Felix The Railway Cat

She faded into the shadows along Platform 1, her inky black fur camouflaging her in the dark. Only every now and again would an observer see a flash of white at her tail, neck or paws. If she was looking in a certain direction, her white patches concealed from view, you wouldn’t spot her at all. Only when she moved would you realise: cat, not shadow.

But there were still plenty of jobs for the station cat to do. The team in the office would print out the reservation stubs at night, and Felix took it upon herself to oversee proceedings. She liked to watch as the details were printed out on the thick white card, as though checking that no customer was going to be without their booked seat – not on her watch. The Metro man would drop off his delivery of newspapers and Felix would sometimes observe as he threw them into the pink metal display holder that stored them in the concourse, ready for the commuters to collect in a few hours’ time. Felix was always fed at night, too, so she made it her number-one priority to hassle whichever team leader was on duty as soon as she felt a bit peckish. She would miaow demandingly for food, her tail wagging constantly in anticipation, licking her lips, until her meaty meal – made by the cat-food company ‘Felix’ – had been squeezed from its shiny pouch into her bowl and she could devour it hungrily.

At 05.00 every morning, the team leader would once again walk to the main entrance and slide back the bolt to throw open the doors. The night shift was almost over. The station lights were on a timer, so as soon as the first streaks of sunrise started to show themselves in the sky, a sensor would be alerted. As daylight began to spill across the station, the electric lights would automatically switch off.

In the April of 2012, however, the night shift being over didn’t mean that night-time was. Sunrise was around half past six when the month began, so it was still dark as Felix and her colleagues at the station went about opening up their world again: pulling up the shades in the ticket office, which opened at 5.45 a.m.; firing up the coffee machines in the catering concessions, so that the scent of freshly ground beans began to fill the air; wiping down the paintwork and the walls with a clean damp cloth to make sure that everything was shipshape before the working day really began. The sleeping trains on the platforms stirred, engines starting to rumble and whir. Many headed off immediately, due to begin their services at other stations, while others waited expectantly for the customers who would be boarding at Huddersfield.

Felix was often on duty for the morning rush hour, too, though she tended to avoid the evening crush. As she waited by the bike racks, seeing the sun come up, the little station cat seemed very much at home. She listened as Martin made his announcements; watched as her colleagues strode about, assisting and guiding customers on the platforms. Everybody was hard at work.

Felix was too, of course. She had a routine by now, which usually involved a stint or two at the customer-information desk. She had proved that she was great with customers, and she had saved the day in several stressful situations. All in all, she was a fantastic colleague – everyone agreed.

There was just one problem.

With Felix approaching her first birthday, the so-called ‘pest controller’ had still not caught a single mouse.

17. The Pest Controller

It wasn’t as though she hadn’t tried. Felix was well-practised at her prowling technique. She knew how to drop to her belly and creep along; knew (in her head, at least) that she had to stay still until the last possible moment and then pounce. But none of her oh-so-serious stalking sessions was ever successful.

She’d given it her best shot with the rabbits, but they had bounded away infuriatingly fast. Next, she’d turned her attention to the pigeons (much less scary than the crows). It was easier said than done to catch a bird, however, not least because the savvy pigeons tended to save their scavenging trips for when the railway cat was AWOL. You’d sometimes get one doing a reconnaissance trip, soaring the length of the platform with its cat-seeking radar on high alert, a drum-roll sound echoing under the iron roof as its flapping wings beat out a rhythm. If she was there, the bird would keep on flying, doing a graceful curve at the end of Platform 1 before ascending into the girders in the roof, where he would join his fellows to coo the warning: ‘Not yet.’

But, every now and again, one brave (or foolish) pigeon would totter along the platform within Felix’s sights, its head bobbing like a woodpecker’s as it greedily tried to pick up crumbs from the platform, moving its beak so fast it was a blur.