Molly And The Cat Cafe

12

The tomcat stood at the alley’s entrance, frozen in mid-step with one paw hovering above the ground. His expression suggested surprise rather than hostility but, with last night’s trauma still fresh in my mind, I immediately braced myself for a fight. Arching my back and fluffing out my tail, I growled deeply and hissed, warning him to back off. The tomcat tilted his head to one side, observing my display of aggression with curiosity.

‘Good morning,’ he said, his green eyes looking at me calmly. ‘Have you finished?’ He glanced over my shoulder at the dustbin. His unexpected politeness disarmed me and, unsure whether I could trust him, I maintained my defensive pose and let out another growl. A smile flickered across his eyes and he sat down on the path, casually lifting a paw to wash his face, as if to suggest that he was happy to wait. I sized him up while he groomed himself, seemingly oblivious to my presence.

His sleek fur was black all over, but for a patch of white on his chest and the long white whiskers which framed his square face. He was long-legged and rangy, clearly in his physical prime. As he continued to ignore me, my feeling of alarm began to turn to embarrassment – my terrified response was beginning to seem like something of an overreaction. I self-consciously relaxed my back and lowered my hackles, but in spite of my efforts to control it, my tail remained in its voluminously fluffy state. I saw the tomcat glance at it as he washed, and I felt mortified, as if it somehow gave away my inexperience and vulnerability. He seemed to sense my awkwardness and averted his eyes, turning away to lick his back while I tried to regain my composure. It was only when he stopped washing and looked at me expectantly that I realized that he had asked me a question and was still waiting for a reply.

‘Yes, I’m finished,’ I stuttered. ‘I hope I didn’t eat your . . .’ I tailed off apologetically, painfully aware of the incriminating smell of tuna that was emanating from my whiskers.

‘’S’all right,’ the cat replied, ‘plenty more where that came from.’

He stood up and walked towards me. I felt my fur bristle in alarm, but he maintained a respectful distance as he walked around me, on his way to the dustbin. While he began to root around in the bin’s contents, I retreated further down the alley to observe him from behind a pile of cardboard boxes. He was in good condition, not scarred and battle-torn like the ginger cat, and seemed too friendly to be an alley-cat. But if he was a pet with a home, what was he doing scavenging for food in a dustbin?

When he had finished eating, he wiped his whiskers with his paw, before sloping off in the direction of the churchyard. As he passed my hiding place he looked towards me and nodded once, as if to let me know that he had known I was there all along. He didn’t break his stride, however, and continued to the end of the alley before disappearing into darkness beneath the conifers.

For a few moments I stared down the empty alley, my heart sinking as I realized that, once again, I had misjudged the situation and made a fool of myself. The tomcat’s behaviour seemed to throw all of my newly acquired assumptions about alley-cats into disarray. My initial relief that our encounter had passed without confrontation soon gave way to frustration that, in my panic, I had forgone the opportunity to ask his advice. Part of me wanted to run after him – to tell him how I had ended up here, and to ask him what I should do next. But the events of the previous twenty-four hours had taught me to exercise caution. The tomcat might have allowed me to eat from a bin in his alley, but I didn’t want to push my luck by pestering him for help.

Drowsiness was beginning to spread over me, as the soporific effect of my meal took hold. The cardboard boxes provided surprisingly effective insulation against the draughts that whipped down through the alley, and for the first time since arriving in Stourton I felt a sense of well-being. Listening to the magpies chattering in the nearby churchyard, I curled up and fell into a deep, restorative sleep.

I was awoken by the sound of the church bells, and I lifted my head to listen as they chimed six times. Night had fallen and I could make out the muffled sound of the church organ drifting through the air. My fur prickled as I heard the rattling of a key in the back door of the café. I peered round the edge of my cardboard shelter and watched as a woman stepped outside, clutching a black polythene bag. From my hiding place I could not see her face, only that she had shoulder-length blonde hair and was wearing a light cotton jumper and jeans. She lifted the lid of the dustbin and tossed the bag inside, trying in vain to press the lid shut on top of its overflowing contents. She shivered in the cold, before rushing back inside and slamming the door shut behind her.

The aroma of fresh food drifted towards me and my mouth began to water. Scanning the alley to make sure I was alone, I ran over to the bin and jumped onto the lid. I ripped the bag open and was delighted to see copious amounts of smoked-salmon and chicken mayonnaise drop onto the path below. Purring with pleasure, I jumped down and feasted quickly on the sandwich fillings, alert for the tomcat’s return. As soon as I had finished, I ran back over to the cardboard boxes, curious to know whether the tomcat would reappear for his evening meal.

Sure enough, a little later I heard rustling in the conifers, and saw his silhouette slink silently in front of my hiding place. This time he seemed genuinely oblivious to my presence as he ate. Observing him through a gap between two cardboard boxes, I was struck by how at ease he looked in the alley. I was convinced now that he was the alley’s resident cat, but I was surprised that, rather than feeling afraid of him, I found his presence reassuring.

I was woken during the night by ear-splitting yowling, the unmistakeable preamble to a cat-fight. For a horrible moment I wondered if my hiding place had been discovered by the ginger cat and I was under attack. I remained silent and motionless, relying on my ears to discern what was happening. There were two cats in the alley, mere inches from my shelter, growling and hissing in a noisy stand-off. My heart raced. One of them was surely the black-and-white tom, but who was his adversary?

I remained petrified inside my box, feeling at once terrified and guilty that I was not doing anything to help. There was a momentary silence followed by a scuffle. The yowling stopped and I could hear bodies writhing on the path, the eerie quiet punctuated by yelps of protest. Eventually I heard a hiss as a cat ran out of the alley, and then there was silence once more. My curiosity to know who had won was more than I could bear, and I peeked out into the alley. The tomcat was sitting at the entrance, his inky profile silhouetted against the glow of the street light beyond. There was no sign of his opponent, and he was calmly smoothing his fur with his tongue. I crawled back into my cardboard shelter, more certain than ever that the alley was his territory.

The following morning he was sitting on top of the dustbin when I emerged from my box, sleepy but hungry.

‘Oh, hello,’ I said nervously, determined to appear more coherent than I had on our first meeting.

‘Good morning. Did you sleep well?’

‘Yes, thank you. And are you . . . okay?’ I added, thinking of the fight I had heard during the night.

‘Never been better,’ he answered, a smile in his eyes.

There was no evidence on his body that he had been fighting and he seemed in remarkably good spirits after his ordeal. I felt slightly in awe that he had managed to come unscathed out of such a nasty-sounding battle, and I even wondered whether I had dreamt the whole thing. He stood up and stretched, before jumping down onto the path.

‘There’s some left,’ he said, gesturing with his head towards the rubbish bags protruding from under the lid. ‘Won’t be any new stuff till this evening, so make the most of it.’ As he strode purposefully past me on his way to the churchyard, I noticed how the muscles around his shoulders rippled under his fur.

‘Oh, thanks,’ I replied meekly.

I waited until he had vanished into the conifers, before jumping onto the bin. Through the gap in the lid I could see a small amount of leftover sandwich fillings inside a ripped bag. A perfect portion-size for a cat, in fact. For a moment I wondered if the tomcat had purposely saved some for me, rather than eaten it all himself, but I quickly dismissed the thought from my mind. He was an alley-cat, after all. Why would he do such a thing?