Felix The Railway Cat

27. The Hardest Goodbye

‘Are you coming down t’meeting today if you’re feeling all right?’ Angie Hunte asked her long-time colleague on the phone.

‘Maybe not today, Mrs H,’ Billy replied in a hoarse whisper. ‘But I’ll be back soon. Don’t you be messing about with any of my stuff, now! I know what you’re like.’

Angie hung up, smiling despite herself at Mr Grumpy’s words. She and Billy had worked together for so long now that they had the kind of friendship where they could rib each other and call each other out; Billy was forever telling her she’d messed up his recycling system by throwing something in the wrong bin, and she was forever telling him that he was in her office to hand over to her and not to inspect her rubbish!

Angie and Billy stayed in touch while he was off, and Angie kept him up to date with all the developments at the station, so that he’d be up to speed when he got back. The most significant of these was that Paul, the station manager, was moving on to pastures new; Andy Croughan would be fulfilling the role again until they found a permanent replacement.

So it was Andy that Billy telephoned when he had some news of his own to share. That sore throat of his wasn’t getting any better – and it wasn’t a cough or a cold or a minor infection.

It was cancer.

Andy felt stunned. Even though Billy had been off sick for a while now, Andy had been convinced he would be back to work soon. And Billy, too, had been similarly convinced. In fact, everyone at the station had been – for it had only been a month or so since they’d seen him and none of them thought it could be anything so serious.

After that phone call, things moved very quickly. It was an aggressive form of the disease, and Billy’s weight plummeted dramatically. His condition deteriorated so fast that Andy felt like he’d had no time to come to terms with the news of his colleague’s illness before he received another call, this time from Billy’s wife. She shared the news that suddenly, shockingly, on 31 March 2015, Billy had died.

Andy replaced the receiver slowly; his shock at the suddenness of Billy’s passing almost visceral. Billy was gone. It was up to Andy to tell the team.

He tried to find them one by one. The nature of the railway meant that the team were always moving around when on shift, as transient as the trains themselves: there was always a customer to be served or a train to be caught; it would have been impossible to have had one big meeting to break the sad news to them all. So that morning, on Wednesday 1 April 2015, Andy found himself standing on the front steps of the station, trying to catch the team as they came in for their shifts. Never had he seen so many faces fall, so many tears blinked back, so many murmured words about ‘waste’ and ‘loss’.

When Angie pulled up in the car park, she was already concerned. She’d tried phoning Billy and his wife, Val, to have a chat, but they hadn’t come to the phone. Something’s wrong, she had thought, as the telephone had rung on and on emptily in her ear, unanswered and unattended to.

She slammed her car door distractedly, thoughts full of Billy, and made her way to the station steps: the route she had walked so many times before with her colleague, as they handed over to each other from their shifts.

She almost stopped dead when she saw Andy standing on the steps. She knew, instantly, that something was wrong. She didn’t know it was Billy, but as Andy spotted her and walked over with a concerned look on his face, she knew she wasn’t going to like whatever it was he had to say.

Andy felt relieved, in a way, when he saw Angie standing at the bottom of the steps. He had wanted to catch her before she came into the station. He knew how close she and Billy had been, and he didn’t know how she would take it. He’d sensed, perhaps, that it was best not to tell her in front of the team.

He took her arm and led her to one side to break the news.

When you’ve worked with somebody for the amount of years that Angie and Billy had worked together – longer than some marriages, all told – and when you’ve laughed and joked and moaned and said a lot of things to each other that only that other person ever knows, it leaves a big, big hole when they die. Although Angie knew he was sick, seriously sick, she’d never really believed that Billy would leave them. Well, you just don’t think things like that. You put a brave face on, or even a grumpy face, just some face, whatever face you need to help you carry on, and then you graft and you continue and you get the job done. That’s what Billy had always done. The garden and the art display and the environmental innovations hadn’t come easy: he had grafted for them, just as he had done on the railway for the whole of his life.

Angie crumpled when she heard the news. That was what it was like. This strong woman, normally so bustling and busy, never fazed by anything, sank in on herself. So much so, she couldn’t do her shift. Like Billy, she couldn’t continue anymore. Not this time.

But, of course, in the end she had to carry on – without him. Maybe not that day, but in the days and weeks to follow, Angie and the rest of the team had to continue: making the announcements, checking the tickets, helping the customers, and much more. Their grief was bearable at home, but they found that as soon as they got past the ticket barriers, everything reminded them of Billy. His name was still on the rotas, his photo was still on the wall, his pigeon hole was still stuffed full of the memos he would never now read. And perhaps the biggest reminder of all was Felix.

She didn’t understand what had happened to him. No longer did the silver people carrier swing into the car park for her to sit upon when Billy’s shift came to an end. No matter how many times she weaved her way through the garden, Billy never once appeared in his overalls to dig amongst the soil, bending down to scratch behind her ears with a rough, weathered hand. There was no lap to sit on or ankles to follow around. There wasn’t even much that smelled of him because, this being a workplace, personal items were confined to drawers and lockers, and even a clever cat like Felix couldn’t unlock metal doors.

It wasn’t a nice time for anyone at the station, but it was Angie who took Billy’s loss hardest of all. She couldn’t help the depth of her grief, which was unexpected and unprepared for: the hot tears that pricked suddenly at her eyes, the way her voice might abruptly start to wobble. Yet, as a team leader, her colleagues looked to her for answers – and she had to give them. Regardless of what had happened, Angie’s job was to run things; that was what she was employed to do. When she left her office, she had to be ready with the solution to any problem thrown at her.

But inside her office … That was where she could let it out, if she needed to – and she did need to; she was only human, and sometimes emotions need to be shared. Yet being the boss, there was no colleague she could share these feelings with … No colleague but one.

‘The grumpy old bugger’s gone, Felix,’ she told the cat. ‘What are we going to do now?’

If she needed to, she could turn her chair towards the wall, to face away from the door with its glass window, so that nobody could see – except Felix. Felix was always there, and always listened, and always seemed to understand. Angie used to say to her what she was feeling, and Felix would look at her with so much compassion in those big green eyes of hers, and she would hop up onto Angie’s lap, too, so that Angie could stroke her: long, loving, reassuring strokes that were as much for Angie’s benefit as the cat’s. Somehow, after a cuddle and a chat with Felix, Angie found she could pull herself together again. She could take a deep breath and go out once more onto the platforms, back on autopilot, back on remote, with a cheery smile and a can-do attitude, super-powered by a bit of hidden strength given to her by the station cat.

As for that station cat, she had to learn to live without Billy. But he had left her a legacy that became a favourite haunt. Every day, she would wander over to Billy’s garden. If it was a happy day, she might meander through the catmint. If she was feeling playful, she might use the plants as camouflage for hunting pesky pigeons. But she had some days, too, when she wanted to be quiet, and then she would simply sit in the long grass, thinking her cat thoughts and watching the world go by. And if anyone dared approach her at that time when she really wasn’t in the mood, she would fix them with a look that said, ‘Go away!’

And only the foolish would ignore the glowering glare of the station’s own Mrs Grumpy.

Billy’s passing had a massive impact on the team of Huddersfield station – and beyond. When Gareth Hope learned of the news, he felt a real sense of loss. After all, Billy had a lot to answer for in Gareth’s own life. Without Billy’s fatherly intervention in his career, Gareth knew all too well that there was a very strong chance he’d still have been sitting at Huddersfield station at that very minute – with a cat upon his knee.

Yet he found that Billy hadn’t entirely left him, for his words of wisdom still rattled around in his head from time to time: advice to last a lifetime. Billy would never be forgotten.

And Angie wanted to make certain of it. As 2015 drew on, she and the rest of the team decided that they wanted to commemorate Billy’s incredible contribution to the station. There was no way they could allow somebody like Billy to pass on without marking it in some permanent, respectful way.

Whatever memorial they decided on, Angie was adamant that it had to be situated by Billy’s garden, because that had been such a passion of his when he was alive. When she thought of him, she pictured him over there in his overalls, grumpily digging up dirt. The team elected to erect a memorial bench – and it was paid for by the company, who were more than happy to honour this most special employee.

The bench was due to arrive that summer. But Angie didn’t want the bench to be delivered and be used right away. It was Billy’s bench, in Billy’s garden, and she wanted to do something significant to mark its arrival at the station where Billy had performed his life’s work. She started to put a plan into action …

When the bench finally came, they found it had been damaged in transit. Maintenance man Dave Chin was called out to redo all the joints, which had been twisted. But he said it was a pleasure doing it. If they hadn’t been done, and done properly, Billy would have shouted at them; that they knew. Mr Grumpy was still making his presence and his wishes felt, having been such an unforgettable character in life.

Dave measured out the garden and the bench and picked out a spot for it smack bang in the middle. It would sit just in front of the soil bed, perfectly positioned so that customers could enjoy the environment he’d created and spent so much time working on. And that environment was still being cared for beautifully. Though Billy’s idea to invite the group with learning difficulties to maintain the garden alongside him hadn’t come to fruition before he died, the Friends of Huddersfield Station, a local volunteer group, had taken it over – ensuring that Billy’s legacy would live on.

Angie’s plan to mark the bench’s arrival was coming together, but at the time Dave put the bench up on the station it wasn’t quite ready, so they covered the memorial with sheet plastic and yellow-and-black warning tape – to make sure no one could use it before the grand opening.

Then Angie made a phone call to Billy’s wife.

‘Val?’ she said. ‘Can you come down to the station on Monday, please? We’ve got a little something we’d like you to be here for.’

When Val arrived, she found a smart, pale wooden bench set before Billy’s garden, with an enormous white ribbon tied around it. She found a shiny new gold plaque commemorating her husband attached to its side. And, unusually, she also found the booking-office windows closed, for everyone wanted to participate in the opening ceremony for Billy’s bench, and the team had closed the serving windows as a mark of respect.

‘Oh!’ Val said, in surprise. ‘I didn’t expect all this.’

‘Well,’ said Angie. ‘It’s just how we feel about him. This is how we feel about Billy and this is what he meant to us. We’re just showing you, is all.’

At 12 o’clock on 10 August 2015, Huddersfield station came to a standstill. Over on Platform 4, the team gathered in their uniforms and their hi-vis vests for a very special occasion in honour of a very special man. Angie said a few short words, then Val was invited to cut the white ribbon and Billy’s bench was formally declared ‘open’. It was a lovely occasion, with smiles and shared memories and laughs, and afterwards – as the station returned to its usual, busy self and the ticket windows reopened and the trains moved on – the party transferred to the back offices, where Angie had ordered cupcakes for Val and every member of the Huddersfield team. They were covered in Smarties and chocolate chips and colourful icing, and people helped themselves throughout the working day, and even into the night shift.

Felix loved the new bench, and would frequently wind her way around its four sturdy legs, just as she had once done with Billy himself. The bench was set in a spot where it caught the late afternoon sun, and weary travellers often rested upon it.

That sun sometimes glinted off its smart gold plaque, which read:

In memory of Billy

Station Team Leader – Huddersfield

14/02/1994 – 31/03/15 21 years’ service

Will be remembered fondly and missed dearly at this station

And he certainly was remembered fondly. That was why, whenever Angie did her security checks on an early shift and walked past his bench, she’d always say, in her cheery way, ‘Morning, Billy!’

But it was just the wind that answered now: ‘Morning, Mrs H.’