Raf had his finger on his lips and was cocking his head up towards the top of the tree. The cat was still miaowing.
‘Let’s go and see if Noah has a ladder,’ he said.
Noah didn’t have a ladder long enough but he knew a man who did. Soon, the three of them plus about five of the pub regulars were traipsing up the lane on the left-hand side of the pub towards the cottage of Barry Johnson, the local builder.
Barry did have a ladder that was long enough, and he was very slurred-speech vocal about his keenness to use it himself.
‘Haven’t done any roofing for ages,’ he said, staggering as he fumbled for his garage door key.
As he jabbed madly with it in the direction of the lock, Georgie said, reeling slightly from the fumes on his breath, ‘I’m not sure you should go up. In fact, you know what—’ she was starting to feel queasy about the whole thing ‘—maybe we should actually spend a bit more time checking on the cat from the bottom of the tree, and if it’s still distressed we should call the fire brigade.’
‘Nonshense,’ said Barry. ‘I’m going up.’
‘I think not,’ said Noah. ‘We don’t want a broken neck on our hands.’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Raf. ‘We definitely don’t want any alcohol-fuelled ladder-climbing.’
‘I really don’t think you should,’ said Georgie. ‘Like, Ireallydon’t. That ladder looksreallyrickety. And I totally bullied you into it. If anyone should go, it should be me.’ She very much did not want to. But she also didn’t want Raf to, or anyone other than maybe a trained firefighter with a very sturdy ladder.
‘Honestly, I’ll be fine,’ said Raf. And next thing he, Noah and two of the pub regulars were wedging the ladder against the tree and he was setting off up it at an extremely nippy pace. His bumwas lit upverynicely by the moonlight, which was a ridiculousthing to be thinking at this moment in time.
His thighs weren’t bad either. Nicely muscly.
‘Nearly there.’ Raf was so high that his voice sounded slightly muffled.
‘Be careful,’ shouted Georgie.
Raf took one foot off the ladder and gave it a wave to the side. Georgie screamed, one of the regulars gasped and Raf laughed. He put his foot back onto the ladder and carried on.
‘I can see it,’ he called.
There was some scuffling around in the tree, accompanied by more miaowing, a couple ofFucksfrom Raf and more screams from Georgie, and then Raf was coming back down the ladder with the cat wrapped up in his coat under his arm.
‘She was stuck towards the end of a too-thin branch, very high up,’ he told them as he approached the bottom. ‘At least she had the common sense to realise that she didn’t have much chance of getting down by herself, so she wasn’t moving, but she wasn’t exactly grateful to see me.’
When he reached the ground, to general clapping, Raf did a little bow and carefully started to unwind his coat from the cat. Apparently he wasn’t careful enough, though; as soon as its head was free, the cat bit his finger.
‘Shit,’ yelled Raf.
Noah lunged forward to help him and tripped up one of the ladder-holding regulars, which caused the ladder to lurch away from the tree. Noah flung himself back towards the ladder, his leg clipping Raf’s, and Raf then tripped. His bitten hand shot up and the cat flew off it and landed in a heap on the ground and didn’t move.
‘Fuckinghell,’ said Raf. ‘I climb a tree and rescue a cat, who bites me, and now I’ve probably fucking killed her. Seriously. Way to go.’
‘I think she might be okay.’ Georgie was on her knees next to the cat, stroking her delicate little body. Her rib cage was very prominent through her silky fur. ‘I think she might have been stuck up there for a while and be very hungry. She’s very thin.’
‘Not too thin not to have a very strong bite,’ said Raf.
‘Raf!’ said Georgie. ‘She’s injured.’
‘Sorry.’
He didn’tsoundsorry.
Georgie was cradling the cat in her arms now. Although, shit, you weren’t supposed to move people who’d had blows to the head and body, in case of fractures, so probably you weren’t supposed to move cats either.
‘Please be okay, little kitty,’ she said, stroking her under her chin. And then the cat miaowed, moved her head and sunk her very,verysharp teeth into the side of Georgie’s hand.
After what seemed like literally minutes, the cat withdrew her fangs – seriously, she was like a bloody vampire – and dashed straight off to the last cottage on the row on the far side of the green.
