The Twelve Strange Days of Christmas

by Syd Moore

  This one here, Norah, had been slightly different. She’d passed over some time yesterday afternoon or evening, according to the coroner. But her timing had been a little skewed because she was on her own. Although, Janet corrected herself, that wasn’t entirely true. The neighbour, who popped in with a quiche for Norah on Christmas night, had phoned the police and informed them of her demise, adding that there were ‘a lot of cats there’. The medical examiner had also noticed the abundance of Norah’s feline friends and suggested Social Services should get them to the local animal refuge asap. So when Janet got the call she came straight away.

  If she’d have known Matt was going to take as long as he had to get the keys and meet her in Adder’s Fork, then she would have gone and got them herself.

  But hindsight is a wonderful thing, she thought, as he jangled them in front of her.

  ‘Let’s get in then, shall we?’ he suggested ‘Do you know how many furry friends she had in there?’

  Janet stopped herself from snapping that if she knew that she would have gone to the refuge first and got the required number of cages. She just said, ‘No, let’s open up and see.’

  Thankfully there was no smell of death in the place, no lingering odour of decay or leaked body fluids. You got it in some. She was grateful that this old girl had had a dignified exit, been found quite soon after and that the cats hadn’t got hungry in the interim.

  Janet did a quick tour of the upstairs and found it empty. The sparse furniture that remained had been covered in dust sheets, so they looked like ghosts of the old lady’s memories. Norah had only used the ground floor of the cottage. The living room was multi-functional as bedroom, dining room and living room, too. Though it was full of furniture.

  Matt eyed the comfy chair opposite the telly. It sagged deeply in the middle. Someone had sat there a lot. ‘So sad, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘That she spent Christmas on her own.’

  But Janet shook her head. ‘Some people like it like that. Christmas can be an awful strain.’

  Matt, young and family-friendly, sighed. ‘Well, I wouldn’t want to end up like this.’

  ‘She had her cats, Matt. Remember?’

  He did. ‘That’s right. And I count three of them in here.’ He pointed to a silver Siamese, a skinny ginger tom and one that was black over its body but pale round the legs, as if it were wearing white socks.

  ‘Mmm,’ said Janet. ‘I’m not sure that these constitute “a lot”.’

  So she went into the kitchen. It was a lot yuckier in there.

  By the door sat a hairy brown cat with, what she’d call ‘wide fur’. She wasn’t a cat person, but this one looked comfy and cosy, exactly the kind of thing you’d want to cuddle up to on cold nights. It was settled on the doormat and, judging from the smell of things, was seriously incontinent. Perhaps, she thought, it had been waiting to be let out. Her heart contracted with an unexpected spasm of empathy for the poor old thing and she thought about opening the door but, just as quickly, remembered that cats were rather headstrong creatures and there would be no guaranteeing that if it got out, the tabby would come back when required.

  She scurried over and bent down.

  ‘Sorry dear,’ she said to the fat tabby. ‘We’re going to have to take you away. But you’ll be fine. It’s a refuge. You can go to the loo there.’

  She went to stroke it, but just as she extended her hand, the big furry ball leapt at her.

  ‘Ow,’ she yelped and withdrew her arm. The cat had clawed the flesh on her wrist.

  ‘Oh you shrew.’ She got up as it stood there making a funny noise and staring at her and went to the sink to run the wound under water. There was another one, entirely grey, patrolling the work surface. It came to the sink and looked at her.

  ‘I hope you’re not as bad mannered as your pal down there,’ she said, and it promptly batted her with its paw.

  It was a light movement and did not hurt her arm, though Janet’s pride was injured. ‘Excuse me!’ she said with indignation and flicked some water at it. The grey, however, did not have much of a sense of humour. In fact, it must have been quite upset because before she had time to turn the tap off it had leapt at her and dug its paws in around her head.

  ‘Gerroff! Gerroff!’ she screamed and staggered back, hit the back door, heard the yowl of the incontinent tabby that had returned to its place there and tried to throw the grey off her. But it had sunk in its claws.

  ‘Get off me!’ she screamed and heard the interior door opening. Fast footsteps came into the room, though she still couldn’t see where from.

  ‘Good God,’ yelled Matt. ‘What did you do to it?’

  ‘Do to it? Do to it? Nothing,’ Janet snarled through the fug of grey fur.

  She could feel the talons extending deeper into her hairline and knew they had broken the skin, for a trickle of warm blood was running down the side of her face. ‘Get it off.’

  ‘Stop moving,’ said Matt.

  And for once she complied.

  ‘Now, now,’ she heard his voice and had a mind to be angry with her colleague for being so conciliatory with the beast, but the claws began to slacken off.

  ‘Come on, that’s it,’ Matt cooed. Soon he had slipped an arm under the grey’s belly and gently slid it off her head.

  When Janet finally opened her eyes, she saw Matt was holding the little demon on his chest.

  ‘Come on now,’ he cooed again. ‘She’s only trying to help. We both are. Don’t hurt Mummy Janet.’

  Oh God. He was a cat man.

  He leant to the kitchen surface and inched the grey off his chest. It prowled off into the shadows then sat down and began licking Janet’s blood from between its toes.

  ‘He’s a beauty,’ said Matt smiling – yes smiling! She couldn’t believe it. ‘A Russian Blue. Usually they’re so passive.’

  ‘Well that one is bloody well not!’

  ‘They’re disoriented,’ said Matt. ‘You need to remember that. They’ve just lost their mistress.’

  Janet’s compassion had shrivelled, ‘Hmmm. So how many have we got?’

  Matt looked back in the direction of the living room. ‘Five, I think. Though there may be more outside. We’ll have to come back.’

  ‘If they’re outside, then they can fend for themselves,’ said Janet, well and truly peeved.

  ‘She’s cut into you.’ Matt gestured to Janet’s forehead. He pulled out a hanky from his top pocket. ‘You might want to wipe it with this.’

  She took it and held it to the scratch, which was starting to sting. She was allergic to cats.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘That’s five cages then.’

  In the event, when they got to the refuge, the vet was full of frowns. He was also young and a bit surly and appeared to resent the fact that he had been plucked out of the family bosom on Boxing Day.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘We’ve got no room at the inn. I hope you’re aware.’

  Matt and Janet looked at each other, not understanding the biblical reference.

  The vet sighed. Social workers were so literal. ‘There’s no room here for any more referrals,’ he translated. ‘Christmas is our busiest time. You know – a pet’s not just for Christmas? The advert? A lot of them don’t even last the day with their new owners. And we’re the dumping ground. In the past twenty-four hours we’ve received six dogs, four of them puppies left in a wheelie bin, three French hens (dumped in a bottle bank by some poetic arsehole), two kittens abandoned in a plastic bag, a couple of degus that came complete with cage, and a monkey. Don’t ask. Oh yes and a poorly goat called Brian who was taped into an industrial waste bag and left in the alley out back.’

  Janet tutted. ‘Some people have no conscience.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ said the vet.

  ‘No room?’ Matt repeated, just to be sure. ‘No room here? But you told us to bring them at once.’

  ‘That’s right. And you can leave them here but they’ll have to be put to sleep. Unless you c
an organise new homes for them? We can’t.’

  Even Janet was quite shocked by the bald statement. ‘But it’s Boxing Day. You can’t expect us to organise alternative accommodation for five cats today.’

  ‘Then I’m afraid, they’ll have to go to the big cat basket in the sky,’ said the vet. ‘In the most humanitarian way, of course.’ He smiled thinly. ‘However, we only have four cages to transport them,’ he said as an afterthought.

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Matt.

  The vet leaned on his metal table. ‘Failed maths, did you? Two trips.’

  *

  It took them a while to get Norah’s cats into the cages. They really did not want to go, and Janet experienced some small amount of shame as she and Matt shut the doors on each of them. But not that vicious Russian Blue. Oh no. Though Matt did the coaxing, it was Janet who triumphantly fastened the door on that little devil.

  ‘I’ll get the vet to start with you,’ she said to it through its bars.

  And he did.

  They didn’t want to hear or see Norah’s cats making their way to cat heaven so as soon as the deed had been done with the malicious grey, they took its vacant cage and returned to the cottage.

  There was only one left. The antique tabby with the fat hair.

  Janet wondered briefly if she might be able to take it, but what with her allergies it wasn’t a good idea.

  ‘Maybe you’ve got room for that tabby?’ she asked Matt as they pulled up outside the cottage again.

  ‘The incontinent one, on the mat?’ asked her colleague. ‘Seriously? There is no way my wife would have her inside. But maybe the neighbour?’ he said and jerked his head at the door.

  A woman was waiting for them. She had a fake fur coat with her hair in a top knot. When she saw them she gave a wan smile. It had a semi-friendly edge to it.

  ‘Good idea,’ said Janet, hopefully.

  As they approached the door with the remaining cage, the woman came forwards.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘The door was open. I hope you don’t mind me coming over. I was on my way in. You’ve got my key.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. It’s Mrs Hope, isn’t it?’ said Matt. ‘Sorry for not getting them back to you sooner. It’s been a bit of a day.’

  And they made their way into the living room. Janet placed the cage on the floor and, to her amazement, watched the fat tabby walk straight in.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Janet. ‘What with all Norah’s cats. We’ve had to go back and forth, back and forth.’ And she touched the scratch on her hairline. ‘Been a bit of a trial.’

  The woman blinked. Her long-coated lashes batted up and down. Janet could smell her flowery perfume.

  ‘Norah’s cats?’ said Mrs Hope, a big furrow developing between her eyebrows.

  ‘Yes. We found five of them,’ said Matt. ‘Were there more?’

  The woman shook out the wrinkles on her forehead and smiled. ‘Oh Norah only had the one. This tubby little tabby, here. Bit of a handful, I always thought. But Norah absolutely adored her.’

  ‘But,’ said Matt. ‘There were “lots”. You reported lots. The medical examiner said there were lots. And we found them.’ He gulped. ‘Here.’ His voice broke as he said, ‘Her cats.’

  Mrs Hope poked her hand through the cage and stroked the tabby. ‘Oh no,’ she laughed. ‘Norah simply loved feeding all us neighbours’ cats. Spent a fortune on cat food. We used to send meals round as payback, really. That’s why I’m here. I thought I’d better collect my Sukie before it gets dark. Have you seen her? She’s a Russian Blue?’

  Matt’s face was paling to match the fur of dearly departed Sukie. Under his nose small drops of perspiration had appeared.

  ‘You know,’ said Janet, her voice faltering. ‘Some mistakes are easily made . . .’

  IN THE BAG

  Cliff finished polishing the brass urn and smiled to himself with mischief. He had missed a section, just below the lid, right at the front where a large pewter dove, its wings outspread, was borne aloft on a gust of hope, flying in peace to a new destination. Fluttering beneath it were three smaller creatures: two mockingbirds, he had been reliably informed by the undertaker, and a canary. All of which suggested peace in the afterlife but also formed an attractive decoration that enabled the urn to pass as an ordinary vase. Some people could be quite sensitive about ashes kept in living rooms, apparently. The three lesser birds he polished with zeal – it would please his wife to know he had taken some time to look after her mother’s urn. But this bigger one at the top, well that was going to be left dirty. Just because he could. And no one would be the wiser.

  He sat back, job done, and listened to the quiet.

  A light breeze fluttered the curtains. Outside, in the street, a car backfired. The fridge in the kitchen hummed, spluttered then stilled. A letterbox flapped a few houses down. But apart from that there was nothing.

  It was bliss.

  At last.

  What a relief.

  If his mother-in-law had still been alive, it would be just about now that she would lean out of her deathbed in the spare room above him and call down in her rasping shrill voice: ‘Cliff, dear, you’ve missed a bit.’

  Which would prompt an involuntary response of much teeth gritting and buttock clenching followed by a polite riposte, ‘Yes Doreen, quite right. Thank you so much.’

  But his mother-in-law was dead.

  Dead as a dodo, he thought and smiled again, imagining her with a large beak and feathers.

  Dead as a doornail. He turned that over in his mind and came up with an image of her head on a tiny little screw. This also amused.

  Dead as a dormouse. But no, he thought suddenly. Wasn’t that deaf as a dormouse? Or was it deaf as a doorpost? He couldn’t remember now but either description was entirely inappropriate for his mother-in-law. There was absolutely no way that Doreen could ever be considered even remotely hard of hearing. No indeed. On the contrary: Doreen Johnson’s auditory range had been astonishingly extensive. On one occasion, when his nerves were slightly more frayed than usual, he caught himself wondering if, in fact, she was supernaturally enhanced. For his mother-in-law had been able to decipher every tiny squeak and bump so that she knew exactly what was happening in the house until the day she died. And, as such, was able to monitor his every move. That is until she had just last month obligingly popped her clogs, been incinerated into ashes and brushed into the blue brass urn adorned with calling birds.

  And now she was gone.

  Cliff sighed. Contentedly.

  See, there was no denying Doreen had been a trial of sorts. Though she’d never admit it to his face, Anne would have agreed too. Cliff’s own brother had called her a ‘formidable battle-axe’, and a few other names he would never be able to repeat in front of his dear wife.

  Personally, Cliff thought that battle-axe was another inaccurate description. Doreen had none of those assertive, stoic qualities that people associate with warriors, male or female. Hers was more of a passive aggression, often verbal, with a constant niggling undertone that had burrowed deep into Cliff’s subconscious. During the last months of her illness, when she had been virtually bed-bound upstairs in the spare room, her voice had followed him around the house. She could hear the sounds he made and just tell what he was up to, despite the stairs and floorboards and carpet in between.

  Whenever he’d put the kettle on there would be an ‘Oh a nice cup of tea would be ever-so kind – if you can make time for a little old lady like me, which I expect you can’t really, and why would you now you’ve got your feet nice and snug and under the table?’

  Or when he’d load the washing machine, ‘How is that model going, Cliff? Is it efficient? Isn’t it quiet? I paid such a lot for it, you’d have expected no less. Happy though to help you out. What with your lack of income dear. Us Johnson women have always rallied when there’s a weak link in the chain.’

  When he’d hoover the carpets. ‘You’ve missed a bit, Cliff. No
it’s fine. I’m happy to help. Don’t worry – we all know it doesn’t come naturally to a man. It’s such a feminine instinct, you see, to nest. But the Duchesse 127 is a good vacuum. I know it’s pink but then when I bought it I didn’t think you’d be cleaning up after us girls’ mess.’ And the bloody thing looked like her too – with its pink body and grey spade-like handle. But he’d get those teeth gritted and those buttocks clenched and get on with the job in hand.

  See, Doreen had always had a problem with house-husbands.

  Anne had never expressed any kind of judgement about his status whatsoever. After their daughter Poppy was born, it had seemed the logical choice, given his wife’s meteoric rise through Her Majesty’s Judicial Service and his horizontal trajectory as a council plumber.

  Not that it had always been that way.

  He’d never intended to go into that line of work. Having studied Classics at Durham, he’d always had in the back of his mind a fuzzy idea that by forty he might be a successful professor, lecturing on Homer and immersing himself in archaeological digs in his spare time. But then he’d done the Australian travelling thing and fallen in love with the country. On his return to his frosty island home, he immediately set about researching how to emigrate over there and soon discovered the Lucky Country wanted plumbers galore. In fact Australia was desperate for them. A visa was practically guaranteed.

  Over the next couple of years he worked hard at two jobs and retrained in the evenings achieving a Merit for a Level 3 Diploma in Domestic Plumbing and Heating. He was about to book his flight when he met Anne at an Aussie pub in Earl’s Court. She’d just got back from Sydney and had rocked up to the bar for a dose of irresponsible nostalgia before getting serious and grown up and tackling a starter job as a junior in a pre-eminent law firm.

  One thing led to another then another and within eighteen months Anne was pregnant. The product of the make-up sex that had come after he announced he was going to Australia. But Cliff did the decent thing and cancelled his ticket. And the rest, as they say, is history.