The Cat Who Came In From The Cold by Deric Longden

Author:Deric Longden [Longden, Deric]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Bibliophile Books
Published: 2012-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

Thermal jammed his hip up against the wall to steady himself while he tried to get his bearings. Then somebody moved the skirting-board and he was off, lurching across the carpet towards the hearth rug.

‘It’s all right, Aileen – he’s back.’

‘Oh good.’

‘I’m not so sure about that.’

He wasn’t going to make it to the hearth rug. He took the pretty route round by the wastepaper basket – turn left at the coffee table, under the desk, run smack into the video and then ask.

He swayed slightly and then began to back out of a cul-de-sac by the filing cabinet. Viewed head-on he was now a pretty, if somewhat streaky, pastel pink – but the rear-end that emerged from under the desk was painted in such a vivid scarlet that it would have had those monkeys at the zoo going green with envy.

‘Where is he?’

‘He’s here, by my foot.’

Two eyes looked up at me and tried desperately to focus. He must have read my mind because he sat down, stuck his leg up in the air and tried to lick his bottom. It didn’t work and he fell over in a heap, his head on my foot.

‘Help.’

Aileen stood up and came over, trying not to tread on him in the process.

‘What’s the matter – is he all right?’

‘He’s just a bit off colour, that’s all.’

She picked him up and plonked him on her shoulder where she could see him.

‘He’s all sticky.’

‘It’s the damson wine. He must have been standing by the fridge when it exploded.’

He had conquered his fear of the fridge and now spent a large proportion of his day staring at it and wondering why there wasn’t a cat-flap in the door.

‘His bottom’s very sticky.’

‘He hasn’t got round to that yet.’

She took him over to the window where she could see him better and peered closely at his head.

‘Is he pink?’

‘Yes – you should see the other end.’

‘It’s stuck to my sleeve.’

We peeled him off and laid him on the hearth rug. I spread a sheet of newspaper underneath him but he didn’t know much about it – he was out to the wide.

‘Do you think this happens to other cats?’

‘I shouldn’t think so.’

He woke up five hours later with a hangover and tottered into my office with the middle pages of the Independent stuck to his side like a billboard.

‘What happened?’

‘It’s a long story.’

I sat him in the sink and washed him down with Fairy Liquid. It’s supposed to be kind to the hands and I hoped it would be just as kind to paws and whiskers and bums. He struggled but he wasn’t really up to it.

‘Mind my eyes.’

‘Shut up.’

‘I beg your pardon ?’

‘It’ll go in your mouth.’

‘Yuk.’

‘See – I told you.’

Aileen wasn’t too happy about him being washed. People don’t wash cats, she said.

I could remember saying exactly the same thing to my mother the first time I watched her scrub Whisky in the sink.

‘My mother used to say she was just dipping him – like they do sheep.

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