The pregnancy may have come as a surprise to Dan and Sara, as it was still relatively early days in their relationship, but they could not have been more thrilled. Sara soon moved back into the booking office to work, as her platform job required her to lug ramps and lift luggage and the physical labour was not advisable; she also had very bad morning sickness. It helped her physically, but it was also perhaps an emotional boon too, as it meant she was no longer out working on the platforms where she had spent so much time with her best friend Karl.
She still missed him so much, every single day. She so wished he could have been around to hear their news. She knew he would have been over the moon for them; he would have been the best Uncle Karl that her daughter could have wished for. It was really, really hard to know that her child was never going to meet him, but Sara was determined that her little girl would still get to know him through her memories. Karl meant so much to her that, for a long time, she debated with Dan naming their baby after him in some way. But, in the end, her instincts told her that Karl would not have wanted that.
She could picture his brown eyes twinkling at her, full of love and good-willed guidance. ‘Don’t do that just because you miss me,’ he would have said, with his big brotherly wisdom and a big brotherly hug. ‘You must name her what you want to name her because you want to name her that.’ In the end, and well ahead of arrival, Dan and Sara decided on Maisie.
One day, shortly after their news had been announced to the team, Sara came into work to find Felix in the locker room. As she was fond of doing, Sara took a seat and allowed Felix to leap up on to her lap. Felix could be a bit grumpy from time to time, but Sara always took the risk of having a cuddle, because Felix was like the little girl in the nursery rhyme: when she was good, she was very, very good.
Normally, if she was in the mood, Felix would quickly settle down for a cuddle with Sara, and that was that. But, on this day, she looked rather quizzical as she got closer to her colleague. She did not sit down. Instead, her velvet nose quivered, as though she was smelling something new. Very, very gently, she placed her white-capped paws on Sara’s belly.
Maisie was about twelve weeks old inside Sara’s tummy at the time. Sara had not started showing yet, but it was as if Felix knew, all the same, that there was something different about her. It was as if she knew there was a new colleague sleeping away in there that she needed very much to say hello to.
So softly, very softly, Felix picked up one of her paws and placed it gently down on Sara’s belly. Then she did the same with her other front paw. Then she did the same again. Felix kept on padding Sara’s stomach with a beautiful and caring conscientiousness, as though she was stepping out a message in Morse code – a message that was intended just for Maisie.
22. Poorly Puss
After that day, Sara noticed that Felix never once showed her diva side to her again. It was as if she was on her best behaviour. She was kinder. Nicer. Maisie’s impending arrival seemed to make the station cat suppress her occasional flashes of fierceness and bring out her more maternal side – one that Angie Hunte hadn’t seen for a very long time, not since Felix had used to carry her brown bear around in her mouth many years ago.
Angie Hunte was feeling pretty maternal herself that summer as her friend Jacqui, her fellow team leader, came into work in June with an irrepressible smile on her face and a series of snapshots on her phone that Angie melted to see.
‘Look who’s moved in with me, Mrs H,’ said Jacqui with great excitement.
On the phone was a photograph of the tiniest little black-and-white kitten. He was eight weeks old and absolutely adorable, a new brother to Jacqui’s existing three cats.
‘This,’ Jacqui said, with all the pride of a new mum, ‘is Romeo.’
‘Oh, Jacqui …’ breathed Angie. ‘He is beautiful …’
It may have been that Jacqui heard the wistfulness in her voice. It may just have been that one idea snowballs into another. But as they chatted about the new arrival, Jacqui asked Angie, offhand, ‘Have you ever thought about getting another cat for the station?’
‘Oh yes, I have,’ said Angie honestly, for she adored cats. ‘But the company have been so great about Felix, I really don’t want to push my luck. We never thought we’d be allowed to get a cat in the first place! And how lucky are we to have Felix?’
Jacqui nodded. Lucky indeed.
‘It’s a shame, though,’ Jacqui added lightly. ‘I think it would be really good for Felix.’
Jacqui knew how much her own four cats liked each other’s company, and it seemed to her, in comparison, that maybe Felix was a little lonely – and perhaps even under pressure, too, with the responsibility for pest control falling entirely on her shoulders.
Whether it was good for Felix or not, Angie had to put the idea out of her mind. She had other concerns that summer – and foremost among them was Felix.
The summer of 2018 was a sweltering one – what proved to be England’s hottest ever on record. For Felix, swathed in her fluffy fur coat, the heat was pretty unbearable. Angie watched her with concern; everything seemed such an effort for her. The station cat slept even more than usual and seemed very lethargic, totally lacking in energy. Though she still went out at night, her daytime excursions dwindled to the absolute minimum. When she did rouse herself from her extended sleeps, rather than sitting outside, where the heatwave had made even the fresh air boiling hot, Felix tended to prefer the cooler climate of the interior corridor or the ladies’ locker room. Though Felix had never really been one for drinking from her water bowl before, it was so hot that Angie noticed that she was going for her water more and more. She made sure to keep her blue plastic water bowl topped up.
At times Felix would sit in her old favourite spot on the grey-carpeted floor of the little lobby by the former customer-information point. It was shady there, and it was really the only place outdoors that Felix seemed able to sit that summer where she didn’t melt in the heat. So it was there that her fans found her when they came calling. Though Felix barely had the energy to greet them properly, they didn’t mind.
The law had been laid down about treats from visitors the year before, but not everyone followed the rules. Lethargic Felix was just pleased that she didn’t have to lift a paw to be fed; as she reclined on the mat, people would give treats directly to her, much as a toga-clad goddess in ancient Greece might be fed peeled grapes by a minion. Felix, delighted, kept the secret, and only the widening curves of her hips gave her away …
The hot days passed by. Out in Russia, the England football team began their World Cup campaign, with their goalkeeper Jordan Pickford becoming one of the stars of the team. Only a year earlier, Felix might have given him a run for his money, but it was impossible to imagine her skidding across the concourse floor saving goals these days. She became more and more stationary. She explored less and less. More and more often, when Angie went to see if she was in the mood for meeting fans, Felix would allow it only if they came to her; she would not bother moving to the platform to see them. Visitors curtseyed by the radiator bed and Felix wearily allowed them a few minutes of stroking before sleepily closing her eyes again and drifting back to sleep. More and more often, she did not even wake when Angie entered, or would growl with grumpiness at having her nap disturbed, so her colleague would have to tiptoe back to the hopeful visitors and apologise for the fact that Felix was indisposed. There were simply too many visitors for Felix to be able to keep up. If only, Angie thought, there was someone else to help Felix share the load …