Utterly befuddled, Rosie went inside, deposited her groceries on the table and tore a piece of kitchen towel off the roll that stood next to the sink. Wincing, she wiped her foot clean of mashed banana, restarted the toaster and set about making the cup of tea she now needed more than ever.
A short while later, as she looked out of the kitchen window with a much-needed second cuppa and ruminated on her fresh humiliation, Rosie spotted the large silver tabby cat she sometimes fed. He – Rosie wassureit was a he – was sauntering along the wall that separated their tiny scrap of garden from Mrs Beaumont’s.
The cat was long-haired, with scruffy, abundant fur that gave him the look of a well-loved, slightly mangy cuddly toy. He had a pointed, intelligent face with wide-set eyes, above which a series of dark grey vertical stripes conspired to give the impression he was wearing a permanent scowl. Rosie found this equal parts hilarious and adorable – and impossible to resist.
She opened a cupboard and dug through all the tins, packets and jars to the very back, where a box of cat food and a saucer were concealed. Smiling at her subterfuge, she unlocked the back door and propped it open, then placed the food on the old concrete step just outside.
Within seconds, the cat had bounded over and was devouring the noxious-smelling jellied meat with gusto. Rosie finished her tea, then sat on the kitchen floor in the hope he’d condescend to let her stroke him once he was done eating.
To her delight, he stepped cautiously through the open door the second his food was gone – sniffing her outstretched hand suspiciously, the way he always did on the days he was brave enough to get close to her.
‘It’s OK,’ Rosie whispered. ‘You know me. I’m not going to hurt you.’
Seeming to decide he believed this, the cat nudged her fingers with his soft, stripy head until she began gently smoothing the fur between his ears. He started purring as Rosie scratched beneath his chin, closing his huge yellow-green eyes in contentment. Rosie’s heart swelled, feeling suddenly full and heavy in her chest.
‘I wish I could keep you,’ she told the cat. ‘But James says you’ve probably got fleas. And he’s allergic.’ She laughed wistfully and shook her head.
From somewhere in the back of her mind, a small, treacherous voice pointed out that James was barely here at the moment – that in fact, Rosie might be spending more quality time with this allegedly flea-bitten feline than with her boyfriend.
She told the voice to shut up, then glanced at the time display on the oven and sighed. She needed to unload the washing machine, shower and start getting ready.
‘Sorry, mate,’ she said, giving the cat a final stroke and standing up. ‘Duty calls.’ He sat primly on the tiled floor and stared with watchful eyes as she piled wet laundry into the basket, before following her outside and gazing at her as she hung it out to dry. As she pegged a last sock to the rotary washing line, he rubbed his soft face against her left leg – a rare, overt plea for more affection that Rosie couldn’t ignore.
Wondering whether he’d tolerate it, she bent down to pick him up. To her surprise, he didn’t scratch or scramble for release; he purred again, letting her bury her face in his soft fur as though he were a teddy bear come to life.
As the sound of the radio’s 8.30 news bulletin drifted through the back door, Rosie set the cat back down. ‘I really do have to go now,’ she said.
He mewed at her resentfully, licked a paw and rubbed it against his nose. Seconds later, a blur of white and grey fluff streaked across the tiny lawn, then scrambled over the fence into the alley behind the street.
To her own surprise, Rosie felt the loss like an ache. She was still reeling from the morning, and how ludicrous she must have looked in front of her intriguing neighbour. The whole episode, and especially his silent chivalry, had been so surreal she was starting to wonder whether she’d imagined it. The cat’s presence had calmed her frayed nerves, and his forthright demands for affection had soothed some internal pain she hadn’t known she was nursing. She quickly decided not to think about that for now.
In any case, James was right, she supposed: feeding the neighbourhood stray could only lead to trouble later down the line. She’d fall in love with him but be unable to adopt him, and the whole business would simply make her sad – even more so than she felt right now.
As she swiped at her inexplicably prickling eyes, she heard a sound from above – a phone trilling insistently, demanding to be answered. She glanced up just in time to see a dark head shrink back inside through an open top-floor window.
A. Thomas had been watching her, she was almost sure of it. She could only hope he wouldn’t spill to their landlord about the cat.
Chapter 5
After a mercifully short and sweet six-hour shift at Cover 4 U, Rosie snapped shut her laptop and felt an unexpected surge of Friday feeling as she prepared to head home.
She’d been supposed to go for a drink with Ellie, but the plan had been rain-checked because her seven-year-old son, Finn, had a temperature. While sympathising with her friend, Rosie found herself thinking that she couldn’t remember the last time she and James had had a proper night out. The golden September sunshine filled her with confidence that she could drag her health-conscious boyfriend to a pub garden, and maybe even beyond. It felt like exactly what they needed. When Rosie walked into the flat about forty minutes later, wondering if she could get away with displaying her slightly stubbly calves in an old faithful midi dress, she was immediately greeted by the tinny sound of computer game gunfire and realised James must be home.
She had expected to have plenty of time to freshen up and message him about where they should go – teasing him about the detoxing opportunity an old-school Friday night would present. Recently, he either worked late or did long sessions at the gym on Friday evenings. Perhaps, Rosie mused, the unseasonably warm weather had squashed any urge to remain virtuous, and she’d find him more amenable to her plan than she’d thought.
Her surprise at his presence quickly gave way to an appreciation that she could be sipping something cold and delicious in the evening sunshine in under half an hour. She burst into the sitting room, where he was perched on the edge of the sofa, ready to cajole him into action. He was hunched over the PlayStation controller, his narrowed gaze fixed on a Nazi zombie he was trying to kill. Vaguely, Rosie wondered if youcouldkill a reanimated corpse – and if not, what the point of this computer game purported to be.
As she dropped her handbag onto the couch, James turned to face her, startled. Evidently, engrossed in his virtual mission, he hadn’t heard her open the front door or enter the room. ‘What are you doing home?’ he asked, in a strangled sort of voice. ‘I … I thought you had plans with Ellie.’
‘I did,’ Rosie said, tempted to jokily ask whether he had another woman hidden behind the sofa. ‘Finn’s sick,’ she explained. ‘We decided to do it another time. I was thinking we could go out, just us? It’s a gorgeous night.’
‘Ah,’ James said, releasing a deep breath. He turned back to look at the TV. The words GAME OVER were writ large across the screen. With a clatter, he set down his controller on the walnut coffee table. The noise seemed to slice through the charged silence in the room.
Rosie suddenly got the distinct sense that he’d had important plans her unexpected arrival had disrupted. Her heart began to thump wildly. Could this be it …? Had James devised some scheme to set up a romantic scene in the flat, then propose to her when she arrived home later this evening?
Rosie cast her eyes around for evidence: candles, flowers, chocolates, ice-cold champagne. Her eyes snagged on his massive gym bag, abandoned on the floor next to the flatscreen, but aside from that she could find nothing – which perhaps explained his alarm at her sudden appearance.
The quiet between them stretched on, becoming taut. Rosie’s whole body thrummed with anticipation. She noticed a muscle working in James’s clean-shaven jaw and saw the high, rigid set of his shoulders. He wasdefinitelynervous. She suppressed a smile as she remembered Brendan’s proposal to Niamh … perhaps a little encouragement wouldn’t go amiss.
