Solomon's Kitten (20 page)

The circle of angel light tightened around us. If I hadn’t been there, TammyLee might have panicked or run away. She kept stroking me. I was grounding her.

‘That’s awful,’ she muttered, not looking at Kaye’s bright open face. ‘So . . . how old is he?’

‘Eighteen months, and he’s great,’ said Kaye. ‘A bit of a handful, but a real boy, aren’t you, Rocky?’

Rocky was standing close to TammyLee, playing with her bangles, and stretching up to smooth my fur with his tiny hand.

‘Move up higher,’ said my angel, and I manoeuvred myself up to TammyLee’s shoulder, and draped myself around her neck, my tail hanging down one side and my face on the other. I
had eye contact with Rocky and, after two purr-meows and a touch of sparkle, he looked solemnly at TammyLee, who couldn’t take her eyes off him.

‘Do you want to sit on my lap, Rocky?’ she asked. ‘Then you can stroke Tallulah. She loves you.’

‘Loolah,’ said Rocky, as if my name was a delicious chocolate. ‘Loolah.’

TammyLee helped him onto her lap.

‘He’ll probably go to sleep,’ said Kaye. ‘He usually does about mid-morning.’

‘I don’t mind,’ said TammyLee. She was acting cool, but hardly breathing as Rocky settled on her lap and lay back in the crook of her arm. They gazed and gazed into each
other’s eyes.

‘This moment will last for ever,’ said my angel, and all the angels in the golden circle were humming a lullaby, and winding streamers of stars around the three of us. The mother
love angel flickered behind TammyLee, bending over her with shining arms.

Rocky’s eyes began to close, the dark lashes falling over his rounded cheeks as he went to sleep instantly. TammyLee rocked him and rested her face against his silky head.

Kaye took out her mobile phone. ‘I’ve got to have a photo of that,’ she said, ‘it’s so sweet, with the cat there.’

‘Will you do one on my mobile too?’ asked TammyLee. ‘It’s in my bag.’

‘OK.’

‘That’s very, very . . .’ TammyLee seemed stuck for words as Kaye showed us the photo she’d taken. ‘. . . Special,’ she said finally. ‘Look,
Tallulah.’ Inside her mobile was a tiny image of Rocky’s sleeping face, and her face, and me like a fairy cat, and a bit of Amber’s face too.

Only I knew how precious that photo would be. I filled the silence with purring. A question was burning in TammyLee’s mind, and eventually, she managed to let it come out.

‘What . . . would happen, Kaye, if the real mother showed up?’

‘She’d have no chance,’ said Kaye. ‘Not now that he’s legally adopted. She wouldn’t be allowed any contact. BUT . . . she ought to own up really, for
Rocky’s sake. He’ll know he’s adopted, and maybe, when he’s a man, he’ll want to trace his birth mother. So, if she is out there, and she cares, she should come clean
about it, and get her details put in his birth file, so that he can find her, if he wants to. And she should write him a beautiful letter to have when he’s grown up. I hope she does, for
Rocky’s sake. I mean, maybe she was just a scared teenager . . . they’re not going to send her to prison, are they?’

TammyLee nodded slowly, and the silence sparkled around her as she held her sleeping child.

‘She knows,’ said my angel. ‘She knows what she must do.’

I could feel the change in TammyLee. A calmness, a knowing, a sense of peace. A golden time of holding her secret child, sealed for ever by the angels.

‘It was me,’ said TammyLee, as four pairs of eyes stared intently at her.

We were protecting TammyLee, Amber leaning firmly against her legs, and me sitting on her lap, gazing into her soul. Fear danced in her green eyes, yet they shone with courage and maternal
defensiveness. I was proud to be her cat.

The house was quiet now, after a long day of noise and energy from downstairs. The water had gone, leaving mud over everything, the sofa was out in the garden, and people who Max called
volunteers had been sweeping and scrubbing all day. A new fire was roaring up the chimney, its blaze filling the sodden house with welcome heat.

Amber and I had a new bed each, and we were cosy in the spare room with the freedom to pad around the upstairs. I had a new cat-nip mouse and the walls reverberated with the sound of Amber
gnawing a huge bone she’d been given.

The volunteers had just turned up, and the most surprising one was Dylan. He didn’t say much but shrugged and grunted as he worked fiendishly beside TammyLee, tearing up wet carpets and
washing mud from the walls. Even Max managed to be civil to him. ‘It’s good to see you’re not afraid of hard work,’ he said.

‘I don’t need your approval, Pop.’ Dylan’s eyes blazed with contempt. I am doing it for Diana, ’cause she treated me like a human being.’ And he turned his
back on Max and went on dragging a roll of wet carpet out of the door.

Upset by the activity, I kept going to the top of the stairs and meowing. TammyLee picked me up and cuddled me, and explained everything. ‘We’re making the house good again,
Tallulah. A lorry will come and take away the muddy carpets and stuff. Then another lorry will bring us a brand-new sofa and carpets, and one day soon, you can go downstairs again and it will be
lovely. So don’t you worry, Tallulah.’

After that, I felt better. The sun streamed through the window onto TammyLee’s bed, and I slept for hours, only waking up when I heard Iris’s voice and sensed the weight of her
struggling up the stairs.

‘It’s disgusting,’ she moaned, ‘they should’ve done that flood-prevention scheme years ago, not let it come to this. Disgusting, that’s what I call
it.’

I knew why Iris had come. I’d been there with TammyLee the night before, when she’d privately told Diana about Rocky. Diana’s eyes had opened wide, and so had her arms.
‘Sweetheart,’ she’d whispered. ‘My poor girl . . . what were you THINKING? . . . You know I’d have stuck by you . . . Oh, darling girl.’ She’d held
TammyLee in her arms, with the angels watching. The whole story had come tumbling out while Diana stroked her hair and I lay with her, purring. And afterwards, TammyLee seemed lighter and softer.
The dark secret had gone. I saw the angels lifting it away, turning it into stardust.

The meeting had been arranged and Diana insisted it should be ‘done nicely’, even persuading a tight-lipped Max to organise a tray with a tall pot of steaming coffee and a swirl of
biscuits.

Dylan was the only one arrogantly munching biscuits through the meeting, which began with TammyLee saying those words: ‘It was me.’

‘I TOLD you!’ said Iris triumphantly. ‘I told you it were ’er. Didn’t I say so? Written all over ’er face.’

‘Shut up, Mum . . . just hear her out,’ Dylan insisted. ‘MUM!’ he put a mud-stained hand on her shoulder and made her look at his compelling eyes. ‘Don’t make
it worse.’

TammyLee glanced at him with something resembling gratitude, then back to Diana, who was looking at her with loving eyes.

‘I did have a baby,’ she began, and again the story emerged, this time clearly, without tears. Only quiet strength glowed from her aura, and everyone listened, even Amber,
who’d been trying not to growl at Dylan. She told them how I’d been there, and saved Rocky’s life, and how she’d regretted what she’d done.

‘I know it was stupid,’ she concluded, ‘and wicked, what I did. And I’ve found out the baby’s been adopted, by a couple who couldn’t have kids of their own,
and they love him. So . . . I don’t think we should interfere, and Mum agrees with me.’ She held up a letter. ‘We’re giving this to the adoption agency, for him to have when
he’s older, if he wants to find me.’

Iris opened her mouth, and shut it again. That’s when I sensed that the angels were totally in charge of our meeting.

‘The best we can do,’ said Diana, ‘is to love that little boy in our hearts, always, and from a distance.’

I am only a cat, but in that moment, I felt like a human, with human emotions, as we all sat quiet, letting the words settle like leaves falling through sunlight.

I kissed TammyLee’s face, and put my velvet paws around her neck, but something didn’t feel right to me. I’d done my best, but the result was not what I’d expected. I
wanted to stay with TammyLee, and be her cat, but there was a pain inside me, an old pain from when Gretel had left me in the hot car.

This time it didn’t go away.

Closing my eyes, I floated into sleep, and those words went with me. ‘From a distance . . . from a distance.’

I sensed that my fur was shining like a halo, and somehow I had drifted far away across the universe. So far, far away, but I still heard TammyLee’s cry of panic.

‘She’s stopped breathing! Tallulah . . . Tallulah . . . don’t die on me, please . . . please.’

The last memory of my time on earth was the feel of TammyLee’s face, heavy on my fur, her breath warm, her tears trickling around my neck. Her words wrapping me in
whispers. ‘Magic puss cat . . . please don’t die . . . I love you . . . I love you SO much.’

I tried to respond, but the life had gone from my body and it wouldn’t move at all, not even the tip of my fluffy tail. My vibrant little heart had stopped, and my lovely body with its
silky fur had died so peacefully, there on TammyLee’s lap. Her love was enfolding me in layer upon layer of colours, and inside it I felt safe enough to let go and float.

The humans gathered around me like a protective umbrella, and I heard fragments of what they were saying: ‘We always knew it was going to happen . . . Tallulah was a rescue cat . . . look
what she went through.’ Then I heard TammyLee’s howl of grief: ‘But why NOW? WHY?’

Surprisingly, it was tough old Iris who was hugging the crying girl as if she would never let go. And, even more amazing, Dylan was brushing the tears from his cheeks with the back of his
hand.

Cocooned in TammyLee’s love, I drifted through a brightening silence. I said goodbye to the silver-and-white cat who lay limply, her soft paws gently curled, her eyes closed, a smile
lifting the corners of her mouth. She was dead, but I wasn’t! I was a spirit cat again now, a shining cat with a beautiful name, Tallulah.

When pets die, they cross the rainbow bridge into a special land, where they wait for their loved ones to join them. Humans think this is a legend, but actually, it’s true.

I didn’t remember the crossing, but the angels told me that TammyLee’s love had made it easy for me.

On the far side of the rainbow bridge is a sumptuous land of downy turf and velvet grasses alive with sparkles. There are trees with blue leaves, and flowers with heady perfume. Happiness and
sadness are intertwined, and both are beautiful, both are welcoming. Together, they form landscapes with domes and cushions of colour. You can choose to be sad and rest inside a cave of lavender
blue, where it is quiet and still. In there, you can safely grieve for your lost friends, and peer out at the great arch of the rainbow bridge, waiting and hoping for one of them to come over. Or,
you can choose to be happy and roll around, purring with a bunch of other cats, or chase the sparkles as they zigzag through the trees in a land that is timeless, seasonless and very beautiful.

I still looked like me, like Tallulah, but my fur shimmered with light, and I weighed nothing. I could turn somersaults in the air! So there were wild times when I chose to be happy, and quiet
times when I chose to be sad. I learned that even when you are healthy, comfortable and free, there is still, deep in your soul, a hunger and a longing for close contact with your earth
friends.

I could have moved on, into the enticing realms of light where angels lived, and reclaimed my status as Queen of Cats, but I wanted to keep my name. I wanted to be Tallulah and wait by the
rainbow bridge for the people I loved.

The best look-out place was on top of the tallest tree. Nestled among its turquoise leaves, I spent a lot of time up there, gazing right across the rainbow bridge. How long would it be until
TammyLee came over? I ached to hear her voice.

‘She won’t come,’ my angel explained gently. ‘TammyLee is human and she must stay on earth for decades, until she is an old, old lady. Sometimes you can visit her for a
few precious minutes.’

‘How do I do that?’ I asked.

‘At certain times, the veil between earth and the spirit world is thin,’ she said, ‘then you can go through.’

‘How will I know when that time is?’

‘Your fur will tingle, and you will feel a longing. Watch the veils of light in the distant skies. Sometimes they shift and become transparent.’

The first time it happened, I sensed TammyLee was remembering me. The scent of her perfume made me purr, and purr until I saw the veil billowing and parting like curtains, and I did see my
TammyLee. In an instant, I was close to her in my light body. She was doing a lady’s hair, brushing it and twiddling it thoughtfully, and she was talking about me!

‘I had a beautiful cat . . . Tallulah. She was really special. She died years ago, her heart just stopped. It was weak from all she had been through. I still miss her.’

She went quiet and I purred loudly. I knew TammyLee heard me, and she turned sharply to look for me.

‘She can’t see you,’ said my angel. ‘You are too bright for human eyes. But she can sense you, and that comforts her.’

‘I was always there for her when she cried for Rocky,’ I said sadly. Sometimes I felt my work had not been done successfully, especially when the angel said, ‘She still does
cry for him.’

‘So I didn’t really complete my work, did I?’ I asked.

‘Wait,’ said my angel. Time is different here in the spirit world. Already the earth years have rolled on since you’ve been here. TammyLee has a job now, and soon she will have
her own home and two little girls to love. And Rocky is a big boy now. Many more years will pass, and in the meantime, you can choose to be happy, or sad.’

I chose to be happy, most of the time, and I accepted that TammyLee was going to be on earth for a long time. Yet still I had that ache in my heart. I figured Amber might come over and imagined
running to meet her with my tail up. I dreamed of the games we would play, the joy as we raced around together, the bliss as we curled up to sleep. Amber and I had been real buddies, and
she’d inspired me to play the way she did, with ridiculous energy and enthusiasm.