Кейт Мур - Felix The Railway Cat

Fun as all this was, however, and excepting his cuddly brown bear which was a different kind of toy, as Felix approached the end of his first week, his playthings tended to be brilliantly improvised office accoutrements – not cat-specific objects. But all that was about to change.

Angie happened to be in the office when it happened. She was checking something, so she didn’t take in what was going on at first. Martin was on duty, and she remembered him saying, when Felix had first arrived, ‘You can’t sit there,’ and moving the cat from his workspace. Martin clearly didn’t do cats, and that was fine: each to their own.

‘Come on then,’ the announcer was saying now. ‘Come on then.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Angie glimpsed Felix leaping up onto the desk. He pottered around, then sat down on the keyboard. Less than a week ago, Martin would have told him, ‘You can’t sit there,’ but it seemed Felix had made a new friend.

As Angie watched, Martin slid open his desk drawer and pulled out a little gift for Felix. It was a small brown mouse on a red pull string. It was the first toy the station cat was ever given by a colleague. And it was Martin – a quiet man who kept himself to himself – who had given it to him.

Angie was amazed to see the transformation in her colleague. Felix had connected with Martin; as the cat was doing with so many of the team.

‘He’s brought so many people down to human, where nobody else could get through to them,’ Angie revealed. ‘Someone who’s just out on their own and they’ve got their blinkers on … that cat can turn somebody like that. He’s changed a lot of characters.’

But the question remained: would he be able to change the most important character of all – the one who held the power over whether he could stay? For Paul’s secondment was over. The boss was back.

Gareth had never felt so nervous in his life. The first morning back at work with Paul in place again as the station manager, he felt as if he was walking on eggshells. He crept into the office … and there was the little ball of fluff to greet him.

‘Morning, Felix,’ he said, wondering how many more mornings were left to him and his cat. At least the kitten hadn’t been banished outright on Paul’s return.

As was now their routine, Felix leapt onto his lap, curled up and went to sleep. And that was how Paul found them when he walked into the announcer’s office later that same shift. Gareth hadn’t told him they were getting the cat – he was far too terrified to take on that particular shoot-the-messenger role – so someone else must have dropped the bombshell.

Paul let the door close softly behind him. He took in the sight of the young announcer with the black-and-white cat on his knee. Up went the eyebrows … Then Paul gave a slight, almost amused shake of his head, smiled wryly, and didn’t say a thing.

Felix was here to stay.

8. New Discoveries

It took perhaps a day for Paul to warm to the cat. By the second day – like Billy and Martin before him – he was playing with the kitten as happily as the rest of his team. And it was Paul, together with Angie Hunte, who took the lead on Felix’s next big move: the feline’s first trip to the vet’s.

Felix was clearly a very clever cat. Yet he had his moments of foolishness. With his position at the station only just secured – and caring not a jot for the company hierarchy – when Paul tried to place him gently into the cat carrier, Felix fought back. Swipe! Three bramble scratches appeared on the station manager’s nose. Way to go to endear yourself to the boss, Felix!

Yet Felix clearly remembered all too well the scary journey on his way to Huddersfield station. Even though his own, personal carrier was a different model from the one he’d been transported in by the Briscoes – this time with a sky-blue bottom and an oatmeal-coloured top – when he saw the ominous-looking carry case sitting on the desk, so obviously waiting for him with its yawning plastic mouth, he twigged what was going on and became a wild cat. His mood didn’t improve when, after Paul and Angie had wrestled him in and driven him off in the car, they arrived at the vet’s.

Animals, perhaps understandably, never like going to a vet. Even though it was Felix’s first time, he was already antsy from being put in the carrier, and to wait in the lobby with all the other animals was very disconcerting. The kitten was here to get a general check-up and his first inoculation jab.

The vet’s careful hands held the tiny little cat, who looked up at him through narrowed eyes, grumpily. Then Felix, to his intense annoyance, was once more turned upside-down in the most undignified manner and his nether regions probed.

‘Ah!’ announced the vet, knowingly. ‘You’ve got a little girl!’

Paul and Angie looked at each other in astonishment. They were stunned. But as Felix was turned upright and placed back down on the metal table, she washed herself indignantly without a hint of shock. ‘Yes,’ she seemed to be saying, ‘get with the programme, humans. I’m a lady .’

The reaction to the news at the station was massive; it caused both a few chuckles and a few dropped jaws. How could this have happened?

Then the next big question arose: should they change Felix’s name?

The outcome of the charity draw was supposed to be non-negotiable, but was it fair to give a female cat a name that had been intended for a boy? Would Felicity not be more apt? All sorts of suggestions were bandied around.

But, in the end, Felix stuck. It suited her. A girl cat with a name like Felix seemed a bit different, a bit spirited, and that was certainly the character of the Huddersfield station cat. In time, she grew to recognise her name and would even come when called (if she was in the right frame of mind). She seemed pretty happy with it. In fact, she seemed pretty happy with her lot generally – and why wouldn’t she be, when she was getting spoilt rotten?

Every day was play day. As the next few weeks passed, she had an absolute riot in the offices of Huddersfield station. Martin’s toy had only been the start of it: team leader Dave Rooney got her her first laser toy, and she loved that, especially on a night shift when it was dark and the laser light so bright.

‘Felix, what’s that?’ the team would say as they switched it on. ‘What’s that?’ And she’d look, and they’d turn it off. ‘Where’s it gone? Where’s it gone?’ On . ‘There it is! Go, Felix, go!’ And she’d sprint after the maddening light.

She continued her usual games of sleeping or lying on anything that stayed still for longer than thirty seconds, too. Often, she’d spread-eagle herself across official objects so authoritatively that to all intents and purposes she looked as though she was helping the team with their duties – but nothing could be further from the truth, whatever Felix’s intentions. For example, one of these reclining hotspots was where the conductors kept their cash bags, which might be piled one on top of another. The conductors would be lining up, rushing to get off on a service, but before they went they had to take hold of the very item the cat was stretched out upon so comfortably. In the end, they became adept at performing that old magician’s tablecloth trick: pulling them out from under her as she watched proceedings like a hawk, as though looking for the secret of how they did it.

As Felix settled in, Angie and the rest of the team got to grips with how paying for Felix worked. Essentially, the company covered all costs – but they had to be attributed to something on the disbursement paperwork: an explanation given as to why the money was being spent. Angie chewed the end of her pen as she sat facing her first form to cover Felix’s food costs. What to put?