The Cat Who Came In From The Cold Read online

  Deric Longden had never thought of himself a cat lover, but from the moment he saw the tiny kitten sitting on an upturned bucket down in the garden he was hooked. Strictly speaking, the little cat belonged to the neighbours, but somehow when it began to rain it seemed only natural to bring him inside, and once there he slipped so easily into Deric’s and Aileen’s lives that there was an unspoken agreement that he had found his real home. Little did he know that he had entered the Longden world, in which ordinary life is always just a little out-of-the-ordinary.

  Aileen being Aileen, it was probably inevitable that sooner or later the kitten would be trapped in the refrigerator for longer than was good for him. And Deric being Deric, the obvious was to thaw him back to life was to make a little coat for him out of an old thermal vest. Thus the cat who came in from the cold got his name – ‘Thermal’ – and joined the wonderful cast of characters in the ongoing Longden saga.

  ‘The Cat Who Came in from the Cold’ combines Deric Longden’s unique style of gentle humour with al the comic solemnity and cuddly charm of an irresistible kitten.

  Deric Longden

  Deric Longden was born in Chesterfield in 1936 and married Diana Hill in 1957. They had two children, Sally and Nick. After various jobs he took over a small factory making women’s lingerie, but began writing and broadcasting in the 1970s and before long he was writing regularly for programmes like ‘Does He Take Sugar?’ and ‘Woman’s Hour’. Most of his work was based on his own experience. The demands made on him by Diana’s illness, subsequently believed to be a form of ME, forced him to sell the factory and since then he has devoted himself to full-time writing, broadcasting, lecturing and after-dinner speaking.

  Diana’s Story, published in 1989, some years after Diana’s death, was a bestseller. The book hit the Sunday Times best seller list straight away and won the NCR book award. It was followed by Lost for Words, The Cat Who Came in from the Cold, I’m a Stranger Here Myself, Enough to Make a Cat Laugh, A Play On Words and Paws In The Proceedings. Deric Longden’s first two books were adapted for television under the title Wide-Eyed and Legless and an adaptation of Lost for Words. Both were nominated for multiple BAFTAs. Lost For Words, screened in January 1999, attracted an audience of more than 12 million viewers and won the Emmy for best foreign drama and a BAFTA for Thora Hird as best actress. Lost for Words, read by Deric, was voted the most popular book in 50 years on BBC’s Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour by the listeners.

  He married the writer Aileen Armitage in 1990 and now lives in Huddersfield. Aileen and he were jointly were awarded honorary Doctor of Literature from Huddersfield University in 2004 and Deric a honorary Master of Letters from Derby University in 2006.

  www.dericlongden.com

  Also by Deric Longden

  Diana’s Story

  Lost for Words

  I’m a Stranger Here Myself

  Enough to Make a Cat Laugh

  Play on Words

  Paws in the Proceedings

  THE CAT WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD

  Deric Longden

  Publishing History

  First published by Bantam Press a division of Transworld Publishers Ltd 1991

  2011 Transferred to digital publication by Bibliophile Ltd.

  All enquiries to:

  Bibliophile Books

  Unit 5 Datapoint, South Crescent, London E16 4TL

  Tel 0207 474 2474

  [email protected]

  Mail order www.bibliophilebooks.com

  Author website www.dericlongden.com

  ISBN-13: 978-0900123-80-1

  Deric Longden has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work

  © Copyright in text 2012 Deric Longden

  © Copyright design Bibliophile Books

  To Jim Cochrane and all my friends at Transworld

  – for bringing me in from the cold

  CHAPTER ONE

  If the kitten hadn’t smiled up at me, well maybe I could have resisted him. Just the palest flicker moved across his serious little chess-player’s face – and then it quickly dived for cover, back under the worried frown. But it was enough and in that moment he had me where he wanted me.

  Patrick had introduced us over the hedge.

  ‘What about that then?’

  ‘What about what?’

  ‘That – over there.’

  He pointed to an upturned bucket on the top of which a small white kitten was performing a semi-professional juggling act with a wine-stained cork and a clothes-peg.

  ‘Is it yours?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let’s have a look at it.’

  I had never thought of Patrick as an animal lover. He was a big man, as hard as nails and I didn’t know then about his soft centre.

  The kitten disappeared from sight as a huge fist closed over him and then he blinked at the sunlight as he emerged on my side of the hedge.

  He was about the size of a jam pot and he had a leg stuck on each corner.

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Tigger.’

  ‘That’s original.’

  ‘It’s the name he came with.’

  The kitten looked up at me and shook his head as though to say it wasn’t.

  ‘There’s nothing to him. What are you feeding him on?’

  ‘He can catch mice – I don’t believe in spoiling ’em.’

  As dusk fell I watched him from the kitchen window. Down in the courtyard next door he sat on his bucket, a bewildered expression on his sad little face as he wondered why his mother hadn’t come for him yet.

  Aileen crept up silently behind me.

  ‘You’re not still worried about that kitten?’

  ‘It’s tiny. It could get mugged by a mouse.’

  ‘We haven’t got any mice.’

  ‘Then the poor little devil’s going to starve to death.’

  It was out there again early next morning. Patrick and Sarah had gone to work and the kitten mooched around the courtyard sniffing at the pansies, the only flowers he could reach with such a low-slung nose.

  He worked out for a few minutes on the rim of a plant pot and then went and sat on his bucket once more. Somebody had pinched his cork and his clothes-peg was clamped tight to a tea-towel as it swung on the line – it was Monday morning and the peg had a living to earn.

  So had I. I took a slice of toast and a coffee into my office and switched on the computer. This was the best part of the day – sitting at my desk, in my dressing-gown, reading over the pages I had written the day before.

  Out of the corner of my eye and two storeys down, I could see the Lowry-like figures bent against the drizzle, battling their way to work. I’d had thirty years of that but not any more – I switched on the fan heater with my naked toe and took a bite of toast.

  Drizzle. The kitten would be getting soaked. I pushed my chair back and then paused as common sense tapped me on the shoulder.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m just going to have a look at the kitten – see if it’s all right.’

  ‘How do you mean – see if it’s all right?’

  ‘It’ll be getting wet.’

  ‘It’s a cat – they’re waterproof for God’s sake.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘Of course I’m right – so where are you going?’

  ‘Get some more toast.’

  ‘No you’re not. You haven’t finished that slice yet – you’re going to …’

  ‘Oh piss off.’

  He was still sitting on his upturned bucket, but he seemed to have shrunk. With his white fur plastered flat against his head he was only half the size he had been a
nd that meant there was hardly any kitten there at all.

  He looked up and caught sight of me. I quickly pulled my head away from the kitchen window. Aileen appeared at my elbow.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  Common sense could take the rest of the day off – here was the original article, in the flesh.

  ‘It’s the kitten – he’s still down there.’

  ‘What’s he doing – throwing things at you?’

  ‘No – he’s just looking at me.’

  ‘It shouldn’t be allowed,’ she said and switched on the kettle. I switched it off and filled it with water.

  ‘I feel sorry for it.’

  ‘I know you do.’

  ‘But I don’t want to get involved.’

  ‘I know you don’t.’

  ‘You’re a big help.’

  ‘I know I am.’

  I took another peep through the window and he was waiting for me. For a moment I thought he was going to wave, but no – he just smiled.

  ‘He smiled at me.’

  ‘He what?’

  ‘He smiled at me.’

  ‘Oh God.’

  But he had. It was the sort of smile that suggests, ‘I’m in a hell of a mess, God knows, but I can still laugh at life – well, you have to, don’t you?’ And then he looked away – overcome by the hopelessness of it all. Was that a tear glinting in the corner of his eye?

  I pulled open the fridge door.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Breakfast.’

  ‘I’ll just have toast.’

  ‘The kitten.’

  ‘I don’t believe this.’

  I took out half a roast chicken and carved a slice from the breast – then another.

  ‘One will do.’

  ‘Yes I know, but the outside gets hard. It’s softer if you take it from the inside …’ I tailed off, realizing how ridiculous I sounded. ‘It’ll only have its milk teeth,’ I added, trying to justify myself.

  ‘Then take it some milk.’

  ‘That’s a good idea.’

  I cut the chicken into bite-size chunks with the scissors and covered the pattern on a saucer with milk.

  ‘Here.’

  ‘What?’

  Aileen held out a piece of kitchen roll.

  ‘Take him a napkin – we don’t want him spilling it all over his fur.’

  I was halfway down the fifteen stone steps to the courtyard before I realized that I was still in my bare feet and dressing-gown. The drizzle was getting the hang of it now and turning into the grown-up stuff. What the hell – I was going to have a shower anyway.

  ‘Where are you puss?’

  The courtyard was surrounded by a twelve-foot-high stone wall and the hedge that separated Patrick’s half from my half was matching it inch for inch.

  ‘Come on – breakfast.’

  The hedge was thicker than the wall and I had to fall on my hands and knees to peer through the sparser growth down by the roots. The kitten was peering through at me from the other side – he didn’t have to go down on his hands and knees.

  ‘Good morning.’

  He nodded politely.

  ‘There you are – it’s chicken.’

  I tried to push the saucer through between the roots but the space wasn’t wide enough, so I tilted the saucer slightly and the chicken fell off.

  ‘Damn.’

  He frowned – he wasn’t used to swearing.

  ‘Can you reach it from there?’

  He was puzzled – he wasn’t sure what I was up to.

  ‘It’s nearer your side than mine.’

  He wasn’t there – he was gone.

  Where was he? I heard a lapping noise from down by my left foot and there he was, sitting on a corner of my dressing-gown – his little pink tongue dipping in and out of the saucer.

  How did he do that? It was as though he had been beamed through the hedge.

  ‘You’re a clever lad.’

  I bent over him and patted his head and he took off. He leapt a foot in the air, cracked me under the chin and landed in the saucer.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.’

  He was now sitting under a rhubarb umbrella about a yard away – his white fur punked out into sodden spikes, his prim little paws laced neatly together, his whiskers two sizes too large for him. He had the ridiculous dignity of an elderly General who had no idea that his fly was undone.

  I stood up and walked towards him. He stood up and walked away from me.

  ‘I won’t hurt you.’

  I cornered him by the stone trough.

  ‘You’ve got to go back home.’

  There was nothing he would like better. The waterlogged fur began to rise on his back, reluctantly at first, but then sheer will-power soon had it standing to attention.

  I watched his legs grow two inches longer and then he made a break for it. Dipping his shoulder and feinting to the left, he sold me the perfect dummy – zapping between the coalhouse door and a bag of fine Irish peat, he went like a racehorse across the stone pavers towards the hedge.

  I sauntered across after him. There was no hurry – he was stuck between two thick privet trunks, his little back legs still pounding away and kicking up dirt like the only car in the rally without four-wheel drive.

  With one hand I eased back one of the offending branches and with the other I pushed at his furry little bottom. A shiver ran all along his spine – he’d heard about men like me.

  The spinning tyres suddenly gripped at the loose soil and he shot through the gap and raced towards the safety of his upturned bucket.

  I bent my head and I could see him, breathing heavily atop his enamel castle.

  Under my hands I felt the small chunks of chicken and I began to flick them, Subbuteo-like, over to his side of the courtyard.

  ‘There you are – it’s chicken.’

  He gave a shudder of disgust, raised one leg high in the air and began to lick his bottom. If this was breakfast – he could very well do without it.

  It rained all day – well almost. Around four o’clock the weather took a tea-break and I took a stroll in the garden. Every ten minutes or so since breakfast I had indulged in a little kitten-checking from high up in the kitchen window, but now I could get a breath of fresh air and a close-up.

  All day he had splashed about the courtyard chasing leaves – he didn’t seem to know about cover, that it might be drier under the steps or in the porch. He would hide behind his bucket in the pouring rain, waiting for an unsuspecting leaf to stroll by, and then he would jump out and thump it.

  Every now and then one of the bigger leaves would turn nasty and fight back and he would jump up on to his bucket out of harm’s way. The half-inch metal rim now held a shallow pond and as he sat down he would lower his furry little bottom gingerly, a look of pure distaste wavering across his face. But it was his bucket and it was safe up there.

  The leaves were a nuisance – even the pleasant ones. Within minutes of being cast off by the trees in Green-head Park, they would band together and then rush across the road to block our drains and beat up poor defenceless kittens.

  I decided to teach them a lesson and nipped into the cellar for a brush and a shovel. Ten steps lead down to the cellar, then there’s a twist under a stone porch before the door comes into view.

  The porch is where the leaves go to die. Thousands of them lay face up, on their backs, legs in the air – silently willing themselves into peat.

  I made a start there, and I had the best part of a bin-liner full before I began work on the steps. As I stood on the third from the bottom my head emerged above the level of the courtyard, and through the hedge I could see a little white face wondering where the hell I’d got to.

  ‘I’m clearing up the leaves,’ I told him.

  ‘Serves ’em right.’

  ‘They’re a nuisance aren’t they?’

  ‘One bit me.’

  He watched with interest as I introduced him
to the many and varied technical aspects of brushing and shovelling. The slow drag, the retreating shovel, the final flick – he was fascinated.

  ‘It’s all in the wrist,’ I told him.

  He nodded.

  The drizzle had been sending out advance scouts to see how the land lay and now, acting on their reports, it began a mass offensive.

  ‘So that’s it then – I’ve got to go in now.’

  The saturated fur on his head had separated, revealing a 1920s parting just above his left ear – he could have played opposite Clara Bow. His face was a picture of concentration – he had a big decision to make and I waited.

  With one decisive shuffle and a wiggle of the hips, he forced his head between the roots and through the hedge, his ears pinging back and forth against the twigs.

  His rear-end followed as a matter of course and then, taking a dozen tentative steps across the paving stones, he came over to me and sat on the shovel.

  We looked at one another. We both had a decision to make – we both knew that whatever happened now, it was for life.

  I smiled and he smiled and then I put down the brush, picked up the shovel, and carried him into the house.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It takes time to break through the wall of Aileen’s concentration. She sat at her desk, gazing at the screen of her word processor, but her mind was out there on the bleak moors of Yorkshire, observing the scene with a cool neutrality as her villain was savaged to death by a pig. She’s a strange woman.

  The letters she typed came up black and large – three inches high, five to the screen, before they moved off stage-left to allow others to take their place.

  Her right eye gave up the ghost years ago and the left sees only light and shade and big blobs like letters three inches high. The retina in that eye is on its last legs and by rights she should see nothing at all. She’s also a remarkable woman.

  I coughed but she didn’t notice. I felt a bit silly standing by her desk holding a shovel with a kitten on it. I coughed again and she came back into the real world.

  ‘I’ve brought someone to see you.’