Timba Comes Home (12 page)

‘Pollinating,’ repeated Leroy. ‘Are you joking, Angie?’

‘No.’

Leroy didn’t look convinced. ‘Well, Mum got her apples from Tesco,’ he said. ‘She didn’t get them off a tree.’

At night Leroy’s bedroom door was left open so that I could go in and lie close to him, purring, as he slept.

One night he didn’t go to sleep, but lay there talking to me. ‘My mum didn’t want me, Timba. She left me alone in the house and the social workers took me into care. They
wouldn’t listen when I said I wanted to live with Angie. That’s why I missed playing with you when you were a kitten, but I still love you now you’re big.’

He got up and put the light on. Then he roamed around the room in his bare feet, a box of pens in his hand. I watched anxiously. I knew what he was going to do!

The walls in Leroy’s bedroom were covered in posters, and he couldn’t find a space. He drifted out onto the landing and listened with his ear to the closed door of Angie and
Graham’s room. He turned and gave me a thumbs-up and a beaming smile. ‘They’re asleep,’ he said in a stage whisper. He switched the lights on and surveyed the pale green
bare wall along the landing, took the lid off a pen, and began to draw. First he did a pair of hypnotic yellow eyes. I watched anxiously, my tail twitching, as he drew with swift, skilful strokes,
and the rest of the lion appeared on the wall.

A fox was barking out in the night, and the wind blew scatters of rain against the window. Leroy worked on, in a silent frenzy. I felt as if that lion was in the house, drawing its own picture
through the wildly moving arm of a pyjama-clad boy.

I knew that in the morning Leroy would be in terrible trouble. I wanted him to stop. An ordinary meow had no effect, except that Leroy put his finger to his lips and whispered, ‘Shh,
Timba. We gotta be quiet. I’ll draw the curly mane now . . . in colours!’ And he worked furiously, doing crinkling lines around the lion’s face. His pens fell to the floor, the
white tops rolling everywhere, and I couldn’t resist playing with them, batting them through the banisters to the hall floor below.

Vati sensed the excitement and came trotting upstairs. He slunk up to Leroy’s lion, and peered at its eyes, and dismissed it as unimportant. We played with the pen tops, filling the silent
house with whirrs and clicks and the muffled thud of paws belting up and down the stairs.

The dawn chorus was starting when Leroy decided the lion was finished. He stood back to look at it with a satisfied smile. Leaving the pens scattered on the floor, he went back to bed, and the
house fell silent.

I followed Vati downstairs and out through the cat flap into the light of the rising sun. We caught a mouse each and took them back into the house to play with. I ate mine, but Vati chucked his
on top of the piano and left it there for Graham. He went straight to sleep in our favourite armchair, while I stayed awake, washing and listening. I was nervous about what Leroy had done. I wanted
to warn Angie before Graham woke up. I felt it justified an amplified extended-meow, so I sat outside her bedroom door and did one, a real beauty. Then I stuck my claws out and tapped on the door,
politely, like a human.

I heard a groan and a yawn. Graham opened the door. ‘What’s up, Timba?’ I looked around at the scattered pens and the lion on the wall and felt it was my fault.

Leroy appeared, and he didn’t look nervous at all. His eyes danced with excitement. ‘You like my lion?’ he said to Graham. ‘It’s a surprise.’

In one of Leroy’s story books was a picture of a very hairy, very angry giant towering over a downtrodden little farmer. Graham looked exactly like that giant as he stood there in his
boxers, staring open-mouthed at Leroy’s lion. I saw a red flash burn upwards through his aura until it reached his head and Graham pushed his fingers through his hair and made it wild and
scraggy.

The smile was disappearing from Leroy’s face, and the silence hung in the air. I felt it reaching into my memory, and I recalled the time in my early kittenhood when a man had shouted, and
instantly extinguished any spiritual light. I didn’t want Graham to shout at Leroy and destroy the bright joy in the boy’s heart.

So I did another amplified extended-meow and gave Graham a stare that he couldn’t ignore. It helped him with the rage he was struggling to control.

‘You angry?’ whispered Leroy.

Graham raised his eyebrows and made his voice quiet. He sat down on the wide window seat. ‘Come here, Leroy. I need to explain something to you.’

Leroy shuffled over to him.

‘Look at me, please,’ Graham said, and his own eyes were so full of light that Leroy looked at him attentively, seeming fascinated by this giant of a man who could speak quietly when
he was angry. Graham used that same hushed tone to create suspense when he was reading stories to Leroy.

‘This is my house,’ Graham said. ‘And I like it, in fact, I love it. I lived here when I was a little boy, like you. I like it to look clean and bright, and if I want a
picture, I put it in a nice frame, with glass over it, like that one there.’ He pointed to a nearby painting of the sea. ‘It looks good, doesn’t it?’

Leroy grunted. ‘Yeah.’ He fidgeted and I could see he was still expecting Graham to shout at him the way Janine had done.

‘So . . . I’ll tell you what we are going to do about that lion that’s appeared on the wall . . . look at me, Leroy,’ Graham continued. ‘I must say . . . it’s
a quality drawing . . . very good. BUT.’ His voice rose slightly. ‘I don’t want it on our nice clean wall. So, what I’m going to do is take a photo of it with my digital
camera, and you can help me make a posh frame for it . . . then we can hang it on the wall. We can even put it on Facebook.’ Leroy’s smile was reappearing, only to vanish as Graham
spoke, low and sinister. ‘However . . . I am going out after breakfast, until lunchtime, and when I come back I want to see that wall painted a nice apple green like it was before. Otherwise
the photo will stay inside my camera. Do you understand, Leroy?’

‘Yeah.’

‘AND . . . ’ The red flash burnt through Graham’s aura again. ‘Look at me. I want a promise that you’ll never, never, never EVER draw on my wall in my house
again.’

‘OK,’ Leroy mumbled.

‘Is that a deal?’

‘Deal.’ Leroy banged his small hand against Graham’s giant one.

‘But . . . we’ll put my lion on FACEBOOK?’

‘We’ll put the lion on Facebook,’ Graham promised, and Vati came running upstairs with his tail up, and made a fuss of Graham, purring and gazing adoringly at him. Cats like
quiet voices too.

Later, Angie covered the floor with a sheet and set Leroy up with a tin of apple green paint and a roller. Painting over his lion made him cry, but he got on with it, and made a mess. His hair
and his hands were smeared with paint, and there were drips everywhere.

‘Keep those cats away from the wet paint,’ Angie said. ‘We don’t want two apple green cats!’

Too late. Vati and I had already played around on the slippery sheet. Vati had trodden in one of the drips and left apple green paw marks along the landing and down the stairs. And I had managed
to sit in a pool of paint.

‘Timba’s got an apple green bum,’ said Angie, laughing. ‘Oh dear . . . I’ll have to bath you, Timba,’ and I had to endure being ‘encouraged’ to
sit in a bowl of warm water and let her slosh it over my fur.

The day ended with supper in the garden, blackbirds singing and petals from the apple blossom drifting around us. We were family, sharing ups and downs and growing closer. But only I knew the
secret that haunted Graham’s mind.

The trouble between Angie and Graham came to a head in the autumn.

Vati led me into ever more daring escapades. He would scale the wire around the chicken pen and jump down onto the roof of the wooden chicken house. Then he’d sit there coolly observing
the hens, while I sat sensibly outside the pen, looking in.

I was on a polite nose-to-beak relationship with the cockerel, strictly through the wire, and not too often. Just common courtesy and respect. But Vati really pushed his luck, and one day the
cockerel flew at him with his colours blazing. I would have retaliated, but Vati simply rolled onto his back and waved his paws in the air. The sight of his sleek tummy and shining black pads
seemed to disarm the outraged cockerel who turned and stalked off.

‘I’m a peacemaker,’ Vati often told me. He’d actually made friends with Leroy, allowing a tentative stroking session, and the occasional cuddle, strictly on Vati’s
terms.

I wished Vati could make peace between Angie and Graham. There were more and more times when Graham came home late, and one day when Angie was at work and Leroy at school, he brought a woman
friend into our home. Her name was Lisa, and she didn’t like cats. Especially me.

‘I couldn’t stand a cat like him,’ she said to Graham. ‘Look at the fluff he leaves everywhere. I don’t mind the other little cat. Vati, is it? He’s kind of
cute.’

I felt hurt. I didn’t deliberately leave my fur around the place! Eat, I thought, and retreated to my bowl where I tucked into my generous portion of ‘rabbit with tuna’.

‘And look at the size of him,’ Lisa said scathingly. ‘I bet he is a really greedy cat.’

When I started on Vati’s meal, Graham came and whipped the dish away. ‘That’s Vati’s food, you greedy cat,’ he said. I lashed my tail, and glared at him. It
wasn’t like Graham to insult me. We were buddies, weren’t we?

I wanted Vati to curl up with me, and calm me down, but he went swanning into the music room with Graham and Lisa. The singing began, and Lisa had a high soprano voice like a cat. I resented
her. How dare she criticise ME when she was the fattest human I’d ever seen. Her tummy stuck right out, nearly touching the piano as she sang, balanced precariously on two slim legs and a
pair of sparkly gold sandals.

Something felt wrong. When the singing stopped Graham knelt on the floor in front of Lisa and leaned his head against her fat tummy. ‘How’s the little person in there?’ he
asked.

‘She’s fine.’ Lisa patted her tummy. ‘She was moving around when we were singing. She likes music!’

I curled up, alone in my basket, wishing Angie and Leroy would come home, wishing I could go to sleep and shut out the sound of Lisa and Graham. They sat on the sofa, cuddling and talking
quietly. Betrayal, I thought angrily. Couldn’t Vati see it?

The gift of sleep eluded me as I watched them discreetly with my eyes half open. I definitely didn’t feel like purring, but I could hear Vati’s economical little purr as he seduced
Graham, lying on his shoulder like a drape of silk. Soon Vati was deeply asleep, leaving me to listen in horror to the conversation.

‘I’m not going to share a house with HER,’ Lisa said. And I understood that the loud ‘HER’ meant my beloved Angie.

‘Of course not, darling. She’ll have to go,’ said Graham. ‘Damn it, this is my house. I inherited it from my parents . . . I was an only child. I grew up here. . .
can’t imagine living anywhere else. Oh yes . . . Angie will have to go . . . and her chickens, and THAT BOY she is insisting on fostering.’ Graham frowned, still smoothing Vati’s
silken coat with one hand. ‘And the cats . . . but I might keep this little fellow.’

‘Have you told Angie yet?’ Lisa asked.

‘No,’ Graham said heavily. ‘I will, when the time is right.’

‘You said that last time.’

‘Sure . . . I did. But it is not a task I relish, Lisa. Angie is very volatile. She’ll fly into a rage. I dread it . . . and, if I’m honest, I don’t know how best to tell
her.’

‘You’ll have to grasp the nettle. You’re not married.’

‘No.’ Graham sighed and fidgeted.

‘So when are you going to tell her, Graham?’

‘I wish I didn’t have to.’

‘Do you still love her?’

‘No.’ Graham looked defensive. ‘But I don’t want to hurt her. She’s stressed enough with Leroy and the teaching job. I should at least wait until the end of
term.’

‘That will be Christmas. You can’t chuck her out on Christmas Eve, Graham. Even I know that!’

‘Can we put this discussion on hold, please?’ Graham pleaded. ‘Let’s focus on the concerts.’ He held up his hand as Lisa tried to protest. ‘I promise I will
tell Angie, in the fullness of time.’

Devastated, I slunk out of the house, feeling I couldn’t bear to stay in there. Angie had promised me a ‘for-ever home’, and Vati. What was going to happen? The conversation
hung over me, and the words swerved and twisted in my mind. ‘Angie will have to go . . . and her chickens, and THAT BOY . . . and the cats.’

It was unthinkable.

I headed for my magic place, the circle of stones on the back lawn. Thick grey clouds were piling in from the west, and the wind ruffled my fur. I couldn’t get comfortable. Driven by the
need for total stillness and shelter, I trotted across the lawn and found the barrel Vati had used. A node point, he’d said, a place of enchantment where the golden roads crossed. Right now I
needed something like that.

I heard the sounds of Graham taking THAT LISA home in his car. I wondered where Vati was. I needed him.

But I stayed in the barrel, and felt nothing except anxiety and the chill of autumn.

Then I heard Angie and Leroy arriving, Leroy’s feet thundering around the place as he looked for me. ‘Timba. Timba, where are you?’

I stayed hidden.

Cats shouldn’t have to worry about humans, I thought, as I waited for the Spirit Lion. He came wrapped in white light, his eyes peaceful and amused. He coaxed me out of the barrel, and the
sky had cleared. Pale and warm, the afternoon sun seemed to arrive with the Lion, even though it was autumn.

‘You’re a fine cat, Timba,’ he said as I settled down between his pillow-soft paws.

‘But what’s going to happen to me?’ I asked, and the whole problem suddenly magnified in my mind. Where would Angie take us? How far away? I loved our home at Graham’s.
Vati and I knew every corner, every wall and every tree. We knew where the sun rose and where to shelter from the wind. We had friends here, good friends like Poppy and Laura, and the heron who
came to the pond. I couldn’t imagine living somewhere else. This was home.