But the glasses were failing to rectify the sight in her very bad, turning-in left eye. Recently, the eye specialists at the hospital had said that Eva must now wear an eyepatch for four hours a day at home, over her good eye, to try to strengthen the sight in the bad. Helen and Eva had picked out a pretty fabric patch – pink with white hearts – which went over her head and glasses. Now, when Eva sat at the kitchen table at home and drew her pictures of Felix, she always did it with her patch on, trying to focus through her bad eye as she brought her vision of Felix to the page.
‘Mummy, do you think we can meet Felix one day?’ Eva asked breathlessly the December they’d first discovered her.
‘Well, we can try,’ Helen told her brightly.
So they had gone to the station, but there had been no sign of Felix. When they asked the platform staff for help, they were simply told that she wasn’t about.
Eva’s shoulders had slumped with sadness.
‘We can try again,’ Helen told her.
But, dejected, Eva had gone home disappointed. And perhaps she looked at the night sky that winter, that sky that matched her starry coat, and sent a wish to meet Felix winding upwards. Perhaps it soared to the sky and lodged in a cloud … but there it stayed.
It wasn’t yet time for that Christmas wish to come true.
7. Clever Cat
‘Here we are, sweetheart,’ said Jean Randall to Felix on Christmas Eve 2016. ‘Welcome back! Welcome home.’
Felix gingerly stepped out of the carry case into Jean’s kitchen and had a good old sniff at the strange air of a domestic setting. Huddersfield station is staffed 24/7 – but only 363 days of the year; it always shuts on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Of course, the beloved railway cat was never going to be left alone in the dark and cold of the deserted station. So, when the festivities rolled around each year, Felix got to go on her holidays too, staying with a member of the team who had volunteered to take her home. Jean, who worked in the booking office, was this year lucky to be welcoming Felix for the third time.
The cat certainly seemed pretty comfortable as she had a good nosy about the downstairs of Jean’s cosy cottage, which had been built in 1802. There were two rooms on the ground floor for the holiday-happy cat to prowl about: a long kitchen-diner and the living room, which had shiny wooden floorboards and a striking stone fireplace. Two years before, Felix had caused chaos when she’d tried to get up the chimney – Jean had nearly had a heart attack, having to grab the cat’s hind legs to prevent her from getting away – but this year Jean was steps ahead. Forewarned is forearmed and all that! Even before bringing Felix home, she had made sure to stuff the chimney with an old pillow wrapped in a black cotton blouse, wedging it in tightly to make sure there were no gaps.
Felix, however, seemed to remember where she was – for as soon as she was let out of her box, she swiftly left the kitchen and headed straight for the living room, the scene of her erstwhile escape act. She proceeded to sit slap bang in front of the fireplace, looking up thoughtfully.
‘Ha!’ cried Jean triumphantly. ‘I’ve got you this time, Felix. You’ve no chance.’
At her words, Felix cast a considered look back over her fluffy black shoulder. After a beat, during which her green eyes seemed to flash somewhat mischievously, she turned back to the fireplace and stood up decisively. As Jean watched, Felix tentatively put her paw on the hearth …
Yet she soon seemed to realise, from the distinct lack of a draught coming down the chimney, that her adventures in that direction had been strictly curtailed this time.
‘We are not going through all that again!’ Jean announced firmly. And, after that, Felix paid the fireplace no further attention.
She was far more interested in the French windows in the living room, which looked out on to Jean’s garden. She prowled over to them and looked out curiously. Jean didn’t have any cats of her own, which is why she could host Felix, but her garden was a beloved location for the local cats to wander through. Sure enough, only a few seconds after Felix had taken up her position by the window, a confident tabby cat wandered into view.
Felix’s head swivelled to see him. She leaned forward eagerly, eyes fixed firmly upon this newcomer. The tabby looked straight back somewhat cockily. He was a chubby thing, his weight and handsomely groomed pelt showcasing that somebody somewhere really loved him, and he gazed at Felix with all the arrogance of a cat who knows his own worth, and is free to roam wherever he likes outside. (The latter was a luxury that Felix was prohibited from enjoying while staying at Jean’s – the railway worker daren’t risk losing the famous Felix!)
This was not the first time Felix had encountered her own kind. She’d even had a (celibate) romance once, going off regularly with a feral stray who’d hung about the station waiting for her, courting her with mice he’d killed. (Angie Hunte had not approved of the love affair; she’d thought he was too ‘rough’ for her baby.) But the feral black cat had not been seen for a good few years now.
More recently, Angie had seen Felix interacting with a sleek white cat, who would wait for her by the disused train carriage on platform two. Unlike her more brazen former boyfriend, who used to come right up to the office door to court Felix, the short-haired pale cat seemed to have better manners and never imposed himself in such a way. He was a clean, well-groomed pussy who seemed rather reserved. Angie had never seen Felix go off with him as such, but every now and then the two cats would both sit by the disused carriage and gaze at one another coolly, like two teenagers early on in the night at a school disco who are both too scared to cross the dancefloor and confess their love. Perhaps a romance would blossom between them one day, but it was a little too early to tell.
Romance was definitely not on the cards that Christmas Eve at Jean’s house, as Felix glared at the fat tabby cat through the French windows. It was more of a stand-off. The tabby, however, ultimately had the upper paw, being free to come and go as he pleased, while Felix was trapped behind glass. In the end, it was the tabby who triumphantly declared the stand-off over. He sauntered smugly on, the sassy wiggle of his ample backside seeming to sneer at Felix as he went.
He returned a few times before it got dark that day, appearing to enjoy taunting her. Nor was he the only visitor to the garden. Felix watched them all come. It was almost as though she had set up a post there by the windows: a diligent lookout set to defend Jean’s home. She observed not only the returning tabby, but another three cats as welclass="underline" an all-black moggy, a piebald short-haired and a lean tortoiseshell, who seemed to show off by demonstrating her skills for catching birds. Felix gazed impassively at them all, unable to join in the fun.
Watching her, Jean couldn’t help but feel pity. She went off to set up a little display for Felix on her dining-room table: all the presents she would get to open the following day.
Well, ‘little’ may not be an accurate description, as Felix’s fans had been incredibly generous; the cat had been sent enough gifts to fill a huge Christmas gift bag. In fact, there had been even more presents – but there were only so many toys and treats that Felix could play with or eat in one lifetime. Therefore Felix’s lady-in-waiting, Angela Dunn, had arranged for the extra presents to be passed along to a local cats’ charity, so that cats less fortunate than Felix would also receive a gift that Christmas.