Кейт Мур - Felix The Railway Cat

But while Angie was delighted with her selection, it didn’t meet with universal acclaim.

‘What is that ?’ said Billy in abhorrence the first time he laid eyes on it. He thought it was an abomination. He looked Felix up and down and then turned to Angie. ‘ Why ? But why would you choose something like that?’

‘Because she needs something so that you can see her!’ Angie retorted. You could certainly do that: the diamanté studs dazzled like glitter balls at her throat, catching the September sunlight.

Of course, a collar isn’t much good without a tag. It was Christine in the booking office who gave Felix her first one. By this time, everybody at the station was giving the kitten bits and pieces – toys, treats, new bowls and all sorts – and the collar tag was Christine’s own special gift for the cat who had transformed the entire station. She went to Pets at Home and got Felix’s name and address (Platform 1) engraved on the front of the tag and the team leaders’ work mobile number engraved on the back, so that if the kitten ever got lost people would know that she was loved and wanted and missed, and she’d be able to find her way home again.

It wasn’t any old tag that Christine bought. Oh no: this was a tag for Felix, the Huddersfield station cat! It needed to be something special. Christine had seen the jazzy collar Angie had given her, and as she shopped she was also musing on the poor kitten’s gender-confused start in life – so Christine picked out a beautiful, hot-pink, heart-shaped tag for the station’s little girl. One can imagine Billy’s reaction …

Angie had been one of those trying to help her little kitten adjust to the station’s noisy exterior. While they all loved carrying Felix about the place, that wasn’t a long-term solution: the kitten needed to stand on her own four paws. But there were so many things that could go wrong if she was let loose immediately – she could run off; someone could take her (the volume of strangers coming through the station each day was frightening when Angie really thought about it); not to mention the danger of the train tracks if Felix was released before she understood the threat they posed. She was coming up to four months old, so it was still a lot for her to comprehend.

But Angie thought she had a solution: a cat harness.

‘We can get her a little lead!’ she exclaimed, pleased with the idea. ‘Then we can walk her round and she’ll get to know the platforms on her own four paws, but she’ll be safe as houses.’

Felix was soon the proud owner of a bright-pink fabric cat harness. It slipped over her fluffy back and fastened around her belly and her neck, and was attached to a long lead so that the team leaders could walk her around.

Billy took one look at it and threw his hands up in despair. ‘I’m not walking round with a cat on a lead!’ he exclaimed. ‘Walking round t’station with a cat on a flipping lead ? There’s no way!’

10. Doctor’s Orders

Despite Billy’s reluctance, the rest of the team at Huddersfield were happy to accompany Felix on a few laps of the station. Before long, she was able to be taken off the lead altogether and could be let loose.

Part of the reason the staff were so confident about doing that, however, was because they themselves were like mother hens – or bodyguards, which was perhaps a more befitting description given the glamourpuss look Felix was rocking these days. Gareth would often accompany her outside, and if she went anywhere near the edge of Platform 1, he would cautiously shepherd her away from the yellow line, making sure she stayed safe. Felix, in truth, showed no signs of wanting to peer over the edge of the abyss. She kept well back, just as her colleagues showed her, and never really ventured of her own accord away from the area adjacent to the office. She never even went down the steps to the subway. In fact, she spent most of her time outside by the bike racks.

They were perfectly located, as far as Felix was concerned, for if she was spooked by anything she could run straight back to the office quick-sharp. If she heard a train coming, she would run for home at once – for its deafening roar (and soon-to-be squealing brakes) still seemed to inspire her with a fear that the sounds from stationary trains had long since ceased to do. Often, she would flee to the lost-property office, which was located right beside the office door, and kindly Angela Dunn would pick her up and give her a cuddle until the train had gone and Felix felt brave enough to explore those bike racks once more. She was very happy sitting there and watching life go by, and it seemed to Felix she had the best of both worlds: fun times playing and snoozing in the office, and the odd promenade with an oh-so-attentive escort.

But for all the mothering the station team gave her, the time was approaching when Felix herself was going to be relieved of such responsibilities. In the middle of September, she passed the milestone of her four-month birthday, and an appointment was made to have her spayed and microchipped. Felix had to go back to the vet.

‘How are you doing, Felix?’ Gareth Hope asked his little friend.

Felix raised her green eyes grumpily to meet his, and almost scowled. Then she moved her head just a little and he suddenly vanished from her viewpoint, which was very narrow these days, as she had the most annoying post-surgery cone around her neck.

Felix hated it. She lifted a white-capped paw to her black shoulder and once more knocked at it, trying to get it off. More often than not, she succeeded. The white cone was supposed to be attached to her diamanté collar, but Felix was clever enough to have worked out how to slide her collar over her head with one paw, so she soon made easy work of giving the cone the slip. She was still tiny, too, so even though the cone was kitten-sized, it still looked too big. It was an absolute nightmare trying to keep it on her and make sure she didn’t pick at her stitches.

‘Leave her be, lad,’ said Billy, who was also in the office. ‘She just needs a bit of peace and quiet, don’t you, lass?’

The ‘grand-looking’ cat Billy had once so admired looked very sorry for herself indeed. The stitches from the operation were still fresh, and she had a big shaven patch on her side where the vet had clipped off lots of her lovely fur. As she was so long-haired, even when it started re-growing it took an awfully long time – two or three months – before her coat was back to normal. Felix looked most put out that her glamourpuss days seemed behind her.

‘How are you doing anyway, young Gareth?’ Billy asked his colleague meaningfully.

Gareth – the university dropout, who was only working at the station as a stopgap job while he figured out what he really wanted to do – was by now twenty-four and had been there for almost five years. But it was so easy to stay … It was family, wasn’t it, and how could Gareth turn his back on that, especially now Felix had joined them? The station felt like home.

Gareth didn’t reply, but he felt Billy’s wise eyes fixed on him as he fiddled self-consciously with some paperwork on his desk. Billy had become almost a father figure to Gareth as they’d worked together over the years. Billy had seen it all on the railway: he knew how people started … and then stayed. Blink, and suddenly thirty years had passed and you were still in the same job, making the same jokes with the same people, but you were now wizened and grey.

He cleared his throat and repeated something he’d said to Gareth a few times already, when it was just the two of them in the office and they had some time alone. ‘Be aware, young Gareth,’ he warned him in his gruff voice, ‘you’re getting stuck here, son.’