Solomon's Kitten (8 page)

‘Be still,’ he was telling me. ‘Be still and listen.’ Hearing and listening are different things for a cat.

Hearing is physical – hearing the wind in the trees, the traffic, the footsteps, the creak of doors. Listening is going inside a balloon of silence, sitting perfectly still and
waiting.

The black cat joined me in this, and I felt his serenity and his wisdom. Why hadn’t I done this before? All I’d done in that pen was sleep, play and panic, sleep, play and panic. In
the black cat’s benevolent presence, I was aware of him staring at my aura. What was he looking at?

Colours. He was showing me colours that flickered through my aura like those of a dragonfly in the sun. He was staring at a light in the air above and around me. He was showing me my angel!

‘Wow,’ I thought. ‘It’s been so long.’ It seemed a lifetime ago when I was ‘Fuzzball’, that I’d talked with my angel. Well, I didn’t talk; I
listened, soaking up her words like the soothing heat of the sun.

‘Tallulah,’ she said, and it sounded like a song. ‘Tallulah! All is well. You will go to TammyLee on the right day, when the sun is a deep gold. But first, you must wait, and
trust. We have set this up for you so that you can begin your true work as Tallulah – a strong, wise and loving cat. The work will take many years, for TammyLee is a beautiful soul caught in
a difficult life. She and her family will need you.’

‘I wish I had a friend,’ I said, ‘like this black cat, or like the dog, Harriet, who rescued me when I was tiny. I’ve never had a friend, only a human. I’ve been
lonely.’

‘You will have a friend: Amber. Wait and see. Amber is waiting for you, and she is lonely too.’

‘Who is she?’ I asked, but my angel wouldn’t tell me. She wanted to say something else.

‘I’ve tried so often to talk to you, Tallulah,’ she said. ‘And you’ve always been too busy. Your life will spiral out of control if you don’t practice
stillness regularly.’

I agreed that I would and, as the colours of my angel muted into the night, I slept, right there against the wire, with the black cat still pressed against me on his side of the fence.

The sun was golden as Penny drove me past the fields of sheep, along the babbling river towards the town. I sat up smartly in the cat cage, noticing everything, my whiskers
quivering with excitement.

‘Here we are, Tallulah – your new home.’ Penny swung the car away from the big roundabout, down a leafy lane and into a driveway. As soon as the tyres crunched over the gravel,
I heard a dog barking deep inside the house. And I could hear another sound – the burble of water rushing over stones. The river was very close.

TammyLee came running across the lawn. I meowed as she reached the car, breathless, and full to the brim of love for me. I kissed her bangled arm through the wire mesh. ‘Don’t let
her out yet,’ warned Penny as she took my cage out of the car. The air smelled of sweet apples, and sheep and the briny river. After my time in the pen, I so needed to be on the grass and in
the trees.

‘I’ll bring her in.’ Penny seemed reluctant to let go of me. ‘I want to see her reaction to Amber. And there’s some papers to sign.’

She carried me into this awesome house, which smelled of roast chicken and oranges, and, yes, it smelled of damp dog as well. The barking started again, a man’s voice yelled,
‘QUIET,’ and it stopped.

‘Here she is,’ said TammyLee. ‘This is Tallulah. Isn’t she a darling?’

A man and a woman were looking into the cage at me, and I immediately observed that the woman was ill. Her aura was bright but fragile, and she sat in a wheelchair.

‘This is Mum,’ said TammyLee, and I did my best to smile there in the cage, giving a little purr-meow and dancing my eyes at the poor sick woman with the sweet face. ‘Her name
is Diana.’

Penny unfastened the cage door. I paused, fluffed my fur, and swanned out, looking round at everyone with my golden eyes full of joy. My family!

‘And this is Dad.’ TammyLee showed me the man, and he looked at me kindly under bushy eyebrows. He was obviously important, and powerful, his aura had an orange glow. I rubbed myself
around his legs and felt him touch the tip of my fluffy tail.

‘Hello, Tallulah,’ he said, ‘I’m Max,’ and immediately I sensed he was holding something back, some secret he was bursting to tell me.

‘Shall we do it?’ he asked eagerly. ‘Shall we introduce them?’

‘No time like the present,’ said Diana in a thin squeak of a voice.

‘Best get it over with,’ said Penny.

Max got up and opened a glass door into the conservatory. ‘Now you be a good girl, Amber. Don’t you dare even THINK about barking.’

I stared in utter joy. A dog! My own dog! And what a beauty. Amber was golden, silky and magnificent. She stood in the doorway with the light shining through the silver plume of her wagging
tail. Her eyes were anxious and she went stiff when she saw me there with my tail up. I ran straight to her and kissed her on the nose.

‘Oh, my goodness!’ cried Penny.

Amber looked down at me like a goddess. Then she lay on her belly and sniffed at me, and whimpered.

‘It’s all right, Amber,’ said TammyLee. ‘Tallulah wants to be friends with you.’

Amber turned her head away from my kisses. She shivered all over and started creeping along the floor towards TammyLee.

‘You great big coward.’ Max laughed at Amber, loudly, and the dog looked hurt.

‘Don’t laugh at her. Poor Amber,’ said TammyLee, ‘she’s frightened of doing something wrong.’

I was impressed with her intuition. Amber seemed terribly uncomfortable with me rubbing against her throat and kissing her. She lifted a paw and put it on my back, and when I twisted out from
under it, she jumped back as if she expected me to scratch her.

‘They’ll be fine,’ said Penny. ‘Tallulah’s so laid-back.’

But I was disappointed. I’d fallen instantly in love with Amber and I felt rebuffed. I jumped up into TammyLee’s arms for a cuddle, and she carried me slowly round the room,
whispering to me, telling me what everything was. She carried me into the conservatory and showed me the garden, and Amber’s bed. Amber followed us, her tail down, her eyes worried. She got
on to her beanbag bed and stamped it round and around with a loud crunching noise, then slumped down on it and lay staring at the floor.

I needed time alone with Amber, and it didn’t happen until early the next morning. I’d slept in three places: first, in the cat bed, ten minutes, then I tried all the chairs and
found a little old one with a saggy seat, which was perfect. Two hours later, I got up, stretched, and explored every corner of the downstairs, up over the bookshelves first. I even took out a book
with my paw and opened it, thought about shredding it, but there was too much else to inspect: over the mantelpiece, up the thick curtains and along the shelf at the top, where I found a spider to
play with; under the massive sofa, where I practised being a flat cat. A lot of stuff was under there: slippers, a soggy tennis ball, a revolting old bone, a plastic rabbit, a tweed cap that
smelled like a car. Obviously, these were Amber’s treasures, and she was too big to get them out. Respectfully, I reversed out and went to the closed door of the conservatory, to look at
Amber through the glass. Curled up in a ball on her bed, she was having a nightmare. Her paws were twitching and she was making squeaky little woofs in her throat.

I felt lonely and wanted to be with her, but she didn’t like me. Upset and alone in the strange house, I crept through the hall and sniffed the night through a crack in the front door. I
yearned to go out and taste the summer night, lie on the cool soft grass and watch the stars above me. My entire life had been doors and cages. I looked at the stairs, wanting to communicate with
TammyLee. She had to understand my need for freedom.

So I ended up slinking upstairs and into her bedroom. It smelled like flowers, and there were piles of glittery clothes and beads and hard shoes everywhere. A line of teddy bears patrolled the
shelf above the bed, and I’d never really seen teddy bears before. They weren’t asleep, and their glass eyes spooked me so much that I wailed in fright.

‘Come on, darling, magic puss cat.’ TammyLee was awake instantly and patting the bed quilt. I’d never been allowed on Gretel’s bed, so I hesitated.

‘Come on, Tallulah. It’s OK. You’ve got me now.’ She reached down and scooped me into the softest pillowy place I’d ever experienced. It smelled of pansies, and
felt softer than the deepest grasses. I sank my paws into it, dough punching and purring, and went to sleep, a happy cat, with TammyLee’s hand on my fur.

TammyLee was fast asleep when I heard the dawn outside. Pigeons were cooing and jackdaws chack-chacking. I jumped onto the windowsill and sat in the pink sunlight, watching the
swallows, tiny and fast, zooming in wide arcs through the sky, and their high pitched voices sounded free and joyful. I wanted to be out there, prowling on the lawns, exploring, climbing the fence
and inspecting the garden next door. I wanted to feel the earth under my paws, and taste the grass, and hear the bees waking up as the sun rose.

The smell of toast and bacon wafted up the stairs, so I padded down with my tail up and found TammyLee’s dad at the table in the kitchen with Amber leaning against his legs. She turned
when she saw me, but only her ears moved, and the very tip of her tail wagged. I longed to pounce on it and play, but it was too early to take liberties like that.

‘Hello, Tallulah.’ Max didn’t move but kept his arm protectively around Amber, and his coffee mug in the other hand. I rubbed myself adoringly on Amber’s creamy gold
chest and she stuck her nose high in the air to avoid me.

‘I must get off to work now.’ Dad got up and took his plate to the sink, giving Amber a scrap of bacon rind, which she snapped and swallowed. Then he gave me some milk and wagged his
finger at Amber. ‘Don’t you TOUCH it. That’s the cat’s breakfast. Leave it.’

I lapped it up quickly, while Amber sat watching me. Max headed for the door, a black case in his hand. ‘No, Tallulah,’ he said. ‘You’re not allowed out yet. You get to
know Amber.’ And his soap-scented hand pushed me back gently as I tried to go out.

Was I still a prisoner?

Miffed, I sat washing, and Amber must have sensed my sadness, for she crept towards me and touched me with a big soft paw. I deliberately continued washing. I could manage perfectly well without
a dog who didn’t like me, thank you.

Amber listened to the sound of Max’s car rolling over the gravel, then leaving with a smart zippy sort of roar. The house was quiet, and I was alone with my beautiful goddess of a dog, and
she didn’t like me.

Once the car had gone, Amber relaxed. She started sending me messages, in the way that animals do, by telepathy. It’s so much easier than trying to actually speak like humans do, and it
changes so smoothly from images to words and back again.

The first message Amber sent me was that she loved Max, but he dominated her too much. She was a more confident dog when he wasn’t there telling her what to do. She did want to be friends
with me, but she’d never had a cat friend before, and she was nervous.

She gave me an experimental lick on the top of my head, and I stopped being huffy and let her lick my back the way Harriet had done. When I’d had enough, I gave her a pat on the nose,
being careful to keep my claws retracted. She lay down on her side, and let me cuddle up to her and she wanted me to purr right next to her ear. She lay there, thumping her tail, and I even dared
to play with it.

Suddenly, Amber sat up and listened attentively, her nose twitching. It made my hackles rise and my tail bush out in the spooky silence, not knowing why she was listening. Something was going to
happen. I heard a bleeping noise from upstairs. Then I was almost knocked over as Amber took off in a whirl of wispy fur. She skidded through the hall and thundered up the stairs, her tail wagging
furiously. I heard a squeal from TammyLee’s room, and Amber reappeared with her aura on fire, her ears flying and her mouth smiling. She charged down the stairs, grabbed a shoe from the mat,
and did a wild circle with her back all bunched up. I leaped out of the way onto the back of the sofa with my bottle-brush tail kinked in the air.

I watched in disbelief as Amber lolloped upstairs again. I peered up there and saw her skid round the doorway into TammyLee’s room. I heard the clonk as she dropped the shoe and loud
laughter from TammyLee. The laughing seemed to add fire and speed to Amber’s performance. She lolloped down again, did another mad circle, pausing to snatch the other shoe, before belting
upstairs again like an earthquake. By the time she had done it about six times, my fur had gone flat again, and I understood this was a game she played. Every morning, she told me as she flashed
past, every morning she heard TammyLee’s alarm clock and galloped up the stairs. It started the day with peals of laughter, even the china in the kitchen was ringing with it.

It filled me with joy. Before long, I knew, I would join in the game, if I could keep out of the way of those flying paws. I’d hide under the stairs and leap out at Amber’s tail as
she soared past. Ah, I was going to have fun in this house!

I wondered if there would be a postman.

I waited until Amber ran downstairs for the final time, puffing and snorting, and too hot. She flopped down on the cold tiles in the kitchen, and I arranged my fur, put my tail up and walked
upstairs nicely, to say good morning to TammyLee.

She was sitting in front of a mirror, fixing her hair, dragging some of it back and some of it forward, then pulling out curly strands to hang round her face.

‘Tallulah!’ she breathed, and picked me up as if I was the most precious treasure. She put down the comb and the funny-looking strand of pink hair that she’d been trying to add
to the hairstyle.

I sat on her lap and stared into her eyes, and what I saw there told me it was time for serious stuff. It wasn’t the time to purr, or to play. It was time to listen.

TammyLee said some nice things to me first, the sort of blanket comments people offer to cats, like, ‘Aren’t you beautiful?’ and ‘You’re SUCH a lovely cat.’
Then it moved on to, ‘I can’t believe I found you again. I knew it was you, and I saw you on TV.’