When Angie sensed that her preparations were complete and she was ready, Angie beamed at her. ‘Right then,’ she said brightly. ‘Let’s go and meet Her Majesty.’
Gloria smiled back at her, feeling such a strong sense of anticipation that it was quite overwhelming. Will Felix be friendly? she wondered. Will we share any kind of connection? She felt a rush of nerves again, fearful that the visit might not live up to her expectations.
The two Angelas led the Bucket List Lady along platform one and through the door that led into the back office. Team leader Dan was on duty and said a warm hello to her. Thanks to his heavy involvement in the Facebook page, Gloria knew all about him – including about his and Sara’s baby, as they’d announced their pregnancy on Felix’s page – so she said a warm hello back.
‘You’re a VIP today, Gloria,’ Angie told her. ‘So you have to give us your autograph in our signing-in book.’
Angela Dunn – who had been designated official photographer for the day – snapped a photo of Gloria signing the official TPE paperwork. It said Gloria was a VIP and that she had come to see Felix. And then it was time.
Angela Dunn went ahead to check that Felix was ready. ‘Please let madam be in the mood for visitors,’ she muttered under her breath. You never could tell with Felix how that might play out. As the only station cat, Felix had so much to do, and now she was older she didn’t always have the energy required for meeting fans. Yet when Angela opened the door to the ladies’ locker room, Felix was lying comfortably in her radiator bed and the look in her green eyes said clearly to her lady-in-waiting, ‘Yes, you may enter.’
‘Gloria,’ Angela called. ‘She’s ready for you.’
Gloria entered the room on tenterhooks, not knowing quite what she would find. As she crossed the threshold and saw Felix sitting in her radiator bed, it was as if time stood still. The nervous energy that had been building up swiftly dissipated. All tension drained away. In its place, an intense calmness seeped into their souls, as Gloria stared at Felix, and Felix at Gloria.
The station cat was bigger than she’d been expecting, absolutely massive with fur and fluff, even after her recent haircut. Yet she was also much friendlier than Gloria had been expecting. In those glorious green eyes was a sense of acceptance, even an invitation. Eyes fixed firmly on her feline friend, Gloria edged fully into the room and walked towards Felix.
She was so focused on her that she barely noticed as Angela Dunn fetched a chair for the frail woman to sit upon. It arrived just in time as Gloria bent her legs to sit beside the station cat, in such a way that her lap was almost under Felix’s bed, so it seemed rather as though the cat was on her knees.
‘Oh, you are lovely,’ Gloria whispered to her, her soft voice close to breaking as her dream came true.
Felix raised her head, all the better to hear her.
‘I’m so happy to meet you,’ Gloria whispered. ‘I’ve always wanted to meet you, Felix. You are just so beautiful, do you know that? You are so very, very fluffy!’
Felix’s ears pricked up as she listened to Gloria talk. Her standard response to such greetings was cool agreement. ‘Yes, I really am gorgeous, aren’t I? I one hundred per cent agree …’ But Angie and Angela, watching closely, realised that Felix was not, in fact, communicating with Gloria with her usual sense of arrogant self-satisfaction at all. Instead, they both felt that there was an instant, and deep, connection between the two.
Gloria felt it too. It was powerful. It was as though Felix sensed that Gloria was different from her other visitors, as though she sensed she had a problem. Later, after Gloria had gone, Angie Hunte would whisper fiercely to Angela, ‘I swear to you: Felix knew. I swear she knew she was dying.’
It was not a far-fetched idea. There are several well-documented cases of cats sniffing out their owners’ cancerous tumours or their hidden, internal illnesses, even one case of an American care-home cat, Oscar, who seemed able to predict the deaths of residents – he would curl up with them in the hours before they passed away, giving them a final piece of comfort before they crossed to the other side. Scientists reasoned with typical verbiage that cats’ superior ‘olfactory discrimination’ might be behind these sixth-sense skills – but whatever the science, Gloria only knew that it felt amazing to be truly seen by Felix.
There is an Irish proverb that says, ‘A cat’s eyes are windows enabling us to see into another world.’ Looking in Felix’s eyes that July afternoon, Gloria felt as though she had glimpsed that other world, which was, perhaps, the world that lay ahead for her all too soon. Somehow, though, through her calmness of spirit and her generous love, Felix made her feel able to accept it.
It was incredibly comforting to be with her. ‘Therapeutic’ was the word that Gloria later thought summed it up best. As she stroked the fluffy cat and whispered sweet words to her, she realised that she had never felt so calm and relaxed in all her life. It was as though Felix took away all the badness, all the fear and doubt, and left behind a peaceful acceptance of whatever was coming next. Gloria fixed her eyes on her hungrily, as though she was committing the entire experience to memory, not wanting to miss a single detail. This was how Felix looked as she gazed back at her with total, unconditional acceptance. This was the exact position of the black blob by her heart, which she showed to Gloria as she invited her to tickle her tummy. This was the width of her wide white whiskers; this the texture of her fur.
As Gloria enjoyed her audience with the station cat, the two Angelas exchanged looks of silent astonishment. They had never, ever seen Felix behave in quite this way before. And as Gloria’s visit went on, and then on, lasting longer than any previous audience, their surprise deepened further. Felix was generally patient with fans, but she usually gave them a finite length of time with her before indicating – by walking off or falling asleep or through an ill-tempered swipe of her sharpened claws – that their time was up. Yet she showed no such impatience with Gloria. Angie Hunte could not believe her eyes. Felix let Gloria take as long as she needed.
Angie could tell that the visit meant a great deal to Gloria, so much so that Angie felt as if she was intruding. A dying woman’s wish was being played out in front of her; the emotion was intense. Gloria was whispering to Felix, telling her how much she meant to her, telling her how honoured she was to have the chance to meet her before she died. Angie wasn’t sure she could take it. It was such a sobering reminder that you never knew how long you had on this earth, a reminder to be grateful for everything you’d got. Angie decided that she should leave Gloria and Felix to it and slipped quietly out of the locker-room door. Gloria, caught up in her conversation with Felix, did not even notice that she’d gone.
Only Angela Dunn remained with them, quietly documenting the meeting through photographs, as Gloria had asked her to. So she was there as Gloria whispered softly to Felix, in a voice that was tight with emotion, ‘Have you ever had anybody visit you before who is dying?’
It was Angela who answered on Felix’s behalf, as the cat kept her eyes trained on Gloria, trying to calm her as she frankly faced the truth of her prognosis.
‘No,’ Angela said softly. ‘No, Gloria – you’re the first.’
Gloria gave a wry smile, and the bitter twist of her lips spoke of time lost and wasted opportunities. ‘Well then,’ she said, ‘I might be famous for something.’
Angela couldn’t help the tears that pricked at her eyes. ‘Oh, Gloria,’ she said, helplessly. ‘You have to give over; you’re making me cry …’