The Cat Who Came Back for Christmas

by Julia Romp

  “But George doesn’t.”

  The doctor looked at me with a slight smile. “I think you must have fallen asleep yourself, Julia, so you didn’t realize that George had as well.”

  I knew I hadn’t, but I was learning to keep quiet, and although I still took George to the doctor when something new happened, because I wanted to make sure there wasn’t an obvious health problem, I didn’t keep asking questions when I was told he was fine. I’d been brought up to trust doctors, after all, and everyone kept telling me his behavior was down to me.

  That’s why I was doing everything I could to make a better life for us and had signed up to do the Knowledge, the exams that license people to become London cab drivers. I wanted to go back to work and provide for George, so I’d been studying every spare moment for the past eighteen months, with Dad encouraging me. “Driving a cab would be the perfect job for you, Ju,” he’d tell me. “You can study for the Knowledge at home and then go to work when it suits you, just like I did.”

  But, like a lot of things in life, learning the Knowledge was easier said than done. Driving for a living might sound simple, but if you want to pick up passengers in central London you have to memorize all the streets within a 6-mile radius of Charing Cross station near Trafalgar Square—and there are 25,000 of them. Training for the Knowledge is so hard it’s been proved to make your brain grow, and it doesn’t just end at learning the streets one by one. You also have to know the “runs.” These are set routes that get you from any A to any B—lists of streets so long that they fill entire books. I wasn’t sure my brain could fit all that in, and the other big problem was that I hated driving in central London.

  “Faster, Ju, faster,” Dad would shout when I took him up the Great West Road in his old silver Mustang.

  But as soon as I pressed my foot on the accelerator and felt the massive old car almost take off, I’d slow down again in fright. I was too slow for central London, so I decided to study for a suburban license, which would allow me to pick up passengers in the suburb that included Hounslow. It would still mean memorizing thousands of streets, though, so after having an interview and being accepted to train for the Knowledge, I began studying for it at home with George. Putting him in a bouncy chair, I’d sit down surrounded by maps and stare at them as I tried to memorize the roads and runs while he cried fit to burst.

  “New Brentford cemetery to Hounslow railway station,” I’d chant to myself. “Left Sutton Lane, forward Wellington Road, left Staines Road, right Hibernia Road, left Hanworth Road, right Heath Road, right Whitton Road, pull up on the left on Station Road. You are now at your destination.”

  That was an easy one, mind; there were up to 50 streets in some of the runs. But in a strange way having something else to concentrate on made it easier to cope with George. I’d check that his nappy was dry, he was warm and his tummy was full, and he would still scream; but as I looked at his tiny red face, I’d tell myself that the Knowledge was going to get us out of this life. When I passed it and started working, I would earn enough money to get us a better one. Somehow I had to give that to George, because as he got older, his behavior had got even more unusual: if someone arrived unexpectedly at the flat, he’d curl up into a ball and rock; when we were out he’d bang his head against the sides of the stroller so hard that I had to cover the bars with soft blankets which he’d pull over his face to hide. I’d even started supermarket shopping at night because there were fewer people around then to upset him.

  You don’t know what lengths you’ll go to, though, until you’re tested. All I knew was that things had to be a very specific way for George to be anything close to happy, so I gave him what he needed, just as any mother would. Otherwise his emotions were like a boiling kettle he couldn’t control and I had to protect him from them or else he would hurt himself—biting his arm until he drew blood, pulling his hair until his scalp was raw. Even when George was a toddler, I still carried him a lot, because it took only a few seconds for him to hurt himself.

  Some days it felt as though we were both drowning, and the moments I held on to were when I curled myself around George’s small sleeping body after he’d finally fallen asleep and we lay together—the calm after the storm. It was the closest I got to touching him, and as I gently twisted a small curl of hair on his forehead, I’d look at George, so peaceful, and wish I could find a way to make him feel like that when he was awake. He seemed almost tormented by life, and that’s any mother’s worst fear, isn’t it?

  Now I watched as Lewis walked back into the room, trailing the long tube that still fed him oxygen from two prongs underneath his nose. They had slipped out of place and as Lewis sat down to play, George kneeled down and gently pushed them back into position. It was something he did with Lewis a lot and whenever I saw him do so, I knew there was love inside George.

  “He’s going to need a nappy change before we go,” I said to Mum as I got up off the sofa.

  I walked over to George and took a deep breath before picking him up, knowing I had a split second before his screams started. As I carried him to the changing mat I’d spread out on the floor, he started twisting and turning in my arms. Kicking and biting, he roared with rage as I laid him down with one arm across his chest and used my free hand to take off his nappy. George’s face was bright red with anger, but I didn’t look at him or try to make him laugh with words and smiles. It would only make things worse if I did, because George hated making eye contact with anyone. It was just one of the things I had had to learn: no one could comfort him with a kind look—not even me.

  One year on the estate turned into two and I carried on studying for the Knowledge. Now don’t go thinking because it took so long that I’m daft. I might not have been top of the class at school, but most people need at least a couple of years to pass the Knowledge and I was no different. Dad had managed to borrow for me an old cab to practice in, instead of going out on a moped as most people do, so a couple of times a week I’d go out and drive the runs, trying to drum the routes into my head.

  All that practice had to be tested, and for that I had to make what’s known as appearances at the public carriage office in Penton Street, north London. Think of it as what White Hart Lane is to Tottenham fans—the place where everything really important happens. Licensed drivers go there to have their cabs checked or for paperwork to be done, while trainee ones go there to be tested on their runs.

  You could have cut the tension in the air with a knife as we all waited in a gray room to be called in one by one by two middle-aged men in suits, who asked us to recite runs before grading us on them from A to D. It’s known as calling over a run, and you always knew how well you were doing by the marks you got and how quickly you were called back for another appearance. If it was 14 days you were getting better; if it was more than a couple of months you still had a long way to go. The worst bit, though, was that there was no definite end to it all, no set list of grades you had to get to pass the Knowledge. Instead, you just got called back again and again until one of the men in suits decided you were ready. It was like running a marathon with no idea of where the finishing line was.

  I went up to London about every month to be tested and it terrified me. If the men in suits had shone a light in my face and told me I had to sleep on a bed of nails, I wouldn’t have been surprised. They really knew how to lay down the law and they wanted to see a good attitude, nice manners and confidence: if you hesitated or got in a muddle as you called over a run, they’d give you a D grade without blinking; if someone’s tie wasn’t straight, they’d tell them to come back another day; and one bloke who swore in the middle of being tested got sent away in disgrace. We were all scared stiff of them, and you could hear a pin drop whenever one of the testers walked into the room where we all had to wait. Some women drive London cabs but not many, and I didn’t meet any when I was studying. It was a world full of men, and those in suits stared at my curly hair, which always had that just-stuck-my-fingers-in-a-socket look
however much I brushed it. Sometimes I wanted to scream when they looked at me like that. What did they know? I had George at home, I’d hardly slept and I was doing the best I could. But they didn’t want to hear excuses.

  Dad encouraged me every step of the way, though.

  “Have you been out to practice, Ju?” he’d ask when I went round for a cuppa. “Are you going up the carriage office soon?”

  I tried the best I could, but after more than two years of studying I had almost had enough of the whole thing. By April 1999 my grades had gotten better and I was being called back more quickly for appearances, but I was so exhausted by trying to study and coping with George that I just wanted to give up. The other thing that was putting me off was Dad’s illness, because he was so bad by now that he was in and out of hospital. All I really wanted to do was be with him, not staring at road maps and trying to get somewhere I was beginning to think I’d never reach. So one day when I was due at the carriage office for an appearance, I went to visit Dad in the hospital instead.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked as he lay on the bed. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Penton Street?”

  “I can’t face it today, Dad. I’d rather just see you. I’ll go another time.”

  “What are you on about?”

  “I’m not going in.”

  It was as if a bomb had gone off under him.

  “You’re having a bloody laugh, aren’t you, Ju?” Dad cried as he started struggling to sit up, wriggling around as he tried to get out of bed. “Get me up! Get me stuff! Get me tobacco tin! Don’t forget me matches.”

  “But you’re not allowed to leave the hospital, Dad.”

  “Well, I am if that’s what it takes to get you to that appearance.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Dad. You’re in no fit state to go anywhere.”

  The farthest he ever went was downstairs to have a cigarette, and even then I had to push him in a wheelchair. He was never going to make it 10 miles into central London.

  “Don’t you go telling me what to do, my girl!” Dad cried. “We’re going into town.”

  There was no arguing with Dad when he got an idea into his head. He wasn’t even supposed to leave the hospital, but he had decided he was going to. We didn’t quite have to dig our way out like they did in The Great Escape, but I still felt like a prisoner on the run as Dad told me to get him into his wheelchair, out to the car park and into the passenger seat of my car. We both knew the nurses would go mad if they knew what we were up to.

  “I’ve got a good feeling about today, I have,” Dad kept saying when we finally left. “You’re going to do it, Ju. I’m sure of it. They’re going to pass you today.”

  But no matter what Dad said, I was still panicking by the time we got into central London. I hadn’t prepared myself for an appearance and didn’t know if I could face it. I felt flustered and worried sick as Dad lay beside me in the front seat, which I’d had to push all the way back because it was too painful for him to sit up.

  “I don’t know where I’m going,” I wailed as I drove toward a massive roundabout.

  “Hold on!” Dad said. He lifted his head just enough to see over the dashboard and knew instantly where we were. “Over to the right, Ju.”

  I tried to pull across.

  “Right, RIIIGHT,” Dad shouted.

  I pulled the car across three lanes of traffic and prayed for the best.

  “Left,” Dad said with a puff of exertion and pain.

  We made it to the carriage office, but I was in a daze by the time I walked in for my appearance. I must have reeled off my runs like a robot, because the man in a suit looked a bit dazed himself when I’d finally finished.

  I looked up at him and waited to find out when he’d want to see me next.

  “That’s it,” he said. “You’re out.”

  I stared at him. I’d done it? I’d got the Knowledge?

  I could hardly believe it was all finally over as I walked outside to the car. I’d left Dad in his seat, but as I got into the car I saw a livid red burn mark on his chest. He’d dropped his cigarette while I was away and hadn’t been able to pick it up with his crippled hands. He’d had to lie all alone while it burned a hole in him.

  “Oh, Dad!” I said, as tears rushed into my eyes.

  “All right, Ju?” he replied and smiled.

  “Your chest, Dad. Are you OK?”

  “Don’t worry about it, love. It don’t hurt.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Forget that and tell me how you got on.”

  As I looked at him lying there, I felt so full of love for him. “I did it, Dad, I did it.”

  A huge smile stretched over his face. “I knew you would,” he said.

  With a sigh, Dad leaned his head down against the seat. “Now let’s get back to the hospital. Those nurses are gonna have my guts for garters.”

  Chapter 3

  Now I wish this was one of those really happy stories where I became a taxi driver, gave a lift to a movie star and ran away with him into the sunset. But real life’s not usually like that, is it? At least mine’s not, and what actually happened two months after passing the Knowledge was that my life changed in a way that made me think I’d never be happy again.

  George was the only thing that got me out of bed when Dad died, because losing him felt like the end of the world. We gave Dad the send-off he deserved—his coffin lying in a glass-sided carriage drawn by a horse wearing black feather plumes and led by a man wearing a top hat and tails, with friends and family following behind in a long line of taxis—but it felt unreal. How do you say goodbye to the person who ties you to the earth and stops you flying away with his jokes, kind words and quiet love? It wasn’t just me who was lost—Mum and Dad had been together since they were teenagers. We all dealt with his death the best way we knew how: by staying close as we started learning how to cope without him.

  Dad was buried in the local cemetery and I hated leaving him there, cold in the ground, so I visited him as often as I could and would sit with him as George and Lewis ran around together.

  “Can we fill in the hole, Ju?” Lewis asked me one day when they found a fresh pile of dirt beside a newly dug grave that was waiting to be filled.

  “Just a bit,” I said.

  A few handfuls of earth wouldn’t matter, I thought to myself as I watched Lewis laughing while he played. He wheezed at the same time because laughing took all his breath, and he sounded like an 80-year-old man who’d smoked a pack a day all his life. George silently watched Lewis as he roared, as if he was trying to work out what the strange sound was. Then when Lewis started coughing with the effort of laughing, George bent him over before patting him on the back until he got his breath back. Sometime later I knew George would suddenly stop playing, stand to attention in the silence like a rabbit hearing a fox and listen to the sound of a train that no one else could yet hear until it rumbled past on the railway line running beside the cemetery. George was so sensitive to noise that when we were out for a walk he’d scream each time a car went by, as if a juggernaut was rushing by instead of a Ford Fiesta.

  A few months passed like that—George and I going up to the cemetery, sometimes with Lewis, sometimes just the two of us, while I sat and wondered what the future held for us now that my dream of being a taxi driver had come to nothing. After doing the Knowledge, I’d just needed to pass a driving test in central London to get my full license, but I’d failed twice while Dad was still alive and I could not face taking it again after he died. He’d always encouraged me to keep going, but I could hear him laughing and see his face every time I got into a cab. It was too much, so I’d given up on all that hard work. I felt like a complete failure. I was no good as a mum and now I was a quitter too.

  So time went on, as it does, the earth settled on Dad’s grave and when a huge dip appeared, I almost got arrested after deciding to lay some turf on it as the sun went down one day. Within a few minutes, a couple of cops had arrived�
�black helmets on their heads and radios crackling—and it had taken some convincing to make them realize that I wasn’t up to no good. But apart from being suspected of grave robbing, I liked going to the cemetery because it was somewhere peaceful to think.

  However much I did, though, I still felt as if I was stuck in treacle. As George played, the thoughts would tumble through my head. The life I was giving George was a world away from the one that Dad and Mum had given Boy, Nob, Tor and me as children. And no matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to find a way to make things better. I had been taught to earn my way in life and even had with my own small florist’s shop, where I’d worked seven days a week before George was born, but I’d given it up when I became a mum. Now that the Knowledge had come to nothing, I didn’t know what to do. It all made me feel so useless and as the months passed without Dad, I’d sit and wonder whether I was ever going to be able to change things for George and me.

  But the more I thought about it, the more I knew one thing: I couldn’t let my unhappiness get the better of me. It was time for a fresh start.

  George was four when he began school in September 2000 and it was one of those days when I looked at him and wondered what I was making such a fuss about. With his big blue eyes and blond hair, he looked perfect as I dressed him in a bright red sweatshirt and black trousers. I felt sure that school was just what he needed now that we’d moved on to a new estate, which seemed so much nicer than our last. It was a new beginning for both of us.

  As I say, I’m a dreamer. It took only a few weeks for me to be called in to talk to the teachers.

  “We think George might have hearing problems,” one said.

  “He doesn’t respond when we call his name,” another told me.

  “He can’t seem to understand commands,” someone else piped up. “If we tell the children we’re going to sit down in a few minutes George does it immediately, and when we get them into a circle for story time, he crawls backward and lies under a bench with his hands over his ears.”