Jane Gilley - The Afternoon Tea Club

Stacy was soaked from the hefty downpour by the time she got back to her flat, following afternoon tea at the community centre. She stood dripping on the doormat; her yellow cardigan now soaked with cold rain. She’d forgotten her umbrella and it had rained in heavy blobs, despite the heat. She hated her hair getting wet because it expanded, uncontrollably, into a frizzy mess if she let it. That’s why she’d kept it long, a bit too long really, in the hope the weight would keep it down. It didn’t make much difference though. Her clothes needed to go straight into a washing machine, but she didn’t have one. She always did her washing at the laundrette next to the corner shop, so her clothes would have to wait in the washbag until she got around to doing that. The first thing she wanted to do, however, was have a shower, to wash away the stickiness from choosing the right colour but wrong fabric for her afternoon tea outfit. She didn’t actually have any going-out outfits because she never normally went anywhere.

She felt quite relieved to be home, but as she turned the key in her door she was greeted with a cacophony of pitiful mews and yowling. It sounded a little different to usual. As she entered her flat a black and white cat slouched from behind the kitchen door and wound itself around her ankles, staring wistfully up at her with its lovely yellow eyes. Stacy bent down to stroke it.

‘Oh, Pooch, my little pretty,’ she murmured, picking it up and kissing its face. But the cat suddenly struck out a paw and clawed the side of her face.

‘Ow! Naughty Pooch!’ she exclaimed, dropping the cat, which ran off with a howl. ‘Bad kitty!’

Stacy stomped along the corridor to the bathroom, holding her face. She glanced in the mirror. It was only a little nick but it had left a spotted trail of blood, sliding towards her chin. She dabbed at the blood with some toilet paper. Pooch probably hadn’t meant it. He’d be skulking in the lounge now, fearful of another telling-off. But she had to get her wet clothes off first and get sorted.

However, turning from the sink, she could see some of her other cats – Ebony, Chater, Melanie and Dingle – leaping around in the bath playing with the shower extension. They were having fun. She didn’t particularly want to disturb them. But then she breathed in smells she didn’t really want to smell, either. One of them had probably weed and they were all in it now. Damn. The bath would need cleaning before she got in and used the shower attachment. But Chater was currently problematic and skittish following the incident with the toilet lid falling on him yesterday. Maybe shooing them out of the bathroom wouldn’t go down too well with him at the moment, either. She certainly didn’t want him hissing and clawing her again this afternoon.

Sighing, Stacy took her cardigan off and dropped it by the sink. She needed to see if Snowball looked any better. But the yowling was louder in the lounge when she opened the door. She sidestepped their climbing frames and empty tins of cat food, overflowing litter trays and unfortunate ‘accidents’ all over the lounge carpet. It really needed cleaning in here. John, her next-door neighbour often banged on her door to complain about the noise and smell. How, she wondered, could he possibly smell anything when they lived in separate flats? He was such a Moaning Minnie!

‘Snowball, my little – oh! Snowball! ’

Stacy gently picked up the tiny limp body from beside the radiator and held it like a baby in her arms. A tear slid down her cheek and plopped onto the little lifeless black kitten.

Casper tried to jump on her lap and sniff Snowball as she sat down on the sofa. She pushed him off. But he jumped back on again. So, that’s why they’re concerned, Stacy thought.

But what should she do now? She knew she had to get the kitten out of the flat. Maybe the odd-sounding mewing would stop then. She’d have to find a sealed plastic container to put him in, ready for burying somewhere. That would probably calm the others, too, she thought. Their mewing was constant. If only she could switch that noise off, sometimes! She needed her shower, yes, but her priority was to get Snowball away from the others because she could see the tiny kitten looked somewhat scraggy and when she turned him over – oh no – he’d been mauled!

She went into the kitchen, stepping over Rover the ginger tom – narrowly missing treading on Canterbury her pregnant cat. How had Canterbury got out of the bedroom? Had she left the door open, by mistake? And was Rover bothering Canterbury now?

‘For God’s sake, guys!’

She pushed Canterbury along the corridor with her foot, as gently as she could, and finally got her pregnant cat back inside the bedroom. But she’d had to put Snowball on the floor whilst she kept Canterbury just inside the bedroom door, with one hand, and then shut the bedroom door with her other. Unfortunately – quick as a whip – Rover spotted Snowball and went to paw him.

‘Stop it, Rover! Was that you before? Get into the lounge! Now stay in there, naughty boy!’

Stacy was always stressed with the effort of trying to keep them all separated or stopping fights. She often got badly scratched for her efforts. It was partly the reason she always wore long-sleeved clothes, even in the summer; to cover her unsightly sores! She realised keeping all the cats in her one-bedroom flat had probably not been her best idea. And whilst she knew that cats tended to grieve a dead companion, both Rover and Chater had become unpredictable animals of late. Probably being cooped up in her small home meant their behaviours weren’t as they should be. Yet her obsession with cats hadn’t started off like this.

Stacy loved cats. They were her kind of animal. They weren’t as needy as dogs, even though she knew dogs were loyal. As a child she’d lived on a farm with her parents and brother, so she was used to animals. However, the cats her father had kept were for ratting only. She’d never been encouraged to pet them, although she had done sometimes.

‘Never know what germs they carry, so leave them be,’ her father used to say.

So it was a complete joy to her when she was able to leave home and buy this flat with her half of her grandmother’s inheritance. Having her own place meant living by her own rules and also meant she could have as many cats as she liked! So she’d started off by buying a couple of kittens from a pet shop. Then people had wanted her to take their cats when they moved house or if someone found a stray. She knew about the Cats Protection society but they always seemed to be terribly busy with their own intakes. So Stacy had thought she was helping everybody out by taking cats in herself.

Trouble was, working every day in the library meant she could only see them lunchtimes and evenings, and so she’d often come home to find chunks out of them when they’d been fighting and once one got stuck behind the back of the kitchen units, which had meant getting someone to remove the unit and rescue the cat. So vet bills were fairly high because she was at the vets quite a lot. Yet she still hadn’t got round to sorting out a pet plan for them all yet.

Some days it felt like she was fighting a losing battle, trying to keep them all alive and happy and fed or separating them into the various rooms. And trying to find out who got on best with who was always a worry with new cats. Occasionally she found them new homes but not often. She’d had most of her current cats for nearly two years now – Snowball had been a new addition. Yet, despite their traits, despite being problematic, she loved them all dearly. It was wearing though. But she couldn’t simply give them all away! Who would look after them like she did? Who else would spoil them with those little tins of sardines or smoked salmon, when she could afford it? Cat charities were probably overworked and no one else had the time to help her out.