Рейчел Уэллс - A Friend Called Alfie

‘Hi, Claire and Pickles,’ Harold said as he answered the door. He was looking quite healthy these days. The right medication coupled with Snowball also seemed to have given him a new lease of life. ‘And hello, Alfie and George. Snowball’s in the kitchen,’ he said. We all followed him through, including Pickles. I realised I hadn’t quite factored Pickles into my plan but hopefully he wouldn’t ruin it.

‘Do you want some soup now? I can warm it up for you,’ Claire said.

‘Oh I don’t want to put you to any trouble,’ Harold said.

‘Don’t be silly, I was hoping you might invite me to join you for lunch,’ Claire suggested. She was so good, she always made it sound like he was doing her a favour when really we all knew it was the other way round.

‘Of course, I’d love that. I’ll set the table.’

‘Woof!’ Pickles tried to jump up onto the chair where Harold was laying cutlery out. He was old fashioned like that. In fact, his late wife, Marcus’s mum, always liked things done properly. Harold used table mats, and napkins and everything. We all sat there as Claire warmed up the soup on the stove, buttered thick slices of bread, and dished everything up.

‘Pickles come here,’ I hissed. I needed to keep him under control.

‘You know, I can help you with your Christmas shopping if you like,’ Claire offered.

‘That’s kind of you. Jonathan said your best skill is shopping,’ Harold said.

‘I’ll kill him,’ Claire laughed.

‘But seriously, I want to get something special for Marcus and Sylvie, and young Connie. And the rest of you. I’ve put you all through a lot this year.’

‘Oh Harold, don’t think of it like that, they love you, we love you.’

‘I know, but I was in hospital for a long time and you all must have been exhausted visiting me.’

‘Well you know, I’ll help choose for your family, but with our family we decided to do Secret Santa, not the kids, but they get loads anyway, but the adults will pick one person and you have to buy something for five pounds.’

‘That sounds sensible, if you’re sure. I mean I’m not a rich man but I saved quite a bit of my pension while I was in hospital.’ He grinned.

‘No, concentrate on your immediate family, we don’t need anything but your company. Although this time next year you’ll have another little one to add to your list.’

‘I can’t believe it, Grandpa Harold,’ he chuckled. ‘Now I do need to get a present for Snowball and George and Alfie, of course,’ he said.

‘Woof.’

‘Yes and you too Pickles,’ he added with a grin.

I led my troops into the kitchen and Pickles waddled in after us.

‘Right, the notebook is on the arm of the chair, so my plan is that we knock it off, make a lot of noise, make sure one of us keeps a paw on it until Claire comes up to it to see what’s going on.’

‘Harold might get to it first,’ Snowball said.

‘What is this plan?’ Pickles asked.

‘Don’t worry about it, Pickles,’ Snowball said, as George shot him a withering look.

‘Claire is much faster than Harold,’ I reassured. ‘She’ll be over with us before Harold can even get off the chair.’

‘It’s a good plan,’ George said.

‘And for once one that can’t end up with any of us in danger,’ Snowball added. I narrowed my eyes at her, she was one cheeky cat.

‘But what is the plan?’ Pickles asked again.

I took the lead as I went into the living room, with them hot on my paws. I jumped up onto the armchair and then onto the arm where the notebook lay. I lifted a paw and knocked it off. George immediately pounced but somehow managed to slide it under the sofa.

‘Meow,’ I said. Both Harold and Claire looked over at us, but the notebook couldn’t be seen. I jumped down and the three of us set about trying to catch the notebook with our paws to get it out, but we seemed to only knock it further.

‘What are they doing?’ Claire asked.

‘Right,’ I hissed quietly. ‘George, you’re the smallest, you have to hook it and bring it out, after all you can get under the sofa.’ I held my breath, but finally the notebook emerged, followed by George who was covered in dust. He sneezed. We had done it though, now we had the notebook, I put my paw on it.

‘YOWL,’ I shouted.

‘MEOW,’ George said at the top of his lungs.

‘YELP,’ Snowball called out but her voice was far too sweet to be alarming.

‘Woof, woof, woof,’ Pickles joined in as he ran around in circles.

‘What?’ Harold asked as we kept making as much noise as we could. As I thought, Claire ran over to us.

‘What’s all the noise for?’ she asked. I looked down at the notebook then back up at her.

‘Meow,’ I said more quietly.

‘What’s this?’ She picked the book up. As I planned, Harold had stood up.

‘That’s mine,’ he snapped.

‘OK, but why did the cats have it?’ Claire asked, as it fell open at the place where he kept his pen.

‘Don’t look’ Harold shouted.

‘Have you been writing poetry or something?’ Claire asked.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, I just—’

‘MEOW,’ George shouted really loudly and jumped on Claire’s foot.

‘Ow. I think he wants me to read it,’ she said.

‘No!’ Harold said.

‘Meow,’ the three of us said in unison.

‘Why don’t you want me to see it?’ Claire asked. ‘Of course I won’t look if you don’t want me to.’ She handed the notebook back to Harold. I couldn’t believe it, we hadn’t factored in the fact that Claire wasn’t an intrusive person.

‘MEOW!’ I shouted.

‘It’s just silly ramblings of an old man.’ Harold blushed and looked at his feet. George jumped up on his lap and purred into his neck.

‘You’re not silly,’ Claire said quietly. She reached over and squeezed Harold’s hand which was shaking.

‘Here,’ was all he said, as he passed the notebook over to her.

We had succeeded, and Claire started reading as we all sat there hopefully. I noticed how Harold’s hand still shook gently as he tried to eat his soup, and kept shooting glances at Claire. He was nervous, but he shouldn’t have been.

‘Wow,’ Claire said as she finished. ‘Harold, this is such a brilliant idea, why didn’t you tell me?’

‘You really think so?’ he asked. ‘I thought perhaps people would think me silly. I know I’m a foolish old man but being in hospital was a real eye-opener.’

‘Goodness no, you’re right we don’t think enough about all the lonely people … Oh my goodness and you’ve even made a list of names.’

‘It’s the ones from the senior centre, they really do get very lonely and you know they don’t have anyone to bring them a hot meal. It made me realise how lucky I was when I started going there and then in hospital, I had the most visitors but some people didn’t have any which is why George became so important to them. I keep meaning to take him back in but of course I need help and I didn’t think any of you would approve.’

‘Firstly, I will help you take George to the hospital, as it’s Christmas we can take biscuits and chocolates for the patients, it’ll be a lovely thing to do and I only wish I’d thought of it.’ Claire took Harold’s hand and I saw that he had tears in his eyes. ‘And as for your genius idea of the Sunday Lunch Club, how about we make it our project. We’ll work together and get it off the ground straight away.’

‘You mean it?’

‘Yes, we’re going to have Christmas lunch at the restaurant again this year, it’s so much easier with all of us and we can easily fit in extra people, especially if they have nowhere to go. We can easily organise that. And then for the long term I will get a few people on the street together, with you as well and we’ll get families to take someone in. Perhaps not every week, because that might be a bit much, but say twice a month to start with? Jon and I will definitely open our house to someone, as will Polly and Matt, Frankie and Tomasz will too, I am sure, then there are others.’