Christmas at the Cat Cafe

My stomach jolted unpleasantly on seeing David standing on the doormat. His sour demeanour seemed more jarring than ever, now that the café was bedecked for Christmas.

‘Oh, hello, David,’ Debbie said, turning to look at him over her shoulder. She smiled politely, but I sensed a guardedness in her manner.

David nodded curtly and wiped his wet shoes on the mat, eyeing Debbie suspiciously as she went over to the counter and retrieved a sheet of paper from behind the till. Clutching the piece of paper, she sat down at the nearest table, motioning for David to join her. I couldn’t help noticing that, this time, there were no cups of tea or plate of cookies. David sat down opposite her and there followed an awkward silence, during which neither of them seemed to want to be the first to speak.

‘So, thanks for coming, David,’ Debbie began at last, fingering the sheet of paper nervously. ‘You can probably guess why I asked you here: to sort out this business of your mum’s legacy.’ David inclined his head fractionally, but said nothing. Debbie swallowed, she looked as if she was steeling herself to continue. ‘What happened last time we met – all the talk about going to court – I’m sure neither of us wants it to come to that,’ she went on, glancing apprehensively across the table.

David blinked at her, but his pinched expression gave nothing away.

Debbie ploughed on bravely. ‘Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about Margery, and why she might have wanted to make Molly a beneficiary.’ At this, David’s lips parted, but Debbie carried on talking before he could speak. ‘But I’ve also been thinking about you, and the fact that you’d only just lost your mum when you found out about this legacy. It can’t have been nice to discover that you’d been . . . overlooked, in favour of a cat . . .’ She trailed off, glancing nervously at David’s hard-set face . . .

‘You could say that,’ he concurred.

‘I think, if it happened to me, I’d be furious,’ Debbie prompted.

David frowned at the place mat on the table. ‘It was a bit of a shock,’ he admitted at last. ‘She’d never mentioned anything about it. Not to me, at least,’ he said, looking at Debbie warily.

‘She never mentioned it to me, either,’ Debbie insisted. ‘I promise you, David, I had no idea what was in Margery’s will. This legacy was as much a shock to me as it was to you.’

David continued to stare sulkily at the place mat.

‘Look,’ Debbie persisted, ‘I said it right from the start: I feel it would be wrong for me to accept your mum’s money on Molly’s behalf. But I can’t ignore the fact that Margery wanted to make sure Molly would be taken care of.’

David had fixed Debbie with an intent look and seemed to be hanging on her every word. On the window cushion, I was also on tenterhooks. Debbie had not confided her plans to anyone, insisting that she needed to speak to David first, so I was as much in the dark as he was. Her agitated demeanour suggested that there was more to be said, that her willingness to decline the legacy would have conditions attached, and that she didn’t expect David to like them.

‘Things have been . . . tricky in the café recently,’ Debbie explained evenly. ‘We’ve been tripping over ourselves – the flat’s too small. Put simply, cats need space, and there just isn’t enough room for us all here. I’ve got to consider the welfare of all the cats, not just Molly.’

I felt a flutter of panic in my chest as I listened. I had never heard Debbie talk about us in such starkly practical terms. I had always believed that, when it came to cats, if she could make room for us in her heart, she would find room for us in her home. Why else would she have taken on not just me and the kittens, but Jasper and Ming as well? And yet here she was, talking about us as though we were a mere logistical consideration, and implying that the number of cats currently living in the café exceeded the available space.

‘Margery was devoted to Molly. She wanted Molly to live somewhere she would be looked after properly. The way things have been recently, that just hasn’t been possible.’

A sickening feeling of dread spread through me. Was I to be the sacrificial victim, the one to be removed from the café environment, so that the other cats would have more space? Did Debbie think that was what Margery would have wanted? Panicking, my eyes flicked towards David. He looked as horrified as I felt, and I wondered if, like me, he thought Debbie was about to ask him to take me in.

Debbie paused, and I could see the sheet of paper quiver in her trembling hands. ‘I’ve written a letter to the solicitor, setting out what I would like to happen. I wanted to show it to you before sending it,’ she said steadily.

David took the letter and read it with rapt concentration. I tried to glean something – anything – about the letter’s contents from his expression, but his face was infuriatingly blank.

‘That’s not quite what I was expecting,’ he said at last, a wrinkle forming between his brows.