The Cat Who Came In From The Cold Read online

  She looked up at my face for further explanation and then peered around my body towards the door.

  ‘He’s here – on the shovel.’

  I lowered the kitten, JCB-like, until the two were face to face and then Aileen screwed up her eyes and moved in close.

  The kitten swayed back, but held his ground as though his bum had been stapled to the shovel.

  She stroked his head.

  ‘Aren’t you beautiful?’

  He nodded in agreement.

  ‘You’re wet through.’

  He stood up and shook himself and I had to steady him in case he fell off the shovel.

  ‘Come on, let’s dry you off.’

  She carried him into the kitchen and I parked the shovel in the porch. By the time I joined them he had disappeared into the depths of a warm towel and was being rubbed dry by an expert who had practised on four small children.

  He emerged looking as though he had been plugged into the mains. His eyes were wide and his fur fluffed out so that he was now a completely round kitten.

  ‘There, that’s better.’

  He didn’t seem so sure about that, and he padded along the draining board with the unsteady gait of a kitten who has just put on four and a half stone in weight.

  ‘What’s his name again?’

  ‘Tigger.’

  ‘He doesn’t look like a Tigger.’

  ‘He looks like a barrage balloon.’

  My mother used to wash her cat in the sink and then blow-dry him until he was a foot across. The kitten wasn’t in the same class as Whisky – but he could have been a contender.

  He had another plate of chicken, just a little leg and a slice of wing this time – Aileen prepared it for him and she is known for her meanness, but he seemed to enjoy it, and after allowing him the luxury of a large drink and a small belch I carried him into the study and plonked him down on Aileen’s desk.

  ‘You ought to take him back now.’

  ‘It’s still raining and they’re not home yet.’

  ‘Soon then.’

  He was fascinated by Aileen’s gadgets. Strange instructions came up on the word processor screen as he minced across the keyboard on his way to the close circuit television – then on to the fax machine where he paused and lowered his bottom over the grill. A wave of pure pleasure passed across his face as the warm air rose and ruffled his tail-feathers. Then he sat down with a thump and grinned across at us.

  ‘It’s better than my bucket is this.’

  I didn’t want to take him back. It wasn’t just that I felt sorry for him – there was more to it than that and I couldn’t understand it.

  I had never been a cat lover. I didn’t dislike them – I stroked other people’s and had always found kittens to be charming little creatures, but I had always imagined myself with a dog. A big dog – one that would come running at the sound of my voice and then sit gazing up at me adoringly.

  Cats aren’t like that. They are independent little devils with minds and lives of their own and they carve out careers for themselves with never a by-your-leave.

  I glanced down at the kitten, who had now parked himself on my foot – he gazed up at me adoringly.

  Aileen’s voice drifted over from the desk.

  ‘You’re not thinking of keeping him, are you?’

  ‘No – of course not.’

  ‘I thought you always wanted a dog.’

  I looked down at the kitten again and for one solid moment I thought he was going to bark.

  ‘I should take him home now,’ she said.

  Aileen came over to sit with us and he seemed to realize that this was make or break time. He stood up – perhaps he was going to fetch my slippers – but no, his tiny mind was working overtime and then, warily skirting the very edge of the sheepskin rug as though it might bite him, he went over to the opposition.

  He started on her ankles. Most cats are good with ankles but this kitten was something else – he worked with his whole body as though he had served his apprenticeship in a Bangkok massage parlour, he rubbed and nudged and eased and squeezed with back and flank and cheek and chin until Aileen bent double and hoisted him up on to her lap.

  As she stroked him, his head pushed up to meet her palm, and all the while he purred like a diesel engine on a frosty morning.

  It was a Pavarotti of a purr – deep and resonant, with just a touch of untutored roughness about it that took one back to the early days of the young Rod Stewart.

  It even surprised the kitten and he stopped purring to listen to himself, but he couldn’t hear anything so he kick-started his Tannoy system back into action and concentrated on the job in hand.

  His paws shook and his fur rattled as he climbed and sat on her chest and then he went for the big one. I could almost hear him thinking.

  ‘This always gets ’em.’

  He fell on to his side and with his head on her shoulder he played gently with the huge drop-earring that hung from her lobe like a punchbag, tapping it this way and that before standing up and bopping it with his forehead.

  ‘Isn’t he cute?’

  He was sickening. Whose bloody kitten was it anyway? All right it was Patrick’s, but with me it had been two blokes together, an understated, unspoken bond between two mates who weren’t about to embarrass one another with a show of undue affection.

  Now here he was, the chocolate box kid himself, playing Aileen as though she were a musical instrument – any moment now he would produce a box of Black Magic. I stood up.

  ‘I think perhaps I should take him home now.’

  She tickled him under the chin and his eyes closed and his legs buckled.

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ she said, ‘they’ll hardly have missed him yet.’

  The show went on for another half an hour or so and he was now hamming it up like an old actor-manager. I read the paper and pretended to ignore the pair of them. Aileen was completely under his spell. She would have cashed a cheque for him – he only had to ask.

  Every time I snook a glance in their direction I caught the kitten’s eye and wished I hadn’t and then he did the most remarkable thing.

  He was walking across her breast-bone on his way to having a go with the other earring when he stopped, did a double take, and stared at her eyes – first one and then the other.

  He’d stopped acting. This was the kitten I had picked up on the shovel. He turned and shuffled nearer to her face, placed his paws on her throat and rested his chin on hers.

  For several minutes he took stock, scrutinizing her pupils like some small ophthalmic surgeon. Aileen sat very still and waited.

  She has lovely eyes – you have to get up very close to see the black dots and scars of past operations. Sometimes a photograph will betray her – she can’t see the lens and one eye will search for it whilst the other couldn’t care less.

  But unless they were told, or watched as she walked through a plate glass window, no one would ever know that she was blind.

  But the kitten knew, and as we waited, he sat up and, placing one front paw on her cheek, he gently stroked her blind eye with the other.

  We were spellbound. He touched his paw against the other eye and thought about it for a while, then keeled over and fell fast asleep on her shoulder.

  ‘Did you see that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He could tell, couldn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good God.’

  *

  At that point we had no idea that he had now taken up the vacant post of official guide-kitten, but he assumed his duties the moment Aileen peeled him from her shoulder and laid him down gently on the arm of the chair.

  He awoke before she had taken a single stride across the room and then there he was, dancing in front of her like one of Vienna’s Lippizaner horses, sideways and backwards, first his eyes on her feet and then on the doorway.

  ‘Clear the way please – clear the way.’

  Out in the hall he tried to
steer her round the Chinese rug. He seemed to have a thing about rugs, they were black holes into which kittens disappeared, never to be seen again.

  Aileen had no such hang-ups and she strode straight ahead, not seeing the frantic antics of the tiny ball of energy at her feet – and it was at that moment that his lack of formal training let him down.

  ‘Stop!’

  But Aileen didn’t hear him. He hurled himself in front of her high heels without a single thought for his own safety, and then wished he hadn’t been quite so impulsive as she trod on him, stumbled and fell.

  I picked her up, dusted her off and checked for bruises – there weren’t any.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes – I’m fine. Where’s the kitten?’

  I bent down and scraped from the rug all that remained of a now rather flat kitten and checked him for signs of life. He opened one eye.

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘Don’t worry, love – he’ll be all right.’

  ‘I think I’m the best judge of that.’

  ‘He just needs an injection of chicken – straight in the vein.’

  He lay limp in my palm and managed only the merest flicker of a smile.

  ‘My hero,’ he muttered weakly.

  He managed to force down a morsel of chicken breast – well two saucers-full actually, but he made it quite clear to me that it was for medicinal purposes only and I shouldn’t think for one moment that he was enjoying it.

  He gave Aileen a wide berth as he wandered back into the hall. Chicken or no chicken – this being a guide-kitten wasn’t going to be quite the picnic he had imagined.

  Nevertheless he stuck to his task and raced ahead of her as she made for the stairs, then with a mighty leap he landed on the first step.

  Without the long run-up it was going to take an even mightier leap to make the second and to his credit his chin made it, even if the rest of him didn’t. He tried again, this time employing his own version of the Fosbury flop, but it’s an old house with high ceilings and stairs to match and it was more than an uneven battle.

  After another abortive attempt he graciously accepted a lift, and from the comfort of Aileen’s arms he consoled himself with the thought that, from this elevated position, he could still be her eyes and ears and warn her if any vicious rugs were on the prowl.

  I made myself useful and washed the pots. This was really Aileen’s job – I did the cooking and she washed the pots, that was the unspoken agreement.

  In reality I heated up the contents of various Marks & Spencer’s boxes every day and she smashed several cups and a wineglass every night.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘A gravy boat.’

  ‘We haven’t had any gravy.’

  ‘I used it as a milk jug.’

  She would trawl around with her fingers in the bottom of the sink.

  ‘What’s that then?’

  ‘That’s the handle off the gravy boat.’

  ‘What was wrong with the milk jug?’

  ‘You broke it.’

  We were fast running out of cups and saucers, plates and mugs. We were completely out of milk jugs and gravy boats and so I contrived to wash up as I went along, leaving just the odd pudding dish to tremble at her coming.

  I rinsed out the milk bottles and went to stand them on the step. It was a pleasant night, the day had dried out and a full moon painted the balcony with soft light.

  At times like this I have been known to have a stab at Romeo and Juliet. I only know four lines – if I’m down in the courtyard then it’s Romeo who bursts forth in a pleasing baritone, delivered in an authentic, Cornetto-style, Italian accent.

  ‘Buta soft! whata light through yonder window breaks?

  It isa the east and Juliet isa the sun.’

  Tonight I was up on the balcony and so it was in a Rank charm-school falsetto that I delivered the immortal lines,

  ‘Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,

  That I shall say good night, till it be morrow.’

  Juliet is supposed to make her exit at that point, but an answering voice from down in the courtyard next door stopped me in my tracks.

  ‘Is that you, Aileen?’

  ‘No, it’s me.’

  Patrick sounded disappointed and I can’t say I blame him. He shone a torch and caught me in its beam.

  ‘Have you seen our cat? I can’t find it anywhere.’

  ‘No,’ I heard myself saying, in a voice thick with innocence and sincerity. ‘No – sorry, Patrick. I haven’t seen it.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  I followed Aileen around the bedroom as she tugged open first the wardrobe door and then the drawers in the dressing table.

  ‘I can’t believe you said that.’

  Neither could I. I have been known to bend the truth a little. On occasions I have bent it until it snapped and there have been times when I stretched it until it winced, but I’ve never been a liar – just a bender and a stretcher now and then and it was mostly in a good cause.

  ‘It just came out.’

  She was lying flat on her stomach now, sweeping under the bed with her arm.

  ‘You should have said you didn’t know where he was.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I don’t know where he is – I’ve lost him.’

  I swept under the other side of the bed and then checked the shoe cupboard. I had to find him and take him home as soon as possible, then perhaps I might erase the bare-faced lie from my memory. I felt like a seven-year-old again.

  ‘Honest, Daddy – I haven’t seen the change you left on the mantelpiece.’

  ‘What’s that in your hand then?’

  Would he believe that one of my insurance policies had matured? He didn’t as a matter of fact, and the shame stayed with me long after the bruising had disappeared.

  ‘Where did you see him last?’

  ‘He was in the sink – eating the soap.’

  ‘Right – let’s do the bathroom again.’

  We looked everywhere, I even went through the medicine cabinet. Aileen shook her head.

  ‘He couldn’t have got up there.’

  ‘He got in the sink – how did he do that?’

  ‘Jumped up off the toilet.’

  I tipped the linen basket upside down for the second time that night, but Aileen didn’t move.

  ‘The lid on the toilet.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘It was up – I remember now, he tiptoed round the rim. He nearly fell in. He must have come down the same way.’

  The lid wasn’t up now, and we both stared at the closed toilet in horror.

  ‘Have a look.’

  I knew he would be in there. I could feel it in my bones and my bones are never wrong. I lifted the lid and he wasn’t.

  ‘No, he’s not there.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ she said and then added, ‘he couldn’t have gone down and round the bend, could he?’

  ‘No – of course he couldn’t.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Of course I am. Just don’t flush it for a while.’

  We couldn’t find him anywhere. We combed the house from top to bottom and it’s a big house. Eventually the clock in the hall struck twenty-three and a half minutes past one and we gave up and made for bed.

  Aileen had one last look in the toilet – half expecting to see a tiny snorkel break through the surface of the water.

  ‘I shan’t be able to sleep – he could be suffocating.’

  ‘Nonsense – he’ll be all right.’

  I wouldn’t be sleeping either. I might as well do something.

  ‘Where’s my dressing-gown? I’ll have one last look around.’

  ‘I put it in the washing-machine, ready for the morning.’

  She sat bolt upright in bed – I didn’t sit bolt upright, I’m not as quick on the uptake as she is.

  ‘We haven’t looked in the washing-machine.’

  I s
at bolt upright – I catch on quick once I’ve been pointed in the right direction – and in no time at all I was in the utility room, yanking open the door of the washing-machine.

  I couldn’t see him at first – he was all wrapped up in my towelling robe. Then his head appeared from under a pair of pants and, so as not to waste too much energy, he opened just the one eye and glared at me.

  ‘Do you mind? Some of us are trying to sleep.’

  The clock in the hall struck forty-six and a half minutes to seven. I must do something about that clock – it’s been in Aileen’s family for just over a hundred years and it’s time it went off on its own and saw what the real world is all about.

  There was a pounding on my chest and a purring in my ear. I opened my eyes and a small white kitten was staring at me – if there’s one thing I can’t stand first thing in the morning it’s a cheerful kitten.

  ‘Go away.’

  It moved up on to my throat.

  ‘Ggggoooo aaawaay.’

  It was fascinated by the throttling noise under its paws and began pounding like a washerwoman, my Adam’s apple rolled gently sideways and plopped into my left ear. I picked him up and made to drop him down on to the bedside rug – he screamed.

  ‘No, not that – anything but that.’

  He broke free and scrambled back on the bed to tell Aileen all about it. I raced over and just managed to stop him in time – Aileen needs her eight hours.

  Together we rescued my robe from the washing-machine and with my cigarettes and lighter in one pocket and a small white kitten in the other I padded downstairs to the kitchen.

  ‘What do you fancy for breakfast?’

  ‘Chicken.’

  ‘There’s none left.’

  ‘Prove it.’

  I opened the fridge door and we took stock. There was very little of anything in there and as he hung out of my pocket and examined the bottom shelf his face was a picture of misery.

  I straightened and slowly raised him up a shelf.

  ‘Second floor – butter, cheese, onion and herb dip, half a grapefruit.’

  He sniffed and nodded. I straightened a little more.

  ‘Third floor – half a tin of Fussell’s condensed milk, one can of Coke and two salmon steaks.’

  ‘What’s salmon?’