Felix The Railway Cat

18. Stranger Danger

Felix the railway cat, pest controller extraordinaire, leapt lightly to the ground from the metal benches arrayed on Platform 1. As well as spending hours sitting there, it was now part of Felix’s exercise regime to use the benches as a piece of athletics equipment, for they had three thin armrests on them and when Felix ducked her head beneath these armrests, they formed a tunnel for her: she would squeeze through them, as low as she could get, before jumping down to the floor.

Sometimes, a customer would join her on the bench – or vice versa – and the two would sit in companionable silence. Felix, on the whole, got on well with the customers. By now, the regular commuters knew her of old; some would even bring the occasional treat for her, which endeared them to Felix even more, for the way to the station cat’s heart was most definitely through her stomach. Though she hadn’t lost that grumpy assertiveness she’d started to showcase towards the end of 2011, as the summer of 2012 progressed Felix’s personality, on the whole, was sunny enough to match the weather. She was quite comfortable winding through people’s legs, and even enduring the patting hands of young children.

She could be cheeky at times, and had perfected the art of being loving when she wanted something; indifferent when she didn’t. She was a favourite of older people and little kids especially, and she seemed to take their interest with reasonably good humour. Having grown up on the station, she was a very confident cat in that environment. She needed to be, really, for although she was well-known to the regular customers, most of the people travelling through were strangers, who didn’t know who Felix was or that she lived there. Others, perhaps, took too much interest.

As the late summer slid into early autumn and the nights closed in, it turned out to be fortunate indeed that Felix was so popular with the everyday users of the station – for they knew that she belonged there.

One night shift that autumn of 2012, Angie Hunte was on duty. She was working alongside a colleague called Pamela. It was perhaps shortly after 8 p.m., and it was already pitch-black outside.

Nights at the station could be quiet affairs. There tended to be very few people about: the odd concerned parent or partner waiting at the entrance to greet their loved one off the train, or a cluster of youths sharing a stolen cigarette on a bench. The customers came in dribs and drabs: a young woman clicking in her high heels, anxiously clutching her handbag to her shoulder; a teenager eating takeaway chips; a small group of bald and round-bellied Yorkshiremen who had sunk a few pints in the pub. It was too early for the drunks and a bit too late for those commuters working overtime in the office, so things were pretty peaceful on the concourse.

Suddenly, the two women heard running footsteps coming towards them. They looked up to see one of their regular customers pelting in their direction, looking absolutely distraught.

The woman was panting. As she drew close to them, she cried, ‘Somebody’s just taken your cat!’

‘What?’ exclaimed Angie in horror.

‘Somebody’s just picked up your cat and walked out!’

‘No!’ Angie stood up angrily, a mother instantly on the warpath. ‘They can’t touch my Felix!’

She and Pamela flew to the front of the station, running after the thief as fast as they could. The woman had said it had only just happened, that the person had come into the concourse, snatched the station cat and run off, so they were hopeful that they would locate Felix immediately.

But as they burst out of the station into St George’s Square, Felix was nowhere to be seen. Angie stood panting at the top of the station steps, peering into the dark night. To the left was the station car park and the King’s Head pub – no one on foot would have gone that way. To the right was the taxi rank and the Head of Steam. It was brightly lit by the cars’ waiting headlights, and it was clear that no running person with a cat clutched in their arms was spot-lit in that direction. Immediately in front of them were the fountains of St George’s Square and the bronze Harold Wilson statue, and beyond that was the road. It was a large square, and they could see all the way across it – no little black-and-white cat was in sight.

‘FELIX!’ Angie hollered. ‘FELIX!’

No sign. Then, through the darkness puddled at the edges of the square, where it was pitch-black beyond the reach of the streetlights, Angie saw a tiny flash of white. All of a sudden, little snowy paws were running towards her and there was Felix, bounding down the road and sprinting as though her life depended on it.

‘Felix!’ Angie cried, as the cat mounted the steps and she could pick her up at last. ‘Well done, little cat, well done,’ she said in relief. ‘You got away!’

Angie carried her back into the station. Frustratingly, at that time Huddersfield didn’t have full CCTV coverage, so when Angie checked the tapes there was no record of the stranger who had wandered onto the concourse and stolen the station cat. Dave Chin’s money was on a character like Cruella de Vil in 101 Dalmations: someone who had coveted Felix’s fluffy fur coat and then stolen her.

They never did find out who took her, but they were very grateful to the customer who’d brought the crime to their attention. It didn’t bear thinking about what might have happened if she hadn’t raised the alarm.

Felix settled back into station life. Angie and the others tried to keep a closer eye on her, but as they were all working shifts and no one other than Felix was always on duty, it was inevitable she had some experiences that none of the team saw. As the autumn progressed, it became apparent that some of those experiences were not very nice at all.

‘Are you coming, Felix?’ Angie asked her chirpily one day, as she was heading out to do security checks on a morning shift. Normally, Felix would accompany her enthusiastically: Angie’s magical assistant. But on this day, as Angie pulled open the door that led out to the platform and held it open for the cat to pass through, Felix backed off, as though she didn’t want to go outside.

‘All right, lovey,’ Angie said, not too concerned about this behaviour; Felix did sometimes choose to stay at home. ‘Day off, is it? You have a nice nap then. I’ll see you later.’

Angie’s next few shifts were at night, when Felix happily came out and trotted around after her, so it wasn’t until a couple of weeks later that it became evident that something was seriously wrong.

In the daytime, when it was busy, Angie noticed that the confident cat she had always known and loved so well had vanished. Instead, if Felix was outside at that time of day, she would cower against the platform floor as the customers passed her by. Jean Randall noticed that she flinched if she heard children playing and would not go near them anymore. But it wasn’t just children: she suddenly seemed terrified of everyone who was not a station employee, and the sunny, sociable cat became a thing of the past.

‘Somebody’s hurt her,’ Angie fretted to Dave Chin. ‘Somebody on the platform.’

They didn’t know who, of course. It could have been an unwitting, overly enthusiastic child who had unintentionally pulled her fur too roughly. Or it could have been something more malevolent – perhaps an adult with a chip on their shoulder and an unforgiving black boot. The result was that Felix now withdrew into herself. She would back away if a colleague opened the door for her to go out at rush hour, and spent most of her time at the window in the booking office, looking out, feeling protected by the presence of Jean and Pam and the other women who worked there. She stayed indoors, and would only brave the outside world during the night shift, when the station was deserted and she could once more claim the platforms as her own.

It broke everyone’s hearts to see her that way; she wasn’t the same cat at all. They gave her a lot of love, a lot of care, and they hoped against hope that she would somehow be able to find her way back to them – and start to trust again.

It took a long, long time. One month passed, then two. Not until the Christmas carollers were singing in the square outside did Felix, gradually, start to become a bit more confident again. She still spent her days in the booking office, but she gained the courage to sit in an area of the windows where the customers could gain access to her. It was terribly brave, but as she was sitting right next to her colleagues working the windows, she wasn’t entirely alone. They would look out for her, she knew.

One busy day that December, Felix was with one of the girls, who had a jaunty Santa hat on her head as she served the customers. The cat was sitting tall and upright and proud – perhaps still a little tense and stiff – taking everything in and courageously facing the world.

A male customer reached the front of the queue and approached the window manned by Felix and the Santa girl. ‘Hello, there,’ he said warmly to Felix.

While the girl processed his order, he reached out a rough, flat palm and gently stroked the cat. Felix leaned her head into his touch and let her chin rise contentedly into the air. He tickled her underneath that chin, then she dipped her head and asked for another stroke. He was more than happy to give it.

And just like that, Felix was back to her old self. It was the best Christmas present the team could have wished for.