‘Well, I’ll leave her with you,’ Angela said. She bent down to the carry case and locked eyes with Felix. ‘Now, madam, behave yourself, please!’
Felix watched her go, then turned back to face Louise. She squinted at her through the bars of her carrier. Louise may have been the loveliest woman in the world, but Felix felt hot and bothered and hated the indignity of anyone grooming her luscious pelt. Even as Louise began to unclip the wire mesh from the front of the cage, Felix began to growl. And by the time she came out, she was in full-on panther mode, hissing and biting and scratching.
‘Whoa, there!’ said Louise calmly. ‘It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you. Let’s just take a look at you.’
Felix, grumpily, submitted to an examination. And Louise could see she had her work cut out for her. Felix was such a long-haired cat that it was easy for her fur to become knotted and there were several big tangles cluttering up her coat. Her belly in particular was filthy – the fur there dragged on the tracks as she crossed them, and although the Angelas always asked the groomers to trim her belly fur in particular, in order to keep it short and practical for her railway adventures, it had been a while since anyone had done it, so the white fluff of her stomach was long and bedraggled. With her former grooming session having ended so abruptly, her main pelt was exceptionally big and bushy, verging on wild.
As Louise peered at her haunches, where the fur matted around Felix’s intimate parts, she wasn’t sure that anyone had ever had the courage to get in there and de-mat the diva before. On the upside, Louise was pleasantly surprised to find that Felix was not especially dirty – she had wondered if a railway cat might get more greasy or oily than her domestic fellows, but that did not seem to be the case.
Felix growled constantly throughout the examination, almost like a guttural snore. She seemed to take Louise’s interest as an affront. In keeping with most adult cats, Felix spent about half her waking hours grooming herself, and perhaps she felt human intervention was unnecessary – an undermining of her natural talents.
‘Right,’ said Louise briskly. ‘First things first: let’s take off your collar and get you combed.’
Louise used two combs for the grooming. She had one with teeth that looked like metal nails, which was good for pulling out the lugs in Felix’s fur, and another that looked more like a human comb, for smoothing out her fur after the tangles had been removed. It was important to comb first, otherwise they’d waste time washing dead fur that really needed to be removed.
‘All right, Grumbles,’ she said to the growling Felix. ‘Let’s get going.’
She began trying to comb Felix with firm, regular strokes of her comb, but she could barely complete a single stroke as her coat was so full of knots. Louise really needed to spend time on each one, teasing them carefully so as not to pull her fur too hard – but Felix was not going to allow her the time she needed.
Hiss went the cat. Swipe went her paw. Slash went a sudden swish of her sharp, bared claws.
‘Mum!’ Louise called out across the farm, as she tried to hold Felix steady. ‘I’ve got a bit of a wild one here. Please can you come and help?’
Louise’s mother, a no-nonsense farmer’s wife with sparkling eyes, short grey hair and glasses, came bustling into the garage. Louise rarely needed help with her grooming, but Margaret took one look at the wildcat on the table and reached for her heavy-duty freezer gloves, instantly understanding the situation.
‘She’s like a panther, isn’t she?’ she exclaimed. ‘Just look at those jaws!’
‘It’s all right,’ said Louise, reassuring the cat. ‘Good girl. Try to calm down now; we’re not going to hurt you.’
But Felix was not in the mood to listen. As Margaret held the cat still and Louise began tackling her tangled nether region, Felix let out an infuriated yowl at the indignity of it all.
‘We’re nearly done,’ Louise soothed, combing as quickly but as thoroughly as she could. She was amazed at how much fluff was coming off the cat as she teased out the tangles. ‘Just hold still for me please, Felix. Come on, sweetheart. It’s all right, calm down now.’
But Felix would not calm down. Around her bum and belly were big clumps of matted fur and she couldn’t bear to let Louise touch them. She let out another huge snarl.
‘Dad!’ Louise called out across the farm, as she and her mum held the cat steady. ‘I’ve got a bit of a wild one here. Please can you come and help?’
So then Louise’s father came into the garage too. He was in his seventies: a stockily built, muscular farmer with short dark hair. He was an easy-going, friendly man for whom nothing was ever a problem, so when he saw the wildcat situation unfolding in his garage, he simply rolled up – or, rather, down – his sleeves and pulled on his thick elbow-length gloves. They were more likely intended for falconry than Felix-handling, but he could see at a glance that they would be required.
Louise had never known anything like it. Most cats didn’t like to be groomed, and she was used to that; they were less tolerant than dogs. Yet Felix’s behaviour was on another level. As in all things, it seemed Felix was determined to outshine them all – and that was how she ended up with Louise’s whole family tending to her, as if they were a Formula One team and Felix was a very expensive, very valuable racing car. Her constant underscore of growls certainly sounded like a turbo-charged engine setting off at 200 mph.
Margaret was absolutely astonished at her diva-like behaviour. ‘I can’t believe they make all this fuss about this cat!’ she whispered to her daughter above Felix’s head, as though not wanting to enrage her further. ‘She’s a nightmare!’
But the three-man operation was slowly bearing fruit. As Louise patiently helped to clear Felix’s coat, teasing out the seeds and lugs and tangles, they cleared the way to a new Felix. Soon a much sleeker panther was sitting grumpily on the table, while a huge puff of grey old fluff piled up next to her, which had all come from her coat. Louise tried hard not to cut the tangles, which would have left Felix with a very patchy coat. Instead, she took the time to comb and comb and comb through her fur, taking however long was needed to rake out the lugs. Finally, she picked up her pet-grooming scissors and trimmed Felix’s long white belly hair so she’d be better able to travel on the railway tracks, just as Angela had asked.
‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ she told Felix, as the cat tried to wriggle away. ‘You’ll feel so much better afterwards, I promise.’
But Felix did not believe her – not least because after the combing came the shower. Louise didn’t always bathe her feline clients – if you bathed them too often it could strip all the natural oils from their coats – but Felix really needed the full works this time. On the count of three, Louise, her mum and her dad carried a fighting Felix over to the white bath in the corner of the room and switched on the shower hose. She fixed them with a glare – a fierce look that endured for the next five to ten minutes, as Louise soaped her up with a hypoallergenic shampoo to get her coat nice and clean. It didn’t really smell of anything, as scented soaps can aggravate animals’ senses, but nevertheless Felix turned her nose up at it.