‘Well, it’s the best we can do for the moment.’ Marieke grinned and Bella heard the swoop of a message being sent back. Bella felt a pang of guilt. She knew that Marieke was still holding off from setting a moving-in date for Gerard because she, Bella, hadn’t found anywhere new yet. She couldn’t shake that feeling as Marieke’s phone pinged again.
‘Look,’ she said suddenly. ‘Why don’t we say I’ll move out at the end of the month? I think I’ve found somewhere I can rent nearby, and it means you and Gerard can finally have some privacy.’
Marieke’s face lit up. ‘You never said! Where is it? Will I still see lots of you?’
‘Oh, it’s just down the road,’ Bella replied vaguely. ‘And yes, of course you will.’
‘That’s great news!’ Marieke grabbed the Jack Daniel’s bottle from the cupboard. ‘A toast. To horizons new.’
Bella quickly necked her shot of bourbon before Marieke could interrogate her further. She might not be able to save Monty, but at least she’d made Marieke’s evening. The small fact that she didn’t actually have a place to move into wasn’t important. At least, not for another month or so. Trying to squash the feeling of unease about lying to her friend, she resolved to double her efforts to find somewhere new. If she didn’t, she wasn’t quite sure where she’d end up at the end of the month.
The next morning, even though it was her day off from both jobs, Bella couldn’t get Monty out of her head. Noah was going into Purrfect Paws to sign the papers that authorised Monty’s euthanasia, and while Bella had no desire to see Noah again after their confrontation the previous evening, she felt drawn back to spend some time with the old cat before the end came. He should know thatsomeonewas there for him.
Throwing on a pair of denim shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt (she was taking no more chances where Monty’s claws were concerned), Bella headed to Purrfect Paws early. She had her own set of keys so she could let herself in. When she arrived, though, Mollie was already doing the morning rounds.
‘Did I read the rota wrong?’ Mollie asked as Bella closed the garden gate behind herself.
Bella shook her head. ‘Nope. I wanted to, well, you know.’ She inclined her head in the direction of Monty’s enclosure.
Mollie paused on the way to the cattery. ‘Remember what I said,’ she said gently. ‘You can’t get too attached. We’re here to look after them, but we have to know when to let go.’
Bella gave a thin smile. ‘I know. I just wish it was different.’
Mollie hurried off to give the cattery guests their breakfast. Bella gave another smile as she heard Ermentrude, the large, vocal Persian-tabby cross yowl impatiently. Driven by food more than anything else, she hated to be kept waiting. She was as cuddly and pliant as Monty was spiky and difficult, but she could certainly raise a racket if breakfast didn’t come on time.
‘Hey, Monty,’ Bella crooned as she carefully unlocked Monty’s living space. Mollie had left him breakfast some minutes earlier, and Bella was pleased to see that most of it had gone. Sick cats tended to go off their food, and there was nothing wrong with Monty’s appetite. Not that it would matter soon. Pushing those thoughts to one side, Bella sat down inside Monty’s pen, a safe distance from him, and started to croon and chat to him about nothing in particular.
After a few minutes, Monty seemed to realise that she wasn’t going away and, with a high-pitched chirrup, he uncurled himself, stretched out his front paws and hopped nimbly down from his perch. Bella, hiding her surprise, watched as he padded gently over to where she was sitting, the stare of his light green eyes seeming to bore into hers.
‘Hey, fella,’ she said softly. ‘To what do I owe this honour?’ Gingerly, she reached out her right hand as he drew closer, bracing herself for a lightning-fast side swipe. But, surprisingly, this time, it didn’t come. As if in apology for the scratch the last time, Monty butted his head against her hand and – heavens! – started purring. The low rumble, a sound that neither Bella nor Mollie had heard much of since Monty had arrived, continued, interspersed with little chirps and breaths as Bella fussed him.
‘Did Mollie put some happy pills in your breakfast?’ Bella joked gently as Monty rolled over and displayed the spots on his tummy to the sunlight, which was pouring in through the top window of the enclosure now. ‘I’ll have to get her to slip me some, too.’ She blinked furiously, remembering that Monty’s days were numbered, once Noah signed the consent form. ‘It’s not fair, is it, Monty?’ she murmured. Monty looked shrewdly at her, before playfully grabbing her wrist with his front paws. No claws, she realised, gratefully, but it was a reminder that he liked to assert himself.
‘I wish I could save you.’
Noah hadn’t even clapped eyes on Monty when he’d visited. Surely there had to be some way to show him that Monty wasn’t ready to be put to sleep. But as Monty continued to roll around playfully on the floor of the enclosure, Bella kept coming up short.
19
Noah’s night, after the animated discussion with Bella, was barely less fraught than hers. Racked first by guilt, and then migraine, he’d made it back to Jack’s cottage, taken some meds and gone to bed, hoping that both things would have dissipated by the morning. Eventually, after hours of tossing and turning, and brief periods of sleep interrupted by nightmares, he dropped off in the early hours of the morning, as the sky was turning grey with the dawn.
Well, he thought as he gingerly opened his eyes to the morning sun streaming through the curtains that barely blocked out any light, at least the migraine’s gone.
Noah huffed out a breath as he got out of bed. This was stupid. He knew Marc was right; the decision was the simplest. Monty was a complication that just needed sorting out. But as he had breakfast and caught sight of the ‘Bengals’ calendar on the wall of the kitchen, still reading the month that his grandfather had left to go into the nursing home, a wave of guilt threatened to wash over him again.
Shaking his head in frustration, Noah turned away from the calendar. He was a grown man, for Christ’s sake! Why should he care two hoots about whether a cat that was long past its own sell-by date was pushed towards the so-called rainbow bridge a little sooner? It wasn’t like Monty hadn’t had a great life. He needed to pull himself together, sign the papers and get back to London. He had three potentially lucrative house viewings tomorrow morning, where hisreallife was; he should stop stalling.
All the same, as he pulled the front door of the cottage shut and headed towards his car, he couldn’t help but glance at the apple tree in the front garden. It was the last of what had once been a row of fruit trees, planted by the builders of the cottages, and stood tall and proud in the long front garden of the cottage. The Tree Protection Order on that might prove an obstacle to a very quick sale, but that was something to worry about another day. Noah remembered the hours he’d spent climbing it and sitting in its branches reading whatever action-adventure novels his grandfather had put on the bookshelf in the spare room. Sometimes, Monty had even joined him, not sitting with him but staring warily down at him from the very top branch, where he’d stretched out like a miniature leopard, surveying his own savannah. Monty liked to eyeball him closely, reminding Noah that while he might be a guest in the tree, it washisterritory. On reflection, Monty would have said the same about the whole house.
As Noah drove the short distance to Purrfect Paws, he was assailed by memories of Monty. The cat might not have been the most sociable, but he’d been a fixture for half of Noah’s life. Was this really the way for it to end?
‘Morning, love.’ Mollie’s gentle smile greeted him as he pushed open the door to reception. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine, thanks.’ Noah eyed her warily. ‘Is, er, is Bella here?’
Mollie smiled. ‘She’s doing the morning rounds. Did you want to say hello?’
‘Er, no,’ Noah stammered. ‘I’m, er, sure I’ll catch her a bit later.’
