I waited until Joe’s car had gone squealing out of the campsite. I listened, and I could hear Jessica rustling and growling as she ate her stolen dinner under the hedge. From the caravan came the sound of Ellen trying to comfort John, and the clink of plates being stacked. I was anxious. I wanted to go straight inthere and do my job with the healing stars and the purring, but I was finding it increasingly difficult to go into the caravan. It was cramped and smelly now. John’s toys were everywhere, and my sunny windowsill was often covered in damp washing, so there was nowhere for me to sit.
It was nearly dark and the sky was an ominous glassy purple. A storm was brewing and I didn’t want to be inside that shuddering caravan. I felt guilty too. My job as a cat was to look after Ellen, and I wasn’t doing it. Nothing was the same.
Before we moved into the caravan, the rows between Joe and Ellen had been stormy but brief. Joe had usually come back sorry and ashamed with a bunch of flowers or a box of cream cakes. He’d sit on the sofa with Ellen cuddled up to him and they’d talk far into the night. Joe did most of the talking, trying to explain how guilty he felt and why he lost his temper, and Ellen always forgave him. Jessica and I used to bask in the healing atmosphere, both of us purring, happy cats onthe warm sofa where there was plenty of room for all of us. Two cats on two laps, and John falling asleep nestled in between his mum and dad.
But now the rows went on and on, and there were no apologies, no flowers and no cream cakes. Joe resented living in the caravan, and that night when he came back from the pub, instead of sitting up with Ellen, he stomped off to bed and slammed the door. Ellen popped outside to call Jessica who was out there somewhere in the cold, too frightened to come in. Then she sat with us on her lap, and I could feel the sadness in her heart.
‘I had a cat just like you, Solomon,’ she told me as I stretched my paws over her thin shoulders, and Jessica lay there playfully patting the wispy ends of Ellen’s hair. ‘When I was a child. He was called Solomon too, and he used to run down the road to meet me from school. I read him stories and played him music on the piano.’ Her voice broke into a sob. ‘Oh I wish we still had my piano. I miss it so much. And Joe is so angry.’
That night she slept on the long caravan seat with a rug over her, and we snuggled in there with her. I stayed awake, worrying about what Joe was going to do in the morning.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ I asked my angel, and she went into one of her silences.
‘He’s in prison,’ she said eventually.
‘Prison?’ I knew what prison was. A cat cage for humans.
‘It’s a prison made of anger,’ said my angel. ‘He’s made it himself and he’s keeping the door locked. No one has sent him there.’
I pondered on these words while rain pounded on the roof. I remembered the badgers out in the copse and wondered what it would be like to be wild. Just before dawn, the rain stopped and orange sunshine filtered through wet branches. Ellen and John got up quietly. No one wanted to wake Joe. The row they’d had was still alive, a grumpy troll lurking under a bridge, like the one in John’s favourite story. It was calledBilly Goats Gruff, and I’d heard it lots of times. Now I felt we were all tiptoeing over that scary bridge, and the tiniest creak would rouse the sleeping troll.
After such a rough night, Jessica and I were glad to stretch out side by side on the sunny windowsill, and I drifted into a deep sleep until mid-morning. A loud thump woke me, and the caravan shuddered. A cup fell off the table and rolled across the floor. I heard Ellen shouting.
‘You’re not having the car keys, Joe. You’re drunk.’
There was a chilling sound of glass smashing and peppering down like hailstones, and John started to cry. Then the caravan shook again. Thump, thump, thump. The troll was awake.
We two cats sprang to life and bolted outside, straight under the hedge. Those first weeks had taught us that the caravan was not a safe place. The only haven for us was outside in one of our hiding places. We crouched under the bracken next to one another and Jessica suddenly did something very sweet. She stretched her cute little face to me and touched noses. I kissed her back and our white whiskers brushed together.
It made me feel a whole lot better.
‘It’ll be OK,’ she said. ‘Let them get on with it. We’ve got each other haven’t we?’
I gave her a special purr-meow.
Then we huddled together and listened.
‘What is the matter with you, Joe? You never used to be like this.’ Ellen was clutching the car keys in her hand. ‘And how did this car window get smashed? Tell me.’
Joe was leaning on the car, with one hand pushed into his ginger hair. His eyes were tightly shut, and clenched in his other hand was a hammer.
‘Go to your room, John and stay there please,’ said Ellen, steering John up the steps and into the caravan. ‘Please sweetheart. Mummy will sort this out.’