Рейчел Уэллс - Alfie The Holiday Cat

‘It’s delicious, but I’m not sure we should be feeding it to the cats,’ Franceska said.

‘It’s very cold but I really do like ice cream,’ George said to me when no one was listening.

I licked a bit off his head. Um, actually it wasn’t bad, I could see the appeal. I saw Claire put the rest of Summer’s ice cream onto a plate by the sink. I jumped up and started licking and George joined me. Franceska took her phone out and started taking photos.

‘Only we could have cats who get to eat Devon’s finest ice cream,’ Polly laughed.

‘Meow,’ I said, as I lapped up the creamy, cold mixture. It was delicious.

‘Well I suppose it’s their holiday too,’ Claire finished. ‘Although I am still not sure they should be allowed it.’

‘Surely the odd treat?’ Franceska said, giving me a big smile.

Our holiday was suddenly looking up.

We were all having breakfast in the kitchen when there was a loud, persistent knock at the door.

‘Is that the builders already?’ Claire asked, looking up from where she was trying to coax Summer to eat some fruit. All the children were sitting nicely at the table, and George was licking porridge off the floor. I was trying, and failing, not to notice him doing so.

‘They’re not due for an hour, I’ll go,’ Polly said, making towards the door. I went with her. As she opened the door, we both were taken aback for a moment. Standing on the doorstep was a very glamorous woman, who I first thought was carrying one of those tiny dogs but on closer inspection it was actually a cat. A Persian, I thought, very pretty, but she took one look at me and waved her tail in a hateful way, hissed and started squirming.

‘Chanel darling, behave,’ the woman said as the cat wiggled in her arms. I stood my ground; this was my ground after all.

‘Hello?’ Polly said, looking bemused. The woman was tall, very slim and wearing a dress and really high heels. Her blonde hair was long and very neat and she was wearing make-up. I felt a little sorry for Polly — although she is the most beautiful woman I know, she didn’t look great in an old T-shirt, cropped leggings, her hair piled messily on top of her head and there was no make-up on her face. The cat was as immaculate as her owner but I didn’t like her, she was hostile and, I decided, as she hissed at me again, more than a little bit mean.

‘Sorry, sorry.’ The lady’s voice was confident and a little too loud. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Andrea. I live next door and, well, I wanted to come and meet you, with Chanel of course. I didn’t realise you had a cat though,’ she said giving me what I can only describe as a ‘look’. It was a bit disdainful.

‘Oh, hi.’ Polly looked at the woman unsurely. ‘Nice to meet you. I’m Polly, this is Alfie. We actually have two cats here,’ she explained.

‘Meow,’ I said, trying to tell Chanel I wasn’t scared of her. She looked at me as if she’d like to kill me.

‘Right, so are you living here now?’ Andrea asked. Her grey eyes narrowed and she tried to peer round the door into the house.

‘No, not exactly. We’ve just arrived but we’re on holiday. It’s a long story.’ Finally Polly found her smile.

‘Right, well no time like the present.’ And somehow Andrea managed to manoeuvre herself around me and Polly and into the house, Chanel still in her arms.

‘Um, everyone else is in the kitchen,’ Polly said, but Andrea had headed that way already.

Claire was sipping coffee, the children were squabbling and Franceska was trying to clean up but she kept tripping over George who was insistently scrabbling around her feet.

‘George, stop,’ she chastised.

‘Children, shush,’ Claire shouted.

‘Um, everyone, hello,’ Polly interrupted. As they all turned to look at Andrea, everyone went quiet. Even George. ‘This is Andrea, she’s our neighbour?’

‘Well yes, I live in the next house to your left, Beach Villa, and I’ve come to welcome you.’ She didn’t sound welcoming. Chanel glared at me and George. George was now still and staring at Chanel, his eyes wide.

‘And you’ve got a cat?’ Aleksy said, looking puzzled. ‘We love cats.’

‘Yes, sorry Chanel is like my baby, my third baby as I have two daughters, but I take her everywhere. I wouldn’t have brought her here if I knew you had cats, she doesn’t care for other felines.’

‘Meow,’ Chanel concurred.

‘Right, well I’m Claire, this is Franceska and these are our array of children.’ Claire smiled, and held out a hand but Andrea was unable to take it because she was still trying to contain a squirming Chanel.

‘Lovely to meet you all. I would stay but I think darling Chanel is a little uncomfortable.’ As Chanel was hissing and wriggling that seemed to be a bit of an understatement.

‘Right,’ Claire said, uncertainly.

‘But I tell you what, I’ll pop back this evening, on my own,’ she glared at me as if it was my fault, ‘with a bottle of something fizzy and we can have a proper chat.’

‘Um?’ Franceska said.

‘Well we are in a total mess, what with builders and everything.’

‘So I see, never mind, I’m happy to slum it,’ Andrea trilled. ‘I’ll be back about eight, I’m guessing all these children will be in bed then.’ She laughed, but it sounded a bit menacing. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll see myself out.’

Before anyone could say anything else, she and Chanel were gone.

‘My goodness,’ Claire said.

‘What on earth was that?’ Franceska said.

‘And we thought that we were the sophisticated Londoners, coming to a little Devon village,’ Polly said. ‘She looks right out of Knightsbridge. As did her cat.’

‘Chanel. What sort of name is that?’ Claire mused.

‘Did you see the collar? I bet it was real diamonds.’

‘Oh God, and she’s coming back tonight. I don’t know why we didn’t say no.’ Franceska trembled.

‘We didn’t get the chance … Anyway, it’ll be nice to meet some local people,’ Polly said unconvincingly.

‘Do you think we’ve got time to get our hair done?’ Claire quipped.

‘Well, I didn’t bring my ballgown with me but I feel that I should have done now,’ Polly giggled.

George was scrabbling at my legs to get my attention.

‘What?’ I hissed.

‘That cat, Chanel, she’s beautiful,’ he said. He looked a little enraptured.

‘But not nice, she didn’t like us, did she?’ I pointed out.

‘But everyone likes me. I’m going to be her friend. She’s so beautiful, the most beautiful cat in the world.’

I saw then the look in his eyes, which reminded me of myself when I first saw Snowball. My George had developed his first crush.

Andrea was soon forgotten as the builders arrived. One of them was going to finish the doorway into the newly christened ‘sand room’, while the others went up to the attic. According to Polly they worked hard and didn’t drink too much tea — which was apparently a good thing for builders, especially as we had a tight time schedule. As the weather was good, Franceska and Claire once again took the children to the beach. George and I lay on the bonnet of Claire’s car — it had the highest roof — and watched them from our vantage point. We said we’d probably go to the beach later but, as it was so close, we didn’t feel the urgency any more. So curling up together on the car sunbathing and watching the world go by was definitely a pleasant way to pass the time.

There were a few dogs around, although of course not on the beach, and they were thankfully on leads. It was a busy, lively village; cars kept appearing, looking for places to park, children jumping excitedly out, also lots of people cramming the pavements, all wearing summery clothes and chattering excitedly. I saw that Aleksy had set up some kind of ball game and children were approaching him to play. I hoped they would make some nice friends this summer, I hoped George and I would too—