Кейт Мур - Felix The Railway Cat

But Billy had not been feeling well lately. In October he started suffering from a spot of heartburn and a bad sore throat, an affliction which seemed to grow steadily worse as 2014 drew towards its close. Come November he was feeling so poorly that he called the station manager, Paul, and informed him that he’d regrettably have to take a bit of time off sick.

Felix, however, was not under the weather at all. Rather, she went from strength to strength. That December, to Angie’s delight and pride, the station cat was once again chosen to be the star of the official TPE Christmas card.

As for where Felix would spend the holidays, it was Jean Randall, in the booking office, who that year volunteered to take the cat home for Christmas. She didn’t know it when she signed up, but it would turn out to be a Christmas she would never forget.

26. Santa Claws

‘Here we go, then, Felix,’ Jean said as she opened up the door of the cat carrier. ‘Welcome home.’

Felix stepped gingerly out of the blue-and-oatmeal carry case and looked around with interest. Jean lived in a lovely two-bedroom cottage, built in 1802. On the ground floor it had a long kitchen/diner, as well as a huge living room with wooden floorboards and plain cream walls. The focal point of that living room was the fireplace, which was framed by a beautiful stone mantelpiece set before an open chimney. When the fire was lit and the white voile curtains drawn across the glass French doors, it was a wonderfully cosy place to spend a winter’s night.

Felix had a good old nose around, sticking her twitching whiskers into every nook and cranny, familiarising herself with this environment which was so very different from the station. She had stayed with Jean for Christmas 2012, too, but showed no sign of recognition as she padded round the living room on her white-tipped toes.

It had been a great Christmas two years ago with the little black-and-white cat, so Jean had been more than happy to volunteer to look after Felix again. In 2012, when Jean and Felix had first got home from the station on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, after investigating her new pad Felix had simply curled up on Jean’s lap and fallen fast asleep, exhausted by the novelty of being in a family home.

On Christmas Day, however, it had been Jean who’d been exhausted, for Felix – bless her – had spent the whole of Christmas Eve night crying and howling. She’d been lonely without the night-shift team around her and was clearly disconcerted by the stillness and the silence, where normally there were trains coming and going through the night. Jean had got up and sat with her at least three times – but they didn’t see Santa. Instead, they’d snuggled up on the sofa together and listened to the radio as Christmas morning had broken across the town.

Christmas Day had been a fine affair with Felix receiving a special festive treat of fresh prawns while Jean and her visiting family and friends ate their dinner; it was a very full house, and Jean was convinced that at least some of the visitors came because they knew the railway cat was the guest of honour that year and wanted to meet her. Felix had been as good as gold as they’d pulled their crackers and told the jokes, so used to the noise of the station that the bang of the crackers didn’t even make her start.

But busy and well-populated as the celebrations were, Felix had been far more interested in her hostess than in her new admirers; she’d followed Jean around devotedly, and every time she’d got close to her she’d purred loudly, delighting in the familiarity of her friend when everything else was so strange. Yet it didn’t take her long to adjust to her new environment: before she came home, Felix was sleeping through the night without a peep and Jean thought she’d adjusted very quickly to domestic life.

That said, the cat returned to work with far more enthusiasm than most workers do following the Christmas break. Jean and Felix had spent both Christmas Day and Boxing Day 2012 together, then Jean had carried Felix back to the station on 27 December, which was also Jean’s first day back in the booking office. When Jean had opened the door of the carry case, the railway cat had come straight out as if she’d never been away and immediately got on with her work. She’d sauntered along the platforms, giving a contented nod to the customers as if she was saying, with some satisfaction, ‘I’m home .’

Not that she didn’t enjoy her holidays. Felix was a curious and adventurous cat with many human friends, and her annual jaunts to stay in the different homes of her colleagues for Christmas had always been fun affairs. This year, naturally, would be no different. As always, her first priority was to suss out the lie of the land.

Jean let the cat get settled before changing out of the uniform she’d been wearing for her shift that morning. She pulled on some tartan pyjamas and shrugged a cosy pink dressing gown on over the top. She liked to get changed after work, and she and Felix wouldn’t be going out again that evening; it would be just the two of them on the sofa instead: the cat lady and the cat. Nice company for each other on this Christmas Eve night.

Jean padded back down the stairs to see how Felix was getting on. Perhaps she would be lying on the new fleecy blanket Jean had bought for her bedding. Or maybe she’d be in the kitchen/diner, where her litter tray was laid out. Well-trained by her mother Lexi, Felix was still diligent in using the litter tray, even though she tended to do her business outdoors at the station. It seemed there were some things you never forgot.

Because Felix was a cat so accustomed to being outdoors and to coming and going as she pleased, the only hardship of her holidays was that Jean would be keeping her indoors for the entire visit, as she had done two years before. Felix was far from home and had travelled to Jean’s house in a car – Jean didn’t want her getting lost or running off. The idea of returning to the station after Christmas without the station cat and having to break the news that she’d lost her didn’t bear thinking about. Team leader Angie Hunte would probably kill her.

When Jean got downstairs, Felix was pottering happily about in the living room, swishing her fluffy black tail as she wandered this way and that, her whiskers quivering as she sniffed all the exciting new smells. Jean joined her.

‘All right, my darling?’ Jean asked as the two of them ambled about the big living room, Felix still exploring and Jean doing some tidying up. There was a large coffee table in the middle of the room; Jean was standing on one side of it and Felix on the other. As it was now late afternoon on Christmas Eve, it was dark outside the French doors: a thick blanket of black had already settled upon the town.

Jean chattered away to Felix, conscious of the cat’s eyes upon her as she moved about the room. When Felix was staying at her house, the feline often followed her movements obsessively, as though she didn’t want to let Jean out of her sight.

Which was why, when the cat’s gaze was no longer trained upon her, Jean felt its absence, as surely as if a spotlight had been suddenly switched off.

Jean was a mother of grown-up kids, and she felt an eerily familiar sensation as the cat stopped looking at her. It was just like when her boys had been small: she’d always instinctively known they were up to something when they went quiet.

She glanced over at Felix on the other side of the coffee table. The cat had turned away from Jean and was facing the unlit fireplace, sitting there and looking, as though deep in thought. As she watched, Felix’s head inclined to one side and her whiskers twitched. There was a tension in the cat’s body, as though she was about to do something , but what it was Jean couldn’t imagine.