29
We huddled in the café doorway, under the eerie orange light of a street lamp. Sophie rested her head on Debbie’s shoulder, shivering in her thin cotton pyjamas. Every now and then a breeze wafted the smell of gas over to us, making my eyes prickle. As we waited, the kittens grew agitated, stumbling over each other as they tried to get to the front of the cat carrier. It felt strange to be on the street again, after so many weeks confined to the flat. My ears swivelled in alarm at sounds that had once been the familiar backdrop to my life: owls screeching in the churchyard, and cats yowling as they squared up for a fight in some distant passageway.
After about ten minutes we heard a car engine in a nearby street. Soon a pair of headlights appeared at the end of the parade, approaching slowly along the cobbles.
‘This must be him!’ Debbie whispered, lifting Sophie’s head off her shoulder and stepping out of the doorway. She waved, squinting in the headlights’ beams. ‘Hi.’ She smiled apologetically as John climbed out of the van. ‘I can’t thank you enough for coming out. I didn’t know what else to do.’
John’s eyes were puffy with sleep and, although his lips wore a thin smile, he did not return her greeting. He heaved his tool bag from the passenger seat onto his shoulder. ‘Quite the street party you’re having here,’ he said, glancing at Sophie, at me and at the carrier full of kittens.
‘Well, yes, because of the gas,’ Debbie explained nervously. ‘I got Sophie up, but then Molly wanted to go back for the kittens, so we had to get them too. But then I couldn’t find the carrier, and I was out of breath from the stairs and I really need to do more exercise . . . ’
John stared past Debbie blankly, ignoring her words as he walked towards the doorway. ‘Very sensible, Molly,’ he said, when Debbie finally paused for breath. ‘You mustn’t leave the kittens inside if there’s a gas leak.’ He bent down to stroke me and I purred, aware of Debbie looking crestfallen as she stood behind him.
‘Well, obviously I would have gone back for the kittens anyway. I mean, I wouldn’t have left them in there,’ she stammered.
John straightened up, looking into the café. ‘Shall I take a look then?’ he said, cutting her off mid-sentence.
‘Oh, of course – I mean, yes, please; thank you,’ she babbled gratefully. John switched his torch on and walked inside. ‘Shall I put the lights on for you?’ she called as we followed him into the café.
‘Not yet,’ he replied brusquely. ‘Don’t want the place to go up in flames, do you?’
‘Oh, no, of course – I knew that.’ She sounded girlishly eager to please.
Sophie headed for a table in the corner of the café and placed the carrier of fidgeting kittens on the floor. Debbie trailed John into the kitchen, continuing to talk to his back.
‘I’ll never forget that advert on TV when I was younger: “If you can smell gas” and all that – scared the life out of me. “Don’t use switches,” it said, and that’s always stayed with me. Never forgotten it.’
From the shadow of the serving counter I watched as John began to take the boiler apart, resolutely ignoring Debbie. I wished there was something I could do to stop her talking; it was obvious that he was finding her anxious prattle irritating.
After a few minutes the hissing noise stopped. ‘The gas is off,’ John said. ‘I suggest we keep the windows open for a while, but it’s safe to go upstairs, if you want to go back to bed.’
Debbie breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Did you hear that, Soph? You can go back to bed now,’ she called through the doorway.
Sophie was hunched on a chair with her head propped against the wall, hugging her knees to her chest. She did not acknowledge Debbie’s words, but I heard her chair scrape on the flagstones as she stood up.
‘Oh, take the kittens up too, would you, Soph?’ Debbie pleaded. Sophie grunted a half-hearted objection, before picking up the carrier and stumbling towards the stairs. I heard the kittens mewing in protest as it bumped against every step on the way up to the flat. ‘Night-night, love, I’ll be up soon,’ Debbie called from the foot of the stairs, her voice sounding artificially upbeat. There was no response from Sophie, and Debbie sighed.
‘You know, you really shouldn’t have left it this long. I did warn you that the boiler needed replacing as a matter of urgency,’ John said coldly, once Debbie had returned to the kitchen.
Debbie hung her head in shame. ‘I know, I know. I was planning to do it. It’s just, what with the refurbishment and everything else, I hadn’t got round to it yet . . .’ she trailed off. John had turned his back to her again, wordlessly dismissing her excuses. Debbie sat down on a stool, looking despondent.
‘On the bright side, you’re very lucky you caught this when you did. Could have been a lot worse, if the gas had been running all night.’
Debbie shuddered. ‘I can’t even bear to think about it. Thank goodness for Molly.’ At this, John glanced quizzically over his shoulder. ‘She came into my room and woke me up,’ she elaborated, visibly relieved that John had, at last, shown an interest in something she had said. ‘She wouldn’t take no for an answer. Patting my face, knocking things off my dressing table – it was like an episode of Lassie up there!’
John raised his eyebrows and smiled for the first time since he had arrived. ‘Well, good for Molly. You’ve got a lot to thank her for.’
Debbie shivered as a gust of wind from the alley blew through the kitchen, rattling the window blinds. Rubbing her arms against the chill, she contemplated the puddle of rusty water on the floor. ‘I suppose I might as well make myself useful,’ she sighed, taking a mop and bucket from the cupboard.
I crept around the side of the serving counter to watch them through the doorway. John was taking the boiler apart, piece by piece, painstakingly removing rusty metal panels and segments of pipe. Debbie made her way slowly across the floor, swinging the mop back and forth, squeezing it out into a bucket. She looked almost comically dishevelled in her faded dressing gown and damp slippers. One of her cheeks was pillow-creased, and a clump of hair stood up at the back of her head. I saw her cast a furtive glance at her reflection in the kitchen window and surreptitiously try to smooth her hair with the palm of her hand.
The awkwardness between them was palpable. John had resumed his tight-lipped frostiness. And, having been unable to stop talking when he first arrived, it seemed as if Debbie had run out of things to say. Crouching between the counter and the doorway, I racked my brain for a way to defuse the tension between them.
‘That’s the gas and water disconnected,’ John said at last, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘I’ll do my best to source a replacement for you tomorrow. Until then, I’m afraid everything’s going to have to stay as it is.’ He addressed his words to the boiler rather than to Debbie, while she nodded gratefully, fiddling with the mop handle.
‘Well, thank you so much,’ she said after a moment’s silence, when it had become clear that John had nothing further to say on the matter.
The first streaks of orange and pink were appearing in the sky outside, and an outburst of chatter from some nearby magpies pierced the air. John had started to pack up his tools. Whatever Debbie might think of me, I knew that if I was going to act, it would have to be now or never. I sidled over to John and wound myself around his leg.
‘Oh, hello, Molly,’ he said, giving me a cursory stroke. I saw Debbie glance sideways, surprised to see that I had not followed Sophie and the kittens upstairs. I loitered by John’s feet and, as soon as he turned away to pick something up, I jumped into his tool bag. ‘Come on, girl, out you get,’ he coaxed, lifting me gently under my tummy and placing me on the floor. I immediately jumped back in and looked at him mischievously. ‘Molly, come on now.’