Felix The Railway Cat

That said, the cat returned to work with far more enthusiasm than most workers do following the Christmas break. Jean and Felix had spent both Christmas Day and Boxing Day 2012 together, then Jean had carried Felix back to the station on 27 December, which was also Jean’s first day back in the booking office. When Jean had opened the door of the carry case, the railway cat had come straight out as if she’d never been away and immediately got on with her work. She’d sauntered along the platforms, giving a contented nod to the customers as if she was saying, with some satisfaction, ‘I’m home.’

Not that she didn’t enjoy her holidays. Felix was a curious and adventurous cat with many human friends, and her annual jaunts to stay in the different homes of her colleagues for Christmas had always been fun affairs. This year, naturally, would be no different. As always, her first priority was to suss out the lie of the land.

Jean let the cat get settled before changing out of the uniform she’d been wearing for her shift that morning. She pulled on some tartan pyjamas and shrugged a cosy pink dressing gown on over the top. She liked to get changed after work, and she and Felix wouldn’t be going out again that evening; it would be just the two of them on the sofa instead: the cat lady and the cat. Nice company for each other on this Christmas Eve night.

Jean padded back down the stairs to see how Felix was getting on. Perhaps she would be lying on the new fleecy blanket Jean had bought for her bedding. Or maybe she’d be in the kitchen/diner, where her litter tray was laid out. Well-trained by her mother Lexi, Felix was still diligent in using the litter tray, even though she tended to do her business outdoors at the station. It seemed there were some things you never forgot.

Because Felix was a cat so accustomed to being outdoors and to coming and going as she pleased, the only hardship of her holidays was that Jean would be keeping her indoors for the entire visit, as she had done two years before. Felix was far from home and had travelled to Jean’s house in a car – Jean didn’t want her getting lost or running off. The idea of returning to the station after Christmas without the station cat and having to break the news that she’d lost her didn’t bear thinking about. Team leader Angie Hunte would probably kill her.

When Jean got downstairs, Felix was pottering happily about in the living room, swishing her fluffy black tail as she wandered this way and that, her whiskers quivering as she sniffed all the exciting new smells. Jean joined her.

‘All right, my darling?’ Jean asked as the two of them ambled about the big living room, Felix still exploring and Jean doing some tidying up. There was a large coffee table in the middle of the room; Jean was standing on one side of it and Felix on the other. As it was now late afternoon on Christmas Eve, it was dark outside the French doors: a thick blanket of black had already settled upon the town.

Jean chattered away to Felix, conscious of the cat’s eyes upon her as she moved about the room. When Felix was staying at her house, the feline often followed her movements obsessively, as though she didn’t want to let Jean out of her sight.

Which was why, when the cat’s gaze was no longer trained upon her, Jean felt its absence, as surely as if a spotlight had been suddenly switched off.

Jean was a mother of grown-up kids, and she felt an eerily familiar sensation as the cat stopped looking at her. It was just like when her boys had been small: she’d always instinctively known they were up to something when they went quiet.

She glanced over at Felix on the other side of the coffee table. The cat had turned away from Jean and was facing the unlit fireplace, sitting there and looking, as though deep in thought. As she watched, Felix’s head inclined to one side and her whiskers twitched. There was a tension in the cat’s body, as though she was about to do something, but what it was Jean couldn’t imagine.

‘Felix?’ she asked uncertainly.

And then Felix ran up the chimney.

She leapt over the hearth in one jump and dived athletically up into the open chimney above, through which – perhaps – she could smell fresh air and freedom. All Jean could see was her tail and her two back legs as she scrabbled and scraped against the sooty chimney in her bid to climb up, up, up and away.

‘FELIX!’ yelled Jean at the top of her voice. She scrambled round the coffee table, which suddenly seemed like an obstacle upon which Felix had counted for a few seconds’ delay. Nevertheless, somehow Jean managed to grab those wriggling back legs with both hands before they completely disappeared from view.

Her heart was pounding. I can’t let her escape, I can’t let her escape ran the mantra in her head.