‘But she might do something terrible to you, Vati.’ As I spoke those words, I had a disturbing vision of Vati lying on the vet’s table, very sick. Then I saw him hunched miserably in the corner of the sofa, shocked and depressed, the way Angie had been. ‘Please, please don’t do this, Vati,’ I begged.
‘I’m staying with Graham,’ he said stubbornly, his paws locked neatly together, the tip of his tail twitching.
I flew at him, my fury beyond words. We rolled on the floor, screeching and yowling. For the first time ever, our claws were out and we were hurting each other. I bit Vati’s ear and he fled upstairs. I thundered after him and cornered him on the landing. We faced each other like two furious dragons, our tails lashing. Vati’s pink mouth was open in a convincing snarl, but his frightened eyes were black with disbelief.
Vati was lithe and strong, but I had the weight, and the fury, to dominate him. We might have seriously injured one another if Leroy hadn’t intervened.
‘Timba and Vati are killing each other!’ he shouted to Angie who was stacking books into boxes.
‘Oh they’re just playing.’
‘No … it’s for real. And Vati’s got a tuft of Timba’s fur in his mouth.’
Leroy grabbed Vati and dragged him backwards. Vati struggled wildly, his claws out, leaving Leroy with long red scratches on his arms and hands. He chased Vati downstairs and lay on the floor, glowering at him under the sofa and cursing.‘You are a horrible cat, hurting my Timba, and scratching me.’
‘Never intervene between two fighting cats,’ said Angie wisely as she once again patched Leroy’s scratches and calmed him down.
Eat, I thought, and headed for the kitchen, meowing. Predictably Angie came and fed me.‘Are you OK, Timba?’ she asked, running her fingers through my fur. ‘You look a bit ruffled. You’ve got such thick fur, you won’t miss a bit of it.’
Vati stayed under the sofa.
Soon it was time for us to go, and Angie put me in the luxurious travelling basket. There was plenty of room for two cats.
Graham stood in the window silently, with Vati in his arms.
I never even got to say goodbye to my beloved brother.
And Angie didn’t say goodbye to Graham, but stepped into the car with her shoulders back, and a brave smile on her face.
The parting was painful.
Driving down the lane we passed the gate to the horse field, and Poppy was standing there whinnying and kicking the gate with her hoof. Angie stopped the car and got out.‘Stay there … I won’t be a minute,’ she said to Leroy, and bounded over to Poppy.
The horse changed her shrill whinny to a soft whicker of greeting. She lowered her head, her chestnut mane fluttering like a flame in the breeze, her eyes loving and anxious. Angie flung her arms around the horse’s neck and clung there as if she’d never let go. I knew, from the way her shoulders were heaving, that she was crying.
‘Goodbye … darling, darling Poppy,’ she wept. ‘Laura will look after you, and one day … one day we’ll be together again. Thank you for all the rides.’ She paused, trying to breathe the tears away, and her voice cracked into fragments. ‘Angie … will always … always loveyou.’
She might have stayed there hugging Poppy, but a car came along the narrow lane, and stopped, unable to get by.
‘Sorry, guys!’ Angie climbed back into the car and drove on, leaving Poppy watching us go, her dark eyes sad.
The three of us, Leroy, Angie and me, set off on our journey. Over the dark blue hills and across the shining river. The brave half of a broken family.
Chapter Twelve
ACROSS THE SHINING RIVER
The Spirit Lion managed to talk to me while we were bombing along in Angie’s car. I was meowing a lot, wanting to tell the world how sad I felt about parting with Vati, how I didn’t want to be a lonely cat and have to make decisions on my own. How frightened I was, despite the lovely travelling basket. How badly I wanted to go home.
Leroy kept twisting round to talk to me.‘It’s OK, Timba. We going to live in WALES,’ he said, ‘and there’s mountains and steam trains.’
‘Timba’s not impressed,’ said Angie. ‘It might be best to tell him we’ll have a cosy home with a fire, and a kitchen with dishes of tuna.’
‘Cheer up, Timba. You can have a massive dish of Whiskas chicken,’ Leroy said. ‘And there might be a cat next door you can play with.’
I heard him, but couldn’t stop meowing. It was like crying. The contact with Leroy did help marginally, his big eyes looking at me in concern, and his finger pushed through the top of the basket. A tiny speck of comfort in my hollow cave of grief and anxiety.
Angie had shown me the dark blue hills, but they didn’t seem to be getting any closer. As for the shining river … I’d never seen a shining river, but I knew rivers had something to do with water. Bad news for a cat!