Cat Life

 

 

Here is the whole book of Cat Life. Maybe I will split it into pages, one for each chapter.  

Introduction

This book was written by members and friends of Girona Social Meetup. We had the idea early in 2016 to write a book about a cat and its nine lives. In each chapter, the cat loses a life. And each chapter is written by a different person with their own country as the location. 
All they were given were the four main characters, it was not practical to ask them to follow on from the previous chapter because in some cases it was not even written! And the order of the countries was decided later when the editor created a time-scale and linked the chapters. For example, Wayne starts at 15 years of age in Manchester but is almost 18 by the time he falls in love with Marti in Ukraine, because the span of the book is about three years.
Meetup.com is an organisation based in the USA which enables social groups to meet around the world with many different interests but all using the same website format. Rather like Facebook but actually meeting in person! For example, Girona Social Meetup has a regular language exchange. In the whole world, there are thousands of Meetup groups. Where we live in Girona, there are about 20. In Barcelona, there are hundreds. We would like to use this book to express gratitude to Meetup for bringing us together. But Meetup.com had no hand in the production of the book. All our own work!

The Beginning

That morning in Cat Heaven was much like any other. The little electric milk-float arrived at seven in the morning with the cheerful clink of glass bottles which filled the English cats with waves of nostalgia and some even cried - it went back to a time in the past before everyone bought UHT milk in plastic bottles from Lidl.  And then an hour or two later, the fish delivery arrived from Cat-Ocean in a small white van with exotic sea creatures, some still alive, basking in crushed ice. But for one member of this community, today was different. It was time to return to that strange place called Earth.  Animals in heaven never get to meet their deity but instead there is Angel Gabby, its deputy. The parting message from Gabby was always the same, remember you only have nine lives. When they run out, you come back here.
There were lots of heavens, each for a different animal because animals were always reincarnated as the same species. And they were all spaced far enough away from each other among the clouds to avoid one disturbing the others. For example the dogs barking would have upset the cats. Humans think wrongly that maybe, next time, they come back as a frog. There was an enormous heaven for Humans which many of them believe in.
So, on this particular morning with trepidation a small cat took the long pale white staircase which threads its way down through the clouds towards Earth and we follow its story.........

Life One - Manchester, England

Once upon a time, in Manchester there was a happy little family: mum and dad and their only child, a boy of 15 called Wayne. They lived in a very large house. They had often spoken about having another child but somehow they never got round to it. When asked on the subject by friends, their reply was usually, “we are trying.”
The age of fifteen is when some boys grow into adults seemingly overnight and that was the case with Wayne. One minute he was an angelic choirboy, the parents looked away for a moment and all of a sudden he had shot up in height and was a younger version of his footballer namesake with a deep male voice. But for a time it switched to being squeaky and high which is one of the embarrassments that teenage boys have to endure. Just at the time when they want to appear more adult and sophisticated.
Wayne suffered a lot from that.
The husband was called David, a nice straight-forward English name and he leaves the scene quite rapidly. And the wife was called Henry. And this book follows her new career which we will read about very soon. She often had to explain her strange name; that it was on account of her parents wanting a boy. They also dressed her in boy’s clothes and gave her toy soldiers instead of dolls. Her bike was blue as opposed to pink. But this is more common these days because parents can choose the sex of their children after birth. Or maybe just choose gender-neutral in which case the child can decide on its sex later when it is mature enough to do so, at the age of 8. But despite all that parental persuasion Henry grew up to be a normal well-adjusted woman.
And now she was desperately sad because, with Wayne a beefy young mini-adult now, she really missed having a girly young girl to help her with the cake making and the ironing. All the things that girls do these days. So she put her energy into her other little family and that is where the theme of this book arrives and with it the subsequent break-up of the marriage. Because her obsession was saving the lives of unwanted stray cats in the neighbourhood. And this infuriated David who had a very busy career as a dress designer, indeed as a world-famous dress designer, and it didn’t help the relationship with his celebrity clients to be living in a house full of cats.
This is a sad book because it is about one particular cat, the hero of our story, who died after its nine lives ran out but we wait till the last chapter for that. So we don’t have to be too upset early on. And anyway, it is about nine lives and most of us only have one - the span of that is not very great in the scale of the Universe around us. So don’t be sad.
Manchester rather unfairly has a reputation for frequent rain but, on this occasion, it was raining..... cats and dogs. But more cats than dogs.
Our hero (or should it be heroine?) is a female cat and she entered the world as a small damp bundle of black and white fur in an alley in one of the poorer areas of Manchester, near to the canal, together with its siblings, most of whom died. So they didn’t even make it to life number one. The mother wasn’t sure who the father was. She did ask after the event, “by the way, what was your name?” But he scarpered quickly not wishing to pay for child support. She got run over by an electric milk delivery van soon after giving birth. So this was not an auspicious start to life for the subject of this book.
Mummy cat never got a chance to give her a name so that fell to Henry. So, not long after its birth our heroine was being scooped up into the arms of a large buxom lady with a generous chest to which she clutched this small object. So much so that she nearly suffocated her. Henry loved Italy and the Italian language although she didn’t speak it so she chose Bella, as a shortened version of Bellissima. Bella survived and thrived, starting to gain weight on account of the loving care that Henry gave her and she began to feel that life was worth living after all. Without that kind Human, Bella would not have made it past even this first chapter so this we will call it the first life, almost lost.
But something odd happened because Bella started developing very human traits, obviously the early ones were about potty training and learning to mew in a way that Henry could understand whether she wanted her tuna steak rare or medium. But it became uncanny. Henry was certainly in tune with cats, she had a menagerie of about 20 in her home and she knew the characteristics of each one very clearly and of course knew each one by name. But Bella was different. She started showing interest in iPhone cat apps and after one year could actually pinch the screen to zoom in and out. But the screen became scratched quite rapidly despite being the very latest bullet-proof version.
Life progressed happily until Henry split with her husband David who had got fed up with tripping over cats and slipping on brown objects on the floor,. They sold the house and went their separate ways and she started making plans to move to Europe now that the UK was leaving the European Union, taking one or two of her favourite cats with her, with the necessary electronic chips buried under the skin. And there was no greater favourite than Bella who by that time had started to learn French even before Henry knew that is where she would end up. Cats are psychic, Henry knew that. Maybe even from the moment of birth in the Manchester back street, Bella knew she would go to France.
David was more than happy to see the end of his obnoxious young son but he soon began to miss his cuddly wife. But all he could do was watch her blossoming career on TV and in the magazines but more about that in a moment.  The boy hated the human race and animals even more so. His only ambition was to own a dangerous dog and terrify the neighbours - and the cats, of course. He was such a sweet kid.
David was very successful with his dress-design and when they were first struggling to make a living Henry made the clothes at home. By the time they split up, the clothes were being made in Hong Kong for a large chain of fashion shops and they were very wealthy to which their large house bore witness.
Henry, through her love of cats had started a business as a fashion designer for pets and that had really taken off in recent years. As with her husband’s business, she started by making the clothes herself but an offer from M&H meant that she too could go off-shore to have the clothes made.  Henry revelled in her peculiar name, she had no wish to change it and she used it for the name of her brand. By the time the marriage fell apart her increasingly weird designs were being ridiculed in the press but were enormously successful among the rich and famous who went to her shows and sat by the catwalk watching haughty cats and gruff dogs modelling the clothes. Most of the dogs were Cruft’s prize-winners and modelling became the obvious next step in their illustrious careers. They were impossibly conceited and arrogant. By contrast the cat models were more demure, so they had to be taught to walk tall and put their paws in front of each other.
Henry decided to relocate her studio to Paris but she couldn’t pick up sticks, just like that. She spoke French; she was one of those people who seem to be able to switch languages as with a light switch (by following that argument, many Brits live in the dark). But still, it needed some planning. What to do about the cats she couldn’t take with her? The solution was simple; she drowned them in the garden pond and buried them where previously the happy couple had grown potatoes. She only felt remorse when one of the cats tried grabbing at a goldfish as it sank down through the hazy green water.
Even to this day, the vegetable plot produces amazing runner beans which the new owners have never quite understood.
Henry decided to rent a flat in London, so a few weeks later they travelled from Manchester to London in the smart red train - the illusion of sleek modernity rather spoiled by the growling diesel engines sounding and smelling like a truck.
 So, for six months, Henry lived with Wayne in a rented flat with the three surviving cats and Henry started looking for apartments in Paris on the internet. 
The apartment in London was in Kensington, on the fourth floor of a stylish modern block and unfortunately one cat fell through the gap under the balcony rail, so that left just two, Bella and a beige eunuch cat, Tim (previously Tom) who had become very effeminate on account of the dramatic loss of Testosterone. Bella found this quite enchanting and they fell in love.
Bella wrote about Tim, “I wrote a sonnet,” she said, “to feel the love of Tim around me”…..

Miaw, love knows no bounds for my dear neuter
But still we hug and you’re my suitor,
We can dream of days of rambling
In the country and at Hambling
I had a boat there but the tide ran out
I was stranded and gave a shout.
Help came quickly in a boat
And never after, went I afloat.
I promise not to be too bitter
Because there is no danger of a litter.

She was especially pleased about, “went I afloat” because it was back to front and therefore sounded very poetic. She set this to music for cats’ chorus of soprano, alto, bass and two tenors accompanied by The Acatamy Orchestra of Ancient Music, gut strings of course. She loved tenors, all girls like tenors.
The little family was quite happy during those six months - Henry was much relieved to be shot of her husband who was always falling over and all those pesky cats but seemed to be happy with the awful child and the cat couple who now spent all day all dewy-eyed and together in each other’s paws.
But Wayne was getting a little too interested in girls and Henry couldn’t quite get used to images of his penis being distributed around the internet by an ex-girlfriend in a frenzy of porno-revenge. She quickly broke it off when she discovered what an absolute bastard he was. That was very painful for Wayne. The cat couple found this hilarious because they were always nude and never understood the need for clothes. “Slows things down”, said Tim. There was a touch of bravado in saying that bearing in mind his two missing parts. He could still manage a feeble erection but it took a month of Sundays and Bella often fell asleep out of boredom before anything interesting happened. And he was firing blanks anyway which rather diminished his feeling of manhood… of tomcathood.
Winter was exceptionally cold that year and the cat couple tended to say indoors. Henry had a fashion show to organise at the beginning of December and was having great difficulty finding suitable models. One of the agencies had just gone out of business after a terrible scandal involving underweight models which had been banned by the EU the previous year.

The show in December was a disaster, she only had five models so her audience got bored seeing the same faces. Over and over again. Also there were huge delays between each dress because of the time to change the clothes. The models got tetchy and bad-tempered but the audience didn’t notice because they were used to seeing surly models. Worse still,  a promised TV show never materialised. And even worse, if that was possible, on the second day, the far-left ANOREX group staged a noisy protest because they reckoned that one of the models was too thin. Everyone used to change the O to a D in their posters so that it read like Andrex, the paper company. 

The protest group comprised very obese cats, pampered by their owners and left to do nothing better than disrupt Henry’s show. But also many members of the group were anarchists and had absolutely no interest in underweight cats, they simply liked to cause trouble. Many came from privileged families and belonged to protest groups such as Save LGBT Badgers which were generously financed by the taxpayer, so they didn’t even need to work. This was their career.
So the family entered the Christmas period which had actually started several months previously in a thoroughly depressed state. They cheered themselves up by spending lots of money on presents in the sales. They went to choir services in shopping malls and little by little got caught up in the frenetic British Christmas spirit. But in many places it was now called Winterfest and any mention of Jesus was rapidly removed from newspaper articles in later editions with a grovelling apology next day. 

Henry’s father had been a parish priest in Surrey before being excommunicated for reasons we won’t go into here but her religious upbringing still stuck with her so she spent much of her time writing venomous letters to newspapers, in particular The Times, complaining about the political correctness of the time. And because of her fame, many of them were published and she received letters of support from beleaguered Christians who had been in hiding.
Anyway, having survived Winterfest, in January, when people traditionally sat on the lounge carpet in front of the fire reading holiday brochures which had arrived in the post, our little family dreamed of a Caribbean holiday.But instead they ended up taking a trip to Holland, to Rotterdam by sea. The only reason they did this was because Katinka wrote a chapter about Rotterdam and so we decided to fit it in here. Rather bad luck for the family because this was in the middle of a north European winter, not the best time to take a sea trip.They travelled to Harwich which for some peculiar reason, the English pronounce as harrich. It sounds more like a type of bean, Bella thought. “Oh no, that’s haricot”.

They had plenty of time so they could relax, have a sandwich and the two Humans got a saucer of milk for the two cats who were getting fractious in their cardboard boxes. Wayne entertained himself by sticking his foot out as people hurried past with their suitcases on wheels which caused him great amusement.
Any words from Henry fell on deaf ears and she couldn’t hit him which was her usual response because they were in public and she would certainly have been arrested. Anyway, he was rapidly growing bigger and wider so there was also a fear factor influencing her.

Life Two - Rotterdam, Netherlands

It was an awful journey, cold and very churned. You can’t imagine how that was? Henry had forgotten to lay a quilt in the cage, and of course I couldn’t warm myself-up with Tim, because he just fits in his own cage, no space for two.
It was terrible for a Lady. We didn’t get any food or drink because of the rough sea so I was starved and desiccated. The first thing we did, was looking for a nice lounge, where we could be normalised. Where we could get a good  lunch and, besides, more important a warm drink, maybe with a sip of  gin. But still the most important question was, where are we? Henry had said something about an invitation she had with Marlies Dekkers, but ........
Are we really in Holland? I’m in a kind of stress or burn-out (could it be possible for a cat?). At least I know, I wasn’t myself! What a terrible flight. Later, after a warm-up we went outside and took a Taxi. In the cage again and I heard the voice say “to Rotterdam my friend”. I could hear the wipers “swiss swiss” it was raining so it could be true, Holland. Well if that is so, I’ve forgotten my raincoat, umbrella and some clothes for this extreme weather. It’s always raining!
A few hours later, we arrived in the city with the biggest harbour of the world, Rotterdam. It was still raining and cold, I couldn’t believe we were in Summer. Suitcases out, and here we are Hilton Hotel. Finally, I could get at my “beauty” bath. And after that I fell asleep next to my dear friend Tim in a nice deep restful Cuddler.
The next morning, after a good filling breakfast, Bella and Tim decided to have a look on the famous Lijnbaan. Henry would be busy with this extravagant designer, so there was no catwalk, no exhibition and they could spend the whole day like real tourists.
It stopped raining, but dark clouds were already present. “I’d like to buy myself a nice raincoat”! Bella said “why don’t you also look for any rain protection Tim? You might need it! Ha ha ha Tim laughed, “I won’t need any protection for nothing. And about the weather, if it rains, I will settle myself in front of the window or TV. I still don’t understand why I said yes, this morning he mumbled”.
While they were walking it started to drizzle. “Ohhhh my fur!!! This is terrible” and she grabbed Tim inside the Bijenkorf (a kind of Harrods). She took him to the second floor and just as they have reached, there were some special offers for Raincovers.  “Well, well, well, what a nice surprise”, Bella said. “I like this one, with all the colours, and it is my size!” She put it on, and it looked beautiful, an Agatha Ruiz de la Prada, what else could it be? She paid the Cashier with visa and they went downstairs, outside.
Bella felt great and happy, everybody was looking at her, but Tim felt ridiculous.
While Bella was promenading and devoted smiling, Tim was closely strolling behind her, she saw an announcement for a tour around the city: Sightseeing Rotterdam, with high tea at the Euromast. “Come on, let’s do it, let us be tourists for one day” She said. And so, after their raw fish lunch at a stall they took their seats in the coach. Of course first row and next to the window. From here she would have nice views. Tim has been already in a position to sleep, while Bella took off her coat and laid it in the luggage carrier.  The guide explained the who, what and where and they went on to one of the oldest part of the City, Delfshaven. It was fabulous, with its drawbridge, grist mill and lovely small houses.
They stopped for a break. “1 hour, you can walk around by yourselves, and then back here at the same place. If you aren’t here on time, I will believe that you like it so much that you want to stay. We have a schedule to keep to, after this stop we’re going to the Euromast tower, so be on time please”, the guide said.
Then it wasn’t raining and there were no threatening clouds. Bella decided to leave her new raincoat were it was, in the carrier. “Wakey, wakey Timmy, we’re going for a walk in this nice neighbourhood” “look at all these houses and their façades, they are all different, these trawler boats”, it’s amazing how they could come and stay in this harbour.
“Do I see a little mermaid?” Tim asked.
“Don’t be so cynical,” Bella answered, “even here in this fabulous quarter of the city you aren’t able to see something like that!”
“But what the hell is that over there? Can you explain, my dear lady friend?”
Bella looked again in the water, and yes, she saw something, but she couldn’t distinguish what it was. By the time she turned around, Tim had jumped onto a boat, then onto a window-frame, to come closer to “his object” (He was hoping for a good bite after his artificial meals from shops)
“Be careful,” Bella screamed.
But it was already too late, Tim fell into the water next to his “object”. It was a mermaid doll.
Then he started shouting, “Help me out, I’m freezing, throw me a rope or a lifeline.”
Bella was already looking for help because on her own, it was impossible to hoist up this fat boy.  But she couldn’t find anyone. Where was everybody from the bus? Somebody must be here, she thought. Then an old man came out of the bakery store. He saw the cat screaming around, took his little boat and circumnavigated next to Tim. Picked up the cat in the scruff of his neck and brought him back to the quay. “Here you go you stupid quadruped.”
Bella looked at Tim full of anger.
“Was this really necessary, was it worth it? Look! Your fur, full of algae and besides that you stink!”
They went to sit on a bench near the river in order to relax and calm down. Bella was on the one hand happy that nothing serious happened with Tim, but on the other hand, she was quite furious. Why couldn’t he just for one day be content to walk by her side and enjoy a free day as a tourist?
 After a while they continued ambling, they crossed the drawbridge and now they were at the grist mill.
“Oh no!! Is it starting to drizzle again?”
But luckily the rain stopped immediately. The blades were turning around and inside the mill - the grist was turning into flour. It was amazing to see how it functioned.
“Tim, Tim where are you?”
Where was Tim? He promised her to stay by her side and now? Again…. away!
“Tim, where are you?” Bella shouted again.
The blades had stopped working by now and Tim was up in the air, swinging at the top of one of the blades. How was it possible? Why did they stop working? Then she saw the notice on the door: every day from 14.00 till 16.00 hours.
“Come down between the holes of the blade”.
“I can’t,” screamed Tim, “I will break my legs,” he said with a shaky voice.
So now what was Bella thinking? She heard sirens. Oh no and a fire!!! Where?!! A fire engine came through one of the narrow streets, lights flashing, and stopped in front of the mill. Firemen climbed up the ladder, pulled Tim from the wick and stuffed him into a jute bag. A lot of people had gathered around and they clapped wildly when the firemen came down with the cat.
Once down, they let Tim go.
“Here you go, stupid quadruped!”
He hurried over to Bella, “I’m so sorry, you have to believe me, it wasn’t my fault.”
“You must thank the person who called the fire brigade,” Bella said, “If it had been up to me, you would be still up there.” She knew it wasn’t true, but.....
“Let’s go back to the bus stop and try to enjoy our high tea at the Euromast.” But when they arrived back at the meeting point there was no coach in sight. They looked up at the beltower from the church.
 “NO, NO, NO,” Bella yowled.
The bus had been long gone, for an hour and a half. How was it possible that they had forgotten the time?  And Now what.........?
They were sitting in the corner of a shop, How do we get back home again?
“Let’s look for a policeman and ask over there,” suggested Tim.
They were asking around for a police station, and they walked and walked and it started to rain. “My raincoat is still on the bus!”
Drenched, they arrived at the headquarters of the Rotterdam Police. The men, because mostly they were men, listened to their story. But what else could they do? Just to give them some blankets, water and bread, and put them in a prison cell.
Were they really captive? Were they prisoners? This did seem very strange.
Bella felt sad, more than she had ever felt before and Tim was shivering even though he was wrapped in one of the blankets. Now what?
Later that day, it was already dark and still raining - Henry came back to the Hilton Hotel. She kicked off her shoes and laid her legs on the footrest.
All of a sudden she though about Bella, “Where is my Bella?”
She searched everywhere but no cat was to be found. She ran to the reception downstairs. The receptionist offered to help her and both went with a car belonging to the hotel to the nearest police station.
It was the police headquarters, just a few minutes ride away. Bella smelled the familiar scent of Henry and told Tim to mewl (miawwwwo) as well. The problem was quickly solved, at least for Henry. Bella and Tim had been at the station for several hours or more!
Back at the hotel they were all hungry, Henry ordered something fresh and healthy from the kitchen and after their evening meal they all went to sleep.
The next day they travelled back to London again by boat but this time the sea was calmer. They stayed for a couple of months, just for sufficient time to close the rental of the flat and organise shipping all their worldly goods to Paris.

Life Three - Paris, France

The train journey under the Channel to Paris was easy and in 3 hours they were in Gare du Nord which was a bit of a comedown after the splendidly modern St Pancras - it was once described as “grubby” by an English captain of industry. (At the time, he was attempting to attract business from France so it was not exactly a great move.)
Henry had spent much of the time during their six-month wait in Manchester searching on the internet for apartments in Paris. She thought St Denis sounded rather nice because she once had a boyfriend called Denis so that was where she had chosen to live but she was surprised how cheap it was, she thought Paris was expensive. When the matrimonial home was sold, she gave away a lot of her possessions and she did the same when the time came to leave for France. Most important were all her dress design tools, her computer with its enormous screen, material samples and so on and these had been shipped on ahead of the caravan.
So, on a bright spring morning at the end of April, our strange little family, the caravan, took the short journey to France.
St Denis is in the north of Paris and they took a taxi to their new home.
How a woman of the world, much travelled could made such a stupid mistake is beyond belief, the apartment was truly wonderful, very old and stylish but the area, not so wonderful. But Wayne loved it, he felt truly at home and after a few days was soon in business dealing in small brown packets. Henry was so pleased that he was getting out in the fresh air now, he used to spend so many hours in front of his computer in his bedroom back home watching movies online. Sometimes she would disturb him but all she could see was that there was a lot of pink on the screen. How strange she thought, pink? And then she thought, “this is home now”, we will all have to speak French now.
On the day they travelled from London, by the time they arrived at the apartment it was early evening and Henry had to give some thought to what to eat. This apartment was not as high as the flat in the UK where cat number three fell to its death but, on the second floor, a fall from the balcony would still be fairly serious. “Or do cats bounce maybe from the second floor?” she mused. But to be safe, she kept the door to the balcony closed and let the two cats out of their boxes. They immediately fell into a massive hugging session and they were still like that, oblivious to the world, as they left.
She took Wayne with her to search for food, there were lots of corner shops with strange names selling food that they didn’t recognise. But by chance they came across a small Carrefour supermarket and they found all kinds of familiar food such as Tetley’s Tea and Heinz Baked Beans. Now they started to feel human. Unfortunately at the checkout, the security guy noticed that Wayne had a suspicious shape under his jacket and this turned out to be a large pack of expensive chocolate. Henry’s faced turned a paler shade of white.
 “You idiot, why did you do that?”
 “They’re foreign, I thought they would be too stupid to notice”.
Foreign yes, but not stupid and also English-speaking.
This was a pending disaster of major proportions, no way was the man going to let them off with a warning and he began to reach for a dark brown truncheon which hung by his waist. He called the shop manager and they were dragged into his office at the back of the shop at which point he picked up the phone and called the police. By this time the stupid teenage boy was beginning to think it hadn’t been such a good idea. “I was trying to help, I thought you would like it as a present”, he said in a voice choked with fear. And then without warning he started to cry, not just a gentle sobbing, more a kind of wailing. And it got worse, it was as though flood-gates had opened. The manager and the security guy looked on in amazement with mouths open as did Henry.
They were used to seeing tough kids but this one was not so tough after all. His mom had never seen him cry since he caught his finger in a deck-chair when he was three.
Wayne was still sobbing when the two gendarmes arrived, one man one woman heaving with the weight of their riot gear and sub-machine guns and then they came face to face with a young but quite large English boy crying his heart out. It was the woman who started. She reached rapidly inside her pocket for a handkerchief to dab at her eyes but the cuff of her jacket caught the gun on her hip. It spun out of the holster, hit the floor with a metallic thud and fired a bullet into her companion’s shoe, fortunately not causing any injury. And then they were all either crying for the boy or laughing at the lucky escape. But everyone was so sad for this young boy, just arrived in Paris and on the point of being carted off to a police cell that they forgave him and swore him to secrecy about the gun. Just like that, on the spot, they forgave him but they kept the chocolate. If this was a Walt Disney movie they would have let him keep the chocolate.
It was fortunate that they didn’t have to go to the police station because they had left the cat couple in each other’s arms on the alone in the flat and they didn’t want to stay away too long. But they were probably on the sofa watching TV but not understanding a word of it….. of course, it was in French.  Henry and Wayne were free to go. Wayne’s face was red and streaked with tears and Henry was in a state of shock at what seemed like some kind of strange dream, or maybe a movie. She will wake up soon and find that she fell asleep watching TV. But, no this was real.
They walked back to the flat in a daze and it was only when they were half-way back that they realised that they never went through the checkout. In the confusion no one at the store had realised that. The tears quickly turned to tears of mirth and they collapsed in each other’s arms giggling onto the pavement. But also at the same time taking a quick rather guilty look behind them.
“Wait till we tell the cats, they will piss themselves laughing!”
“Wayne, I have told you, don’t use that language. You don’t know who’s going to read this.”
They picked themselves up and continued back to the flat where they found the cat couple still looking other-worldly but slightly shame-faced and on the sofa as predicted. And Wayne was right.
Next day, Henry unpacked all her computer equipment and tools and decided it was about time she did some work. In the chaos of the previous night she had forgotten to put her phone on charge and she had missed several calls from clients and also from the factory making the pet clothes. She was smart enough to have booked a phone line for the flat in advance so she had a good connection to the internet and could catch up on her emails. It was time to start on some new designs; her clothes were in great demand. The manufacturing and distribution were handled by another company so she didn’t have to worry about that but she was always under pressure to come up with new ideas. And now clients were already asking about the autumn fashions and where the show would be. Of, course, now it would be Paris.
Tim wasn’t too bothered because he was fat and lazy but Bella got rather irritated when she heard Henry talking about the catwalk.
“Hey, I’m a cat, why can’t I do the catwalk?”
But then the feeling got more intense and, if cats can have chips on shoulders, this cat was growing a very large one. But Bella was not exactly glamorous, just a rather ordinary black and white cat with a black patch by one eye which made her look like a pirate.
Henry could feel this resentment building and said,  “But the cats on the catwalk are Siamese and pure breeds, I don’t mean to be snobbish but you, well, how can I put it, you are not exactly from the most noble of  families”.
“But I can get a colour change, Humans do it.”
This tension went on for several months and was even affecting Henry’s work because she was already having trouble concentrating in the new environment and was thinking maybe they should move anyway. Wayne was out most of the day and was now so wealthy that he could buy his own chocolate. Tim was asleep most of the day and Bella was getting on her nerves. As summer passed and the autumn show approached, Henry’s heart softened. One of her new designs was called Ragamuffin and it was intended to make a cat look worldly-wise but slightly scruffy as if to give it street credibility.
So Bella modelled Ragamuffin at the show and much to Henry’s surprise everyone took her to their hearts and she was a great success, on TV and in the pet glamour fashion magazines. Bella became famous as did the outfit and it became a popular item at Marks and Spencer pet fashion. She was the Kate Moss of the cat world, so much so that she took the stage name Kat Moss. As with many famous people such as Adele, she became known simply as Kat. She always chose the same seat in British Airways first class and had violent arguments with stewardesses if anyone had the temerity to demand seat 1A.
Of course, this woke Tim out of his apathetic slumber, he became jealous.
 Having lived in her husband’s shadow when they worked together in his company so the new-found fame was rather going to Henry’s head. She was fêted by the great and the good and also the not so good and, in her euphoria, lost her head over a young apparently Spanish guy who she met in a bar after the show. Really, she should have known better. Despite being a fair bit younger than Henry, Julio showed a lot more interest in her beyond the subject of pet fashion and her alarm-bells should have been ringing. But he had spent many years in London and now had an authentic Lonnon accent which rather lulled Henry into a false sense of security.
His story (because that’s all it was) was that he was a reporter for El Periodico in Barcelona and was writing an article about the show and wanted to include a personal profile of Henry for the back page. She was bowled over by his charm and was soon hooked.
“I need to ask some more questions, is it OK if we meet a second time? I will take you out for a meal, on expenses,” he said as it was getting late and many other people wanted to talk to Henry. He added, “on expenses” for a bit of authenticity. 
Henry agreed and, two days later they met in a restaurant close to the theatre where the show had been held. There were lots of questions, too many questions. About money. About credit cards and how people chose images for their cards. “Do you have an image on your card? I imagine it’s a cat,” he said casually. She showed him the card and he held it lightly in his hand admiring the photo which was of Bella. In the palm of his hand was a small scanner.
Julio paid the bill as he had promised and they parted with a kiss on the cheek. He had been prepared to go to bed with Henry for the sake of making some money but he didn’t really want to. She was not his type. But it would have been easier to get the information he wanted when she was undressed or even asleep in bed. So he escaped that fate.
Two days later in the flat, Henry received a phone call on the fixed line.
“It’s Barclays in Manchester Parkway, we need to speak to you urgently”.
“But how do I know it’s you? I’ve read about scams where people pretend to be banks.”
“It’s simple, you ring us back on the number you have in your account, then you will know it’s us.” And the man at the other end of the line seemed to know all about her account.
She rang back, thinking she was now speaking to the bank but the fraudster remained on the line.
“All you have to do is move your balance to an account which I will give you and you will be safe,” he said.
At this point, Tim bounded onto the table, knocked over a flower vase full of water which ended up soaking the phone.
“The phone’s wet I can’t use it,” she said. “I’ll get an electric shock.” 
She was shocked for sure. But by the reply, an expletive starting with a “f” which was very un-bank-like. The water meandered gently in among the chips and one by one they failed. The line dropped out and the man at the other end swore. A lot.
 He phoned Julian (for that was his real name). “She may be onto you when she speaks to the real bank.”
“Well, she will do that when no article arrives in the newspaper. I think it was a stupid idea. Everyone knows about this scam by now.”
They had a violent argument and the bogus bank manager hit his phone so hard that it fell apart.
Henry soon realised how close she had come to losing a lot of money. “Cats are psychic, I am sure of it.”
But it was not like Tim to move around so quickly, everything normally happens in slow-motion with him! Maybe he knew.
“We need to go away. Let’s just up-sticks and go somewhere. I like Lyon, we can drive to Gare Austerlitz tonight, put the car on auto-tren, and take the TGV in the morning.”
And that is exactly what they did. They left Paris at 10am and two hours later they arrived in Lyons (the British added the “s” for some reason) to find their car waiting for them, having travelled overnight. They felt enormous relief being out of Paris. They wandered contently around the streets. They stopped in a bar for coffee. The city sits between the two rivers, the Rhône and Saône. Henry insisted they visit the Musée des Beaux Artes. Every time she went to Lyon, she visited a lonely young girl carved in a solid lump of stone, her face seeming to come out of the stone like something out of Harry Potter. So she introduced her to the family, “You haven’t changed at all,” she said to her young friend.
After a couple of days in Lyon, Henry decided to drive to Geneva which is directly to the east and she entered it into her sat-nav. Unfortunately the sat-nav got confused between languages and took them to Genova in Italy.  “Oh, well,” Henry said when she realised her mistake, “we might as well keep going!”

Life Four – Rome, Italy

“Oh boy, is it true what I heard? Henry said we are going somewhere, but I am not quite sure exactly where. I think it was ron, rom, rome. Well it can’t be the horrible place that smells like chloroform for sure because that is called, ‘Vet’. Anyway I am happy that Tim is coming. I can’t say the same for the stupid little Human that stays with us. There must be a reason why Henry keeps him, but still I don’t understand. He is so rude and nasty with everybody, even and especially with us. And he doesn’t even purr. What is his purpose in life I wonder...
OK...Here we are! Rome is the name of the place. I am so glad I am out of that horrible cage. Five hours I had to stay in there! Up and down long corridors full of smelly humans, and then in a very narrow seat on Henry’s lap, and everything was shaking. And what a noise! Besides no food, no drink and no litter! (Well, this is a bit embarrassing for a lady cat)...and look! My wonderful white fur is all messed up. It’s time now for a good licking.  Tim seems to be fine; well of course, male cats do not worry about anything but eating, being caressed and... Oh well, no...for him the third thing is over forever I am afraid.
The Humans seem both to be happy here. I don’t understand why Humans like so much to move from one place to another. If it was for me I would stay the whole day on my favourite chair, have a nice brush in the evening, going out for a walk in the neighbours in the night, sleep on the bed until late in the morning. But Humans are strange. Well I guess they also need some distractions from time to time besides looking after us.
Tonight we will have fish for dinner, we have been told... Wayne is looking at me in a very strange way. I know he’s evil. Tim says I should not worry, but I can feel the ugly creature is jealous!  Jealous of me and Henry..because she loves me much more than him. but this is not my fault! I am gorgeous, and clean, and graceful and elegant. And I purr and have wonderful green eyes, and Humans just go crazy for me. There’s nothing I can do about... sorry stupid little Human!
Oh my god!! Where am I?? In a sack I think. Things happened so fast. Wayne at first attracted me with some treats. But I knew I should not trust him... but then he started playing with me, and everybody knows no cats can resist a laser pointer!!!! I did my darnedest to catch that little red bastard, pouncing and dashing all over the floor! But as usual, no way... And suddenly I was trapped again! (BTW this is becoming to be a bit annoying... in a restrained place twice in less than 24 hours... com’on, this is ridiculous! ).
What is going to happen now? No more brushing? No more sleeping in my Human’s bed? No more fresh cream in the morning and tuna fish for dinner? And my love?? Tim, where are you? Will I ever see you again?
He has let me out! It is cold and dark here...where am I? I am so scared!
Bella opened her eyes and looked around her. In the distance she could see a few twinkling lights that lit up some columns just in front of her. Their long shadows painted dark stripes across an ancient stone floor. There was a nice smell in the air that told about a distant and glorious past. The place was so peaceful and silent. Bella started to relax a bit. She felt protected and started to wander around, walking on the soft grass that grew wild in-between the stones.
She did not know it yet but she had been left in Largo di Torre Argentina in Rome - a beautiful square that holds four Republican Roman temples, and the remains of Pompey’s Theatre - an archaeological wonder right in the city centre. In any other Country in the world a place like this would be considered as a UNESCO world heritage site and protected. But here the great historical value of the place is appreciated mostly by tourists!  For the average Roman this is just one of the many, many ruins that populate the city. But of course, this is one of the reasons Rome is so amazing.
Anyway Bella was very lucky to be left here. No, not because of the beauty of the place, but because located inside the archaeological site there is what Romans call the “Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary’, a shelter for homeless cats, as the historical area abounds with various breeds of cats. Romans have always loved these mysterious, laid-back creatures, maybe because their share a bit the same nature.
Think what could have happened if Bella had been left in the cold and anonymous Milan?? She would probably have died, but here...
Back to our story!
She sensed other cats all around her but could not see any. Suddenly her sharp cat eyes caught a slight movement in the shadows and her heart began to beat a little faster.
A big ginger and white cat appeared out of the darkness and sauntered towards her.
“Hello beauty, you must be new around here,” he meowed softly.
“Good evening,” she replied timidly, “Could you please be so kind as to tell me where I am?”
The big cat had bright, vivid green eyes, and scars everywhere on his body... He looked wild and strong, but at the same time protective and somehow even sweet. It was clear that he was in charge there. Bella felt dizzy. She was unable to look away from him, from those beautiful, magnetic eyes.
“You are safe here do not worry, come, come with me, I’ll bring you to my room where we can talk quietly...my name is Romeo.”
And so they went, passing by cats sitting on stumps of old Roman columns or napping on the foot of an emperor’s statue, prowling the ancient monuments as if they owned them and answering to no one. In the dark of the night, only thousands of bright eyes were to be seen like the eyes of mischievous little devils ...
It was nice in Romeo’s quarter. “Oh, Romeo, you are so different from Tim,” said Bella laying in Romeo’s paws, and, no doubts, he was very different...
Bella woke up with the first rays of the rising sun “Awwwww... it so beautiful to feel the warmth of the sun on the fur...hummm I feel hungry... I should probably rub a bit against Romeo and see if I can get some food...” And so she did... purring and rubbing, and rubbing and purring and at some point also licking... Until Romeo opened his beautiful eyes. He jumped out from the comfortable steps that were his bed - upon which dictator Julius Caesar was betrayed and killed in 44 BCE.
“Come, follow me - let’s see if we can get some breakfast.”
And so... The tour began... A tour in the most crowded bar in Rome, where a lot of sleepy people were standing, drinking either a few drops of a black liquid in a small cap (called ‘espresso’) or a foamy, beige liquid from a bigger cup (called ‘capuccino’).
“Ciao Bella, che te do?” Said one of the white-dressed men behind a long white bar.
“This Human knows my name!!” Cried Bella, “how on earth??”
Romeo laughed, “No... Bella it is the way male humans address female humans here in Rome...I think it is a sort of compliment.”
Men and women were chatting cheerfully, smiling at each other and... Shouting very loudly. They all had something in their hands... Brown and with a delicious smell of fresh butter.
“This is called ‘cornetto’, do you fancy one?” While he was saying that he went in between the legs of a poor guy who almost lost his balance...Of course letting the cornetto drop to the floor. Bella was very quick, took the prey and ran away followed by Romeo. The cornetto was delicious!!
“Well, this life it’s not so bad after all...’ She thought.
“Come on, let’s have a tour in the Eternal City,” said Romeo, “You know, Eternal means that it never dies, a bit like us cats...
Maybe this is the reason why we fit in the city so well.”
Bella was so excited! She had never had the chance to live the life of a stray cat, and in a city like Rome! It was almost lunch time, and the smell of food was everywhere: pizza, facaccia, panzerotti, pasta... Such warm fragrances under the warm sun. They strolled along the border of roads crowded with cars and scooters zipping around the cars. In the busy city centre, along the high-end fashion street, Via Condotti, the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain. It was easy to see young people with casual clothes and backpacks going to the university as well as very elegant men and women going to work.  Bella looked at them in astonishment...  How different these people looked from the grey crowd of people she was used to see passing by her house in Manchester. There was something in their faces that told her they did not take either the job or the study or even themselves too seriously.
“You know,” said Romeo, “there’s no other city in the world where people know so well the meaning of life...They do care about their duties, but with a very light spirit...At the end they know it is just a show, the show of life, and they all perform their part, without being trapped in it. I guess this is the reason why they look so happy.”
From the Trevi Fountain to the Colosseum it was a brief walk. “Here, come to meet my friends - the Colosseum hosts another very big cats colony,” said Romeo. A large crowd of cats were gathered around a little elderly woman with food in a bag.
“She is one of our angels - here they call them ‘gattare’, cat ladies, they feed us,” explained Romeo. “Hi guys, this is Bella” she was greeted warmly by the weirdest assembly of cats ever seen. Some of them had only one eye, some other missed both ears, some other lost their tales. And their skin looked like a geographical map, all scratches and healed wounds.
“What happened to them?” Asked Bella.
“Well, life on the street my dear... Cars, fights, evil Humans... A bit of everything.”
Bella was starting to think that maybe the life of a stray cat was not so romantic as she had thought: free love and sleeping under the stars.
“Where on earth did you hide yourself??” Cried suddenly a roundly, well build lady cat from the assembled crowd.
 “Hi Sophia, how’re you doing?” Said Romeo in a very worried tone “I looked for you the whole night yesterday. Did you forget we had an appointment?”
 And who is this anorexic?” Cried Sophia getting close to Bella and examining her from head to tail, “Maybe the reason of your disappearance? Oh she is so pretty and elegant...But no real flesh and blood under that nice white fur!”
While Sophia was pronouncing these words she jumped right towards Bella, determined to prove what she had just stated.
“RUN!” Cried Romeo to the astonished Bella. 
With a feline jerk Bella got away from Sophia’s clutches. “Help me!” She cried.
“Sorry darling, this is a ladies’ issue,” said Romeo licking his paw.
Bella kept running, she could feel Sophia’s breath on her neck. She ran and ran, past the Roman Forum, on the Altare Della Patria (Altar of the Nation) stairs, back in the traffic of the Roman street...
“I’ll get you my dear, you do not have enough calories to burn! You gonna stop very soon!!”
Sophia was yelling at her...and bang! Like a prophecy Bella stopped! a Fiat 500 (old model of course... Rome probably is the only place on earth where you still can see this car)  bumped into her with a loud noise.
“Oh mamma mia che ho fatto!!” Cried the little, fat woman getting out of her car, “Povero micio,” she said and took Bella in her arms.
Bella was motionless, her beautiful blue eyes shut. There was now a little crowd around her. Thank God the woman was not exactly Alonso and the impact was not that traumatic... After few seconds Bella opened her eyes... Life number 4 was gone, but she did not care much about that. She was still alive! In the distance, she saw Romeo getting away with Sophia - he turned just to be sure she was still alive... and he winked at her, careful not to be seen by the jelous Sophia.
“Typical of all male cats... unless they are like Tim...ah Tim, where are you? Now I am missing you....and Henry... I want to go back home.”
Well, here we are at the end of the story. The little woman was able to bring Bella back to Henry (the address was on the collar) and  they all lived happy ever after.
“It has been a nice adventure,” thought Bella, “I will remember especially the warm smells and colourful images of that beautiful city - I cannot say the same for the unfaithful Romeo and his obese cat friend.”
The story has even a happier ending as Bella succeeded in vomiting on Henry’s favourite room carpet as a sign of profound disgust towards him.

Life Five – Transylvania, Romania.

Miaow, I was thinking I was still in Rome! The Humans came across a very strange man and he spoke a language that sounded almost like the one spoken by Humans in Rome. He appeared out of one of the stone pillars in the prehistoric section of town. It was if he appeared from their laptop, it was so strange. One moment, there was a stone pillar, the next moment, a man approaching them. It was a day of infernal heat, in which Humans walk around ancient debris and chunks of stone buildings, which I would call historical artefacts. At least that column was standing, unlike many other pieces in ruins with which Humans marvel, only they know why!
The man exuded a strange smell, downright inhuman. It smelled more like cheese, I’d say an aged cheese, like sheep. Footwear? His shoes the like of which I have never seen before. The Humans stopped him and asked who was the designer of the shoes, they were different from everything else seen until then. The man laughed and said to them that this style was invented at the time the Romans conquered and inhabited these places in the territories from which they came. He spoke about Dacia and his shoes which are called sandals, the footwear of the nation, called Luidor in ancient times. He came from that distant land, walking as a sign of respect and honour to his ancestors, to the great honour of the nations from which they came: Romans and Dacians.
Gradually I realised what he was saying, that eventually the country that he mentioned became Romania and Transylvania. To me it made my fur stand on end like hedgehog spikes, because I have heard about Romania. I’ve seen Dracula movies, and I know that the vampire was a fearsome Transylvanian citizen.
And I began to have very human-style thoughts, it was if I had woken up suddenly from a nightmare to find that it was all true; bloody scenes, dark and pale Humans endowed with fangs ready to bite you to drink your blood. Of course what frightened me most was that the humans had travelled here for that very same reason. No one, not even a teenager can resist the temptation of seeing vampires in the flesh. And the best place to see them is in Transylvania.
At first glance, to me Transylvania seemed to attract people who were decidedly not pale, even some of them seeming to me quite tanned. The humans I am used to seeing were downright blond, with blue eyes and pink skin, forever cheerful and laughing; always walking around with plates full to overflowing and with big appetites. That’s great for us cats because a lot of the food ends up on the floor under the table where they eat. And it was always very tasty! We were thrown so much food that we could almost feed an entire cats’ home in England, and a few more Humans as well.
The first time we were thrown food here, it was pieces of meat sausage. It tasted divine, they called it “crap”, very different from the meat that I stole from British dishes. Then they threw something very strange, wrapped in cabbage leaves, stuffed cabbage and told them that it was the result of an argument between my Humans, the boy and his mother. Some people explained that it’s a domestic food, they said that they ate mine by saying that Turkey and turkey are the same.
The man who had come out of the pillar spoke very loudly and was very vocal on account of loud music - local music - music with an irresistible beat. Tim was getting a little drunk on the local brandy and he started waving his head around to the rhythm.
The drink – Polinka - was so strong that Tim climbed on the table and licked the glass of one of the humans. Tim didn’t normally drink, but now I could see the instant effect of the plum brandy, as if the drink had been enchanted. After being shouted at in several languages, Tim literally fell under the table, among the remains of meat and cabbage left there, and continued to chew on them until he finally passed out.
The Humans were disgusted with Tim and hauled him unconscious to a place close to home, which Humans spoke of with great enthusiasm. The Merry Cemetery in Sapanta. I don’t quite understand why it has such a cheerful name, since it is a cemetery. But anyway I never did understand too well the humans; they like ancient stones which they call “remains”, they keep in the house young Humans, they even feed them although they don’t actually like them. And why do they go out to places which they call Job when they don’t actually like it. If you keep doing something and complain about it all the time, that makes no sense.
And so they abandoned Tim, unconscious, in the cemetery!
I won’t take any more of your time talking about the Humans and their choices in life. As long as they continue to feed and spoil me, that will be fine by me. Sometimes I have to rub myself against their legs in order to get the beans when their buy beans. The cheaper versions create indigestion I have discovered.
When Tim failed to turn up in the home, I eavesdropped on what the new friends are saying about Transylvania, the story they were exchanging. I learned precisely where they had abandoned my poor unfortunate friend and I went to look for him.
St. Bastet. But the place was absolutely fascinating! I’ve never seen anything like that in any of my previous lives and certainly not in the current one. Because there were many crosses making a completely original form, but it was still very obviously a cemetery. The crosses were more like an exhibition of paintings on wood, all were made of wood and all were like colourful books and had messages that Humans could read. 
I sat next to a group where the piece of wood with the book had on it a smiling woman with long hair, neither young nor old, neither beautiful nor ugly. One of the small group said he knew her and I stopped to read the message.
On the Cross was written: “Here lies interred Delia, who wrote this story, it tells how she went from this world, her journey marked by sin and plenteousness. About how the readers were eager to see what  followed, as though it was a show or a play.” And so you, dear reader, will discover how the story ended in Romania.
I went to go to find Tim, among the crosses and plants, accompanied by roars of laughter from the Humans who said that I would never find him again. I know what you are saying, it was just laughter, but I was in Transylvania, and expecting vampires to appear at every corner. That is no joke.
I wandered around reading the fascinating stories on the crosses and looking for Tim at the same time. I could not find Tim anywhere and I was thinking that maybe he had started off home. Maybe he was already there.
Then suddenly I heard a meow so seductive, that I did not know if it was real with measured out sounds, or a creature coming from another sphere of the universe. I saw his hypnotic eyes shining in the night, then I saw a black coat, glossy, with hints of tar and Amatista. A divine feline prowled towards me, appearing to be half awake, I was absolutely hallucinated by the sounds and movements of this superb specimen of my species.
Although frightened by this apparition, after a while I looked up, I could not resist the temptation to approach it. As if hypnotized, I heard the voice, which seemed to have come from somewhere in the shadowy depths of the distant past. “Hello, mortals! I am Vlada, a cat free and without prejudices. How did you get here?”
Tim appeared in the gloom next to this apparition his mouth wide open in disbelief. I was afraid of this fascinating creature, it approached me and spoke to me with a strange voice, looking at me straight in the eyes with a nervously moving long black tail.
Suddenly, I felt as if lifted up by someone, we broke into a run with me with everything. I got to see how Vlada, the diabolical creature appeared from nowhere to bite slowly and unhurriedly into the neck of Tim, who  lay motionless on the ground.
As we ran away, he quickly explained that Vlad was a vampire cat, who is suspected it would be Vlad’s cat, about whom we know that his name was Dracula. Then were evidence of its passage through the lives of illustrious, but the last time was definitely the cat Ceausescu, the communist dictator who now lay dead.
It was a cat whose bite does not make you a vampire, nor kill you, only you fools.  Some, though righteous and honourable, as was Dracula, made them cruelly punish people, beheading them and poked their heads on sticks for everyone to see. Others, large and unjust to go to war, do program and mass murder. That is if you hit around people with power, who constantly hunt. If they were not rulers, even of corporations, unless you have some countries, Vlada creates rapists, mistreated, serial killers, people traffickers, or at least homophobic, paedophiles, bullies, drunkards, thieves second hand.
It seems that Humans just come here at the Merry Cemetery, looking to see how successful they had been in businesses and where people can read stories about them. And they get bitten. Vlada’s biggest success was undoubtedly Ceausescu and his family, which was no secret to anyone. A simple shoemaker had turned into a monster president of an illiterate country obsessed with power, subjugating an entire people by terror, hunger and fear. It was the character that the man was proud Vlada and paying the gods of darkness, for a few extra lives.
I learned from the same man who told him everything that Tim would be saved only if, by midnight, drinks the milk of a buffalo, an animal very common in Transylvania once, but quite hard to find now. I do not know, but the man can say he stuck his nose diavolita Vlada, but suddenly, everyone wanted to sell the poor animals. And as the country teemed with foreigners who offered money to buy them from old peasants, almost none are left now.
And so I started out, driven by man with an old car, which he called lu Dacia father way through Transylvania in search of a buffalo farm. Tim and I sat in a big basket, woven by the woman who stayed home and the woman arranged with great care pillows sewn by her, adorned with crosses and flowers, a crucifix high, to protect us and few knobs of garlic to protect us from evil and Tim other misfortunes. People led us to the gate and the imposing, carved wood, so beautiful that I wanted to take a selfie with her, so I did!
The road away was a dream, an impressive landscape, beautiful villages and everywhere happy and contented people. I saw many crosses over and over again and I saw more churches than anywhere else I have been. The most beautiful were those wooden crosses with sayings about the ancient world many hundreds of years old. I walked around Moti Land, where I suspected that there would be some buffalo milk.
We continued our journey through Turda, a town not big nor small, I entered the passageway to Viyitam a place that even I had heard. Salina Turda, an old salt mine, now just a place to visit. What can I say about it, it’s impressive, if you can, definitely go and see it.
We heard a rumour that there was a herd in Baia Mare which is quite close to the border with Ukraine which follows the River Tisza. And there we found the buffalo, the only herd in the whole of Romania, grazing on the green pasture two kilometres from the salt mine in a small valley. But the farmer had heard about our desperate situation and wanted a large sum of money to give us some milk.
But we were saved! We could not go back now, it was too dangerous so, as night fell, we crossed the border into the west of Ukraine.
Henry had contacts there and she developed a crazy scheme to put on a show there. Unfortunately they miscalculated and entered Moldova by mistake so we all had to spend the night in a police cells before being released and sent out the other side into Ukraine.

Life Six – Kharkiv, Ukraine

A couple of years ago, Vitaly Sanchenko, a wealthy hotel proprietor in the east of Ukraine, had offered to promote a show for Henry.
 The temptation of the offer from Vitaly was too great. And anyway most of the fighting was further south in the region of Donetsk. Vitaly owned four hotels and a health spa in the capital of Kiev. And of course he offered accommodation for the whole family.
And here she was in Ukraine, but only just.
“Oh, but Ukraine is dangerous”, Quentin said to Henry when she spoke to him on the phone next day. Quentin was the camp chief dresser for Henry’s pet dresses and he’d read in the news about the war in the east of the country between Ukrainian rebels and the government forces and was concerned about the little family. He was based in London which is where Henry kept many of her designs.
“Don’t worry, Quentin luvvy, we’re going to Kiev, that’s fine.”
“Where are you now?”
“We are in Ukraine, in Chernovtsi which is miles from anywhere!”
“No, Quentin, not Chernobil!”
Henry explained to him that she needed him to send all the clothes out to Ukraine and then to come himself. Gasps of, “ooo!” and “ahhh, but you are normally with me when we travel, I’m not sure if I can do it on my own!”
Quentin relented, “how much time do we have?”
“Do you like cats?” Henry was texting to Vitaly next day.
“For sure! My family has a garden with several cats that come to visit us, either abandoned by neighbours or the result of a brief liaison”. Henry thought that was funny because “liaison” in French means “affair” in English. Cats have lots of affairs, she thought.
So she asked him if his offer was still open. “Of course, I need about two weeks to set it up. Where are you now?” She explained how they had crossed the border into Ukraine and decamped at the first city they found.
“But you will need help getting to Kharkiv, no one speaks English where you are.
“You will have to take the train to Kiev and then it’s a short flight to Kharkiv”.
“We have already discovered the distinct lack of English here!”
Before she left England, she already knew French which she learnt at school and Spanish but Ukrainian had the double difficulty of using the Cyrillic alphabet and then there was the additional complication of not knowing if people were speaking Russian or Ukrainian. More likely Ukrainian in Kiev and Russian in Kharkiv in the east. Anyway, they would only be there for a short time and Vitaly spoke good English.
Vitaly had a friend in Chernovtsi, also called Vitaly, and he arranged for him to accompany the family to Kiev by train, then the rest was easy, by air. The plan was for him to meet the family that evening but Wayne went missing. One minute he was engrossed in his phone and the next he was gone. In a strange town without knowing the language. “Hey, Bella, you’re the smart one here, how can we find him?”
“He took his phone with him, I can use GPS”.
Bella could follow Wayne easily because, well, she was a cat and it was night time and she soon tracked him down to a poor area of town.
He went to a house with a blue and yellow door in the colours of Ukraine and stood in the shadows waiting for it to open. A young girl came out, looking in each direction anxiously, they kissed on the cheeks and then she pulled Wayne in through the entrance. The porch light went out and Bella had no choice but to head back to the family unless she was prepared for a very long wait.
Next morning Wayne was interrogated by the family. Her name was Marti, he found her by searching online. “Lots of lonely young girls here looking for chatting online”.
“Yes but they are really looking for men with money to marry. A sugar-daddy in Europe.”
“No, honestly, she is just looking to make friends. We didn’t do anything, we just chatted. She lives with her mum and grandmother anyway so there was no opportunity for that. She wants to come to Kharkiv with us. I told her about the show, she is training to be a dancer and a model. She goes to classes where they teach posing. She is very keen on pole-dancing.”
This created much hilarity.
“ But pole-dancing is for strip-clubs, you know, girls.... Nude. No clothes. She’s a strip-tease artist!”
“No, you don’t understand, it’s not like that. It’s a fitness and dance club.” Wayne pleaded, “Anyway she could help us. She said she could help train the cats because she speaks Russian.”
The thought of Marti coming along with them was met by a big, “No!” from the three remaining members of the family. And the subject was dropped rapidly because Vitaly number 2 arrived to take them to the station in a taxi.
The train to Liviv was due to leave at 10am so they had time for a coffee. Wayne was jumpy and nervous, the others expected him to be sad and tearful. But the reason soon became evident. At the end of the platform was a young girl with a red backpack obviously about to catch the same train. She was wearing blue jeans and a smart grey jacket. Her hair was shoulder-length and her appearance was like that of a young model on account of the very large sunglasses she was wearing which accentuated the sensuous curve of her mouth. No wonder Wayne had been rather taken by her but of course none of our little family made the connection, and it had been too dark the previous night for Bella to have seen her face.
The train trundled in slowly from the siding where it had been parked overnight because this town was near the frontier and was at the end of the line.  They all got on board. The girl was about 3 carriages up.
Cats are smart and it took just a momentary furtive glance between Wayne and the girl as they got on the train for Bella to make the connection. Well, very soon it became impossible for Wayne to keep his secret. He excused himself to go to the toilet, conveniently about three coaches up in the train and Bella followed him.
“I have to go too, and I think I know your secret!” 
So Wayne and the girl met for the first time on the train and Bella was there too.
“I can explain everything but please don’t tell the others!”
“Look, if you go separately, you just say that she, by an amazing coincidence, is also going to..... Where is she going?”
“Well, of course she wants to come to the show in Kharkiv, but she only has enough money to get as far as Kiev. And she likes me.”
“But she is older than you, normally human girls are younger than human boys when they are partners”.
“I think you will have to tell the others, maybe your mum will pay for her to go to Kharkiv.”
They walked back down the train to break the news.
As the train passed through the flat lands between Chervotsi and Liviv, Henry and Tim started falling in love with Marti just a little bit. She was so sweet and charming and it was obvious why Wayne had taken a shine to her. Apart from anything else, she was simply beautiful.
Ukrainian trains were a new experience for them, there was no buffet car on this train, so at stops along the way, people would jump onto the platform to buy food and drink from the stalls in the station. Unfortunately one young guy in a smart suit got stuck at the end of the queue and, to make things worse, he didn’t have enough change. So, as he argued with the stall-holder, the train gracefully pulled out of the station carrying his smart leather bag with it. The look of panic on his face as he dashed in a futile chase along the platform made Wayne laugh till tears streamed down his face. But we have come to expect that from him. Marti admonished him gently, took command of the man’s bag and gave it to the train guard. 
“The next train is in 4 hours so it’s not a huge disaster.”
She looked inside his bag and found his ticket. He is going to Kiev, same as us, so we will be on the same train tonight.
On one occasion, the reverse happened. A man was on the train saying goodbye to his friends which presumably included his wife and became a little too engrossed in farewell kissing. The doors started bleeping and it registered with him a little too slowly and as he leapt in the direction of the doors they slammed shut with a bone-crunching clunk. This was no problem for his friends, they activated the train alarm and after a few moments the driver appeared, calmly released the door with his key, reset the alarm and returned to his cab.
“Hey, imagine that happening in the UK”, said Henry, “There would have been a dozen men in yellow hi-viz jackets, 10 police cars with lights flashing and an hour while they wrote a report.”.
Then as they were nearly at their destination, there appeared to be an unscheduled stop because they could see no sign of a station. “Stopped at a red signal maybe!” That was the case. Four policemen boarded the train at the front and worked their way down through the train. Marti looked up in alarm.
“What’s wrong? Obviously they’re looking for a criminal or someone on the run”.
“No, I think they’re looking for me.” And she stepped away rapidly from the family. Wayne couldn’t be persuaded to let her go and he followed her. And two coaches up, they met the police coming in the opposite direction, one of whom was carrying a photo. Marti launched herself away from Wayne but it was too late. The police immediately recognised her and Wayne was still obviously with her.
“I don’t understand, what have you done wrong.”
“My gran threatened to say to the police I was abducted if I left home.”
“But you are 21, you are free to leave home, of course you are!”
The train remained motionless, the motors humming contentedly to themselves under the carriage, as Marti spoke to the police in Ukrainian.
“I am telling them that you are just a friend but they are not convinced. They have to follow their instructions.”
And with that, both Marti and Wayne were dragged off the train and it continued on in its journey without them. Needless to say, this caused enormous panic among the rest of the family who had no idea of what had happened.
They were taken to the local police station and interrogated by two young policewomen and it didn’t take long for the grandmother’s story to unravel. The police spoke no English so Marti did all the talking. The police even phoned her home to check the story.
They were put on the next train to Liviv and who should they meet but the young businessman who missed the train buying food. So Marti was able to reassure him that his bag was safe. During the journey they became friends, the man spoke a little English and was really pleased at the opportunity to practice it. The rest of the family was at the station to greet them. And that night, they took the train to Kiev. The young businessman insisted on upgrading their tickets so they all travelled in first class. Henry didn’t take much comfort from the fact that the beds in second class were called shelves.
Most trains between the main cities in Ukraine are night trains because a typical journey is around ten hours. But now they were in Kiev, it was just a short hop by air to Kharkiv. And Henry had become so enamoured of young Marti that she bought her air ticket.
Quentin was also with them on the same flight having arrived by air from London and he had arranged for the costumes to be shipped ahead to the final destination. Bella was not well-known in this part of the world and she found this rather humiliating being more used to adulation from fans, such as being asked for her autograph in supermarkets.
Here, nothing! Tim was delighted of course, “very funny,” he thought, back on level terms. Quentin was in a frantic state. Not only with his usual anxiety about the show but also because people here were less used to seeing a very openly gay man and he had seen one or two large beefy guys mocking him at the railway station. He couldn’t understand what they were saying of course but he didn’t need to.
Vitaly, the original one, was at the airport to meet them and he took them to Hotel19, his flagship hotel in the centre of town. The cat couple had their own room and quickly made themselves at home but Henry was more anxious about her human companions who seemed to be very irritable and tetchy. She suspected that Wayne was also taking the mickey out of Quentin. Wayne was so obviously heterosexual but oblivious to all the other varieties of sexuality. By now he was17 but still very juvenile in his ways and Henry despaired of his ever growing up. Maybe Marti would help to do that.
By the time they arrived it was early evening so they arranged to go to the location of the show, Gorky Park, in the morning. Gorky Park is a leisure park on the outskirts of town with picnic areas, animals in cages and attractions such as a big wheel which was going to be the centre-piece of the show. The two cats were especially fascinated by their larger cousins.
The family, now augmented with Quentin and Marti, decided to relax and enjoy their stay in Kharkiv but they soon found that there wasn’t very much to do. The two weeks passed slowly, the only compensation being their hotel which was very luxurious and stylish.
The day of the show arrived. Quentin went early to the park to unpack the clothes and also to meet the cat models. They had a meal in the restaurant and Henry and our cat couple took an early nap. This delayed their arrival at the park and the cat models were getting impatient. In fact they had never done anything like this before having simply won beauty contests in the past so they would need training, such as strutting - putting one leg in front of the other. Had they been real models, they would have stomped off long ago in a feline huff but this was their big chance – Vitaly had promised this show would be televised on 1+1 Channel.
This was where Bella came into her own and with Marti’s help soon took control of the situation. Henry also had some clothes for dogs but only for cat-sized dogs so some of the costumes would fit either animal. But in the pipeline she was thinking of expanding her market and creating clothes for other pets such as dragons and snakes.
In front of the big wheel was a large stage which is where the show was planned. The scene was bedlam. The catwalk which extended out from the stage was still not complete. Technicians were laying TV cables around the edge of the stage and extra lighting was being hung from gantries about the stage and catwalk. At the back of the stage, seats were being arranged for the orchestra  and the musical director was flapping around worrying about the acoustic. “Too dead”, he said clapping his hands extravagantly in the air.
“Well it would be,” replied Vitaly, “it’s outdoors!”
A rehearsal was planned for the afternoon but it was unclear whether the space would be available so they decided to go out for a coffee. Tim and Bella wanted to go on a cable car which looked like lots of fun and they persuaded Henry to buy tickets. Wayne and Marti went off to feed the animals and Henry went to meet the models who were all mewing and yapping excitedly.
The cable car was an illusion. Bella and Tim thought it was a journey around the park but, to their shock, the small metal cabin headed off out of the park, down into a valley, over a road, the cable with dozens of little buckets heading off far into the distance.
“Hey, where are we going?”
They passed through forest glades with the sounds of birds and croaking frogs - it seemed a little like Disneyland. The journey was magical but by now they were well outside the park, heading up a hill, with the cable stretching ahead of them into the distance. There seemed to be no one around, all the buckets coming the other way were empty. Maybe they had been forgotten. Maybe someone will switch off the motor-drive and leave them stranded in the middle of nowhere.
But then, after what seemed like a very long time, ahead, buildings, signs of civilisation. And the shadowy shape of a terminal building. They panicked and jumped off the cable car and walked through the deserted building and out into the road. Occasionally a car passed by. They had no idea where they were. They had been travelling for over half an hour.
“This is obviously another entrance to the park, but no one is using it,” Bella decided.
“We ought to go back,” Tim said, “They will be worried about us”.
“But this is so weird, it’s like a dream.”
They finally managed to jump onto one of the buckets returning to the park, it swung wildly on the cable as they leapt in.  After another half an hour, they arrived back in the park. The rehearsal had started and they went down to the big wheel to see how it was going. It was shambolic and everyone from Vitaly and Henry downwards were in a state of panic. “It will be alright on the night,” said Wayne. A phrase he had learned from one of the sound technicians. And it was going to be on national TV. Henry could skulk back to the UK but Vitaly lived here and he risked being a laughing stock. Many considered that he had already achieved that.
But then the show on the night was fantastic, everything went like a dream. That is until the storm arrived. The cat and dog models were in the cabins of the big wheel which rotated majestically. And as each one arrived at ground level, they got out and walked up the catwalk. The orchestra played rock music as well as popular music and Stig Roderick, the 70s rock-star had been flow out from the UK in a private jet with his glamorous 30-year old wife tottering on her heels across the airport tarmac. She was taller than Stig (real name Alan Bentworth) even in bare feet. On stage, he used built-up heels but this caused him awful back problems which made him bend double. So he simply ended up back at his original height.
The audience, a mixture of Humans and their pets, were in raptures at this amazing show.
But a big wheel is metal. And it is very high. And about 30 minutes into the show, the sky darkened. It was already getting dark due to the sun going down but this was seriously dark.
 The storm put on a splendid light show also. Maybe it didn’t want to be upstaged. When the big wheel was hit, everyone looked up in terror and their faces were illuminated by the brilliant flash. At that time, although Bella had not been modelling, she was making a cameo appearance as Kat. The lightning didn’t hurt any of the cat models who were still waiting their turn high up in the wheel but it certainly gave Bella a fright because one of the huge lighting gantries above the stage exploded and send bits of glass and lights onto the stage. Bella was lucky to escape because some fragments were very large. People in Ukraine replayed the event of the year many times on YouTube and it became an internet sensation world-wide.
Two days later, they said their farewells at the airport.  They were heading for Ireland. Wayne was in tears because Marti had decided to stay with her aunt in Kharkiv and look for work there.  “Come with us, travel the world”. She was crying too.
“I’ll be back, Marti” he said. “I promise!”

Life Seven - Dublin, Ireland

Tim was not happy. The cage transport this time was too long. He was mewing in his cage, begging the Human to release him. Bella was exhausted and quietly lying in her own cage. The motions gradually stopped, the cages were placed steadily on the ground and it seemed that this wearisome trip was finally over. She saw the speedy jump of Tim and then her own door was gently opened. The first thing that Bella noticed after she stepped out was the moist walls and humid air. The room was small and felt cold and gloomy.
“Welcome to Dublin,” said Tim, “and that must be our new home”, his big eyes were scanning the environment, while his face was slightly displeased, “We must be in the garage, come on Bella, let’s find the house.”
Tim and Bella were on the way to their first disappointment.
It took few days for Bella to get used to the new place; while she got accustomed to the moisture in the sunless house, she did not feel comfortable with the lack of space – the rooms were much smaller than the previous house and the garden was tiny. She needed so badly to run and to explore all day long; here she was deprived from observing the behaviour of birds, cats, Humans and other species. The only living creatures that she was indulging her curiosity with was a family of earthworms in the garden. They were coming out when the soil was wet, which happened frequently because of the rainy weather. That night she decided to leave the house and to explore the neighbourhood.
“Are you crazy?” Said Tim, “there are so many dangers out there. Besides the wind is strong and the water from the skies can come down any time. You know that I don’t like the wind that shakes Dublin.”
He was snuggling in the Human’s lap, “I am not leaving, you are on your own Bella.”
She was not surprised, Tim has lost a long time ago his brawny enthusiasm and Bella knew that the vet was to blame for that!
Late in the evening after the Human has fallen asleep together with Tim lying on his feet, Bella left the house. The first thing that attracted her attention, during her cautious investigation of the local area, were the bright windows of a house with a lot of noisy Humans inside. Someone was also playing music and Bella enjoyed the lively sound. The house was pretty, the ground floor was wooden and painted in black, while the upper two floors were composed of red bricks. Lovely flowers were hanging from the upper floors. Bella’s nose was hit by a strong smell of beer. Everyone inside was drinking, laughing and playfully chatting. Bella was mesmerised by this atmosphere and she would have gazed at it for longer if it wasn’t for the first drops of rain that made her jump under the closest shelter. From her new spot she had good view over a river.
It seemed to Bella that Dublin was a city split into two halves by a wide river. Her tired eyes were glancing at the slowly running dark water, the waves embraced by the wind and the drops of rain on the surface. Suddenly, she noticed a figure of a cat approaching the edge of the quay. The cat was looking above the water, while preparing for a jump. Bella was astonished and her wide open eyes were capturing even the slightest movement of the cat. Bella’s breath froze. The cat leapt from the shore and dived into the river. A few seconds later the cat was swimming across the river in the direction of the other side. The movements of the cat were calm and precise, she seemed to be effortlessly floating. After a few moments the cat reached the opposite shore, then climbed onto the land, shook of the water and jumped into the shadows of the night. Bella was petrified! How did this cat survive!? What just happened …?
“Are you sure it was a cat?” Tim was looking at Bella in obvious disbelieve.
He was eating his breakfast, while the Human was preparing a morning coffee in the kitchen.
“Are you sure…” he repeated slowly. “May be you didn’t see clearly. It could have been a seagull – they float in the river all the time. Here the seagulls are as big as cats – the tourists feed them like pigs.”
Bella was convinced about her story and persisted. Tim knew her very well, he was aware that her mind was utterly obsessed and her thoughts were deeply preoccupied with this event.
“OK,” said Tim, “I will introduce you to the next door cat, he might know something.”
Their neighbour was a beautiful black and white male cat.
“Nice to meet you Bella, my name is Lucky. Please come in.”
Lucky’s Human welcomed Bella into the house, offered them few pieces of dry food and shortly after began to play a guitar. The Irish people love to play music, Bella thought.
“I’ve never heard of floating cats,” Lucky commented, “and I know all the cats in the quarter. Most of them wouldn’t dare even to touch water. Certainly, none of them can swim.”
Bella reassured him that it was definitely a cat that crossed the river. She was firmly determined not to give up, but to investigate further.
“OK, Bella, I will meet you with someone who might know something,” Lucky gave her a glimpse of hope. “Come with me!”
Lucky cautiously checked that the Human was still playing the guitar and then went to the kitchen. There he scratched the wall near the sink. A few seconds later little pink nose with trembling whiskers appeared from a small hole in the wall and two small black eyes stared at Bella.
“This is Charlie,” Lucky introduced the unexpected guest.
“A rat?” Bella didn’t hide her astonishment. “I thought… I though they are afraid of us… and from the Humans.”
Lucky smiled, “Charlie is not just any ordinary rat. He is a friend and a business partner. The deal is as follow: I let him stay here in safety and he can have the Human’s leftover food. In return he neither scares the mice away nor warns them about me. They easily come here, unsuspectingly and then …” Lucky licked his teeth with a look of self-satisfaction.
Bella was astounded.
“They don’t call me Lucky for no reason sweetheart,” he twinkled. “I don’t take chances, I take Charlie. He also provides me with a lot of valuable information. The network established by thousands of rats across the entire city provides you with instant news. About rivals, ladies, dogs, foxes, Humans, birds, all kind of food. Italian, Spanish, Mexican, Chinese. Though my favourite is fish and chips. Delish! Charlie showed me where is the best fish and chips spot in Dublin – besides Christ Church Cathedral. Even human celebrities go there for a treat. I am getting immediately all the info from my buddy. Charlie is my angel.”
Charlie had black head and grey body, it seemed like he was wearing a hood. His fur was well-groomed and looked more like a Human’s pet. Bella told the story about the floating cat. Charlie didn’t seem to recognize the mysterious swimmer but he was confident.
“Don’t worry, we will find out who did it. If a cat has crossed the river then someone of my fellows must know for sure – the quays are our territory, we own them in the night. Listen Bella, I will arrange you a meeting with King Rat. He is the head of all rats in Dublin and he is informed about everything that happens in this city. Meet me tomorrow midnight at the north side of Ha’penny Bridge. Come alone.”
“Have you lost your mind” mumbled Tim with full mouth while having his dinner. “You want to meet the king of Dublin rats and his guerrillas. This is a suicide! You know very well that wild rats are merciless menace. They can kill you for a second and then eat you for supper. I don’t need to remind you about…”
Bella ran away into the other room under the bed. She had enough of lecturing for now. She was disappointed not for the first time from Tim’s lack of understanding and inability to show even the slightest modicum of empathy. She saw under the bed her favourite toy and started to play. A dear present from the Human for her birthday: a wine cork and red feather attached to elastic string. Playing with this toy always cheered her up and relieved her from upsetting thoughts.
The Human finished her tooth brushing and prepared the bed for the night. Bella always wondered why people brush their teeth. The most rational explanation for her was that in this way they were reducing the stress levels and agitated thinking. The people must live very anxious lives, they brush every day. The Human switched off the light and went to bed. Midnight was approaching and Bella jumped onto the window ready to leave. She had a last glimpse at her sleeping Human. A thought of appreciation crossed her mind. She was truly grateful for the care and attention of her Human.
“I am not going to stop you.” Tim’s wide eyes were shining in the dark room. “I know that you want to go. I can’t comprehend your search for a phantom of the river. Then again life is not just about staying alive, life is about chasing ghosts. Just be careful.”
Bella met Charlie at the Ha’penny Bridge few minutes before midnight. The wind was strong and chilly. The moon was full, partially obscured by clouds. Bella was surprised to find that at this time the city was full of life with a lot of people passing by. Many of them, mostly males, were barely walking. The female people must have been very warm because their legs were scarcely dressed. Their shoes were also very high, much higher than Bella has seen previously.
Charlie started to sniff intensely in the air. The King and his guards were approaching. Bella’s heart sank and her stomach shrank. She was paralyzed in fear. A giant rat with the size of a young cat was standing in front of her. His front teeth were massive sledges, which could easily pierce her chest. His filthy and greasy fur was covered with scars. His muscles were well-built in a fearless and determined body posture. His red eyes were staring at her.
“My name is Bella, your majesty…” she was running out of breath, barely able to speak.
“Oh, please dear, we are republicans here” replied King Rat, “The title ‘King’ is archaic, I don’t like it, but I need to amend the constitution, you see, to be entitled properly. Allow me to enlighten you, dear, we have a parliament here and I am actually a prime minister. We do conduct parliament elections every year.”
“The people, from which we have adopted the system, are doing it every four years. But you must consider that the life span of our species is less than four years, therefore our government mandate has to be shorter. Charlie, told me about your case. The water in Liffey is cold but slow. It can be crossed especially when the tide is high, as it is now. The water gets salty from the sea and the swimming becomes easier and effortless. To find the unknown swimmer you have to go to the other side of the river in the Temple district. This is area with several pubs where human tourists like to go. There is a house on the main street painted in red and called the Temple bar pub.”
“In the backyard of this place you will find Mick the Fish. He is the only cat around who loves the water. He is quite a fighter, one of the scars on my back are from his claws. But he paid for that with a bite of mine, I can tell you that much. I am not aware about Mick swimming in the river but this son of a cat is capable of everything. Find him and you will have your answer. After all knowledge is an essential ingredient of happiness. It was pleasure to meet you, have a splendid night.”
The rat disappeared in shades of the night as abruptly as he had appeared.
Bella was speechless. She was amused by King Rat but her hectic mind was already rushing for the search of Temple bar and Mick the Fish. Soon after she entered the south side over Ha’penny Bridge she was exposed to an illuminated area with lovely old-town architecture and several jolly people dancing on the street.
“Some of these Humans must have licked their fur a lot and swallowed a lot of hairs,” Bella noticed, “That should explain why they were returning some of their food on the ground.”
She spotted the red house and quickly sneaked into the back yard. A few cats were licking from a puddle and Bella soon realized that it wasn’t water. They were skinny with springy muscles, their bodies were mixture between grey and ginger, and their paws were completely white. Bella hasn’t seen before so many cats with white paws. They must have been related.
One of them spotted her and rapidly babbled with strong local accent, “how can I help you luv?”
Bella did not hesitate, “I am looking for Mick the Fish”.
 The cat peered with his cheeky eyes “Everyone is looking for something.” He was carefully observing her, “Mind me asking, what you need Micky for?”
Bella briefly told him her inquiry. She made it clear that she needed to find out if Mick the Fish was swimming that night. That was all she needed to know.
“No,” he cut to the point, “it wasn’t Micky.”
Bella was unsettled and persisted, “how do you know?”
He smiled, “That’s straight from the horse’s mouth, hun. I am Mick the Fish.” He slightly tilted his head, “It couldn’t have been me. Last couple of days I was hammered, luv.”
Bella was blinking in confusion with no idea of what he was saying. ‘I was wasted luv, I was drunk.’
Bella was still perplexed. “Drunk?”
“Yes… I had too much booze…” he pointed at the puddle, which the rest of the cats were still licking. “This is no water, hun, that’s beer. And trust me, an Irish pint is what you need. Now, the tourists go for the popular dark beer with white head. It’s good but cannot be compared to this one,” he pointed the puddle again, “this is Irish red ale style from Kilkenny.”
He was now making an effort to reduce his accent as he wished to be properly understood. “It is a clear beer with a rich ruby colour, the brewing process of which depends on malt, yeast, water and hops…” He was speaking passionately but Bella was not listening.
She was disappointed and disheartened. Bella interrupted him, “But maybe you just don’t remember, maybe you were swimming that night but simply forgot.”
Micky stopped his chatter and looked attentively at Bella. He realised that her inquest was quite important to her.
“Look hun, I am not a good swimmer. I don’t see myself swimming in the Liffey. Impossible! They call me Mick the Fish because I like the water from the skies. Ever since I was a kit, I have enjoyed the rain. And here it rains a hell of a lot. I love the water.
It liberates me, it feels good. I don’t know why my fellas don’t get it.” 
“While the others hide from the falling water, I get wet but I also get what I want. I get a lot of food, chicks and booze because everybody else is hiding from the rain. I can escape any threat and no one can bother me. Also the Humans don’t like the rain and even their damned dogs. But swimming… that’s none of my business. I am staying away from the river, luv.”
Bella was bitterly dispirited, she had reached a dead end. It felt like hitting a brick wall. That was it. Was it possible that there was never a swimming cat? May be it was just all in her imagination.
“If you are interested in swimming, ask Roman,” said Micky, “he is a dog and he is an excellent swimmer, he can surely cross the river.  He doesn’t mind cats, his Human has taught him good manners. You can find him in the Porterhouse, down the street. I will not escort you because Roman will not be happy to see me. Once his owner brought him to our pub and… I just lost me temper. I simply lost it, I am a hard nut to crack. And I don’t like uninvited intruders. Roman had no idea, he was caught by surprise. I will spare you the story… Since then Roman has never stepped inside this Temple bar pub.”
Micky looked at Bella one last time. “Goodbye hun, take care.”
Bella wondered if she needed to see a dog now. Even if he was safe. But what if it was Roman that she saw that night. Was that possible? Quite unlikely… she knew all kinds of dogs. She should have easily distinguished… The wind interrupted her thoughts. It was so strong that almost lifted her in the air. Her eyes looked for a place to hide and in this moment she recognized the Porterhouse Pub. With a few precise jumps, Bella entered the window of the first floor. A kind female Human offered her a piece of fish. It was very nice, and also quite timely, Bella was hungry. While she was relishing the unexpected gift, Bella sensed a breathing over her head. She raised her eyes and froze. A giant muzzle with sliding spittle from enormous canine teeth.
“Who do we have here?” Barked the muzzle and then replied with a patronizing voice, “We have a fluffy princess.”
“My name is Bella,” she whispered.
“Bella…?” the dog exclaimed. He smiled broadly, “You wouldn’t believe it but we have something in common.”
Bella attentively sharpened her ears in surprise.
“We are both named after the same restaurant across the street, ‘Ciao Bella Roma’. My name is Roman.”
Roman was a big dog with grey short-haired fur, small ears, massive jaw and extensively-developed muscular body. He looked to Bella like a huge pile of muscles. He had absolutely nothing in common with the gracious feline figure that jumped into the river. At this very moment even the last hope for resolution of her quest had desperately vanished. Bella told Roman why she was looking for him. While the story astounded him, he just confirmed her fears.
Although Roman was a good swimmer he would never leave the house without his Human, especially in the night. He would also never dare to swim in the Liffey without the explicit Human’s permission. During the city walks he was on a leash for most of the time, except for the parks. Roman has swam in the lakes of all Dublin parks and even in the sea but he had never been in the river.
“Don’t be sad Bella,” he tried to express sympathy, “There are times when we must understand that some of our great desires are not to be fulfilled. Life goes on. Life is like swimming, you have to move on. And I know how to swim” Roman was making swimming motions, “Constant movement of the limbs, no splashing of the surface water, bended elbows for stronger resistance that pushes you against the water.”
Bella’s expression revealed her pitiful state of mind.
“Here, I will help you to relax. My Human has a fine collection of Irish whiskey. Let me show you.” Roman guided her to the basement where small shots of whiskey were carefully prepared for special human customers.
“The cask maturation of whisky is one of the key elements that determine the taste of whisky. Here, try the first sample.”
Bella did not resist for long. She cautiously liked a drop of whiskey.
 “This one is a 12 year old single malt. The second one…”
Bella was already tasting the second sample.
“The second one is double-distilled malt, 18 years old. The type of the cask however is vital. The next one, which is my favourite, is a single grain whiskey aged in wooden casks, made of charred white oak.”
Bella loved it, she was gradually forgetting about the rest of the world and her thoughts were softly entrained by dizzy and wobbly sensation.  “The final sample has matured in ex bourbon and sherry casks. This is one of the most exported Irish whiskeys.”
Bella realized that the morning was approaching and it was time for her to go back home. She thanked Roman for the kind hospitality and with slightly unbalanced gait she left the pub.
While she was walking on the bridge over the Liffey, Bella stopped for one more look at the river. She jumped onto the railing and looked down at the water. She was gazing mesmerised at the rhythmic waves, which reflected the first beams of daylight. Suddenly a heavy gust of wind hit Bella from behind. Then she realised that she was falling from the bridge. A vast plane of water was anticipating her. In the next moment a freezing liquid embraced her. There was no steady surface, nothing which she could step on or to apply pressure against. Bella was sinking slowly and there was nothing she could do to prevent it.
Flashing images rushed before Bella’s eyes: her Human presenting her a toy for her birthday, Tim philosophising about moral values, Lucky and Charlie describing their partnership, King Rat, Mick the Fish and Roman… King Rat was explaining how river is cold but slow…. Bella remembered his comment that in salty water the swimming is effortless. She noticed that her body was not sinking any more. The tide was high right now, which meant easier swimming.
An image of Mick the Fish emerged saying, “I love the water. It feels good.”
The initial shock was gone, Bella felt vibrant again, confident in the water and determined to swim. She started to move her limbs one after another.
The voice of Roman resonated in her ears, “life is like swimming, you just have to move on.”
She was aware that her body was moving and finally she reached the surface to take a breath.
Roman’s guidance continued in her mind, “No splashing of surface water, rhythmic motion of the paws, bended elbows for stronger resistance.”
Bella was swimming. She detected the closest point of the shore and continued to swim. Bella was exhausted and breathless but she was gaining momentum and with every movement her swimming improved and her speed increased. She felt a strange, unknown feeling of contentment. Her body was tired but somehow happily and joyfully satisfied. Finally she reached the quay. Near by, she spotted a set of steps carved in the stone. Seconds later she was lying worn out on the quay.
It was Saturday. Her Human and Tim were still in bed. Bella tiptoed under the blanket and tenderly cuddled beside them. She hugged both of them and slipped into happy slumber. The happiest of her life. That night she dreamt of her family when she was a little kitty. Her loving mother, playful brothers and sisters, and caring Humans.

Life Eight - Portland, Oregon, USA

“We’re going to New York!”
That was The Human, excited about another adventure. Bella had heard about New York. It was a city on an island with lots of cars and Humans and no decent place to pee. The thought of living there reminded Bella of her early days in Manchester, and those memories didn’t exactly transport her to a higher plane. But now, dear reader if you are keeping up, we are in Dublin.
Bella was malleable about more travel, a condition that was thoroughly tested when The Human announced plans to fly to New York via a place called Iceland. “It’s a shorter route,” said The chief Human. “And an adventure!” Bella was never one to take the shorter route, but adventure was always appealing.
Which is why, ten days later, Bella was carefully zipped into a Whisker City floral soft-sided cat carrier and stashed aboard a densely-packed 737 alongside Tim, whose carrier was finished in a stylish faux leopard print. (The reader is left to contemplate why Whisker City, in its wisdom, elected to cover a cat carrier with a leopard print, faux or otherwise.)
Iceland is smelled before it’s seen. Even at 35,000 feet and 25 miles out, Bella caught the scent of fish — harðfiskur, to be specific, air-dried and fermented. Bella could hardly contain her excitement. She kneaded the padded floor of her Whisker City floral soft-sided carrier with such enthusiasm that she shredded it, and in so doing, created an escape hatch through which she bounded upon landing. The scent of the harðfiskur was so mesmerizing that she hardly noticed the departure of her connecting flight an hour later with The Human and Tim aboard. Bella was alone, adrift in a fairytale cloud of rotting fish, and for the remainder of the afternoon, ecstatic. Harðfiskur, you see, is air-dried on huge racks, exposed to the elements and more importantly, to Bella’s fish-shredding claws and insatiable appetite.
Impossible as it may seem, there’s a limit to the amount of fermented fish a cat can consume. By nightfall, Bella had had her fill and was back at the airport, searching for Tim and The Humans and the plane taking them to New York.
However the airport had become a decidedly unfriendly place, altogether unlike the airport that welcomed them when they landed. Fermented fish, as any student of putrefaction can tell you, gave her gas, and the quantity of fermented fish she had digested fueled her malady like the mother liquors from a crude organosulfur. People began to chase her! She ran, of course, as far and as fast as she could and soon found herself in the hold of another 737, idling at the gate, as above her in Business Class, people settled in for the eight-hour flight to…
...Portland, Oregon, USA.
Iceland Air Flight 352 from Reykjavik to Portland is normally a tranquil passage, bordering on the bucolic. Traveling from east to west, the flight is in perpetual dusk, causing passengers to fall asleep almost as soon as the tiny pretzels are served.
But not this time. Bella’s presence in the hold was first attributed to the large population of Icelanders aboard who, as one may assume, exude malodor the way Justin Bieber exudes conceit.
One can choose to ignore conceit. Such was not the case with Bella.
Eight hours later, when the pilots shut down the engines, passengers leapt from Iceland Air Flight 352 as if it was a burning ship; and that included Bella, who exploded past the luggage handlers when they opened the hold like a cork from champagne. Except champagne doesn’t smell like Bella. Or Iceland. Or the mother liquors from a crude organosulfur.
Bella’s eau de harðfiskur may have offended humans, but to cats it was rapture, especially in Portland. In a city where the motto is “Keep Portland Weird,” the weirdness of harðfiskur was as enticing as, well, catnip itself. By the time she reached downtown, word had spread that a new puss was in town and that she was hot—a feline Pied Piper, with a retinue of cats rather than rats.
Searching for a night’s lodging, Bella discovered the Meowhaus Hotel and Spa where she bathed in fresh Citron de Vigne, dined on the Hills intestinal diet, and was put up in a suite with a private view of an indoor aviary. “Astonishing,” thought Bella, but really: it was just Portland.
Days passed. Weeks. As Bella’s novelty in Portland wore off, she wandered aimlessly, joining the ranks of beggars squatted in front of the supermarket doors. She lingered near the food carts on Alder Street, scavenging dropped bits of Kung Fu chicken and pulled pork. (“Humans are learning to stand while they eat,” she realized. “I could’ve taught them that years ago.”) She discovered Voodoo Donuts, where confections in the shape of human male anatomy were always the first to sell out. (“I suppose it’s because they can’t lick themselves,” she thought, “so they fabricate proxies.”) She visited Powell’s City of Books, found the cat-book section, and spent an afternoon reading “The Big New Yorker Book of Cats.” (The cartoons made her laugh.) She sat, fascinated, in a handlebar basket during the annual World Naked Bike Ride. (“Humans really could benefit from fur,” she mused.)
Summer ended. September became October, October became November, and the notorious Oregon rains soaked Bella to the skin. She was tangled, bedraggled, emaciated, and oh-so-cold. Portland, home to a festival every week during the summer, had rolled up its streets and burrowed in for the winter. Weirdness loses its appeal under these circumstances. She missed Tim and The Human. It was time to leave and she headed back to the only place she knew well, the airport.
While Bella was wandering aimlessly around Portland, The Humans and Tim had arrived in New York but were desperately missing her. They made lots of missing person enquiries to the Police but they all came back with an incredulous, “but, lady, er this is a cat?”  Henry and Tim had given up hope of ever seeing Bella again and Wayne didn’t care. He didn’t really care about anything too much. Just whether Burger King or MacDonald’s sold the biggest super-mega-burgers. With fries.
Finally, just at the point when they were due to leave for Europe, they had a breakthrough.
And as it happens in these books (but not in real-life), there was a TV unit shooting a live piece at the airport for national breakfast TV doing a feature on stray cats. And the interviewer looked down at this bedraggled lump of fur and said, “Didn’t you used to be Kat, the celebrity cat model?” This was surprising because although famous in Europe, Bella never made it across the Atlantic so to speak. But Cathy McSmart, the queen of breakfast TV had travelled a lot in Europe and was also a great fan of David the dress-designer who we have almost forgotten.
And who should be watching on TV in New York? Yes you have guessed.
“Hey, Tim, do you see who is on TV?”.
“Wow, it’s Bella but she looks pretty sad.”
Well the upshot of the story is that there was a nationwide appeal to pay for her airfare in business class back to New York. But by the time it reached its target, Tim’s visa was on the point of expiring so, Henry, Wayne and Tim reluctantly took a flight to Barcelona. So there was another nationwide appeal to pay for Bella’s airfare from New York to Barcelona. But people had become rather weary of the sob story and had turned their attention to a skate-boarding dog that had travelled across the States looking for its owner. These were the kind of things that transfix people these days, not the economy.
So, this time Bella had to travel in coach class, as one would say in the US of A. And, finally they were reunited as we shall see in the next (and final) chapter in this story.

Life Nine - Barcelona, Catalunya

They, Henry, Wayne and Tim all went in force to Barcelona El Prat Airport to greet Bella back from New York but she was not in a good mood. It was an early red-eye arrival and she had been forced to travel at the back of the plane. She still had dreams of her previous fame and seat 1A in British Airways but really, she was a “has-been” and was lucky not to be still wandering the streets of Portland.
But business was booming for Henry in this stylish city and she was on the point of opening her own shop with one-off designs. M&H were still selling her commercial range of pet clothes but her little shop catered for the very wealthy. Bella desperately pined for a re-launch of her career after many months of destitution but she really needed a makeover, especially considering the state she was in when she arrived off the plane. The press has been tipped off about the model previously known as Kat and some very unflattering photos appeared in La Vanguardia next day. And then they were repeated in the UK press the following day. And who should see the photos but our long-forgotten husband, David. He now lived in an even bigger house and mixed with the rich and famous. Remember, dear reader, these were clothes for real people. He hadn’t met a special person although he was surrounded by beautiful women but he was knocking on the door of 50 now and therefore many of his models saw him as a kind of father-figure which annoyed him intensely. He suffered from bouts of depression when he would sit at home and drink too much.
On a moment of total madness, he decided to fly to Barcelona but  Girona had lots of free landing slots so he logged his flight-plan and headed there. He still remembered Bella from the time before she was famous and anyway, he still missed his lovely cuddly Henry. But he didn’t tell them he was coming.
After meeting and greeting Bella, the reunited family took the train from the airport to Barcelona Sants Station and decided on a late breakfast before heading back to Henry’s apartment. For Wayne, this meant a mega-burger in McDonald’s.
They took the bus to the barrio of Gracia, cats weren’t allowed on the Metro because there had been too many cases of them slipping through under the barriers and not paying. On the buses, the drivers were trained to watch out for cats cheating the system because recently they had become too smart.
Henry unlocked the door and they all went in.
“Wow, this is beautiful!”
Bella’s mood had improved greatly with a tuna sandwich at the station and the sun getting progressively higher in a blue sky. 
“Which is my room?” Now she was getting cocky.
The bad news for Bella (or that is to say, the cat previously known as Kat) was that Henry was no longer organising fashion shows, she was taking lots of photos in 3D and putting them on the internet. A friend was designing a computer app which enabled her clients, mainly dogs and cats but some more exotic pets, to try dresses online and twirl around with virtual reality headsets just as though they were really wearing them.
Henry was rather enjoying the more relaxed life-style in Barcelona and she gleaned many ideas from the architecture of Gaudí and the art of Dalí. She became rather hooked on surrealism and how she could incorporate it into her designs. She read up about the Surealistas “club” in Paris between the wars. Dalí, Man Ray, Buñol, Picasso. She began to take the mickey out her own designs because she was beginning to see how ridiculous it was, to dress animals in high-fashion. And at the very same time that she was having big doubts, people around her were taking them more and more seriously.
“Why don’t you exhibit them in the Museum of Modern Art? They represent a deep understanding of the relationship between our animal friends and it is a great contribution to the understanding of the world around us.” There was much more of this kind of talk.
Henry found this pompous and stupid, so she had what the British call a “Ratner Moment”. James Ratner was the boss of a chain of shops selling low-cost jewellery. Everyone knew that it was cheap but he became a laughing stock and a standing joke when he got up at a dinner (probably a little lubricated with alcohol) and referred to his products as “crap”. This was about 10 years ago and his business suffered greatly.
Now Henry did the same,  at a smart gathering of the great and good in Barcelona, she got up and said basically that clothes for animals was a crap idea. They have fur don’t they? Under the influence of alcohol and on TV, she trashed her own company and the value dropped by half overnight. The shareholders were incensed as one would expect. That really was the end of Henry’s career in animal dress design and she sold out very soon afterwards, also of course taking a big loss personally.
Now she wanted to do something completely different but, for the moment, to see Bella again was all she could think about. Her day-dreaming switched back to reality.
By now it was midday and Bella and Tim decided to take a nostalgic moment. There was a sofa, a TV. So they switched on the TV and sat close to each other on the sofa and cuddled just like they did for the first time back in Manchester. They were so happy. They were watching a Tom y Jerry cartoon on the local TV channel, TV3 when there was a news item. A small plane had crashed at Girona Airport, which is about 100km north of Barcelona and the airport was closed. There were no pictures and the words were in Catalan which neither of the Humans understood.
Before they came here, a friend told Henry, “oh, it’s very like French.”
to which she replied, “Oh, that will be no problem”, because she spoke French fluently.
But she had difficulty following it and often read the back page of El Punt Avui which is in English. The cats had picked it up rapidly, the cat version of CAT, but it has a limited vocabulary so is much easier to learn. Most words are Spanish with the last letter missing. For example, miaw becomes mia in Cat-alan.
Neither of the Humans took much notice of the news item and the screen switched back rapidly to the cartoon. But Bella looked perplexed and sat up sharply, jolting Tim onto the floor. She said that the new item had mentioned that the plane was a Beechcraft Starship and being a aircraft nerd, she knew that very few now exist. Henry looked up in alarm. There were only two in England and the news item mentioned that it had come from Biggin Hill in the south-east of England. That narrowed it down to only one possible plane in the whole world. David. That was the name of the aircraft also. The clothing brand David was known through the whole world. The company logo was an elegant man posing as if a statue, with a strategically-placed figleaf. Now where could they possibly have got that idea from?
“David”, she gasped gaspingly. “We must go to Girona now... all of us”.
They switched off the TV, grabbed vital bags and keys and took the lift down to the parking level and jumped into Henry’s Porsche. The two cats in the small rear seat and Wayne sitting casually in the front passenger seat chewing gum which he then stuck to the dashboard. He didn’t care about anything. He never forgave his father for swiping him over the head when he was caught smoking at the age of10 in the garden shed. He just hoped there would still plenty of smoke and flames like in the movies.
“Is there a McDonald’s at Girona Airport?”
They threaded their way through the web of autopistas which surrounds Barcelona and picked up the AP7, signposted for Girona and the Frontera with France. Henry put her foot hard down and dreaded the blue flashing light in the rear window. But all she could see was a mixture of fur because the car was built for speed not comfort and the two cats obscured the rear view anyway.
It took them 40 minutes to reach the airport exit which is 10km to the south of the city of Girona. Wayne was still trying to unstick the chewing-gum from the dashboard with its cloth covering under threat of death from Henry.
They expected to see flashing lights and police-cars blocking their way but they were able to drive right up to the multi-story parking opposite the terminal building. Henry hadn’t even thought of phoning such was her panic. They flew into the terminal building and grabbed the first security guy they could find. There were long queues unmoving at the check-ins. “The runway is closed”, he said.
“How is the pilot? What happened?”
He was able to give a few details. The plane was totally destroyed, it had undershot the runway and piled into a light gantry. The pilot had been dragged out of the plane but conscious. Unfortunately, such was the amount of fire retardant foam covering him that he slipped out of the grasp of the paramedics and fell head-first onto the tarmac at which point he lost consciousness. That was probably just as well since his treasured Starship was in many pieces and had he seen it, he would probably have wanted to die there and then. And a few moments after he was extracted, the fuel tanks blew up, sending a column of smoke and flames into the clear blue sky and scattering the fire crew.  Sadly for Wayne, he had arrived to late to see that. 
“Yes he survived, he’s been taken to hospital in Girona,... Hospital Dr Trueta”.
“Is he a good doctor?” asked Wayne, “I hope he knows his stuff”. He was still hoping to see a McDonald’s, or a column of smoke at the end of the runway but by some miracle he was showing a glimmer of interest in the world around him.
“Don’t be an idiot, Wayne”, said Henry,  “I’m sure that’s the name of the hospital, they will have lots of doctors with lots of different names, not just Trueta”.
They dashed back to the car, and within a few short minutes were back on the autopista heading for Girona. The sat-nav took them round to the north of the city and onto the N2 main road which headed south into the city where they found the hospital, a huge brick monolith which could be seen for miles around. Parking was easy and they rushed breathlessly into Reception. Two Humans and two cats, our little family.
David subsequently recovered. but cried frequently thinking about his mangled plane. 
During his time in hospital he was able to reflect on what went wrong with his landing at Girona and of course there was a full official enquiry. It soon became clear what had happened and for that we need to go back about 12 months and the launch of a new airline.
The Catalan Parliament in Barcelona had sent their aviation experts as usual to the Farrnborough Air Show in the UK and they had been offered an ex-demo A380 super-jumbo by Airbus at a price they could not refuse.
When they returned, this was debated furiously. “How are we going to fill it?” “with people and petrol?”, “How are we going to pay for it?”
They couldn’t agree on a name or colours but finally they settled on Catalan National Airways but such was the indecision on colours that the left side was painted in bold red and orange stripes with a star on the nose (chosen by the independistas, JuntsxSí) and the other side (chosen by the parties to the political right) in gentle blue and green, inspired by the French taste for pastel in their trains which at that time had started a regular service between Barcelona and Paris. This dual colour style had been done before. When a Concorde flew to Singapore via Bahrain for something useful to do while it waited for clearance to fly to New York, it was painted on one side in the livery of British Airways and on the other, the colours of Singapore Airlines.
The new airline became known as CatNat but this caused amusement with English-speakers because it sounded very like cat-nap. “I hope the pilot doesn’t have one of those”. The route decided on was the same, but such was the number of free landing slots at Girona Airport, this monster flew from Girona to Singapore via Bahrain and not as one would suppose, from Barcelona El Prat.
And that is how David nearly died stalling his beloved plane in a torrent of downward swirling air at the end of the runway at Girona.
When he was young, still in his teens, David used to watch the gulls wheeling over his native Skegness and he dreamed of doing the same. When his work took him south to London, he idly looked up Lasham in Hampshire where there is a well-known gliding centre. He was amused that every time he looked up Lasham, the early internet asked him, “Do you mean Miss Lashem”. This was many years before 50 Shades of Grey.
His flying skills developed rapidly. Either winched upwards on a cable pulled up to 2000ft by a giant Chevrolette engine on the back of a truck or towed by another plane, called a tug. He loved those days! Everyone “mucked in”, sharing the tasks on the ground while waiting for their next turn in the air. One task was to drive a small car back down the runway pulling the cable back to the launch truck ready for the next glider, at the same time avoiding the tugs trailing a long cable coming back round to pick up another aircraft.  The airfield was seething with activity.
After going solo, without much money, he bought a share in a glider. Then as his fame spread and he became wealthy, he bought his own glider. He had no interest in expensive cars; he drove a Ford Focus. And then he gained his private pilot’s licence and he bought his dream.
He had been following the CatNat A380 from around Perpignan on his approach to Girona, over the Pyrenees, still with vestiges of snow, past the long lush valley between the peaks.  The space behind him in the plane with its six passenger seats was empty so the plane was very light and it bounced and tipped from side to side gently in the turbulence from the mountains. It felt very much like his early gliding days.  He was happy. The voice of the air traffic controller in Girona interrupted his thoughts as it took over from the French controller and crackled out of a little speaker on his left with instructions for his approach into Girona. The airport was recently renamed to celebrate the new airline in the way of John Lennon at Liverpool or Chicago O’Hare.  And it was now Girona O’Leary.
As he looked out to his left, through the heat-haze he could see the Bay of Roses, with the Mediterranean sparkling beyond in the bright sunshine; the white-painted houses on the hill overlooking the town of Roses. Then Titty Mountain at Torroella de Montgri as Henry liked to call it on account of a small fort which looked (to her anyway) like a nipple. And then the huge industrial estate of Celrà to his left and the ribbon of the C77 winding its way through the town out towards Palafrugell and its trio of resorts with roads running out like spokes of a wheel,  Llafranc,  which he remembered from his childhood, Calella and Tamiriu.
And then, losing height all the time and with speed reducing, flaps extending a little to compensate, twin turbo-props behind him throbbing gently, their sounds creating a regular beat, he was over the city of Girona sprawled beneath him, the cathedral to his left and now he was so low, he could follow the streets and the people in their lives. And then he was out of the city and dropping steadily down towards the airport to the south. Undercarriage down. Flaps fully extended and now with his speed reduced to 250kph. A visual approach with the runway lights to guide him. He matched the speed of CatNat ahead of him. “How can such a huge plane approach at such a low speed?” he thought. Even as an experienced pilot, he was a little in awe of that. The A380 seemed to hang in the air. And then he smirked to himself,  “probably half empty, that’s why”.
But then, a chill ran through his blood. Was he not a little too close to the  A380 with its trail of vortexes swirling behind it? And indeed he was.
While David was in hospital, our human and cat family installed itself in an expensive hotel in the old town of Girona to stay near to Pilot Patient. And Barcelona was forgotten for a while as they became tourists. Wayne found the McDonald’s next to Decathlon and Henry bought lots of sporty clothes there. The cat couple were into technology so they headed for Media-Markt and slavered over wearable video cameras but unfortunately they had no money. Bella was especially taken by a small camera that she could strap to her head. But their money supply, Bank of Mum, was busy buying a track-suit.
Our family did all the usual things in Girona; the little toy tourist train, the cathedral, the Jewish Quarter, McDonald’s, lots of ice cream. Haha, Girona lovers, that is all I’ve written about Girona.
After 10 days in hospital David was able to leave albeit with a leg in plaster and very many cuts and bruises. But the biggest pain of all was the loss of his plane. Not even a loving hug from Henry as he stumbled out of the main entrance was compensation. But that first hug was the reason he came here.
David left the scene so rapidly at the beginning of this book that we never got round to meeting him. But now, you the reader, have probably formed a picture in your mind. A famous dress designer, a pilot, maybe a cat-lover but not a 25-cat lover. With a son of 15 coming on 18 now (because the span of this book is about 3 years), you have probably imaged both David and Henry to be in their mid-forties and you would be about right. Or since this is a novel, you can imagine what you like! But David was quite tall 6ft 2inches in Imperial! That’s about 190cm. He was very fit, went to the gym daily but rarely did outdoor sports mainly on account of his job taking so much of his time. So his skin was pale. Henry as you have already gathered is what the English euphemistically call, “buxom”. Or maybe “euphemistically” is not the right word,  buxom is often a compliment because it usually implies a warm heart.
“Why Girona and not Barcelona?” Henry asked David, out of the blue.
“Cheaper to land, more free slots but a false economy as it turned out. A bit of a cock-up basically. I’m going to sue Girona Air Traffic Control for not leaving more space.” Then tears started rolling down his cheeks. “I guess the insurance will pay up but I will just end up with a boring Lear Jet”.
“But why? Why did you come from the UK?”
“I missed you. I am surrounded by beautiful women all day and all I can do is think about you. And now you only have two cats, I guess I could cope with that. Having 25 around my feet all day was tough”.

“But theses two are really smart. They speak! They watch TV. It was Bella who realised it was you who had crashed at Girona.”
Now that David was released from hospital, they made plans to travel immediately back to Barcelona. There was no room for David in the Porsche of course. Too many bodies and his leg was encased in plaster. So he took the high-speed train to Barcelona and arranged to meet the rest of the family back at the apartment. Henry gave him a spare key so that he could let himself in. He was certain to arrive before them, Henry wasn’t going to match the train’s 200kph down the autopista. Of course, David had never seen the apartment so he bashfully decided to wait till the others arrived. He was happy to wait. He was lucky to be alive.
So, dear reader, we have almost reached the end of the book. The family is reunited and happy. Henry has more free time to indulge her interests with no financial pressure. Despite her company having lost half its value overnight, the value of the shares she sold was sufficient for her to maintain a comfortable life-style.
David took many months to recover from his injuries but finally the time came for him to return to work but he promised to reduce his work-load and spend more time with Henry in Barcelona. While he had been away from the UK, he was delighted to see that his company thrived perfectly well without him. Many young designers, most of whom he had trained, were producing some very attractive designs under the David label. He wasn’t so happy that they had created a budget clothing line for teenagers called Figleaf but he could sort that out when he returned.
Unfortunately, soon after they arrived back in Barcelona, while David still had his plaster on, he was reversing Henry’s car in the parking level under the apartment. The two cats had been waiting to get into the car but Bella had moved around behind the car. David didn’t see her, all he could see was Tim to one side. As he attempted to look around, his leg slipped from the brake onto the accelerator and the car leaped backwards suddenly. Bella was directly behind the car and had no chance and died more or less instantly.
But, dear reader, we all believe in heaven don’t we? That when we die, there is a better life beyond this mortal life. Where the sun shines out of a blue sky every day and angels sing and there is a McDonald’s on every cloud. Well, if you believe in that then you can also believe in cat heaven too.

Life....  The End

This was all very strange. One minute Bella was in a dark parking lot and now she was hovering about 20 feet above a car, “That is Henry’s car, I’m sure. But how can that be? I know cats can’t fly.”
And then it gradually dawned. This is not a near death experience, this is an authentic death experience. She could see her family now. They were all crying, even Wayne. David’s face was ashen. Tim was rubbing his eyes with his paws and the fur around his eyes was damp with the tears. 
“It’s OK, don’t worry about me, I’m going to be the star cat model in all of cat heaven”. But they couldn’t hear her.
Gradually the image faded and she seemed to be drifting upwards, the car with the family around it becoming smaller, receding. And she looked up and saw a bright light and a paw beckoning. She reluctantly dragged her view away from the Porsche and the sad little group around it and walked towards the light. She heard the cheerful clink of milk bottles.

Much Later

I’m sure Bella is here”, said Tim one evening. He was
sitting mournfully on the sofa watching an old movie on TV. “I can feel her near me.”
This happened a lot. Sometimes Henry would be working in the kitchen and she would look around, “Bella, is that you?”
Even Wayne. One evening, just as he was falling asleep, he felt something jump onto his bed. “Bella?”
So she still came to visit them. She couldn’t talk to them now, so she couldn’t tell them about her new life as a cat angel.
But little by little, she visited less and less until, after about two years, their only memory of Bella was in the photos on the sideboard. Their lives moved on. But they never forgot Bella.

We hope you enjoyed reading the book. You can read more about the book and the background to how it came about on:
http://www.cat-life.eu