Dylan stood up.‘Look, Mum,’ he said, putting his face close to hers, ‘you know you can’t walk home in this rain, and there won’t be a bus for hours. Have some sense. This isn’t the last day in the history of the universe.’
Iris sighed. She glowered at TammyLee, and handed her a slip of paper.‘That’s my mobile number and, if I haven’t got the truth from you by tomorrow, I’ll be back … with the socials.’ She unzipped her handbag, extracted a voluminous pink raincoat from a pouch and put it on with much rustling.
As soon as they had gone, TammyLee let Amber out of the conservatory, and we listened to the rain pounding the glass roof, and the splashing of Max’s car driving off into the night.
Diana and TammyLee stayed on the sofa, not speaking, but TammyLee wouldn’t look at her mum. I returned to the warm hearth rug with Amber and began to wash vigorously, feeling I needed to cleanse my coat of the last traces of the hostility Iris had generated in our home.
Diana was holding TammyLee’s hand, and gazing expectantly at her. If she’d kept quiet, it might have been OK, but, in her softest voice, she asked that same painful question: ‘Is it true?’
TammyLee looked at her, desperately and wordlessly. Then she lurched to her feet and stumbled out of the room and up the stairs. Minutes later she hurried down again, clad in high boots, a black parka and with her hair stuffed into the hood, which was falling forward over her face.
I heard Diana gasp as her daughter fled past and flung the front door open. The wind blasted hard raindrops and yellow leaves into the hall. TammyLee slammed the door behind her, and we heard her footsteps vanishing into the night.
I jumped onto the windowsill and ducked under the curtain to see which way she was going, and I saw her hooded silhouette, a bag flying from her shoulder. She headed down the road towards the busy roundabout where the headlights lit up the driving rain and the water pouring down both sides of the road.
I was used to TammyLee coming and going, so her flight from the house didn’t bother me. But it worried Diana. I’d never seen her so upset. She sat with her eyes shut and her hands clinging to a patchwork cushion that TammyLee had made, repeating over and over again, ‘Oh, God, please look after our Tam. Let her come back, please.’
Even the solid presence of Amber leaning against her legs didn’t seem to help. I went on washing and grooming my fur until it felt silky and clean. Then I looked round for something to play with. After all the rage and the rows the humans imposed on me, I needed time to be a cat.
I padded around, sniffing the places where Dylan and Iris had sat, and made an amazing discovery. Iris had left her handbag behind! Wow. I circled it a few times, eyeing the worn leather toggle on the zip, patted it, and did my pouncing routine, leaping and twizzling in the air. I crouched and sidled, never taking my eyes from the zip toggle in case it moved, loving the excitement and fun building inside me.
Little beads of joy raced through my heart. With delicate skill, I got the toggle between my teeth, held the bag down with my paws, and pulled. It slid open with a satisfying buzz. Now I could see inside. I did my pounce routine again, then reached my paw into the soft interior and extracted an open roll of peppermints. The smell of them, and the spiral of torn green wrapping, freaked me out and I chased it towards Amber. She sniffed at it and stuck her nose high in the air.‘I’m not allowed to have those,’ she said, but I left them there for her, and returned to the open bag.
Next, I took out a bunch of keys, which smelled awful. Attached to them was a tiny lion with a fuzzy mane and eyes that rolled around comically. He wasn’t brilliant to play with because I couldn’t detach him from the keys. I went on burrowing, and extracted a rattly packet of tablets in silver foil, and a biscuit wrapped in cellophane. I was just hooking out the purse, when Amber started barking and Max came back in.
‘Iris left her handbag behind,’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘And I see you’ve been busy, Tallulah!’ Tutting, he scooped up the stuff I’d taken out and put it back, but no one laughed, and that was unusual. This time, my attempt to break up the misery with a bit of humour was not appreciated.
‘Back soon,’ said Max. ‘I’ll pick up some sandbags.’
‘No … Max … wait,’ cried Diana, her face taut with anxiety.
‘What is it, love?’ In two strides, Max was beside her, looking concerned. But Diana couldn’t seem to speak. She clutched his arm and took some deep breaths.
‘Our Tam has run away,’ she sobbed. ‘Never mind the sandbags … you’ve got to find her, Max … she’s so vulnerable just now … and she ran out the door in black clothes. She’ll get hit by a car. Oh, please, please look for her, Max … she might do something terrible, the state she’s in.’
‘Silly girl,’ said Max. ‘What about you, here on your own?’