Christmas at the Cat Cafe

I opened my mouth, wanting to undo the damage caused by my clunky, ill-chosen comment, but it was too late. A car had passed too close to the kerb, splashing passers-by with murky water; and, in the ensuing commotion, Purdy turned and trotted away. Within seconds she had disappeared over a wall and I was left standing on the cobbles, with cold rain beating down on my back, and Christmas shoppers rushing past me.

27

I returned to the café and, ignoring the customers’ good-natured overtures, headed straight for my window cushion. I turned my back on the room and stared out of the glass, castigating myself for the way I had handled the encounter. In my fretful state, Purdy’s and Ming’s suffering became conflated in my mind. I was convinced I was to blame for both, and that my self-absorption had blinded me to what they had been going through. If life in the café had been making Purdy unhappy, then surely, as her mother, I should have noticed? Similarly, as the colony’s matriarch, I should have been less quick to judge Ming’s odd behaviour. With both Purdy and Ming out of the café, however, I could do nothing except stare watchfully out over the damp street and wait for their return.

The rest of the day seemed to drag on inexorably, and it was not until after closing time that Debbie finally brought Ming home.

‘I’m back,’ Debbie called, crouching down on the flagstones to unlock the cat carrier.

Ming crept out cautiously, glanced in both directions, sniffed the air uncertainly, then dashed towards the cat tree.

Linda came out of the kitchen with a querying look.

‘We had to go to the animal hospital for tests,’ Debbie explained as she made for the nearest chair and sat down.

‘And?’ Linda asked, pulling off her apron and hanging it on the peg.

‘She’s deaf,’ Debbie replied sadly. ‘Almost certainly since birth. A congenital defect, probably.’

I felt my breath catch in my chest.

‘Poor Ming.’ Linda sighed, pouting with concern.

Looking relieved to be back on her platform, Ming had started to wash, unaffected by the melancholy mood in the room.

‘Do you think it’s okay for her to stay in the café? I mean, is it cruel, if she can’t hear anything?’ Linda asked, looking sorrowfully at Ming.

‘It’s something to think about,’ Debbie agreed. ‘Perhaps she would be happier somewhere less . . . busy.’

Linda walked over to the cat tree and reached out her hand to touch Ming’s back. Startled, Ming turned towards her and, when Linda gently caressed her spine from her shoulders to her tail, blinked in pleasure.

‘You know, if you think it would be for the best, I’d be happy to take Ming with me to Margery’s cottage,’ Linda said diffidently, as the room began to fill with Ming’s rumbling purr. ‘I should be the one to take responsibility for her, since it was me who brought her here in the first place.’

From her chair near the door, Debbie watched her sister closely. ‘Thanks, Linda, I’ll bear that in mind,’ she said appreciatively.

Later, when Debbie and Linda had gone upstairs, I stared across the dimly lit café at Ming. She lay in a neat circle, the perfect arc of her body disrupted only by the single, angular protuberance of her left ear. I was struck anew by her effortless elegance, and the uncomfortable realization that Ming’s beauty had been a major factor in my distrust of her. The adulation she had received in the café had stoked the flames of my envy, and I had never stopped to consider what coming to the café must have felt like for her. She had been an outsider, unexpectedly introduced to a colony of cats in an environment where privacy and solitude had not been an option. Any cat would have struggled in such circumstances, let alone one who couldn’t hear. I felt a wave of pity rise up inside me. I had been determined from the outset to read disdain into Ming’s reserved demeanour. Now I had to accept that, though there had been disdain, it had been on my side, not Ming’s.

Sporadic twitches seized Ming’s paws and whiskers as she dreamt, then she awoke with a sudden jerk. Her enormous eyes sprang open and she looked around in alarm, catching sight of me watching her from the window. Her dream had left her with a disorientated look, but I held her gaze for a few moments. Then, for the first time since meeting Ming, I blinked at her, slowly, in a sign of friendship. She tilted her head quizzically to one side before responding with a blink of her own, her azure eyes disappearing momentarily behind chocolate-brown eyelids.

I was overcome by a bittersweet elation. There was something so mundane, and yet so momentous, in that silent communication – the simple gesture of nonaggression that had passed between us. But my happiness was tinged with regret that it had taken me so long to attempt this most basic of feline signals, that I had wasted so much time looking for evidence to confirm my prejudices, rather than give Ming the benefit of the doubt.