thought to the impact the café’s dramas might have on him. It suddenly occurred to me that his reserves of patience might not be infinite and that he might, eventually, tire of waiting on the sidelines while Debbie dealt with the successive crises in her life.
For the first time in a long while, the thought crossed my mind that John might decide he’d had enough of us all.
14
The rift that had opened between me and the kittens since Linda and Ming’s arrival seemed to deepen in the wake of Eddie’s disappearance. I was convinced that my bad-tempered hiss had been the trigger for him running away, but couldn’t bring myself to talk to the kittens about it. My own sense of guilt was bad enough; it would be more than I could bear to hear them say they blamed me, too.
However, when a full week had passed since Eddie’s last sighting, and our searches had led nowhere, I finally plucked up the courage to say something. Purdy was about to push her way out through the cat flap one morning when I intercepted her on the doormat.
‘Can I talk to you about Eddie?’ I asked.
It had been a long time since I had spoken to any of the kittens in private, and I felt surprisingly nervous when she turned her alert, inquisitive face to look at me.
‘I was just wondering if Eddie said anything to you, before he disappeared?’ I began, aware that my pulse was starting to race. If Eddie had confided in his siblings that he was angry with me, I knew Purdy wouldn’t flinch from telling me.
Her green eyes held my gaze steadily. ‘No – nothing,’ she said. Then, after a pause, she added, ‘I think you’re assuming the worst.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘Well, you think something awful must have happened to him – that he’s got lost or been attacked, but . . .’ she trailed off, suddenly unsure whether to continue.
‘But?’ I prompted.
‘Well, maybe he left because he wanted to see more of the world than just the café. Maybe it was just . . . the right time for him to go.’
In spite of her tactful tone, I instinctively bristled at her words.
‘But if he thought it was time to leave, surely he would have told us first?’ I replied, in a voice that was sharper than I intended.
Purdy’s eyes narrowed and I knew that she felt dismissed by my response. ‘Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t,’ she answered. She sounded nettled, and her tail was starting to flicker impatiently. She gave me a look that seemed to say, ‘Can I go now?’
Reluctantly, I blinked to let her know she was free to leave, and she slipped silently out through the cat flap.
I waited on the doormat for a few seconds, then pushed my way through after her. Aware of Purdy loitering on the cobbles outside the hardware shop, but not wanting her to think I was pursuing her, I set off in the other direction, pondering her words as I walked. With hindsight, I knew that my response would have hurt Purdy’s feelings. She had probably thought she was being helpful by suggesting that Eddie had simply decided it was time to move on, to see what life was like in the world beyond the café.
But my maternal intuition told me Purdy was wrong: no one knew Eddie like I did: how sensitive and home-loving he was and how, in spite of his grown-up appearance, he was really just a little boy at heart. The idea that he would choose to leave the comfort of the cat café in order to take his chances on the streets was barely credible. The notion that he might do so without talking to me first was out of the question. Purdy might have thought she was being helpful but, in fact, she was being naive.
I looked around and realized that, without any conscious intention, I had walked my usual route to the market square. Rows of market stalls had appeared overnight, their striped canopies flapping in the chilly breeze. Even in low season, the Saturday market drew a crowd, and the square was thronged with shoppers beneath a pale, grey sky. I sat down beside the wooden bench under the elm tree and soaked up the familiar sounds of the market: the slamming of car doors, the barks of excited dogs and the sporadic whines of complaint from overwrought toddlers.
I allowed my eyes to drift over the mass of people and colourful tarpaulins, towards the buildings that surrounded the market. Spying a gap between the sweet shop and an antiques dealer’s to my left, I felt a sudden flutter in my stomach. Until now I had mostly left it to Jasper to search the alleys, but if my memory served me well, this alley was different from the others in town . . .
The afternoon light was already beginning to fade as I slipped into the narrow opening that marked the alley’s entrance. I jumped onto the drystone wall that ran along one side, and made my way carefully along its jagged surface. Up ahead, in a garden that backed onto the passageway, an old shed stood against the wall, surrounded on all sides by overgrown brambles. Keeping my eyes fixed on its roof, I approached cautiously, dropping to my haunches so that my gait became a stealthy prowl. As I crept closer, I glimpsed movement in the brambles, followed by a lightning-quick flash of gold-coloured eyes through the tangle of thorny branches. I froze, my heart pounding, one paw hovering in the air as I stared at the spot where the eyes had appeared.
‘Excuse me?’ I said.
The face of a small tortoiseshell cat emerged from the midst of the brambles and peered at me, unblinking.
‘I know you,’ I said. ‘We’ve met before.’
The tortoiseshell crept warily across the shabby tarpaulin of the shed roof and eyed me apprehensively. ‘You came here a long time ago,’ she said at last. ‘You were injured.’
‘That’s right,’ I replied, feeling a rush of relief. ‘I wondered if you could help me again,’ I continued, with a hopeful glance at her hesitant face. ‘I’m looking for my son, Eddie. He’s gone missing and I wondered if, maybe, he’s been here?’
The tortoiseshell’s golden eyes narrowed intently.
‘Well, a black-and-white tom has passed through a few times this week,’ she replied.
I felt my heart begin to thump. ‘Was he wearing a silver collar?’ I asked, trying to stem my excitement.
She wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. ‘Hmm, no collar that I can remember. He looked like an alley-cat.’
My heart sank in disappointment; this must have been Jasper, on his daily tour of the alleyways.
The tortoiseshell tilted her head to one side. ‘So your boy’s missing, is he?’ she said. ‘That’s sad.’ It was a simple expression of sympathy that made my eyes begin to tingle.
‘That would have been his dad that you saw. They look very similar. Eddie’s been gone for a week now, and it’s not like him. He’s never lived outdoors.’ I could feel her gaze on me, but I continued to stare at the uneven stone wall beneath my paws.
‘When did you say he went missing?’ she asked gently.
‘He was seen last Saturday by the market cross.’
I watched as the tortoiseshell closed her eyes in concentration. Her face was mostly ginger, but there was a patch of black over one eye that lent her a slightly piratical look. Beneath her coat, which was a messy patchwork of ginger, white and black, her body was slim and taut. I was acutely aware of my own plump physique, maintained by a generous diet of cat food supplemented by café titbits, and felt a sudden burst of gratitude not to be living outdoors, in a constant daily struggle against the elements, having to hunt or scavenge for every meal.
The tortoiseshell’s eyes sprang open. ‘Look, I don’t know if it was your boy, but I heard something about a pet cat hanging around the streets,’ she said urgently, as if worried that she might be overheard. ‘Caused quite a stir, strolling around town like he owned the place, in and out of the alleys – a bit like you did that time, come to think of it,’ she added, her golden eyes twinkling.