‘An evil one. Why does she want this house so much? Her house is grander, so it can’t be to live in.’
‘I’ve got no idea,’ Polly said. ‘Her house is enormous and Colin says it’s one of the few in the village that is a whole house — most are apartments. And there’s no sign of this husband either, is there? I wonder if there’s a problem there.’
‘If she is as mean to him as she is everyone else, then maybe,’ Franceska said.
‘I wouldn’t have thought that she would leave that grand house for this. We love it, I know, but she wouldn’t think it good enough for her. No, it’s not that but something … Anyway, whatever it is, we should find out. No, we need to find out.’ Polly crossed her arms determinedly.
‘I’m more concerned about the children, I don’t want their holiday ruined by those girls. Poor Toby was so upset and then he was so worried about getting into trouble he wet himself, and he hasn’t done that for ages.’
‘Oh, Claire, poor Toby. I think tomorrow we go out for the day, to another beach, and give the children a nice day a bit away from the village,’ Franceska suggested.
‘Great idea,’ Polly concurred. ‘I don’t want to leave the builders but Colin’s promised to keep a closer eye on Liability Liam.’
‘Why doesn’t he sack him?’ Claire said.
‘I think if he does anything else, he might have to. But I think he’s well-meaning, just a bit incompetent.’
‘Yowl!’ No he isn’t, I said but no one seemed to hear me.
‘Polly, you have been working hard with the house, so you deserve a day off,’ Claire said.
‘I could do with that, I don’t want to sound like a 1950s housewife but I’m really looking forward to seeing Matt this week.’
‘I think on Saturday afternoon we send the men to the beach with the kids and we find somewhere to get manicures or something,’ Franceska suggested. ‘We have earned some pampering.’ I noticed that Franceska had been down lately, maybe she needed cheering up.
‘Oh yes, let’s do something like that! But tomorrow it will be nice to get out of the house as well,’ Polly said.
‘Alfie, you are in charge tomorrow,’ Franceska said, stroking my head.
‘Meow.’ It was a good job for them that I was, I thought.
And with that in mind, I waited for Gilbert and saw him briefly before I went off to bed.
‘They are out all day tomorrow, so come and see us if you like.’
‘Alright, I will,’ he said, not sounding exactly enthusiastic, but then nowhere near as unenthusiastic as when I’d first met him. It was progress, that was for sure.
Chapter Fourteen [Ęŕđňčíęŕ: i_017.jpg]
‘But why don’t you have a home?’ George persisted. He was giving Gilbert the full George third degree. I could see the normally gruff cat struggling. On the one paw he liked to act as if he didn’t need anyone but, on the other, he was a bit enamoured with George.
‘Life isn’t all fish and ice cream, you know,’ Gilbert said, softening.
‘It’s not?’ George looked upset. ‘I think my life is. Oh and Chanel. Oh and my dad, oh and the families too.’
‘Not for me. I had a family, when I was a little lad like you, but it wasn’t a happy house.’ He stretched his paws out. ‘I just realised one day that I would be better off not being there so I left.’
‘But why?’ It seemed George’s ‘why’ phase was never going to end.
‘The family were unhappy. The father would be quite mean, which upset the mother, and there were two children. One of the children would be in trouble a lot with the father. It wasn’t nice, and he then tormented me.’
‘That sounds horrible,’ I said. I could see it was hard for Gilbert to talk about and I didn’t want to scare him off as I tried to head George off and stop him asking too many questions. I nudged him a few times but he didn’t take the hint.
‘I was young and, no, it wasn’t bearable. It’s so sad the way some humans treat us animals. We don’t ask to be their pets yet they think they can treat us badly.’ His eyes darkened. ‘But anyway, I just got up one day and left home. I hid for a while, and I knew the family were looking for me. They put the posters up.’
‘Like the lamppost cats!’ George exclaimed excitedly. I explained to Gilbert that we’d had a spate of missing cats in our area and the pictures had gone up on lampposts at an alarming rate. ‘Yes. I couldn’t understand why they wanted me back when they were so horrible. Well OK, so only the dad and one of the kids was horrible, but they must have known what was going on. I was barely eating and I was terrified. Anyway, I hid for a while then I started making my way further from home. I managed to survive by hunting, after all this is the countryside, and to be honest I found I quite liked my own company. Over time I decided that I liked being so independent and I didn’t have any trouble finding food. So when I arrived here and found Seabreeze Cottage deserted, I decided that I would stay here for a while. That has turned out to be a long while because no one was ever here, until you, that is.’
‘Well I think that’s a great story and now we are here you will stay, won’t you?’ George asked, nuzzling Gilbert, who purred in response.
‘I only have one concern. What happens if your family finds me?’
‘Oh they’d love you. Look, our families love cats, the children love cats, they would let you stay. I only worry that they wouldn’t want you to be here on your own, and I’m not sure how we would explain to them that you like it here and don’t want to be looked after all the time.’
I could see how that might be a problem. They’d probably want to scoop Gilbert up and take him home with us, or worse, find him a home round here.
‘Then I better lie low. I’m glad the house is coming to life but I don’t want to move away from here.’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Well I don’t think that would happen,’ George interjected. ‘It’s clear that you live here, and there will be people coming and going from here a lot, so I think the humans will expect you to stay and, maybe, they just might make it easier by ensuring you have food.’
‘Do you really think so?’ Gilbert asked, uncertainly.
‘I do. You belong to Seabreeze Cottage and I think they’ll see that. You can be the cottage cat and when no one is here you can look after it for us.’
‘That’s so sensible, George,’ I said proudly. ‘I just hope that our families see it that way.’ George was so clever at times, and I hoped he got it from me.
‘Oh they will,’ George replied confidently.
‘Look, you’ve got some free time it seems, so do you want to come with me and I can show you round the area a bit? I know you’ve seen the beach but we’re near some very cool fields and it’s a lovely day for a bit of a romp in the countryside,’ Gilbert offered.
George looked at me hopefully. I didn’t need asking twice.
We made our way through the narrow streets behind the cottage. The ground was quite steep and I could see it would keep you fit living here. Even George huffed a bit. At the top we reached a big road which was busy and took quite a long time to cross. Gilbert then led us into a big green field, where the grass tickled our legs as we made our way through it. As I saw George skittishly jumping from blade of grass to blade of grass I realised this was the first field he’d been in.
‘It’s not like garden grass,’ he said, unsurely.
‘No, lad, it’s not. But it’s great when you get used to it,’ Gilbert replied, bounding off.
I had been on a few adventures in the countryside before but I had to say having Gilbert with us made it even more enjoyable. He was a very confident cat, he knew all the best places, where the best bushes for butterfly chasing were, where the animals to be avoided lived, where we could just stop and look at beautiful views and see for miles around. It was breathtaking and the sun chased us, warming our fur.