When Rob flung the carrier door open I launched myself across the hallway so fast that my paws skidded on the floorboards and I almost ended up flat on my back. My strategy paid off, however, and my sudden departure took the dogs by surprise. The small ones barked shrilly as I streaked passed them, while the big jowly dog seemed baffled, and as I flew around the corner into the front room he was still sniffing at the cat carrier, wondering where I had gone.
On first glance, the front room offered few escape routes. My instincts were telling me to find high ground, so I leapt onto the sofa, springboarding from its back onto a dresser by the window. My paws skidded on a pile of magazines and I almost fell to the floor, but just managed to scrabble my way back, before leaping up to the top of a bookcase.
Trying not to inhale the dust that surrounded me, I lay down and tucked my legs under my body, taking in the view of Rob’s living room from my aerial platform. Its focal point seemed to be an enormous television suspended from the wall, towards which all the seats in the room were facing. Other than piles of magazines and remote controls on a coffee table, there were very few personal possessions. I compared my surroundings with my memories of Margery’s house, with its cosy clutter of polished photo frames and ornaments arranged on lacy cloths. The two sofas here were shiny and smooth, nothing like Margery’s invitingly cushioned ones.
The dogs had followed my scent trail and were now in the room with me. I observed silently as each one moved around the floor methodically, sniffing the furniture in an attempt to work out where I had gone. I maintained my sphinx-like pose high up on the bookcase while they trawled the room, becoming increasingly frustrated by their failure to hunt me down. Eventually they lost interest, leaving the room one by one, and as my adrenaline rush began to subside, I curled into a ball and fell asleep.
I was woken by a loud rumbling noise that made my whole body shake. My first thought was of the removal lorry, and for a confused few seconds I wondered whether I was about to be moved again. Then I realized that the sound was coming from the television. I looked across and noticed Rob sprawled across the sofa, a remote control in one hand and a large bowl of crisps in the other. He was shovelling crisps into his mouth by the handful, washing them down with sips from a can, which he placed on the arm of the sofa. He was completely absorbed in watching cars racing around a track on the screen, and every now and then he emitted a yelp of excitement or annoyance. Quizzically I observed him, wondering what he found enthralling about such a monotonous, noisy form of entertainment. His trance-like state was broken only when he opened his mouth to belch loudly.
I averted my eyes in disgust and began to wash.
It was not possible to imagine an owner more different from Margery. Everything about Margery had been gentle, careful and quiet. Rob was uncouth, noisy and messy. I thought longingly of the afternoons spent curled up on Margery’s sofa watching television programmes about antiques, or gentle quiz shows. Try as I might, I could not envisage a time when I would be curled up on Rob’s lap, happily watching his ear-splitting racing cars.
And then, of course, there were the dogs.
As I had been washing, one of the small rat-like dogs had wandered into the room and, noticing movement on top of the bookcase, had started to bark demonically at me. Soon rat-dog number two had run in to see what all the fuss was about, followed by the muscular square-faced dog. It didn’t take long for them to spot me in my lofty hideout and soon they were all barking, their cacophonous racket drowning out the droning engines onscreen.
‘Oi, you three, that’s enough!’
Roused into action, Rob spun round, grappling for something to hurl at the dogs. He grabbed a magazine and flung it in their general direction, but as it flew through the air the magazine clipped the drink can balanced on the sofa’s arm. The can rocked from side to side before toppling over the side of the sofa, spraying its contents across the carpet and over the dogs. Rob roared an expletive as he dived over the side of the sofa to retrieve the can from the floor. Doing his best to siphon the still-fizzing contents into his mouth, he sat back down on the sofa, upending the bowl of crisps, which he had left in the middle of his seat.
I paused mid-wash and allowed a wry smile to spread across my lips.
Rob growled and made a cursory attempt to sweep the loose crisps from the sofa cushions back into the bowl, before storming out of the room to fetch a cloth. The dogs, sensing his anger, beat a hasty retreat into another room.
In the days that followed, I began, reluctantly, to adjust to life in Rob’s house. I studied the dogs’ behaviour, observing when they went for their walks and when they slept, and tailored my own sleeping pattern so that our waking hours coincided as little as possible. I learnt what triggered their rage: the little rat-like dogs went into a barking frenzy whenever the doorbell rang, whereas the big dog was driven to the point of apoplexy if anyone went near his food bowl while he was eating.
Stan, the square-faced dog, was without a doubt an intimidating beast, but thankfully he was not the cleverest of animals. If he saw me walking anywhere in the vicinity of his food bowl he would growl ominously, but he was easily confused by my feline agility, and my habit of leaping upwards and disappearing out of sight constantly left him baffled.
It was Chas and Dave, the little dogs, that I soon realized posed more of a problem for me. I had considered them a single entity, as they always did everything together. In actual fact, I couldn’t tell them apart. They egged each other on in their malice towards me. Their favourite sport was to chase me into a corner of the house from which it was impossible to escape, and then bark maniacally so that my hair stood on end and my tail had fluffed out to double its usual size. I would hiss and spit in retaliation, and we would remain in this three-way stand-off until a momentary lapse in the dogs’ concentration afforded me a split-second chance to dash to safety, streaking past them and up onto higher ground, from where I would eye them contemptuously.
Not surprisingly, I began to spend more time outside than I had ever done at Margery’s. Up until now I’d always considered myself more an indoor cat; I had generally felt nervous stepping outside the quiet safety of Margery’s house. But Rob’s house did not feel quiet or safe to me, so in desperation I began to take refuge in the garden.
At first I would sit on the fence post, too nervous to venture beyond my immediate vicinity. Looking down the row of back gardens, I could see that I was surrounded on all sides by houses exactly like Rob’s. Each had a neat rectangle of lawn at the back, which was edged by fencing. Some lawns were pristine and trimmed, others were sparse and patchy with trampolines or goalposts in the middle of them. Overall the street had a busier, noisier feel to it than Margery’s cul-de-sac. There were more children, more dogs and the constant noise of music, or of balls being kicked against walls.
One of Rob’s neighbours had an elderly tomcat, who spent the days sunning himself on the patio of his back garden. He would eye me suspiciously if I strayed into his territory. I would chirrup a friendly ‘good morning’ to him, but he never did any more than harrumph in reply. Further down the street there was a pair of young cats, not long out of kittenhood. Just watching them tearing up and down trees or flinging themselves at every bird that landed in their garden left me feeling exhausted.
The cat who most intrigued me was a small black cat with lively green eyes, who I often saw trotting past the front of Rob’s house. I couldn’t work out where she lived, as she always seemed to be coming and going from different houses, but she had a happy air and confident demeanour, which I envied. She sometimes noticed me watching her, but always seemed so focused on whatever she was doing that I never felt confident enough to stop her and talk.
In the early hours of the morning when everyone else was asleep, I would reflect on my new life, and on the life I had lost. I berated myself for not appreciating how lucky I had been when I lived with Margery. If I had known then what I knew now, perhaps I would have done things differently.
Maybe I could have done more to help Margery and to prevent the calamity that was to befall us both. Was my natural complacency to blame? If I had been a better cat, perhaps none of this would have happened. Whether or not I was right to blame myself, I had to accept the reality of my new life: it was simply an existence, a succession of daily obstacles to be overcome. There was no love or affection in my life any more, for Rob took very little interest in me and the feeling was mutual.
The thought did cross my mind that there was nothing stopping me from leaving, but where would I go? Life with Rob and the dogs had very little to recommend it, but I did at least have food and shelter. What was the alternative? I was not yet ready to take my chances and find out.
6
As the days turned to weeks, Chas and Dave continued to bait me at every opportunity, and after a while I accepted that their high-pitched yapping was a constant background accompaniment to my life. Rob, on the other hand, seemed to have forgotten that I existed. When he remembered he would put a bowl of dry food down for me, and would shout at the dogs if he saw them lunge at me, but other than that he barely interacted with me at all.
It would be an exaggeration to say that I had settled into my new home, but as time went on there was a certain familiarity to the routine of it. I had stopped thinking about Margery so much, and no longer lulled myself to sleep by remembering her lavender scent and imagining the feel of her hand stroking my fur. I tried my hardest to live in the present, and neither to dwell on the past nor worry about the future. I faced each day as its own challenge, and hoped that I would make it to night-time with minimal aggravation from the dogs. Perhaps life would have carried on like that, and I might still be there now, if it hadn’t been for Stan and the dog biscuit.
Stan was as an all-mouth-and-no-trousers kind of dog. He could look terrifying, with his muscles tensed and his wide eyes bulging, but behind his brawny exterior there was very little in the way of brains. Over time, I started to get complacent around him, feeling confident that I could easily outwit him.
One afternoon when I was in the kitchen I heard the front door open – Rob was back from walking the dogs. I jumped onto the kitchen counter in anticipation, knowing from experience that Rob always fed the dogs after their walk. I hoped that, if I sat in the middle of the worktop, Rob would remember to feed me as well.
He poured out the meaty biscuits into three bowls and placed them on the kitchen floor. The kitchen filled with the sounds of snorting and chomping as the dogs devoured their food. As usual, I observed their slovenly manners with an air of disgust. Stan finished first, pushing the bowl across the kitchen floor as he licked every last crumb from the dish. Satisfied that there was nothing left to eat, he sniffed the bowl, then walked across the kitchen to drop himself into his wicker basket. Rob had gone into the front room and I could hear the television blaring. Not for the first time, he had forgotten to put out my food.
Chas and Dave were busy wolfing down their biscuits, so I took the opportunity to jump down to the floor and slip silently past them, to make my way quickly up the hall. The front-room door was closed, but I could hear the din of the television within. I hoped Rob would realize he had forgotten about me, but my scratching and mewing couldn’t be heard over the noise from the TV. My tummy was rumbling, and the injustice of seeing the dogs fill their faces while I was left to starve irritated me. I padded back into the kitchen. Stan was washing his hindquarters in his basket; Chas and Dave were chomping in unison, with their backs to me.
My stomach growled with hunger, so I tiptoed over to Stan’s bowl and cautiously sniffed at it. I could make out the faint trace of a meaty smell of biscuit underneath the bowl. The challenge of how to reach the biscuit absorbed me, and when I realized that I couldn’t get to it by nudging the bowl with my nose, I tried with my paw instead, hoping to catch the rim of the bowl with my claws and lift it off the floor long enough to swipe the biscuit out.
My first couple of attempts were fruitless, the bowl slipping from my claws before I could lift it, so on my third attempt I was more assertive. I felt the rim of the bowl catch on my claws and, with my nose to the floor, slid my other paw under the dish. I could see the biscuit, tantalizingly just out of reach. Extending my claws, I tried desperately to make contact with the biscuit, but just when I thought it was within my grasp, my grip slipped and the bowl crashed down noisily on the kitchen tiles.
An eerie silence filled the kitchen, as the sound of canine chomping came to an abrupt end. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw all three dogs staring at me, their mouths open in disbelief. Stan had been washing his nether-regions in his basket and had stopped mid-lick, hind legs akimbo, his eyes flicking from me to his food bowl and back again. It was as if I could hear his thought processes: That cat has been trying to eat my food. From my bowl. While I am in the room.
Before I had a chance to leap to safety, Stan shot out of his bed and charged at me. Chas and Dave erupted into a barking frenzy, jumping up and down and trembling with excitement.
What happened next felt like a blur. I heard the scrape of claws on tile – whether Stan’s or mine, I’m not sure – and saw Stan’s rage-filled face looming towards me, teeth bared and ready to bite. Dim-witted he may have been, but I was in no doubt that at that moment he intended to rip me limb from limb. I heard Chas and Dave’s hysterical yapping as they egged Stan on, delighted that he was about to deliver some canine justice. That was when something inside me snapped. Without thinking, I turned to face Stan and launched myself, legs outstretched and claws bared, at his glistening nose and slobbery mouth.
I was aware that the room had fallen silent again, as Chas and Dave watched me soar above their heads, a furry, four-legged missile. I landed perfectly on target, my claws making contact with Stan’s muzzle. I felt his flesh – surprisingly soft, given its muscly appearance – yield under my razor-sharp grip. My hind legs swung underneath me as I hung on to Stan’s face with all my might. Meanwhile my ears were pinned back against my head and I hissed and spat with all the ferocity I could muster. All the injustices of the previous few weeks seemed to come to a head in that split-second encounter: my rage at David for taking Margery, and my home, away from me; my anger at Rob for taking me on, when he clearly didn’t care about me at all; and my fury at the dogs for making my life miserable.
After a brief, stunned silence, Chas and Dave redoubled their barking and Stan produced a noise that I have never heard from a dog before or since: a yelp crossed with a shriek, at a pitch far higher than his normal vocal range. As the surge of adrenaline and rage that had got me thus far began to subside, I realized, with not a small sense of panic, that my claws had sunk so far into Stan’s face that I was having difficulty retracting them. The fact that my entire body weight was hanging suspended from my front paws probably didn’t help. I pumped my back feet, trying to make contact with his chest, thinking that if I could just push my body a little higher I would be able to withdraw my claws, but as I kicked out at him, Stan started to walk backwards in an attempt to shield himself from this second onslaught.
After what felt like an eternity, Rob was roused by the commotion and flung the kitchen door open.
‘What the bloody hell is going on in here?’ he shouted at Chas and Dave, before pausing to look, aghast, at Stan and me. We were still locked in our vicious embrace, my back legs frantically kicking, and Stan now shaking his head from side to side in a desperate but futile attempt to dislodge me.
‘What the—?’ Rob muttered in disbelief. Then he let out a roar of laughter, which set Chas and Dave barking again. ‘That cat’s a frickin’ ninja!’ he hooted, pulling his phone out of his pocket and pointing it at us, to film the scene of carnage.
Perhaps it was the humiliation of being laughed at that did it: Stan gave one final, decisive twist of his head, which was powerful enough to shake me free, although not without ripping a strip of flesh from his muzzle. He yelped like a puppy and ran whimpering out of the room, while I sprang up onto th
e kitchen table and from there leapt to safety on top of the fridge.
Rob put his phone back in his pocket and returned to the front room, chortling to himself. Chas and Dave ran after him, still wired with excitement. My heart was racing, so I started to wash, trying to calm myself down. Part of me felt elated at having triumphed over the dogs so spectacularly. But another part of me felt ashamed at what I had become: a vicious animal, no better than the brute of a dog I had attacked. I tried hard to lick the scent of Stan off my paws. What would Margery have thought, if she had seen me behave in such a way? The Molly she knew would never bare her claws to anyone, let alone pick a fight with a dog like Stan. I had proved a point to the dogs, but at what cost to my dignity?
I closed my eyes and thought about Margery, trying to remember the kind of cat I had been when I lived with her. Pampered – undoubtedly; spoilt – probably; but I had been also been gentle, affectionate and caring. Since I had lost Margery, I seemed to have lost that part of myself as well, and I didn’t like what I was turning into. I cleaned myself thoroughly from nose to tail, trying to wash away the cat that I had become. When I had finished washing I felt calm, and I curled up on the top of the fridge. As my mind began to drift I imagined Margery’s voice saying, ‘It will all be better after a good night’s sleep.’ I started to purr and allowed myself to sink into the silent blackness, knowing that when I woke up I would have a decision to make.
I opened my eyes, feeling instantly alert. The kitchen was silent apart from the ticking of the wall clock and the first notes of the birds’ dawn chorus outside. The room was bathed in grey light, and through the window I could see the first flecks of pink and gold in the sky. I saw the dogs’ food bowls on the floor and winced, as the events of the previous evening flooded back into my mind. I jumped down onto the floor and stretched, noticing the lone dog biscuit that had been the cause of so much drama. In the fracas it had got kicked across the room, landing next to the bin. In the absence of anything else for breakfast, I ate it, resolute that this would be my last meal in Rob’s house.
Molly and the Cat Cafe Page 3