Free The Shortest Journey by Hazel Holt Page B

a home down in Devon
where they could all be together. Like most of Ella’s rescue
attempts, it had a happy ending.
    I held the heavy box of tins of cat food while Ella
opened the front door. A great cacophony of barking greeted us and
two feline shapes dashed past into the front garden.
    ‘Quiet, Pixie! Quiet, Jetty! I’ll just go into the
kitchen and let them know I’m back. You go into the sitting room. I
won’t be a minute.’
    In the tiny sitting room there were cats on every
chair and several on the broad window sill, some with the net
curtains caught up over their heads where they were looking out.
There were food dishes (mostly licked clean) each on its own
plastic mat, cat-litter trays on folded newspapers in two corners
of the room and a variety of cat-nip mice, small rubber balls and
doggy-chews, but the general effect was one of order. I reflected
that my house, with two dogs and one fastidious Siamese, always
looked much more chaotic. I wondered enviously how Ella managed it.
I picked up a large marmalade cat from the sofa and sat down with
it on my lap where it settled comfortably, purring loudly as I
stroked it.
    Ella came in with one of the numerous albums full of
photographs sent to her by the new and loving owners of her
protégées. She flipped over the pages and said, ‘There! Look how
the kittens have grown. They’re quite tame now, even that very
nervous little grey one.’
    As she sat down on the sofa beside me the marmalade
cat jumped down and went over to sit on Ella’s lap instead –
animals always preferred Ella to anyone else.
    ‘Now then, Sandy!’ she reproved him. ‘What will
Sheila think of your manners, abandoning her like that!’
    ‘He’s beautiful,’ I said, ‘such a lovely coat.’
    I suddenly thought of something.
    ‘Did you call him Sandy? Was he Mrs Rossiter’s cat? I
thought I recognised him.’
    ‘That’s right. Poor soul, she was dreadfully upset
about not being able to keep him when she went into West Lodge. She
loved that cat, didn’t she, Sandy?’ The cat looked up at her and
she bent and put her face against his head. ‘Her daughter, what’s
her name, Thelma, she wanted her mother to have him put down. Can
you imagine? Well, Mrs Rossiter wouldn’t do it. She came to me in
such a state! Her daughter had made all the arrangements about West
Lodge and poor Mrs Rossiter didn’t feel she could go against her.
Well, you know what a meek little person she is; the soul of
kindness, could never say boo to a goose. There was Thelma saying
that Sandy had had a good life – he’s fifteen – and that it would
be the kindest thing to have him put to sleep and that her mother
had to go into West Lodge because she couldn’t manage on her own
any more.’
    ‘How awful!’
    ‘Well, we couldn’t let a beautiful boy like this be
put to sleep, could we? So I said I’d take him. Mrs Rossiter knew
he’d be all right with me.’
    ‘Bless you, Ella. What would we all do without
you!’
    ‘Well, one more doesn’t make much difference and it’s
not easy finding a home for an elderly gentleman of fifteen. Though
I must say,’ she continued, ‘it never seemed to me right to say
that Mrs Rossiter couldn’t look after herself. Not in that big
house, maybe, but she could have had a nice little flat, a ground
floor one with a bit of garden for Sandy. But that daughter of hers
always did rule the roost and I don’t suppose she wanted to have to
bother about her mother, finding a flat and so forth. Easier to put
her into a home and have poor Sandy here put down. Honestly,
Sheila, sometimes I’m really glad I’ve got no family, only the
animals. They never let you down!’
    ‘I know. I mean, I’m lucky that Michael is so
marvellous – when I think of Thelma! – but there have been times,
when Mother and Peter died and Michael was away in Oxford, when I
don’t think I could have got through if it hadn’t been for the
animals.’
    We looked at each other and