‘It’s all right, sweetheart,’ Angie said soothingly. ‘You’re not going to be hurt. I’ve got you, Bolt. I’ve got you.’
But as the train arrived in full force with a monstrous roar of its engine, despite those comforting words, Bolt blinked up at her. He was shocked, startled and scared.
‘This is a train, Bolt,’ Angie explained to the apprentice over the roar. ‘These are noises you’ll soon be hearing every day. You just need to get used to them.’
With a screeching squeal, the train applied its brakes, and this new sound made Bolt shiver all over again. Afterwards, the terrifying train finally fell silent. The few passengers boarding the night service embarked, little knowing that across the way an apprentice railway cat was undergoing training.
Angie took Bolt back inside before the train departed. He was still shaking, and she didn’t want to do too much too soon. There was time enough for all that. This little cadet could take as long as he needed to adjust to his railway life.
Despite his understandable early apprehension, Angie believed that Bolt was, overall, much more confident than Felix had been at the same age. If the door to outside was opened for him during a night shift now, he would choose to exit and sit outside on the grey carpet of the lobby, even if the door closed behind him. He was not yet confident enough to go any further than that lobby alone, but he was content to sit on the mat, nose twitching, as he slowly acclimatised himself to the big wide world. Angie didn’t recall Felix doing that at such a young age. All in all, Angie had plenty of hopes that, with time and training, Bolt would soon be as sure-footed and safe on the railway as the original station cat.
As for that cat, as the autumn of 2018 unfolded, Felix was hitting yet more heights. Her special-edition Monopoly board came out to a big commercial fanfare and on 28 November Felix was highly commended at the Railstaff Awards in the Charitable category. She was continuing to raise thousands of pounds for charity with her 2019 calendar, a second book and even her own range of Christmas cards. Yet perhaps the biggest accomplishment came in the way that Felix had finally reached a truce with the tiny kitten who had invaded her world – but who was also, very slowly, coming to enrich it.
A few times now, Angela Dunn had come into the back-office corridor to find them both lying down in it within a mere foot of one another. Jacqui, observing this same closeness, also noticed that, as Felix lay there, she would expose her white tummy with its black splodge just below her heart. This belly exposure, in Jacqui’s mind, proved that Felix now felt completely comfortable with the kitten. Despite her initial reticence and reluctance, she’d got used to him.
And even though Bolt, being Bolt, was unable to resist the temptation every now and then to pounce on the sleeping senior pest controller, Felix tolerated it pretty well. The two cats were so much better together than they had been. Truth be told, even when Felix’s patience expired, and she gave Bolt a friendly swipe of her white-capped paw, it was by definition a play fight – and one that the original station cat, despite herself, rather seemed to enjoy. (Even if that was because it gave her a chance to remind him exactly who was boss.)
For Sara from the booking office, her heart was truly warmed by the way Felix had finally taken Bolt under her wing. The arrival of Bolt had been so lovely for Sara to witness. With her baby daughter due at the end of December, seeing the kitten had made Sara think more and more about her own impending motherhood. She and Dan had moved in together by now, into their own home, and they couldn’t wait until Maisie arrived and the three of them became a family. It was rather nice for Sara to know that when she went on maternity leave, as she was very soon to do, this new station family would also be growing. And while she and Maisie were bonding, Felix and Bolt would be doing the same.
As Sara would soon find out, however, children grow up fast. As autumn drew to its close, Angie and Jacqui began to do double takes as they arrived at work after a few days off. What had happened to their little kitten? Who was this big boy, with his long, sleek form and an almost military bearing as he sat up straight on a TPE clipboard? Bolt grew bigger and more mature with every passing day. Jacqui could see it in his face; he looked more like a cat than a kitten, although he hadn’t quite grown into his ears. His original polka-dot harness became too small for him as he healthily put on weight, so Jacqui upgraded him to a new neon-orange one. It glowed brightly against his black fur when he went out patrolling at night.
He also t00k up a new hobby – one inspired by watching Felix. She may have been rather hands-off on the platform training, apart from that very first session, but Bolt was picking up tips from his boss nonetheless. One evening, Felix sauntered into the team leaders’ room (which was still where Bolt slept, but Felix was allowed to come and go as she pleased). As had been her practice for many a year, she wandered over to the wastepaper bin, where a plastic bin bag hung down over the sides. She started licking it, and then shredding it, which was one of Felix’s favourite naughty habits. She liked to get right underneath the transparent bin liner, as though it was a veil across her face or as if she was behind a shower curtain, and then she’d scratch at it, rub her chin on it and bite into it savagely. She absolutely loved doing it; it was almost a Felix fetish.
After having demolished the liner, Felix walked away – and the little black kitten took that as his cue to have a go too. Bolt went to the liner, and up went his paws to scratch, scratch, scratch at the plastic. From his exuberant reaction, it seemed that this was a guilty pleasure – or a pastime, if you will – that the two pest controllers were set to share.
For the team, it was a promising sign. Would Bolt continue to copy Felix? Angie Hunte was intrigued about their future training sessions together, when both Bolt and Felix would be out on patrol; Bolt, eventually, without his harness. Felix being there would mean that Bolt’s experience would be totally different from that of the original station cat. Felix had had to learn it all for herself – she had made the role her own – but Bolt had a boss. Would he copy her, as he had done with the shredding of the bin bag? Would she show him the ropes, albeit unknowingly, as a little black shadow followed in her footsteps? Or, with their truce holding firm, might they even become fellow explorers, with Felix generously revealing all her favourite hidey-holes? Not to mention what might happen when it came to pest control …
All that was for the future. There was still a way to go, but Angie Hunte was hopeful. She had a feeling that as Bolt grew older and began his own adventures on the railway, Felix’s motherly instincts would kick in. And when that happened, she knew, nobody would be able to get near Bolt because Felix would always be there for him.
In truth, nobody knew what the future held for the two railway cats in the long term. Jacqui hoped that, as Felix took more of a backseat, as her increasingly lengthy daytime naps seemed to suggest she would, Bolt would come more front and centre, out on the platforms meeting people and being Mr Friendly. Jacqui didn’t think they could have got a cat with a better temperament for the role that awaited him. Already he had stolen people’s hearts, simply through the odd photograph posted on Felix’s Facebook page. When he began to meet people in person, Jacqui knew he would charm them all the more.
As for Felix, while there was lots of life in the older cat yet, some of the team had started to ponder how her golden years might play out. If Felix got to the stage where she’d had enough, she deserved a peaceful retirement. Having seen first-hand how much she had enjoyed being a house cat, Jean Randall wondered if perhaps that might be Felix’s destiny when she reached double figures, so that she could get away from it all and enjoy her lazy years with a sofa to lounge upon. But Jean also knew that the station was Felix’s home; she’d had happy holidays in houses, but her world had always been the railway.