Christmas at the Cat Cafe

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Linda tutted. She leant back against the sofa, looking thoughtful. ‘You know, there is another way of looking at this,’ she said.

‘Oh, really, what’s that?’ replied Debbie wanly.

‘Well, what just happened with David has given you time to think, at least. The way I see it, David just showed you who he really is, which is a thoroughly unpleasant bully.’

Debbie gave an acquiescent shrug. ‘So?’

‘Well,’ Linda went on, ‘I’m starting to wonder if there was a reason why Margery didn’t want him to inherit . . .’ She trailed off, directing a significant look at her sister.

Debbie’s brow furrowed. ‘What are you saying, Linda? That he bullied his mother? That he . . .’

Linda hunched forward, clasping her hands tightly together in her lap. ‘I don’t know that for sure, Debbie. How could I? All I’m saying is, maybe it would be wrong to dismiss Margery’s wishes out of hand.’ Her face was full of fervour, and two spots of pink had appeared in her cheeks. ‘There might have been more going on in that family than you realize. Margery may have had good reason for not wanting to leave her estate to David.’ Linda raised her eyebrows and gave a slow, emphatic nod.

A look of panic started to spread across Debbie’s face. ‘Oh, God,’ she cried pitifully. ‘Oh, Linda, why did you have to say that? Now I really don’t know what to do!’

Linda sat back again and glanced down at Beau, who had been staring longingly at her lap since being dislodged from the sofa cushion. Taking her look as a tacit invitation, he bounded onto the sofa, making a nest for himself in the space between the sisters. Debbie had stopped rocking and was staring blankly into the middle distance as if in a trance, while Linda picked at her chipped nail varnish. Between them, Beau seemed blissfully unaware of the drama unfolding around him; he cocked one leg sideways and began licking his genitals noisily.

In the shoebox, my tail twitched with frustration. It should have been me sitting on the sofa beside Debbie, not Beau, and I should have been comforting her, rather than Linda. My calm, purring presence would have soothed her far more than Linda’s glib reassurances and dark speculations. Admittedly, I could not tell Debbie how proud I had been of the dignified way she had handled David, or that I knew that what she felt about Margery had nothing to do with money. But I was confident that, without saying a word, I could have done more to help her than Linda.

It was only Sophie’s unexpected appearance at the top of the stairs, and her blasé announcement that she would be home for dinner, that seemed to lift Debbie out of her trance. She disappeared into the hallway to greet her daughter and was soon ensconced in the kitchen, preparing a meal for the three of them.

For several days after David’s visit the atmosphere in the flat was stiff with tension. Debbie seemed preoccupied, as if she were present in body, but not in spirit. She didn’t mention Margery, David or the legacy at all, and steadfastly ignored Linda when she attempted, with varying degrees of subtlety, to talk to her about it. Linda found numerous ways to ask the same question, always in the same casual voice – ‘Have you heard anything more from David?’, ‘Has the solicitor been in touch?’, ‘Have you thought any more about what I said?’ – and ‘Nope,’ Debbie answered flatly each time, before standing up to leave the room.

Linda’s frustration at her sister’s stonewalling grew more apparent over time; her silent eye-rolls gave way to tuts of annoyance, until on one occasion she called pompously, ‘You can’t bury your head in the sand forever!’ at Debbie’s retreating back. To no avail. With Debbie stubbornly refusing to talk about it, Linda had no choice but to let the issue of the inheritance drop, and Margery’s legacy became a taboo subject around the flat.

It occurred to me one morning, as I watched them eating breakfast in silence, that there were now so many issues being avoided by the sisters that it was a miracle they found anything to say to each other at all. Like Margery’s legacy, the question of when Linda would move out also remained out-of-bounds; Debbie had either forgotten the promise she’d made to Jo, or was simply too taken up with Margery’s legacy to contemplate revisiting the subject. Sophie continued to spend no more than the bare minimum of her time in the flat, but this too was something that Debbie seemed reluctant to address openly.

Eddie had been missing for over a month, but his and Jasper’s continuing absence was similarly never mentioned, although I heard Debbie call their names into the alleyway every morning, and I knew she missed them keenly. As if that weren’t enough, my fear that John would decide he’d had enough of us seemed to have been proved right. Almost a week had passed since Debbie and John’s last date-night, when things had turned sour over the issue of the legacy. As far as I was aware, they had not spoken since.