Free Cat Tales by George H. Scithers Page B

looked up and choked on his mouthful of chicken. The cat was sitting on the hood of his transport serenely washing its face with a paw. Ben raced for the door, pushing past the proprietor who snatched at his sleeve. “Hey, you haven’t paid.” When he reached the transport, the cat had vanished. Ben searched for paw prints which should have marked the hood and the thick dust on the ground. There were none, and he determinedly dismissed the cat as a figment of his imagination brought on by fatigue.
    Over the next few weeks Ben saw or thought he saw a ginger cat almost every time he turned around. Especially late evenings. A blur of orange caught by the corner of his eye. An orange tail disappearing round a corner.
    T he night he saw a ginger cat sitting on the front steps of a house, he’d had enough. He slammed the brakes so hard his transport almost slithered into the ditch. The cat continued to stare at him, the tip of its tail twitching. “Thomas!” Ben shouted. It had the same white chest, the same white front paw. Ben tried to keep it in sight as he clambered out the driver’s side and raced round the front of his truck. But when he reached the front walk of the house, the step was empty.
    Ben hammered on the door. He had to know what was going on. Were there that many ginger cats in the world? “I want to ask about your cat,” he said to the woman who opened the door. “We don’t have a cat,” she answered.
    â€œA neighbor’s cat, then, or a stray. Big, ginger cat with a white chest and one white front paw.” He was out of breath, his heart racing.
    â€œI haven’t seen a cat like that around. Why? Have you lost one?”
    The question brought Ben up short. As if someone had held up a stop sign and the brakes of his truck had locked. Had he lost a cat? Had he lost a cat and something more? He couldn’t deny any longer that the ache in his chest each time the cat appeared was really a stab of loneliness. That the reason he always saw the cat as Thomas was that Angelique would have been close by.
    Ben climbed back into the cab of his truck. He would make this final delivery and then turn round. What he’d been restlessly searching for didn’t lie ahead of him but behind. He couldn’t wait to get back to Angelique’s.
    Now, here he was outside the café, and he’d arrived too late. Even the shutters hung crooked on the café’s dirty windows. Had he lost Angelique forever? Had she married and moved away? He suppressed the thought that something terrible had had happened to her.
    The evening’s chill and damp seeped into him, and Ben hugged himself for warmth. He’d never felt so alone, so bereft. He’d held the café’s image in his mind as never changing, with Angelique forever standing in the doorway cradling Thomas.
    When a ginger cat disappeared into the alley up the street, Ben almost missed it. Was it his imagination again? Another subconscious desire? Or this time was it really — “Thomas? Thomas, wait!” He raced up the street.
    The alley was deserted. “Thomas!” he called all the same, the stabbing ache unbearable.
    Round the corner of a building at the alley’s far end, the ginger cat appeared. It studied him with pale eyes.
    â€œThomas?” Ben whispered. The cat meowed. Then it trotted toward him, tail high in recognition. Ben gathered the cat up and felt the deep rumble of its contentment. “Thomas, old man, you don’t now how good it is to see you.” The cat butted Ben’s chin with its head, as pleased, it seemed, to see Ben.
    â€œWhere’s Angelique? How’d she lose the café? I’ll do anything to get it back for her.”
    â€œAnything?” a familiar voice laughed. Ben turned round. “Will you mop floors and wait tables?” Angelique asked.
    Ben set Thomas down. Then Angelique was in his arms, and nothing had ever felt so