by Rachel Wells
‘Only if you want to, of course,’ Jonathan quickly added.
‘We’re all having lunch together, it’ll be loads of fun,’ Polly said.
‘Well, I hate to impose.’ Sylvie sounded uncertain.
‘Why would you be imposing? The more the merrier I say,’ Matt said.
‘And you can bring something,’ Franceska added. ‘Claire and Jonathan will do the turkey, we will bring potatoes and vegetables, Polly brings pudding.’
‘That doesn’t really leave much,’ Claire pointed out.
‘I’ll bring champagne,’ Sylvie said. ‘How about that?’
‘Well we never say no to champagne,’ Polly laughed. She was right, they didn’t. They didn’t say no to wine either, to be frank.
‘Great, that’s settled,’ Tomasz said. ‘We’ll have a proper traditional Christmas.’
‘An Edgar Road family Christmas,’ Jonathan added.
‘Let’s drink to that,’ Claire said and I licked my lips. I was thinking already about turkey and all the lovely left-overs that George and I would be treated to. I really did love Christmas, it’s my favourite time of the year.
Chapter Ten
Never one to give up, I had found a way of introducing George to Hana. We both stood at her patio door and we had a conversation through the glass. We had to shout and sometimes words got a bit lost, but it was better than nothing. And Hana said she looked forward to our visits – well, I think that’s what she said, we couldn’t be sure. We’d started going round to see her most days. Remembering how Connie was worried she was lonely and bored, we took it upon ourselves to make sure she wasn’t.
‘Why don’t you try to come out?’ George asked.
‘I don’t know how, or if I’ll like it,’ Hana said. ‘And after watching Alfie get stuck in the window …’
The only window in the house that was ever open – and not always – was the one I had squeezed through. I wasn’t sure Hana, having never gone out, would be up to it. After all, it had nearly defeated me, a far more experienced cat.
‘Maybe one day I can come in and see you?’ George said but Hana obviously didn’t hear. Instead, she squinted at him.
‘What does “comtinbeya” mean?’
I sat back a bit and let them continue the conversation. I was right, George and Hana seemed to have hit it off, even in this unorthodox way. As I listened I marvelled at Hana’s nature. She was always sunny it seemed, she never complained, although to my thinking she had a lot to complain about. Her family were unhappy still. Although Sylvie put a brave face on when she visited my humans, she was still crying most nights and not coping as well as she was pretending to. Sylvie would let her tears drop onto Hana’s fur and Hana would try to comfort her, but she didn’t know what to do. And Connie was still being quiet and solitary. She barely spent time with her mum, despite Sylvie trying very hard. She spent most of her time in her room, on her phone, and Hana didn’t know what was going on there either. George told her Aleksy was the same and we all hoped it was just this illness known as ‘teenage hormones’, and that it would soon pass.
But although it seemed that Hana had a lot on her plate, she never complained, not even that she was stuck in the house alone for most of the day, and I thought we could all take a lesson from her.
‘It is nice that you come and see me,’ she said, or shouted, as we got ready to go home for lunch. ‘It does brighten up the day.’
‘One day you will come out with me,’ George said, confidently.
‘I don’t know about that.’ Her eyes widened. ‘But maybe one day you can come in. If they ever leave the bigger window open …’ We all glanced at the closed windows.
We bid her farewell, she put her paw up on the door, and George and I matched it on our side, before we set off back next door.
‘You know, if I was ever going to fall for a girl again I would probably fall for Hana,’ George said, sweetly.
‘And if you hadn’t sworn off them forever then I would probably give you my blessing,’ I replied with a grin.
I did have one resolution though. I’d heard it said that no one should be alone on Christmas Day, it was something I’d learnt throughout life and I didn’t want that for Hana either. If her family was spending the day with us, then she would too. I just had to figure out how.
After lunch I put my thoughts of Hana aside as I had to go and find Tiger. I had ignored it for the past few days, but I had growing niggling doubts about her. I had barely seen her since she’d told me she was fully recovered from her illness. Even George was complaining that he hadn’t been able to find her. The other Edgar Road cats had also noticed that she was acting out of character. Not only was she barely around, but when she was she was quiet and not her normal feisty self. She hadn’t even bothered to be rude to Salmon the other day. I had a bad feeling, and was pretty sure something wasn’t quite right. I could feel it in my fur.
So, without drawing George’s attention to it, I needed to go and sort it out once and for all. I was quite a perceptive cat and my intuition said that all was not well, and for once I refused to be fobbed off. If Tiger wasn’t wanting to spend time with me any more then she had to tell me. But she couldn’t do that to George; he thought she was his mum and that was a relationship that you didn’t get to walk away from. Or you shouldn’t get to walk away from anyway. I went from worried to angry and back to worried again. I really did need to get to the bottom of this.
George had gone out, saying he had things to do. He really didn’t but I went along with it. However, I was grateful, as I wanted to confront Tiger on her own. I wasn’t going to let her wriggle her way out of this one.
I bashed on the cat flap and waited. It seemed to take a long time, so I bashed again. Eventually she appeared and as she came through the small door my first reaction was shock. She looked thinner than the last time I saw her.
Tiger had been a bit chunky when we first met; she liked her food and she was lazy but I had introduced her to the joy of exercise and she’d slimmed down, but even so the cat in front of me looked as if she was mainly skin and bones. I wondered how long it had been since I last saw her, maybe a week. How did she get to be like this in a week?
‘Tiger,’ I said simply. I found my voice choking. I missed her, my boy missed her. We were a family.
‘I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you, Alfie,’ she said. ‘But you know, I’m not exactly looking my best,’ she tried to joke, but it fell flat between us.
‘What’s going on? I need to know, not just for me but for George too. He misses you and he’s only young. And you look terrible.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You know what I mean,’ I corrected.
‘I don’t know how to tell you.’ Her voice became sad. ‘I’ve been avoiding you, both of you.’
‘What, have you met someone else?’ I asked. It would explain the weight loss. Claire said she always lost weight when she first fell in love. Tiger narrowed her eyes at me.
‘God, you are ridiculous sometimes, Alfie. No, I haven’t met anyone else,’ she snapped.
‘Then what?’ My heart was beating right out of my body and my legs had turned to jelly. I sat down.
‘I lied to you. When I went to the vet I wasn’t just having a check-up, I wasn’t feeling too good. I’ve been feeling tired for ages, and I’ve been struggling to eat, and they ran loads of tests. I did have some tablets, like I told you, and I did feel a bit better for a while, but there’s bad news, Alfie.’
‘No,’ I said, but then I reasoned that she could get more tablets. It might just take longer than she first thought. Poor Tiger, all that dried food though.
‘I, I thought if I carried on as normal it might just resolve itself but it isn’t going to. I’m tired all the time, I can barely get to the end of the garden let alone the street. Alfie, my family were talking and I don’t have long left.’
‘What do you mean?’ I felt a chill in my fur. My heart sunk into my paws.
‘I’m dying, Alfie. I’m so, so, sorry but I’m not going to be here much longer.’
‘No, that’s not possible.’ I couldn’t even comprehend what she was saying.
‘Alfie, it’s true, I’m not going to get better and I don’t have long left.’ I blinked. She sounded so matter of fact about it.
‘I can’t, I can’t …’ Words failed me.
‘Oh Alfie, I’ve been trying to come to terms with it, you know, but it’s so hard. I don’t want to leave you, I certainly don’t want to leave George. I love life but it’s quickly slipping out of me and there’s nothing we can do. I have to accept it and unfortunately that means you do too.’
‘Surely there must be something someone can do. The vet, another vet? I could make a plan—’
‘We’ve exhausted everything. My family are sad which is heart-breaking. They are old and they’ve had me since I was a kitten, they say they’re going to be lost without me.’
‘I’m going to be lost without you,’ I said, selfishly.
‘I know. But you know, you have great families, you have great friends, and you have George.’
I shuddered as the thought hit me square between the eyes.
‘How are we going to tell George?’
‘I don’t know.’ I saw Tiger falter then. She had been so strong when she spoke, composed, but not any more.
‘We’ll tell him together,’ I said. ‘But not today, not yet, I need to let it sink in too. It doesn’t feel real.’
‘No, I understand, it’s taken me a while and I still wake up and forget.’ We both looked up at the grey sky. A lone bird flew overhead, the wind whistled, the clouds threatened to unleash some rain. And next to me was Tiger, my love, my best friend, the cat who, next to George, meant most to me in the world and I was losing her. I knew as I looked at her, trying to remember every stripe in her fur, every speck of colour in her eyes, that I would have to say goodbye, and I felt as if part of me was dying too.
I have had more than my fair share of goodbyes in my life. When I was younger and lived with Margaret I had to say goodbye to Agnes, my sister cat, who was much older than me and died. That was hard, but then Margaret died, which was even worse as it rendered me homeless. I had to say goodbye to Snowball, although she didn’t die, but I knew I would never see her again. I had to say goodbye to Tasha and her son Elijah when they moved to Dubai, although I did expect to see them again sometime. I have said goodbye, in my words and heart, many, many times and, you know what, as I looked at Tiger and committed every inch of her to my memory, I realised that it didn’t get any easier. Saying goodbye never got any easier.
Chapter Eleven
It was hard to tear myself away from Tiger, but she needed to rest. While I was with her, she was still my Tiger, she was still here. I knew the minute I was alone, thinking about losing her, I would fall apart. And we still had the problem of George to contend with. My poor boy. My heart was breaking for me but, more than that, it was breaking for him. His first taste of loss was going to be one of the worst, and I wished with all that I was that I could protect him from it. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t protect either of us from this one.
I’d discovered a lot since becoming a parent but this was another level. I knew that not only could I not protect him from Tiger dying, I couldn’t stop the devastation he was going to feel. There was a terrible feeling of hopelessness, there was literally not a thing I could do. For a cat who believed there was a solution to all problems, knowing that there was nothing any of us could do to stop this was horrific. It was the worst feeling ever.
I wanted to wallow, of course I did. I wanted to lie in my bed and cry, and yelp and brood and feel sorry for myself but I couldn’t. Until we told George, which we hoped to do the following day, I had to put a brave face on. I licked my whiskers, and prepared to act as if everything was alright, when in fact at the moment it was exactly the opposite.
George came home just after me.
‘Where were you?’ I asked, hoping my voice sounded normal.
‘I went to see Rocky and he and I chased around a bit then I went to see Hana, who was very pleased to see me in fact,’ he said proudly.
‘I bet she was. Did you have a nice time?’
‘Yes. Dad, your voice sounds funny.’
‘I might have a bit of a furball,’ I said, hoping he would believe me. He nodded and seemed to accept it.
‘Anyway, I want to tell you that there is trouble next door,’ George said.
My ears pricked up. Trouble? Not more, not today. All my energy was going into trying to stay calm, to not fall apart, I had nothing left for trouble.
‘Hana said that Sylvie and Connie had a big row last night. It seems that Connie has been seeing a boy, whatever that means, and Sylvie said she was too young and it had to stop.’
‘Do you mean she’s got a boyfriend?’ I asked. I had learnt a lot about the complexities of human relationships in my time. We cats had relationships but we were far more sensible about it. Though not always, I admitted, thinking of George’s first crush. There was nothing sensible about that.
‘I think so. Hana said that Sylvie was so angry and Connie said she hated her mum, before storming off. Apparently Sylvie took her phone away from her.’
‘Gosh,’ I said, thinking of Aleksy. ‘To a teenager that’s like chopping off one of their limbs.’
‘Well, she couldn’t see what was on the phone as it was locked and Connie refused to unlock it for her. She even threatened to call her dad.’
‘Who, Sylvie or Connie?’
‘Sylvie. Then Connie shouted that her dad didn’t care about her, so to go ahead and she stormed upstairs and slammed her bedroom door, so even Hana couldn’t go and see if she was alright.’
‘Well I’m sure they’ll sort it out, parents often row with their teenagers,’ I said, thoughts of Tiger weighing heavily on me. ‘But if they need help we’re here,’ I added, as brightly as I could.
‘That’s exactly what I said, Dad.’
I tried not to think about Tiger, and how much losing her was going to affect us all, but as I looked at my lovely boy, it was, in fact, all I could think about.
George was playing with Summer and Toby when Franceska called round. She was on her own and Claire let her in, giving her a warm hug. I rubbed her legs, Franceska was one of my favourite people. She was so calm and loving normally but today she didn’t look it.
‘You don’t mind me dropping in?’ she asked, chewing her lip anxiously.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Frankie, you’re family. Anyway, what’s up? You look worried.’
‘I am stressed. Tomasz is off early today so he’s with the boys, and I had to get out. My Aleksy, my lovely, sweet, sensitive boy, has turned into a monster and I don’t know what to do with him.’
‘OK, first wine, then tell me everything.’ Claire poured out two very large glasses and they sat at the kitchen table. I was just wondering if there was something in the air – just as everything seemed tranquil in my life a bulldozer came and disturbed it, all of it. I was trying to focus on what Frankie was saying and I was worried, of course I was, but my head was so full of thoughts of Tiger, I was struggling to follow.
‘He just doesn’t talk to me any more. I’ve said it so many times but now we’ve had a big row. I asked him about school, he didn’t look at me and said, “Fine”, and I got angry, shouted at him that I was his mum not a stranger and he needed to talk to me. I said I cook and clean and buy his clothes and he shows me no respect. Even Tomasz intervened and told me to calm down which is why I am here. I think he threw me out!’ She started laughing and then she started crying. Claire leant over to give her a hug.
‘Frankie, you never get angry,’ she said, which was for the most part true.
‘I know, but you know he’s so infuriating. I know everyone says it’s just a phase and he’ll grow out of it, but I miss my boy.’
‘I know, I’m dreading it when mine grow up, I can see how hard i
t is. Aleksy is changing and it’s confusing. He probably has temporarily forgotten how to speak to adults. He’s discovering girls and trying to find his place, being a teenager, trying to fit in, can be really hard too.’
‘I know and I am pushing it, which is wrong. Tommy is still so much fun, I guess that just makes me miss Aleksy more. And also then I worry Tommy is going to be like him soon and I can’t have two of them ignoring me in my own home.’
‘You have to try to give him space, and Sylvie is going through the same.’
‘Yes, but with Connie I understand it more. She’s had to leave her home country, her friends and her dad and start again, right at the wrong age, but Aleksy, well nothing has changed for him, or nothing major.’
‘I know, I feel so bad for Connie but then I also feel bad for Sylvie because she’s struggling too.’
‘Oh goodness, I am such a foolish.’ Franceska’s English was perfect but sometimes, when she got stressed, she got her words a bit muddled. ‘I have Tomasz, who is amazing, I have the restaurants, which are all great, and I have Tommy. And one day I will get my Aleksy back. I should be counting my blessings, not moaning.’
‘That’s not what I meant but when you put it like that,’ Claire laughed. ‘You know Aleksy is so handsome and clever, and he’s kind, he’ll find his way back to you.’
‘Oh Claire, how do you always know to say the right thing?’
‘Meow.’ I had taught her well.
Franceska helped Claire get the children ready for bed and was about to leave when Jonathan came home.
‘Hey ladies,’ he said kissing Claire and giving Franceska a hug. ‘How are we?’
‘Good, and about to leave,’ Franceska replied. ‘You know, before Tomasz sends out a search party. Thank you again, Claire,’ she said, as she kissed her cheek, then she petted me before going.
‘What was she thanking you for?’ Jonathan asked.
‘Oh, she’s worried about Aleksy. You know, the terrible teenager.’
‘Yeah, Tomasz mentioned it. If you ask me he’s discovered girls.’