Рейчел Уэллс - Alfie In The Snow

‘Oh dear,’ Aleksy said. Yet another understatement. Jonathan shook his head, and looked at Claire.

‘Right, I’ll go and call Franceska,’ Claire said. ‘And then I’m going to get your mum, Connie.’ She sounded angry. ‘Blimey you two, it’s freezing, are you both mad?’ Without waiting for an answer she ran back to the house. I was tempted to go with her but I wanted to see how this was going to play out.

‘What were you thinking, Aleksy? You idiot.’ Jonathan didn’t mince his words. He finally let his arm with the saucepan drop.

‘We just want to be allowed to see each other,’ Aleksy said, his voice wobbly. He was still my sensitive boy and he seemed younger than ever as he held onto Connie’s hand.

‘Yeah, mate, but running away on Christmas Eve, it’s madness. What if your mum, dad and Tommy woke up and found you weren’t there? And you, Connie, your mum is alone, she’d be absolutely terrified. Honestly, I could bang your heads together. It was irresponsible and stupid and you could have ruined Christmas. Right, come inside before I get frostbite.’

If I could have spoken, I would have said exactly the same, I thought proudly.

As both Connie and Aleksy slunk into the house after Jonathan, I went to see Dustbin.

‘Great job tonight,’ I said. ‘Thank you so much.’

‘You did well, Alfie. Try to get some sleep though, big day tomorrow.’

‘Everyone is coming here, why don’t you pop over?’ I said. I didn’t like the idea of Dustbin being alone on Christmas Day, although I knew he wouldn’t mind. He liked being alone.

‘Nah, big rodent day, they think they deserve to get more food at Christmas, so can’t risk taking any time off,’ he said. I grinned and raised my whiskers.

‘You work too hard.’

‘You and me both.’ He wasn’t wrong. ‘See you, Alfie.’

‘Happy Christmas, Dustbin,’ I said.

‘And to you. I know it’s going to be hard for you, missing Tiger, but keep the courage, Alfie, and I’ll see you soon.’

I watched as he seemed to disappear into the night.

Aleksy and Connie were sitting on the sofa looking very guilty. Jonathan was pacing up and down, delivering a lecture about how irresponsible they were. He seemed to be enjoying it, and actually was doing a pretty good job. I gave Aleksy my best disapproving look.

‘How come you came to the shed?’ Aleksy asked.

‘Alfie made us.’ They all turned to look at me. I examined my paw closely; honestly, sometimes humans weren’t the smartest.

‘But how did he know?’ Connie asked.

‘I told him,’ Aleksy said. They all glanced over at me again. My paw was suddenly very interesting. ‘I had to confide in someone but I didn’t think that he understood it.’ He turned to Connie in confusion.

‘He’s a cat,’ she said.

‘Yes, we do know that,’ Jonathan snapped. ‘He probably just heard a noise from the shed and thought I should investigate it.’ Their suspicious glances were increasing.

‘But he’s a cat,’ Connie said again. ‘He can’t have known we were there.’

‘He’s more than a cat,’ Aleksy said and I felt proud. At least he noticed. ‘But maybe he did just hear something, but that other time—’ Aleksy quickly clamped his hand over his mouth.

‘What other time?’ Jonathan narrowed his eyes. We all stayed quiet. ‘Anyway, back to the matter at hand,’ he said. ‘I know you think your mum’s being unreasonable and unfair,’ he went on. ‘But Connie, she’s had a bit of a hard time. I lived in Singapore and I lost my job, and had to come back here. I know it wasn’t a divorce, actually it was worse than that.’

‘Meow.’ OK, maybe not that good of a job.

‘Oh right, maybe not worse, but anyway it was a huge adjustment and I had a very hard time processing what happened to me. I probably was depressed and not very nice to anyone, actually including Alfie.’

‘Meow.’ He certainly wasn’t very nice. He kept throwing me out of the house in actual fact.

‘I definitely was depressed. Anyway, when people are depressed they sometimes act in a way which might not seem rational.’ Like throwing charming cats out of your house, I thought. ‘Connie, you are the casualty of this, I can see that, but you know you and your mum need each other and you’re a team. I know it’s a lot for you to have gone through too, and you are the kid, but she needs your support. Don’t get me wrong, I’m on your side here.’

Really? It didn’t sound like it.

‘But you know, you have school and your new friends, and your mum, well I think she’s a bit lost at the moment. So as much as it’s not your responsibility, you need to try to understand, honestly it will make life better for both of you. And then she might come round to Aleksy, you know.’

I take it back, it wasn’t that bad after all.

‘Jonathan, we are sorry,’ Aleksy said. ‘I just didn’t know what to do, and it seemed a good idea.’

‘It was a terrible idea. Aleksy, tell everyone you are sorry and that you will never do anything so irresponsible again. Making people worry isn’t the way to solve anything.’

I purred my agreement, I had thought it a good idea once but not any more.

Claire, wearing a coat and some boots over her nightwear, came in, her arm around a crying Sylvie.

‘Your father is on his way too, Aleksy,’ Claire said. ‘Your mum couldn’t leave Tommy on his own so she’ll save her shouting for when you get home. She really wasn’t happy with you.’

‘I’m sorry, Mum.’ Connie burst into tears and flung herself at Sylvie.

‘Oh Connie, to think you had to run away. What have I done?’ They were both sobbing, arms around each other, as Tomasz arrived.

‘So, Aleksy, you want to tell me what happened?’ Tomasz said. He looked as if he had been woken up, thrown on the first clothes he could find, his hair was dishevelled and he didn’t even have that much of it.

‘We were stupid. But you know we just wanted to be able to see each other. We weren’t going to do anything bad, but we wanted you to know how serious we were and the only thing I could think of was running away, but the first time we tried—’

‘You mean you tried before?’ Claire screeched.

‘Oh.’ Aleksy clearly regretted mentioning it again; when would he learn? ‘Yes, we did, but then I got downstairs and Alfie and Dustbin started making such a noise that I thought they would wake you up – so we had to abort it and then we realised that London was dangerous and so we weren’t going to run away because that was silly.’

‘I’m not sure I’ve heard anything like this before,’ Tomasz said. He looked a little lost.

‘So then we thought we’d just pretend. And yes, we realise now it was very bad to make you wake up on Christmas morning with us gone, but we were desperate.’ He had tears in his eyes, which I knew he would push back. Aleksy felt he was too grown-up to cry. In truth, no one was ever too grown-up to cry.

‘And you were going to sleep in the shed all night?’ Tomasz continued. Sylvie was listening, but she was also still hugging Connie.

‘Well, actually I don’t think we would have in the end, because it was very cold.’

‘Worst runaways ever,’ Jonathan said, and Claire swiped him as that wasn’t very helpful. ‘Honestly, it was just like the nativity scene,’ he continued, rubbing his arm. ‘Mary and Joseph wrapped in old blankets in a shed.’

‘It wasn’t quite like that, Jon.’ Claire rolled her eyes.

‘I am sorry,’ Sylvie said. ‘To all of you and to Aleksy and Connie. If I’d known how miserable I was making you, but then … I’m struggling, Con, darling. I miss having your father help me with parenting and I feel a bit lost in London, like I don’t know anyone, and well I shouldn’t stop you from having a life. I still think you’re too young for a boyfriend but if you’re willing to abide by rules then I guess we can figure it out. I don’t want you to feel that you want to get away from me, I love you.’