But I am not looking at them. I am looking at the window.
Perched precariously on the windowsill outside is a cat. He is looking over his shoulder at the street behind, his ears flicking in the wind. He looks nervous, twitchy, as if he is fighting the urge to run.
Sophie has come downstairs too, followed by the kittens, who want to know where everyone has gone. Now we are all standing in the café, looking at the cat on the windowsill. The cat turns back to face the café and his eye catches mine through the glass.
‘That cat looks just like Eddie!’ Sophie exclaims.
‘Indeed he does,’ Debbie agrees. I am not looking at her, but I know she is watching me, and I can hear the smile in her voice. I feel like I am frozen to the spot, dumbfounded.
‘Someone must have told him Molly’s Cat Café is the place to be,’ John jokes. ‘He’s a handsome chap, too. You’ve got room for another one, haven’t you, Debs?’
Debbie pauses, and I can feel her eyes on me. ‘What do you think, Molly, shall I let him in?’
Hearing her say my name rouses me from my daze. I turn and look at her, but my mind is blank. She laughs at me, but her laugh is not unkind. It’s a laugh that suggests she knows what’s going on, and that she understands. I watch as she opens the café door and leans out.
‘Come on, puss, in you come,’ she calls.
The tomcat looks at her and I see his tail twitch. I remember his words to me in the alley: I’m not really a ‘nice lady’ kind of cat. Surely this café full of strangers will be too daunting for his solitary nature? His tail twitches again and his green eyes turn back to me. It occurs to me that he is waiting for me to invite him in. I blink at him slowly, and immediately he jumps down onto the pavement. A moment later he is standing inside the doorway, his head held high in a show of confidence that must have taken more courage than he is letting on. The kittens rush over to him, fascinated and slightly in awe of this mysterious stranger.
‘Well, I guess that’s settled,’ Debbie laughs. ‘I suppose I’d better set another place at the table!’
I creep forward. My mind is buzzing with questions, but the kittens are crowding around the tomcat, all eager to be first in line for his attention. He patiently allows them to sniff him, but then his eyes look up to find mine and I can see they are smiling.
It is mid-afternoon, and the tomcat and I have left everyone eating turkey in the café, to head out into the empty streets of Stourton. We pad along the alleyway behind the café, down through the churchyard, and start to wander towards the square, our only witnesses the cawing crows on the chimney stacks. There is a chill in the air and, as the tomcat and I walk, we stick close to each other’s side, our footsteps naturally falling into a shared rhythm.
‘So, where have you been all this time?’ I ask, shyly. Glancing at the side of his face, I notice he’s gained a few scars since I last saw him.
‘Oh, just wandering,’ the tomcat replies, wrinkling his nose. ‘Life on the road isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,’ he says sagely.
‘I could have told you that,’ I joke.
‘And besides,’ he adds, ‘I missed the tuna mayonnaise.’
I stop walking, momentarily affronted, but then he catches my eye and I realize he is teasing me.
We turn the corner into the market square. The winter daylight is beginning to fade, low clouds scud across the sky and, above them, the pale crescent moon is already visible. All around us the square is decked out for Christmas. Colourful lights blink prettily in every window, and the tree in the middle of the square points vigorously upward, wreathed in white bulbs. Devoid of people and traffic, the square feels like it belongs to us, and us alone.
I wonder how it is possible for Stourton to look just as it did a year ago, as if nothing has changed. So much has changed for me in the last twelve months that I sometimes feel like a different cat from the one who arrived, rain-soaked and half-starved, after weeks in the open country. I feel sorry for the cat I was then, so desperate for someone to take pity on me and give me a home. And yet I am also proud of that cat. Pitiful she may have been, but were it not for her determination, I would not be here now.
The tomcat and I have made our way back to the cobbled street outside the café. The blinds are drawn, but I can see slivers of light around the edges of the window, and hear Debbie singing along to Christmas music inside. The tomcat is standing to one side on the doorstep, allowing me, chivalrously, to enter the café first. I nudge the door open and the warm atmosphere inside the café envelops us.
At a glance, I take in the crackling fire in the stove, our kittens dozing around the room, and the smiling faces of Debbie, Sophie and John as they read aloud jokes from their Christmas crackers. The tomcat stands beside me, gazing benignly at the scene before us, and I swell with pride to think of how much the café has changed since it became my home. But I also feel humble, because I know that the journey I have been on over the past year was not just about finding a home; it was about finding myself. I have been many different cats since losing Margery: a desperate stray, a self-sufficient alley-cat, a cherished pet, and a loving mother. I have been all of those cats, and they will always remain a part of me, because they have made me who I am.
The Real Cat Cafés
I first became aware of the existence of cat cafés in 2014. As a cat fanatic, I loved the idea of relaxing in a café full of laid-back felines. But I was also intrigued to imagine how a cat café comes into being, and what the background stories of the cats in such a place might be.
This was how the idea for Molly and the Cat Café was born. Although its inspiration comes from the real cat cafés, however, it is a work of fiction. When writing about Molly’s cat café, I sometimes had to allow the demands of plot and character to take precedence over factual accuracy. So it seems only fair to correct some misconceptions the book may have conveyed about the work done by the real cat cafés.
Japan is considered to be the spiritual home of the cat café: there are said to be nearly forty in Tokyo alone. In recent years, cat cafés have begun to appear around the world, springing up in Asia, North America, Australia and across Europe. In Britain there are currently cat cafés in London, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Nottingham and Birmingham, with more planned for other parts of the country.
In addition to providing cat-loving humans with access to feline company, the cat cafés often have another purpose: to find permanent homes for their residents. Whereas Molly and her kittens are Debbie’s pets, many of the real cat cafés source their cats from local rescue shelters, and offer up the cats in their care for adoption.
The cats’ welfare is of the utmost importance for the cat cafés. Great care is taken to build a colony, usually of around a dozen cats, who will live peacefully alongside each other and whose temperaments suit the sociable atmosphere of a café. Precautions are taken to limit the number of customers allowed in the café at any one time in order to prevent the cats becoming stressed, and advance bookings are often necessary. Although some cat cafés provide outside space for their cats, others keep their cats indoors. I imagine the cats are unlikely to come and go as they please in the way that Molly does from her café.
Molly and the Cat Café is not intended to be a factually accurate account of a real cat café; it is the story of one cat and her search for a home. It is about the bond that forms between us and our feline companions; the strength of our love for them and, I would like to think, of their love for us. I believe it is the universal nature of this bond that drives the phenomenon of the cat café to worldwide success.