Кейт Мур - Felix The Railway Cat

Her brown bear was still her constant companion, but Felix gradually stopped pining over her baby and allowed the bear to be turned into a playmate. One of her very favourite games in the world was to stand between Andy and Gareth as each stood at either end of the corridor. One of them would have hold of the brown bear. Slowly, deliberately, he would seat it on the floor of the corridor, as Felix watched with a keen, excited, beady green eye. The bear would be sitting upright, leaning slightly forward. Then Andy or Gareth would take a step back, a run-up, and kick the bear so hard that it soared high into the air. Down the corridor the bear would fly, and Felix would watch it coming with growing pleasure, then chase it and dive as it got closer, taking total joy in their reunion. She would spend hours darting between Andy and Gareth as they booted the bear up and down the corridor: running, leaping, prowling, chasing, diving … never seeming to tire.

With the kitten clearly on the mend, Angie took her back to the vet’s for her follow-up appointment after her operation. She was expecting him to say that everything was fine, as Felix was clearly full of beans.

But as the vet checked her vital statistics – and weighed her – he realised she was rather full of cat treats, too.

‘She’s a little … tubby,’ he began.

Angie told him about the saucers of milk the team had been giving her.

‘Oh, you mustn’t allow her to have any milk,’ he said at once. ‘It’s not good for cats’ systems. It’s also very fattening: one saucer of milk equates to about four burgers as far as cats are concerned.’

Felix had essentially been stuffing her face; no wonder she was now overweight!

Angie took her back to the station and realised that something serious would have to be done. Felix’s colleagues were in danger of killing her with kindness: they had to put an end to the gravy train of treats. It was so important that she knew it was not something she and the other managers could simply mention lightly to their colleagues; unless they emphasised the gravity of the vet’s warning, it would be all too easy for everyone to ignore them, and keep on dishing out the treats at a blink of those seductive green eyes. But where would that leave Felix?

So Felix the cat was added to the official, formal station briefing for that week. This was a document containing all the key safety issues staff had to be aware of – and each employee had to sign to say they’d read and understood the topics discussed. It was proper serious stuff.

‘We know you want to spoil her,’ the managers told the team. ‘We know that everybody wants to have a little moment with her, but we also have to look after her health. Please can you refrain from giving her treats, and especially milk, or anything that’s not good for her. Please do not feed Felix; please leave it to the team leaders.’

It was the only way to ensure she would lose the extra pounds and then maintain a healthy weight.

Felix tried to get round them, of course. But all the miaows, and fluttering eyelashes, and paw prods came to nothing. Angela thought that Felix’s innate laziness was possibly part of the weight problem, too. The cat still loved to lounge anywhere and everywhere, and so enjoyed being stroked and attended to by her many minions that she rarely left the office. Angela used to say to her, ‘It’s time you went out and did something, you know.’

So far, Felix’s trips outside had only ever been with an escort. But now she was spayed and inoculated and five months old, there was really nothing to stop the railway cat from asserting her independence. Felix was about to go it alone.

11. Learning the Ropes

Felix watched the world go by from her favourite position by the bike racks. It really was the perfect spot: close to home if a train came roaring into the station, but it also enabled her to keep tabs on everything happening on Platform 1. She pricked her ears up as she heard the flap of big black wings: a crow above her, landing on its perch. She shook herself huffily – it wasn’t a shiver of terror, quite (though perhaps that was only because the scary black crow was so far away) – and then stood up.

Felix had become practised at choosing her moments to explore. From her observation point by the bikes, she was growing used to the rhythm of the station. It was like an industrial ocean in a way: the trains the tide, regularly coming in and going out, washing up people and suitcases on the surf, and then taking away more travelling ‘driftwood’ as the waves receded and the trains pulled out. She used to wait for the trains to leave and for the last of the dawdling customers to disappear from the concourse, and then she’d go and explore.

The older she got, the more confident she became. On this particular late October afternoon, she made her way all the way along to the very top of Platform 1, passing the Head of Steam pub, then kept on trotting, tail in the air, as the concrete walkway magically transformed into Platform 2. Felix dropped her nose to the ground and had a sniff about. Any crumbs? Any scents that shouldn’t be there?

No: all was well. She raised her head again and criss-crossed the platform, veering from the yellow line at the edge to one of her new favourite objects in the station: the abandoned railway carriage.

This was parked permanently on the western side of Platform 2: a navy-blue, ancient, out-of-use carriage with opaque windows. It had been bolted to the ground and had fencing round it, but there were a few gaps in this fence at the bottom, through which a cat like Felix could squeeze. She could then dip down, via the buffer, to the shadowy underbelly of the carriage itself. It all made for a fantastic hidey-hole.

But Felix was staying above ground today. As she slunk and trotted and – yes – rather paraded around Platform 2, she had a little shadow: Gareth, as was his wont, followed her, as vigilant as any mother hen.

Platform 2 was not in use much that particular afternoon, so Felix wasn’t spooked at all as she poked her nose about and generally had a really satisfying investigation. Gareth kept glancing back at the station clock: they’d been out five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen … There was an automated announcing system in place at Huddersfield, which meant most announcements were triggered by a train coming into the station; the human announcer didn’t have to do a thing. This freed up Gareth to enable him to follow the cat about for a fair amount of time. But there were still some announcements he had to make …

Yet on this day, Felix showed no sign of wanting to return to base. They’d been out twenty minutes; now twenty-five … Gareth kept heading towards the kitten, hoping he could scoop her up and carry her back inside with him, but every time he went near her, she moved somewhere else.

After all, there was so much to see! Felix prowled to the very end of Platform 2, where it started tapering down towards the floor, like a bespoke ramp for an inquisitive cat. Beyond this, the yawning mouth of the train tunnels loomed, black and empty-looking. Felix blinked at them with interest, cocking her head to one side – what went on in there ? Then her head flicked sharply to the right, to look down on the grassy area over which the tracks ran, just before the entrance to the tunnels. Her ears went up, her eyes brightened, and her legs instinctively crouched down.

On the grassy area before the tunnel, she saw a flash of a little white cottontail – and then another. Boing! Boing! A family of brown-and-white bunny rabbits frolicked before her very eyes. Felix watched them, captivated, as they darted about and then – perhaps sensing the feline’s interested observation – bounded suddenly away to safety.