Felix The Railway Cat

14. Angel Felix?

In the first weekend of December 2011, Dave Chin sauntered along Huddersfield station with his arms full of Christmas tree. TPE always got its Christmas trees delivered from a special farm, and that year Huddersfield had chosen a massive, ten-to-twelve-foot one that would stretch right up to the ceiling of the lobby.

As was his habit, on arrival at the station Dave had already popped in to see Felix, and he wasn’t expecting to see her again that shift. Nine times out of ten she was sleeping when he saw her, so he’d just give her a cuddle and leave her be. But on that particular day, as soon as Felix saw what he was carrying, she bounded right up to him and looked on with interest as he and Angie heaved the tree into the entrance lobby and then pushed it into the corner, where it would stand in front of the ticketing office for everyone to see.

‘What is that?’ the station cat seemed to be saying, as she trotted round their ankles and circled the tree, moving back for a better view, then craning her neck upwards, to where the very top of the tree just touched the ceiling.

It was a big, bushy evergreen, with a solid wooden trunk and attractive branches splaying out every which way. Felix thought it might just be the most amazing thing she had ever seen. It smelled heavenly, of outdoors and forest and pine, and it was making the most intriguing sounds as Dave and Angie Hunte pushed and pulled it until it was safely and sturdily in place.

As soon as they stepped back, Felix launched herself at it. She ran right under the lowest branches until she reached the trunk, then dug in her claws and ran for the stars. It was just like the time when she used to run up her friend Gareth’s back, but this was much, much better! It was taller, and it didn’t wriggle or wince, and Felix could run fast, fast, fast until she reached the sky!

Suddenly, she was there, right at the very top of the tree. She poked her head out of the branches, and heard the peals of laughter from Dave and Angie below, who were pointing up at her and giggling. This was wonderful! She sat right there, queen of all she surveyed, with her head sticking out of the branches like a feline angel heralding the birth of Christ.

She sat there for ages, just watching. Why come down when one had such a marvellous view? She could see the team in the ticket office processing the tickets; watch as the customers came in and out of the station, many carrying shopping bags filled with festive goods, their breath fogging as they stepped out into the wintry vista of St George’s Square beyond the main front doors. And she could see Angie and Dave, who had disappeared for a short while, as they returned with a big cardboard box and started pulling out fairy lights and brightly coloured baubles from inside it.

TPE, by now, had stockpiled a range of festive decorations. They had white lights and coloured lights, blue baubles and silver ones, reds and golds and greens. The team mixed them up for a bit of variety and had different colour schemes each year. Chrissie from the booking office, who had given Felix her pink name tag, took charge of the display, and as Felix watched keenly she now came out of the ticket office and bent to help Dave and Angie.

Chrissie picked up a bauble and hung it on a branch. ‘Now, what’s this?’ Felix seemed to say, as she unpoked her head from the top of the tree and scrambled down the trunk to where the bauble hung below.

It glimmered there in the bright station lights, tempting and teasing Felix just as her laser toy did. The bauble spun first one way and then the other, as though it was taunting her. Felix narrowed her eyes, thinking hard and plotting. Then, in one fluid movement, she reached out a paw and swiped it hard.

Wipe-out! The bauble tumbled to the ground, and Felix jerked her head up, watching, as she heard Chrissie tutting and coming over to rehang it. Felix waited until she’d turned her back and then – swipe! Once more, the bauble fell off: 2-0 to Felix. It was game on.

And what a game it was. As soon as Dave or Angie or Chrissie hung a bauble, Felix would knock it off. There were baubles flying everywhere! Felix darted up and down the tree, having the greatest time of her life. Hidden among the branches as she was, all anyone could see was the tree moving a little bit, shaking as though it was chuckling at a fantastic joke, and all these baubles going everywhere.

‘Felix, no!’ they chorused.

But Felix was having far too much fun to stop, as she ducked and dived and swiped and wriggled and made the tree shake even more.

Finally, she tired a little of the merrymaking, and allowed Chrissie to complete the bauble-hanging. She watched proceedings as they continued, once again from the top of the tree, as Dave got out one of his big ladders and started climbing up it. She followed him with her green eyes with a great deal of interest. He had something clutched in his hand. What new toy-friend is this? she wondered.

But it wasn’t a toy-friend at all: it was an enemy. Though TPE changed the colour scheme of its decorations every year, one thing never altered: at the top of the tree would sit the same little angel, a gold cardboard cherub with a cone for a bottom who could be easily popped onto the highest branch and from there reign graciously over the station’s festivities.

Felix watched her coming closer with ever-narrowing eyes. As Dave reached out over the highest branch, Felix bobbed instinctively, and momentarily, below the barrier of uppermost branches, as though concerned he was going to grab her, but Dave merely placed the angel on the top of the tree and then descended the ladder.

Felix scurried back up and poked her head out of the top of the tree again. The angel smiled her painted smile. Felix looked her rival up and down – and the derisive glare she gave her said clearly that she was not at all impressed by what she saw.

‘This is what you want to put on top of the tree?’ she seemed to be saying with that disdainful glower. ‘This? When you could have beautiful me?’

Felix and the angel stared each other out at their elevated altitude, as though they were cowboys sizing each other up before a high-noon shoot-out. Felix made the first move.

Swipe! A little white-capped paw darted through the green branches towards the golden angel girl. But the station cat missed. She edged a little closer. Swipe! The tree wobbled and shook, and the multitude of baubles trembled on their strings. Felix poked and pawed at the angel through the branches: a left hook, a right hook, a swift uppercut. With every blow, she seemed to say, ‘Get off! It’s my tree! Get off! How dare you!’

Down below, the team chuckled. This feisty Felix was a rather recent development – but it wasn’t always a laughing matter.

Though Felix had not suffered any ill effects from her adventure to Domino’s Pizza, the team had noticed lately that she was no longer quite as pliant and friendly as she had once been. Frankly, you could understand it: from the moment she’d arrived at the station, she’d had scores of colleagues wanting a cuddle, and now she was out and about in the concourse she also had to contend with scores of strange customers, who stroked and poked and picked her up too. It was all a bit much for any cat to deal with. Everybody and their Uncle Fred wanted to play with her and touch her, and by now she was getting a bit bowled off by it.

With those she loved best, though, like Gareth and Angie, she was an absolute sweetheart. She had taken to following the team leaders around on their shifts, like a little puppy. If Angie was on duty and had to leave Felix behind somewhere, the cat would wait for her to finish what she was doing before trotting along beside her heels again; or Felix might turn it into a game of chase, where she would run cheekily ahead of Angie, occasionally looking back over her shoulder to check she was keeping up, then pause, waiting for her friend to catch her. But as soon as Angie’s feet drew parallel with Felix’s paws, off she’d go again, like a relay runner handed the baton. That was a great game. If the pair got separated while Angie was on shift, Felix would wait patiently by the bike racks, and the moment she heard Angie’s cheery voice calling out along the platforms – ‘Hello, driver!’ or ‘Good morning, there!’ to the customers – she would dart out happily to seek the owner of that voice, her joy plain to see as she scampered along.

Given Felix’s new diva-like disposition, however, Angie was understandably apprehensive as she took the kitten for her first grooming session. The vet had told Angie how important it was with a long-haired cat to make sure it was kept well-groomed, and Angie had bought a brush from him for that very job, but it had soon become clear that fluffy Felix was going to need – if not demand – professional expertise when it came to her beauty maintenance. So Angie made an appointment for her at a local grooming parlour.

The first challenge, as with any off-site outing, was getting Felix into her carrier. No matter how grown up she got, this was one terror she would never overcome. It made no difference how many treats Angie used to try to tempt her inside, Felix knew what was happening and was far too clever to fall for that little ruse. The moment she saw the box, she’d be off, and neither Angie nor her colleagues could get her inside.

But there was one man who could: Dave Chin, the Felix charmer. Angie used to radio him for that very job. ‘Dave! Where are you? Are you anywhere near Huddersfield? We need you – Felix won’t go in her box!’ Then Dave would come, pick up the kitten in one easy movement, turn her upside-down to give her paws a little tickle, and then he’d slide her inside with a casual, ‘In you go.’

Once inside, however, Felix would relax. By the time Angie had carried her to her car and turned on both the engine and the stereo, Felix was as good as gold. Angie and the cat used to listen to reggae music as the team leader chauffeured the station moggy to whichever appointment Felix was attending that day. ‘This is our music, in’t it, sweetheart?’ Angie would say. ‘This is our music!’ And she’d look across at her and chat to her – ‘It’s all right, we’ll get you there’ – and Felix would settle down quite happily, soothed by the reggae beats.

Angie was concerned that even Bob Marley wouldn’t cut it as she and Felix travelled to the grooming parlour for Felix’s first haircut, however. She felt most apprehensive as she carried the cat into the sweet-smelling parlour, like a mother dropping off her daughter on the first day of school.

The cat groomer leaned across the table to take her.

‘She’s never really done anything like this before,’ Angie said, hesitantly. ‘Are you sure she’s going to be all right?’

‘Oh, she’ll be fine,’ the groomer replied airily. ‘We deal with them all the time!’

Pfft! Angie thought. You haven’t dealt with ours … She had visions of Felix throwing a diva strop in the middle of the parlour and quickly hurried out before she could change her mind.

An hour or so later, she returned to collect her girl. ‘Has she been all right?’ she asked nervously.

‘Oh, she’s been absolutely brilliant,’ they said.

Angie thought they meant the groomer who’d been attending to Felix. ‘No, no, I’m talking about Felix. Has Felix been all right?’

‘Oh yes!’ they said, laughing. ‘She’s been great. She sat and let us wet-wash her; she’s had the blower; she’s had the whole job lot. Here – see for yourself.’

And there was Felix, sitting on the table with her head up high, her fur going everywhere as though in a wind machine, looking for all the world like a movie star on a magazine shoot. She looked amazing. Her coat was clean and bushy and out to here, like a glorious Afro. Angie had never seen her look so glamorous and gorgeous. When she picked her up, a heavenly scent wafted towards her. Little Felix smelled divine. Angie couldn’t wait to get her back to the station to show her off.

There were a lot of oohs and ahhs as Felix trotted out onto Platform 1 with her new look. But the instant she hit the mucky concrete, she flopped to the ground and started rolling, rolling, rolling, wriggling her back and her oh-so-fluffy fur into the dirt, trying to get the nice clean smell off her!

‘Felix!’ Angie hollered. ‘Come back here! We’ve just had you cleaned!’

But Felix wouldn’t be told.

Felix wouldn’t be told, full stop, these days. As Christmas drew closer, the station team and customers had to contend with a classic Yorkshire winter: rain, rain, snow and more rain. Through the open roof of Huddersfield station, raindrops fell and landed on Felix’s fur as she huddled on Platform 1, that thick furry coat of hers – just as Joanne Briscoe had anticipated – keeping her snug as a bug in a rug. But wet as Felix’s fur got, her feet got wetter still. When the weather became too gruelling and the cat retreated to the cosy comfort of the lost-property office, she used to leap up onto Angela Dunn’s desk and walk all over it, leaving filthy pawprints on her paperwork. Angela had never seen such a mess!

‘Now, now, Felix,’ Angela would scold, ‘please wipe your feet before you come in.’

The station cat didn’t make herself popular with the team working on the concourse, either. They might just have finished mopping the floor for the hundredth time that day when in would walk Felix with her elegant strut, diamanté collar flashing at her throat, and she’d leave muddy brown pawprints all over the clean white tiles.

‘Felix, really?’ they’d cry after her in disbelief. ‘We’ve just cleaned that floor!’

But while Felix was merrily having a whale of a time misbehaving, her carefree antics were about to get her into some serious trouble on the railway.

One afternoon that December, Felix decided it was the perfect time for a spot of rabbit hunting. Off she trotted to the end of Platform 2, where she paused, sniffing the air. She stood quite still, waiting.

There they were. Out came the little brown-and-white bunnies, hopping about on the grass by the tracks, right by the yawning mouth of the train tunnel. Felix dropped close to the ground, every sinew in her body pulled taut as elastic, every sense on high alert. Slowly, slowly, she crept forward, and started edging down the ramp that led her straight to the rabbits’ playground.

The team, watching her from further up the platform, shook their heads. You haven’t got a cat in hell’s chance of catching those rabbits, Felix, they thought to themselves – but Felix wasn’t going to let that dissuade her. She was having fun! Down the slope she went, nose to the ground, bum wiggling in the air, stalking those wild rabbits as though her life depended on it. Closer and closer she got to them, down and down … until Felix the railway cat was stalking the rabbits right by the tracks. She was very, very close to going beyond the safety of the platform and clearly hadn’t a clue as to the danger she might put herself in.

Luckily, someone had been keeping as close an eye on Felix as she was on those bunnies: the driver of the train that was dawdling at Platform 1. Concerned, he called over the Huddersfield station train dispatcher and spoke to him from the door of his cab.

‘Look at that cat!’ He gestured at Felix, who was busy striking hunting poses on the very edge of the platform. ‘She’ll be in proper danger if she doesn’t watch out.’ He made a decision. ‘I’m not going to risk it. I refuse to move this train until that cat is safe!’

Chris Briscoe, Felix’s ‘grandfather’, happened to be working at the station that day and was witness to the ensuing chaos his kitten caused. What a palaver! Felix caused quite the scene. There she was, gaily gambolling about with the rabbits, while further up the station there was a train stuck in its tracks, customers wondering what was causing the delay, and a railway team up in arms trying to sort it all out. Felix had brought the whole station to a standstill. In all likelihood, the moment she heard the train’s engine start, she would have run for home, but the driver was so frightened of running over the popular station cat that he wouldn’t move his train one inch.

Eventually, Felix finished with her fun and lolloped back up the ramp to safety, completely oblivious to the chaos she had caused. The train’s engines roared, the driver was waved on, and the station started running at full speed again.

‘Who are we going to put this down to?’ the team asked crossly as they filled in their forms; they had to account formally for any hold-ups.

All eyes turned as one to the little black-and-white cat.

‘Felix,’ they said in unison.