Eventually I jumped onto Angie’s lap and tried to calm her down. She was trying too hard, and I sensed it. To me she seemed like the only person in the room who was truly alive. Her passionate words were beating against a wall of resistance, and finally she lost her temper.
‘We are talking about an abandoned child,’ she stormed, and I felt the heat from her aura and the drumbeat of her heart under my fur. ‘Why make it so complicated? Leroy’s mother has abandoned him. He needs a home … NOW … not in six months’ time … and he wants to be with me. He’s made that perfectly clear. I’ve made my offer to be his foster mum … and it’s a good offer, so let’s stop nit-picking and make a decision for the sake of this child’s emotional well-being.’
Vati climbed the bookshelves and sat up there disapprovingly, like he always did if there was a row. He told me he was getting clear of the bad energy, sitting close to the ceiling.
I stayed with Angie. Her fire had never hurt me, and it didn’t now. ‘Bless you, Timba,’ she whispered into my fur, as the social worker snapped her laptop closed and stood up.
‘I hear what you’re saying, Angie,’ she said with infuriating calm. ‘We will make an assessment and let you know. Until then, Leroy can spend Saturdays with you. We’ll bring him out.’
When they had gone, Angie marched around, imitating the social workers.‘Make an assessment!’ she raged. ‘Meanwhile that boy is desperate. Ooh, I wish I could KIDNAP him.’
Chapter Nine
THE STRUGGLE
Vati spent most of his quiet time with Graham, who seemed bewitched by the attention from the elegant little cat. Vati waited until Graham was sprawled in a chair, and then walked gracefully up his arms, round his neck and shoulders, nibbling his ears and kissing his face. He usually ended up spreadeagled across Graham’s vast chest, being rocked gently by his breathing. Once Vati followed him into the music room with his tail up, and got away with walking along the keyboard. But then he sharpened his claws on the furniture and Graham shouted at him. ‘Stop that, Vati. NO.’ But Vati coolly went on doing it until he was satisfied. Graham tried to chase him, but Vati just sat there and looked up at him beguilingly, and in the end Graham picked him up, sighing. ‘We’ll have to find a way of stopping you doing that,’ he said.
Vati didn’t like Leroy, and when the boy came in on Saturday morning, and tried to pick him up, Vati used those sharp claws to scratch his hands.
‘Ow!’ Leroy looked at the beads of blood emerging from his skin, and Vati sat washing himself as if to cleanse all trace of Leroy from his fur.
‘He’s different from Timba,’ Angie said as she rubbed some cream on Leroy’s scratches. ‘Timba is tolerant. Vati is a hypersensitive cat. If you want to pick him up, you must ask permission.’
‘But how do you know whether he says yes or no?’ Leroy asked, frowning.
‘Well, he said NO very clearly, by scratching you,’ said Angie. ‘But it doesn’t have to come to that. A cat wouldn’t come over and scratch you for nothing, Leroy. So you have to approach him gently, and sense if he wants contact with you … and if he doesn’t, then you leave him alone.’
Leroy didn’t look convinced.
‘You wouldn’t like some giant to come and grab you and lift you up into the air, would you?’ said Angie.
‘I’d fight him.’ Leroy raised his fists. ‘Wham!’
‘Well that’s what Vati did. He’s teaching you.’
‘He’s not a teacher! He’s a cat.’
‘Cats are great teachers … and so are horses.’ Angie had a way of making her eyes sparkle with excitement when she was telling children something. Her eyes held Leroy mesmerised.
‘But they can’t talk,’ he said. ‘Teachers have to talk, don’t they?’
Angie shut her mouth and shook her head. Still looking at him, she picked up a rope from the pile of horse harnesses that was lying in the kitchen, and tried to give Leroy a silent demonstration of how to tie a knot. He ended up giggling, and so did she.
I loved to hear humans laughing. It fired me up like nothing else. I charged across the floor and pounced on a horse harness, getting it in a tangle, and making Vati leap in the air like a grasshopper. The house rang with laughter.
Only Graham was silent, skulking behind a crackly newspaper which was covered in gloom. The soles of his feet twitched as if he was annoyed by the fun rampaging through his house … and it was his house, not Angie’s house, as he frequently reminded us.
The long hot summer was a happy time for Vati and me. We were young cats now, almost fully grown. Everyone admired me, and that helped me to become loving and confident. I loved it when Graham looked at me and said,‘That cat is really chocolate box.’
Angie spent a lot of time patiently teaching Leroy how to talk to me, how to hold me kindly, and how to tune in to my needs. He seemed like a different boy, the boy he wanted to be. On his weekly visits I never heard him cry, and all the time his eyes were wide open with wonder at the new things he was discovering.