It was a summer day, many weeks after I’d found the abandoned baby. The weather was so hot that it hurt my paws to walk on the patio. I was rolling on my back on the lawn, enjoying the sun on my belly and dabbing at passing flies.
‘Come on, Fuzzball.’ Gretel appeared in a flimsy blue dress, twiddling her car keys. ‘We’ll go to the supermarket. At least they’ve got air conditioning in there.’
If I’d known what was going to happen, I’d never have let her pick me up, tuck me under her arm and put me in the car. It was hot in there, but she drove along with the window open. Lovely, except for the smell of a crowded town, the exhaust fumes, lawns being mown, the bakeries and the pubs. Faraway was the briny tang of the river and the heather-covered moorland beyond the town, a scent on the wind that stirred a deep ancestral longing in me. Being a domestic cat was OK, but I had a wild streak in me that wasn’t satisfied with fluffy cat beds and cat-nip mice.
There was a bad atmosphere in town. A sense of something simmering, about to erupt. People looked knocked out by the heat. Children were crying and dogs were being dragged along on leads on the hot pavements.
‘I’ll bring you an ice cream,’ said Gretel, turning into the supermarket car park. She found a parking space, shut the windows and got out. ‘I won’t be long, Fuzzball.’
I sighed and settled down for a snooze. Used to being left in the car, I curled up, wrapped my tail around myself and closed my eyes.
Within minutes I was too hot. It wasn’t like lying by the fire and having to move away from the heat. I was trapped in it, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. Alarmed, I climbed up onto the back of the seats, but it was worse up there near the roof of the car. Outside, the car roofs shimmered in the heat, dazzling me. I wanted to shut my eyes, but I was frightened. I clawed at the window, hoping to open it and get some air. It was so hot I had to breathe with my mouth open like a dog.
I longed for water but Gretel hadn’t left me any. Desperately, I licked a few drops of condensation from the window glass, then worked my way round each of the windows, licking what moisture I could find, and all the time getting hotter and hotter.
There was no way of cooling myself down. I tore at my thick fur, trying to get some air on my skin, but nothing worked. I dug and scrabbled at the floor of the car, trying to find a hole or a crack I could make bigger with my teeth and claws. Soon my feet were burning, my claw sheaths sore, and my throat so dry. I was being dried up, cooked alive in that oven of a car.
Where was my angel? Where was she?
I listened. I kept still and called her name in my heart. The Angel of Secrets. Angel of Secrets. Angel … I was giddy now, and her voice came to me from far away. My body was collapsing and I just lay there panting. All I could hear was the alarming echo of my heartbeat, the rasp of my breath, and the distant whisper of her voice, repeating over and over again,‘Don’t give up. Don’t give up. Meow and someone will come. Meow. You must meow.’
I fought to stay awake, but I was losing consciousness, sinking into a boiling black darkness. I did meow, and it was loud, and painful. Yet my body seemed to take over and meow by itself, draining my last dregs of energy, calling, calling for help.
As I finally lost consciousness, I saw a face looking through the glass at me, and it wasn’t Gretel.
I drifted through the dark, and reached the shoreline of the spirit world. A high fence of the brightest gold sent out beams of light spangled with pinpoints of intense colour. I sat before it and gazed through into the world I had loved so much, the spirit world where I was the Queen of Cats. Telepathically, I begged for the golden fence to open and let me through, let me go home, let me leave this body of pain lying in the hot car.
The voices I heard were muddled.
‘Come back, Queen of Cats. You still have work to do.’ That was my angel, and from beyond the golden fence I could hear purring. Loud, vibrational purring from the shining cats who had purred with me in the spirit world. They weren’t welcoming me, but sending me back, floating on a carpet of purring.
I drifted back to the sound of human voices around the car. Someone saying,‘That poor cat in there!’ and ‘We have to get it out. NOW!’
My world exploded with a bang. A storm of broken glass scattered over me, into my fur and all over the car. Dazed, I saw the emerald green of the broken pieces. The air rushed in, and a pair of long arms reached through the hole in the window. I felt my limp body being lifted out.
‘I’ve got him.’
‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’
‘Not quite. And it’s a she cat. She’s beautiful.’
Someone ran with me to the shade of a big plane tree and laid me on a bench. I felt the slats of wood under me, and the deliciously cool canopy of the great tree. But I couldn’t move. My breathing was laboured, my eyes wouldn’t shut, and I was salivating.
‘There’s no time to get her to a vet.’