I remained petrified inside my box, feeling at once terrified and guilty that I was not doing anything to help. There was a momentary silence followed by a scuffle. The yowling stopped and I could hear bodies writhing on the path, the eerie quiet punctuated by yelps of protest. Eventually I heard a hiss as a cat ran out of the alley, and then there was silence once more. My curiosity to know who had won was more than I could bear, and I peeked out into the alley. The tomcat was sitting at the entrance, his inky profile silhouetted against the glow of the street light beyond. There was no sign of his opponent, and he was calmly smoothing his fur with his tongue. I crawled back into my cardboard shelter, more certain than ever that the alley was his territory.
The following morning he was sitting on top of the dustbin when I emerged from my box, sleepy but hungry.
‘Oh, hello,’ I said nervously, determined to appear more coherent than I had on our first meeting.
‘Good morning. Did you sleep well?’
‘Yes, thank you. And are you . . . okay?’ I added, thinking of the fight I had heard during the night.
‘Never been better,’ he answered, a smile in his eyes.
There was no evidence on his body that he had been fighting and he seemed in remarkably good spirits after his ordeal. I felt slightly in awe that he had managed to come unscathed out of such a nasty-sounding battle, and I even wondered whether I had dreamt the whole thing. He stood up and stretched, before jumping down onto the path.
‘There’s some left,’ he said, gesturing with his head towards the rubbish bags protruding from under the lid. ‘Won’t be any new stuff till this evening, so make the most of it.’ As he strode purposefully past me on his way to the churchyard, I noticed how the muscles around his shoulders rippled under his fur.
‘Oh, thanks,’ I replied meekly.
I waited until he had vanished into the conifers, before jumping onto the bin. Through the gap in the lid I could see a small amount of leftover sandwich fillings inside a ripped bag. A perfect portion-size for a cat, in fact. For a moment I wondered if the tomcat had purposely saved some for me, rather than eaten it all himself, but I quickly dismissed the thought from my mind. He was an alley-cat, after all. Why would he do such a thing?
13
The alley was rarely used by passers-by, due to it being blocked at one end by the churchyard conifers. I liked its peaceful, enclosed atmosphere; it felt safe, far removed from the dangers of the busy town beyond. I made a shelter underneath the spiral steps of a fire escape at the back of a shop, to which I returned every night, curling up to sleep on a flattened piece of cardboard behind a stack of rusty paint tins.
It didn’t take me long to adjust to the rhythm of life in the alley. I soon learnt that six o’clock was the café’s closing time, and that the day’s food waste would be put out shortly afterwards. The church bells’ sonorous clanging became my cue to return, in hungry anticipation of an evening meal of leftover sandwich fillings. I rarely saw the tomcat during the day – he roamed much further afield than I did – but sometimes our paths crossed as we both trotted hungrily towards the dustbin in the evening. He was always courteous, chivalrously allowing me to eat before he did, but I nevertheless remained slightly in awe of him. I sensed his territorial vigilance and, having overheard the fight on my first night, knew that he was capable of defending himself fiercely. I did not want to do anything that might make him regret his tolerance towards me.
A couple of weeks after my arrival I noticed that the colourful lights had disappeared from the shop-front windows along the parade. The cobbled street seemed in a permanent half-light under low-slung winter cloud and had a melancholy feeling, stripped of the cheerful presence of Christmas decorations. The street seemed emptier of people too, as if the town’s residents had gone into hibernation after the exuberance of the festive period.
One morning I woke to discover the first snowfall of winter had transformed the alley overnight and the path had disappeared under a thick blanket of white. I had loved to watch snow falling when I was a house-cat. I would sit on Margery’s patio and peer up as the fluffy flakes floated down, resting tantalizingly on my nose and whiskers before melting into my fur. I had found snow fascinating back then, safe in the knowledge that I was never more than a few feet from the comfort of Margery’s gas fire.
In the alley, however, the snow posed serious difficulties for me. It coated the iron steps of the fire escape where, thawed by the warmth of the building behind, icy droplets dripped onto me as I tried to sleep. As if to compensate for the bitter environment, my fur grew denser than I had ever known it before, a thick pelt designed to hold in as much warmth as possible. But, even with the extra insulation, I felt permanently chilled. There was nowhere I could go to escape the cold, and my only option was to retreat to my shelter and tend to my footpads, which were chapped and cracked from the icy ground. I passed many hours curled in a tight ball trying to keep warm, praying for sleep to bring me a few hours’ respite.
If I craned my neck, I could see the café door through a gap between the paint tins. I studied the woman from the café closely whenever she emerged from inside. She was younger than Margery – I guessed in her late forties – with kind blue eyes that often had a doleful look. Sometimes she would stand at the foot of the metal stairs, inches away from my bed, chatting with the woman who ran the hardware shop which adjoined the café.
Silent and unobserved, I listened to their conversations. I learnt that her name was Debbie, that she had recently moved to Stourton with her daughter, Sophie, and that they lived in the flat above the café. Weak from the winter cold, I found comfort in the softness of her voice, closing my eyes and allowing my mind to wander as she talked. I daydreamed about life inside the flat above the café, imagining a cosy room with an open fire where I could lie, my belly exposed to the flames, before retreating to a cool sofa when the heat became too much. I pictured Debbie curled up on the sofa next to me, stroking me gently while she read a book, both of us enjoying the bliss of each other’s company.
In the past I wouldn’t have thought twice about throwing myself on Debbie’s mercy, hoping that she would take pity on me and offer me a home. But I knew how much was at stake: if Debbie knew there were stray cats in the alley, she might go to more effort to secure the dustbin and our food supply could be cut off. The tomcat always avoided being seen by Debbie and I deferred to his experience, subduing my natural inclination towards sociability and staying hidden from sight.
In the end, Debbie discovered my existence by accident. The snow had finally begun to thaw and the icy water dripped relentlessly onto my bed from above, driving me out of the fire escape and into the alley. It was late morning, a time when I knew Debbie would be busy at the front of the café. The winter sun was low, but there was the faintest hint of warmth in its pale rays, so I sat down next to the dustbin, savouring the feeling of fresh air in my whiskers. I began to wash, tilting my body backwards to lift my hind leg behind my ear. Just at that moment the café door opened. I turned to see Debbie step out of the doorway, clutching a bag of rubbish. She looked straight at me and I froze, hoping that if I stayed completely still she might not notice me.
‘Oh, hello, puss.’ She sounded surprised, but I detected a smile in her voice. I stood up to move away from the bin, not wanting her to think I was scavenging, but was startled to feel her hand on my back, stroking my spine down to the base of my tail. I reflexively lifted my back in response to her touch, realizing with a pang how long it had been since I had last been stroked, and how much I had missed it. I twisted my head to look at her and she held her fingers out to me and, as I sniffed her skin, she tickled me under the chin. The automatic way in which she had responded to me seemed to confirm my deepest hope, that this was a woman who knew how to love a cat.
‘You’re a pretty thing, aren’t you?’ she said, smiling, and I chirruped in agreement. I was hoping to engage her in a longer exchange, but a voice from inside the café shouted, ‘Mum
, where are you? I can’t find my homework!’ Debbie sighed, tossed the bag of rubbish into the bin and then was gone, pulling the café door shut behind her. I stared at the door for several minutes afterwards, hoping she might come out again, but to no avail. Eventually I resumed my wash, my head suddenly flooded with bittersweet memories of how it felt to bask in the affection of a loving owner.
Encouraged by Debbie’s friendliness, I became braver about making my presence known in the alley. Rather than hiding out of sight when she was around, I took to waiting by the bin at the café’s closing time, in full view of the door. When I heard the key rattling in the lock I would trot over and rub my head against the doorframe in expectation. ‘Good evening, puss. How are you today?’ Debbie would say, her blue eyes twinkling as she carried the bags over my head to the bin. I would stick close to her ankles, purring, my tail erect.
A few days later, when Debbie unlocked door one evening, she was holding a dish in her hand. I could smell smoked salmon and tuna mayonnaise and I instinctively reared up onto my hind legs to get closer to the bowl. She placed it on the doorstep in front of me, scratching the base of my tail playfully. ‘There you go, puss. Now leave the bags alone, okay?’ she laughed, as I greedily tucked into the bowl’s contents.
She went back inside and I carried on eating, savouring the way the leftovers tasted so much better from a bowl than from the tarmac. Sensing that I was being watched, I glanced over my shoulder, spotting the dark shape of the black-and-white tom in the shadow of the dustbin. I swallowed my mouthful and licked my lips, before padding towards him. ‘I’m done. There’s plenty left, if you’d like it,’ I said with a look of encouragement. The tomcat’s eyes flashed uncertainly towards the café door. ‘She’s friendly, you know,’ I reassured him. ‘You should get to know her. She’s a nice lady.’
The tomcat inclined his head. ‘I’m not really a “nice lady” kind of cat,’ he replied. ‘Never have been.’
His comment perplexed me. I tried to imagine not being a ‘nice lady’ kind of cat. To me, that was like saying I was not a ‘tuna mayonnaise’ kind of cat. Granted, I had learnt that I could survive without nice ladies or tuna mayonnaise, but that was not to say I would ever choose to. The tomcat paced gingerly towards the bowl, where he ate quickly, glancing at the café door nervously in between mouthfuls.
It was obvious that being so close to the café made him anxious, but I felt a glow of satisfaction that, by eating the food she had put out, he had acknowledged that my friendship with Debbie could benefit us both. The tomcat seemed so self-assured in every other respect, but when it came to dealing with people I realized he was distinctly nervous. This was the one area in which I was the more experienced, the more worldly, of the two of us. In befriending Debbie, I had done something he had been too frightened to do himself and, for the first time since I had arrived in the alley, I felt like his equal.
Later that night, I was settling down under the fire escape when I heard claws clicking along the path. My chin was resting on my paws, but my ears were alert, monitoring the progress of the footsteps as they approached. I held my breath as the clicking came to a halt outside my shelter. A long shadow appeared on the wall behind me. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ I said, sighing with relief as the familiar silhouette of the tomcat appeared beside the paint tins.
14
Before I had set off for Stourton, Nancy had given me some advice about how to attract a new owner. She said that people like to pursue a cat, to earn her affections, rather than feel the cat is pursuing them. ‘Don’t seem desperate,’ she had urged. ‘It puts people off.’ I had been sceptical at the time: the notion of acting aloofly with a potential owner struck me as illogical. ‘Well, look, it worked for me, six times over!’ she had replied, and I couldn’t argue with her success rate. Fearful of what was at stake if I came on too strong with Debbie, I knew that Nancy would tell me to bide my time. So that was what I did, waiting for Debbie to realize that she wanted me to be part of her life.
While I perfected my friendly-but-not-needy demeanour, I continued to gather intelligence about Debbie from my shelter under the fire escape. I learnt from eavesdropping on her conversations that she and Sophie had moved to Stourton from Oxford a few months previously, following Debbie’s divorce from Sophie’s dad. Sophie was in the middle of preparing for her GCSEs, and had found the move difficult. A look of sadness always appeared on Debbie’s face when Jo from the hardware shop asked after Sophie. Her brow would knit with anxiety as she explained that Sophie was ‘still finding her feet’ or ‘struggling to settle in’.
Sophie appeared in the alleyway every day after school, a tatty rucksack slung over her shoulder and white headphones attached to her ears. Sometimes she would stand on the path, intently tapping at her mobile phone before entering the café and slamming the door shut behind her. Her arrival in the upstairs flat would usually be heralded by a blast of loud music from one of the attic windows.
From time to time I heard Debbie and Sophie arguing in the evenings. Their words were muffled by the thick stone walls of the flat, but my ears pricked up as I recognized the unmistakeable tone of conflict. Sophie’s voice would always be the first I heard, sharp and accusatory, followed by placatory-sounding noises from Debbie. Gradually their voices would rise in pitch and volume until they were both shouting. The rows always ended the same way, with Sophie storming out into the alley, plugging in her headphones and stalking off.
On one occasion, Sophie slammed the café door shut behind her with such ferocity that the birds on the roof were sent flapping upwards in alarm. Debbie, who was wearing her dressing-gown and slippers, followed her daughter out into the alley, pleading with her to come back inside, but to no avail. Sophie had disappeared round the corner, leaving Debbie standing alone in the cold night air. Debbie turned to head back inside, and my heart welled with pity at the desolate look on her face. I crept out from under the fire escape and trotted over to her, mewing cheerfully. She smiled and bent down to stroke me. ‘I’m not that bad, am I, puss?’ she asked sadly. I wrapped myself around her legs and purred until I saw a faint smile appear around her lips. I stayed close to her ankles as she walked to the door but when, as usual, she stopped me at the threshold, I retreated obediently to my shelter.
Sometimes, after darkness had fallen, I would jump onto the dustbin and watch Debbie through the window as she cleared up at the end of the day. The café kitchen was lit up by strips of harsh yellow lights, which gleamed brilliantly on the stainless-steel surfaces. Unaware that I was watching her, Debbie would move around the kitchen placing plastic containers in the fridge, wiping down worktops and washing up in the sink. She usually sang to herself as she worked, but occasionally her voice would tail off and she would stare out of the window, looking preoccupied and thoughtful.
The first time it happened I thought she was staring at me, and my heart lurched in hope that she had noticed me and might be about to invite me in. But I quickly realized I was invisible to her in the dark alley, and that all she could see in the window was the reflection of the brightly lit kitchen around her. Rather than looking at me, she was simply gazing into space, lost in thought. It reminded me a little of how Margery had acted in the early days of her illness, becoming distracted in the middle of a domestic chore, her mind wandering away to some place where I couldn’t follow her. I studied Debbie’s face, looking for clues as to what might be going on in her mind, fearing that this momentary distraction would be followed by the confusion and distress that I had seen so often in Margery. But these episodes only ever lasted for a few seconds, after which Debbie would give her head a quick shake and carry on with her task, and I would breathe a sigh of relief.
It was easy to lose track of time as I gazed at Debbie through the window, and I maintained my surveillance from the dustbin until she had turned off the lights and gone upstairs. Sometimes, as I made my way back to the fire escape, I would notice the green eyes of the tomcat fixed on me as he lurked in the shadows.
The sight of him always made me jump, and I would wonder how long he had been there, watching me as I had been watching Debbie, and what thoughts lay behind his intense stare.
The epiphany that I had been waiting for finally happened on a grey, wet evening at the end of January. It was raining steadily but, rather than seeking shelter from the rain, I sat on the doorstep, listening to the gurgling drainpipe as I waited for six o’clock. Unpleasant as it was, getting drenched was part of my plan. I had followed Nancy’s advice by not being too needy, but now I decided Debbie would benefit from a less subtle approach. It was a gamble, but for my plan to work I needed to look a sorry sight when she opened the door and found me. As the church bells chimed six, I heard Debbie unlock the door. ‘Oh dear, puss, look at the state of you,’ she said pityingly, exactly as I had hoped she would.
I gazed at her and mouthed a silent meow. She frowned, bending down to wipe some of the rainwater off my coat, and I rubbed my face against her hand gratefully. She looked concerned as she crouched down to place the food bowl in front of me. I resisted the urge to bury my face in the bowl, knowing that if I did, she would stand up and turn to go inside. Instead I ignored the food and held her gaze. It was raining hard and before long she was almost as sodden as I was. I mouthed another plea at her, following it up with a rub of my head against her knees.
She closed her eyes and sighed deeply, before standing up. With one hand on the door handle, she dropped her head as if in submission. ‘I suppose you might as well come in, puss,’ she said, a smile of surrender on her face. She pushed open the café door and, without so much as a backward glance, I trotted inside.
15
Debbie placed the bowl in front of me on the kitchen floor, so I ate a few mouthfuls out of courtesy, although my appetite had vanished in my excitement at being allowed in. When I felt I had eaten enough not to appear ungrateful, I padded through to the front of the café while Debbie finished her chores in the kitchen.
Molly and the Cat Cafe Page 7