Julia Romp - A Friend Like Ben - The true story of the little black and white cat that saved my son

HarperElement

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published as Ben’s Gift by HarperCollins 2010

This edition published by HarperElement 2018

SECOND EDITION

© Julia Romp and Megan Lloyd Davies 2010

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2018

Cover photographs © John Daniels/ Ardea.com(cat); Shutterstock.com(background)

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

Julia Romp asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780007382743

Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2015 ISBN: 9780007382750

Version: 2018-02-15

For George, who opened my eyes to your world and what a

wonderful place it can be, and in loving memory of my dad

Colin, who gave me the laughter that I try to

pass on to George every day.

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

PART ONE Before Ben

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

PART TWO Finding Ben

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

PART THREE Losing Ben

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Moving Memoirs

About the Publisher

When it came to first impressions, Ben didn’t exactly shine. He wasn’t a small, pretty kitten with a blaze of ginger hair or even a sleek adult cat with a shining tortoiseshell coat. In fact, his black and white fur was covered in dried blood, his red rump was completely bare and his thin tail looked more like a hairy twig. Thankfully, I couldn’t tell by looking at him that he was also home to scores of fleas and ear mites.

But as off-putting as he looked, when the sickly stray started visiting my garden I left out food, because I’ve always been soft when it comes to animals. Even my pet rabbit Fluffy lives in a shed that I painted with bright flowers – it’s like the Ritz for rabbits – so I made up a bed for the cat in a carrier, which I left in the shed, hoping it would sleep there. The stray was looking worse each day and, I thought, once it felt at home in the carrier, I’d shut the door and take it to the vet.

Please let him be sleeping, I’d think each morning as I walked up the garden with my 10-year-old son, George, to check if the food had been eaten or whether the blanket had been disturbed.

Together we’d peer into the back of the dark shed and see the cat’s eyes peeping out at us. They were light, acid green, like the first leaves on a lime tree in spring, and every time I saw them, they stopped me in my tracks for just a moment. But although the cat was sometimes sitting on a shelf or sometimes next to a flowerpot, it was never in the cage.

‘Boo!’ George would say as he tried to play hide and seek with the cat whenever we went to see it, and I was glad because he didn’t often play games with anyone.

Autism made George’s world a very lonely place at times and other children found him almost as inexplicable as he found them. They were afraid of the rage which burst out of him in screams and shouts, while he was just as frightened by the noises they made and the way they jostled him in the school corridor. That’s why it was good to see George take an interest in the cat, even though the cat didn’t take an interest back. Whenever George or I went too near it, the cat would hiss and spit, its teeth bared and fur coat springing to attention. It obviously didn’t want anything to do with either of us.

But time and good food can do powerful things to animals, just like they can to people. Slowly the stray got comfortable enough to start sleeping in the carrier bed, and after another few more weeks, I managed to shut the door with a broom handle.

When I took the cat to the vet, I explained that I wasn’t its official owner and left the cat in their care, telling myself my job was done. I’d put up posters in the local area with a picture of the stray, and if anyone came forward, I would put them in touch with the vet. But no one did, and a few weeks later came the call I’d been secretly dreading.

‘Would you give the cat a home?’ the vet asked, and I didn’t know what to say. Now, if you knew me, you’d know how unusual that is. My mum says the phrase ‘talk the hind legs off a donkey’ was invented for me and she’s right. But I was lost for words when the vet asked me about the cat, because on the one hand I loved animals, and on the other I’d vowed never to have a cat because my childhood home had been so full of them that there was hardly space for me. Besides, although George had seemed interested in the stray, we hadn’t had much success with animals, because he found it hard to bond with anything. Polly the budgie had had to be rehomed because its noise disturbed George, and he’d quickly lost interest in Fluffy the rabbit. It wasn’t his fault. George just didn’t connect with things the way other children did – however much I wished he would – and I didn’t want to take on anything else, because it was such a full-time job looking after him.

But as I hesitated, the vet suggested that maybe we could just pay the cat a visit.

‘He seems sad,’ he said. ‘I think he’d like to see a friendly face.’

What could I do? My heart won over my head and I took George to the vet’s, where we saw a familiar ball of black and white fur curled up in a cage. Then it stood up, and I saw that the cat had a huge shaved patch on its stomach and a plastic collar around its neck to stop it worrying its stitches. It looked even uglier than it had before, but that didn’t seem to put George off in the slightest as he knelt down beside the cage.

‘Benny Boo!’ he said in a high voice I’d never heard before, sounding expectant, excited.

‘Is you feeling better now, Ben?’ George asked. ‘Is you well?’ Again, he spoke in a sing-song voice I didn’t recognise, and the cat miaowed back as he talked to it.

‘I think he likes you,’ the veterinary nurse who’d shown us into the room said with a smile.

George immediately went silent. He didn’t like talking to anyone, let alone strangers, and he couldn’t look people in the eye if they tried to speak to him; instead he stared silently past them at something in the distance, anywhere other than in their eyes. But as soon as the nurse busied herself with something else and George knew he wasn’t being watched, he bent down to the cage once again.