Full Steam Ahead, Felix

28. Meet the Apprentice

It was this cosy trio that Felix walked in on a short while later. Bolt, having woken from his nap, was beginning to explore his new home, confidently striding out into the corridor – even though his long legs couldn’t quite keep up with his desire to explore, and he wobbled as he walked.

Angie and Jacqui had been so caught up in the moment that they weren’t aware of Felix’s arrival – so when she appeared in the corridor it was completely unexpected. They would probably have done the introduction in a different way, given time and opportunity, but it was suddenly taken out of their hands. Felix stayed only a few seconds, clearly not ready to engage with the new arrival, but when she returned about five minutes later and hissed at him, Angie spoke to her gently.

‘This is your new apprentice,’ she told Felix. ‘You’ve got to teach him now, Felix. You’ve got to look after him. You’ve got to pass all your knowledge on.’

She remembered her vision of the two cats trotting companionably along the platforms and held her breath as she watched the senior pest controller. Was Felix going to rise to the occasion and assume her managerial duties straight away?

Felix was not. She gave a long, low hiss through her teeth, slow and steady, and then she turned on her white-capped heels and walked huffily away.

Angie let her go. She knew she would need time – possibly lots of time. Like any only child who gains a sibling, she needed to adjust to the new situation. Yet Angie was confident that she would eventually come round.

In the meantime, Bolt had to meet the rest of the team. The first person Angie let in on the secret arrival of their second cat was Angela Dunn. Angie sloped alone into the booking office and tapped her on her shoulder.

‘Angela, have you got a minute?’ she asked.

‘Of course,’ her colleague replied.

‘Just step out of the office a moment with me,’ Angie went on. ‘Shut your window, please.’

Angela did as she was told, more intrigued than worried.

When she walked into the team leaders’ room, she gasped. A little black kitten was sitting on Jacqui’s lap.

‘Meet Bolt,’ announced Angie.

Angela made a beeline for him. Long ago, Angie had briefly mentioned the idea of a kitten to her, but nothing about Andy’s green light. Nevertheless, Angela had heard enough to understand immediately that this was their newest member of staff. She was in full support of his arrival. Angela perhaps knew better than anyone what a busy old girl Felix was these days; anything that might give her a break could only be a good thing in her opinion.

She scooped up the kitten and held him against her chest like a baby. Bolt simply curled up against her and went to sleep again, and Angela felt her cheeks flush pink with happiness.

With Angela now in the know, it was time to let the cat fully out of the bag. The wonderful news soon spread around the station like wildfire – and everyone fell crazy in love with the new kitten. One by one, all the team members came into the room to meet him. There was a huge fuss made over him as each employee had a special moment with their new colleague. It was explained that, eventually, he would be helping Felix – and, by so doing, would give her a bit more peace and quiet.

Angie Hunte particularly remembered Joe from the gateline coming in on his break – the colleague who had been so suspicious when they’d first arrived at the station with the mysterious carry case. Now he knew the full story.

‘Joe,’ she said. ‘Meet Bolt.’

Angie watched his reaction closely as she revealed the name, as she had been doing with all the members of the team. She wanted to see what they made of it. Would other people think it appropriate that she had named the kitten after their Billy? Would they be in favour – or against?

Joe had been at the station long enough to have known Billy before he passed and immediately made the connection. The moment he heard what the kitten had been called, he looked up to heaven and stared skywards for a beat, thinking of Billy Bolt. When he looked back at Angie, he was smiling. ‘What a fab name,’ he said. ‘You could not have picked a better name.’

That was how everyone seemed to feel. Jacqui, who’d joined the station after Billy had died, soon found herself regaled with stories of the old-timer. The kitten prompted colleagues to recall their own favourite anecdotes so that Billy again loomed large in the minds of the Huddersfield team, even as his namesake gambolled on the carpet.

There was also a bit of ribbing about the new arrival, given what had happened with Felix. ‘Are we sure it’s a boy?’ several members of the team joked.

But the confusion with Felix had arisen due to her long fluffy fur. With Bolt, they had no such difficulty. ‘Yes!’ cried Angie and Jacqui. ‘He is definitely a he!’

Station manager Andy Croughan was duly informed of the kitten’s arrival too, via text message. Well, the news came rather as a surprise to him, of course! But he could not have been more chuffed, especially about the name.

Someone else who needed to be informed was Mark Allan, Felix’s Facebook manager. He was cycling over in Morecambe when he received a message from Angela Dunn: ‘I’ve got something important to tell you.’ Worried, he pulled off the road and called her, fearing the worst. Imagine his relief when he learned the team had recruited a new kitten! Angela sent him a snapshot and he could see at once that this was going to be one popular little pussycat.

The station staff were so excited about their new arrival that they wanted to tell the world. That very same day, they announced their staff update online, sharing a photograph of Bolt sitting on Angela Dunn’s lap, as Jacqui and Angie peered over her shoulder like the proud parents they were. The message on Felix’s Facebook page read: ‘I would just like to let all my Facebook friends into a tiny secret … I’ve got an apprentice. Please meet Bolt, our new junior pest controller.’

And the world went wild.

As for the senior pest controller, she had not been seen since she’d met her new colleague. While everyone had been crowding round Bolt, cooing over his arrival, Felix had quietly slipped away. It was Angela Dunn, in the end, who went to look for her.

‘Felix!’ she called softly. She checked the ladies’ locker room, in case Felix had retreated to her radiator bed. Yet her beloved sheepskin ‘hammock’ was hollow and bare. Angela double-checked the kitchen, in case Felix had returned to have her supper, but there was such a to-do about Bolt in the nearby team leaders’ room that, hungry or not, the senior pest controller was avoiding it like the plague. Angela searched the in-trays in the old announcer’s room, the shelves in the booking office and even the conductors’ bags in her former lost-property home, but nowhere could she see the fluffy black-and-white cat.

Concerned, Angela pushed open the door that led to platform one. The cat wasn’t sitting on the former customer-information point, but as Angela emerged she noticed Felix almost at once. And she wasn’t on the benches or by the bike racks – she was somewhere she hadn’t gone for a very long time. Felix was on platform four – sitting underneath Billy Bolt’s memorial bench.

When Angela saw her, taking shelter under its weather-beaten wooden slats, she felt tears pricking at her eyes. Angie had told her that Felix had been shocked by Bolt’s arrival, and Angela knew she must have been frightened, too. Where had the cat gone when she felt so scared and unsettled? She went to the place she had once been happiest, to the person who had always been hers. She was laid out under the bench on a bed of green moss that grew there, seeking comfort and support from a station ghost. She looked over at Angela when she called, but she did not move. She was with her Billy, and he would see her right.