The Cat Who Came Back for Christmas

by Julia Romp

  The sleigh had to be drawn by reindeer, of course, and once again I was inventive. After buying reindeers, or rather reindeer shapes made out of chicken wire and covered in fairy lights, I stitched each one a jacket, hat and scarf to wear so that they looked a bit more realistic. Then I scattered hay around their feet and put two buckets beside the reindeers—one filled with hay so that the kids could feed them and the other with sand, which would be Santa’s magic dust to wake up the reindeers when he needed to go off delivering presents.

  The final thing I wanted was a post box, because kids can’t help but get excited by posting a letter to Santa full of all their Christmas wishes. It couldn’t be one of those plastic toy post boxes, because the kids would know that Santa would have a much better one than that. So I got on to Google and found a man in Dorset who made them out of empty gas canisters, which he painted to make look like the real thing. I swear that post box looked like one of Her Majesty’s own when it arrived. After that there was just the fancy dress left to buy. I was going to take pictures of all the kids who came so that they could have a memento of their visit and I wanted them dressed up as snowmen, elves and snow princesses. There would also be a Father Christmas outfit for the dads to put on if they wanted to and a Christmas cape for pets who felt like joining in.

  It was all hands on deck in the days leading up to the grand opening. Mum, Nob, Tor and Boy all helped rig up the lights and Wendy and Keith came over too. Ben scampered around our feet, clawing up the Christmas trees and getting tangled in lights. The moment I unveiled the sleigh, he jumped straight in and had to be lifted off to make sure he didn’t leave scratch marks on the paintwork. He meowed angrily as he was put on to the cold ground and his fun was ruined.

  Can’t I have another go on the sleigh? It’s Christmas! I want to have fun!

  George was a bit put out by everything that was going on.

  “All those kids will break the sleigh,” he kept telling me. “I don’t want them coming here.”

  “It’s for your school,” I said, to try to reassure him. “Just think of all the fun you’ll have on trips in the minibus when the school buys it, and we will be raising money to help do that. If you don’t want to see all the people, you don’t have to. You can stay nice and warm inside with Ben and he’ll look after you.”

  I just hoped that George would get a bit more comfortable with our winter wonderland when he saw everything finished. The Christmas lights might help when they were switched on but if not, I’d have to roll out the big guns and get Lewis out on the driveway every night doing his “Thriller” routine.

  A few days later, when everything was finally done, I walked out on to the drive with Mum. George was a few steps behind us and Ben was sitting in a tree watching as my hand hovered over a plug. With one final click the Christmas lights would go on and the winter wonderland would be open.

  “Three, two, one,” Mum said with a smile and I pushed the switch.

  The house lit up like a Christmas tree. Red and green, white and blue lights—so many that for a moment I worried whether planes flying overhead to Heathrow might mistake my drive for a runway.

  “It’s so bright,” George said with a gasp as he stared upwards.

  Ben stared too as he peeped out from behind the branches.

  It’s amazing! Beautiful! When is Santa going to arrive? I can’t wait to see him.

  Ben raced down the tree, ran up to us and started weaving in and out of our legs like an eel. He miaowed again and again as we stared around us and I could understand how excited he felt by it all. This was it, the beginning of our Christmas, and everything was perfect. I’d even bought a snow machine for the final finishing touch because it wouldn’t have been a proper winter wonderland without a few flakes puffing around.

  I looked around at what we’d created and decided that if this didn’t raise a good bit for Marjorie Kinnan I’d eat Santa’s hat and Rudolf’s too.

  “I’m going inside,” George said.

  Ben ran into the house after him and I wished the two of them had stayed outside just a bit longer with Mum and me. I so wanted George to enjoy this.

  “He’ll be fine, Ju,” Mum said as I went to fluff up the hay in the reindeer’s bucket.

  I looked around. It was 4:30 p.m. and the sky was black. Stars were twinkling overhead and I could see my breath puffing in a white cloud in front of me. I’d put up posters all over the area telling people that we were opening, but I wasn’t sure how many were going to turn up.

  “Shall I make some tea?” I asked Mum as we walked inside.

  The next two hours dragged by as I kept refilling the pot and waiting for a knock on the door. Had I gone too far this time? Would people think I was completely round the twist? It was one thing to arrange a bit of apple bobbing and a game of rounders, but would people really turn up to all this?

  Wendy’s daughter Kayleigh was with us as we nervously waited to see if anyone was going to arrive. She had gotten so excited by all the work we’d been doing that she’d asked to help out. So I’d dressed her up in an elf suit and she was ready to go. Kayleigh was going to get the kids in and out of the sleigh so that I could concentrate on taking photos of them, and I’d asked George to hand out the fancy-dress costumes.

  As Mum chatted about anything other than the winter wonderland, I could hear George laughing. I walked into the lounge to find Ben flipping around on the carpet. We’d bought him a cat-sized elf jacket and he was now pulling it off in disgust, wriggling like a worm as he tried to get out of it.

  “He don’t want to dress up,” George said. As he lifted up Ben to help him out of the costume, I heard a ring on the doorbell.

  “I don’t like this,” George muttered. “I don’t like these people.”

  My heart felt a bit heavier than it should have done as I opened the door to find a woman on the doorstep with two little girls.

  “I’ve seen a leaflet,” she said. “Is it all right to visit?”

  “Of course! Let me just get the bucket of sweets.”

  I grabbed it and walked outside with Mum and Kayleigh. The two little girls’ eyes were out on stalks as they stared around.

  “Would you like a photo on Santa’s sleigh?” I asked them.

  “Yes please.”

  “Well, then, you’ve got to dress up,” I said and with that we were off. The winter wonderland was open for business.

  Some nights there were only a couple of knocks on the door but on others we had a queue outside as though it was the first day of the sales. The doorbell usually started ringing around 4:30 p.m. after school had finished for the day and went on until about 9:30 p.m. Kayleigh was with me every night with her elf outfit on, ready to stand for hours in the cold because she was just like me—a dreamer who looked out into the wonderland and saw real reindeer stamping their hooves as Father Christmas himself stood beside the sleigh. Our winter wonderland wasn’t made out of lights and plastic: to Kayleigh it was alive, and I hoped other children could feel the magic as we did.

  “What are those?” kids would ask excitedly as they walked up the driveway and saw the buckets standing next to the reindeer.

  “One has hay in it because the reindeer are always hungry and the other is full of magic dust so that Santa can wake them up when he wants to,” Kayleigh would tell them proudly.

  Mum also came to help us a lot of evenings, but George kept himself to himself in the house; even Ben running in and outside for a look didn’t persuade him out. I didn’t put any pressure on him as I welcomed people and took photo after photo of them to make sure I got a nice one. I just left George to it, because I knew that the only way he’d join in would be if he decided to himself—just as on the night of the Halloween party. So I looked after the winter wonderland with Kayleigh each evening and then after turning off the lights when everyone had finally gone home, I’d go inside and print out the photos I’d taken of our visitors and stick each one into a Christmas card ready for them to collect the next da
y. When that was done it was time to empty the post box. I answered all the kids’ letters to Santa and made sure to tell each child that Father Christmas would try his hardest to get something from their wish list without promising them the earth.

  For days George refused to come outside and I began to wonder if he ever would. He watched everything going on from the kitchen window because he couldn’t get enough of the Christmas lights. But although he’d started coming to the door when there was a ring on it and would get me the sweet bucket to take outside, he did not want to come out himself. Maybe it was all too much. Maybe I was hoping for something that was beyond George, however much he had improved. But I should have trusted that Ben would be the one to find a way to persuade George outside, and even I could not get angry when he used his favorite enemy, the dog, to do it.

  When a man arrived with a couple of yellow Labradors Ben went wild. First he ran in and out of the man’s legs as the dogs stared at him from the end of their leads; then he jumped into the sleigh to show them who was boss before they got a chance to get on to it. When Ben darted around them, trying to make them bark, the dogs looked as bewildered as Jedi had been once. Suddenly they couldn’t take it any more and started roaring at Ben, who danced away with a gleam in his eyes. I saw George at the kitchen window with tears of laughter running down his face.

  “You’re going to have to go inside before you cause too much trouble,” I told Ben sternly and carried him into the house.

  It didn’t do any good, because Ben just sat on the windowsill with George behind him and screeched so loud that I thought he might drown out the Christmas music. As soon as the Labradors had gone, I went to get him back outside and George just couldn’t resist following to see what else Ben was going to get up to.

  “It would be so good if you could show the little ones what to do,” I said to George as he stood on the doorstep, looking outside. “They’re not sure about the fancy-dress costumes, so you and Ben could help them.”

  Ben sat just outside the door and looked at George.

  Please come and play with me, George. Won’t you come outside? It will be so much fun.

  George hesitated for just a second before stepping out into the night. Ben came up to him and purred with excitement. He was almost beside himself, because he knew nothing could touch him now and he looked at me in triumph.

  I’m George’s cat. And he won’t tell me off. He’ll laugh when he sees me getting the dogs all excited.

  “Why don’t you have a look at the fancy dress and make sure it’s all ready?” I said to George as he looked around.

  He walked up to the box and started pulling things out while Ben jumped on the sleigh.

  “He wants to be in a photo shoot,” I said with a giggle.

  “He do and he don’t,” George told me as he rooted through the box. “He was an actor once in Hollywood so he’s good at photos and the sleigh might take off with him in it. He wants to visit Father Christmas.”

  After that, George started coming out every night, and the best time was having the winter wonderland all to ourselves as we got it ready each evening. George, Ben and I were in our own magical world as we sat on the sleigh telling stories or stood side by side staring up at the lights. I knew George felt at ease in this wonderland full of color because we had made it ours, which helped him cope when strangers came into it. George had his own way of dealing with them, of course: he would sigh if a child knocked the hay bucket over before telling me not to worry. Having lifted up the hay bucket and set it straight, he’d walk back to stand in front of the fancy-dress box and look just past the kids standing in front of him waiting to be given something.

  “You can have this one,” he’d tell one and hand over a reindeer suit.

  “And you can have this,” he’d say to another.

  If their mums gave George a quick look, I didn’t care. People coming to our winter wonderland had to accept George for who he was, just as we accepted anyone who came.

  “Come back tomorrow and bring your nan,” he’d call when children left, before turning to talk to me. “We’ll have them back, I think, because they can’t go to the big shops, Mum.”

  “No, George,” I told him and I’d feel warm even in the icy cold of a December night.

  George took it all in his stride and I felt so proud of him. He didn’t bat an eyelid about who came, and that was good because we had all sorts visiting. There was the woman with five children who used the filthiest language I’d ever heard in front of them but gave me a big thank-you when she left. Then there was the drunk dad who almost scared me when he turned up with his kids because everyone knew of him on the estate, but turned out to be so nice he gave me a fiver for the collection. People had just as many surprises in them on our new estate as they had had on the old one, and I was just happy to watch George and Ben together, standing side by side next to the fancy-dress box or watching over the sweet bucket.

  “Just one packet,” George would tell kids if they tried to grab a handful and then he’d give Ben an exasperated look.

  What can you do, George? Some kids are just like that, aren’t they? But it’s Christmas and they’re having fun, so we’ll ignore it.

  As Christmas got nearer and nearer Ben led the way. He sniffed at people as they got on the sleigh, ran up and down the Christmas trees lining the drive and jumped into the fancy-dress box. In fact, he seemed to think he was in charge of Christmas now. George was a bit more hesitant, but he wasn’t the only one who found it hard to be around all those people and their noise. One busy night, a neighbor turned up with his grandkids, who were visiting from Ireland, and they all started trying to pile on to the sleigh for a picture—all except one of his granddaughters, aged about seven, who hung back. I could see that everyone was making too much of a scene for her as they tried to get her into a costume.

  “If you want her in one so much, why don’t you put one on?” I told her granddad.

  “Get the suit out, love,” he roared with a laugh.

  When he was all tuckered up as Father Christmas, the granddad got on to the sleigh and sat back with his wife beside him as his grandchildren hung off the sleigh around them. But the little girl still stood quietly to the side.

  I bent down to her. “Don’t worry about going on the sleigh,” I said. “Why don’t you feed the reindeer instead?”

  As she went to fill up their bowls with hay, I took pictures of the rest of the family; I must have taken 30 before I got the right one. Then the family went off home.

  The next day the granddad came back and this time he had just the little girl with him.

  “She wants to have her picture taken,” he told me and she climbed into the sleigh.

  There she sat with her beautiful face and curly hair, dressed up as a snow princess and I captured the moment on film. Now she felt comfortable enough to smile.

  Sadly, though, not everyone was quite so happy about what we were doing. A few days after the winter wonderland began, I opened the door to find a woman standing outside.

  “I’m from the housing association,” she said. “We’ve had a complaint that your lights are too bright.”

  I’d wondered if she was joking. What kind of Scrooge was going to try to ruin Christmas for everyone? But the woman explained that she had to investigate the complaint because they’d had a phone call. I didn’t understand why one bad apple would try to ruin life for all the good ones, but even though I didn’t know who was giving the Grinch a run for his money, I was pretty sure that all they really wanted to do was make trouble.

  So I explained to the woman from the housing association about what George, Ben and I were doing and she listened to what I had to say. There was just one bit of official business to sort out: when I told the woman I was taking photos of kids, she said she’d have to check with her manager that it was OK to do that on property owned by the housing association. The message came back that I could snap away as long as the kids had an adult with them. I was
glad to see a bit of common sense.

  “It’s a good thing for the community,” the woman said when she rang up, and the housing association even put a check for £100 in the post for the collection.

  The money was brilliant but what really made all my Christmases come at once was watching George outside with Ben, interacting with strangers and getting involved. After all the years of taking him out and George finding it so difficult to be among people, he was finally doing it. He and Ben were like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: a perfect pair.

  I was not going to let myself get upset. I had been going to Christmas concerts for years and I couldn’t believe that I was still harping on about this one thing that I wanted and which never happened. During all his years at primary school, I’d gone to every one of George’s concerts and watched as his classmates came on stage and stared out into the audience, searching for their mum or dad to give them a reassuring smile. When George was young, I’d always hoped he would do the same, but although as he got older I’d learned that he wouldn’t, my heart still gave a twinge each year. Now I felt annoyed with myself: why couldn’t I just accept that it wasn’t George’s way? I couldn’t make him something he wasn’t and George always knew I was in the audience, which was all that mattered. When he stepped on the stage in just a minute, he’d know I was watching. Then we’d go home, have a biscuit with Ben and go out to turn on the wonderland lights.