Кейт Мур - Felix The Railway Cat

‘And the bicycle racks?’

‘I’ve searched.’

‘And the shower?’

‘Angie, I’ve looked everywhere. She’s not here. She’s gone.’

A big lump suddenly appeared from nowhere in Angie’s throat and hot tears pricked her eyes.

‘Ang, she’ll turn up. She’ll get hungry, she’ll come back. It’s what cats do.’

‘But she’s never been gone this long,’ Angie said in a wobbly voice, sinking into a chair for support. Her poor little kitten.

She was glad, at least, that it was Billy who had told her. They went back a long way, and if anybody was going to see her upset, she wanted it to be him. As a team leader, you couldn’t show your emotions out on the station floor – her job was to lead, to sort out problems, to get things done, and crying didn’t come into that. But Billy had always understood her. Angie’s pet niggle about herself was that she couldn’t always find the right words to say what she meant, but if she and Billy were in the same meeting together and she was floundering about, trying to express herself and failing, Billy used to clear his throat and say, ‘I think what Angie means is …’ and he would get it absolutely right. ‘Yes, that’s it, that’s it,’ Angie would say, and he’d nod at her in his gruff way, not wanting her thanks, but knowing she was grateful anyway.

Billy stood up, ready to head home. He placed a rough, weathered hand firmly on her shoulder as he went. ‘I’m sure she’ll turn up,’ he said.

After he left, Angie sat in the office alone. She felt absolutely devastated. She didn’t want to do any work; she couldn’t do any work. She couldn’t think of anything but Felix, out there, somewhere, in the dark winter’s night.

Who knew what had happened? Had someone taken her? Had she decided she’d had enough of her working life on the station and called it quits? Had – God forbid – she roamed onto the tracks and been hit by an express? Billy had told her that Dave Chin – who was PTS (Personal Track Safety)-certified and wore the all-over orange hi-vis uniform of those who could walk on the tracks – had looked all over the railway lines for her, and there’d been no sign, but even so … What if she’d wandered into one of the tunnels?

Angie felt sick. Felix wasn’t even a year old. She was absolutely frantic about her.

Every minute felt like an hour. So, when the team leaders’ mobile phone rang ten ‘hours’ into her shift at 8.10 p.m., Angie’s nerves were already shot to pieces.

‘H-H-Huddersfield station?’ she answered tearfully.

‘Oh, Huddersfield station ,’ said a male voice on the other end of the phone, as though something now made perfect sense. ‘I work for Domino’s Pizza.’

Domino’s Pizza? thought Angie. We haven’t ordered any pizza.

But then he said, ‘I think we’ve got something that belongs to you.’

Suddenly, the broken pieces of her world fell neatly back into place. Angie gasped. ‘Is she black and white?’ she asked joyously.

‘Yes!’ the man replied with a laugh.

Well, that was it. Angie dropped everything – the station was secondary and her colleagues could take up the slack. She literally ran to the car park and threw herself into her car. Domino’s Pizza , she was thinking, well, I never. And also: how the hell did you get there, little kitten?

For Domino’s Pizza was quite some distance away, located right by the busy ring road that encircled Huddersfield’s town centre. It was totally out of the area that Felix was known to have frequented on her own, which essentially comprised the length of Platforms 1 and 2. If she hadn’t crossed the train tracks – which seemed unlikely since she never had before, and still ran for home if an incoming train was near – then to reach the pizza place she would have had to contend with the traffic in town and cross several busy roads. Unless, of course, someone had taken her …

At that moment, Angie didn’t care how she’d got there; she was just pleased that she knew exactly where she was. She squealed to a stop outside Domino’s Pizza and ran in as fast as she could. And there, sat on the floor in the corner, munching away on something the pizza man had given her and relishing the delicious scent of the cooking pizzas, was Felix. She blinked up at Angie as she ran in, then got rapidly to her feet, as though she’d been waiting for her ride.

Angie felt her heart flip right up into her mouth and back again. ‘Oh, you’ve got her,’ she breathed in relief to the man behind the counter. ‘You’ve got her.’

She couldn’t get to Felix quick enough. She scooped her up from the ground and hugged her. Felix looked happily at her, her fluffy tail swishing, seemingly delighted to be reunited with her mum. Angie stared right into her beautiful green eyes. She was so, so happy to see her.

‘How did she get here?’ she asked the man behind the counter.

‘No idea!’ he laughed. ‘She just wandered in.’

Angie turned her attention back to her beloved cat. ‘You’re not going anywhere ever again!’ she told her sternly. ‘What do you think you’re up to? And where have you been?’ Her worry made her voice quite sharp. She knew Felix couldn’t answer, but the questions spilled out regardless.

Angie held the kitten up in the stark fluorescent lighting of the pizza joint and checked her over carefully, as if looking for clues. There was, at least, no sign of any injury, but neither was there any evidence as to where Felix might have spent her whole day away from home.

Angie brought her back down into her arms. ‘It is good to have you back, madam,’ she told her affectionately.

‘She’s a grand cat,’ the pizza man commented from the counter, adding with a grin, ‘Can we keep her?’

Angie scowled at him jokingly. ‘You’ve absolutely no chance!’ she declared emphatically. ‘No chance! Do you know how many people have been out looking for this cat today?’

‘She’s lovely,’ he observed, with a smile.

‘We know !’ Angie cried, holding her kitten even closer to her chest. ‘We know she is!’

She thanked the man for phoning her – thank God for Christine and that heart-shaped tag , she thought – and carried Felix out to the car.

‘Right, you,’ Angie told the cat. ‘Adventure’s over. We’re going home.’

Back at the office, Angie put some food in her bowl and Felix wolfed it down at once. While the kitten ate, Angie picked up her phone again and dialled Billy. It was the least she could do after his kindness earlier; she knew that, despite himself, he would be worried too.

He answered after only a few rings.

‘I’ve got her!’ Angie said breathlessly, as soon as he picked up.

He didn’t need to ask her who. ‘Where’s she been?’ he asked curiously.

‘Domino’s Pizza,’ deadpanned Angie. ‘Only Felix could go AWOL and end up at a food place!’

14. Angel Felix?

In the first weekend of December 2011, Dave Chin sauntered along Huddersfield station with his arms full of Christmas tree. TPE always got its Christmas trees delivered from a special farm, and that year Huddersfield had chosen a massive, ten-to-twelve-foot one that would stretch right up to the ceiling of the lobby.

As was his habit, on arrival at the station Dave had already popped in to see Felix, and he wasn’t expecting to see her again that shift. Nine times out of ten she was sleeping when he saw her, so he’d just give her a cuddle and leave her be. But on that particular day, as soon as Felix saw what he was carrying, she bounded right up to him and looked on with interest as he and Angie heaved the tree into the entrance lobby and then pushed it into the corner, where it would stand in front of the ticketing office for everyone to see.