Molly And The Cat Cafe

24

The following morning Debbie carried me, and my five sleeping kittens, upstairs to the flat. She placed our cushion carefully inside a wide cardboard box next to the living-room fireplace. ‘There you go, Molls,’ she said when I lifted my head drowsily to look around. ‘I thought you might want a bit of peace and quiet.’

The next few days passed in a haze of contented exhaustion. Debbie and Sophie came and went, eating at the table, watching TV, chatting on the sofa, but their lives receded into a background blur to which I was largely oblivious. I was perpetually tending to the kittens, seemingly feeding or cleaning one of them at all times. Day and night had little meaning for me; I slept whenever the kittens slept, regardless of whether the room was lit by sunshine or moonlight. I occasionally clambered out of the box to eat from the dish that Debbie had placed nearby, but other than that I remained inside our cardboard fortress, interested only in the immediate concerns of my offspring.

Debbie periodically came upstairs to check on us. She tiptoed over and peered inside the box, beaming when she found all five kittens blissfully kneading me while they fed. ‘Aw, look at them, Molly. Aren’t they gorgeous?’ she clucked, and I basked sleepily in her admiration.

‘What are you going to call them?’ I heard Jo’s voice say one evening. She had come up to the flat, to see the kittens for the first time.

‘Goodness, I haven’t even thought about names yet,’ Debbie replied. ‘I’m going to have to learn to tell them apart first!’

The kittens were about ten days old. Their blue eyes were beginning to open and they emitted helpless high-pitched squeaks whenever they were picked up.

‘This one’s my favourite,’ said Jo indulgently, lifting one of the tiny tabbies in the palm of her hand. ‘Look at that adorable splodge of white on her pink nose. I could just eat you up!’ she said tenderly to the mewling kitten.

I lay in my box, vicariously enjoying the praise being lavished on my brood.

‘Yes, she is a cutie, isn’t she?’ Debbie agreed. ‘Well, I think she’s a she. Of course we can’t be sure just yet.’

‘She looks like a Purdy to me,’ Jo said, grinning sideways at Debbie.

‘Purdy,’ Debbie repeated thoughtfully, taking the kitten from Jo’s hands and examining it closely. ‘Yes, I can see that,’ she agreed, and Jo clapped her hands like an excited child. ‘Purdy pink-nose,’ Debbie said.

‘With a white splodge,’ Jo added.

‘Yes, that might help me to recognize her,’ Debbie said seriously.

Having decided on a name for one kitten, Debbie felt obliged to do the same for the rest of the litter, and she and Sophie spent an evening on the living-room floor studying them closely, looking for inspiration in their markings and nascent personalities.

‘I think this little one’s a Maisie,’ Debbie said about the smallest tabby, who was already showing signs of being the shyest of the five. ‘And this big brute of a thing,’ she said, picking up the squirming jet-black boy, ‘needs a proper boy’s name.’

Unable to come to any agreement, Sophie moved to the sofa to consult cat-naming websites on her phone. As the evening wore on, they dismissed countless names with increasing alacrity.

‘Jeffrey? You can’t call a cat Jeffrey!’ Sophie jeered, as Debbie held the black kitten aloft.

‘I think it sounds very distinguished,’ Debbie said defensively.

‘Mum, it’s a middle-aged accountant’s name. You can’t do that to him!’

It was a long evening, but Debbie would not go to bed until they had agreed on names for the whole litter. Eventually, with the help of Sophie’s phone, they had reached a consensus on names for all five. Debbie knelt down next to the cardboard box and pointed to each kitten in turn.

‘Tabby-with-white-splodge: Purdy. Tabby-without-white-splodge: Bella. Tabby-with-white-tail-tip: Abby. Shy-tabby: Maisie. Black-and-white-boy: Eddie. Agreed?’

Sophie nodded wearily.

‘Phew, thanks goodness for that,’ Debbie said, holding her hand up to high-five Sophie. ‘We can go to bed now.’

By the time they entered their fourth week the kittens were becoming more sociable, beginning to clamber out of the cardboard box and explore the room beyond. I revelled in their proud exhibitionism, loving the way they egged each other on into acts of increasingly acrobatic dexterity. They played energetically for hours, before falling suddenly asleep mid-game, huddled together on the rug or sofa cushion.

I had begun to leave them alone for short periods, allowing myself brief trips downstairs to the café and the street outside. Spring was in full swing: the air smelt heady with pollen, and songbirds were busy tending to their young in the trees. I never stayed out for long, knowing that the kittens became distressed if they noticed my absence. Nevertheless I savoured the brief moments I had to myself, appreciating every second of my rediscovered independence.

Some of the café’s regular customers, noticing that I no longer slept in the window, had asked after me. Debbie explained that I was on ‘maternity leave’ from the café and had moved upstairs to the flat for the time being. Whenever I appeared at the bottom of the stairs, customers would turn and look, keen to give me a stroke and congratulate me on motherhood. I lapped up their attention, grateful that for once I was being fussed over, rather than the kittens.

One Saturday morning I was lying in the cardboard box feeding the kittens while Debbie and Sophie ate breakfast. Debbie tore open a letter as she sipped her tea. ‘Oh, my God.’ She placed her hand over her mouth in shock.

‘What is it?’ Sophie asked, alarmed. Debbie’s hand was shaking as she reread the contents of the letter. ‘Mum, tell me!’ Sophie insisted.

‘It’s from the Environmental Health,’ Debbie replied. ‘Someone has reported the café for a breach of health-and-safety – for having a cat on the premises.’ Her face had gone pale and her lip was starting to tremble. ‘“The café licence clearly states that no animals are to be allowed on the premises,”’ she read. ‘“Breach of this regulation will result in the immediate closure of the business on hygiene grounds.”’

She and Sophie stared at each other across the table in silence.

‘Oh, my God, Soph, what are we going to do?’ Debbie asked, her voice wavering. She looked over at the kittens, who had finished their feed and were scrambling out of the cardboard box, ready to play. ‘If they could close us down for having one cat, what will they do when they find out there are six!’ she said, pressing the palm of her hand against her cheek.

Sophie took the letter from her mum to read it herself. ‘Look, don’t panic, Mum. It’s just talking about the café. It doesn’t say anything about the flat. As long as we keep them up here, we’re not in breach of anything.’

‘Keep them up here?’ Debbie laughed mirthlessly. ‘That’s fine for a few more weeks, but look at them, Soph – they’re on the move already. This flat’s hardly big enough for you, me and Molly, as it is. Let alone with six of them! And Molly needs to go outside – it’s cruel to keep her cooped up in here.’ Debbie looked like she was about to burst into tears.

Sophie stood up and put an arm around her mother’s shoulder in a show of support. ‘Oh, Mum, it’ll be all right. We’ll find a way round it,’ she soothed.

‘It’s just so typical, Soph. Just as things were starting to go right, for a change.’ Debbie started to sob, impervious to Sophie’s attempts to reassure her.

I climbed out of the box and walked over to Debbie, partly because I felt she needed me, but also because I needed reassurance myself. Debbie’s reaction to the letter was ominous, and I was frightened to think what it might mean for me and my kittens.

Debbie lifted me carefully onto her lap and held my face between her hands. ‘Oh, Molly,’ she said sadly.

I looked into her tear-filled eyes, waiting for her to tell me that things weren’t as bad as she feared and that everything would be okay, but she didn’t say a word. As I watched the fat tears roll down her cheeks, I felt the first pangs of alarm that my happy life in the café might be about to come to an end.