Christmas at the Cat Cafe

15

After breakfast on Monday morning I descended the stairs to find Debbie casting puzzled looks around the café. I could almost see her doing a head-count, as she watched the kittens file across the floor behind me. A few minutes later, I was settling into my habitual position in the window when I heard her rattling a box of cat biscuits on the back doorstep. ‘Jasper, breakfast!’ she called hopefully into the empty alleyway.

Linda, who was tying her hair back at the mirror beside the counter, registered the look of concern on her sister’s face. ‘What’s up, Debs?’ she asked casually.

‘I haven’t seen Jasper for a couple of days. He’s not been in for breakfast, and he’s not in the alley, either,’ Debbie replied, frowning.

Linda’s eyes slid back to her reflection in the mirror. ‘To lose one cat may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose two looks like carelessness,’ she observed, smiling wryly until Debbie’s steely look sent her scurrying to refill the napkin-holders.

‘Oh, hello, it’s Debbie Walsh from Molly’s. I’m afraid we’ve lost another cat,’ Debbie told the vet, blushing, on the telephone later that morning. ‘Could you let me know if you hear anything?’

However, there was no poster campaign for Jasper, as there had been for Eddie, and Debbie avoided mentioning his disappearance to the café’s customers. I suspected that Linda’s comment might have touched a nerve, and Debbie was embarrassed by the fact that the Cotswolds’ only cat café had now mislaid two of its charges.

Throughout the day Debbie threw worried looks in my direction while I sat at the window, staring anxiously down the parade. ‘Don’t worry, Molls – Jasper’s just gone wandering again, that’s all,’ she reassured me. I rubbed my cheek against her hand, wishing I could explain to her what was really going on.

I veered between telling myself that Jasper would find Eddie and bring him home, and feeling certain that I would never see either of them again. Even sleep brought no respite: I was troubled by unsettling dreams, from which I would wake with a sudden jolt of panic and an overwhelming sense that I should be doing more – that I should have been the one to go after Eddie. The powerlessness of my position, stuck at the café waiting, was agonizing. Every time the phone rang, my stomach lurched, as I hoped – and at the same time dreaded – that it was a call about Eddie or Jasper.

Although the kittens understood why their father had gone, the loss of Jasper in addition to Eddie had a de-stabilizing effect on our fractured family. I became more withdrawn and taciturn than ever, spending hour after hour gazing listlessly through the window. We were now an all-female colony, and in the vacuum created by Eddie and Jasper’s absence, the kittens became more quarrelsome, as if they were jostling for position in the new hierarchy.

Purdy had always assumed certain privileges, as the most confident and outgoing of the litter; but, without their father around, Abby and Bella now became more extrovert and began to challenge Purdy’s dominance. I kept out of their squabbles, thinking the best thing I could do was allow them to work out their sibling rivalries for themselves, but barely a day went by when I didn’t hear a sudden hiss and spit as a minor disagreement boiled over into conflict. Their disputes usually ended with Purdy, realizing she was outnumbered, striding huffily out through the cat flap and marching off down the cobbles. She would often hop onto Jo’s white van outside the hardware shop and look around insouciantly, before settling down on the van’s roof for a proprietorial wash.

One morning, Linda took delivery of a large cardboard box at the door while she and Debbie were preparing to open the café.

‘What’s in there, Lind?’ Debbie asked, watching Linda run a knife along the seam of brown tape.

‘Ming’s Mugs,’ answered Linda brightly, enjoying Debbie’s look of blank incomprehension. She ripped open the cardboard box and pulled out a white enamel mug, emblazoned with a photo of Ming. The disembodied image of her face against the stark white background of the mug emphasized Ming’s pointed chin and enormous brown ears, and her slightly crossed eyes were a piercing, artificial shade of blue. Underneath the photos, in a bright-pink font, ran the hashtag #mingsmug.

Behind the till, Debbie’s mouth fell open in dismay. ‘And what are you planning to do with those?’ she asked coolly, walking around the side of the counter for a closer look.

‘Sell them, of course! It’s called merchandising, Debs,’ explained Linda pompously. ‘I ordered sixty.’

She hoisted the cardboard box off the floor and teetered with it towards the fireplace, ignoring Debbie’s expression of incredulity.

‘We can display them next to the Specials board, see?’ Linda had deposited the box on an armchair and was already arranging the mugs in a row on the mantelpiece. ‘All the customers love Ming, and I reckon people will pay three ninety-nine—’

‘Linda, stop!’ Debbie shrieked suddenly.

The kittens and I fell still to look at her – it was not often that we heard Debbie raise her voice. Linda’s hand hovered over the pyramid of mugs that she had begun to assemble at the fireplace.

‘What’s the matter, Debs?’ asked Linda innocently, keeping her back to the room. ‘Don’t you like them?’

Debbie stood squarely behind her sister, taking deep, calming breaths. When at last she spoke, I detected a tremor of suppressed anger. ‘Linda, you don’t seem to understand. This is a café, not a . . . Ming theme park!’

A brief silence, then, ‘Well, you could get some made of Molly too, if you like,’ answered Linda airily.

‘That’s not the point!’ Debbie snapped.

Linda finally turned to face her sister. Her mouth was fixed in a defiant smile, but two spots of pink had appeared on her cheeks.

‘This is a cat café,’ said Debbie, with a dismissive gesture towards the box of mugs on the armchair, ‘not a . . . crockery warehouse. I’m sorry, Linda, but these mugs are . . . tacky.’ She picked up one of them and studied the offending item closely. ‘Besides, haven’t you noticed? It looks like it says “Ming’s smug”.’ Debbie held the mug up and pointed at the hashtag with a look of exasperation. ‘Who would want to buy the merchandise of a smug cat?’

Linda looked momentarily crestfallen, then she turned wordlessly back to face the mantelpiece. ‘Well, if that’s the way you feel. You’re the boss, after all,’ she muttered churlishly. She began to dismantle the pyramid with pursed lips, the mugs chinking against each other as she carelessly looped them over her thumbs.

Once she had repacked the box, she heaved it into her arms and made her way awkwardly towards the door.

‘I guess I’ll just have to give these to a charity then,’ Linda said loftily. Balancing the box between one hand and a raised thigh, she wrestled to unlock the door with her free hand, struggling for a couple of minutes, until Debbie walked over and opened the door for her. ‘Thank you,’ Linda mumbled grudgingly. She shifted the weight of the box between both arms and then, with her nose in the air, she and her mugs flounced out of the café.

The atmosphere between the sisters remained tense in the aftermath of the mug debacle. On Friday, Linda rushed upstairs straight after the café closed, and there was a note of triumph in the way she announced that she was to spend the evening with friends.

Debbie smiled politely. ‘Have fun!’ she called to her sister’s back as it disappeared down the stairs. But she breathed a loud sigh of relief as soon as the café door slammed shut.

A little later that evening Jo turned up with a takeaway, and Debbie and I trotted downstairs to meet her. My spirits immediately lifted at the sight of Jo’s mop of curly hair and jovial face at the bottom of the stairs. Her down-to-earth personality was in sharp contrast to Linda’s tendency towards drama and self-pity, and she could always be counted on to help Debbie see the funny side of any situation.

It didn’t take long for Debbie to begin to offload her frustration with Linda. ‘I mean, you should have seen these mugs, Jo,’ Debbie complained, grimacing as she poured out two glasses of wine. ‘I’ve never seen anything so hideous in my life. The photo made poor Ming look like a cross-eyed freak!’

Jo had crouched down to stroke Purdy on the flagstones. Jo was affectionate towards all of the kittens, but had long-ago singled out feisty Purdy as her favourite. Her brown curls were shaking with laughter. ‘Not so much “Ming’s Mug” as “Ming’s Ugly Mug”, by the sound of it.’ She grinned as Purdy rubbed against her knees. ‘I wish you’d kept one to show me – they sound hilarious.’

She stood up and took her glass from the countertop, while Purdy contentedly climbed the wooden walkway up to the cat hammock.

‘Maybe Linda just got carried away, after the Fortune Cookies went down so well,’ Jo suggested diplomatically, taking a sip of wine.

Debbie shrugged. ‘Maybe. I can’t decide whether she’s a marketing genius or a total fruitcake, to be honest. Either way, she’s doing my head in.’

Jo watched shrewdly as Debbie lifted a stack of foil trays out of the bag and placed them on the counter. ‘If she’s really doing your head in, you could always move into John’s place,’ she said, a mischievous smile playing around her lips. On the window cushion, my ears pricked up.

‘Funny you should mention that,’ answered Debbie quietly. ‘John said the same thing.’

Jo did a dramatic double-take over her wine glass. ‘Really? When?’ Her eyes glistened with excitement, but Debbie was already shaking her head.

‘A couple of weeks ago, but I said no.’

‘Why?’ Jo squealed, dropping disappointedly onto a chair. ‘Surely that’s the obvious solution? It’s the natural next step for you two; plus it would give you some space from Linda.’

Debbie’s face clouded and she braced her arms against the wooden worktop for support. ‘But it’s not that simple, Jo. What about Sophie? I can’t ask her to move house again – not after all the upheaval of the divorce. Besides, the flat is my home, and I don’t want to give it up just because . . .’ she struggled to find the right words, ‘just because my sister’s driving me crazy.’

Jo’s shoulders drooped despondently.

‘Besides, if John and I ever decide to live together, I want it to be because it’s what we both want, not because it’s a convenient solution to an overcrowding problem.’

‘I hear what you’re saying, Debs, and I get it,’ Jo replied, pushing a stray curl out of her eyes. ‘But something’s got to give, hasn’t it? This situation can’t go on forever. Maybe it’s time you asked Linda to move out.’ She eyed her friend surreptitiously between sips of wine, while I sat on the window cushion awaiting Debbie’s response with bated breath. It felt as if it was my fate hanging in the balance, as much as Linda’s.

At the counter, Debbie let out a long groan. ‘Oh, I just don’t know, Jo,’ she wailed. Although she hadn’t said it, I knew what she was thinking: that she couldn’t turn her back on her sister at a time like this. So the next words to come out of her mouth surprised me. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said. ‘I can’t take much more of this. I’ll talk to Linda tomorrow.’

‘That’s the spirit!’ Jo replied, raising her glass in a toast of encouragement.

Debbie looked up and I saw the corners of her mouth lift into a smile. ‘Or perhaps Linda could move in with you for a bit?’ she teased.

Jo pretended to choke on her wine, before composing her face into a look of sufferance. ‘Actually, that might not be such a crazy idea,’ she murmured. ‘The way business has been going recently, I might need to take on a lodger soon, just to pay the rent.’