The Cat Who Came In From The Cold

by Deric Longden

  ‘Come again,’ shouted Poppa.

  As we climbed in the car I told her that at one point I thought they were going to duff me up.

  ‘I thought they were charming,’ she said.

  We had only gone about three miles when I looked at the petrol gauge. It was the flashing orange light that caught my attention.

  ‘Need some petrol,’ I said, and pulled on to the garage forecourt.

  I filled it up. £19.27 it came to and then I walked up to the night-time security window to pay for it.

  Must get a receipt this time, I thought – I always forget.

  ‘£19.27,’ said the Pakistani attendant, flashing me a great big smile.

  I froze completely.

  ‘I’ve lost my credit card,’ I told him, ‘and I think I’ve lost my memory as well.’

  The smile vanished.

  ‘You have no money?’ He glanced across the office to where an Alsatian the size of a rhino was demolishing a plate of Pedigree Chum.

  ‘Just a second,’ I said, and in a daze walked over to the car. I pulled open the passenger door and was met by the raw power of Aileen’s vocal cords as she sang along with Eric Clapton.

  ‘Sorry about this, love – how are you with Pakistanis?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Never mind – just give your hair a brush and come with me.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Thermal is the sort of cat who needs to be up and doing, and without his business interests to keep him occupied he looked absolutely lost.

  He assumed the role of guide-kitten once more, but it only lasted a morning. He wasn’t cut out for good works and you could hardly call it a career. The pay was lousy and Aileen kept treading on him.

  Tigger was fast becoming the Mother Teresa of the family and seemed to have taken over the lease on the cellar, which she planned to open as a refuge for poor unfortunates.

  ‘Come home with me. You’ll have a square meal, a warm bed for the night and a couple of quid in your pocket when you leave.’

  Word soon went round and her first customer limped down the cellar steps just before breakfast the following morning.

  His bedraggled black coat hung loosely from his shoulders and fitted only where it touched. His tail and undercarriage had terminal moth and he had about him that haunted look often worn by those who have suffered the mental wear and tear of living alongside humans.

  I was put in charge of the catering while Tigger made sure he had the cellar to himself.

  Chico was allowed to use the place as a sort of halfway house as he waited for Bridie to come home from the shops, but Denton only made it halfway through the cat-flap before Mother Teresa sorted him out with a stiff left jab.

  I took my job seriously and did my best to provide a balanced diet for Tigger’s patient, but I soon learned that there was no room for gratitude on the menu. He had been given a hard time by the two-legged variety and he wasn’t about to trust this one just because he had a bowl of liver and chicken Whiskas in his hand.

  I learned to look only at Tigger as I entered the cellar – to talk only to her and pretend that the ragged stranger was invisible. He would stiffen and I could see him mapping out an escape route to the cat-flap, but as long as I didn’t try anything stupid, like being friendly, he would stay where he was.

  Tigger revelled in her charity work and dreamed of the day when her cellar would be featured in the Independent magazine, complete with black and white photographs and solemn text.

  She thought she might advertise with a leaflet drop around the outlying villages, but I soon put a stop to that by telling her that we would need planning permission first.

  I reported back to Aileen and she peeped in through the cellar window with her binoculars.

  ‘I can’t see him.’

  ‘His back-end’s sticking out from behind the central-heating boiler.’

  ‘Where’s the boiler?’

  She always tried so hard to see for herself the scenes that I described to her.

  ‘I can see something.’

  She could see an upturned shovel fast asleep by the lawnmower.

  ‘It’s not moving.’

  Well it wouldn’t – would it?

  ‘Listen – that’s him,’ I told her.

  The old black cat had a clipped, northern mew – short and to the point.

  ‘That’s only half a mew.’

  So we called him Arfur – Arfur Mew. And then we upmarketed it to Arthur. He was a no-nonsense cat and couldn’t be doing with anything so twee.

  Aileen thought he might be dyslexic, but then she couldn’t see him. There were no prizes for guessing what was wrong with Arthur. Somewhere along the line he had broken his tail and both his back legs. They had mended in a fashion, probably under a hedge somewhere, but the tail was now bent like a shepherd’s crook and the legs were thin and rickety.

  He walked with a sideways stagger and needed the whole of the cellar floor for a turning circle. He had once been a fine cat, a ladies’ man – but now he had an air of defeat about him and was probably way behind with his alimony payments.

  Thermal wasn’t too happy with the arrangement and I can’t say I blame him. Every time he wanted to use his little patch round behind the rhubarb, he would to have wait until Arthur had finished with it and attempted to leave it as he would have wished to find it. Thermal spent hours gritting his teeth and hoping that he would remember to pull the chain.

  One morning Thermal disappeared somewhere around half past six. I had stopped worrying about him now, he knew his way around, but when he didn’t arrive home for lunch the old fears began to surface.

  Normally the stroke of noon would find him licking his lips as he strolled up the steps towards the back door.

  ‘I think I could just fancy a nice chop today.’

  Perhaps the stroke of noon is a slight exaggeration. Let’s say – give or take seven seconds either way.

  But here it was almost five o’clock and still there was no sign of him – I pulled a jacket from the peg and went looking. Tigger was on her way back down the lane – it must have been her day for the Samaritans.

  ‘Have you seen Thermal?’

  ‘No.’

  She turned round and came with me. She did garage roofs and high walls, I did shed doors and coal bunkers, but there was no sign of him.

  I know it seems pretty stupid to be so worried so early in the day, but after being imprisoned for a month in a garage he tended to keep very close to home. No day trips, no nights out with the lads. You could set your clock by him – within seven seconds or so.

  Tigger found him down by the park. He was sitting on the branch of a tree fifteen feet above the road and to judge from the look on his face he didn’t think it was a very good idea any more. He had no idea how he was going to get down and I had no idea how he had got up there in the first place.

  The tree is unclimbable – it has a wire cage round the trunk and is as slippery as hell. Even the squirrels give it a miss – a kitten would need crampons, a rope and a long ladder just to reach the first branch.

  ‘I’m going for the ladder.’

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on him.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s going anywhere.’

  I am perfectly at home on the bottom two rungs of a ladder. I can hold on with just the one hand and even lean back a bit, but from there on upwards my nose begins to bleed and my knees go weak.

  When the top of that ladder is swaying along with the branch of a tree and the foot of the ladder is planted firmly in the middle of a busy road then my whole body goes weak and even my knees feel like bleeding.

  A little old man arrived on the scene and he leaned against the tree trunk as I began to climb.

  ‘You could send for the Fire Brigade you know – that’s what they’re there for.’

  ‘Well, it’s not really, is it?’

  ‘Course it is – they rescue cats and dogs that have got themselves stuck up trees.�
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  I can’t remember ever having seen a dog stuck up a tree, but it was comforting to have him around and he certainly came up trumps with the six traffic cones he placed around the foot of the ladder.

  Whether or not he should have removed them from around the North Eastern Gas Board’s mobile pump is open to question.

  ‘Will you be much longer?’

  ‘I’m doing my best.’

  ‘Only they’ll be shut soon.’

  ‘Who will?’

  ‘The chemist’s – I’ll be wheezing all night.’

  ‘I’ll run you round in the car.’

  You feel good when you have gone hurtling through the fear barrier and come out safely on the other side. I felt a strong bond with Chris Bonnington, and Thermal felt like something to eat, so we both had a bite and then lay on the rug together and relived our adventure.

  ‘It was high up, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes – were you frightened?’

  ‘No – were you?’

  ‘No.’

  Aileen had gone over to Manchester with Anna, but Tigger came and sat with us and pretended to be impressed as we lied about how brave we had been. We were men and it was our privilege.

  I have always got on extremely well with animals. I get on well with human beings, in fact some of my best friends are human beings, but I have always had a special relationship with our furred and feathered friends.

  When I am with people I am always aware of the enormous intellectual gap between them and me, but compared to the average gerbil – I am an intellectual giant.

  Take Thermal for instance. When it comes to dribbling a ping pong ball or climbing up the velvet curtains in five seconds flat, then I am no match for him.

  But when I decide it is time for him to put his ping pong ball away and he disagrees, I simply tap him on the left shoulder and, as he looks round, I pick up the ball from somewhere near his right front paw and slip it into my pocket. We have been doing this every night since he arrived and he still doesn’t know what happens to it.

  With humans I have problems. Humans know so many things that I shall never know. They know about cars, how my television works and why my photocopier keeps getting jammed.

  Only last Thursday the man from Rank Xerox spent ages explaining to me exactly how my photocopier works so that I wouldn’t get it jammed in future.

  I didn’t understand a word he said. I nodded intelligently at what seemed to be the right moments, but he had left me floundering long ago – up to my knees in status codes.

  I try to tell myself that we all have our strengths and our weaknesses. Some of us are technically minded and some of us are not. If the photocopier man had had a ping pong ball with him, I could have whipped it away without his knowing and he would have been ever so impressed. But he hadn’t – so I couldn’t.

  Animals also allow me to make a fool of myself without comment. I often make a fool of myself in front of Thermal and never once has he criticized me or seemed ashamed of me.

  We settled down to play ‘gas fires’. Maybe you don’t play ‘gas fires’ with your cat, but then that’s probably because you don’t have a gas fire with a wrought-iron surround.

  It’s a great game for a cold winter’s day because I can sit in front of the fire and wiggle my finger through the holes, while Thermal crawls underneath and tries to catch my finger as it comes out on the other side.

  Tigger went off to do her rounds in the cellar and I would have waved goodbye to her except that I had my finger stuck in a sharp little hole and I couldn’t get it out.

  Thermal was having a rare old time on the other side and was giving my finger hell, but after a time he began to get bored. It was too easy — usually he wins some and he loses some, winning all the time was no fun at all. He came out to see what was going on.

  ‘I’m sorry old son – I’ve got my finger stuck.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  He seemed to understand, and he sat by my side and worried about the problem.

  I worried as well. My finger had been stuck there for over half an hour now and it was beginning to swell.

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  I once got my finger stuck in one of those silly holes they have in pan handles – that hurt as well, but at least I was able to walk over to the fridge and smear butter on my finger.

  There was no way I was going to be able to walk over to the kitchen with a gas fire stuck on my finger and so Thermal and I wiggled away butterlessly and worried together.

  ‘Butter – fetch!’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Never mind.’

  To his credit, not once did Thermal say ‘You daft devil,’ or ‘I’ve told you before you’d get your finger stuck.’ He just sat there with his brow furrowed and tried very hard to think of a solution.

  The fact that he didn’t come up with a solution is neither here nor there. I was none too pleased when he burrowed back under the fire and began belting the living daylights out of my finger yet again, but I like to think he was just trying to help – a sort of shock therapy.

  ‘I was locked in a garage for a month.’

  ‘Yes I know.’

  ‘Try licking the fireplace.’

  I had tried licking my finger but by the time Aileen arrived back I had been stuck there for almost two hours.

  ‘I thought you were supposed to be working?’

  That was the first thing she said. When I told her that I had my finger stuck in the fire surround, the second and third things she said were, ‘You daft devil,’ and ‘I’ve told you before you’d get your finger stuck.’

  With humans you always get criticism. I suppose I should add that with humans you also get help. She nipped into the kitchen and came back with a bottle of cooking oil which she proceeded to squirt on my finger.

  It took some time to work it free, mainly because Thermal insisted on licking off the oil from the other side, but eventually I was able to jerk it clear and I think we shall stick to the ping pong ball from now on.

  Anne and Alex came to dinner that night. So did Thermal. I brought a Chinese in and Thermal loves Chinese. Over the sweet and sour Aileen told them all about my finger and the fire and they laughed their heads off.

  Thermal didn’t laugh – he just concentrated on his prawn cracker and didn’t say a word.

  That’s what I like about animals. Thermal doesn’t expect me to be any brighter than he is, even though he can shin up the trellis faster than I can.

  When I come back in this world I think I shall come back as a kitten – I only hope I get an owner who is as daft as I am.

  I may have deficiencies as a husband, father and provider. But as a cat owner, soulmate and finger wiggler – I reckon I am just about damn near perfect.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The day started off a little too early for my liking. It exploded into living colour at just after a quarter past six and several minutes had passed before I was able to adjust my eyeballs sufficiently to make out Thermal playing snooker on the dressing table.

  He was trying to pot Aileen’s contact lens with her eyebrow pencil. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and carted him off downstairs.

  ‘Ouch!’

  ‘Do you know what time I went to bed?’

  ‘Half past two – you woke me up.’

  ‘Half past two.’

  ‘I just said that.’

  ‘And do you know what time it is now?’

  ‘Seventeen minutes past six.’

  ‘It’s eighteen minutes past six.’

  ‘That clock’s fast.’

  ‘I’m not having it – do you understand?’

  ‘It can be adjusted.’

  Tigger opened bleary eyes as we swept past her – she had been fast asleep on the bottom shelf of the tea trolley. As part of her quest for sainthood she seemed to be practising self-mortification and had spent the previous night draped over the toaster.


  ‘What?’

  ‘Go back to sleep – it’s all right.’

  I opened the back door and planted Thermal on the balcony.

  ‘You can play out there – go on.’

  ‘It’s a sheet of ice.’

  ‘No it isn’t.’

  ‘Black ice.’

  ‘Push off.’

  ‘I haven’t had my boiled egg yet.’

  I picked up the three bottles of milk from the step, slipped the milkman’s note into the pocket of my robe and shut the door behind me. Sometimes you have to be hard.

  I had never met the milkman. He left two green-tops and one red-top at well before six o’clock every morning and at that time, Thermal permitting, I am usually involved in a semi-conscious tug of war with Aileen over possession of the duvet.

  He also left me a note every morning. It had all started just before Christmas when I opened the back door and found nine green-top bottles lined up in a row. At the far end, lost and lonely, was a red-top bottle all on its own.

  They looked just like the Plymouth Argyle football team – if for statistical purposes, you assume that one green-top bottle had been sent off for swearing and the red-top was the goalkeeper.

  I took them in and cleared a space in the fridge. I kept six and found a good home for the other four, and then left a note for the milkman explaining what had happened and that we wouldn’t need any more that week.

  I can’t remember exactly how I put this message down on paper, but the milkman thought it was very funny and left a note for me telling me how much he appreciated my sense of humour.

  Most of his customers, he wrote, would have traced him to the ends of the earth and pushed the bottles up somewhere very unpleasant.

  The next morning I left him another note telling him that I would never dream of doing such a thing with a pint bottle of milk. A double cream perhaps, but a pint bottle – never. One had to have some standards.

  The following day I found a full sheet of A4 paper and on it, in small neat handwriting, were the milkman’s thoughts on society today.

  Since then we had exchanged notes every morning without fail, and while I was in London I left Aileen a handful to leave out in my absence. These were supposed to have been written by Thermal, who complained that the rattling of crates jerked him out of a deep sleep every morning and if it didn’t stop soon, he and a few of his mates were going to duff up the milkman and teach him a lesson he would never forget.