Sheila Jeffries - Solomon’s Tale

Joe turned and left, slamming the door so hard that the whole house vibrated and the remaining shards of glass crashed into the hall.

‘I’ll kill the pair of you,’ he bellowed as he headed out.

Ellen picked me up and wept into my fur.

‘What are we going to do, Solomon? What are we going to DO?’

I just kept my head down and carried on purring into Ellen’s heart. She seemed frozen. Nothing I did made any difference. Perhaps that first row was the most difficult, at least it was for me anyway. And through it all Jessica was out in the garden, shamelessly chasing butterflies. For once I envied her ability to detach herself from family upsets. I made a mental note that detachment was a skill to be acquired in another lifetime. Right now I felt hopelessly inadequate, especially when Ellen put me down and picked up John, who was crying.

‘What did Daddy do?’ he was wailing.

‘He kicked the door in.’

‘It’s broken!’ John wailed even louder. ‘And the foxes will get in.’

‘We can mend it darling. Calm down. Daddy’s gone out now.’

‘Has Daddy gone away forever?’

‘No.’

‘He said he was.’

‘He won’t. He’ll be back. You’ll see,’ soothed Ellen, but her eyes were sad and frightened.

‘Jessica’s got a butterfly!’ shrieked John. He wriggled out of Ellen’s arms and both of them rushed into the garden. I didn’t understand why Ellen felt she had to rescue a butterfly when her own wings were broken.

Exhausted by the rowing, I crawled onto my favourite cushion to doze through the morning. Blessed sleep took me quickly into the spirit world.

‘How are you doing, Solomon?’

The sight of my angel’s beaming face stopped me moaning too much. The feelings of inadequacy and the pain in my ears melted into a stream of bright stars that healed my confusion. It was hard, my angel agreed, but warned me it would get worse, and in between the bad times I must concentrate on eating, playing and building myself into a strong cat.

Refreshed and brave again, I awoke at noon to the silence of an empty house. I yawned and stretched, and walked into every room with my tail up, expecting to find Ellen. Even Jessica was nowhere to be seen. A plate of cat food was in its usual place in the kitchen so I ate most of it, thinking it had an odd metallic flavour. Rabbit, it said on the tin. Tin-flavoured rabbit. Well, it was different.

I considered braving the cat flap, but it was too heavy for a kitten like me, only three months old, and it had a way of snapping shut on my tail. I decided to go upstairs to look for Ellen.

The hall was full of broken glass, and the door had been mended with a piece of cardboard and parcel tape. John’s room was empty, and so was the bathroom, but Ellen’s bedroom door was shut. I sat outside it staring, trying to use my psi sense to find out if she was inside, but apparently she wasn’t. A few meows brought no result so I ran downstairs and jumped onto the lounge windowsill, and there, to my amazement, was Ellen. My fur stood on end, my tail bushed out like a bottlebrush. What I saw was so strange.

Ellen was inside a silver door, about the size of the puss flap. She had shrunk to the size of a blackbird. I stared and stared, not daring to move in case it happened to me. It was definitely Ellen. She had blonde hair and she was smiling, her eyes were full of light. Then I noticed something that made my fur even stiffer. Only her head was there in that silver door, the rest of her was missing. Spooked, I looked carefully behind the silver door and nothing was there . I tried to touch noses with her but a glassy screen was across the door. I sat down, feeling I mustn’t take my eyes off her, and waited for her to come out.

I heard the puss flap slam and Jessica came in with a dead starling in her mouth. She dumped half of it in the kitchen and half of it under the sofa before seeing me up there staring at Ellen in the silver door.

‘What are you all blown up about?’ she asked. ‘You look like a hedgehog.’

‘Something terrible has happened to Ellen.’

Very few cats ever master the art of laughing. I certainly couldn’t. But Jessica knew exactly how to curl up her mouth, spark her eyes and roll on the floor as if she were laughing.

‘That’s a picture ,’ she explained. ‘It’s not really Ellen. It’s a flat image on a piece of something.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Humans have lots of them.’ Jessica sounded bored and scathing. ‘Haven’t you ever noticed them? Look at that flat barn owl on the wall. And there are flat rabbits on the wall in John’s room. And there’s a flat horse at the top of the stairs. I don’t bother looking at them any more.’

I did look at the flat barn owl and felt quite spooked by it, and angry with Jessica for laughing at me. I pounced on her from the windowsill and we wrestled, squealing on the floor. Then she chased me up the curtains. At that moment, in walked Ellen – the real Ellen, not the flat version. I was pleased to see her but she was not pleased to see me at the top of the curtains. That was our ill-timed mistake. The skin around her eyes looked red and her aura was dark. I wanted to love her but she shooed me into the garden along with Jessica, and a few minutes later half of the dead starling came sailing out too.

I hated Jessica for getting me into trouble. Hate was something I should not be feeling. It was bad . It upset my stomach and clouded my vision so that I couldn’t tune in to my angel. Mist surrounded me. Earth mist. Hate mist. How to get out of it, I didn’t know.

In this environment I could soon have lost touch with my mission and become a boring old cat who just ate, slept and survived. I walked into the road and considered leaving. The problem with leaving is that you are likely to regret it and go back, which is even more difficult. And embarrassing, I thought, when the car returned and Joe got out, shamefaced, and padded slowly up the path, a bunch of roses in his hand.

Jessica hated the postman. She acted like a guard dog, lying in wait for him under the bushes by the front door, and pouncing on his shoelaces whenever he came near. On wet days she sat on the stairs glaring at the letterbox, and as soon as the postman pushed letters through onto the mat, she shredded them with ferocious claws. If Ellen didn’t get to them first, Jessica would then use the pile of torn paper as a litter tray. Her rage was infectious. Ellen and Joe, and even little John, screamed at her, and Jessica would disappear under the sofa at speed.

She’d got a private collection of toys under there, a dead mouse, a blue and yellow Lego man, a shoelace and a Dairylea cheese portion pilfered from the kitchen table.

One morning Jessica furiously attacked a crackly brown envelope that Joe obviously wanted.

‘You DEMON cat!’ he roared, purple in the face as he dangled the shredded letter in his hand. As usual, he turned on Ellen. ‘You would have to choose a manic moggy like her wouldn’t you? Well I tell you now, that cat is going down the RSPCA.’

‘No Joe,’ pleaded Ellen. ‘We promised to look after her, and anyway she can be a sweet little cat sometimes.’

‘Sweet little cat! She’s rubbish. And we can’t afford to feed one cat, leave alone two.’

They were chilling words. I gazed at Joe from where I was sitting quietly on the windowsill enjoying the morning sun. Keeping calm wasn’t easy, but I was managing, even when I heard the dreaded RSPCA word. Later I padded across to the sofa and coaxed Jessica out. Her eyes were huge and black, but she emerged and sat beside me in our favourite chair.