‘I’ll take you home in the car,’ Angie said.
‘No.’ Leroy shook his head.
‘No? Why not?’ asked Angie.
Leroy looked up at her with desolate eyes.‘Mum’s not there.’
‘So where is she?’
‘I dunno.’ He shrugged again. ‘She left home.’
‘What?’ Angie looked alarmed. ‘Since when?’
‘Since … I dunno … about a week ago.’
‘A WEEK! Who’s looking after you, Leroy?’
‘No one. I got a key … and I got half a loaf of bread, and some cornflakes.’
There was a silence. Leroy looked at the floor for a long time. When he raised his eyes they were even more desolate.‘I didn’t tell no one, Miss. I don’t want to go into care. Can I live with you, Miss? Please … I won’t be no trouble.’
Angie stared at him.‘Why me?’
‘I don’t like anyone else.’ Leroy’s voice was painfully husky. ‘Only you … and Timba. Please, Miss.’ He shuffled towards Angie and gave her a hug.
‘Oh Leroy! You poor kid.’ She hugged him back, and Graham stood with his arms folded, shaking his head and mouthing ‘NO’ at Angie.
The carefree atmosphere in our home changed from that day, and it was all about Leroy. Angie and Graham talked far into the night, one each end of the sofa, Vati and I blissfully asleep between them. Vati wasn’t bothered about what the humans were talking about, but I was. Pretending to be asleep, I listened to snatches of the conversation and felt sure that Angie was winning. I was gunning for her, being her lucky black cat. She talked fast, waving her hands around, and Graham was grunting and sighing. I kept opening one eye to peep at Angie and let her know I was on her side. If only she knew what I knew about Graham … the secrets he’d often confided to me when he came in late and Angie was in bed.
‘I’m glad you can’t talk, Timba,’ and then he’d tell me about a woman called Lisa and how he couldn’t help falling in love with her, and wanted to be with her. ‘But Angie must never know. I don’t want to lose Angie, or hurt her, Timba. It’s our secret, isn’t it?’ Each time he said that, I’d look still deeper into his soul with my clear golden eyes, and see how his ‘secret’ was troubling him, and how tightly he was clutching all the threads of his life. I couldn’t make him let go. I couldn’t change him. All I could do was love him. It’s what cats do.
‘That was my mother’s clock,’ he said now, as the clock chimed midnight. ‘And she had a big heart … a heart of gold … like you, Angie.’ He reached across the back of the sofa and touched her hair, moving a curl away from her cheek. ‘If Mum was here, she’d want me to say yes.’
I looked at the blaze of light by his left shoulder, and saw within it a lovely old lady, with a face like Graham’s, a coil of silver hair, and a smile that warmed the air in a circle around him and Angie. She looked at me kindly, and I gave her a cat smile. Then she waved, and vanished, leaving a glow around us all.
‘So … yes … OK. Let’s give it a go,’ Graham said heavily.
Angie leapt to her feet and flung her arms around him.‘I knew you would! Bless you, Graham. It’s right. I know it’s right.’ And she danced round the sofa. ‘The Universe has sent us a child!’
Graham smiled, reluctantly, as if his face was out of control.‘Don’t get too euphoric,’ he warned. ‘It won’t be easy with young Leroy.’
‘I can put up with the cats,’ Graham said heavily. ‘In fact I quite like them. But I can only tolerate THAT BOY in small doses.’
I knew he meant Leroy. Vati and I sat together in our basket, dozing, our eyes half closed, listening to the apparently endless discussions about Leroy. Graham only ever said that to Angie in private. When the‘social workers’ came with their sheaves of paper and laptops, and serious faces, Graham pretended to be busy. Or he would shrug and be dismissive. ‘Angie and I are not married,’ he said now. ‘As far as I’m concerned she’s free to do whatever she wants. If she wants to foster Leroy,that’s fine, but she, not me, is responsible for him.’
‘But will you welcome him into your home?’
‘I am prepared to,’ Graham said. ‘I realise Leroy hasn’t had a male role model, and I’ll do my best. But Angie is the foster parent, not me.’
‘He’s brilliant with him actually,’ Angie said.
‘But is your relationship strong?’
Angie and Graham looked at each other.
‘Totally,’ said Angie, with fire in her eyes. ‘We are soulmates.’
‘Hmm.’
Graham maintained an uncomfortable silence, and obviously the social workers didn’t ‘do’ soulmates.
I gave Vati a shove with my nose. The humans were getting too serious. We jumped out of the basket and confronted each other, making terrible fish faces and pretending we were deadly enemies. Vati arched his back, leaped sideways and embarked on a wild, rug-crunching challenge with me trying to catch him, then hiding and trying to head him off. When I pounced out at him, we collided in mid-air with our paws wide open like flowers.
Angie laughed, but no matter what we kittens did, Graham’s mouth just twitched, the social workers stayed po-faced, and the talking droned relentlessly on.