In that lifetime I was devoted to Ellen. I followed her down the road to school, and in the afternoons I ran to meet her when she returned, her face pale and her eyes full of pain. As soon as she saw me Ellen came alive again and we danced in the garden, or she let me sit on the piano while she played the black and white keys with her small hands. I loved music and the vibrations of it tingled in my fur. Sometimes Ellen played sad music and I’d lie with my chin on the piano top, watching her eyes and sharing those deep feelings with her. Then she’d play fast melodies that rippled through the house and through my bones.
I heard the same music now, in my dream, and I was a dancing cat, whirling on the lawn with Ellen who loved to dance so much. The air was alive with coloured ribbons and we were generating happiness. It was billowing out from the garden in clouds of stars, all fizzing and popping, and crowds of people were gathering round us in a circle. They had come for healing, bringing their sad faces and their troubles, and Ellen and I were a wild child and a wild cat turning sadness into joy.
Ellen’s face shone in my dream, she was looking at me, holding me and saying, ‘Wait for me, Solomon. Wait and I will come back for you.’
The music in my dream changed and I awoke to the sound of pouring rain, the whole copse dripping with silvery drops and water that gurgled down the lane.
When the rain was over Jessica gave me a demonstration of how to hunt mice. Catching them was no problem for me, but finding them in a copse full of soaking wet leaves was difficult. Jessica knew exactly where they were and she quietly caught two and gave one to me.
‘It’s no good just practising pounces,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to watch and smell out the places where they live.’
‘I’d rather have Whiskas rabbit,’ I said.
‘Poof,’ she said. ‘Tinned stuff? This is the real deal.’
Later that morning we went to look at the caravan. Joe’s bedroom curtains were still drawn and it was quiet. Pam was outside talking to Nick, and they were picking up the dripping wet things Joe had thrown out, putting them all into a black bag. I wanted to run to Pam. She would give me a cuddle and a compliment, and probably a meal.
‘No,’ said Jessica. ‘Look what’s happening now. They’ve got the cat basket.’
Pam was dragging our travelling basket out from under the caravan.
‘I can catch them, easy,’ she said. ‘They know me.’
‘You hang on to the basket then, Pam,’ said Nick. ‘It’s a bit premature to catch the cats yet. Wait till Joe’s sober and he might want them. But he’ll have to go. I can’t be doing with this.’
‘Ellen worshipped those cats,’ said Pam. ‘But if she’s not coming back and she can’t find a place to rent that takes cats, they’ve got to go somewhere. The RSPCA will find homes for them.’
I knew that word. RSPCA. Pam stood there swinging the cat basket, and I remembered how firmly Joe had stuffed us both in there. Jessica and I looked at each other. We didn’t need to say it. We would have to disappear, go deep into the countryside and live like wild cats.
I watched Pam for one more minute. She’d been a good friend, and I would have liked to say goodbye. I saw her walk across to something else that Joe had thrown out of the caravan. She picked it up slowly.
‘Eee. Ellen loved this. What a shame.’ She held up the amber velvet cushion. It was sopping wet and the drops glistened on the beautiful velvet.
‘I’ll look after this,’ Pam said to Nick. ‘I’m going to wash it, dry it out and make it nice again.’
She walked away with the cat basket in one hand and the amber velvet cushion in the other. I so wanted to run after Pam. If only I’d known what was going to happen, I would have jumped into that cat basket and dragged Jessica in with me.
Jessica was already trotting purposefully through the copse however. Her instinct was strong. She wouldn’t hang around. I followed her dubiously over the far hedge and across the fields, on and on she led me, and she wouldn’t turn around. She paused only once, to hiss at a cow who had lowered her head to sniff at her. At the far end of the field we crossed a stone stile into the deep woods. My angel tried to speak to me, and I ignored her. She was trying to tell me to let Jessica go, but I wouldn’t. Jessica needed me, and I needed her.
The stone stile seemed like a bridge to another world: green pathways, and mossy banks and ferns. Ancient trees with roots curling into stone walls, hollows, and holes full of leaves. I was aware of tiny faces watching us, other creatures who lived in the wood, fairy folk and gnomes. Jessica had obviously been in the enchanted wood before. She led me to a dry cave under a beech tree. It was lined with springy moss and a deep bed of rustling beech leaves.
Our place. It was OK. Even better than the badger hole, which was too close to the caravan. We didn’t want to be found and put in that cat cage.