aileen had a shower and when we came out he was still at it. I bent to stroke him and I could hear his motor running.
‘It’s my mother,’ he purred, ‘it’s my mother.’
CHAPTER FOUR
I love talking in the North-East. Some audiences sit tight, as sealed individual units, their arms metaphorically folded across their chests.
‘Go on then – entertain us.’
You have to work to win their approval. In the North-East they welcome you with open arms and will you to do well.
Their standards are just as high and their criticism just as valid, but they understand that the next hour is to be a two-way thing, and as you stand up and clear your throat they are already switched on and rooting for you.
You can still fail to last the course, but at least they give you a flying start.
The only thing that ever comes between me and the North-East is the A1. That’s where you earn your money – not on the platform.
The road-works stretch for miles ahead. The salesmen in their Ford Sierras chew on the steering wheel, the vegetarian in the Citroën 2CV chews on his bar of nuts and raisins, and the man in the Reliant Robin contentedly chews on his cud – he always travels at this speed.
Seven miles in two and a half hours. A man jumps out and kicks savagely at a traffic cone – the other cones move in on him menacingly. He jumps back in, locks his door and winds up the window.
At any moment a wooden cart with wooden wheels will come rumbling down the central reservation to the accompanying cry of ‘Bring out your dead.’
Road-works. I saw an actual workman once and thought I was going mad.
Aileen was hard at work when I arrived home, sparks flying from her keyboard. I kissed her on the head and waited patiently for her to work her way back to the present day.
Right now she would be out on a North Yorkshire farm in the mid-1940s, persuading her characters to do as they were told. Sometimes the more wilful ones disobeyed her, they were the ones who made the book come alive. So I sat and waited – I didn’t want her to get the bends.
As she moved into a book she wound herself around her characters and they in turn would influence her. I would keep an eye on my back as she consorted with the evil half-brother who was savaged by the pig. Keeping company with the blunt Mr Renshaw would turn her into a woman of few words.
I looked over her shoulder and saw that Maddie and Max were sinking down half naked by the hearth, their bodies intertwined, his lips caressing hers …
I waited for her – she would be worth waiting for.
I made a pot of tea and took the tray into the study. There was no sign of the kitten – she must have taken it home.
‘Hello …’
She was coming down from the farm now, wiping the mud off her wellies.
‘… how long have you been here?’
‘Long enough to make a pot of tea – there’s a cup in front of you, don’t knock it over.’
‘Lovely – thanks. Have you seen the kitten?’
‘No.’
‘I’ve lost him again. He spent all morning on the sheepskin rug, but I haven’t seen him for ages.’
‘I thought you’d taken him home.’
‘No – I can’t find him.’
We had eighteen rooms. She would have had trouble finding a buffalo. A kitten, even a white one, would be impossible. Some guide-kitten he’d turned out to be.
‘You could have shut him in somewhere – where have you been?’
‘I haven’t been anywhere, honest. I’ve been working in here all day.’
‘You must have been to the toilet …’
‘Well, yes.’
‘… and into the kitchen.’
‘Only to get a yoghurt out of the fridge.’
There was a pause. It wasn’t a long pause, it was a short pause, about three-fifths of a second in duration and then Aileen said, ‘I couldn’t have, could I?’
She could have and she had. The kitten sat on that glass shelf that covers the vegetable tray – astride a polythene pack of Danish bacon.
His prim little paws were buttoned up side by side, and his miserable excuse for a tail was neatly tucked in – just like his mother had taught him.
‘Sit up and don’t slouch.’
As the light came on his eyes slammed shut. His mouth opened wide, but whatever it was he intended to say remained frozen solid inside him.
I knelt down and picked him up, and the Danish bacon came up with him – his bum welded to the polythene.
‘Is he all right?’
‘I don’t know – it’s hard to tell.’
I ripped the polythene like a plaster from his fur. His eyes shot open – he would get me for that later.
‘Here – give him to me.’
I handed him over and reached for the towel.
‘Wrap him in this.’
She waved it away and tucked him inside her shirt.
‘He needs body warmth.’
She closed her arms around him and cuddled him against her breast, but it was going to take more than that to melt him – he was a rigid little kitten, like a stuffed toy from Woolworths.
Aileen began to shiver.
‘C-could he have frost-bite?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
Her eyes frosted over and her teeth began to chatter, but the kitten just lay there like a pubescent snowball. He seemed to have shrunk.
‘Pass me the towel and let’s get him by the fire.’
She wrapped him up tight, and I had the fire on full blast by the time she plonked him down on the hearth in the drawing-room.
She held him in the glow of the fire and rubbed him gently with the towel.
‘Don’t hold him too close – he might get hot-aches.’
She rubbed his paws to make sure they weren’t missed out as his blood began to circulate and gradually, here and there, certain bits of him came back to life and started to move.
First it was his head that nodded up and down, slowly as though he might be in the rear window of a Ford Cortina. Then his tail, such as it was, swished hesitantly like a shortsighted pipe-cleaner.
‘I think he’s going to be all right.’
He looked up at me and I could read his mind.
‘We’re a vet now, are we?’
And then he began to shiver. I have never seen anything shiver quite like that kitten. If Aileen had let go of him we would never have caught him again.
He moved through from first gear to fifth gear and then on to automatic – his whole body trembling, every little muscle pulsating and it seemed as though he was never going to stop.
‘I’ve got an idea.’
With hindsight it was perhaps not the brightest idea I have ever had, but at the time I thought I was a genius.
‘My thermal vest!’
I raced into the kitchen and pulled open the duster drawer. A couple of weeks earlier I had washed the vest and then stuck it in the tumble-dryer on hot.
When I pulled it out an h
our later it would have fitted Action Man and it had been condemned to spend the rest of its working-life polishing horse brasses.
‘Try and hold him still.’
I eased his head through the top and then tied the two short sleeves round the back of his neck in a bow. With a pair of scissors I made four small holes and pulled a leg through each.
‘What do you think?’
‘He looks ridiculous.’
‘It’s not finished yet – hold his tail up.’
I tied what remained of the vest in a huge ungainly knot so that a little skirt with a bump in it trailed down behind him.
‘Well?’
‘He’ll probably never forgive you.’
I tidied up the loose slack with a couple of safety pins, a paperclip and the staple gun.
‘There – it could have been made for him.’
‘By whom exactly?’
At least he had stopped shivering. Either the thermalolactyl qualities of the vest were working their magic or it was shock induced by catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror – whatever it was his little motor gradually began to wind down and to celebrate I treated him to a saucer of lightly mulled milk.
Aileen put him down and he took a few tentative steps towards the saucer, a pool of thermal vest trailing behind him as he moved along the hearth rug.
‘He looks like Dopey.’
‘No he doesn’t.’
‘Could you make him a floppy hat?’
Sometimes I think the woman has no soul.
He slept for an hour or more. Aileen brought his mother, the sheepskin rug, down from the landing and after a luxurious pound and a good long stretch he curled himself up into a ball and slept like a kitten.
I must admit he did look slightly ridiculous and I wondered what would happen when he woke up and found himself encased in a thermal strait-jacket.
I needn’t have worried – he loved it. He had a bit of a nibble at the safety pin that stretched the fabric tight across his manly chest and a quick furk at the bow on the back of his neck, but then he yawned and snuggled down into the rug once more.
He seemed to accept that this was something that happened to kittens when they reached a certain age.
We watched Clive James on television that night. Aileen can’t see him, but the way he juggles with words makes for good radio and I do my best with the visual stuff.
The Cat Who Came In From The Cold Page 3