All of which meant that conversation in the flat consisted of little more than discussing the day-to-day concerns of the café, and deciding what to have for dinner. Linda tried to cheer Debbie up one evening by suggesting that they buy a Christmas tree for the café.
‘Mmm, not just yet, Lind, it’s still a bit early,’ Debbie replied apathetically.
‘Come on, Debs, it’s only a few weeks away. Show a bit of festive spirit! It’ll be good for business,’ Linda urged, but Debbie was not to be persuaded. The fact that Christmas was looming ever closer was something that she, like me, seemed unwilling to acknowledge.
Her plans for a tree may have been thwarted, but that did not stop Linda doing her best to impose a festive mood on the café by stealth. She filled the table vases with sprigs of holly and, one morning, I discovered she had pinned a string of fairy lights around the window frame overnight.
‘Don’t worry Debs, they’re very tasteful,’ she reassured her sister, as I sniffed disapprovingly at the plastic stars looped around my cushion.
A couple of days later, Linda returned from the market brandishing a large bunch of green foliage.
‘Look, Debs,’ she said excitedly, ‘some mistletoe to go above the cat tree. I’m going to hang a photo of Ming from it – we can call it Ming-istletoe!’
‘Whatever you say, Linda,’ Debbie replied wearily. She watched with folded arms as Linda clambered onto a chair and attempted to fasten the mistletoe to one of the ceiling beams. She had been fiddling around with string and drawing pins for a few moments, craning her neck awkwardly, when Debbie said with a mischievous smile, ‘If we’re going to have Ming-istletoe, Linda, surely we should also deck the halls with boughs of Molly?’ There was a moment’s silence, during which Debbie bit her lip to conceal a smile.
‘Hmm, I suppose we could,’ Linda replied vaguely. ‘Why don’t you take charge of that, Debs?’
‘Maybe I will,’ Debbie replied primly, heading back into the kitchen.
The following day, Linda came bustling through the door just after closing time. ‘Guess what I just found in the pet shop?’ She grinned, swinging a plastic carrier bag onto the counter.
Debbie wandered closer as Linda pulled the bag open and rooted around inside.
‘A Santa hat – for a cat!’ she exclaimed, pulling out a miniature Christmas hat from the bag. ‘Isn’t it just the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?’ The red, pointed hat was fringed with white fur, with a fluffy bobble at the tip. ‘Look, there are slits for the ears – isn’t it just hilarious?’ she preened, holding the hat up for Debbie’s approval.
Debbie sighed. ‘Yes, Linda, it’s very cute, but do you really think any of the cats will wear it?’
Taking this as a challenge, Linda spun around in search of a cat to model her purchase. Purdy happened to be striding across the café on her way to the cat flap, and was shocked and distinctly unamused to find herself scooped under the belly by Linda and carried across the room. This should be interesting, I thought, when Purdy was plonked ignominiously on the counter. She had begun to growl before Linda had even removed the item from its cardboard packaging and, when she lowered the hat towards Purdy’s head, her growl turned into high-pitched shriek of warning. ‘Come on now, Purdy, be a good girl,’ coaxed Linda. Purdy’s ears were pressed flat against her head and the whites of her eyes were showing.
‘Linda, I really don’t think—’ Debbie warned, but it was too late.
Linda, smiling rigidly, placed one hand around Purdy’s shoulder blades to steady her, and began to lower the hat over Purdy’s flattened ears with the other hand. There was a furious explosion of hissing and spitting, then Linda swore loudly, dropped the hat and yanked her hands away from Purdy. ‘Ow!’ she shouted, sucking her bleeding knuckles. Purdy leapt down from the counter and streaked across the café to the door. ‘That cat’s vicious,’ Linda complained, glaring at the swinging cat flap through which Purdy had fled.
‘No, Linda, she’s not vicious,’ Debbie explained patiently. ‘She’s just a cat. There’s a reason why you don’t tend to see cats wearing hats. They’re not big fans of hats, as a rule.’
‘Huh,’ Linda grunted, picking up the rejected item from the counter. ‘Well, maybe that’s true of some cats. But I bet Ming would wear it,’ she said ruefully. She glanced across the room at Ming, who was curled up sound asleep on her platform. ‘Although Ming’s ears are so big, I’m not sure they’d fit through the holes,’ Linda said disappointedly, waggling her bloodied fingers through the slits in the felt.
The corners of Debbie’s mouth began to curl upwards. ‘Maybe, when it comes to pet costumes, Beau might be a little more . . . compliant?’ she suggested.
Linda said nothing, but returned her clenched fist to her mouth, sucking her knuckles solemnly. Debbie stood opposite her at the counter, struggling to supress a smile. Linda looked at her reproachfully. ‘’S’not funny,’ she said, her words muffled by the fistful of knuckles in her mouth.
Debbie’s shoulders started to shake and she bit hard on her lip. ‘Sorry, Lind, it’s just – you should have seen your face!’
Linda removed her hand from her mouth. ‘Debbie, don’t laugh. It really hurts!’
Debbie’s upper body was now shuddering with laughter and a sudden snort escaped from the back of her throat. ‘Santa hats for cats! You really don’t know very much about cats at all, do you?’ she squeaked, while Linda glared at her. Debbie placed one hand over her mouth and stared fiercely at the till, doing everything she could to bring her fit of giggles under control.
Still sucking her injured hand, and with a look of hurt disappointment, Linda turned away from the counter and stomped upstairs.
Wiping tears of laughter from her eyes, Debbie picked up the discarded hat and dropped it into the bin.
I blinked at her approvingly, and not just because she had thrown the wretched hat away. For the first time in a long while, Debbie had found something to laugh about. The fact that her laughter had been at Linda’s expense made my pleasure all the sweeter.
20
‘Deb, there’s another letter here from the solicitor,’ said Linda, picking up the morning’s post from the doormat. Placing the envelope bearing the solicitor’s insignia uppermost on the pile, she handed the mail to Debbie.
Debbie regarded the letter warily, as if it were a grenade at risk of exploding in her hand. ‘I’ll deal with that later,’ she muttered, tucking it on the shelf beneath the till.
Linda moved between the tables, ostensibly refilling the sugar bowls, but watching her sister keenly out of the corner of her eye.
Later on, upstairs in the flat, Debbie was in the kitchen when Linda slipped in after her. ‘What did that letter from the solicitor say?’ she asked, gathering cutlery from the drawer.
‘I don’t know, I haven’t opened it yet,’ Debbie admitted, then added morosely, ‘It’s probably a court summons.’
‘Of course it’s not a court summons, Debs. Don’t be ridiculous,’ Linda tutted. ‘You can’t put off dealing with it forever, you know,’ she chided.
From my vantage point in the hallway, Linda’s legs blocked much of my view, but when Linda shoved the cutlery drawer shut with her hip, I glimpsed Debbie twitchily brushing away her fringe – a nervous habit that I had begun to notice in her with increasing frequency of late.