She thrust one of the bags towards David and, somewhat apprehensively, he peered inside. And there in the tote bag sat a little black-and-white cat, who did indeed bear a strong resemblance to Felix. His limbs were entwined with his neighbour’s as they fought for space inside the bag; the second cat was white with tabby markings.
To David’s astonishment, neither seemed at all perturbed to be travelling around in this fashion. They merely blinked lazily at him when he peered inside; this was clearly not their first adventure of being taken outside in such a way. Though he did not see inside the second bag, it was evident from the way it was moving that the other two cats must be entwined within it. They had travelled all the way to the station on the bus, the lady said.
‘I really am very sorry,’ David said again, once he’d recovered his equilibrium. ‘But cats or no cats, Felix isn’t here.’
Goodness only knew what she would have made of those particular feline fans!
11. Fun and Games
On 17 May 2017, Angela Dunn walked into work with a lovely lightness in her heart. Today was a very special day. Today was Felix’s sixth birthday.
For days beforehand, gifts and cards had been arriving for the station cat from her many admirers. Angela’s first job that day, as Felix’s lady-in-waiting, was to gather all those gifts and open them up. If anyone had enclosed an SAE with a request for a response, it would be Angela who would ‘help’ Felix to ‘write’ a reply, just as the Queen of England’s personal secretaries do. Angela planned to put up all the birthday cards in the booking office, where passengers would be able to see them.
After a lovely greeting with Felix, who had decided that her sixth birthday merited a day-long snooze, Angela turned her attention to the gifts. Goodness me, she thought, as she surveyed all the presents and unopened envelopes. What a popular puss she is! Undeterred, she gathered up a precarious armful of gifts and cards, and made her way along the back-office corridor towards the booking office, where she planned to open them all.
Just then, Geoff, the team leader, unexpectedly stepped out of the team leaders’ room. Angela, her arms piled high with presents, only just managed to stop herself from running into him.
‘I’m so sorry, Geoff!’ she cried. ‘I didn’t see you there with all this stuff in my arms.’
‘What is all that?’ he enquired in his gruff voice.
‘Well, Geoff, it’s all Felix’s birthday cards!’ Angela exclaimed proudly. ‘Will you just look at all these presents, Geoff? Isn’t it nice for Felix to …?’
But Angela suddenly found her voice trailing off. Because although Geoff was known for being taciturn, the dark look that crossed his face at her words was quite something to behold.
‘I am fed up,’ he said crossly, ‘of being upstaged by that bloody cat.’
Angela’s brow creased in confusion. ‘What on earth do you mean?’ she asked. She couldn’t think why he could be so cross. Geoff and Felix had a well-known love-hate relationship: Geoff would dramatically ban Felix from the office when he was on shift, for example, shouting at her to ‘Get out!’ But at his command, Felix would scamper away in delight, her movements playful, for this was a game she had played with Geoff of old. The cat seemed to enjoy the back-and-forth banter between them: he would shout and she would scamper. But she always came back for more. There was seemingly no banter in Geoff’s complaints today, though.
‘It’s my birthday too!’ he suddenly exclaimed, unexpectedly. ‘That cat has stolen my birthday!’
Angela’s lips formed a silent ‘o’. Although the team at Huddersfield celebrated big staff birthdays – when team members turned thirty, or forty, or fifty, or any number with a zero at the end – Geoff had not had such a birthday since he’d started working there, and so the team had not known when it was.
‘I had it first!’ he went on, grumbling – and he was only half joking. ‘Whose idea was it to make her birthday today? That’s what I want to know! I want proof. I think it’s rubbish, personally. I think they made up that bloody date. She has stolen my birthday: end of. That bloody cat …’
And with that Geoff banged out of the back-office door, still grumbling.
Oh dear, thought Angela. She felt terribly bad – even more so when she opened card after card for Felix and saw that there were none for Geoff. For all his words, too, Felix’s birthday date was set in stone, because Chris Briscoe, her ‘grandfather’, knew exactly when his beloved cat Lexi had given birth to Felix. Geoff may have had it first, but he was going to have to learn to share …
Felix did not have a birthday party – but the younger contingent of the Huddersfield team were determined that fun and games were nonetheless on the agenda. That, to their minds, was one of the best things about having a station cat: the games you could play with her when you were on duty.
In true diva form, she was very selective about what she would deign to play. Team leader Dan had been a bit disappointed to discover that she wasn’t a cat who was interested in all toys. She had discerning tastes. After he’d started working there, he had tried on occasion to throw a ball down the long back-office corridor to see if she might chase it, but it was very, very rare that she would. She would usually look blankly at the moving ball as though it was utterly underwhelming, before looking wearily back at Dan as if to say, with cutting derision, ‘What was that? What do you think I am, Dan, a dog?’
However much Felix might try to style it out, she hadn’t always been that way. As a kitten, she had loved to chase her favourite brown bear up and down the corridor when it was thrown for her – but as Felix had matured, so too had her love of games. She was over the ‘kid stuff’ now. Dan and the others would have to mix it up if they really wanted to retain her attention.
And so they did. That spring, Dan schooled her in perhaps the nation’s favourite game of alclass="underline" football. Well, not football per se; in truth, it was more like goal-keeping training …
Dan discovered her talent between the posts entirely by accident. On a night shift one evening, he and Felix had both been on the concourse: Dan standing by the computer on the gateline, near the booking office, while Felix was at the opposite end, about thirty feet away, close to her cat flap. As had happened with Mark Allan and others before him, Dan found that he happened to have a packet of cat treats in his pocket (Felix had a funny way of making this a common feature of her favourites …). Though the team asked Felix’s fans not to feed her, the staff were still allowed to hand out snacks every now and then. Having discovered the cat treats in his pocket, Dan thought he’d throw one for her.
‘Felix!’ he called, to get her attention.
Her head snapped round at once, eager to know what her friend wanted.
The moment she laid eyes on him, Dan released the treat towards Felix, sliding it across the tiled concourse floor at speed. Felix ran for it instantly, her eyes trained on the ‘ball’. With a scattering of paws on the shiny surface, she scrabbled towards the flying treat, her paws outstretched heroically in a spectacular skid. And she nailed it: nothing was getting past her posts.
Oh, it was a sight to see! She could have been a goalkeeper for England, if the ball was made of Dreamies. Dan tried it again soon after; impressively, Felix still kept a clean sheet. They could never have played this game during the day – Felix would have ended up sliding under some businessman’s briefcase and tripping him up – but when Dan worked the night shift he would occasionally put Felix through her paces, staging a penalty shootout session that she always, always won.