Hearing the intriguing rustling sound of gift-wrapped packages, Felix soon came trotting over to investigate. She leapt up on to the bare wood table to have a nosy round. The gift bag was a close-up illustration of Father Christmas’s belly – of the buttons and the belt round his middle, which were straining from his girth. Jean allowed Felix to have a happy little sniff at the tantalising scents emanating from the gift bag – much as an indulgent mother might let an excited child shake the boxes under the tree – but eventually she encouraged the cat to move on.
‘Now, now,’ she scolded lightly. ‘No more of that. You’re not allowed to have them till tomorrow.’
Jean was really looking forward to a nice, chilled Christmas with Felix: just the two of them hanging out together on the festive day. Jean was an avid reader, currently right in the middle of devouring How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn, and she was anticipating cosying up on the settee with Felix for hours on end as she turned the pages and listened to the cat’s contented purring.
Before they settled in for the night that Christmas Eve, Jean outlined to Felix one last house rule. She was about to go upstairs to get changed – and she didn’t want Felix to follow her. As she tried to sneak out of the living room, Felix came charging towards her, wanting to come too.
‘No, Felix,’ Jean said, apologetically.
Jean kept a tall glass vase on her stairs and had a bright white duvet in her bedroom, and neither seemed likely to survive long with a black-haired station cat on the loose. Gently, she eased out of the room, managing to shut the glass-paned door with Felix on the other side of it. The glass in the door was clear, so she could still see Felix, who looked back at her with a mournful expression.
‘Stay here,’ Jean said. ‘I’ll be right back, I promise.’
When she returned a short while later, Felix was still sat waiting for her behind the glass, like a convict in prison on visiting day. Jean felt bad, but she knew it was for the best. She carefully opened the door and crept inside. Felix seemed not to have any hard feelings though, for as she took out her book and sat down on her sofa, Felix leapt up on to her knee and climbed over her shoulder to the back of the settee. There, she spread herself out, all along the back of it, looking like a discarded stole in a film starlet’s dressing room. Calm and content, it was a wonderful way to spend Christmas Eve night. And tomorrow, Jean knew, would be more of the same.
Ding-dong!
Jean and Felix looked at each other in surprise. Though some of Jean’s family were due to pop by later, it was 9 a.m. on Christmas morning and she wasn’t expecting any guests yet.
‘Who’s that at this time?’ she asked Felix in confusion, as she went to answer the door.
‘Hiya!’ exclaimed an old friend cheerily on the doorstep. ‘We just thought we’d pop by to say hello!’
She stepped swiftly inside, ushering her grown-up daughter with her, whom Jean hadn’t seen for many years. Once inside, the two of them looked around curiously, her friend immediately clocking that the living-room door was shut, which was unusual. It meant only one thing, much as it does when the Queen of England’s Royal Standard flag is flown at Buckingham Palace: Queen Felix was in residence.
‘Oh!’ her friend said mock-innocently, as though only just remembering. ‘You’ve got Felix this Christmas, haven’t you?’
‘I have,’ said Jean with wry amusement. She was under no illusion that they had come to see her – the station cat was clearly the main attraction. ‘Would you like to meet her?’
‘Oh yes please!’ both women chorused happily, clapping their hands together with joy. So Jean introduced them. They had their cuddle and then – after only another five minutes of chatting – they swiftly took their leave.
Not half an hour after their departure, the doorbell rang again. Once more, Jean heaved herself off the sofa and went to answer the door.
‘Happy Christmas!’ cried a young man on the doorstep. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages, Jean!’ There was a beat. The railway worker waited patiently, knowing all too well what was coming. ‘Am I right in remembering that you have Felix this year …?’
‘I do,’ said Jean, opening the door wide and shaking her head with resigned acceptance of her lowly position in her own household. ‘Come on in, you.’
So he too entered and had a Christmas selfie with the station cat before making his way off for lunch with his family.
Not half an hour later, the doorbell rang once more.
‘Surprise!’ chorused some old family friends. ‘We were just driving past and we thought we’d dash in to see you …’
Jean replied drily, ‘She’s in the living room.’
Nor was that the last of them. All morning, Jean was up and down like a yo-yo. She’d never had so many guests on Christmas Day. So much for her quiet Christmas! She took to calling out, ‘Felix, come here! Somebody has come to see you,’ as each visitor arrived. Though the guests were genuine friends, very often they’d be followed by someone that Jean had never met before. ‘I’ve brought so-and-so with me,’ her friend would say, rather breezily. ‘She’s such a huge Felix fan. I hope you don’t mind …?’
And Jean didn’t – for she knew first-hand what a very special cat Felix was.
Felix seemed to relish the attention. It was helpful that the guests had unknowingly staggered their arrival, for Felix sometimes struggled to meet big groups all at once, but, as first one friend and then another stopped by, Felix was quite happy to meet these individuals one-on-one. In fact, she had a whale of a time. She looked much more like a star at a red-carpet film premiere than a cat at Christmastime, as the cameras snapped and her fans fawned dreamily over her.
Sometimes, however, Felix looked at her visitors lazily, choosing not to comprehend their requests for a more dynamic shot. In such instances, Jean would intervene.
‘Let me try this,’ she’d say brightly. She picked up one of the toys from Felix’s Christmas gifts – a long wooden stick with a hot-pink feather on the end – and energetically waved it in front of Felix’s black-velvet nose.
Well, that always got the railway cat moving, like a train pulling swiftly out of the station.
Swipe! Felix’s paw stretched out and reached for it.
Pounce! She was up on her feet and dancing like a boxer in the ring.
Grab! It will be mine!
Jean could entertain her for hours with it, as her friends (and their friends) snapped away with their smartphones, taking lots of shots of the station cat in action.
By lunchtime, there was a lull in visitors – enough for Felix finally to be formally given her gift bag of presents. Jean knew what a clever cat Felix was, and that she didn’t need any help opening them. Felix was five – she’d been given plenty of gifts over the years, so she knew all about how to unwrap them. Jean fetched the gift bag from the dining-room table and placed it on the floor for Felix.
Wiggle wiggle wiggle went the cat’s whiskers, as she investigated the gift bag thoroughly. Sniff sniff sniff went her nose. She could smell that there were Christmas treats in there … And, with a cat like Felix, once she had identified that a treat was in the vicinity, there was literally no stopping her. Not thirty seconds after Jean had put the bag on the floor, Felix had dived upon it to make it tumble to its side; and not thirty seconds after that, she was head-first inside Santa’s big belly. She was in her element then, pulling out package after package, tearing off the wrapping paper with her sharp white teeth and revealing just what a good kitty cat she’d been all year. As well as the treats, there were catnip pillows and mechanical mice, and yet more sticks with feathers on the end. Though the treats, understandably, garnered most of her attention at the beginning, later on she singled out a yellow felt mouse that she happily played with all afternoon.