And so, without words, everyone standing on the steps simply joined hands and bowed their heads. Sara was there, and Dan, and Chrissie and Amanda from the booking office. Everyone wanted to pay their respects. That was testament to Karl, and to his character – how very many people he had touched in his too-short time on this earth. There was a shared, silent moment as they all looked down at Karl’s coffin in the hearse, holding hands and thinking of him. They cried genuine tears for the loss of a much-loved colleague who had been taken far too soon.
For Sara, it was a very peculiar moment. For though she was distraught, there was also some strange comfort in the knowledge that Karl was surrounded by his colleagues. There was comfort in knowing how much he had been loved. And, in a way, his presence at the station made him feel part of the team for one last time. This was one last shift that they all could work together.
Eventually, though, and all too soon, the time came for Karl to move on to the crematorium, for his funeral service to begin. So many people were going that the company had laid on a coach, and Sara, Dan and the others went off to board it. Angela Dunn and those who had agreed to work remained behind on the steps, ready to wave Karl off on his final journey, just as he had waved off thousands of passengers in his time at the station.
As the hearse pulled away, Angela raised a hand in farewell, saluting a colleague who had given so much to the station, but who, they all knew, had had so much more to give.
Karl’s funeral, as with all such services, was supposed to mark the end of mourning, but of course that is never, ever the case. Though it provided an opportunity to celebrate him and say goodbye, afterwards the raw pain of his loss still smarted. It was impossible even trying to get back to ‘normal’. In truth, Sara wasn’t sure she ever wanted not to feel that lurching pain when she stood out on the platforms in the wintry weather without him. At least her grief reminded her of him. But who was she kidding – there were reminders everywhere she looked.
For Dan, it was the night shifts when he missed Karl the most. Though the team leaders and platform staff only coincided irregularly in the rota, he was abundantly aware that the next time Karl and he were due to work together it was going to be somebody else covering for Karl. Dan had figured that one out, and it left a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach.
As she had done for so many of her colleagues before, it was Felix who helped him through. The cat had such an extraordinary sixth sense at picking up on people’s vulnerability. When Billy Bolt had died, it was Felix who had comforted and consoled his colleagues, who’d felt bereft without their Billy. Now, as then, Felix stepped up when her team needed her. Death may have snatched another member of the Huddersfield station family, but Felix was determined to be there for those left behind. Karl may have gone, but Felix could still care for the friends he had loved, now he wasn’t there to do it for himself.
Dan found that it was the way Felix would come over to say hello as if everything was normal that he found reassuring. He would be sat at his desk, trying and failing to concentrate, and Felix would come and sit on his papers and paw gently at his bearded face. Her claws would be tucked in, so that she prodded softly at him with her velvet paws.
If he did not respond, she would lean forward and delicately give him a little nibble on his eyebrow, as if to say, ‘I’m here, Dan. Don’t you forget me now!’
As if he ever could.
17. Not Yet Time
As time has a habit of doing, it passed, unstoppable as the seasons. Before too long, Dave Chin was dragging a Christmas tree along the platform, and Chrissie was once again draping it in lights and baubles. Felix missed it all, being out the back on her radiator bed, having a snooze. Unusually, however, even when she appeared on the concourse and cast her eyes upon the brightly lit tree, she still didn’t show much interest. For the first time in Felix’s life, that year she did not run up the trunk.
She still went over to it; she was a cat, after all. But she just sat at the bottom and batted a few baubles. Gone were the days of her athletic adventures bounding from branch to branch. She could not be bothered any more; she simply did not have the energy. She preferred to lie beneath the lowest branches on a bed of pine needles, where it was quiet and dark, and watch the wintry world go by.
Angela Dunn watched her fluffy friend from her serving window in the booking office. With Felix lying beneath the Christmas tree, she was much more ‘accessible’ than she’d been before. Yet these days Felix was much more tolerant than she’d ever been of all those who wanted to meet her. The team had noticed a real evolution in her character over the past year, as though she had slowly grown into her role. It felt rather as though the increasing numbers of fans who had come to visit since her book had been published had immunised her over time from any former fears of strangers. The Felix of old had perhaps been like a teen heart-throb; she’d loved the adulation on her own terms, but every now and then had thrown a tantrum and stormed off. Now, however, she was more like a national treasure: relaxed in her celebrity, come what may. On the whole, she was placid as she greeted people, and at times would sit for hours on the concourse, her whole attitude laid-back. ‘The queen is here, and you may stroke her.’
Her newfound maturity was something Mark Allan had noticed too, both in person as he commuted through the station each weekday and in the pictures Angela Dunn had sent him for the Facebook page of Felix meeting fans. Felix was notably more used to meeting strangers now and seemed to humour them more than she would once have done.
As for Jean Randall in the booking office, she thought that perhaps Felix’s increasing laziness played a part in it all. For in Felix’s willingness to remain in situ for people’s visits, Jean detected a classic upside for the station cat. To her, Felix’s soporific, half-closed eyes communicated the message ‘If you think I can be bothered moving, you are downright wrong, my friend. So if you want a photo, take one, but I’m not going to move an inch.’
Jean, unfortunately, was not working at the station that Christmastime. Back in the summer, she’d had a terrible accident falling over in her garden; she’d smashed her right arm to smithereens and broken her elbow too, as well as her left wrist. The doctors had likened her fractures to what would happen if you dropped a china cup on to a concrete floor from a height of about four feet. Both her arms were put in plaster casts for months and she had to have a series of operations as well, to try to repair the damage. There was simply no way she could work in such a condition, so she had been signed off sick.
She still came in regularly, however, every month or so, for catch-up sessions with Andy Croughan. Every time she did, she made a point of seeing Felix, but the little cat was confused by the plaster casts on Jean’s arms, which left her unable to stroke her fluffy friend. For a time, Jean couldn’t even have the cat sit up on her lap, which was devastating for both of them. Jean found that she really, really missed the cat.
Felix seemed to know instinctively that Jean was hurt. And Jean saw her own sad expression that they couldn’t cuddle reflected in Felix’s eyes. Ever since Felix had been a kitten, Jean had been someone who had always taken time out for her, to give her love and affection or a bit of quiet space – whatever the cat had dictated. Now it was Felix’s turn to care for Jean – and she did it as best she could. She rubbed her neck firmly against Jean’s legs, stroking Jean since Jean could no longer stroke her. She walked alongside her too, a permanent partner wherever Jean went. Her considerate attentions made Jean smile, and that made her feel a little bit better, despite all the pain she was in. In some ways, Felix was better than any painkiller – and she had no side effects.