Oliver the Cat Who Saved Christmas

by Sheila Norton

  He stood up and pulled her into his arms. ‘You should have done. You must look after yourself, Nick. I don’t want you catching a chill and getting ill. Not now.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she said. ‘The baby’s plenty warm enough in here.’ She patted her tummy. ‘Anyway, what were you doing all that time?’

  ‘I tried to tell you. The guy on the corner – his name’s Tony…’

  ‘Couldn’t start his car. So you spent half an hour or more watching him?’

  ‘No! It was obvious what the problem was – his battery was flat. I knocked on the car window and asked if he wanted some help.’

  ‘Ah!’ She laughed. ‘I might have guessed.’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t just watch him going on and on turning the ignition and risking flooding his engine, could I. He and his wife were supposed to be going to visit their daughter. They’re pensioners, and I’m not being funny but he seemed a bit clueless about cars. I asked him if he had a battery charger, and he looked at me like I was talking Swahili! His wife told him to take me round to his garage to have a look for myself. He doesn’t know what he’s got in there, she told me. And yes, there was a battery charger, still in its box like it had never been used, so…’

  ‘You came to the rescue.’ Nicky laughed. ‘Well, that was nice of you.’

  ‘The battery’s still on charge, of course. I’ll pop back later and see if I can get it going for him. He phoned his daughter to say they’d go tomorrow instead. I told him he really needs a new battery. But at least he should be OK temporarily, as long as he doesn’t leave his lights on or anything silly like that.’

  ‘You sound really … kind of fired-up.’ Nicky looked at him a bit sadly. ‘I’d almost forgotten how much you always enjoyed it – tinkering around with cars.’

  ‘Hardly tinkering around. Just putting a battery on charge. Not like getting down and dirty taking an engine out.’ He shrugged and picked up his mug to take a sip of tea. ‘Never mind. One of these days perhaps I’ll at least have time to start playing around with our own old wreck. That’d be a start. As things are, it’s a good job we only use it to drive to the station and back. It’s amazing it even got through its MOT. If it was a horse, they’d have put it down.’

  Nicky laughed. ‘You will get time, Dan, when the spring comes, and the lighter evenings. If you can do it up a bit, we should probably sell it. We can hardly afford to fill it up, never mind paying the tax and insurance. We were mad to buy it in the first place, even though it was cheap. We’d be better off using the bus.’

  ‘Just another of our crap decisions,’ he agreed, sighing.

  And they both stood there, sipping their tea, watching the wood begin to glow orange and red in the fireplace, and I decided it was time to meow my urgent need to be let out.

  * * *

  By the time I jumped through the cat flap in Sarah and Martin’s kitchen, I was hungry again, despite having had some food earlier next door. Nobody seemed to be around downstairs, but I could hear voices from the bathroom. I padded upstairs, enjoying the warmth of the central heating. The bathroom door was half open and there was a steamy, soapy feel in the air. I could tell from this, and from the splashes and laughter coming from the room, that the children were in the bath. I’ve never understood why humans seem to find sitting in water so enjoyable, but I certainly wasn’t going to get near enough to get splashed myself. I darted into the girls’ bedroom and waited on Rose’s bed for someone to notice me and remember to feed me.

  After a while I heard Martin calling from downstairs.

  ‘Hello! I’ve finished in the shed now.’ Presumably doing his Saturday pottering again. ‘Shall I start putting some dinner on?’

  ‘Yes please!’ I meowed loudly.

  ‘Oh – Ollie’s back,’ I heard Grace saying in the bathroom. ‘I can hear him in our bedroom, Mummy.’

  ‘He must be hungry. He’s been out all day, hasn’t he,’ Sarah said. ‘Martin, will you put some food down for Ollie, please? I’m just chasing the kids out of the bath, then we’ll all be down. I’ve told them they can stay up and watch TV for a while tonight once they’re in their pyjamas.’

  ‘Where does Ollie go when he’s out all day?’ Rose asked. ‘I hope he doesn’t run into the road,’ she added quietly.

  ‘I’m sure he won’t,’ Sarah said, but they’d all gone quiet and I knew Rose had started thinking about Sooty again.

  I jumped off the bed, anticipating my dinner, but just then Grace came bounding into the room with her dressing-gown on.

  ‘Hello, Ollie,’ she said, squatting down to stroke me. ‘You won’t get too close to the roads, will you?’

  ‘No,’ I meowed firmly in Cat. ‘I’m not an idiot like my friend Tabby.’

  She put her lips close to my ear and did this thing humans call whispering. It’s like talking, you see, Charlie, but without their voice coming out. It tickled my ear.

  ‘Don’t tell anyone,’ she said. ‘But I’m going to buy Rose a new cat. I mean, one to keep forever, because you’re going to go back to your real home one day, aren’t you?’

  And with that, she ran off downstairs, while I followed more slowly, my heart in my paws. So it was true. They were going to get rid of me. Or even worse, bring a new cat into the house who would resent me, as a lodger, and make my life difficult.

  I was so upset I almost didn’t enjoy my dinner.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The next morning, as promised, I was outside the front gate bright and early, washing the breakfast off my whiskers while I waited for Tabby. He eventually turned up, looking as gloomy as a cat in a cage.

  ‘I wish I didn’t have to face her,’ he said as we set off to look for Suki. ‘She’s just going to give me another mouthful of abuse.’

  ‘So let’s get it over with. Remember, just try to be sympathetic. I’ve heard females have something called hormones going on when they get pregnant. I don’t know what it is, but it probably isn’t very nice.’

  ‘All right, Ollie, I’ll do my best. But be a good cat and back me up if she starts on me.’

  Suki was sitting on a windowsill of her house, staring out. When she saw us coming along the road she sat up straight and fixed us with a really mean, vicious glare.

  ‘This doesn’t bode well,’ Tabby groaned.

  We waited in her front garden as Suki jumped down from the windowsill, her tail already flicking dangerously, and disappeared from view.

  ‘She’ll be heading straight for the cat flap,’ he said, ‘and then straight for my throat.’

  ‘Stay calm. Don’t go on the offensive,’ I advised him, although I obviously wasn’t looking forward to the confrontation either.

  ‘Look what the dog dragged in,’ Suki meowed nastily as she reappeared round the side of the house. ‘I thought you must have done a runner, Tabby. Haven’t seen you around since our last fight. Too scared to face me, were you?’

  ‘No, I just don’t want to fight with you,’ he said, in a pathetic whining mew. I looked at him in surprise. I’d never heard Tabby sound so unsure of himself before. ‘What’s done is done, Suki.’

  ‘Yes, but you’re not the one walking around with kittens in your tummy as a result.’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, but…’

  ‘Don’t say but,’ I said to him very quietly. ‘Just sorry.’

  ‘Sorry isn’t good enough. And who asked you, Oliver?’ She immediately turned her venom on me. ‘Who asked you to get involved anyway?’

  ‘Tabby did,’ I admitted. ‘But it’s true, he is sorry. He was telling me yesterday how sorry he is. He wishes the pair of you didn’t mate in the first place, don’t you, Tabby?’

  ‘Do I?’ Tabby gave me a puzzled look. ‘Oh, er … I suppose I do, yes, in the circumstances.’

  ‘So now you’re saying you didn’t even enjoy it?’ she shrieked.

  ‘No! No, I’m not saying that.’ He got up and turned around a couple of times on the spot, looking even more uncomfortable than I f
elt, while Suki just sat there, glaring, waiting. ‘Look,’ he said again finally, with an air of desperation in his meows. ‘You’re a nice cat, Suki, and we had fun, didn’t we?’

  ‘And now I’m having kittens, you’re dumping me.’

  ‘No! Did I say that? I’ve only stayed away from you because you’ve been in such a foul mood.’

  I glared at him. That didn’t sound like the best thing to say to her.

  ‘I’m pregnant!’ she hissed at him. ‘Of course I’m in a bad mood.’

  ‘All right. But it won’t last forever, will it. And then, afterwards, maybe we can get together and have fun again,’ Tabby said, looking suddenly considerably brighter.

  ‘What!’ she screeched. ‘Are you completely off your head? You needn’t think you’re going to talk me into it again. Anyway, my humans have always said they were going to get me spayed after I’d had one litter. I just don’t think they expected it to happen quite so soon. And nor did I,’ she added, giving him another reproachful look.

  ‘It must have been a shock for you,’ I said, trying for my most sympathetic mew. ‘Have your humans not realised yet that you’re expecting?’

  ‘No, but I’m sure they soon will. At the rate I’m putting on weight, I won’t get through the cat flap for much longer.’

  ‘You still look good to me, Suki,’ Tabby purred.

  I stared at him. It was unbelievable. Even now he was trying to come on to her. He couldn’t seem to help himself. I was so glad I didn’t have to live my life at the mercy of these strange urges.

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, trying to change the subject, ‘we think you’ll be an excellent mother, don’t we, Tabby?’

  ‘Yes, excellent,’ he said without much obvious interest. If cats could shrug, his shoulders would have been up round his ears.

  ‘Do you really think so, Ollie?’ she said.

  And I suddenly realised she was probably frightened. That was why she was being so aggressive. She was still a young female and probably had no idea how she was going to cope with the birth and raising the kittens.

  ‘Of course I mean it,’ I said. ‘You’ve got exactly the right temperament. It’s as if you were born to be a mother. Isn’t it, Tabby?’

  ‘Er, yes. Sure.’

  ‘And you know what? I bet once they’re born, you’re actually going to love those kittens,’ I went on. ‘Little kittens are so cute, everybody loves them – but their mothers always love them best of all.’

  Suki was looking at me very strangely.

  ‘That’s a nice thing to say, Ollie. But what’s the matter? You look like you’re going to cry.’

  ‘I’m all right,’ I said, turning away. I went and sat a little way away from them, washing myself, trying not to show how much I did feel like crying.

  ‘He was taken away from his mother,’ I heard Tabby telling Suki very quietly.

  ‘Kittens nearly always leave their mothers,’ she retorted. ‘We can’t keep them all with us forever.’

  ‘No. But I bet when you were a kitten, you at least stayed with your mum until you were old enough to walk, and see properly, and eat meat. I bet you weren’t snatched away from your mum and left to die.’

  ‘Oh.’

  I turned back to look at her. She’d gone all soft-looking, like she wanted to cry herself.

  ‘Poor Ollie,’ she said gently. ‘I didn’t know. And you’ve turned out to be such a nice cat, haven’t you, despite everything. Unlike some males I could mention!’ she added with another venomous glare at Tabby. She stood up and stretched. ‘Anyway, I’ll be seeing you both, I suppose. I need my rest. I’ve got my kittens to think about now.’

  We watched her turn tail and head back round the side of her house.

  ‘Well,’ Tabby said, ‘I think I handled that quite well, don’t you?

  * * *

  Back at Sarah and Martin’s house, it was looking very festive. Martin had put twinkly lights over the front door and the windows, and the children were helping Sarah to put decorations up in the lounge. They were singing songs about red nosed reindeers and the three kings of Orient, whoever they were, and talking about making Christmas cards for their school friends. After they’d had their Sunday lunch they all went out to visit some friends in another village. Left on my own, I sat on the back of the sofa, looking at the pretty baubles twinkling on the Christmas tree. A couple of them were within easy reach of my paws from where I was sitting. They were just hanging there, sparkling at me, begging to be swatted. Nobody would ever know, would they? I reached out one paw and batted a big silver one. It swung backwards and forwards prettily on the tree for a minute. Very nice. I batted it a bit harder. Oh, it was so satisfying – I could keep this up all day. A little Father Christmas figure was swaying just above my head. I lay on my back and reached up with my back paws, giving it a good kick, then jumped up again and swiped at a red shiny bauble on a higher branch. By now the adrenaline was really pumping. How far up could I reach? With a little jump I could hit that big glittery golden one … pow! Oh, drat. I misjudged the jump slightly and instead of landing safely on the back of the sofa, crashed through the lower branches of the tree, ending up tumbling off the bucket and onto the floor. A shower of pine needles fell over me, followed by two or three baubles and some tinsel, which had got itself round my neck. I ran for the kitchen, shaking the tinsel and pine needles off as I went. Phew! That had ended up a bit scary. Just as well nobody was watching. I gave myself a good wash and decided to pop round to see Nicky and Daniel, so that I wouldn’t be tempted by any more illicit play with the baubles.

  The cottage next door was so bare compared with Sarah and Martin’s house. Nicky was cleaning her little kitchen in silence while Daniel was busy putting something he called draught excluder around their doors and windows instead of twinkling lights.

  ‘Cheer up, babe,’ he said, coming into the kitchen and putting his arms around her waist from behind. ‘Things are going to get better.’

  ‘Are they, though, Dan? It’s only two and a bit weeks now till my parents are due to come. It’s nice that Sarah and Martin are putting them up overnight, but I’ve still got no idea how we’re going to make it seem anything like a proper Christmas.’

  ‘We’ll get presents for them, and for your brothers. And I’ll get a turkey, and all the trimmings, I promise. I’ll put it all on my credit card.’

  ‘Your card’s already maxed out. Don’t be stupid. We’re in enough debt as it is.’

  ‘So a little bit more won’t hurt. Come on, Nick, it’s nearly Christmas. We need to think positive.’

  Just then there was a knock on the door. They looked at each other in surprise.

  ‘Can’t imagine who that might be,’ Daniel muttered.

  He went to open the door, and I heard him say, ‘Oh, hello again, Tony. Come in, for God’s sake, it’s freezing out there. How’s the car?’ he added as he closed the door and led the way into the kitchen.

  ‘Running perfectly smoothly, thanks to you,’ the other man was saying. His voice sounded pleasant enough, but nevertheless he was still a strange male, and my heart was doing its usual little dance of fear. ‘I hope I didn’t keep your husband too long yesterday,’ he added to Nicky.

  ‘Not at all,’ she said with a smile. ‘He loves nothing better than tinkering with cars, and he doesn’t often get the opportunity. I’m Nicky, by the way – I don’t think we’ve met. We only moved here a few months ago.’

  ‘I’m Tony.’ He suddenly caught sight of me cowering under the little kitchen table. ‘Oh, your cat looks just like the one that used to live in the pub.’

  ‘He is! It’s Oliver. He spends some of his time with us, and some with Martin and Sarah next door – since the fire, you know,’ Daniel explained. He picked me up and gave me a little stroke. ‘He’s a bit shy with strangers, but he’s a lovely boy, aren’t you, Ollie?’

  I purred in response, feeling much safer in Daniel’s arms.

  ‘I was never a regular in the Fores
ter’s, but I thought I recognised him. I heard George had had to relocate temporarily. Good of you and Martin to take care of the cat.’

  ‘Oh, it’s been nice to have him around, when we’re here, that is. We both work in London all week.’

  ‘Do you? I don’t envy you. I used to commute myself, before I retired a couple of years back. Not a lot of fun, is it, and so expensive these days.’

  Daniel glanced at Nicky and nodded. ‘You’re right there.’

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea or something, Tony?’ Nicky asked.

  ‘No, thank you, I’m sure you’re busy. I just came to thank you again, really, for your help. This is just by way of a small recompense for your time.’ He held out a carrier bag, adding, ‘It’s not much.’

  ‘Oh!’ Daniel blinked and went a bit pink. ‘There wasn’t any need…’

  There was a clinking of bottles as he put me down and took the bag from Tony. I knew that sound quite well, of course, from my days at the pub. Daniel peered inside the bag and exclaimed: ‘No, really, you don’t have to do this!’

  ‘I insist. It’s the least we could do. If you hadn’t helped me out I’d have had to call someone from the garage in town, and you can imagine what they’d have charged me, just for my own stupidity in letting the battery go flat. It’s only a couple of bottles of plonk.’

  ‘And this too?’ Daniel asked, lifting something else out of the bag. It was a bowl of some sort, covered with that plastic stuff they call cling film.

  ‘Just a Christmas pudding,’ Tony said with a short laugh. ‘Chuck it out if you don’t want it.’

  ‘Of course we wouldn’t chuck it out,’ Nicky said, looking shocked. ‘But surely you want it yourselves for Christmas?’

  ‘My wife makes half a dozen of the things every year, love, and there’s only us, and my daughter and son-in-law. I think she wants to feed the entire village. She always gives one to the WI for a raffle prize, and one to the Scouts’ bazaar – not that they’re having one of course, this year, because of the hall.’ He shrugged. ‘If it’s any good to you, please take it and enjoy it. They’re good, I have to say, her puddings. There’s just too many of them.’