Мелисса Дэйли - Christmas At The Cat Cafe

‘C’m’ere, Soph,’ cried Linda, seizing her niece around the neck in a one-armed hug.

Sophie raised her eyebrows at Debbie over Linda’s shoulder, but her mother’s eyes wore the same glassy, unfocused look as Linda’s.

‘Auntie Linda and I have come to a desh . . . a desish . . .’ Debbie slurred. ‘We’ve sorted a few things out. She’ll be staying with us for Christmas, but—’

‘Your mum,’ Linda cut in, gripping Sophie’s upper arms and looking up into her face earnestly, if a little blearily, ‘is an angel!’

Sophie’s eyes widened and her lip curled up into a sardonic smile. ‘Okay, Auntie Linda,’ she murmured politely, ‘if you say so.’

26

It was past midnight when Debbie and Linda finally agreed it was time to turn in for the night. Beau watched drowsily from the rug as Linda cleared away the wine glasses and Debbie prepared the sofa-bed.

Returning from the hall cupboard with an armful of pillows, Linda stumbled over a shoe and, flinging one arm sideways to regain her balance, dislodged a mound of jackets from the coat rack. Hearing her sister’s yelp of alarm, Debbie abandoned her attempt to wrestle the duvet into its cover and staggered over to the door. She leant against the doorframe, giggling at Linda’s clumsy efforts to reunite the coats with their pegs.

‘Just leave them, we’ll sort it out tomorrow,’ Debbie hissed in a theatrical whisper.

Once Linda’s bed had been messily assembled, I followed Debbie as she swayed upstairs. She peeled off her clothes, threw them across the bedroom in the general direction of the laundry basket and dropped, face-down, onto the bed. When I jumped up beside her, she mumbled something indistinct and ran her fingers through my fur, but her hand quickly fell still as she drifted off to sleep.

Through a gap in the curtains, the moon threw a strip of light across the quilt and I lay awake for some time staring at it, mulling over the evening’s revelations. Now that I knew it was Linda who was being rehomed, and not me, I felt a little foolish. With the benefit of hindsight, I knew it was ludicrous to think that Debbie would consider giving me away; we had been through far too much together. I pressed closer to Debbie’s side and lowered my chin onto her outstretched fingers, purring with sleepy contentment.

When her alarm went off the next morning, Debbie sat bolt upright and looked around wildly, before batting the clock into silence. I chirruped at her, but she sank back on the pillows with a weak moan, shielding her eyes from the morning light with her arms. She had just drifted into a light doze when the relentless beeping started up again and, with a furious thrashing of limbs, she reappeared from beneath the duvet.

‘I know!’ she shouted, as if in mid-argument with some invisible adversary. ‘I heard you the first time.’ She grabbed the clock roughly and switched it off, before heaving herself out of bed.

The kittens were pacing the hallway, waiting for breakfast with their tails expectantly aloft.

‘Oh, all right, cats,’ Debbie said, treading a careful path between them and the pile of coats still lying on the carpet. She was squeezing out a cat-food pouch with an expression of mild nausea when the living-room door opened.

‘Morning,’ Linda croaked groggily across the hall. The pristine baby-pink cashmere sweater she was wearing looked somewhat incongruous against her sallow skin smudged with make-up, and her scarecrow hair.

‘Lovely top, Lind. One from Beau’s carrier?’ Debbie asked huskily, registering the telltale crease marks where the sweater had lain folded for the past few weeks.

Linda picked up the kettle and edged past Debbie to the sink. ‘Perhaps,’ she answered offhandedly, her cheeks flushing the same shade as her knitwear.

With the help of several strong coffees and a couple of paracetamol, the effects of the previous night’s drinking seemed to subside, and Linda was back at work in the café as soon as she had fetched her belongings from her friend’s house. The café was busy and Linda worked the room like a party hostess, asking customers about their plans for Christmas and chatting to them as if they were old friends. Her enthusiasm for Ming’s Fortune Cookies was as ardent as ever, and soon the tables were littered with the telltale red cellophane wrappers and paper mottoes.

‘You know what, Debs,’ she said proudly, as she rooted around inside the Tupperware box of paper slips behind the counter, ‘I’m going to have to print off a new batch of mottoes soon. We’re nearly out.’

In an effort to prove she had abandoned her favouritism towards Ming, however, Linda made an impromptu addition to the Specials board – the ‘ Molly & Chandon Champagne Tea’ and persuaded several customers to order it on the basis that, ‘If you can’t treat yourself at Christmas, when can you?’

By closing time, both Linda and Debbie looked worn out. Blue shadows circled Linda’s eyes as she wiped down the tables, and the sound of Debbie’s yawns emanated from the kitchen at regular intervals. With her chores completed, Linda pulled up a stool to the serving counter, climbed wearily onto it and let her eyes settle on Ming, who was absorbed in a leisurely wash on her platform.

‘Do you ever wonder what Ming’s thinking?’ she mused when Debbie came through from the kitchen.

‘Can’t say I’ve had the time to give it too much thought,’ Debbie replied distractedly, searching for something on the shelf beneath the till. ‘Why?’

‘No reason,’ Linda said lightly, stifling a yawn. ‘It’s just that, compared to the other cats, Ming always seems to be . . . in a world of her own. But then I don’t really know much about cats, so it’s probably nothing,’ she added, self-deprecatingly.

Behind the counter, Debbie straightened up and looked over at Ming. ‘Well, she hasn’t fully integrated into the colony yet,’ she said, but there was a note of concern in her voice.

Ming was cleaning her face with her eyes closed, licking the inside of her slender wrist, before using it to groom her whiskers punctiliously. She seemed oblivious, or indifferent, to their scrutiny. After a couple of moments of deliberation, Debbie peeled off her rubber gloves and stepped around the side of the counter. ‘Ming?’ she called tentatively.

Ming continued to wash, unperturbed. Making sure to keep out of Ming’s eye-line, Debbie stepped nearer to the cat tree, held out her hand a few inches from the back of Ming’s head and clicked her fingers. There was no reaction: Ming didn’t startle and her ears didn’t flicker.

‘Oh my God,’ Debbie said, turning to face Linda with a dismayed look. ‘Linda, you’re right. I think Ming might be deaf!’

I felt a dip in my stomach, of shock mixed with incipient guilt. I spooled through my memories, desperately trying to recall an occasion when I had seen Ming react to something – anything – that she had heard. None came to mind. I vividly recalled our first meeting, when she had snubbed my attempt to introduce myself and Eddie in the café. She had looked down at us from the armchair, and I had read imperious disdain into her expression and had taken her silence for rudeness. It had never crossed my mind that there might be another explanation: that she hadn’t answered me because she hadn’t heard me.

The following morning Debbie phoned the vet first thing, and shortly after lunch she hung up her apron and fetched the cat carrier from upstairs. Ming reacted with her usual placidity as Debbie lifted her into the carrier, her deep-blue eyes remaining entirely impassive as she gazed out through the wire door.