Кейт Мур - Felix The Railway Cat

His on-alert ears took in all the sounds cascading around him. ‘Oh, isn’t he handsome!’ the team chorused. ‘Isn’t he just gorgeous !’ Their voices were like a torrent of noise, washing over the kitten and – at that moment – sounding about as welcome to him as a bucket of iced water.

Joanne bent and placed the little feline gently on the carpeted floor. ‘This is home,’ she told him.

Whoosh!

The kitten legged it. No messing. He darted straight under the computer table to safety, from where he could work out what the hell was going on.

Everyone in the room chuckled indulgently. There would be time enough for making friends, and for showing the new recruit the ropes. The Briscoes closed up the carrier with a satisfying click , ready to head back home.

But, before he left, Chris bent down and locked eyes with the piebald kitten who was now sitting comfortably under the desk. Chris knew what lay ahead for this cat: he was to become the new pest controller at Huddersfield station. He had a job with TPE, and so he was – to all intents and purposes – now a colleague.

A grin lit up Chris’s bearded face. ‘Bye for now,’ he said lightly to the little kitten. ‘See you at work on Monday.’

5. First Day on the Job

Gareth Hope quietly eased open the door to the announcer’s office and crept inside. Announcers didn’t work nights, so he wasn’t tag-teaming with anyone else – it was just him, slipping like a pale ghost inside the door, just before 6 a.m. His long hair swung around his ears as he turned at the doorway and surveyed the scene before him.

It was amazing . No other word for it. There was this tiny ball of black-and-white fluff on the reddish-pink carpet that he knew so well, the tiniest little thing – and it was moving. It was alive! The kitten was just wandering around the office, having been at the station for less than twenty-four hours, and was clearly still quite confused and trying to take it all in. His white plastic food bowl dwarfed him, he was so small.

Gareth almost couldn’t believe his eyes. ‘Hello, station cat,’ he whispered. For a long time, he just stood in the doorway, staring at the little creature. After all his campaigning, all his eager enthusiasm and blustering banter, one of his ideas had actually come off . He had achieved something. And now the kitten was before him: living, breathing proof that when Gareth put his mind to something, he really could make things happen, no matter how much he might doubt himself at times.

Gareth bent down to say hello, and the kitten, naturally inquisitive, though still somewhat timid, trotted over to sniff out this newcomer with caution. Gareth let the cat’s velvety black nose fully investigate his hand, before pressing his fingers firmly into the kitten’s fluffy black fur and giving him a friendly stroke.

‘Hello, I’m Gareth,’ he said cheerily. ‘I’ve been waiting a long, long time to meet you, little cat.’

The announcer’s office had a window that looked out onto Platform 1, and Gareth could see, even as he crouched on the carpet next to the cat, that the platforms were already filling up with the morning commuters. Soon, the early trains to Manchester and Leeds and York would be pulling into the station – and Gareth needed to be ready to announce them. But he didn’t want to say goodbye to his new friend just yet, so he scooped him up and placed him on the desk where he worked.

The workspace had a keyboard, four large screens showing both the train arrivals and the CCTV images, and a black freestanding microphone for making announcements, as well as the usual office detritus: a computer mouse, a few pens, a clipboard for making notes and a telephone. The kitten padded about on the desktop as Gareth settled himself in his chair, and then curled up, right on top of the keyboard – his bottom on the keys and his head on the desk – and fell fast asleep.

Gareth chuckled to himself. It was just as he had imagined. The kitten was only eight weeks old and had been at the station for less than a day, and he was already taking over. Gareth couldn’t bear to disturb him, so he ‘worked’ (as little as possible, it must be said) around the sleeping form throughout that very first morning rush hour that the station cat was on duty. If anyone came to the window with an enquiry, he would gently lift the kitten – who fitted into the palm of one of his hands – into his cupped hand and carry him over to where he could more easily assist the customer, not wanting to let the little animal out of his sight even for an instant.

Those first customers to catch a glimpse of the kitten were naturally somewhat surprised to see a railwayman bringing a snoozing moggy to the window, but Gareth barely registered their reaction. He had eyes only for the new station cat, and spent most of the shift cuddling him or watching him as the kitten once again adopted what was fast becoming a favourite position: hugging the computer keyboard with a paw stretched out across it. Seeing him shiver, Gareth scurried to get a blanket and draped it around the ball of fur, before returning to his obsessive observation of every slumbering sigh, whisker wriggle and tail twitch as the cat snoozed away the hours.

And that was how Angie Hunte found them when she clocked on for her shift that day. As soon as she locked eyes on the kitten, it was love at first sight. She fell hook, line and sinker for this little creature and, as Angie herself put it, ‘There was no work done that day whatsoever. Everything was just second best that day.’

Gareth and Angie couldn’t stop staring at him. He was possibly the fluffiest cat they’d ever seen – totally gorgeous. He had ebony black fur, but his bib, paws and belly were the snowiest white. His belly was almost all white, they realised, except for a black splodge just below his heart. White, too, were the inner tufts of his pointy ears, while his tail had just a smidgeon of silver to it at the very, very tip. He was so small that, when curled in a ball atop the keyboard, he still left Gareth plenty of room to type softly around him, for he occupied only the space from the return key to the letter V.

Angie, who had grown up with cats but hadn’t had the pleasure of caring for one in over twenty-five years, felt blessed. To be given responsibility for this wondrous little creature felt very, very special indeed. ‘I can’t believe we’ve got him,’ she breathed softly to Gareth. ‘I never thought in a million years we’d ever actually get one.’

As the kitten dozed and Angie and Gareth fussed over him, they also assessed the larger surroundings of the announcer’s office. Given the small contingent of anti-cat folk on the team, neither Angie nor Gareth wanted to give a colleague any excuse to complain. So they covered the floor with newspaper – and just as well, for it turned out that the kitten was a rather messy eater and drinker. As he was not yet used to his new bowls at the station, both food and water would get everywhere when he dined. Just as his mother Lexi had taught him, however, he was very good about using the litter tray laid out for him, and very few ‘accidents’ occurred. Whether in the litter tray or elsewhere, the kitten’s mess was cleaned up instantly, to make sure it didn’t disturb anyone in the office who might have an axe to grind.

The kitten slept for most of Gareth’s shift that first day, but he was awake for a little bit, blinking those kitten-blue eyes at his new friend – and Gareth decided, looking at the way the creature’s eyes fixed firmly on him, that what the kitten really needed, in this new home of his that was in many ways so transient, with people coming and going on shifts all the time, was a permanent friend to call his own. Leaving Angie gazing adoringly at the kitten, he went to knock on the door of the lost-property office.