Full Steam Ahead, Felix

27. Welcome to Huddersfield

Though her new responsibilities were news to Felix, they had been a long time in the planning for Angie Hunte. The idea that had been sparked by Jacqui’s new kitten back in June had soon led to a forest fire of discussion between Angie and Jacqui over that long hot summer. In whispered conversations in the team leaders’ office, they had batted the idea back and forth, as though they themselves were kittens and the idea was a catnip mouse on a string.

‘Oh, wouldn’t it be nice to have a little station kitten?’ they would sigh wistfully. It was more of a pipe dream than anything else – a fantasy that flourished between them. ‘We should so get another one,’ they would enthuse. ‘He could be a junior pest controller!’

Angie and Jacqui joked about it every time they handed over to each other on their shifts. It soon became a favourite topic of conversation and, as the weeks passed by, became so well-worn that the joky edges rubbed off.

That change in approach was prompted, too, by Felix’s experiences over the summer. When she’d been so sick and lethargic a few months before, Angie had worried about her so much. As much as she hated to admit it, Felix wasn’t getting any younger – and the demands on her time were only increasing as her fame continued to spread. Angie felt that if Felix wanted to sleep for ten hours straight during the day, she should be able to without interruptions. Yet she also knew how much meeting the Huddersfield station cat meant to people and how heartfelt many of the visitors were. She began to think that an apprentice might do Felix the world of good, taking some of the pressure from her.

Angie was conscious, too, of how much knowledge Felix had of the railway in her clever little head. Over the past seven years, she had learned so much: to master the initially scary sounds of the roaring trains, to cross the tracks, to hunt those pesky pests. Wouldn’t it be something if she could pass all that knowledge on? And wouldn’t it be better to start that process sooner rather than later, before Felix got too set in her ways to share her wisdom with a younger cat?

It definitely wasn’t about retiring Felix – Angie was adamant about that. She was only seven, after all. It was more that, as the cat had now slowed down, Angie wanted to help her in that chosen course, so that Felix could enjoy her golden years – whenever she became ready for them. She had seen this kind of thing happen again and again on the railway network, when an old-timer, rich in wisdom, mentored a younger colleague until they were ready to step up. Perhaps Felix, already so much a part of railway history, was ready to shadow her human colleagues in this way too. The fact that a new kitten could hopefully be a friend to Felix as well, a bit of company for her, was an additional boon.

Angie and Jacqui both began to think more seriously about getting a new kitten at Huddersfield station. At times Jacqui’s enthusiasm would get the better of her and she’d say to Angie, ‘Let’s just do it. What are the powers that be going to do – make us take it back?’ But Angie, matriarch of the station that she was, was absolutely determined that – as with Felix’s arrival seven years before – everything should be above board.

So it was that, one hot summer’s day, around the time that Eva came to visit Felix, Angie paid a visit of her own to Andy Croughan, the station manager. She managed to waylay him in the back-office corridor one day and asked him outright if they could get a second cat. Before Felix had come to the station, there had been a long campaign to secure the authority to give a kitten a home, a crusade full of subterfuge and smart thinking, but this time Angie just came straight out with the suggestion. ‘What are our chances?’ she asked.

When Felix had first arrived, the then manager had been none too keen. But times had changed. And, in fact, Andy Croughan had played a key role in bringing Felix to the station in the first place – including green-lighting her ‘hiring’ as the pest controller when he was only acting up to the role of manager – so when Angie raised the idea, he had no qualms about doing it all again. He and others had separately been thinking something similar.

But, to tell the absolute truth, when he agreed with Angie that it would be a good idea to get another kitten, in his own head he was thinking that it would be a good idea about ten years down the line … He’d assumed it was a bit early to be devising succession plans, yet he enthusiastically agreed that, yes, a kitten was definitely something they would want to do. So he gave Angie the green light she was waiting for, and he did not clarify exactly when he had been envisioning hiring a new cat.

But that was all Angie needed. She tried not to show her absolute elation in front of the manager, but the moment she was alone in her office she started jiggling with excitement, almost dancing on the spot with glee.

Later that day, Jacqui arrived for their handover.

‘Jacqui,’ Angie said as soon as they were alone in the office, her tone deadly serious. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

Jacqui’s brow automatically creased in concern, but then Angie let her trademark beaming smile show. ‘Andy said yes!’ she declared.

Jacqui immediately knew what she was talking about and her jaw dropped. ‘You are joking,’ she said. She had never expected it to be so easy.

Angie shook her head emphatically: joking she was not. She whispered the next words, as their secret plan was highly confidential, but her delight was nonetheless loud and clear. ‘We’re gonna have a kitten! We’re gonna have a kitten, Jacqui!’

The two team leaders began bouncing on the spot with joy, yet their celebration was entirely silent. The idea of Huddersfield getting a second cat was such huge news that they knew they had to keep it under wraps. Operation Kitten was now underway, and the two secret agents at the heart of the mission were determined to succeed.

They swung into action straight away. Jacqui had got her lovely little kitten Romeo from a local animal shelter, and Angie also liked the idea of giving a home to a rescued kitten, so Jacqui visited the same shelter as soon as she could.

They did have kittens available – but they told her they were not comfortable with the idea of letting one of them live at the station. Angie and Jacqui understood their position – they were only thinking of the welfare of the animal – but given how Felix had thrived in her domain, there wasn’t much empirical evidence to justify their fears. So they tried another shelter – but they too said the same.

‘We’re going to have to go private,’ Jacqui announced. And, in the last week of August 2018, that was exactly what she did. ‘Kittens for sale near me,’ she typed into a search engine – and a flood of results came back.

Angie and Jacqui, during their whispered top-secret conversations, had already identified some criteria by which they would choose the newest member of the Huddersfield team. Though it flew in the face of gender discrimination laws, he had to be male, for a start. This was because male cats were believed to be much more accepting of other moggies, which had been Jacqui’s personal experience of integrating multiple cats in one home too. Felix, of course – despite the initial confusion on the issue – was female and they knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to have two ladies, as they would be more likely to catfight, literally. Some research in Switzerland had also shown that opposite-sex pairings were more likely to accept one another.

They were also adamant that the junior pest controller should be a kitten and not an adult cat. This was partly for his own safety – so that he could learn from the very start of his life how to live safely on the railway and thus grow up used to all the hustle and bustle – but also because the same research study in Switzerland had shown that adult cats were more likely to accept the introduction of a younger individual than they were a cat of the same age or older. Angie and Jacqui wanted to do all they could to ease the transition as the two cat co-workers got to know one another, to make the shock of Felix sharing her home with another cat as easy as possible for her.

Angie really didn’t know how Felix would take the addition of another feline member of the team. As evidenced by Felix’s ‘romantic’ relationships with the feral black cat and the smarter white pussy, she was not averse to interacting with other moggies. Angie anticipated that, initially, she would not be too happy, because Felix ruled the roost at the station and no monarch likes to share power. But she hoped that the maternal instinct she had seen her display in the past would ultimately kick in. In her dreams, she loved the idea of Felix showing the new apprentice around the station, teaching him the role of railway cat. How wonderful would it be to see them sharing a shift together, both of them patrolling the platforms side by side? A new kitten might even be persuaded to wear a hi-vis jacket just like the one that Felix had so long ago jettisoned! She hoped they would be able to find a kitten who was easy-going and confident, friendly and fun, and who would become a character in his own right.

As Jacqui scanned the results that had come up onscreen, she noticed there was an advert for a young male kitten being sold from a home that was not five miles away.

She texted Angie the details. ‘What do you think?’ she asked.

Angie texted back just three words. ‘Go for it.’

So, on Friday 31 August 2018, Jacqui found herself walking up the driveway of a semi-detached, newly built house and ringing the doorbell. It belonged to a Polish family with two blonde daughters, one aged eight and the other five. As Jacqui chatted with their parents about the eight-week-old kitten they had advertised for sale, the girls went and collected the kittens to show her.

There were two kittens: a light, tawny-coloured female and her brother, who was black as coal. They were both little cuties, but Jacqui didn’t even hold the female. From the moment she saw the male kitten, Jacqui only had eyes for her boy. She knew he had to come home with her.

His eyes were open. They were a khaki-green colour and full of curiosity as this new lady reached out her hands, which were almost the same size as him, and pulled him closer for a cuddle. As she stroked his short-haired fur, so different to Felix’s long-haired fluff, he remained calm and didn’t wriggle once. Rather, he was friendly, peering at Jacqui intently, using his very pointy, very large ears to listen as she greeted him warmly and told him over and over just how gorgeous he was. He didn’t look over her shoulder while she held him or get distracted by anything at all; it seemed he wanted to focus only on her.

Jacqui gave him a lovely long cuddle for twenty minutes or so, stroking him from his head right down to his pointy tail that tapered to its end. It was wiry and gristly, like a baton for a drum, and she had no doubt at all that she wanted him to join the Huddersfield band.

She FaceTimed Angie as she stood holding him. Angie had the same immediate reaction: that he was ‘the one’ and that he needed to join them at the station at once.

‘We’ll take him,’ Jacqui told the family.

Oh, the little girls did look disappointed to see him go! A crestfallen expression crossed their faces as they realised they now had to say goodbye to their little kitten. Even in his first eight weeks on the planet, he had clearly made an impression. The smallest child snuggled into her daddy for comfort with a very sad face indeed.

But the tiny black kitten was not destined to be a family cat. A greater fate awaited him. Jacqui unfolded the black-and-yellow fabric carry case that she had brought with her (just in case) and slipped him swiftly inside. Given his age, he had probably never been inside a carrier before, but he certainly didn’t have an issue with it. As Jacqui was soon to learn, nothing fazed this little superhero.

She took him back to her house for an overnight stay before his first day on the job. Not wanting to overwhelm him, she kept him confined to her large bedroom, which had shiny wooden floors and lots of room to run about in, should he wish to do so. Immediately, however, he showed his preference for lounging about on the soft cherry-red blanket she had laid out over her bed.

Jacqui’s four cats were terribly interested in the new lodger. They were off doing their own thing when he first arrived, so it was only as each of them returned from their adventures that they began to sniff their twitching velvet noses and notice him.

For Jacqui’s youngest, Romeo, who was then about four and a half months old, the little black kitten became an immediate playmate. The two cats became best buddies in the blink of a khaki-green eye – playing together, sleeping together and even grooming one another. They were so sweet.

Pickle was Jacqui’s one-year-old. He was a looker, with similar leg markings to Felix, but he was more uncertain. ‘Ooh, what’s going on?’ his quizzical expression seemed to say – yet he was absolutely fine with the younger cat regardless. Ginger Deanie, the old man of the house at nine years old, almost rolled his eyes when he saw the new arrival. ‘Another one?! Really?’

The only sticking point was Smudgie, a three-year-old female calico cat who was disabled (she had four legs, but only three paws). She was also similar to Felix in a way, but only in temperament – for Smudgie was a diva. And, true to form, she hated the kitten on sight, hissing constantly at him whenever he came near.

But the kitten could not have cared less. Tumbling about on the floor with his new mate Romeo, he totally ignored the hissy fits being thrown by the female cat in whose home he was staying.

Jacqui was rather reassured to see it. She feared the little cat was going to have to learn how to live with a temperamental female … After all, if diva Smudgie wasn’t a fan – then how on earth would diva Felix react?

Jacqui kept Angie constantly updated with pictures and videos of the new little kitten. Angie loved seeing the snapshots coming through on her phone, especially the ones of Jacqui’s cats each welcoming their new friend: the kitten and the cat in question would stand nose to nose as they enjoyed getting to know one another. As her phone beeped again, Angie excitedly turned to attend to it – but, this time, it wasn’t a picture Jacqui had sent. Instead, Jacqui had texted, ‘We’re going to need a name for him …’

Angie hadn’t been thinking about names. Had Jacqui suggested one herself, she’d most likely have said yes to it straight away. Or if Jacqui had not mentioned it at that moment, perhaps they’d have done what they did for Felix and invited all on the railway network to suggest a name for the new cat. But the moment Angie read that message, the most perfect solution popped into her head.

‘Jacqui,’ typed Angie, ‘can we call him Bolt?’

She was thinking, as she so often did, about her beloved former colleague, Billy Bolt. Though the little kitten was everything Billy wasn’t – cute, friendly, black – the idea of having a Bolt back on-site at the station, of again being able to call that name, was too tempting to resist. It was her way of paying tribute to him. Angie didn’t quite know what Billy might have made of it, but given his grudging love of cats, it was perhaps a fitting way to continue his legacy.

And there was another reason it was a fitting name – because the ladies’ secret mission was about to blow its cover, and news of the apprentice was certainly going to be a bolt out of the blue for the rest of the world.

Their mission was completed the following afternoon. Angie got to the station first and waited for Jacqui and Bolt in the car park. It was a sunny September day and the weather more than matched her excited, happy mood. As she saw Jacqui’s little yellow car coming round the corner she gave a thrilled squeal. She couldn’t wait to meet her new baby. She was very restrained, though. As Jacqui parked up and lifted out the carry case, Angie didn’t rush to peek through the mesh. She wanted to get the kitten safely into the office before anything else happened. So she deliberately didn’t look for him, even though the case was rocking a little, focusing instead on getting through the gateline with their charge.

Neither Angie nor Jacqui was officially working that day, so their colleagues immediately clocked them as they walked on to the concourse. There was a young man called Joe on shift that afternoon – a very tall ginger-haired gentleman who was known for being thoughtful. As Angie and Jacqui tried to rush through, he noticed not only them but also the carry case that Jacqui was carefully shepherding through the gate, which clearly contained some kind of creature. He gave them all a puzzled look, which they had to ignore. The moment for announcing the mission was most definitely not now – not on a busy concourse, where the Saturday-afternoon shoppers were thronging through the gates. Heads down, Angie and Jacqui scurried straight through without speaking to anyone, turning left down platform one to make their way to the back office. Little did the passengers surrounding them know that a new chapter in Huddersfield station history was being written at that very moment.

Felix was not around as they entered the back-office corridor. Angie didn’t know where she was, but she was glad that Bolt was going to have time to adjust to his new surroundings without his manager breathing down his neck. No new worker deserves that when they first clock on for duty.

The team leaders’ office was empty, thank goodness. Angie, Jacqui and Bolt entered and shut the door behind them. Then Jacqui carefully laid the carry case on the desk.

Angie knew that in the next few moments she would be meeting a very special little boy. Her loving heart was already pounding in her chest. After all the planning and preparation and top-secret discussions, he was finally here. Her little apprentice. She couldn’t believe it was real, that they had done it. She placed her hands over her mouth, not trusting herself to speak.

Jacqui gently opened the carrier. As she’d been looking after Bolt for the past twenty-four hours, she wanted this to be Angie’s time, so she graciously stepped back and let her colleague come forward.

Oh my goodness, what a cutie! As she peered into the carry case, Angie saw his ears first. They looked bigger than him. ‘Oh!’ she cried in delight.

She cupped her hands and lifted him out. He was as good as gold, the moment just as precious. Close up, she saw that, actually, he wasn’t all black, despite first impressions. He had a few little white tufts, barely noticeable, under his chin, and a slim flash of white on his belly too, just slightly left of centre. When he stretched, it looked like a horizon or a spaceship travelling at warp speed. With his long, gangly limbs, he was one of the most beautiful creatures she had ever seen (the other, of course, being Felix).

Though the love that Angie felt for him was identical, he didn’t remind her of the original station cat. They just looked too different. Felix as a kitten had been a big ball of fluff. Bolt, in contrast, was short-haired and all ears.

Already in love, Angie placed him tenderly on her chest. Bolt, clearly comfortable, nestled his head against her shoulder and sleepily closed his eyes. Just before he drifted off to sleep, he heard the loveliest Yorkshire voice whisper softly to him.

‘You’re home, Bolt,’ said Angie. ‘Welcome to Huddersfield.’