Full Steam Ahead, Felix

19. A Very Merry Christmas

When she wasn’t working at the station, Angela lived in a semi-detached three-bedroomed house in a nearby village. She really wasn’t sure what Felix would make of it as she took her home for the holidays on 22 December 2017. Though Angela and Felix had long been friends, Angela had never taken her home before. After all, when Felix had first arrived at the station as a kitten, six and a half years ago, Angela had always had a house full of family over the festive season and it wouldn’t have been fair. As for the past couple of years, with so much upheaval in Angela’s life with her divorce going through, the last thing on her mind had been inviting a fluffy friend for Christmas. But this year it had seemed the right thing to do.

Angela had been facing another Christmas alone. When she’d first got divorced, her friends and family had rallied round, inviting her out or over to theirs so that she was never on her own. But you couldn’t expect people to do that forever; her children had their own lives and families, and she didn’t want to be a burden. She’d arranged to see her daughter on Boxing Day and her son for a few hours on the twenty-fifth, but the rest of the time she would be celebrating solo. At least, she would have been. But now she wasn’t – not now that Felix was coming to stay.

Angela was hoping that Felix would settle in easily, but she was concerned that the unfamiliar setting might send the railway cat running for cover. Back at the station, she’d managed to get Felix into her carry case, which was the first triumph – Felix was still as reluctant as ever to go travelling. The panting cat soon settled down on the journey, as Angela frantically adjusted the blower in the car up and down, wanting to find just the right temperature for the station cat. (Felix sat in her carrier in the front seat calmly, taking all this as her due.) However, being settled in the carry case was one thing, being comfortable in new and strange surroundings quite another.

With trepidation, Angela set down the carrier in her lounge and opened the lid. She left Felix to come out at her own pace; she didn’t want to rush or scare her. Angela tiptoed back cautiously, doing everything in her power not to startle the station cat.

Well, Angela had never seen anything like it. Queen Felix stepped out of that carry case as though she was stepping out of a chauffeur-driven Jaguar. As she glanced around Angela’s comfortable home, her tail went straight up in the air and she started purring appreciatively, as if to say, ‘This’ll be all right, this, for a while. This will do nicely.’ There was no fear, no worry, no bolting. She made herself right at home.

She soon decided to go confidently into every room to suss out what was what, and every room soon got the Felix seal of approval. She liked the conservatory out the back, which looked out on to Angela’s garden – including her tinkling, trickling, tiered water feature, which encouraged the birds to visit. She liked the lounge at the front too, which had a comfy brown leather sofa that she liked to lie along the back of, looking out the front at all the neighbours; Felix, it turned out, was as curious as any local busybody to see what was going on. And she liked the spare room upstairs as well, where she found that Angela had laid out a radiator bed for her; knowing how much Felix loved the one at the station, Angela had bought a second one for her to enjoy while staying at her home. Far from seeming out of place in a domestic setting, the station cat slotted straight in. However, there was one aspect of Angela’s home that took her completely by surprise …

Angela was following Felix around as she explored, making sure she didn’t get into any trouble. (The story of how Felix had nearly escaped up the chimney at Jean’s one Christmas was by now legendary.) So Angela was on her tail as Felix tiptoed into her grey-slate-floored kitchen and did a double take.

Felix’s brow furrowed in confusion. She already knew from her explorations that there was no other cat in the house … so who, then, was this spectacular-looking beauty staring back at her? She peered closer at the black-and-white cat reflected in the oven door … and her fellow pussy peered closer too. She blinked when Felix blinked. She twitched her ears and sniffed.

Felix sat there for quite some time: at first rather startled; later, simply admiring her reflection. She did not preen, but instead seemed quite comfortable. ‘That cat looks nice … We’re just going to sit here for a while, OK, Angela?’ she seemed to say. She was there long enough for Ange to creep away and pick up her phone, so that she could snap a picture of the station cat being delighted by her doppelganger. Felix seemed to think that she had never seen such a lovely-looking cat!

Nor was that the only photograph Angela took that holiday season. Part of her reason for wanting to host Felix was to keep her fans updated via Facebook. Angela knew from first-hand experience just how much Felix meant to those who were lonely at Christmas, and she wanted to fill their newsfeeds with shots of Felix having festive fun. In truth, too, she knew it would give her something to focus on. So she snapped Felix standing next to an extraordinary turkey that was the exact same size as the station cat; and in the days to come would even attempt to capture her watching the Queen’s speech on Christmas Day. (It took a while, but she succeeded in the end!)

Most of all, however, Angela wanted Felix to have some time to relax while she was with her on her holidays. It had been a very busy festive season at the station, with Felix raising money for Cash for Kids again, this time through sales of a new cuddly version of herself; rather than a superhero cape, the toy cat had worn Felix’s famous hi-vis jacket that had so long ago been lost. The two Angelas, meanwhile, had raised around £3,500 for Dementia UK by creating a special Felix Christmas bauble for her fans to hang on their trees. They had been really touched by the response.

When Angela thought about all that the station cat had achieved and experienced that year, it took her breath away. Felix now had over 120,000 Facebook followers; she’d published a bestselling book; she’d raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for charity; she’d touched the lives of countless fans. The meet-and-greets alone were very demanding for Felix – being woken from her naps, meeting strangers day in and day out – and Angela thought she probably needed a bit of peace and quiet. She wasn’t as young as she used to be, and Angela wanted her to take some ‘me time’ (or should that be ‘meow time’?) to recharge her batteries. When Angela got tired, someone else would cover her shifts for her, but Felix, as the sole railway cat, had no such luck. Poor old puss. It really was an awful lot of work for one cat …

After a while, Felix left behind the beautiful cat who lived in the oven and re-entered the lounge. Soon the cat was busy bouncing all over the sofa, treating it as a trampoline. There was unmistakeable joy in her eyes to have such a soft and comfy place to sit and chill out … and with a contented purr that was exactly what she did.

Angela, feeling similar pleasure, happily joined her colleague on the sofa. ‘This is none too shabby, is it, my sweet?’ she asked the cat, giving her a long stroke, her fingers fumbling through Felix’s fluffy black fur. Felix purred loudly again, as though in agreement.

As they sat together, companionably watching a spot of telly, Angela and Felix glanced around the lounge. They saw the soft sofa, the wide window … and the beautiful Christmas tree standing proudly in the corner. It was wreathed in brightly coloured baubles and twinkling with fairy lights. In fact, Angela had put up not one, not two, but three trees in her home that year: a little one in the hallway, a big one in the front room and a fibre-optic version in the conservatory. As she and Felix watched the television, their gaze also took in two toy dolls representing Father and Mrs Christmas, who stood sentry below the screen, like soft-tummied soldiers. With such loving and lovely details in place all over the house, Angela’s home certainly looked festive and fun.

It was a total transformation – and not just from how it looked out of season. The year before, Angela hadn’t bothered with any decorations at all, feeling there was no point when it was only her who was there to see them. But, this year, everything was different. This year she was spending Christmas with somebody very special indeed: Felix the railway cat. And she’d wanted it to be nice for her. Felix, she knew, was worth going the extra mile for. After all, although Angela had arranged to see her family over the festive period, it was Felix who would be with her every day, Felix with whom she would wake up on Christmas morning. And, in all honesty, it was Felix who had helped to get her through the past, rather difficult year.

Yet Angela’s house wasn’t the only thing that had been transformed over the past twelve months. She too felt different: more positive about the future, brighter overall. She knew it was due to Felix. Angela had a lot to thank that little cat for.

An Austrian study, carried out in 2003, had once shown that having a cat in the house was the emotional equivalent of having a romantic partner – but Angela totally disagreed with that. It wasn’t equivalent at all. It was actually much, much better. And, with Felix by her side, it turned out to be the merriest Christmas that Angela had experienced in many a year.