Molly and the Cat Cafe

One afternoon, during my first week in the flat, I was asleep on the sofa when she got home from school. She flung her rucksack across the room at the sofa, where its flying plastic clips caught the back of my head. I flew into the air in panic, my hackles raised and my tail fluffed. She did not apologize for her clumsiness, nor did she even acknowledge my presence. As I tried to wash away my mortification afterwards, the thought crossed my mind that she had known I was there and had thrown her bag at me deliberately. I could not understand why Sophie would have a grudge against me, but her behaviour left me in no doubt that she disliked me.

Debbie had placed a cardboard shoebox in the café’s bay window for me, which was where I often spent my mornings, observing the people who walked along the cobbled street in front of the café. The first to appear every day were grey-haired couples in waterproof coats and sensible shoes, on their way to the market square. Late morning was the time for young mums pushing buggies, with small children trailing behind them distractedly. Whenever the children noticed me in the window, they would drag their mothers over and point at me through the glass: ‘Look, Mummy, cat!’ and their mothers would smile wearily before pulling them away, with no time to dawdle.

There was one old woman who walked past the café on a daily basis, always wheeling a shopping trolley behind her. Something about her appearance perplexed me. Her posture and lined face reminded me of Margery, but rather than Margery’s silvery-grey waves, the lady’s hair was a strident reddish-brown, set fast around her head like a helmet. Her hair fascinated me as it never seemed to move, even when a strong wind was whipping up the canopies along the parade. Every time she saw me in the café window she scowled at me and, intrigued by her curious hair and angry expression, I would stare back.

Hardly any of the people who passed by on the street stepped foot inside the café, and it didn’t escape my notice that the café attracted very few customers at all. A few workers from nearby shops and offices would pop in for a quick sandwich at lunchtime, but other than that it was not uncommon for the café to remain empty from dawn till dusk. I understood now why there had always been such generous quantities of leftovers in the dustbin in the alley. As an alley-cat, it had been a blessing, but now I realized that it had been a sign that the café was struggling.

Almost a week had passed before it even crossed my mind to go outside and return to the alley that had, until recently, been my home. There was no access to the alley from the flat, and Debbie did not like me using the kitchen door, so my only route in and out was through the café’s front entrance. I waited till the café was about to close, reasoning that I would catch the tomcat as he came in search of the day’s leftovers. As soon as the church bells announced six o’clock, I slipped out of the café and around the corner to the alleyway. It was strange to see it again, through the eyes of a house-cat rather than a stray. I was struck by how exposed it was, and how draughty it felt, compared to the cosy flat up in the eaves. I sniffed the wall for the tom’s scent marks, but there was no trace of him. I jumped onto the dustbin lid to look for the tell-tale rips in the rubbish bags that would indicate his presence, but the black polythene remained intact.

Puzzled, my tail twitched. Surely the tomcat would arrive soon, I figured, so I sat down on the dustbin to wait. I waited until my paws felt stiff with cold, but still he did not appear. It was only now that I understood how much I had been looking forward to seeing him again, and telling him everything that had happened since I had crossed the café’s threshold. I was disappointed and hurt, feeling irrationally as if he had abandoned me. But my hurt quickly turned to guilt as I remembered the sudden nature of my departure, and that I had never told him of my plans. Had he wondered what had happened to me – maybe even worried for my safety? I felt a sharp pang of remorse for being so self-absorbed that I had not sought him out before now to explain what I had done.

I found my old sleeping place under the metal fire escape and settled down, determined to wait until he returned. But, apart from a squirrel dashing along the top of the dustbin, there was no sign of any other living thing in the alley apart from me. Eventually the café’s back door opened and Debbie poked her head out. ‘Molly, where are you? Here, puss.’ I could hear alarm in her voice; this was the first time I had left the café since she had taken me in, and I had been out for hours.