Solomon's Kitten (13 page)

‘Yes, do that,’ said Diana, ‘but we must focus on this poor cat. We need to get her home, and call the vet.’

‘Tallulah’s not strong,’ said TammyLee, and her hand was still shaking as she touched me, ‘because of what she went through, and look how small she is inside all that
fur. Darling cat. I love her so much, Mum, I’d die for her.’

‘I know, I know.’ Diana was smoothing me with the towel, and TammyLee knelt on the ground beside the wheelchair, drying my face and ears with a tissue. All I felt was deep gratitude
for being loved like this.

‘She’s purring, Mum! Listen to her.’

At home, TammyLee sat in the garden with me on her lap, helping me recover from my ordeal. The warmth of her body, and the heat of the late-afternoon sun soaked into my bones,
and my fur was soon dry and silky, though it smelled of the river. I did a lot of purring, but TammyLee couldn’t stop crying.

‘For goodness’ sake, girl,’ said Max impatiently. ‘The cat’s all right now, surely? You’ve been sitting there blubbing for two hours and there’s work to
be done.’

‘I’m not moving. Tallulah needs me. And don’t call me “girl”.’

The flow of healing energy from her hands came to an abrupt end, as if Max’s voice had turned a switch. It wasn’t the first time I’d noticed the deadening effect he had on
TammyLee’s spirit. She glared at Max, who stood at the kitchen door with a potato in one hand and a knife in the other.

‘Can’t you get supper for once?’ TammyLee snarled. ‘Or have you got to watch the boring old news? Again!’

‘No. As it happens, I’ve got to do boring old work to earn us boring old money to buy boring old food and pay boring old bills!’ shouted Max. He dropped the potato and it
rolled, wobbling across the patio. I watched it, thinking about playing with it, and Max noticed the change in my body language.

‘There you are. Look at her. She wants to play again.’

‘No, she doesn’t.’ TammyLee scooped me into her arms and stood up. ‘I’m taking her upstairs. And you don’t need to PEEL POTATOES, Dad. Just get the chips out
of the freezer, like the rest of us do.’

‘You treat that cat like a child,’ complained Max. My gaze emanated disapproval as I was carried upstairs. He couldn’t know how much that hurt TammyLee. How could he, when he
didn’t know she’d lost the child she could have loved?

TammyLee put me down on her duvet and wound a fuzzy scarf round and round me like a bird’s nest. ‘You stay there, Tallulah. I’ve got to put Mum to bed.’ She sighed.
‘Meow if you want me.’

I watched her go into Diana’s room, and I wanted to follow her. But the warmth of the scarf was so sumptuous, and the rainbow colours of it seemed to be whirling round me. I was giddy, and
the pain in my bruised kidneys was hard and sharp, as if Dylan’s fingers were still clenched around my spine. Without TammyLee there, I was suddenly afraid. What if he had damaged me? What if
I couldn’t eat or pee? With that thought came an aftershock of pure misery. Why had that boy wanted to hurt and frighten me?

I sent out a telepathic scream to my angel, and she was there instantly, weaving her light into the rainbow scarf as she floated over the duvet.

‘There is a reason,’ she said. ‘You have been hurt to make something happen, to help you with your mission, Tallulah.’

Grumpy and tired, I didn’t respond the way you should do to an angel.

‘What mission?’ I growled, despite knowing perfectly well what it was.

‘Remember, you came here to re-unite TammyLee with her child.’

‘I wish I’d never come here.’ The words heaved out of me like a cloud over the sun. It was an old familiar feeling – depression. The last time I’d had it was after
Gretel left me in the car.

‘If it was an accident, I could deal with it,’ I said to my angel. ‘But I feel it’s bigger than that. I’m carrying the cruelty from across the world . . . all the
hurt . . . it’s not physical. It’s coming to me from thousands of cats who’ve been tormented by humans.’

‘Purr,’ said my angel. ‘Come on, purr yourself to sleep, and I will take you on a celestial journey. You will awake with new knowledge.’

‘Knowledge!’ I moaned, and another wave of despair engulfed my spirit. ‘I never needed knowledge before. A cat knows everything it needs. But I don’t know HOW I can
possibly do the mission I agreed to. How can a cat manage to re-unite a mum with her baby? I can’t tell TammyLee where Rocky is.’

‘This knowledge will be given in spirit,’ said my angel. ‘Now, do as I asked. Purr.’

My first purr came out as a complaint, and it hurt right through my body.

‘Listen,’ said my angel. ‘Listen to the shining cats purring out there in another dimension.’

Relaxing a little, I listened, and, at first, heard only a murmur of voices from Diana’s room, and, from downstairs, the sound of Amber’s tail banging against the fridge and the
snip-snip of scissors as Max cut off bits of bacon for her.

My angel began to hum a lullaby to me and a delicious drowsiness melted my pain into slumber. In my sleep, I heard the heavenly purring, saw the thistledown faces of spirit cats, their eyes like
lamps burning around me, illuminating my dreams with an incandescence that was both healing and inviting.

‘Am I dying?’ I asked, but there was no answer except the humming, the purring and the whirling colours of the scarf. My angel kept repeating something like a mantra: ‘There is
a reason, a reason . . .’ Her words became a cushion of stars, carrying me high above the house and the garden, above the river and the hills, then through the sky, faster and faster. So fast
that the stillness of my sleep was tightly tucked around me, keeping me safe.

My spirit was intact, yet I felt like two cats who were separating. One was flying gloriously through endless sparkles, the other was lying limp and lifeless on TammyLee’s bed. From some
distant place, I watched TammyLee come back into her bedroom and look closely at that tabby-and-white cat. ‘That’s me,’ I thought. ‘But I’m not supposed to die
yet.’

Her long fingers slipped through my fur, the witchy-green nails shining. Her hand was suddenly still and she seemed to be listening, her face going pale like one of the cream roses in the
garden.

‘Don’t die on me, Tallulah,’ she whispered. ‘Please, Tallulah.’

I saw the panic in her eyes, but I was detached, still in that distant starry place, no longer flying, but floating, closer and closer to the sequinned edges of my true home, the spirit world,
where I was the Queen of Cats. Why had I ever left? I yearned to go back.

‘Why can’t I go in?’ I asked my angel.

‘It is not your time,’ she replied, and I searched her silver eyes for an explanation. ‘You are a brave cat, a bright spirit and you CAN complete your mission. Help is on the
way. Feel the hand that is touching you.’

I focussed on TammyLee’s hand and it was trembling as she caressed the silky fur over my heart. She lay down and put her ear against me, the bobble of her earring pressing into me. She was
listening for a heartbeat.

‘Purr,’ said my angel, but I couldn’t. I gazed at her. In her full colours, she was dazzling. ‘You are very ill, but remember, there is a healer for you. She gave you
your name, Tallulah.’

A face drifted into my mind, manifesting through the web of stars, the girl with the long dark plait and the blazing light: Roxanne!

‘Send out the call,’ said my angel. ‘And she will come.’

‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I can’t even purr.’

‘You can. You can think. And thinking has power. Think of Roxanne. Hold her face in your dreams. Tell her you need help.’

‘But it doesn’t work like that with humans,’ I argued.

‘Thinking has power. Just do it.’

I held Roxanne’s face in my mind, tightly in my dreams as the angel had said. At the same time I watched the pandemonium in the house as TammyLee flew into a panic. She carried me
downstairs.

‘Dad . . . DO something. She’s dying.’

‘Don’t be RIDICULOUS.’

‘WHY can’t you believe me, Dad?’

Max came and looked at my limp body, and Amber came creeping along the floor, whimpering. I felt Max change from being angry to being the organiser.

‘Put her in the car. We’ll take her to the vet. Now,’ he said. ‘It might not be too late.’

I didn’t want to go in a car. I hated the vet. But I had no choice. Limp and hardly breathing, I could only lie in TammyLee’s arms as Max quickly locked the house door, got in and
revved the engine, the wheels scrunching on gravel.

‘Focus on the healer,’ said my angel, and I held Roxanne in my mind.

‘Who are you phoning?’ Max asked sharply, as TammyLee tapped at her mobile in the car. ‘Damn these bloody traffic lights, they’re always bloody well red. Come on. Come
on.’

Cats do believe in miracles. I’d forgotten about them. But one was happening right now in the back of Max’s speeding car.

‘Roxanne,’ said TammyLee.

She was phoning Roxanne. My angel was right! I’d sent out the call in my thoughts, and it must have arrived.

I heard Roxanne’s voice come through the phone. A mobile phone is a bit crude, but it’s the nearest thing humans have to real telepathy.

‘Penny from Cat’s Protection gave me your number,’ explained TammyLee, half talking, half crying. ‘Do you remember a tabby-and-white fluffy cat? Tallulah?

‘Of course! Beautiful Tallulah. I’m tuning into her right now.’ replied Roxanne. ‘What’s happened?’

‘These EVIL boys got hold of her and threw her . . . threw her . . .’ TammyLee couldn’t speak for the sobs of rage gusting through her as she remembered my ordeal.

‘Take a deep breath,’ said Roxanne.

‘In the river,’ TammyLee said. ‘We’re taking her to the vet right now. But it’s more than that, Roxanne . . . it . . . it’s deep emotional stuff . . . the
hell of being bullied . . . and, God knows, I should understand THAT.’ She took another gulp of air.

‘Can we not have another drama when I’m driving?’ Max asked wearily.

‘She’s my best friend,’ explained TammyLee, ignoring Max. ‘She didn’t do anything. We got her out and dried her off, but I’m frightened they’ve hurt her
in some other way . . . b . . . broken her back or something terrible . . . she hasn’t walked or put her tail up, and she’s gone limp.’

‘I’m not getting that,’ said Roxanne. ‘I’m sensing she’s bruised and shocked . . . see what the vet has to say and I’ll come over when you’ve got
her home. Where do you live?’

‘Oh, thanks, Roxanne. River Cottage, just off the big roundabout by the park. Thanks, you’re a star!’

The next thing I knew was the smell of the vet’s place, the wailing of cats in cages in the waiting room, the cold of the table they put me on. The fear and the silence while he examined
me with gentle hands, pulling each paw, checking my tail, squeezing my sore tummy. When he did that, it hurt and I heard myself let out a long mewling cry.

‘She’s bruised,’ he said. ‘Her legs are OK but she doesn’t want to stand up, does she? We’ll do a scan.’

While he was running the scanner over me, I could feel Roxanne coaxing me back from where I still hovered, gazing longingly into the spirit world.

‘I think she’s basically OK,’ the vet said, ‘but shock can affect cats very badly . . . worse than a human. I’ll give her a mild sedative and she’ll sleep for
a few hours. Take her home and keep her warm.’

I opened my eyes then and saw TammyLee’s anxious face, and the glint of her bangles as she stroked me gently under the chin.

I remembered how much I loved her and I was so pleased to see her there, looking after me, that I managed a purr-meow.

‘Magic puss cat,’ she said, and smiled at me.

I was back.

The long sleep did me good, and, when I awoke, I found myself back on the bed with the rainbow scarf wound around me, and TammyLee was bringing Roxanne into the bedroom.

The two girls sat one each side of me and I felt as if the sun itself had come into the room. I wanted to love them both, so I stood up, stretched, and wove my way to and fro between them,
rubbing my head against them, my tail brushing their bare arms.

‘She’s much better,’ said TammyLee. ‘Listen to her purring. Maybe she doesn’t need healing now.’

‘We’ll see,’ said Roxanne, and she picked me up and held me against her heart. ‘Sometimes, animals want to talk to me. I can hear their voices by telepathy.’

‘Can you? Wow! What do you want me to do?’

‘Just be here . . . and listen. If she wants me to, I’ll tell you what she’s saying. Please be very still and quiet.’

As before, Roxanne closed her eyes and talked to me in a language I understood: telepathy. First, we talked about the boys dropping me in the river and whether I hated them for it.

‘She’s telling me about the boys,’ said Roxanne out loud, ‘and we’re forgiving them.’

‘I shan’t,’ said TammyLee, and her eyes burned. ‘I’ll never forgive them. Never.’

‘Animals do,’ said Roxanne. ‘They forgive us and forgive us, no matter how many mistakes we make.’

‘But those evil jerks don’t deserve forgiveness.’

‘But you do. You deserve to do the forgiving. It heals you. You are letting go of a burden,’ said Roxanne.

TammyLee looked confused. ‘No one’s ever said that to me before,’ she said, frowning. ‘I can’t get my head round it.’

‘It’s your heart that needs to forgive, not your head,’ said Roxanne, in a quiet, hypnotic voice. ‘Your heart is full of love and light. There’s no room in it for
hatred and blame.’

‘So . . . how do you do it?’

‘You just let go, my darling. Like a big stone you have carried up a steep mountain . . . it’s been dragging you down . . . but now, let it go and watch it rolling away, and you feel
light and free as a bird.’

She spoke passionately, and TammyLee listened intently, shaking her head a little.

‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to listen to Tallulah,’ said Roxanne, and both girls kept still and quiet. Overjoyed to have a listener, I told Roxanne everything. How
I, the Queen of Cats, had come here to re-unite a mother with her baby, how I had found Rocky and kept him warm, as a tiny baby. Then, how I’d found him again and didn’t know how I
could convey information to TammyLee. I asked Roxanne to tell her.