Felix The Railway Cat

4. Welcome to Huddersfield

‘In you get,’ Chris Briscoe urged the terrible twins.

The two little kittens looked blankly at him, not understanding this new game. In the end, he scooped each one up and placed them together in the grey plastic carry case for their journey to the station. They sniffed suspiciously at their new surroundings, and began mewing plaintively at their unfamiliarity. The plastic arched over their heads; at the front of the carrier was a wire mesh door, which Chris now closed firmly.

The kittens cried even louder as it clunked shut, but their mother didn’t respond to their melancholy mews. Lexi had wanted to go out, earlier, and was off having her own adventures in the large garden outside. To Chris’s mind, she had had enough of her offspring by now and wanted to get on with her own life. Three of the kittens had already left home; when the Briscoes got back to Rotherham that night and let Lexi back in, she would merely sniff at the basket where she’d reared her family, realise the kittens had now all gone, and then carry on with her life, with no visible sign of distress at their departure.

The same could not be said for her kittens at that moment, though. As Chris lifted the carry case and he and Joanne made their way outside, both tiny tots scurried to the back of the carrier as fast as they could, looking for a place to hide. They huddled together, senses alert, as Chris and Joanne made their way to a nearby station: they were catching the train to Huddersfield, taking the Penistone line.

Deep inside the carry case, as close to the back wall as they could get, the kittens clustered together, their ears pricked up as high as they had ever been. The world for them was suddenly full of loud, never-before-heard noises: the slam of car doors, the trilling of birdsong, the electronic beep of the ticket gates. New smells flooded in through the mesh door, too – earth, air, plants, animals, humans – and new sights seemed to burn their very retinas, all spot-lit by the brightness of the July sun. It was totally overwhelming. The terrible twins fell into a terrible silence – and as they boarded the train with the Briscoes and heard the colossal roar of the engine booming into life, they scarcely dared to breathe. What on earth could make a noise like that?

Yet, as the journey progressed, and the kittens slowly grew more used to the gentle, rocking motion of the train and the intermittent noises, they found their courage gradually returned. Egging each other on, as they had done when scaling curtains higher and higher in the Briscoes’ home, they edged closer to the wire door and bravely peeped out, noses pressed to the gaps in the wire and twitching furiously, as they tried to decipher the cryptogram of smells that accosted their tiny nostrils.

Halfway to Huddersfield, Chris and Joanne decided to check on their precious cargo. But when they discovered the duo at the front of the case, the kittens, spooked by the intrusion, skedaddled to the back once again. They were very, very quiet throughout the whole journey, so Chris and Joanne leaned back in their seats and left them to it. Gone were the noisy, outgoing twins who had caused such mayhem wherever they went. This first trip to the outside world had left the kittens reeling.

After about half an hour the train screeched to a halt at their destination: Huddersfield.

The station cat, though little did he know it, was home.

Yet it wasn’t a very happy homecoming. Both kittens had been frightened by the banshee scream of the brakes and the subsequent beep-beep-beep of the opening doors. They started crying again – a mewling noise that seemed to say, ‘Mum, where are you? I need you’ and ‘I’m hungry and so cold’ and ‘Where am I?’ all at once. But as Chris lifted the carrier and he and Joanne disembarked from the train, the kittens’ cries were suddenly curtailed. They felt the swaying movement of the basket around them and realised with a nervous gulp: something’s up.

Once off the train, the world seemed even noisier. Though it was a relatively quiet time on the station concourse – about mid-morning, so well after the rush hour – for the kittens, experiencing their very first day in the outside world, it was like landing on a whole new planet. Even the air felt different, colder and fresher than they were used to at home, but it was the loud noises and the alien smells that were really mind-boggling. Station announcements robotically echoed around the chamber of the carrier; running footsteps punctuated every pounding heartbeat in the kittens’ tiny little chests; and all the while the terrible twins swayed and scattered inside the roomy carrier as they were buffeted up the platform in rhythm with Chris’s purposeful strides.

The party of four was ushered into the communal announcer’s office – scene of so many station-cat brainstorming sessions – and the door shut tightly behind them. Peace, of a sort, fell. With the carrying case plonked firmly on an office desk, the team on duty gathered around, all excited whispers and prying eyes, trying to catch a glimpse of the station cat.

Chris and Joanne lifted the lid off the carrier, and each took hold of a squirming black-and-white kitten. Though the cats were used to being handled, having played happily for hours with Chris’s daughter and granddaughter at the Briscoes’ home, this was now a whole different ball game – and not a fun one.

‘Ouch!’ Chris exclaimed, as his kitten swiped at him with a well-aimed paw and those tell-tale ‘bramble’ scratches appeared on his hands. ‘Easy now,’ he urged. ‘It’s all right. You’re safe.’

Pam, from the booking office, was one of those present at the all-important handover, as her mum was giving a home to the shorter-haired kitten. She phoned her and said, ‘Come now, Mum. They’re here.’

They were indeed. Bright eyes cautiously flickered as the kittens took in the office environment, peeking out shyly between the fingers of the Briscoes’ hands. They had never seen anything like it before: computer screens glimmered and changed before their eyes as new trains came into the station and the programmes updated; microphones crackled and buzzed; and all around were things to climb and roll on: piles of paper, in-trays, filing cabinets and desks.

The team gathered round, cooing at the kittens and fussing over them. Chris had known he’d have no worries about leaving the kittens there, and he didn’t; if anything, the team were over-prepared for the arrival of their bundle of joy. Joanne and Chris smiled at each other as the kittens fidgeted in their hands. This was it: it was time to let the kittens go, to let them spread their wings and fly.

‘So we’ve nominated this one as the railway cat,’ Chris announced to the curious colleagues, nodding at the piebald fluff ball in Joanne’s hands: the biggest, fluffiest kitten of them all, just as Angie Hunte had wanted. ‘And, Pam, I believe you’re having this one.’

He handed the shorter-haired kitten over to the red-haired Pam. In the next few minutes her mum would arrive and whisk him away in her car. The kitten would be named Luther, and he would grow up to become a tall, elegant cat – sleek rather than fluffy – who would live with Pam’s mum and dad, together with another cat called Mo, in a house by a river, where there would be plenty of vermin on tap for him to catch. He became a character in his own right, and never again saw his terrible twin, with whom he had once spent so many happy hours playing.

Now, all eyes turned to the station cat. As Joanne gently stroked his fluffy black fur, so soft to the touch, his still-blue kitten eyes darted around, taking in the faces of his new family. They were exclaiming at his tiny size, his snowy paws, at the miniature proportions of his nose compared to his big white whiskers which took over his entire face. Those whiskers twitched as the kitten wrinkled his nostrils, taking in the scents of photocopying, various perfumes and brought-from-home, handmade tuna sandwiches … Hmm, the kitten almost seemed to think, pausing for a moment. Food. Now that smells good …

His on-alert ears took in all the sounds cascading around him. ‘Oh, isn’t he handsome!’ the team chorused. ‘Isn’t he just gorgeous!’ Their voices were like a torrent of noise, washing over the kitten and – at that moment – sounding about as welcome to him as a bucket of iced water.

Joanne bent and placed the little feline gently on the carpeted floor. ‘This is home,’ she told him.

Whoosh!

The kitten legged it. No messing. He darted straight under the computer table to safety, from where he could work out what the hell was going on.

Everyone in the room chuckled indulgently. There would be time enough for making friends, and for showing the new recruit the ropes. The Briscoes closed up the carrier with a satisfying click, ready to head back home.

But, before he left, Chris bent down and locked eyes with the piebald kitten who was now sitting comfortably under the desk. Chris knew what lay ahead for this cat: he was to become the new pest controller at Huddersfield station. He had a job with TPE, and so he was – to all intents and purposes – now a colleague.

A grin lit up Chris’s bearded face. ‘Bye for now,’ he said lightly to the little kitten. ‘See you at work on Monday.’