His face was red and his hands trembled. Slowly he walked over and picked up a green tomato, and looked at it in silence. He picked up the two halves of the broom, tried unsuccessfully to fit them back together, and stalked back towards the house. He walked right past me but didn’t look up, and I saw big fat tears on his furious cheeks. I sensed his pain.
I wished Ellen would come back. But she didn’t. Instead, a purple silence filled the garden.
Jessica had called me a ‘tiresome teenage kitten’ but that wasn’t true. I was a healing cat. If I saw tears on human cheeks I had to do something. So I climbed down through the prickly bush, and trotted into the house with my tail up. I could tell where Joe was by the sour smell of beer. He was slumped in a corner by a pile of magazines, wiping his tears with the back of his hand, sniffing and slurping from a can. I ran to him as if he was my best friend. Being careful not to scratch him, I walked nicely along his leg and up his torso to his heart. It was bang-banging in there, and his arms were shaking. He looked at me in surprise.
As soon as we had eye contact, I gazed into his soul and purred. I licked the salty tears from his face, but more of them came zigzagging down.
‘Oh Solomon,’ he whispered. ‘How can you love a bad-tempered bastard like me?’
I purred louder, stretching my paws over his heart, and rubbed my head against his bristly chin.
‘The truth is, Solomon,’ he said, ‘I don’t like myself one bit. Everything I do goes wrong. I’m no good. In fact, I’m bloody doomed.’
I pretended to go to sleep and let him talk, his hot hand smoothing my fur, and after a while he quietened down and my angel came close, shining her light over us as we dozed in the chair.
‘You’re doing a great job, Solomon,’ she said.
After Joe’s outburst I needed another cat to curl up with. Jessica didn’t come back until it was dark and everyone had gone to bed, even the swallows. Moonlight spilled in through the window and polished her sleek fur as she came in. I ran to meet her. She condescended to touch noses with me, and I got to look into her eyes. In the night they were deep saucers of green, and her whiskers glistened magnificently each side of her little pink nose. To me she was exquisitely beautiful. Why didn’t she want to be friends with me?
I followed her to her basket, but she wouldn’t let me in there. Sensing she was tired, I sat watching her. All I wanted was to curl up against her silky warmth.
‘Go away,’ she hissed. ‘You smell like that sour stuff Joe drinks.’
‘I’ve been lying on him,’ I said. ‘Healing him.’
Jessica looked at me out of slitty eyes.
‘Traitor,’ she said. ‘You should have been scratching him after the way he treated me.’
‘I don’t scratch humans. I’m a healing cat.’
‘Poof!’ Jessica curled up into a silken mound and closed her eyes as if I wasn’t there. Confused, I watched her go to sleep, and respected her peace. I didn’t dare to even put one paw inside her cosy basket; I spent the night hunched on the cold floor just to be near her.
In the morning her eyes were buttercup yellow again, and when she yawned, I saw the curl of her tongue and the pink roof of her mouth. She looked surprised and not pleased to see me there. We touched noses and it made me buzz all over with excitement. Her eyes hardened and she hissed at me, but not before I’d seen the sadness that lurked behind those golden eyes. Sadness – and anger. I wanted to know where it had come from, but Jessica wouldn’t talk to me.
I’d fallen in love with a cat who didn’t want me.
One evening Joe came through the back door with a bottle of wine and a pizza in a box. He had a rare smile on his face.
‘Where did you get this?’ Ellen asked.
‘Stop frowning, Ellen,’ Joe said, and he fished into his back pocket and took out some cash. ‘I’ve got a JOB!’
‘A job? Oh wow, that’s amazing.’ Ellen’s face lit up with a happy smile. She gave Joe a hug and pushed his hair out of his eyes. ‘Doing what?’
‘Don’t get too excited, it’s only casual work – in the bar at the pub. Three nights a week.’
‘Great,’ said Ellen, ‘but …’
‘Don’t give me that face, Joe said. ‘I won’t be drinking if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m going to look after my family.’
Ellen sighed and opened the big pizza box.
‘Hmm. Yum. Do you want a little bit, Solomon?’
The times when Joe went to work were peaceful for us, golden summer evenings in the garden, with John, Jessica and me racing around while Ellen worked on a little flower bed. On wet evenings I managed to persuade her to play the piano again. John got so excited, dancing and squealing and singing little songs. Even Jessica enjoyed it and she came and lay beside me on top of the piano, feeling the ripples of music and watching Ellen’s aura brightening as she played.
‘Will it be all right now that Joe has a job?’ I asked my angel. For a moment she was silent. Then she looked at me sadly and new colours flickered in the light that shone around her; deeper blues and purples.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s too little, too late.’
Summer passed and the lawn thundered with falling apples. Ellen and John walked round the hedges picking lush blackberries and putting them into bags, and I insisted on going with them, always with my tail up very straight.
‘Like a snorkel,’ Ellen laughed as I dashed through the long grass.
But she didn’t like me following her to the shop. After my trip in the lorry, traffic really scared me, and if I tried to follow Ellen along the main road it involved panicky dives into strange hedges and gardens. I followed Ellen everywhere. I would not let her out of my sight. Sometimes she shut me in and then I sat at the window like a sentry awaiting her return.
Ellen was changing. Often she was angry and frightened, and exhausted by the frequent rows with Joe. But she always welcomed my love, and the supply of Kitekat continued. I was cuddled and brushed and sprinkled with flea powder. She even gave me vitamins and the occasional egg. I grew into a glossy tomcat.
It was a cold winter night when Jessica finally let me into her basket. I held my breath and stepped in gingerly. Hardly daring to hope that this was happening, I silently eased myself close to her. She’d had a bad day and I knew she needed me, as I needed her. For once she didn’t push me away. She growled a little, and purred with me, and I sensed her silent need for a friend, a friend who loved her no matter what.
Blissfully, I lay against her warm silky coat and let the stars of happiness cluster around us. After that night we always slept together with our soft paws intertwined. Jessica liked to lie with her chin on my neck and I loved to feel her there. Together we made a kind of music, love music made of little purrs and sighs and squeaks. Sometimes I slid my paw around her glossy back, and when the morning sun shone through the window, I lay dreaming, watching the colours of the sun glint on her black fur.
Winter
