Molly And The Cat Cafe

13

The alley was rarely used by passers-by, due to it being blocked at one end by the churchyard conifers. I liked its peaceful, enclosed atmosphere; it felt safe, far removed from the dangers of the busy town beyond. I made a shelter underneath the spiral steps of a fire escape at the back of a shop, to which I returned every night, curling up to sleep on a flattened piece of cardboard behind a stack of rusty paint tins.

It didn’t take me long to adjust to the rhythm of life in the alley. I soon learnt that six o’clock was the café’s closing time, and that the day’s food waste would be put out shortly afterwards. The church bells’ sonorous clanging became my cue to return, in hungry anticipation of an evening meal of leftover sandwich fillings. I rarely saw the tomcat during the day – he roamed much further afield than I did – but sometimes our paths crossed as we both trotted hungrily towards the dustbin in the evening. He was always courteous, chivalrously allowing me to eat before he did, but I nevertheless remained slightly in awe of him. I sensed his territorial vigilance and, having overheard the fight on my first night, knew that he was capable of defending himself fiercely. I did not want to do anything that might make him regret his tolerance towards me.

A couple of weeks after my arrival I noticed that the colourful lights had disappeared from the shop-front windows along the parade. The cobbled street seemed in a permanent half-light under low-slung winter cloud and had a melancholy feeling, stripped of the cheerful presence of Christmas decorations. The street seemed emptier of people too, as if the town’s residents had gone into hibernation after the exuberance of the festive period.

One morning I woke to discover the first snowfall of winter had transformed the alley overnight and the path had disappeared under a thick blanket of white. I had loved to watch snow falling when I was a house-cat. I would sit on Margery’s patio and peer up as the fluffy flakes floated down, resting tantalizingly on my nose and whiskers before melting into my fur. I had found snow fascinating back then, safe in the knowledge that I was never more than a few feet from the comfort of Margery’s gas fire.

In the alley, however, the snow posed serious difficulties for me. It coated the iron steps of the fire escape where, thawed by the warmth of the building behind, icy droplets dripped onto me as I tried to sleep. As if to compensate for the bitter environment, my fur grew denser than I had ever known it before, a thick pelt designed to hold in as much warmth as possible. But, even with the extra insulation, I felt permanently chilled. There was nowhere I could go to escape the cold, and my only option was to retreat to my shelter and tend to my footpads, which were chapped and cracked from the icy ground. I passed many hours curled in a tight ball trying to keep warm, praying for sleep to bring me a few hours’ respite.

If I craned my neck, I could see the café door through a gap between the paint tins. I studied the woman from the café closely whenever she emerged from inside. She was younger than Margery – I guessed in her late forties – with kind blue eyes that often had a doleful look. Sometimes she would stand at the foot of the metal stairs, inches away from my bed, chatting with the woman who ran the hardware shop which adjoined the café.

Silent and unobserved, I listened to their conversations. I learnt that her name was Debbie, that she had recently moved to Stourton with her daughter, Sophie, and that they lived in the flat above the café. Weak from the winter cold, I found comfort in the softness of her voice, closing my eyes and allowing my mind to wander as she talked. I daydreamed about life inside the flat above the café, imagining a cosy room with an open fire where I could lie, my belly exposed to the flames, before retreating to a cool sofa when the heat became too much. I pictured Debbie curled up on the sofa next to me, stroking me gently while she read a book, both of us enjoying the bliss of each other’s company.

In the past I wouldn’t have thought twice about throwing myself on Debbie’s mercy, hoping that she would take pity on me and offer me a home. But I knew how much was at stake: if Debbie knew there were stray cats in the alley, she might go to more effort to secure the dustbin and our food supply could be cut off. The tomcat always avoided being seen by Debbie and I deferred to his experience, subduing my natural inclination towards sociability and staying hidden from sight.

In the end, Debbie discovered my existence by accident. The snow had finally begun to thaw and the icy water dripped relentlessly onto my bed from above, driving me out of the fire escape and into the alley. It was late morning, a time when I knew Debbie would be busy at the front of the café. The winter sun was low, but there was the faintest hint of warmth in its pale rays, so I sat down next to the dustbin, savouring the feeling of fresh air in my whiskers. I began to wash, tilting my body backwards to lift my hind leg behind my ear. Just at that moment the café door opened. I turned to see Debbie step out of the doorway, clutching a bag of rubbish. She looked straight at me and I froze, hoping that if I stayed completely still she might not notice me.

‘Oh, hello, puss.’ She sounded surprised, but I detected a smile in her voice. I stood up to move away from the bin, not wanting her to think I was scavenging, but was startled to feel her hand on my back, stroking my spine down to the base of my tail. I reflexively lifted my back in response to her touch, realizing with a pang how long it had been since I had last been stroked, and how much I had missed it. I twisted my head to look at her and she held her fingers out to me and, as I sniffed her skin, she tickled me under the chin. The automatic way in which she had responded to me seemed to confirm my deepest hope, that this was a woman who knew how to love a cat.

‘You’re a pretty thing, aren’t you?’ she said, smiling, and I chirruped in agreement. I was hoping to engage her in a longer exchange, but a voice from inside the café shouted, ‘Mum, where are you? I can’t find my homework!’ Debbie sighed, tossed the bag of rubbish into the bin and then was gone, pulling the café door shut behind her. I stared at the door for several minutes afterwards, hoping she might come out again, but to no avail. Eventually I resumed my wash, my head suddenly flooded with bittersweet memories of how it felt to bask in the affection of a loving owner.

Encouraged by Debbie’s friendliness, I became braver about making my presence known in the alley. Rather than hiding out of sight when she was around, I took to waiting by the bin at the café’s closing time, in full view of the door. When I heard the key rattling in the lock I would trot over and rub my head against the doorframe in expectation. ‘Good evening, puss. How are you today?’ Debbie would say, her blue eyes twinkling as she carried the bags over my head to the bin. I would stick close to her ankles, purring, my tail erect.

A few days later, when Debbie unlocked door one evening, she was holding a dish in her hand. I could smell smoked salmon and tuna mayonnaise and I instinctively reared up onto my hind legs to get closer to the bowl. She placed it on the doorstep in front of me, scratching the base of my tail playfully. ‘There you go, puss. Now leave the bags alone, okay?’ she laughed, as I greedily tucked into the bowl’s contents.

She went back inside and I carried on eating, savouring the way the leftovers tasted so much better from a bowl than from the tarmac. Sensing that I was being watched, I glanced over my shoulder, spotting the dark shape of the black-and-white tom in the shadow of the dustbin. I swallowed my mouthful and licked my lips, before padding towards him. ‘I’m done. There’s plenty left, if you’d like it,’ I said with a look of encouragement. The tomcat’s eyes flashed uncertainly towards the café door. ‘She’s friendly, you know,’ I reassured him. ‘You should get to know her. She’s a nice lady.’

The tomcat inclined his head. ‘I’m not really a “nice lady” kind of cat,’ he replied. ‘Never have been.’

His comment perplexed me. I tried to imagine not being a ‘nice lady’ kind of cat. To me, that was like saying I was not a ‘tuna mayonnaise’ kind of cat. Granted, I had learnt that I could survive without nice ladies or tuna mayonnaise, but that was not to say I would ever choose to. The tomcat paced gingerly towards the bowl, where he ate quickly, glancing at the café door nervously in between mouthfuls.

It was obvious that being so close to the café made him anxious, but I felt a glow of satisfaction that, by eating the food she had put out, he had acknowledged that my friendship with Debbie could benefit us both. The tomcat seemed so self-assured in every other respect, but when it came to dealing with people I realized he was distinctly nervous. This was the one area in which I was the more experienced, the more worldly, of the two of us. In befriending Debbie, I had done something he had been too frightened to do himself and, for the first time since I had arrived in the alley, I felt like his equal.

Later that night, I was settling down under the fire escape when I heard claws clicking along the path. My chin was resting on my paws, but my ears were alert, monitoring the progress of the footsteps as they approached. I held my breath as the clicking came to a halt outside my shelter. A long shadow appeared on the wall behind me. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ I said, sighing with relief as the familiar silhouette of the tomcat appeared beside the paint tins.