We were protecting TammyLee, Amber leaning firmly against her legs, and me sitting on her lap, gazing into her soul. Fear danced in her green eyes, yet they shone with courage and maternal defensiveness. I was proud to be her cat.
The house was quiet now, after a long day of noise and energy from downstairs. The water had gone, leaving mud over everything, the sofa was out in the garden, and people who Max called volunteers had been sweeping and scrubbing all day. A new fire was roaring up the chimney, its blaze filling the sodden house with welcome heat.
Amber and I had a new bed each, and we were cosy in the spare room with the freedom to pad around the upstairs. I had a new cat-nip mouse and the walls reverberated with the sound of Amber gnawing a huge bone she’d been given.
The volunteers had just turned up, and the most surprising one was Dylan. He didn’t say much but shrugged and grunted as he worked fiendishly beside TammyLee, tearing up wet carpets and washing mud from the walls. Even Max managed to be civil to him. ‘It’s good to see you’re not afraid of hard work,’ he said.
‘I don’t need your approval, Pop.’ Dylan’s eyes blazed with contempt. I am doing it for Diana, ’cause she treated me like a human being.’ And he turned his back on Max and went on dragging a roll of wet carpet out of the door.
Upset by the activity, I kept going to the top of the stairs and meowing. TammyLee picked me up and cuddled me, and explained everything.‘We’re making the house good again, Tallulah. A lorry will come and take away the muddy carpets and stuff. Then another lorry will bring us a brand-new sofa and carpets, and one day soon, you can go downstairs again and it will be lovely. So don’t you worry, Tallulah.’
After that, I felt better. The sun streamed through the window onto TammyLee’s bed, and I slept for hours, only waking up when I heard Iris’s voice and sensed the weight of her struggling up the stairs.
‘It’s disgusting,’ she moaned, ‘they should’ve done that flood-prevention scheme years ago, not let it come to this. Disgusting, that’s what I call it.’
I knew why Iris had come. I’d been there with TammyLee the night before, when she’d privately told Diana about Rocky. Diana’s eyes had opened wide, and so had her arms. ‘Sweetheart,’ she’d whispered. ‘My poor girl … what were you THINKING? … You know I’d have stuck by you … Oh, darling girl.’ She’d held TammyLee in her arms, with the angels watching. The whole story had come tumbling out while Diana stroked her hair and I lay with her, purring. And afterwards, TammyLee seemed lighter and softer. The dark secret had gone. I saw the angels lifting it away, turning it into stardust.
The meeting had been arranged and Diana insisted it should be‘done nicely’, even persuading a tight-lipped Max to organise a tray with a tall pot of steaming coffee and a swirl of biscuits.
Dylan was the only one arrogantly munching biscuits through the meeting, which began with TammyLee saying those words:‘It was me.’
‘I TOLD you!’ said Iris triumphantly. ‘I told you it were ’er. Didn’t I say so? Written all over ’er face.’
‘Shut up, Mum … just hear her out,’ Dylan insisted. ‘MUM!’ he put a mud-stained hand on her shoulder and made her look at his compelling eyes. ‘Don’t make it worse.’
TammyLee glanced at him with something resembling gratitude, then back to Diana, who was looking at her with loving eyes.
‘I did have a baby,’ she began, and again the story emerged, this time clearly, without tears. Only quiet strength glowed from her aura, and everyone listened, even Amber, who’d been trying not to growl at Dylan. She told them how I’d been there, and saved Rocky’s life, and how she’d regretted what she’d done.
‘I know it was stupid,’ she concluded, ‘and wicked, what I did. And I’ve found out the baby’s been adopted, by a couple who couldn’t have kids of their own, and they love him. So … I don’t think we should interfere, and Mum agrees with me.’ She held up a letter. ‘We’re giving this to the adoption agency, for him to have when he’s older, if he wants to find me.’
Iris opened her mouth, and shut it again. That’s when I sensed that the angels were totally in charge of our meeting.
‘The best we can do,’ said Diana, ‘is to love that little boy in our hearts, always, and from a distance.’
I am only a cat, but in that moment, I felt like a human, with human emotions, as we all sat quiet, letting the words settle like leaves falling through sunlight.
I kissed TammyLee’s face, and put my velvet paws around her neck, but something didn’t feel right to me. I’d done my best, but the result was not what I’d expected. I wanted to stay with TammyLee, and be her cat, but there was a pain inside me, an old pain from when Gretel had left me in the hot car.
This time it didn’t go away.
Closing my eyes, I floated into sleep, and those words went with me.‘From a distance … from a distance.’