Full Steam Ahead, Felix

32. A Powerful Pair

Throughout that autumn, Bolt’s training continued. Felix did not join him on every session, perhaps taking a paws-off management approach. Without Felix to follow, it took time for Bolt to gain in confidence during his early platform patrols. He seemed, at first, not especially to like the feel of the cold platform beneath his paws and always needed to be encouraged to step away from the grey-carpeted lobby. Yet Jacqui and Angie continued to take him out during the quiet night shifts, encouraging him to walk on his lead along the platform, and, slowly, he gained more skill. By mid-November he had got the feel of it and could be seen strolling along the platform in a sprightly manner, flicking his tail and happily exploring with his nose right down on the ground. At times he was so eager that Angie found herself having to tug back on the lead gently as Bolt raced ahead. As the weeks passed, his world widened. Moving on from platform one, Angie escorted him halfway along platform two. Then came the day when Bolt went on to the concourse for the first time.

He instantly seemed much happier there than he’d ever been on the platforms, perhaps taking some comfort from the more familiarly sheltered space. He especially loved the gateline, which boded well for his future shifts as part of the revenue protection team. Although if Bolt continued to express his affection for the gateline as he did on this first visit – by stopping dead on the grey rubber floor of the gates themselves – it would cause all manner of chaos in the middle of rush hour!

He seemed quite happy there. Not for him the luscious red carpets that Felix frequented; he was quite content with this rubbery grey one. He sat himself down and even took the time to have a bit of a wash, his little pink tongue flicking out firmly over his short black fur. He was too young to have gone to the groomers yet, but when the time came it was likely that he too would take the road trip to visit Louise on her exciting-smelling farm. After Felix’s first feisty visit there, the senior pest controller had come to enjoy her time with Louise. The groomer joked that she was like a different cat! Even as soon as her second trip, the tiger had been tamed. Now, she closed her eyes when Louise combed through her fluffy fur, as though Louise was merely softly stroking her; her grumbling, if it came, was just a gentle underscore, emitting only if Louise had to tackle a particularly tough tangle. At the end of each session, they even had a cuddle.

Back on the concourse, Bolt’s big ears pricked up and he wandered out from the gateline on to the cream marbled floor of the concourse. His tail, with which he was becoming increasingly familiar, wagged firmly from left to right, as though he was enjoying himself. With his more streamlined fur, Bolt’s tail was more like a whip than Felix’s. His energy slickly channelled through it now, as he showed Angie that this station cat business really wasn’t half bad.

Now that Bolt was beginning to master his patrols, it was time for stage two of his training: exposing him to the sounds of the services. It was Angie Hunte who took responsibility for this latest aspect of Bolt’s apprenticeship. She chose to ease him in gently. At four o’clock in the morning, a single night train was due to pull in at platform four. Angie escorted Bolt out on to platform one a short while beforehand. She hoped that as the train wasn’t directly on their platform, and would be slowly drawing to a halt as it arrived, it would be the best way to introduce Bolt to the noises that would soon become second nature. This way, he’d get to hear them without the train being right on top of them.

Bolt was happily trotting along the platform when the first rumble of the railway tracks started to sound. He stopped dead and raised his head, his large ears twitching. As the noise got louder and louder, Bolt began to tremble. Angie pulled him back on his lead and he ran quickly to her. Immediately, she scooped him up and pressed him against her chest, trying to reassure him with the more familiar sound of her heartbeat. They walked up and down the platform together as the noise increased in intensity.

‘It’s all right, sweetheart,’ Angie said soothingly. ‘You’re not going to be hurt. I’ve got you, Bolt. I’ve got you.’

But as the train arrived in full force with a monstrous roar of its engine, despite those comforting words, Bolt blinked up at her. He was shocked, startled and scared.

‘This is a train, Bolt,’ Angie explained to the apprentice over the roar. ‘These are noises you’ll soon be hearing every day. You just need to get used to them.’

With a screeching squeal, the train applied its brakes, and this new sound made Bolt shiver all over again. Afterwards, the terrifying train finally fell silent. The few passengers boarding the night service embarked, little knowing that across the way an apprentice railway cat was undergoing training.

Angie took Bolt back inside before the train departed. He was still shaking, and she didn’t want to do too much too soon. There was time enough for all that. This little cadet could take as long as he needed to adjust to his railway life.

Despite his understandable early apprehension, Angie believed that Bolt was, overall, much more confident than Felix had been at the same age. If the door to outside was opened for him during a night shift now, he would choose to exit and sit outside on the grey carpet of the lobby, even if the door closed behind him. He was not yet confident enough to go any further than that lobby alone, but he was content to sit on the mat, nose twitching, as he slowly acclimatised himself to the big wide world. Angie didn’t recall Felix doing that at such a young age. All in all, Angie had plenty of hopes that, with time and training, Bolt would soon be as sure-footed and safe on the railway as the original station cat.

As for that cat, as the autumn of 2018 unfolded, Felix was hitting yet more heights. Her special-edition Monopoly board came out to a big commercial fanfare and on 28 November Felix was highly commended at the Railstaff Awards in the Charitable category. She was continuing to raise thousands of pounds for charity with her 2019 calendar, a second book and even her own range of Christmas cards. Yet perhaps the biggest accomplishment came in the way that Felix had finally reached a truce with the tiny kitten who had invaded her world – but who was also, very slowly, coming to enrich it.

A few times now, Angela Dunn had come into the back-office corridor to find them both lying down in it within a mere foot of one another. Jacqui, observing this same closeness, also noticed that, as Felix lay there, she would expose her white tummy with its black splodge just below her heart. This belly exposure, in Jacqui’s mind, proved that Felix now felt completely comfortable with the kitten. Despite her initial reticence and reluctance, she’d got used to him.

And even though Bolt, being Bolt, was unable to resist the temptation every now and then to pounce on the sleeping senior pest controller, Felix tolerated it pretty well. The two cats were so much better together than they had been. Truth be told, even when Felix’s patience expired, and she gave Bolt a friendly swipe of her white-capped paw, it was by definition a play fight – and one that the original station cat, despite herself, rather seemed to enjoy. (Even if that was because it gave her a chance to remind him exactly who was boss.)

For Sara from the booking office, her heart was truly warmed by the way Felix had finally taken Bolt under her wing. The arrival of Bolt had been so lovely for Sara to witness. With her baby daughter due at the end of December, seeing the kitten had made Sara think more and more about her own impending motherhood. She and Dan had moved in together by now, into their own home, and they couldn’t wait until Maisie arrived and the three of them became a family. It was rather nice for Sara to know that when she went on maternity leave, as she was very soon to do, this new station family would also be growing. And while she and Maisie were bonding, Felix and Bolt would be doing the same.

As Sara would soon find out, however, children grow up fast. As autumn drew to its close, Angie and Jacqui began to do double takes as they arrived at work after a few days off. What had happened to their little kitten? Who was this big boy, with his long, sleek form and an almost military bearing as he sat up straight on a TPE clipboard? Bolt grew bigger and more mature with every passing day. Jacqui could see it in his face; he looked more like a cat than a kitten, although he hadn’t quite grown into his ears. His original polka-dot harness became too small for him as he healthily put on weight, so Jacqui upgraded him to a new neon-orange one. It glowed brightly against his black fur when he went out patrolling at night.

He also t00k up a new hobby – one inspired by watching Felix. She may have been rather hands-off on the platform training, apart from that very first session, but Bolt was picking up tips from his boss nonetheless. One evening, Felix sauntered into the team leaders’ room (which was still where Bolt slept, but Felix was allowed to come and go as she pleased). As had been her practice for many a year, she wandered over to the wastepaper bin, where a plastic bin bag hung down over the sides. She started licking it, and then shredding it, which was one of Felix’s favourite naughty habits. She liked to get right underneath the transparent bin liner, as though it was a veil across her face or as if she was behind a shower curtain, and then she’d scratch at it, rub her chin on it and bite into it savagely. She absolutely loved doing it; it was almost a Felix fetish.

After having demolished the liner, Felix walked away – and the little black kitten took that as his cue to have a go too. Bolt went to the liner, and up went his paws to scratch, scratch, scratch at the plastic. From his exuberant reaction, it seemed that this was a guilty pleasure – or a pastime, if you will – that the two pest controllers were set to share.

For the team, it was a promising sign. Would Bolt continue to copy Felix? Angie Hunte was intrigued about their future training sessions together, when both Bolt and Felix would be out on patrol; Bolt, eventually, without his harness. Felix being there would mean that Bolt’s experience would be totally different from that of the original station cat. Felix had had to learn it all for herself – she had made the role her own – but Bolt had a boss. Would he copy her, as he had done with the shredding of the bin bag? Would she show him the ropes, albeit unknowingly, as a little black shadow followed in her footsteps? Or, with their truce holding firm, might they even become fellow explorers, with Felix generously revealing all her favourite hidey-holes? Not to mention what might happen when it came to pest control …

All that was for the future. There was still a way to go, but Angie Hunte was hopeful. She had a feeling that as Bolt grew older and began his own adventures on the railway, Felix’s motherly instincts would kick in. And when that happened, she knew, nobody would be able to get near Bolt because Felix would always be there for him.

In truth, nobody knew what the future held for the two railway cats in the long term. Jacqui hoped that, as Felix took more of a backseat, as her increasingly lengthy daytime naps seemed to suggest she would, Bolt would come more front and centre, out on the platforms meeting people and being Mr Friendly. Jacqui didn’t think they could have got a cat with a better temperament for the role that awaited him. Already he had stolen people’s hearts, simply through the odd photograph posted on Felix’s Facebook page. When he began to meet people in person, Jacqui knew he would charm them all the more.

As for Felix, while there was lots of life in the older cat yet, some of the team had started to ponder how her golden years might play out. If Felix got to the stage where she’d had enough, she deserved a peaceful retirement. Having seen first-hand how much she had enjoyed being a house cat, Jean Randall wondered if perhaps that might be Felix’s destiny when she reached double figures, so that she could get away from it all and enjoy her lazy years with a sofa to lounge upon. But Jean also knew that the station was Felix’s home; she’d had happy holidays in houses, but her world had always been the railway.

So, for now at least, the railway was where Felix would stay, continuing to touch hearts all around the world. Reflecting on the past few years, it was incredible how many people she had helped – and not just people like Gloria and Eva, who had relied on her special support at difficult personal times. Countless people had experienced audiences with the station cat that weren’t necessarily big news, but which they would never forget. Such as the eighty-year-old lady whose daughter surprised her on her birthday with a visit to see Felix. The grey-haired lady sat in her wheelchair and Felix snuggled into her lap for a long old cuddle. The woman had seemed lost in the moment as her fingers softly stroked that world-famous fluffy fur.

‘Thank you so much for this,’ she said eventually, eyes shining with pleasure. ‘This is the best birthday present I could ever have had.’

As the year drew to its close, Angie Hunte received the best present she could ever have. It happened one wintry afternoon as she was wandering around the back offices hunting for Bolt. Now given the run of the place – except for the ladies’ locker room, which remained Felix’s domain (plus, he was a boy, so was naturally forbidden entry) – he had developed a habit of disappearing, playing his own game of hide-and-seek that the team didn’t even know they were involved in, until they looked around and realised he had vanished.

‘Bolt!’ called Angie now, as she checked his usual favourite places. But he wasn’t behind the disused doorstop or snoozing in the shower room. ‘Oh, Bolt!’

Angie’s searches took her down the long corridor, until she came to a stop outside Andy Croughan’s office. The door was ajar but the lights were off, as Andy was out and about. In his absence, a little cat had taken his chance to curl up on the comfy padded chairs facing the manager’s desk, hoping for a sneaky catnap. Angie smiled to see him there, watching him through the glass of the window in the door.

Wanting to see more clearly, Angie pushed the door open wider. ‘Oh my goodness,’ she whispered, as the room came fully into view.

The sight that greeted her eyes was one that she had long dreamed of. For there wasn’t just one cat curled up on the chairs. Facing Bolt, on her own chair, was Felix the railway cat. The two pest controllers were only inches away from each other, their faces turned towards their mirror moggy. Felix’s tail was floating happily up and down, as though they were both stretched out on loungers in the sunshine and she was keeping them cool, fanning both herself and him with a massive fluffy palm leaf.

For once, Bolt wasn’t watching that slowly flicking tail. He had eyes only for Felix’s emerald-green ones. There was a calm, companionable spirit about the scene, as the two cats shared the close space they had carved out for one another. They gazed almost lovingly into each other’s eyes. There was no pouncing or prodding, just a lovely silence as they sat side by side and cheerfully chilled out.

Huddersfield’s pest controllers – both senior and junior – had, in the end, passed their probation with flying colours. Watching them, Angie could no longer imagine one without the other.

Carefully, so as not to disturb the animals, she slipped her phone out of her pocket and snapped a quick picture. It was funny, she thought, that they had chosen to present their partnership in the station manager’s office. It was a coup of sorts, as the cats joined forces at last.

So, as she texted Andy Croughan the picture, she added a single, short caption. When he opened it up and saw the picture of the cats in his office – the two pussies all the more powerful for being a pair – he read Angie’s words with an amused smile.

She had written, ‘And you think you’re the boss!’

But everyone already knew that was really Bolt and Felix.