Solomon’s Tale. Sheila Jeffries

      ‘Sweet little cat! She’s rubbish. And we can’t afford to feed one cat, leave alone two.’

      They were chilling words. I gazed at Joe from where I was sitting quietly on the windowsill enjoying the morning sun. Keeping calm wasn’t easy, but I was managing, even when I heard the dreaded RSPCA word. Later I padded across to the sofa and coaxed Jessica out. Her eyes were huge and black, but she emerged and sat beside me in our favourite chair.

      ‘I love you,’ I said. ‘And Ellen does too. But why must you tear up letters like that?’

      Jessica said something surprising.

      ‘I only tear up the brown ones. They’re bills, and they make Joe bad tempered. Actually he tears them up himself, I’ve seen him doing it. And he hides them from Ellen.’

      Jessica fascinated me. One morning I sat and watched her in the garden. She spent half her time airborne, doing reckless leaps from the garage roof to the cherry tree, then clambering up through the branches. Next she sat on the high wall and batted at swallows. The tiny birds dive bombed her, almost clipping her with a blade-like wing as they twisted out of her reach.

      ‘Do you wish you were a bird?’ I asked her.

      ‘No.’ She waited until I’d climbed through a prickly bush to the top of the wall to be with her. ‘Tiresome teenage kitten,’ she growled, lashing her tail at me. She took off down to the lawn, leaving me marooned up there, meowing. She slipped through the cat flap and I figured she would be in the kitchen eating from my dish. Moments later she emerged with a big brick of cheese in her mouth.

      ‘YOU PIGGING CAT!’ Joe burst into the garden and saw Jessica’s tail disappearing under the shed. ‘Why do I bother giving you a home? I worked my hands to the bone to pay for that cheese and you go and nick it. Thieving moggy. You’re nothing but trouble.’

      He seized a broom and banged on the shed with it. But Jessica didn’t come out. I saw Sue-next-door peering through her curtains, and I wondered where Ellen was. I felt scared on top of the wall, with Joe’s voice booming all over the garden. I wanted Ellen to come and coax me down.

      Horrified, I watched Joe lie down and ram the broom handle under the shed. Jessica would be killed. The shed was creaking and rocking as Joe attacked it. I looked up at Sue-next-door, who was standing firmly at the window with her arms folded, and I sent her a silent meow. She responded by rolling her eyes.

      Jessica popped out from the other side of the shed, still with the cheese in her mouth, and streaked across the lawn. I saw a flash of white paws and pink pads as she cleared the fence into Sue-next-door’s garden. Joe hurled the broom after her with such force that it snapped a row of tomato plants which Ellen had been growing against the sunny fence. A hot, dusty smell rose from them and green tomatoes rolled over the grass.

      Joe stood there, his aura steaming. His face was red and his hands trembled. Slowly he walked over and picked up a green tomato, and looked at it in silence. He picked up the two halves of the broom, tried unsuccessfully to fit them back together, and stalked back towards the house. He walked right past me but didn’t look up, and I saw big fat tears on his furious cheeks. I sensed his pain.

      I wished Ellen would come back. But she didn’t. Instead, a purple silence filled the garden.

      Jessica had called me a ‘tiresome teenage kitten’ but that wasn’t true. I was a healing cat. If I saw tears on human cheeks I had to do something. So I climbed down through the prickly bush, and trotted into the house with my tail up. I could tell where Joe was by the sour smell of beer. He was slumped in a corner by a pile of magazines, wiping his tears with the back of his hand, sniffing and slurping from a can. I ran to him as if he was my best friend. Being careful not to scratch him, I walked nicely along his leg and up his torso to his heart. It was bang-banging in there, and his arms were shaking. He looked at me in surprise.

      As soon as we had eye contact, I gazed into his soul and purred. I licked the salty tears from his face, but more of them came zigzagging down.

      ‘Oh Solomon,’ he whispered. ‘How can you love a bad-tempered bastard like me?’

      I purred louder, stretching my paws over his heart, and rubbed my head against his bristly chin.

      ‘The truth is, Solomon,’ he said, ‘I don’t like myself one bit. Everything I do goes wrong. I’m no good. In fact, I’m bloody doomed.’

      I pretended to go to sleep and let him talk, his hot hand smoothing my fur, and after a while he quietened down and my angel came close, shining her light over us as we dozed in the chair.

      ‘You’re doing a great job, Solomon,’ she said.

      After Joe’s outburst I needed another cat to curl up with. Jessica didn’t come back until it was dark and everyone had gone to bed, even the swallows. Moonlight spilled in through the window and polished her sleek fur as she came in. I ran to meet her. She condescended to touch noses with me, and I got to look into her eyes. In the night they were deep saucers of green, and her whiskers glistened magnificently each side of her little pink nose. To me she was exquisitely beautiful. Why didn’t she want to be friends with me?

      I followed her to her basket, but she wouldn’t let me in there. Sensing she was tired, I sat watching her. All I wanted was to curl up against her silky warmth.

      ‘Go away,’ she hissed. ‘You smell like that sour stuff Joe drinks.’

      ‘I’ve been lying on him,’ I said. ‘Healing him.’

      Jessica looked at me out of slitty eyes.

      ‘Traitor,’ she said. ‘You should have been scratching him after the way he treated me.’

      ‘I don’t scratch humans. I’m a healing cat.’

      ‘Poof!’ Jessica curled up into a silken mound and closed her eyes as if I wasn’t there. Confused, I watched her go to sleep, and respected her peace. I didn’t dare to even put one paw inside her cosy basket; I spent the night hunched on the cold floor just to be near her.

      In the morning her eyes were buttercup yellow again, and when she yawned, I saw the curl of her tongue and the pink roof of her mouth. She looked surprised and not pleased to see me there. We touched noses and it made me buzz all over with excitement. Her eyes hardened and she hissed at me, but not before I’d seen the sadness that lurked behind those golden eyes. Sadness – and anger. I wanted to know where it had come from, but Jessica wouldn’t talk to me.

      I’d fallen in love with a cat who didn’t want me.

      One evening Joe came through the back door with a bottle of wine and a pizza in a box. He had a rare smile on his face.

      ‘Where did you get this?’ Ellen asked.

      ‘Stop frowning, Ellen,’ Joe said, and he fished into his back pocket and took out some cash. ‘I’ve got a JOB!’

      ‘A job? Oh wow, that’s amazing.’ Ellen’s face lit up with a happy smile. She gave Joe a hug and pushed his hair out of his eyes. ‘Doing what?’

      ‘Don’t get too excited, it’s only casual work – in the bar at the pub. Three nights a week.’

      ‘Great,’ said Ellen, ‘but …’

      ‘Don’t give me that face, Joe said. ‘I won’t be drinking if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m going to look after my family.’

      Ellen sighed and opened the big pizza box.

      ‘Hmm. Yum. Do you want a little bit, Solomon?’

      The times when Joe went to work were peaceful for us, golden summer evenings in the garden, with John, Jessica and me racing around while Ellen worked on a little flower bed. On wet evenings I managed to persuade her to play the piano again. John got so excited, dancing and squealing and singing little songs. Even Jessica enjoyed it and she came and lay beside