David groaned.‘Maybe it will – how should I know? Hopefully she’ll settle down soon and forget all about the bloody cat. I dunno, Pat. As if it wasn’t stressful enough having to rehome my mother, now I’ve got to rehome her sodding cat too!’
Inside the plastic carrier, my fur bristled.
‘I’m on my way to Rob’s now, to drop her off. I’ve told Rob I owe him a pint for taking her,’ David added, and my ears pricked up. I had never heard of Rob before, but by the sound of it, he was to be my new owner.
David finished the phone call and the rest of the journey passed in silence. I tried to keep track of how long we had been driving. I could see it was dark outside now and, judging from the ache in my stomach, it was at least an hour past my dinner time. Occasionally I let out a yowl, which was met with a curt‘Shut up, cat!’ from the front seat, so after a while I gave up.
Eventually I felt the car slow down and pull to a halt. I instinctively burrowed as far back inside the carrier as I could, trying to make myself as small and inconspicuous as possible. The rational part of me knew it was pointless to try and hide, but my self-preservation instinct kicked in nonetheless.
I heard David get out of the car, slamming the door behind him. With my nose pressed against the back wall of the carrier, I listened to the sounds outside. The creak of a gate opening, David’s footsteps on a path, then a door knocker being rapped twice. My fur stood on end as the knocking was swiftly followed by barking.
Trying to ignore my thumping heartbeat, I focused on attempting to discern how many different barks I could hear. It sounded like three: one deep and powerful bark, plus two higher-pitched, yappier ones. Before I had time to visualize what kind of dogs might produce such noises, the car boot was flung open. I felt someone grab the carrier’s handle and yank it out of the car so roughly that I lost my footing and slid across the floor, so that my rear end was pressed against the bars at the front. I quickly spun round, bracing myself to face my next trauma head-on.
As I was carried up the path I heard David say,‘Cheers, mate. You’re really helping me out here.’
We were now inside a front hall, and I had been placed on the doormat. Suddenly there seemed to be dogs everywhere, charging at me from all sides. The plastic carrier offered some protection, but I could see noses and slobbering mouths trying to press through the bars at the front, and countless legs seemed to pace around as they tried to find a way to get to me. The dogs’ stale, smelly breath filled the carrier, making me want to retch. My back was arched and I hissed and spat with every ounce of my being, trying to warn my tormentors to back off.
‘She’ll have to get used to the dogs,’ a man’s voice – presumably Rob’s – said, somewhat apologetically. That, I thought ruefully, was an understatement. ‘We used to have a cat, so they should be okay with her,’ he went on hopefully, but, to my mind, not very convincingly, ‘although Nancy did disappear, after I got Stan. One minute she was hissing at him from the top of the fridge, the next minute she’d vanished into thin air – never came back. The vet was quite cross with me about that,’ he added with a sigh, evidently dwelling on the injustice of being blamed for the previous cat’s disappearance.
Every hair on my body was standing on end, and I’m ashamed to admit that any concern for Margery’s fate had gone from my mind. My only thought was the realization that I was about to be left in a house with three dogs. Dogs with a track record of forcing cats to run away.
5 [Êàðòèíêà: i_006.jpg]
From the relative safety of my cat carrier, I observed my canine tormentors. The largest was stockily built with muscular shoulders and a barrel chest. His square, jowly face and wide-set eyes lent a dim-witted quality to his appearance, but there was no mistaking his strength as he barged against the carrier, trying to root me out of my hiding place. The other two dogs were identical-looking scrappy creatures, with over-sized, pointed ears. They were hardly any bigger than me, so I had a good view of their beady eyes and tiny white teeth, which were bared in a snarl.
When Rob flung the carrier door open I launched myself across the hallway so fast that my paws skidded on the floorboards and I almost ended up flat on my back. My strategy paid off, however, and my sudden departure took the dogs by surprise. The small ones barked shrilly as I streaked passed them, while the big jowly dog seemed baffled, and as I flew around the corner into the front room he was still sniffing at the cat carrier, wondering where I had gone.
On first glance, the front room offered few escape routes. My instincts were telling me to find high ground, so I leapt onto the sofa, springboarding from its back onto a dresser by the window. My paws skidded on a pile of magazines and I almost fell to the floor, but just managed to scrabble my way back, before leaping up to the top of a bookcase.
Trying not to inhale the dust that surrounded me, I lay down and tucked my legs under my body, taking in the view of Rob’s living room from my aerial platform. Its focal point seemed to be an enormous television suspended from the wall, towards which all the seats in the room were facing. Other than piles of magazines and remote controls on a coffee table, there were very few personal possessions. I compared my surroundings with my memories of Margery’s house, with its cosy clutter of polished photo frames and ornaments arranged on lacy cloths. The two sofas here were shiny and smooth, nothing like Margery’s invitingly cushioned ones.
The dogs had followed my scent trail and were now in the room with me. I observed silently as each one moved around the floor methodically, sniffing the furniture in an attempt to work out where I had gone. I maintained my sphinx-like pose high up on the bookcase while they trawled the room, becoming increasingly frustrated by their failure to hunt me down. Eventually they lost interest, leaving the room one by one, and as my adrenaline rush began to subside, I curled into a ball and fell asleep.
I was woken by a loud rumbling noise that made my whole body shake. My first thought was of the removal lorry, and for a confused few seconds I wondered whether I was about to be moved again. Then I realized that the sound was coming from the television. I looked across and noticed Rob sprawled across the sofa, a remote control in one hand and a large bowl of crisps in the other. He was shovelling crisps into his mouth by the handful, washing them down with sips from a can, which he placed on the arm of the sofa. He was completely absorbed in watching cars racing around a track on the screen, and every now and then he emitted a yelp of excitement or annoyance. Quizzically I observed him, wondering what he found enthralling about such a monotonous, noisy form of entertainment. His trance-like state was broken only when he opened his mouth to belch loudly.
I averted my eyes in disgust and began to wash.
It was not possible to imagine an owner more different from Margery. Everything about Margery had been gentle, careful and quiet. Rob was uncouth, noisy and messy. I thought longingly of the afternoons spent curled up on Margery’s sofa watching television programmes about antiques, or gentle quiz shows. Try as I might, I could not envisage a time when I would be curled up on Rob’s lap, happily watching his ear-splitting racing cars.
And then, of course, there were the dogs.
As I had been washing, one of the small rat-like dogs had wandered into the room and, noticing movement on top of the bookcase, had started to bark demonically at me. Soon rat-dog number two had run in to see what all the fuss was about, followed by the muscular square-faced dog. It didn’t take long for them to spot me in my lofty hideout and soon they were all barking, their cacophonous racket drowning out the droning engines onscreen.
‘Oi, you three, that’s enough!’
Roused into action, Rob spun round, grappling for something to hurl at the dogs. He grabbed a magazine and flung it in their general direction, but as it flew through the air the magazine clipped the drink can balanced on the sofa’s arm. The can rocked from side to side before toppling over the side of the sofa, spraying its contents across the carpet and over the dogs. Rob roared an expletive as he dived over the side of the sofa to retrieve the can from the floor. Doing his best to siphon the still-fizzing contents intohis mouth, he sat back down on the sofa, upending the bowl of crisps, which he had left in the middle of his seat.