Solomon's Kitten (17 page)

‘She’s right,’ said Max

Iris folded her arms and sat back. ‘I ain’t moving ’til she admits it,’ she said. ‘Get the police if you like . . . they’ll be interested in what I’ve
got to say. I ain’t moving.’

Dylan rolled his eyes and tried to intervene.

‘Mum! We can’t stay here all night. I want to get home.’

She shot him down. ‘Don’t you start. Don’t you dare tell me what to do!’

Max walked across to the window and looked out. ‘It’s raining, pouring,’ he said, ‘and in view of our proximity to the river, which is already full to the brim, I think
you should go and I’m going to drive you home. Otherwise, you’ll end up sleeping here with no electricity. And before you object to that, I would point out that it’s a generous
offer . . . kind of me, considering the way you barged in here, uninvited.’

‘Tomorrow’s another day,’ said Diana. ‘We need time to sort this out, Iris. It’s a shock, yes, but IF it’s true, these two young people will need our support,
not condemnation. I’m concerned for my daughter, and I’m sure you are for Dylan. We shouldn’t involve the police at all. It’s a family matter.’

‘Thanks.’ Dylan looked at Diana as if she was rescuing him. ‘I’m not a bad person like you think . . . I . . . I’m sorry for what I did to the cat . . . it was
stupid . . . peer pressure and stuff.’

‘Yeah, and drugs,’ said TammyLee.

‘I’m off it. I’m clean now.’

‘’E is,’ said Iris, ‘without any help from the medics.’

‘Pigs might fly,’ TammyLee muttered.

‘This isn’t going anywhere,’ said Max, taking his raincoat from its peg and jingling his car keys. ‘I’m going now so make your minds up.’

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?’

‘I’ll be OK for a few hours,’ wept Diana. ‘Please, just go and look for her. And don’t shout at her, Max, please. She’s very, very emotionally fragile right
now.’

Hours later, Max came back, without TammyLee.

‘No sign of her,’ he said. ‘I checked all the usual places where she goes. Her mobile is turned off. If she’s not back in the morning, we’ll report her
missing.’

The anxiety stretched itself into every corner of the house. Max made up the fire and brewed cocoa in silence. He washed up and fed Amber, and put some fresh cat litter in my tray.
‘Don’t you go out, Tallulah,’ he said. Amber was allowed out, and came back with her legs dripping wet. Then Max lit candles and stood them in the window in jars. He persuaded
Diana to go upstairs to bed. ‘While you can,’ he said. ‘If the power goes off, you won’t have the stair lift.’

‘I can’t possibly sleep,’ said Diana, ‘not while my TammyLee is out there. I don’t want my medication tonight, Max . . . I need to stay awake.’

Max stayed up with her and we heard their voices talking. Amber and I had had enough of the stress. We needed a long sleep, and we needed each other. I was glad to lie on the hearth rug with
her, even though she was snoring and having one of her woofy dreams. The rhythm of her breath, and the purr of the fire, was comforting. The sound of the rain seemed distant, but the night was full
of unfamiliar swishing and gurgling sounds.

Later, I was wide awake for a while and I trotted upstairs to TammyLee’s room, to see if she was there, and she wasn’t. I rolled about on the duvet and played with the soft edge of
it. Then I jumped onto the shelf of teddy bears and walked along it with my tail up, inspecting them. They hadn’t got auras, only the twinkling eyes gave them a presence, and their black
noses and stitched-on smiles. Next, I sat on TammyLee’s laptop, to think. I sat on her chair, and on her pillow. Where was she? I wanted her.

What if she never came back? Whose cat would I be then?

‘Worrying won’t help you,’ said my angel. The next three days are what you need to focus on, and you must look after YOURSELF, Tallulah. You are a very important cat, and you
are so loved . . . we need you to survive.’

‘Survive what?’ I asked, but my angel disappeared in a shimmy of light, and I was left alone on TammyLee’s bed. Survive? What, again?

There was silence from Diana’s room, so I ran downstairs to Amber and snuggled up to her. She sighed and put a warm paw over me, as if she wanted to hug me. I purred a little and went to
sleep between her big paws, knowing that if I heard TammyLee’s footsteps, I’d be instantly awake, and so would Amber.

The candles flickered until dawn, and the sunrise was silver grey. Drops of rain still covered the windows and there was an unfamiliar light outside, and no sounds of traffic, which was unusual.
A loud metallic throbbing sound filled the air, coming and going as if some great machine was patrolling the sky.

Amber seemed tense. She wouldn’t talk to me, but stood in the doorway, listening, her tail down. I was OK, refreshed from my sleep and wanting to go out in the garden. Heading for the cat
flap, I ran through the kitchen with my tail up, hoping TammyLee would be on her way back. The kitchen floor was wet, causing me to stop and shake each paw. I butted my head against the cat flap
and jumped out. Too late, I saw water shining, directly outside, and there was no avoiding it. The whole garden shone like a lake. Even the path was submerged and water was lapping at the walls of
the house. With my paws and tummy horribly wet and cold, I turned and went back through the cat flap. The hearth rug was still warm, and Amber came to me, whining, and tried to lick me dry. She was
comforting, but I wanted TammyLee to come and fluff me up with a towel. I needed her there, to cuddle me and explain what was happening. I missed her kindness.

Amber ran to the window and put her paws up on the sill, looking out as if someone was coming. I leaped up there, and stared, transfixed by what was happening outside. Max had stacked sandbags
across the gate, and a line of gleaming muddy brown water was spilling over the top of them. Out in the road, the water was flowing along like a river, and, in the distance, voices were shouting.
The sky throbbed with circling helicopters.

A duck with a green head lurched over the top of the sandbags and started swimming around our garden as if it owned the place. I sat up very straight and batted the window, trying to tell that
duck exactly what I would do to it if I was out there.

Amber was watching, but her tail wasn’t wagging and her eyes looked worried. Then she did something that seriously spooked me. She lifted her head, stretched her throat, and howled, on and
on. It chilled me to my bones. It resounded through the house, along the floor and up the walls, into corners and cupboards, even the lampshades quivered with it.

My fur ruffed out, my eyes must have gone black with terror, and my pulse raced. But Amber didn’t stop. The howling went on and on, like a warning siren.

Too petrified to move, I watched the water in the garden. I saw Max’s sandbag wall sag and burst open, and a torrent of brown water surged towards the house with an unforgettable roar. It
burst through the cat flap in a plume of froth, swept across the kitchen and into the hall.

Amber stopped howling and barked. She spun round and lolloped through the water and up the stairs, leaving me paralysed with terror on the windowsill.

I watched in horror as my food bowl, still with some bits in it, floated by, along with the leaves and litter the water was bringing in. I watched the brown tide, foaming at the edges, glide
into the lounge and under the sofa, swirling around the chair legs, soaking the carpet. It picked up TammyLee’s fluffy slippers and sloshed them against the wall. Then it reached the
fireplace and steam rose, hissing from the embers.

‘What the hell is the matter with that dog?’

I heard Max getting up, his feet creaking across the landing.

‘Oh, my GOD. Now we have got problems.’

He dived into the bedroom and grabbed a mobile phone, tapping it urgently and listening.

‘Damn it. The lines are jammed.’ He did a lot of cursing, and finally spoke to someone. ‘Our house is flooded. The water’s pouring in, and my wife is disabled . . . and
my teenage daughter has gone missing.’

He didn’t say, ‘Our cat is marooned on the windowsill.’ I was, and the water was creeping up the wall, deeper and deeper. I clung there, watching Max, who was now downstairs
and paddling around, grabbing armfuls of stuff and chucking it on the stairs. I was afraid that in his frenzy, he wouldn’t notice me, so I meowed loudly; in fact, I wailed. He waded over and
picked me up. Phew!

‘Poor Tallulah,’ he said as I clung to his shoulder. He carried me to the stairs and put me on them. ‘Go upstairs, go on. Shoo!’ He clapped his hands which wasn’t
helpful to an already frightened cat.

Miffed, I crouched on the top step, watching Amber, who was trying to convince Max it was a game. She was charging up and down what was left of the stairs, grabbing some of the things he was
chucking up there, and carrying them into Diana’s room in her mouth. She grabbed books, papers, shoes and gadgets, even a telephone with its wires trailing. She got that tangled up in the
banister rail, and tugged at it until Max shouted at her. She left it swinging in mid-air and seized a coat by its hood, dragging it round the corner into Diana’s room.

An amazing sound rippled through the house. Diana was laughing! It relaxed me straight away and I ran in to see her with my tail up. What Amber had done was awesome, in my opinion. In the midst
of a crisis, she’d managed to make Diana laugh. It made me feel better.