Christmas at the Cat Cafe Read online

  One by one the kittens appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Purdy headed straight for the cat flap while the others stalked across the floor, rubbing their whiskers against the chair legs or batting catnip toys across the flagstones, before taking up their usual positions around the room. Even the normally timid Maisie seemed unfazed and jumped happily into the domed bed directly underneath Ming’s platform.

  Just as Linda had predicted, the first customers gravitated immediately to the cat tree for a closer look at Ming. A grinning Linda shepherded them to a nearby table, explaining that Ming was the ‘new addition to the Molly’s family’. The customers, an elderly couple whom I recognized as regular visitors, normally requested a table near the window so that they could sit near me. On this occasion, however, they could barely take their eyes off Ming, even to look at their menus. ‘What a gorgeous cat!’ one exclaimed. ‘Exquisite,’ the other agreed.

  I observed Ming from the windowsill, looking – hoping – to see signs of distress or, at the very least, mild displeasure at the increasing number of people filling the room. A party of day-trippers arrived just before lunchtime, chatting loudly and laden with shopping. As Linda bustled around them, scraping chairs and tables together across the stone floor, I fixed my eyes on Ming; surely this would disturb her equilibrium? But she continued to sit calmly on her platform with her eyes closed and one forepaw extended. She delicately licked the inside of her long, slender leg, unruffled by the commotion going on around her.

  The day wore on, and I began to feel as if I were invisible on my cushion in the window. The buzz of conversation and the click of cutlery on plates were punctuated by coos of delight across the room whenever Ming moved. Linda stood earnestly beside the table of each new customer, revelling in telling them all about Ming. I noticed how, over the course of the day, she began to embellish details of the story, until Ming eventually became the victim of an abusive home, whom Linda had personally rescued, at great risk both to herself and to Ming. The customers lapped it up, oohing and aahing at the different beats of Linda’s story.

  When, at the height of the lunchtime rush, Ming yawned, stretched and jumped lightly down from her platform, an unnatural hush fell across the café. The customers all paused mid-conversation, to watch her sashay across the room. ‘So elegant!’ one lady gasped, as she sauntered past their table. Seething, I turned my back on them to stare furiously out of the window.

  The week continued as it had started. There was something masochistic about my determination to remain in the café, largely ignored, while Ming was lavished with praise and attention. I took some sort of perverse satisfaction from it, as if each compliment paid to Ming confirmed my conviction that she was deliberately trying to upstage me. The kittens, however, continued to go about their daily routine as though nothing had changed, playing with their toys, napping or, in Eddie’s case, scrounging for titbits at people’s feet. Purdy seemed to be spending more time outdoors than usual, but she had always been more adventurous than her siblings, so this could hardly be considered cause for alarm. It was almost as if the kittens hadn’t noticed the change in the café’s atmosphere, or the way we had been relegated to the status of supporting artists to Ming’s show-stopping diva.

  My resentment about the way my kittens had accepted a rival female into the colony continued to rankle, but feline pride made me want to hide my hurt feelings from them. Though I kept my anger to myself, I was aware that my behaviour towards the kittens began to change. It was a subtle shift, almost imperceptible at first, but there was less casual intimacy of the sort that would have come naturally to me in the past. If I saw one of the kittens trying to wash a hard-to-reach spot between the shoulder blades, I no longer padded over to lick it for them; and if we caught each other’s eyes across the café, I no longer instinctively blinked affectionately. I had no conscious desire to punish them, and in my more self-pitying moments I told myself peevishly that, if they had noticed the change in my manner, they probably didn’t care anyway.

  As the week wore on, my frustration at the kittens’ blasé attitude to our new living arrangements was wearing me down, and my efforts to maintain any semblance of composure were beginning to exhaust me. So when, on Friday morning, Eddie jumped onto the window cushion next to me, something gave way inside me.

  Before Ming’s arrival, I would never have begrudged sharing my cushion with Eddie; when the kittens were tiny they had all done so, burrowing deep into my fur for warmth and comfort. Over time they had outgrown the practice, with the exception of Eddie, who seemed reluctant to abandon the physical closeness of our bond. But, on this occasion, Eddie’s proximity felt like an intimacy too far. When he sprang nimbly onto the cushion beside me, my heart did not swell with tenderness; instead, I felt a flash of rage at the invasion of my personal space. I hissed at him – a vicious, heartfelt hiss, which somehow gave vent to all the pent-up anger I had been feeling since Ming first set foot in the café.

  Eddie’s body retracted in shock and he cowered, flattening his ears against his bowed head. I instantly regretted my response. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t . . .’ I stuttered, horrified by his reaction. But before I had a chance to explain, Eddie had jumped down from the windowsill with a look of abject mortification. Shame and remorse flooded through me as I watched him slink across the floor with his tail between his legs; the shame made worse by the realization that the other kittens were watching and had no doubt witnessed what I had done.

  I turned to face the window, feeling utterly wretched. Behind me I heard Linda talking to a customer, recounting what had now become an epic tale of Ming’s rescue. When she had finally finished speaking and was jotting down the order on her notepad, the customer remarked, ‘Molly ’n’ Ming – now that’s got a ring to it,’ and Linda cackled in agreement, ‘You’re so right; it does!’

  I had heard enough. The café, which for so long had been my safe place, my haven from danger, suddenly felt claustrophobic. The room was airless, the heat from the stove made my fur itch, and Linda’s voice was as grating to my ears as her long fingernails on the Specials board. My head began to swim as I felt a wave of nausea rise from my stomach to the back of my throat. I tore across the café and out through the cat flap and did not stop running until I reached the alleyway.

  It was a relief to leave behind the café’s stifling atmosphere, its fawning customers and, of course, Ming. The November wind felt biting, but I took a few deep lungfuls of icy air, waiting for my nausea to subside. I found Jasper in the churchyard, prowling among the headstones. He looked surprised to see me; my withdrawn manner had also kept him at a distance, and we had not met for our usual evening stroll for several days.

  ‘Everything all right?’ he asked solicitously, sidling up to me.

  ‘Yes, fine,’ I snapped; but I felt my facade of indifference start to crumble beneath his concerned scrutiny. ‘No, not really,’ I admitted, dropping my gaze to the ground.

  Jasper sat down beside me on the carpet of dry leaves and we remained in silence for a few moments, listening to the magpies cawing in the branches of the horse chestnut above us.

  ‘Is it . . . Ming?’ he began, tentatively. I let out a snort at the mention of her name, aware that the tip of my tail had begun to twitch angrily by my feet. The remorse I had been feeling about Eddie seemed to evaporate, and anger swept in to take its place.

  ‘Ooh, Ming, what a gorgeous name! Oh, isn’t she beautiful! So elegant!’ I mimicked, while Jasper listened patiently. ‘More like stuck-up, stand-offish and rude, if you ask me.’ My tail was now thrashing so hard that the dry leaves on the ground rustled noisily. Jasper’s body remained still and his face composed, as he contemplated the moss-covered gravestones ahead of us.

  ‘I know it’s a shock,’ he began in a careful, measured tone, ‘but it can’t be easy for her—’

  I felt my stomach clench and turned sharply to face him. ‘Can’t be easy for her?’ I interrupted, incredulously. ‘What, exactly, can’t be easy for
her? Having a café full of people drooling over her? Having her every whim catered for by Debbie and Linda? Having the whole of Stourton think she’s the most beautiful creature ever to grace this town? Oh, it must be really difficult for her,’ I spat.

  I paused for breath as Jasper sat in restrained silence, waiting for me to finish.

  ‘Do you know,’ I continued, feeling my cheeks burn, ‘she has been here a week and she has not said one word since she arrived. Not one word.’ I paused for emphasis, hoping to see some acknowledgment of Ming’s indisputable rudeness, but Jasper’s face remained impassive. ‘At least she hasn’t said one word to me,’ I added, suddenly seized by a cold pang of suspicion. I narrowed my eyes as the thought entered my mind that, perhaps, it was only me that Ming hadn’t deigned to speak to. Did she chat happily to Jasper and the kittens when I was not around? Was this how they had spent Sunday morning, while I had been visiting Margery? A shiver went through me, as though someone had poured ice down my back.

  Jasper’s face was still infuriatingly blank. ‘I think maybe she just needs time to settle in,’ he said calmly, deftly evading the question that hung, unspoken, in the air between us.

  I looked away in disgust. His reply seemed to confirm my worst fears: Ming’s haughty demeanour was reserved for me alone. For all I knew, she and Jasper might already be firm friends . . . or more. Did that explain why the kittens were so relaxed around her, because they were following their father’s lead? My heart began to race as the implications hit me. Ming was playing a game, of that I was sure. She was trying to isolate me from Jasper and the kittens. She was planning to take my place – not just in the café, but in my own family.

  The kittens were sweet-natured and trusting; was it any surprise they had been taken in by Ming? But I was disappointed by Jasper’s gullibility, his inability to see the situation for what it was. It was typical of him to be chivalrous, to give other cats the benefit of the doubt. Such generosity was one of the qualities I loved about him, but right now I found it maddening. It was one thing for him to be chivalrous towards me, quite another to be chivalrous towards a beautiful Siamese impostor.

  Mustering what remained of my dignity, I stood up to leave. ‘Besides, she’s not perfect, you know,’ I hissed, throwing a cursory glance over my shoulder. ‘Have you noticed how she squints?’

  As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew how they must sound: petulant and spiteful. But I didn’t care. Jasper could think what he liked about Ming, but I knew the truth.

  11

  Although, like all the cats at Molly’s, Ming was free to come and go as she pleased, she seemed content to spend almost all of her time in the café. She only ever went outside under cover of darkness, slipping out through the cat flap to answer the call of nature, and her brief forays into the flat were similarly fleeting: she crept upstairs at mealtimes to lurk in the hallway until the rest of us had finished eating, before swiftly polishing off whatever food was left in the bowls. Then she would slink back downstairs to take her usual place on the cat-tree platform.

  Her pointed face and deep-blue eyes seemed only to convey two expressions: serene contemplation or mild curiosity; and, although she never sought out physical contact, she would purr gratefully if Debbie tickled her enormous chocolate-brown ears. I watched her obsessively, torn apart by some confused emotion that seemed to combine fascination, envy and contempt all at the same time. I was convinced there was something untrustworthy about Ming’s implacable self-containment, and the fact that I was the only one who could see it simply made matters worse.

  Since the hissing incident with Eddie, the kittens and Jasper had been wary around me. I desperately wanted to talk to my kittens, but feared that if I tried to explain how I felt about Ming, they would dismiss my concerns in the same way Jasper had, telling me I’d misunderstood her and that she was just settling in. So instead I allowed the rift between us to deepen, and became increasingly preoccupied with nursing my secret grievances.

  Whilst Ming’s arrival had brought agony for me, it seemed to have marked a turning point for Linda. Gone was the furtive shopaholic, prone to melodramatic outbursts of tears; in her place was a newly confident woman whose smugness and constant air of triumph were almost more than I could bear. Since Ming’s debut in the café, Linda’s face had worn a permanent self-satisfied grin, and in the evenings she crowed endlessly about the roaring success Ming had proved to be, how she had been right all along, and how Ming was just what the cat café needed.

  I sensed that Debbie and Sophie were both starting to tire of Linda’s self-congratulatory monologues. Every now and then I saw them exchange weary glances behind Linda’s back, as she piped up with yet another reason why Ming joining the café had been a ‘commercial masterstroke’. I studied Debbie’s face closely on these occasions, praying she would cut Linda off and announce that Molly’s had been doing just fine before Ming arrived, and would continue to do so if she left. Instead, Debbie listened with patient forbearance and a polite half-smile.

  When John came over for dinner one evening midweek, I felt a glimmer of optimism. Linda had gone out for the night, and I knew that if there was anyone Debbie would confide in, it was John. I climbed into the empty shoebox and watched, feeling almost giddy with hopeful anticipation.

  ‘So, how’s the new addition to the café been getting on?’ John began as they sat down at the table.

  ‘Who, Linda or Ming?’ Debbie asked drily.

  ‘Well, both, I suppose,’ John replied, smiling.

  Debbie sighed and slumped slightly in her chair. ‘Well, much as I hate to admit it, Linda seems to have been right. Ming has settled in amazingly well, and the customers can’t get enough of her. The cats seem to have accepted her, too, although Molly’s been a little grumpy.’

  In the shoebox, I bristled all over. A little grumpy! Had Debbie really not noticed the extent of my anguish?

  ‘So, does that mean she’s staying?’ John asked.

  ‘Who, Linda or Ming?’ Debbie shot back, mischievously.

  John raised his shoulders in a questioning shrug. ‘I’ll keep an open mind,’ Debbie went on, ‘but, where Ming’s concerned, it’s looking hopeful.’ ‘And Linda?’ John prompted.

  At this, Debbie sagged still further in her chair. ‘I’m torn, John, really I am. She drives me up the wall sometimes, but I just can’t turn my back on her, not until she’s got herself sorted out. And I’ve got to admit, she’s been an asset in the café.’

  John raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, in that case, cheers to Ming,’ he said, raising his glass of beer with a good-natured chuckle. In the shoebox I felt my heart sink in disappointment.

  At the end of Ming’s second week, the novelty of her appearance in the café was at last beginning to wear off. Linda no longer felt compelled to regale every customer with her life story, and Ming’s silent, watchful presence was something I had, reluctantly, become accustomed to. My relations with the kittens, however, remained strained. I had not yet apologized to Eddie for hissing at him – not through pride or a reluctance to admit I had been wrong – but because I hated the thought of having to do so under Ming’s supercilious gaze.

  There was little comfort to be found upstairs either. The flat was, as Debbie put it, ‘starting to look like a student bedsit’. Every room seemed to be perpetually in danger of overflowing with the collective detritus of people and animals. There was nowhere to put anything, and every surface was covered in dust and animal hairs.

  Beau was starting to look unkempt, too; his fluffy fur, once neatly trimmed, had grown straggly to the point where it was impossible to make out the dark eyes beneath his eyebrows, or the mouth amidst his greasy beard. The scent of dog shampoo that used to follow him around had been replaced by a stale, musty odour. Other than his daily walk, he rarely left the flat, and consequently emanated an air of perpetual boredom, spending his time flopping around on the living-room rug, emitting disgruntled snorts.

  The atmosphere in the flat seem
ed to simmer with low-level, unspoken discord. Sophie and Debbie had not argued again since the superfood-salad debacle, but Sophie had begun to spend more and more time with her boyfriend, Matt; and when she was at home, her interactions with Debbie and Linda were brusque. Debbie wore an expression of long-suffering forbearance around her. On Saturday, however, when Sophie sullenly announced she was going to Matt’s house for lunch and wasn’t sure when she’d be back, Debbie tutted with annoyance and protested that Sophie treated the place like a hotel.

  ‘A pretty crap hotel,’ Sophie muttered under her breath, grabbing her jacket from the coat rack. Debbie’s face flushed and her eyes looked glassy, but she let the jibe pass. I followed Sophie downstairs and watched as she let herself out through the café. Eddie was padding desultorily between the tables. Ming was asleep and I wondered whether I should seize the opportunity to make my belated apology. As I made my way towards him, I tried to catch his eye but, sensing my approach, he picked up his pace and ran out through the cat flap. He was avoiding me, of that I was certain. Clearly, he was not yet ready to hear what I had to say.

  Much as I felt sorry for Debbie, I could understand why Sophie wanted to spend as little time in the flat as possible. It was no longer a place I particularly wanted to be in, either. So when, after lunch on Sunday, Debbie dug the cat carrier out of the hall cupboard and asked, ‘Shall we go and see Margery, Molls?’ I was relieved, and craved more than ever the sanctity of Margery’s lavender-scented room and the feeling that I was, for once, the centre of attention.

  Outside, the sky was ominously grey and the wind whipped through the trees, shaking loose their leaves in a continuous cascade. As Debbie stood on the front step, locking the café door, I saw Jo outside her hardware shop, manoeuvring her Labrador, Bernard, into her van. His arthritic hips left him unable to jump, and she had hooked an arm under his hindquarters to lever him into the back.