Full Steam Ahead, Felix

23. Felix Transformed

Dan was right to act with his signs. For although Felix soon got the all-clear from the vet for her stomach problems – she did not have to go back for any scans and she was not sick again – the vet did tell them that her weight was increasingly becoming a problem. In the summer of 2018, Felix was almost a whole kilogram overweight, the largest she had ever been.

Her more sedentary lifestyle inevitably played a part. Dale remarked that it had been a while since he’d seen Felix leaving any mouse gifts for the team too; whereas once she had caught mice regularly, she was really slowing down on the pest-controlling front. Her age was also a factor and, that summer, Felix found the switch to a low-calorie senior food was non-negotiable, as both the vet and the team insisted that she had to do what was best for her health.

In fairness, the vet said that Felix was in pretty good health overall, her weight aside. Her world-famous fluffy coat was glossy and thick. Her emerald eyes were bright. She also had good mobility – when she could be bothered to get out and about. But an overweight cat may be storing up health problems for the future, including arthritis, diabetes and heart disease. It was in Felix’s best interests for them to try to get on top of it as soon as they could. Even after Felix was free to move about the station again, Dan and Angie kept the signs up on the concourse, urging visitors not to give her any treats.

Angie Hunte fretted about her not-so-little girl so much that summer. She couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to Felix. She was such a special cat; she was irreplaceable. If only there was some way to give her a break, Angie thought, some way of helping her to take things a bit easier …

Angela Dunn also watched the fat, fluffy cat as she lethargically lounged around through those hot summer days. Angela had taken over management of Felix’s trips to the groomers of late, and she now decided that she had to take her for a haircut to try to shear off some of her thick fur coat. This was, in fact, an idea she’d already tried to help Felix feel less hot and bothered that record-breaking summer. Felix had gone for a grooming session earlier in June, but unfortunately the groomers hadn’t done a very good job.

Knowing how hot the cat was, Angela had specifically asked them to give Felix a really thorough going-over, stripping out the dead fur that really bulked out her fluff and combing through her knotted pelt. Once at the salon, however, diva Felix had kicked up such a terrible fuss that she managed to throw a well-aimed spanner in the works of Angela’s carefully laid plans.

‘She wasn’t right happy today,’ the groomer had said, tight-lipped, as she’d handed back the carry case to Angela, ‘but we’ve done the best we can.’

Sadly, their best was nowhere near what Angela had hoped for. She couldn’t believe it when Felix stepped slowly out of the carry case back at the station and showed off her new hairdo. Angela had watched her strolling about wearing the pained expression of one who doesn’t quite know how to tell her best friend that her new look was really not working for her. Frankly, the formerly beautiful cat looked deformed: she had one tiny hip, where the groomers had cut out a chunk of knotted fur from her side, and one huge hip, where Felix had not allowed the groomer to touch her. She looked completely lopsided. But worst of all her pelt was still as thick as ever, knotted and tangled and threaded through with dirt from the railway tracks. Poor old Felix. Her glamourpuss look was a thing of the past. She really was in a bit of a state.

Angela had straight away tried to find an alternative groomers – but then Felix had got sick and all thoughts of tending to her personal appearance had taken second billing until she was properly on the mend. When she got the all-clear, however, it was time to get back on the job.

One day, at the very end of June, Angela came into the ladies’ locker room and announced to Felix that they were going on a trip to a new grooming place. Angela was careful, as she always was, that she did not show Felix the carry case until the last possible minute. Show the station cat the carrier too soon and you would never get her inside it. Felix would swiftly pull her old Houdini tricks and be off into the distance.

Back in the day, only Dave Chin had been able to get Felix in her carrier. Angela wasn’t one for scooping Felix up off the floor in her arms as Dave did, so she’d had to develop her own technique.

The first rule was that you had to choose your clothes very carefully in the morning. Some days Angela changed three times before heading out to the station, having to identify the perfect practical outfit: clothes that wouldn’t snag or pull or expose too much skin, just in case Felix scratched. Second was to do everything in the right order, so that Felix didn’t run for the hills. Third was to take everything nice and slow and easy, trying to make Felix feel as calm as she possibly could.

Despite the ‘rules’, when Angela lifted down the carry case from its home on top of the ladies’ lockers, Felix backed away slowly. Angela moved ever so gently as she placed the carrier on the floor and opened its detachable door, but Felix had such fear in her eyes that you’d have thought Angela was asking her to step inside the mouth of a whale, and not the mouth of a basket that was already lined with a soft fleecy blanket.

Angela knew how much Felix hated the carry case. She’d recently invested in a new one for her – a grey carrier with a wire mesh door at the front – which she’d purchased with a voucher that one of Felix’s fans had sent her for Valentine’s Day. The new case was larger than Felix’s previous carrier and Angela had hoped that having more space might help the cat feel better about it. But whether it was large or small, Felix still hated it.

That morning, she ducked her head as Angela lifted the box down and tried to hide in plain sight on the locker-room floor – almost as though she was a toddler playing hide-and-seek, who thought that closing her eyes made her invisible.

When Felix realised that her dastardly plan had failed, she turned tail and ran into the ladies’ loo. Her too-fluffy tail flicked crossly, as though she was using it to signal ‘No, I am not going in there!’

As though she sensed that her tail was not emphatic enough for this particular desperate scenario, her voice soon joined in too. Angela never heard Felix be more talkative than when she had to go in her carry case. She hissed and she howled and she squeaked and she growled … even though all Angela did was pick up the carrier and take a small, slow step towards the station cat.

‘In you get, Felix,’ Angela urged. ‘Please go in.’

‘Miaow!’ shouted Felix, her voice high and shrill.

‘Just go in, and then it’s finished with,’ Angela encouraged her. ‘Come on, my love …’

But Felix darted round her and headed straight towards the locker-room door, where she mewed loudly, hoping someone would come to her aid.

‘You’re not getting out, Felix,’ Angela told her. ‘You’re getting in.’

Eventually, Angela somehow managed to ‘scoop’ Felix into the carry case. The station cat gave a final little squeal and then there was silence. As Angela attached the wire mesh to the front of the carrier, Felix scooted forward until her fluffy black face was pressed right to the edges of the metal grille. She looked rather like a convict then, trapped behind bars, her green eyes looking gloomily out. But, funnily enough, now that the battle was over she calmed down and adapted to her situation. By the time Angela had pushed on her sunglasses and collected her car keys, the cat was sitting contentedly in the case, watching the world go by through the metal bars. Angela knew, after all the fuss, that Felix would now travel quite happily in her car to the new grooming destination.

The sun beat down hard on their heads as Angela and Felix crossed St George’s Square to reach the station car park. It was more than 30 degrees that day and both Angela and Felix panted a little in the heat. As Angela cranked up the air conditioning in her car, cooling them both down, she wondered what Felix might make of the place she had found. She was rather intrigued to know – because it was like nowhere Felix had ever been before.

Felix gazed out through the bars of her carry case as the car began to climb steeply up a hill. They had been driving for about twenty minutes and were now out in the rural countryside surrounding Huddersfield. All around were rolling hills and valleys, their lush grasses green under the hot summer sun.

Felix’s curiosity was piqued as Angela brought the car to a halt and came round to open the door for Queen Felix. As Angela pulled it open, Felix’s senses felt suddenly assaulted by all the unusual scents that rushed in from the outside. Where had Angela taken her this time?

Angela lifted Felix out of the car in her carry-case chariot and the station cat’s nose went into overdrive. What were all these new smells – and sights and sounds? What had happened to the familiar roar of the trains and the rumble of suitcase wheels on platform one? And what on earth made a noise like that?

‘Moo!’ heard Felix.

For the first time in her life, Felix the railway cat was on a farm.

It was a working farm, with cows bred for their meat, and Felix’s nostrils twitched in trepidation as the earthy smell of manure and animal hides hit her fully in her fluffy black face. Being a city cat, used to the stink of engine oil, it was a very different smellscape for her out here. Her green eyes peered eagerly out of the wire-mesh door, trying to identify all the different elements.

Felix saw that she was at the top of a very steep incline. A drystone wall bordered the track that she and Angela had driven up, beyond which was a severe drop down into a plunging valley. Angela had parked beside a traditional farmhouse with duck-egg-blue doors and brightly coloured flowers in pots; on the opposite side of the track were farm buildings and garages. Hay was strewn across the farmyard in thick yellow strands, while mud-splattered wheelbarrows and tractor buckets cluttered up the drive.

In the distance, Felix heard a dog barking excitedly, its clarion call brought to fever pitch by the sound of the car on the track outside. Meanwhile, closer to home, her attention was caught by a white-and-tabby cat who prowled possessively among the plant pots. But the cat paid little attention to Felix, being used to the comings and goings of animals at her home.

Felix’s nose twitched again. Further down the track were the cows she could smell: a herd with pale brown hides, who chomped mindlessly on the green grass of the fields that surrounded the farmhouse. And now she smelled something else, too: a new human, coming to say hello to Angela.

‘Good morning!’ said a cheery female voice.

‘And a very good morning to you!’ replied Angela. ‘Thank you so much for being willing to take her – despite her reputation as a diva! As I explained on the phone, she really needs some help, bless her. She needs all the lumps and bumps and the loose fur taking out. Can you help her, please?’

The woman in her early forties with close-cropped blonde hair smiled easily, smoothing down the red tabard she was wearing. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’ll give it my very best shot.’ She bent down and she and Felix gazed at each other through the bars of the carry case, as though sizing each other up. ‘Hello there, Felix,’ she said warmly. ‘I’m Louise. Welcome!’

Louise was the cousin of a friend of Angela’s. She had come highly recommended as a wonderful pet groomer. A shy, rather unobtrusive person, she had never advertised her services, but had nonetheless built a successful pet-grooming business over the past twenty-five years simply through word of mouth. She’d been grooming animals ever since she’d left school. Louise actually groomed more dogs than cats, but when Angela had phoned to ask specially if she might give Felix a makeover, she’d agreed to give it a go. Cats were very familiar to her too – two of them officially lived at the farm, but at one point they’d had more than twelve in residence, as strays often found their way up the steep lane and subsequently set up home in the farm’s outbuildings. Louise and her family never had the heart to turn them away.

Angela was very pleased to notice that Louise had a lovely calm demeanour. Angela knew that Felix needed a firm touch, but she also needed a kind one; Angela hoped that, in Louise, she might just have found the perfect person for the job.

As Louise took Felix from her and walked with her new client into her grooming ‘parlour’, Angela felt increasingly confident. For ‘parlour’ wasn’t really the right name at all. Rather than operating in some soulless salon or a clinical room that smelled scarily of chemicals, Louise worked in a small, neatly proportioned garage that was attached to the main farmhouse. It had a homely feel to it, despite its concrete floor, and smelled distinctly of animals. There was a black table for the grooming; a white bath within a dark green exterior; and a couple of cages for the animals to wait in, although these were empty today. It was anything but a sparkling poodle parlour with bells and whistles, more a practical establishment where Louise simply got the job done. To Angela’s mind, it was exactly what Felix needed.

‘Well, I’ll leave her with you,’ Angela said. She bent down to the carry case and locked eyes with Felix. ‘Now, madam, behave yourself, please!’

Felix watched her go, then turned back to face Louise. She squinted at her through the bars of her carrier. Louise may have been the loveliest woman in the world, but Felix felt hot and bothered and hated the indignity of anyone grooming her luscious pelt. Even as Louise began to unclip the wire mesh from the front of the cage, Felix began to growl. And by the time she came out, she was in full-on panther mode, hissing and biting and scratching.

‘Whoa, there!’ said Louise calmly. ‘It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you. Let’s just take a look at you.’

Felix, grumpily, submitted to an examination. And Louise could see she had her work cut out for her. Felix was such a long-haired cat that it was easy for her fur to become knotted and there were several big tangles cluttering up her coat. Her belly in particular was filthy – the fur there dragged on the tracks as she crossed them, and although the Angelas always asked the groomers to trim her belly fur in particular, in order to keep it short and practical for her railway adventures, it had been a while since anyone had done it, so the white fluff of her stomach was long and bedraggled. With her former grooming session having ended so abruptly, her main pelt was exceptionally big and bushy, verging on wild.

As Louise peered at her haunches, where the fur matted around Felix’s intimate parts, she wasn’t sure that anyone had ever had the courage to get in there and de-mat the diva before. On the upside, Louise was pleasantly surprised to find that Felix was not especially dirty – she had wondered if a railway cat might get more greasy or oily than her domestic fellows, but that did not seem to be the case.

Felix growled constantly throughout the examination, almost like a guttural snore. She seemed to take Louise’s interest as an affront. In keeping with most adult cats, Felix spent about half her waking hours grooming herself, and perhaps she felt human intervention was unnecessary – an undermining of her natural talents.

‘Right,’ said Louise briskly. ‘First things first: let’s take off your collar and get you combed.’

Louise used two combs for the grooming. She had one with teeth that looked like metal nails, which was good for pulling out the lugs in Felix’s fur, and another that looked more like a human comb, for smoothing out her fur after the tangles had been removed. It was important to comb first, otherwise they’d waste time washing dead fur that really needed to be removed.

‘All right, Grumbles,’ she said to the growling Felix. ‘Let’s get going.’

She began trying to comb Felix with firm, regular strokes of her comb, but she could barely complete a single stroke as her coat was so full of knots. Louise really needed to spend time on each one, teasing them carefully so as not to pull her fur too hard – but Felix was not going to allow her the time she needed.

Hiss went the cat. Swipe went her paw. Slash went a sudden swish of her sharp, bared claws.

‘Mum!’ Louise called out across the farm, as she tried to hold Felix steady. ‘I’ve got a bit of a wild one here. Please can you come and help?’

Louise’s mother, a no-nonsense farmer’s wife with sparkling eyes, short grey hair and glasses, came bustling into the garage. Louise rarely needed help with her grooming, but Margaret took one look at the wildcat on the table and reached for her heavy-duty freezer gloves, instantly understanding the situation.

‘She’s like a panther, isn’t she?’ she exclaimed. ‘Just look at those jaws!’

‘It’s all right,’ said Louise, reassuring the cat. ‘Good girl. Try to calm down now; we’re not going to hurt you.’

But Felix was not in the mood to listen. As Margaret held the cat still and Louise began tackling her tangled nether region, Felix let out an infuriated yowl at the indignity of it all.

‘We’re nearly done,’ Louise soothed, combing as quickly but as thoroughly as she could. She was amazed at how much fluff was coming off the cat as she teased out the tangles. ‘Just hold still for me please, Felix. Come on, sweetheart. It’s all right, calm down now.’

But Felix would not calm down. Around her bum and belly were big clumps of matted fur and she couldn’t bear to let Louise touch them. She let out another huge snarl.

‘Dad!’ Louise called out across the farm, as she and her mum held the cat steady. ‘I’ve got a bit of a wild one here. Please can you come and help?’

So then Louise’s father came into the garage too. He was in his seventies: a stockily built, muscular farmer with short dark hair. He was an easy-going, friendly man for whom nothing was ever a problem, so when he saw the wildcat situation unfolding in his garage, he simply rolled up – or, rather, down – his sleeves and pulled on his thick elbow-length gloves. They were more likely intended for falconry than Felix-handling, but he could see at a glance that they would be required.

Louise had never known anything like it. Most cats didn’t like to be groomed, and she was used to that; they were less tolerant than dogs. Yet Felix’s behaviour was on another level. As in all things, it seemed Felix was determined to outshine them all – and that was how she ended up with Louise’s whole family tending to her, as if they were a Formula One team and Felix was a very expensive, very valuable racing car. Her constant underscore of growls certainly sounded like a turbo-charged engine setting off at 200 mph.

Margaret was absolutely astonished at her diva-like behaviour. ‘I can’t believe they make all this fuss about this cat!’ she whispered to her daughter above Felix’s head, as though not wanting to enrage her further. ‘She’s a nightmare!’

But the three-man operation was slowly bearing fruit. As Louise patiently helped to clear Felix’s coat, teasing out the seeds and lugs and tangles, they cleared the way to a new Felix. Soon a much sleeker panther was sitting grumpily on the table, while a huge puff of grey old fluff piled up next to her, which had all come from her coat. Louise tried hard not to cut the tangles, which would have left Felix with a very patchy coat. Instead, she took the time to comb and comb and comb through her fur, taking however long was needed to rake out the lugs. Finally, she picked up her pet-grooming scissors and trimmed Felix’s long white belly hair so she’d be better able to travel on the railway tracks, just as Angela had asked.

‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ she told Felix, as the cat tried to wriggle away. ‘You’ll feel so much better afterwards, I promise.’

But Felix did not believe her – not least because after the combing came the shower. Louise didn’t always bathe her feline clients – if you bathed them too often it could strip all the natural oils from their coats – but Felix really needed the full works this time. On the count of three, Louise, her mum and her dad carried a fighting Felix over to the white bath in the corner of the room and switched on the shower hose. She fixed them with a glare – a fierce look that endured for the next five to ten minutes, as Louise soaped her up with a hypoallergenic shampoo to get her coat nice and clean. It didn’t really smell of anything, as scented soaps can aggravate animals’ senses, but nevertheless Felix turned her nose up at it.

Bless her, she did look sorry for herself, as the water splashed on to her coat and weighed her down. Many cats famously hate water and Felix was no different. She was used to being dry and would really rather have preferred to stay that way. She looked bedraggled, sitting glumly in the big white bath, as the three humans fussed around her, Louise carefully wielding the shower hose as gently as she could. The water flattened Felix’s fur until she looked more like a drowned rat than a famous Facebook cat who had captured the hearts of thousands.

At least there was no conditioner to follow; it can leave a residue on a cat’s coat, and as Felix would soon be washing herself with her tongue, it wasn’t a good idea to use such a product. But, to Felix’s great displeasure, the job still wasn’t over; next up was the blow-dry.

She was such a fluffy cat, it took a good twenty minutes to complete. Louise, sensitive to her new client’s mood, worked as quickly as she could, blasting Felix with the long tube of the hairdryer-on-wheels as her parents turned the station cat this way and that to make sure her coat was fully dry. Towards the end, Louise decided to towel off her white-tipped paws. They were still a little damp, but they would dry off soon enough, and it was better to leave Felix like that than to stress her out with too much blow-drying.

‘Nearly there!’ Louise said cheerily to Felix. Felix glared back at her, sulking. Her Formula One team then ‘drove’ her back to the black grooming table and Louise gave her a final comb-through, to ensure they’d fully got out all the dead undercoat and tangles. To Louise’s astonishment, yet more fluff was still emerging from the station cat.

She carefully continued to groom Felix, all over – lifting up her front paws to get to her armpits, smoothing out her intimate nether regions and brushing down her fluffy black back. After all Louise’s careful work, each comb stroke now was smooth. Felix’s coat looked gorgeously silky, shining in the bright lights of the garage. Though she’d fought it every step of the way, Felix had been transformed. The dirty fluffball was now clean and sleek. And the thick, heavy pelt that had been weighing her down for so long was gone.

Angela returned to collect her after a full ninety minutes of grooming.

‘Felix the Tiger is ready for collection!’ Louise had texted her, in order to summon her back to the farm.

‘OMG!’ Angela had replied, aghast at the nickname. ‘Hope all is OK?’

‘Still got fingers attached,’ responded the groomer, ‘but only just!’

As Angela walked into the garage to collect her friend, she couldn’t believe the difference. The grooming may have taken ninety minutes, but my goodness they were ninety minutes well spent. Angela’s real shock, though, came when Louise handed her a carrier bag.

‘What’s all this?’ asked Angela in confusion. She peered inside it and did a double take; Louise seemed to have given her an unmoving second cat.

‘That,’ said Louise, ‘is all the fur that came out of her. No wonder she’s been too hot. She’s been wearing the coats of at least two cats!’

Angela looked again at the huge amount of fur with utter astonishment.

She couldn’t wait to tell Angie Hunte about it all when she got back to the station. She emptied the bag of fluff out on to the floor and stood Felix next to it, so Angie could see just how successful Louise’s grooming had been.

‘Bloody hell!’ cried Angie. ‘That’s another cat! You could literally make another cat!’

The two women looked at each other in amazement.

But while the big pile of fur was certainly a talking point, the real conversation centred on Felix. And it wasn’t about how marvellous she looked – although she did. Nor was it about how much she’d been physically transformed – although that had happened too. It was about the fact that Felix – the old Felix – was finally back.

‘The best thing that ever happened to her,’ said Angie Hunte with glee, ‘was when Angela took her to the groomers. The difference in her when she came back … When they removed that “other cat” from her, it was like she got the spring back in her step. It was as if she’d taken off a heavy fur coat and put on one of those lightweight cagoules instead. You could see her thinking it: “Phew! Thank God for that. This is what I’ve been waiting for!”’

Everyone could feel the difference – especially Felix. She felt so much better that her behaviour changed. Though she was still hot, she was much less lethargic. It was as if she could breathe again. She perked up. She walked better. She moved more easily.

The cat was back – and not a moment too soon. Felix was about to be needed more than ever.