Рейчел Уэллс - A Cat Called Alfie

AVON

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2015

Copyright © Rachel Wells 2015

Cover image © Shutterstock 2015

Cover design © Emma Rogers 2015

Faith Bleasdale, writing as Rachel Wells, asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008142193

Ebook Edition © November 2015 ISBN: 9780008142209

Version: 2015-10-01

I feel so privileged to have been able to write about Alfie for a second time and there are a lot of people I am indebted to.

Thank you to my editor, Helen Huthwaite, for continuing this journey with me; it has been a pleasure yet again working with you and all the team at Avon. To see how much you care about Alfie is incredibly overwhelming.

I would not have been able to do this without my amazing agents, Kate and Diane, and their team at Diane Banks Associates. Always on hand with the best advice, you had the unenviable job of keeping me sane this year — no easy feat.

My family deserve a round of applause for putting up with me and helping me greatly whenever I needed it. Thom — you’ve been amazingly cat-knowledgeable; Mum thanks for all the help with Xavier; and Xavier, thanks for letting your mummy write when she needed to. Also to Jo for your amazing support and I love you all so much. Thanks to Helen, Becky, Martin, Jack and family for taking such good care of Xavier while I worked, knowing he has such a loving second family around him is priceless.

Special love to the wonderful women I call my friends, especially Jo, Jas, Tam, Tammy, Tyne, Jessica, Sally and Tina — I adore you all and am blessed to have you in my life. Prosecco all round!

A big nod must also go to Frankie and team at Morans in Westward Ho! It served as the perfect place to write, and provided much needed coffee, delicious food and inspiration — thank you Tomasz!

Alfie is a combination of the cats I have had the good fortune to know and love throughout my life, and therefore he is real to me. I cannot thank enough those who have read and enjoyed the book for embracing this very special cat.

For Xavier — you are my sunshine

I yawned and stretched, blinking into the dark night. The sky was clear, stars sprinkled sparsely above me, and the moon lit us up in a spotlight.

‘I’d better go home, Tiger,’ I reluctantly said. ‘They might be worrying.’ It wasn’t often that I stayed out so late, but Tiger and I had been having fun with some of the neighbourhood cats and I’d lost track of time.

‘OK, Alfie, I’ll walk you home.’ Although Tiger, my best friend, was a girl cat, she was pretty tough and definitely scarier than I was. And, after all I had been through, I quite liked having her as my bodyguard. Even as we strolled down Edgar Road together, passing dark houses, lit street lamps, and parked cars, I jumped occasionally at my shadow. I was a bit nervous in the dark; past memories were conjured up, things I would rather forget, but Tiger was striding protectively next to me so I tried to remember that I was safe now.

‘Look, Tiger,’ I exclaimed, fear forgotten, as we stopped near the house next door to mine; number 48 Edgar Road.

‘My goodness, it looks as if someone is moving in,’ she replied.

‘At this time of night!’ I exclaimed. This was incredibly strange — not only did I know that humans normally slept at night but they also normally moved house during the day.

We snuck into the front garden and hid behind a bush, a place we knew well, as we excitedly watched events unfold.

Tiger and I had staked out this house on many an occasion. In fact we knew it almost as well as we knew our own.

A few months ago the current owners had moved out and a ‘To Let’ sign had gone up. I’d persuaded Tiger to join me to check out the progress of the house on many occasions; even after all this time, I couldn’t resist the lure of an empty home. A few years ago, having found myself homeless, I was taught by a wise cat that empty houses heralded new people, and therefore potential families for cats in need. Like a moth to a flame, they called me to them. Although I now had loving families, and I certainly wasn’t a cat in need, I still found myself drawn to them.

There was a large white van parked outside and two men were unloading it. Both men were wearing jeans and jumpers; one wore a woolly hat, the other had very little hair. They were both tall; one was slim, the other a bit more rotund. They were largely silent as they carried large boxes from the van and into the house.

I purred with excitement.

‘New owners! I can’t wait to meet them,’ I said to Tiger.

‘Oh, Alfie, you’re such a doorstep cat. When it comes to new families, you just can’t help yourself can you?’ Tiger asked. I shook my head. ‘You don’t think it’s odd?’ she added.

‘Well yes a bit,’ I replied.

‘Who moves stuff into a house in the middle of the night?’

She was right, I thought, as I pondered why on earth they would choose the dead of night to move their belongings in?

When I first arrived at Edgar Road, over three years ago now, I had been taught that the signs they put up outside houses signalled that new people were moving in. I had arrived in the street homeless, abandoned after my owner passed away. Scared, lonely and with nowhere to go, I had used those signs to find the four houses that would soon become my new homes.

Without realizing it, I had become a doorstep cat; a cat who visits or lives in multiple houses. With so many homes, I could ensure that I was always going to be fed and loved. Finding myself totally alone in the world, without an owner, had broken my heart and I knew I could never face that again.

I had started with four new homes in Edgar Road, but they had dwindled to two after families had moved. So although I was pretty secure, I found old habits hard to break, and couldn’t help investigating empty houses. You never knew what was around the corner.

‘It’s a fairly big house,’ Tiger pointed out. ‘Which probably means a whole family will move in.’ Tiger lived only a few doors down from me but her house was smaller. My main family, Jonathan and Claire, were now married after I had brought them together, and lived in Jonathan’s large house, which cried out for a family. It was too big for just two people and a cat; it badly needed children running around it. They both wanted one, or maybe more than one, but I was their spoilt baby for now. Not something you would ever hear me complain about.

‘I hope there’ll be a big family moving in, with some nice children. But I hope they don’t have a cat.’