Christmas at the Cat Cafe

‘Besides, if John and I ever decide to live together, I want it to be because it’s what we both want, not because it’s a convenient solution to an overcrowding problem.’

‘I hear what you’re saying, Debs, and I get it,’ Jo replied, pushing a stray curl out of her eyes. ‘But something’s got to give, hasn’t it? This situation can’t go on forever. Maybe it’s time you asked Linda to move out.’ She eyed her friend surreptitiously between sips of wine, while I sat on the window cushion awaiting Debbie’s response with bated breath. It felt as if it was my fate hanging in the balance, as much as Linda’s.

At the counter, Debbie let out a long groan. ‘Oh, I just don’t know, Jo,’ she wailed. Although she hadn’t said it, I knew what she was thinking: that she couldn’t turn her back on her sister at a time like this. So the next words to come out of her mouth surprised me. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said. ‘I can’t take much more of this. I’ll talk to Linda tomorrow.’

‘That’s the spirit!’ Jo replied, raising her glass in a toast of encouragement.

Debbie looked up and I saw the corners of her mouth lift into a smile. ‘Or perhaps Linda could move in with you for a bit?’ she teased.

Jo pretended to choke on her wine, before composing her face into a look of sufferance. ‘Actually, that might not be such a crazy idea,’ she murmured. ‘The way business has been going recently, I might need to take on a lodger soon, just to pay the rent.’

16

Later that night, curled up at the foot of Debbie’s bed, I mulled over Jo and Debbie’s conversation. It had reassured and alarmed me in equal measure. It was heartening to hear that John was sufficiently committed to Debbie to ask her to move in with him. However, I could not help but dwell on what life in the flat would be like if Debbie and Sophie moved out. Linda would be left in charge and would inevitably end up taking over responsibility for the cat café, too. That was a terrifying prospect. The first thing to go would surely be my name above the door. It would be Ming’s café, rather than Molly’s, and pictures of Ming’s boss-eyed face would be plastered over every menu, napkin and apron in the place. Upstairs, the flat would become Beau’s domain, and the kittens and I would find ourselves outcasts, both upstairs and down.

I drew my tongue vigorously along the length of my hind leg, determined to drive the nightmarish vision from my mind. I had to remind myself that Debbie had swiftly dismissed the possibility of moving out, and she had even promised to speak to Linda about her leaving. When Jo had finally left the café and they were both slightly the worse for wear, Jo’s parting words to Debbie had been, ‘So, don’t forget: you’re going to talk to Linda tomorrow.’

Debbie had nodded emphatically. ‘Absholutely,’ she had slurred, ‘I’m going to give Linda her marching orders. Or, if not, I’m going to send her round to your place!’

I drifted off to sleep, comforted by the thought that, as long as Debbie kept her word, there were grounds for hoping that the long ordeal of living with Linda might soon come to an end.

During the night, however, Debbie thrashed around under her duvet, waking up almost hourly to gulp down water from the glass by her bed. When her alarm clock sounded in the morning, she emerged from underneath the covers with dark shadows beneath her blood-shot eyes. She yanked the cord of the venetian blind and winced painfully in a shaft of early-morning sunlight.

Debbie was waiting for the kettle to boil in the kitchen when Linda finally stumbled out of the living room, looking similarly sallow-skinned and scarecrow-haired. She had not returned from her night out until after Debbie had gone to bed, and I guessed she too had been drinking. I had heard her unsteady footsteps in the hallway, and her tipsy shushing of Beau as she opened the living-room door.

Linda skulked around the hallway while Debbie stood watching the gurgling kettle.

‘Morning,’ Debbie grunted, to which Linda mumbled something indistinct in reply. They seemed in unspoken agreement that no conversation would be attempted until after they had both had a cup of tea. I stalked between the living room and kitchen while they prepared their breakfast, waiting twitchily for Debbie to fulfil her promise to Jo.

After they had consumed tea and toast, and the colour had begun to return to their cheeks, Debbie asked how Linda’s evening had been. Linda launched into a tirade of gossip about her friends, to which Debbie listened patiently, her face a mask of polite indifference. ‘She kept insisting it wasn’t Botox,’ Linda smirked conspiratorially at the conclusion of her complicated narrative, ‘but I’ve never found a face cream that effective.’ She raised her eyebrows and gave a knowing look over the top of her mug of tea.

Debbie gave a fake sort of laugh, waited for a moment until she was sure Linda had finished, then sat forward earnestly in her chair.