‘That’s your star,’ I said. ‘When you’d gone on the boat I stared at it and imagined it was you. Then my angel told me to follow it, and it led me back here from miles up the hill.’
Jessica looked pensive.
‘I wish I had an angel like you’ve got,’ she said.
I was horrified.
‘Of course you have one,’ I said. ‘Every cat has.’
‘But I’ve never seen mine,’ she said.
‘I’ll teach you how to. When the sun rises again.’
‘Won’t the moon do? Look!’
We peered out and saw a white moon and a path of silver glistening on the water.
‘Let’s never be apart again,’ I said as we sat pressed close together in the moonlight.
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Let’s vow never to leave each other.’
‘Together forever,’ I said, and we touched noses.
Later I was to look back with gratitude and realise that this trip to the sea was Jessica’s last amazing gift to me.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_11]
THE DIARY OF A DESPERATE CAT
We stayed at the harbour for a few wonderful days, allowing my paws to heal. The rest and the meals of fresh fish did us good. Every morning Jessica ran down the steps with her tail up to meet the fisherman she had made friends with, and he gave her a fish that was like the biggest sardine in the world. Its skin shone with green and purple, and it tasted delicious to us. Jessica managed to share it with me without growling, so I felt very special and loved.
We even talked of setting up home in this sunny harbour. Until one morning there was no light on the water, and the stone quay was trembling with the pounding of waves. The seagulls stood hunched with their beaks to the wind, and when they were flying, the gale was blowing them backwards. Jessica and I were curled together, keeping each other warm, and we didn’t want to put our heads out into the storm. But the waves got louder and more powerful as the tide surged in. Hard white beads of spray splattered across the quay, and cold salty water came sweeping right under our nest.
‘Move … quickly!’ said Jessica ‘Or we’ll be washed into the sea.’
Horrified, we looked outside and saw clouds of spray exploding high into the air, hissing across the quay like hail. A swerving mass of white moved between us and the safety of the land.
‘RUN!’
My paws were still tender, but I dashed after Jessica, following her flying figure along the quay with the wind whisking us through the spray, perilously close to the edge.
‘Don’t let us die in that wild sea,’ I prayed as I ran, my paws skidding on bits of seaweed, and my fur drenched by the flying spray. I don’t know how we got to the cliff path but we did, and there we were sheltered from the wind by banks of heather and thrift. The path was like a low tunnel with the wind whistling overhead.
We both knew our holiday was over. There would be no more fish and no more gazing at a sunlit sea. Winter storms were chasing us inland, back to the safety of our cave under the beech tree. We didn’t stop to talk. After the first mad dash we slowed to a steady trot and all I had to do was follow Jessica. Over the fields and into the woods where the wind in the high branches roared like the wild sea.
Our fur was wet and we looked spikey and bedraggled when we finally arrived at the beech cave. It was comforting to find that more dry leaves had been blown in and piled up inside. We settled in with much rustling, and licked each other’s wet fur. I remembered how kindly Ellen used to dry me with a soft towel if I’d been out in the rain. I remembered the radiator, the sofa and the amber velvet cushion.
Where was Ellen now, and what would she think if she saw us soaking wet, shivering and hungry? Facing a winter in the wild wood, living on mice, surviving cold nights with only each other and a pile of beech leaves to keep us warm.
As the last leaves fell from the trees, the days got shorter and darker, the nights longer, and the homesickness deeper. Without Jessica I couldn’t have endured it. She was an expert hunter, better than me, and even when the mice had disappeared for the winter, she still managed to find one, and sometimes, one each. But I still thought longingly of the easy, tasty cat food Ellen used to give us.
Through the long nights I stayed awake, thinking of the piano and how I’d loved to sit on it while Ellen played. I thought about little John showing me his picture of me, and Pam calling me a ‘heaven sent cat’. I even thought of Joe and how warm he was to sit on, and how he’d cried when I gave him healing. Where were they all now?
After we had lived wild for several weeks, I was awoken one night by a terrible yowling and screaming sound nearby. Jessica was not in the cave with me, although this wasn’t unusual as sometimes she went out early to hunt for mice while it was still dark.
I crept out of the cave and sat listening. Above me the stars were tangled in the bare branches of the wood, and the twiggy silhouettes of rooks’ nests. It was silent. Then the yowling and screaming began again, and the crashing sound of two animals rolling and struggling with each other.