The City Cats Read online

  The last thing Sammy wanted to do was rest. He tried to struggle out of the bag but he was zipped up tight and, in any case, as soon as he attempted to move the pain in his shoulder made him desist. So he was restricted to more and more desperate cries of anguish at this forced separation from Pinkie. Lizzie soon reached her office and placed Sammy in a corner near her desk where she could keep an eye on him.

  Penny regarded the cat with considerable misgiving. ‘That’s a new bag,’ she said. ‘I hope he doesn’t mess it up.’

  ‘You can hold me responsible,’ said Lizzie with a wave of her hand. ‘I’ll replace it if necessary.’

  Penny thought she had taken offence. ‘No need to go to those lengths,’ she assured her. ‘But – I suppose you’re going to take him home?’

  ‘Yes. And how did you know he’s a he?’

  ‘I didn’t. He just looks like a he,’ said Penny. ‘He’s not very beautiful, is he, with that stripe running right across his face?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Well, no, not really. Er – look, Lizzie, I shall need my bag back before we go home.’

  ‘Of course. Don’t worry, I’ll go down to the post room and get a carton later.’

  The warmth of the office was such a contrast to the bitter cold of the park that Sammy soon felt drowsy. When Mr Searle came past Lizzie’s desk on his return from lunch he saw the bag with Sammy’s head sticking out of one end with his eyes blissfully closed. ‘Hallo – what’s this? Pet’s Corner?’ he joked.

  Lizzie explained the circumstances and begged him to be tolerant about the cat for just this one afternoon.

  ‘Oh – nonsense,’ her boss brushed it aside. ‘I think you’re to be congratulated, showing such concern for the poor animal. Are you anywhere near a vet?’

  Lizzie nodded. ‘There’s an evening surgery so I can take him tonight.’

  Sammy dozed for most of the afternoon. Occasionally he uttered a plaintive miaow. Lizzie fetched a cardboard carton from the post room which she lined thickly with tissues. Then, before transferring Sammy to the box, she poured some milk into a saucer and placed it under her desk. Then she unzipped Penny’s bag and lifted him out. Sammy hadn’t seen or tasted milk since his early days as a kitten in Mrs Lambert’s care. He sniffed at the saucer and immediately recalled the flavour. He drank thirstily while Penny surreptitiously examined her shoulder bag. She was pleased to see it hadn’t suffered too much.

  There were no more protests from Sammy. He was too tired and too miserable to show any fight. Lizzie put him in the box, sellotaped it closed save for an air-hole and took it down, Sammy inside, to the post room where one of the packers made a handle for it out of some sisal string. Sammy was ready for his visit to the vet’s.

  4

  The flat

  LIZZIE REED TOOK the tube from Regent’s Park to Warwick Avenue. Only a short walk away from there she had a basement flat in a large house near the canal. She didn’t stop to eat but went straight to the vet’s. Sammy was given a sedative and examined thoroughly. He needed lots of rest, the vet said, to enable his bruised ligaments and muscles to heal. He suggested Lizzie keep him caged.

  ‘How would I do that?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, a tea-chest is ideal, providing he has air, light and . . .’

  ‘Oh, I don’t have anything like that,’ Lizzie interrupted disappointedly. ‘He’s a stray that I picked up and I want to look after him.’

  ‘So he’ll be in a strange place?’ the vet assumed.

  Lizzie nodded.

  ‘You’re going to have problems, then, because he’s unlikely to want to settle. You’d better have some pills to keep him quiet while the leg heals. They’ll make him feel drowsy. If he won’t accept them directly, put them in his food, or you could even grind them up and dissolve them in warm milk. Don’t exceed the dosage on the label. Keep him comfortable and well nourished. Nature should do the rest, providing he accepts you as his friend.’

  ‘I think he already has,’ Lizzie said.

  She was thoroughly pleased with the vet’s diagnosis. She was completely responsible for Sammy’s recovery and this meant she could look after him for several weeks. She had no intention of keeping him once he was fit again but she had always wanted a cat and she intended to make the most of it. She hastened back to acquaint Sammy with his new home.

  Lizzie lived alone. Her flat was very small. It had a bedroom, a small sitting-room, a bathroom and a tiny kitchen. It was all she could afford. She opened up Sammy’s carton, breaking down one side of it so that he could walk or, rather, limp out of it when he should choose. The vet had told her the cat was none too clean and that she should wash him when she thought the time was right. She opened a tin of cat food, put it in a bowl under the kitchen table next to his carton and left Sammy to his own devices whilst she prepared her own meal. The sedative administered to Sammy by the vet had not yet worn off. Lizzie had cooked a simple meal, eaten it, washed up and was relaxing in front of the television before Sammy even stirred. Then out of the corner of her eye, Lizzie saw movement. Sammy had hauled himself to the adjacent food-bowl and was eating. He had fasted for more than twenty-four hours and, despite feeling muzzy, he managed to eat more than half the bowl’s contents. Now he moved round to look at his new companion. He saw a slim, pretty young woman of about twenty-six or seven with dark chestnut hair, hazel eyes and the loveliest of human smiles on her face.

  ‘Well – hello, Puss,’ said Lizzie. She hadn’t yet thought of a proper name for him. ‘Welcome to basement life.’

  Sammy miaowed at her. He knew she meant to be kind. He had no idea where he was, how he had come there, nor how far he was from Pinkie. One thing he did know. He was entirely in human hands – the hands of the young woman who had tended and fed him.

  Lizzie was conscious of the fact that she not only needed to look after Sammy but also the little white cat who was now left on her own. She had seen the cats together in the park enough times to know that they formed a pair. She imagined that life would be more difficult for Pinkie now that she would have to find all her own food. So the next morning Lizzie collected together some scraps to take to the park. She spoke to Sammy while she was doing it.

  ‘You needn’t worry about your little friend,’ she told him. ‘I’ll see she doesn’t starve while you’re not around. Now, let me see, have you got everything you need?’ As expected, Sammy had refused to take a pill down his throat and had not allowed Lizzie to come near him. So she had ground one up and given it to him in milk. Now Lizzie looked around. ‘You’ve got your bed and your dirt-tray. I know they’re strange to you but you’ll soon get used to them. You know where your water-bowl is. You’ve had your milk, so that’s all right. I’d perhaps better leave a little food for you because you’ll be in all day and you may feel peckish.’ She put a small amount of cat food in a saucer, checked the windows were fastened, gave Sammy a reassuring stroke, gathered up her things and left. Sammy, thanks to the tablet, was already feeling torpid. He watched Lizzy go through her routine and he heard the front door bang without realizing what it meant. Alone all day, and in a strange place!

  The first day alone Sammy slept most of the time. Lizzie had moved his bed under the window. By the afternoon he felt a little more wakeful. His bad shoulder prevented him from moving around too much and he spent quite a while gazing up at the window that looked out on the road. The pavement was above his head, so he was unable to see more than the lower half of the few people who walked by. However, his interest was aroused when a neighbour’s fat black cat strolled up and paused to wash itself on the very stretch of pavement he had been watching. The cat was a male and Sammy instinctively dropped from a sitting position to a crouch. But this was painful and he quickly sat up again. It was odd to see another cat above his head, just as if he were in a tree and the black cat was occupying a higher branch. Sammy stared and stared but the other cat had no idea that it was being observed and eventually strolled on without a glance in h
is direction. Sammy was relieved, yet disappointed at the same time. He had no other stimulation during the day but what occurred on that piece of pavement. A blackbird perched on the railings outside the house for a brief moment and Sammy chattered at it. But that was all. He ate some of the cat food, drank a drop of water and then curled up in the makeshift bed that Lizzie had made up for him.

  It was here that Lizzie found him when she returned from work. She had worried about him all day. Would the tranquillizer work? Or would he panic? Would he aggravate his injury? She could see now from his placid expression that she needn’t have concerned herself.

  ‘You look well settled,’ she commented. ‘I’m so glad. Now I know you’ll be quite safe while I’m out. Did you eat anything? Oh yes, I see you did.’ Sammy made an effort to rise as she chatted to him. ‘No, you stay there and rest,’ Lizzie said. ‘I’m going to give you something really tasty to eat.’ She had bought some calf’s liver which she knew would be very good for the invalid Sammy. ‘I saw your friend by the lake today,’ she went on as she set the liver cooking, ‘and I’m afraid she looked very forlorn. She must be missing you. She wouldn’t come to me although I tried very hard to persuade her. So I left her some food and watched her from a distance. She was very glad to have it, I could see. She ate some and carried the rest away. I’ll take some more tomorrow. And the weather’s going to get much warmer so she’ll be just fine.’

  The smell of the cooking liver tempted Sammy from his bed and he even managed an awkward totter around Lizzie’s legs in the kitchen, rubbing himself against her in the affectionate way he had used in his kitten days with Mrs Lambert.

  ‘Well, well, you look better already,’ said Lizzie. ‘We’re going to get on famously, I can tell. And you’ll soon be strong again; you leave it to me. I can’t wait for the day when I take you back to the park to re-unite you with that little white female.’

  Things went well for over a week. The worst of the winter appeared to be over and a period of balmy weather ensued which certainly had the breath of spring about it. Lizzie faithfully took food to Pinkie though she saw her less and less regularly. She always left the scraps in the same place, well away from greedy seagulls. And Pinkie relied on it. She had given birth to four kittens, one of whom was very weak and had died almost at once. Pinkie always made sure no one was nearby before she collected the food. She wanted no prying eyes to discover her helpless babies. She would take the food back to her den in the stand of bamboo and eat it in peace whilst the kittens suckled. Her dismay at Sammy’s disappearance was now almost forgotten in the demanding task of caring for the kittens.

  Sammy lived through the days in a sort of semi-doze. He ate well and his injury was mending nicely. He was able to explore the flat more thoroughly in the afternoons when he felt a bit more lively, but he soon found there was nothing much of interest there for him and he always returned to his window on the world, gazing or blinking sleepily at the pavement above. Lizzie was even able to leave him without qualms in the evening when she was out with her boyfriend or visiting her parents or a friend. Sammy was house-trained and for a time he caused her no problems except for a half-hearted struggle when she washed him. After that he kept himself clean.

  As he returned to fitness and the pain in his shoulder subsided he was becoming more aware of things. And one of these things was the flavour of the milk which Lizzie religiously set down for him first thing in the morning. The pills she had to give him made the milk taste slightly bitter and, after ten days or so, he grew tired of it and ignored it.

  ‘You mustn’t refuse it,’ Lizzie admonished him, ‘it’s helping to make you well. I’ll leave it down and I shall be very upset if you haven’t drunk it by the time I get home.’ She closed the front door with some misgivings but decided there was nothing more she could do for the present.

  Sammy resolutely steered clear of the saucer and by midday he was feeling far more spirited. He paced up and down, visiting all the rooms – even the bathroom – and now his shoulder gave him so little trouble that he scarcely limped at all. One each circuit of the flat he paused by the big window in the living-room. He wanted very much to be out there again in the open. He tugged at the outside door with his good foreleg and it didn’t, of course, yield. Then he turned his attention to the windows. The kitchen window had no sill so there was nothing he could do there. The bathroom had no window at all, only a ventilator. He wandered into Lizzie’s bedroom, his frustration mounting. There was a low sill in this room which he could easily reach because the bed was directly in front of it. Even with his bad shoulder the jump onto the soft bed was easy for him. He got on to the sill and sniffed all along the window. Naturally it was closed fast. He miaowed angrily for a long time, complaining to the empty flat about his lack of freedom. After a while he jumped down again, feeling thirsty. But he walked right past the milk which was beginning to dry up and drank from his water-bowl.

  There was still one window he hadn’t investigated. He wandered back to the sitting-room. The window-sill was high up. Sammy stared at it with exasperation. He was as good as trapped. Lizzie’s flat, although larger, was just as much a prison as the removal van had been. And he seemed to have been here so long! Despite his previously dozed state he was aware of that. He had almost forgotten the park. And what on earth would have happened to Pinkie during all this time? She could have no idea where he was. Was she searching for him? And supposing she was starving. . . . He must get out. Sammy growled low in his throat as, just to emphasize his own hopeless position, he saw the fat black cat amble past the windows as free as air.

  He weighed up the possibilities of reaching the window-sill. Normally it would have been no problem for him. But dare he risk such a leap after his injury? Well, one thing was certain. If he didn’t try he might remain in this place for ever. He crouched, flexing his muscles to test their response. He decided there didn’t appear to be too much risk if he could make one big successful bound. As luck would have it the black cat strolled back into Sammy’s range of vision as he contemplated his chances. The sight of this sleek animal patrolling the pavement around his prison with the most enviable freedom goaded Sammy into action. He sprang up but, as he launched himself, his injured leg muscles were wrenched and he made a poor job of his jump. His front paws failed to get a grip on the window-sill and the rest of his body thumped against the imprisoning glass before he fell back down to the floor. He landed awkwardly, giving his bad shoulder an excruciating jolt. Sammy howled deafeningly.

  The black cat heard the sound and turned to look. It came close up to the railings around the building and peered down at Sammy sprawled on the floor beneath the window. Sammy was furious. His fur rose and he spat at the creature.

  ‘No good swearing at me,’ the black cat said loftily. ‘Your threats are wasted when you quite obviously can’t follow them up.’

  ‘Oh! If I could just get to you!’ Sammy roared.

  ‘What’s up? Doesn’t your mistress trust you?’ the black cat teased. He was quite familiar with everyone on his patch and knew exactly who lived where.

  ‘I haven’t got any mistress,’ Sammy cried. ‘I’m in prison and I can’t get out. I’m no plumped-up pet like you!’

  ‘A likely story,’ the black cat remarked. ‘What are you then – a wild animal?’

  ‘I’m my own master,’ Sammy growled.

  ‘You certainly look like it, shut up in that poky place,’ the black cat said sarcastically.

  ‘Just you wait!’

  ‘Oh, I’ll wait as long as you like, Master,’ taunted the black cat. ‘And when you’ve decided you dare come out and face me, I’ll be ready.’ He stepped away with an accentuated nonchalance that maddened Sammy more than the renewed pain that was throbbing through his shoulder and leg. He unsheathed his claws and tore at the carpet with his good paws in fury. His impotency was unbearable.

  ‘Oh, what good is it to be King of the Vagabonds now?’ he wailed miserably.

  When Lizz
ie Reed arrived home the first thing she noticed was the untasted milk. Then she saw Sammy’s empty bed and finally his food-bowl which also hadn’t been touched. Now she suspected the worst. She ran up to Sammy who was spreadeagled on the floor exactly where he had fallen.

  ‘Oh no!’ Lizzie cried. She soon put two and two together – his drowsiness had worn off, he had bcome impatient at being shut in, he had tried to escape and had only succeeded in injuring himself afresh. Sammy looked at her blankly as she fussed around him. Why did she bother? If she really cared about him why didn’t she let him go?

  Lizzie soon found the scratch marks in her carpet. She didn’t have the heart to be angry. She felt sorry for Sammy and wished he could understand that what she was trying to do for him was in his own best interests. She realized he must be very hungry as he hadn’t visited his food bowl all day. She went into the kitchen and prepared him some fresh food. She washed his bowl out and then had a brainwave. She could grind a pill up and mix it with the gravy that came out of the tin of cat food.

  While she was busy Sammy, who was ravenous, smelt the food she was mixing and hoisted himself to his feet. He limped into the kitchen and miaowed sadly.

  ‘Oh, you’re up again!’ Lizzie greeted him with relief. ‘Perhaps you haven’t harmed yourself too much this time. But we can’t have a repeat of today. So, there you are.’ She plonked his bowl on the floor. ‘That should take care of things for now.’

  Sammy ate greedily, heedless of the vet’s pill amongst the meat. He was soon sleepy again and tottered to his bed. Lizzie sat on the edge of a chair, studying him. She didn’t think the idea of administering the pills in his food was such a grand one after all. She could never be sure that, while she was out, he would go to his bowl and eat more than a few morsels. And that wouldn’t be enough. It was a pity about the milk because she thought it was more likely he would want a drink. Suddenly, she jumped up. ‘I’ve got it!’ she cried. ‘I’ll take the water-bowl away during the day and then he’ll have to drink some milk.’ She was really pleased with this idea because, now that Sammy had set himself back, it was likely he would have to stay in the flat for a few more weeks. Lizzie did think she had rid herself of a difficulty but then she had reckoned without the interference of a certain fat black cat.