The industry is London-based, so if you are serious about your career you will need to move to London. Several of my feline clients live at home with me, and I’d be willing to offer you the same arrangement.
If you are happy to proceed, I’ll start preparing your contract.
Kind regards
Helen
Move to London. Everything else in the e-mail was a blur, but those three words leapt out at me. When I had thought about the possible answers Helen might give, this one hadn’t even crossed my mind.
Of course the industry was based in London—I knew that, and it made sense to be near the heart of the action. But was I really prepared to give up my home and my friends for my career?
I closed the e-mail and began to wash.
When I had finished, I went to Murphy’s house.
As Murphy’s cat flap dropped shut behind me, I took a deep breath and sat down on his patio. He had taken my news pretty well, considering. I had feared another row like we’d had over my blog. I thought he would ask why a career was so important to me and why it wasn’t possible to work but still live at home. But he hadn’t.
He sat in silence while I explained that I needed to give my career one last shot, then he asked a few questions about the kind of work I would be doing. I explained that it would depend on the bookings Helen could get for me.
“I’m open-minded,” I said. “I could be a model or an icon or an actress or whatever. A MIAOW, if you like!” We both laughed.
“How long will you stay at Helen’s flat?”
“I’m not sure,” I replied. “I guess we’ll just see how it goes.”
“I’ll miss you,” said Murphy.
“I know. I’ll miss you, too. All of you.”
At this he looked away, and when he turned back, his mouth was smiling but I could see the hurt in his eyes.
“Well, good luck! Knock ’em dead!” he said, trying to sound cheery.
“Will do,” I replied, as grateful to him for what he hadn’t said, as for what he had.
He walked me to the cat flap.
“You know I’ll probably be back home in a week, with egg on my face, as usual.”
“No, I don’t think you will,” he replied.
At home, I logged on to the computer, opened Helen’s e-mail, and clicked “reply.” Then I typed:Hi, Helen,
That’s all fine.
I’m on my way.
Nancy
CHAPTER 17
Living with the Competition
No cat is a hero to his agent.
—(Adapted from) Georg Hegel
In the early hours of the morning I crept downstairs. My owners and Pip knew nothing of my plan to move to London, and I had decided to leave while they were still asleep, so as not to arouse their suspicion. The sun was rising over the park and the birds’ dawn chorus was in full swing. I strode purposefully toward the train station, not stopping to contemplate the view. I did not want to think about when, or if, I would see this scene again.
It was the middle of the August vacation season, and at such an early hour the train station was empty. I was able to jump aboard the London-bound 6:15 and find my luggage crevice without anyone spotting me.
When I arrived at Helen’s address, a house in north London that had been converted into flats, I launched myself, paws outstretched, at the intercom panel at the side of the front door. A few seconds later the door buzzed open, and I tiptoed up the dark stairwell of the house, for the first time feeling nervous about what lay ahead.
“Hello?” I mewed, tapping on the flat’s front door with my paw. After a few moments a woman appeared in the doorway, having evidently just got out of bed. Her brown hair was a tangled mess and she wore a pair of faded, unironed pajamas. In addition to pillow crease marks on her cheek, her face bore the deeply etched lines of a habitual scowl. She did not look anything like the smiling lady on the website, and I deduced that the photo must be at least ten years out of date.
She frowned as she squinted at me through her haystack hair.
“Oh, you must be Nancy,” she said distractedly. “You’re early. Come in.”
I walked into the flat, noticing a strong smell of stale cigarette smoke coming from her pajamas. I couldn’t help but think of the last time I had been in this situation, when I first arrived at NHQ as a kitten. Here I was, almost exactly a year later, seeing another new home for the first time. But there were no excited little people here, and Helen did not seem inclined to make a fuss over me the way my owners had.
“I’ll show you where everything is, and then you can meet the others,” she said.
The door to her bedroom was closed. A sign hung from the handle, bearing a picture of a cat’s face with a giant red cross through it and the words “Cat-Free Zone” underneath. I padded down the hallway after her. There was a small galley kitchen, a bathroom, and a living room, which also functioned as a home office. Helen opened another door.
“This is the cats’ room.”
I looked in and saw four beds on the floor, three containing sleeping cats and one empty, presumably intended for me.
“Everybody, this is Nancy. She’s my new client.”
Startled out of their sleep, the cats looked at me in varying states of confusion and disarray.
“Hi, everyone,” I said shyly.
“That’s Gerald, that’s Oscar, and this is Princess,” Helen said, pointing to them in turn. “The litter tray’s here.” She tapped the plastic box in the corner, which smelled like it needed changing. “Food and water by your bed. Right, I need a smoke and a cup of coffee.” She closed the door and headed into the kitchen.
I looked around. Aside from the cat beds, the room was sparsely furnished. There was a tattered armchair by the window. Judging by the state of its upholstery its primary use was as a scratching post. Along one wall was a bookcase overflowing with piles of paperwork and empty cigarette packets. The beds were arranged so that each cat had its own corner of the room, and I could see that they had gone to some effort to personalize their space.
Gerald, a short-haired marmalade, had Blu-Tacked two posters to the wall. In one of the posters there were photos of him in a classic “before and after” layout.
In the “before” picture Gerald was hugely overweight, with rolls of fat bulging around his belly. His expression was miserable. In the “after” photo the smiling Gerald had slimmed down, proud of his newly svelte physique.
“I’m half the cat I used to be!” read the strapline across the bottom.
In the second poster the postdiet Gerald held up a huge cat collar, with a disbelieving look on his face.
“Look at the collar I used to wear!”
I smiled. Gerald had woken up now and was watching me intently.
“Pet Slimmer of the Year, you know,” he said, by way of explanation.
“Congratulations!”
He gave me a complacent smile. “I’m the face of KittySlim cat food. This month alone I’ve done daytime television and been featured in Take a Break magazine.”
“Wow,” I said, impressed.
I looked at the food bowl next to Gerald’s bed. The dry food pellets in there looked like they were made of cardboard.
“Does it taste nice?” I asked.
“Try it for yourself,” he replied.
I picked a pellet out of his bowl. Sure enough, it tasted of cardboard. He looked at me expectantly.
“Mmm. It’s probably an acquired taste, isn’t it?” I said, trying to be diplomatic. “I think I’m more of a Kit-e-Licious girl, really.”
Gerald shrugged.
I was distracted by a mechanical whirring noise and looked over at Oscar, a black long-haired tom. He had his paw on the button of an automated card-shuffling device, which he pressed in short bursts. Oscar had no posters, but there was a pile of books on the floor next to his bed with titles like You, Too, Can See the Future and Mind Reading for Beginners.
I smiled at Oscar, fairly confide
nt that I knew his line of work.
“Let me guess. Are you . . . a magician?”
Oscar’s jaw dropped, and he inadvertently held his paw down on the button of the shuffling machine, sending cards flying in every direction.
“I. Am not. A magician. I am. A psychic.” He spoke slowly, enunciating each word with care.
“Oh, right, I see,” I replied, still confused.
“Have you not read about me in the papers? I predicted the results of every match in the World Cup finals this summer. You must have seen the headlines.”
“No, I don’t think I did. That’s very impressive, though. So what’s next, now the World Cup’s over?”
A slight frown appeared on Oscar’s brow.
“You’re as bad as Helen!” he muttered. “I’m working on a new card act. All will be revealed in due course.”
He began to gather up the spilled cards and insert them back into the machine.
Princess’s bed was next to the bookcase on the other side of the room. She was a lilac Persian, with long, perfectly groomed fur and a round, squashy face. She had placed a pink silk screen alongside her bed to demarcate her boudoir area. She had also appropriated the bottom shelf of the bookcase, where she kept a pedestal mirror, an assortment of combs, and a selection of collars and eye masks.
“Model?” I asked.
“That’s right,” Princess said, a hint of Persian snuffle in her voice. “Glamour puss, actually. Calendars, high-end fashion stuff. No catalog work,” she added quickly.
“Wow. I entered a cat show once,” I said, thinking of the Persians I had encountered in Birmingham. “Do you ever do shows?”
Princess harrumphed disdainfully. “Never! Those places are like meat markets. Yuck!”
“Yes, I know what you mean,” I replied, relieved that we at least had one thing in common.
“So, what do you do?” Oscar asked.
“Um, well, I’m not quite sure yet. I’ve done a bit of acting—theater stuff mostly—and singing. . . .” I trailed off, aware of how flimsy my answer sounded.
It struck me for the first time that I was in the company of professionals. These cats were not like Team Nancy, amazed that a cat could do anything other than eat, sleep, and hunt. They knew what their talent was, and they worked hard at exploiting and publicizing it.
The cats looked at me, waiting for me to continue.
“I thought I might become a MIAOW: a model, icon, actress ... or ... whatever. . . .” I trailed off again, seeing that they were all staring at me blankly. The acronym that had made Murphy laugh did not cut any ice with these three.
“An icon? How can a cat be an icon?” Oscar asked, his eyes narrowing.
“Oh, it’s just a joke really. I needed a word beginning with ‘I’ or it wouldn’t have made sense. It would have been MAOW. . . .” I trailed off for a third time, making a mental note not to mention my acronym to anyone in the business, ever again. At least not unless I could come up with a better word beginning with “I.”
“So how long have you all lived here?” I asked, desperate to change the subject.
“I’ve been here a year,” said Gerald.
“Six months,” said Princess.
“Helen signed me up in June,” Oscar added.
“What’s it like? Is Helen nice?”
The cats looked nonplussed.
“She’s okay.” Gerald shrugged.
“She does her job and we do ours. It’s business,” explained Oscar.
“Oh.”
Of course it was business. I was going to have to get used to this new, professional mindset.
I suddenly felt overcome by tiredness and walked over to the empty bed. “Think I might just take a nap,” I said, aware that the other cats were still scrutinizing me.
As I stepped in, I wondered how many other cats had occupied this bed before me, and what had happened to them and their careers.
The threadbare tartan fabric reminded me of the bed at the shelter, which in turn made me think of Number 29. Then an image of him and Pip side by side on the footpath popped into my mind, quickly followed by an image of my people at NHQ. I wondered whether they had noticed I was missing, and if so, whether they assumed I was at the park or the pub, bound to reappear later in the day.
I curled up into a neat ball, happy to think of home as I let sleep take me.
I was woken by a strange noise, and my first thought was that I was back at the shelter, listening to Number 29 scratching at the wall. As I came round I realized that Oscar’s card shuffler was whirring into action. I stood up, still sleepy, and noticed that Princess and Gerald were no longer in the room and the door was open. Oscar seemed absorbed in his cards, so I hopped out of my bed and walked into the hallway.
I stood at the doorway to the living room. Helen was sitting at the desk with her back to me. She was typing on her laptop, cigarette in hand, while talking on the phone. Or, to be exact, shouting on the phone.
“No, I’m sorry, that’s not acceptable,” she fumed, blowing smoke out through the side of her mouth. “That’s not what I said and that isn’t what we agreed.... No, I didn’t . . .” (suck on cigarette). “Look, if you’re going to talk to me like that I’m going to have to put the phone down . . .” (exhale of smoke).
I hovered in the doorway, not wanting to draw Helen’s attention lest I become the next object of her wrath. After a few more minutes of arguing Helen said, “Fine,” before slamming the phone down and giving a strangled screech.
“For God’s sake, why are there so many idiots in this business?” she shouted, lighting up another cigarette.
Gerald walked past on his way to the bathroom, rolling his eyes.
“Is she always like that?” I whispered.
“Pretty much,” he replied.
Helen sat at the desk, muttering. Suddenly the sound of a cat hissing and spitting behind me made me jump. I spun round, but there were no cats in sight, just Helen’s handbag on the floor by the front door. I felt my hackles rising. The noise started again, and this time I could tell it was coming from inside Helen’s bag. Could she have another cat in there?
Before I had a chance to investigate, Helen swore, then got up from her seat and stomped toward the door. There was no time for me to dash into another room, so I pressed myself against the wall, praying that she wouldn’t notice me or, even worse, think that I was responsible for the noise. As she stormed past me toward her bag the hissing noise started again.
“All right! I’m coming, for God’s sake!”
She delved into the bag and rummaged around before pulling out her mobile phone, which was emitting what I now realized was an angry-cat ringtone. She held the phone to her ear.
“Hello? Yes, I am busy. What do you want?” she snapped at the caller before stomping back into the living room.
She had not even noticed me.
I sat in the hallway, my nerves jangling. I would have to develop a thicker skin if I was to flourish in this new environment. My eyes rested on the bathroom door, which was ajar.
Hang on a minute, I thought. Didn’t Gerald just go in there?
I crept up and poked my head around the door, to see Gerald squatting on the toilet seat.
“Gerald, what are you doing?” I asked.
“What do you think I’m doing?” he replied. He turned around to press the flush and jumped down.
“What on earth is that?” I said, looking at the ring-shaped object resting on the toilet seat.
“It’s a Litter Kwitter. Haven’t you ever seen one before?”
“No.”
I was intrigued. I walked over to examine the device more closely.
Brambles would love one of these, I thought. Then I sighed. These professional cats were so much more worldly than I was.
Helen had gone into the kitchen to make another cup of coffee, so I padded into the living room. On the coffee table was a pile of cuttings albums, one for each cat client. As I looked at them I tried not
to think about the album Murphy had lovingly put together for me at home.
Oscar’s was on the top of the pile. On the first page was a cutting from a tabloid newspaper.
“A-meow-zing! Mystic mog sees football’s future!” was the headline.
Underneath was a photo of Oscar, a solemn expression on his face, pointing to a bowl of food labeled with the Spanish flag. The fawning article reported how “fur-tune-telling feline Oscar INCREDIBLY predicted the result of the World Cup finals. The psychic kitty chose food from bowls marked with the flags of the competing nations. Every time, Oscar has chosen food from the bowl of the winning side, and now bookmakers are racing to offer the prophet puss a job.”
I smiled as I read the article. Did anyone really believe this stuff? It was a fifty-fifty chance each time; a string of lucky guesses: there was nothing more to it than that. He’d better hope his new card trick is good, I thought, or Oscar’s career will be over before the summer’s out.
Gerald’s album was full of advertisements for KittySlim.
One read, “Tubby Tabby? Try the KittySlim challenge! You could lose two collar sizes in four weeks!”
I couldn’t help but laugh at Gerald’s expression in the photos. I could imagine the photographer instructing him, “Look miserable! You’re fat! No one likes you!” at the “before” photo shoot, then, “Smile! You’re gorgeous!” for the “after” shot.
The album also contained the “true story” feature from Take a Break magazine, showing a snapshot of fat Gerald fast asleep, his flesh spilling out from his body in folds.
On the facing page was a full-length portrait of the sleek postdiet Gerald.
“I used to get the cream—but look at me now!” the article was titled, and it told the “incredible” story of how Gerald had “clawed his way back to shape” by undertaking the KittySlim diet plan. The article ended with a quote from Gerald: “If I can do it, so can you!”
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