by Gill James
a pint of mild
“Let me out, let me out,” she said,
thundering on the backdoor. Usually, she said “Let me in, let me in.”
She’d arrived
quite suddenly. Ian and Viv Thomas ran The Wheelwright’s Arms. One night when
they’d finally finished washing the glasses, clearing the tables and bottling
up for the next day they’d climbed wearily upstairs and found her sitting in
the middle of the lounge, calmly washing herself. Yet all the doors and windows
of the flat were locked and the Thomases had two Dobermans who normally
absolutely hated cats. On that night though, the two big dogs just cowered in
the corner.
She’d come to
stay. There was no shifting her.
“Better get her
checked out at the vet,” said Ian.
“She’s a fine
animal,” said the vet. “Big, but not overweight. Young but adult.”
“We’d better
keep her,” said Viv.
“What shall we
call her?” asked Ian.
“Magic, I think,
don’t you?” said Viv. “Seeing as how she got in upstairs when it was shut up
and how she hypnotised Poppy and Edgar.”
She was gorgeous.
She had silky black fur, that was neither long nor short, a little white patch
on her chest and big owly eyes that made you think of the Owl and the Pussycat
and that stared in wonder at absolutely everything including the two Dobermans.
She was a very
articulate cat. She greeted them when they came upstairs, seemed to say please
and thank you at meal times, commented on television programmes and was
generally very talkative: you could always hear human language behind the cat
noises.
She liked to sit
in the window and chunter at the birds but ignored the little creatures when
she was out on the roof terrace.
One day, the
door to the roof garden broke and they couldn’t lock it. They needed to go
shopping before opening time.
“I bet you won’t
be much use,” said Ian stroking Poppy’s head.
Edgar barked
half-heartedly.
Magic sauntered
over to the door. She sat down facing the balcony.
“You’ll look
after everything for us, won’t you, Magic?” said Viv.
When they got
back, the cat was still sitting by the balcony door. The two dogs were still
asleep.
On another
occasion, Ian had had to abandon the accounts, which were being as awkward as usual,
to go and open up. He’d left Magic sitting next to his computer. When he got
back several hours later, everything seemed to make sense.
“I’d swear that
cat did those accounts for me,” he said.
She even managed
to make Poppy disappear one day for several hours. She’d been teasing the cat.
Then Viv and Ian couldn’t find the hapless bitch for hours, even though all the
doors and windows were shut and there was no way out of the flat. At
suppertime, there she was again as if nothing had happened.
“It must have
been Magic,” said Ian.
“I don’t think
you’re a cat at all,” said Viv one day, after Magic had been particularly
attentive and talkative. “I think you’re really a highly intelligent life form from
another planet.”
The cat winked
at her.
They learnt that
there were more cats like her.
Rozana, Viv’s colour-and-style consultant,
found Buster in her garden one day. The butcher on Caldwell Street found Blackie in his
garage. The mechanic who looked after Ian’s old Beetle found Beauty in the back
of one of the cars and the children of Beaumont County Junior were delighted when
Velvet took up residence in Y5’s classroom. They were all the same size as
Magic, with the same not-long-not-short-hair, the white patch on the chest, the
owly eyes, and the bizarre behaviour. And all of them appeared around 15 June
2011.
“Well your Ma
and Pa, put it about a bit didn’t they,” said Ian to Magic as she rubbed her
head against his legs. The guy who worked at the petrol station had just told
him about Moggy, whom he’d found in the kiosk when he’d opened up.
Suddenly that evening
Magic jumped away from Ian, made a noise that sounded like a protest and stared
at him.
“My, if looks
could kill, you’d be dead,” said Viv.
Now, though, the
animal was acting even more bizarrely than normal. She was really frantic to
get out. “Let me out, let me out, let me out!” she was now screeching.
Definitely, that was what she was shouting.
Something about the way she looked at Ian told
him she meant business. She’d never ever
shown any interest in going out anywhere but on to the roof garden. Today
something was up.
Ian opened the
door. Magic shot past him. She stopped suddenly, though, turned and looked at him.
He could have sworn that she bowed her head slightly. She closed her eyes and
opened them again. Somebody had told him that that was how cats smiled. She
made a two syllable meow that almost sounded like “Thank you.” Then she
disappeared into the blackness.
They looked for
her for an hour after closing time. There was no sign, though they did think
they’d spotted her a couple of times when a big black cat with white mark
dashed in front of them. But they reckoned it must have been Buster, Blackie,
Beauty, Velvet or Moggy. Magic would have come running up to them wouldn’t she?
“They’re even
crazier than usual tonight,” said Ian. “Something funny’s going on.”
Viv and Ian were
unable to sleep that night.
“I think you had a point, love,” said Ian. “When you accused her of coming form another planet.”
“She won’t be
coming back, will she?” said Viv.
A light flashed
outside and something bright sped across the dark sky. They both jumped.
Ian put an arm
around Viv’s shoulders. “No, he said. “She was just visiting. They all were.”
About the author
Gill James used to have a cat called black cat called Magic who was extraordinary. Her son-in-law runs a pub. Ah, how we writer use ur surroundings.
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