Timba Comes Home (10 page)

The horses lost interest and wandered away, their heads down, munching grass.

It was Angie’s horse Poppy who knew what to do. She stared at Leroy and the blaze of light floating towards her. It was coral gold, with streamers of white, and wings that fizzed with
energy. Leroy’s angel! She looped around the pony and somehow coaxed her to move. Poppy walked carefully towards Leroy, her neck arched and ears pricked as she followed the angel.

She lowered her head and gave Leroy a gentle push with her nose.

‘Don’t you two kitties want your tea?’ Angie called from the kitchen, but Vati and I sat like statues, like the Egyptian cats we had once been, our necks long, our whiskers
stiff, our tails neatly curled around ourselves. We were mesmerised by a horse, an angel and a motionless boy.

Poppy lifted her head and turned to face the house. She pawed the ground and whinnied, loud and shrill, an alarm call that soon brought Angie to the window. Poppy saw her and again lowered her
head to nudge Leroy with her nose. Then she swung round and once more whinnied at Angie.

‘Oh my God! Someone’s lying there . . . it looks like a child!’ Angie gasped, and at the same moment Graham started to ‘sing’, ‘Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah,
AH.’

Incensed, Angie tore the music-room door open. ‘WILL you stop that bloody singing, Graham, and come and help me. We’ve got a crisis!’

The sight of Leroy’s small body lying on the sofa had a surprising effect on me. I did what the Spirit Lion had told me to do: I went to him with my tail up.

‘Here’s Timba!’ said Angie in a comforting way. She sat at the table nearby, the phone in her hand. ‘I don’t think it’s an emergency,’ she said into the
phone, ‘but we do need a paramedic or a doctor to check him out.’

‘Timba!’ Leroy smiled for the first time, and his eyes shone. I jumped up and kissed his cold face. He was shivering, and clutching a soft blanket which Graham had put over him. Now
Graham was sitting on a stool, close to Leroy, his eyes attentive with concern.

I knew exactly how to stretch myself over Leroy’s bony chest and flex my little paws rhythmically. I wanted him to feel the warmth and strength from every part of me . . . my soft furry
tummy, my paws, my tail . . . and, most important, the power of my purring. Once I got it started, it rolled through me like a song from the angels.

‘He loves me,’ Leroy said in a scratchy whisper, and his eyes filled with tears. ‘Did you miss me, Timba?’

‘It’s OK to cry,’ said Graham kindly, and I remembered how loudly Leroy had cried through those long, painful hours in his home. Now his tears ran silently over trembling
cheeks. Graham extracted the folded white hanky from his top pocket and gave it to Leroy. He pushed it away. ‘I’ll make a mess of it,’ he said.

‘That’s what hankies are for,’ Graham said, and I noticed his aura was bright, and that Vati had crept up to lie on his shoulder and soak up the healing atmosphere.

‘You’ve got two kittens,’ said Leroy.

‘This is Vati.’

‘Vati! Timba’s brother. Timba and Vati.’ Leroy smiled again. I went on purring, sensing Vati’s approval, giving my whole self to the stream of healing light. Where it
came from was no mystery to me. It was woven into the webs of life all over the Planet Earth. I had only to choose a strand from a gold-and-silver thread and let it flow through me. Easy.

‘The paramedics are on their way,’ said Angie. She sat on the floor by the sofa. ‘Aww, look at Timba! He’s giving you healing.’

Leroy turned his frightened eyes and looked at Angie. ‘I only wanted to see Timba,’ he said. ‘But he ran indoors, so I went to see the horses.’

‘So what happened?’

‘I got on that grey to have a ride. I been on a horse before, on a roundabout, but this grey one went mad and chucked me off.’

‘She’s a young pony. She’s never been ridden,’ Angie explained. ‘She must have been very frightened.’

‘I didn’t know that, Miss . . . I didn’t think horses could be frightened.’

‘Why not?’

‘Cos they’re big.’

‘I’m big,’ said Graham, ‘and I get scared.’

‘What are you scared of?’ Leroy asked.

‘Owls and spooky stuff.’

‘I ain’t scared of anything,’ said Leroy proudly. ‘Except my mum.’

‘So where is your mum?’ Angie asked. ‘She’s not answering the phone. Do you know her mobile number?’

‘She hasn’t got a mobile now . . . she got into debt with it.’

‘Where is she then, Leroy?’

Leroy shrugged. ‘Dunno.’

Angie and Graham looked at each other, and I sensed the telepathy passing between them. Graham frowned. He shook his head ever so slightly, and the bright light drained from his aura. He was
going down into a dark confining space, and trying to drag Angie with him. Angie wasn’t having it. Nothing fired her passion like negativity and resistance.

‘Here are the paramedics.’ She pursed her lips, squared her shoulders and went to open the door. Two men in orange came in and Graham picked up Vati and me, one in each hand, and
airlifted us into the kitchen.

When the paramedics had gone, we were allowed back in, and Leroy was sitting up looking more like himself.

‘I’ll take you home in the car,’ Angie said.

‘No.’ Leroy shook his head.

‘No? Why not?’ asked Angie.

Leroy looked up at her with desolate eyes. ‘Mum’s not there.’

‘So where is she?’

‘I dunno.’ He shrugged again. ‘She left home.’

‘What?’ Angie looked alarmed. ‘Since when?’

‘Since . . . I dunno . . . about a week ago.’

‘A WEEK! Who’s looking after you, Leroy?’

‘No one. I got a key . . . and I got half a loaf of bread, and some cornflakes.’

There was a silence. Leroy looked at the floor for a long time. When he raised his eyes they were even more desolate. ‘I didn’t tell no one, Miss. I don’t want to go into care.
Can I live with you, Miss? Please . . . I won’t be no trouble.’

Angie stared at him. ‘Why me?’

‘I don’t like anyone else.’ Leroy’s voice was painfully husky. ‘Only you . . . and Timba. Please, Miss.’ He shuffled towards Angie and gave her a hug.

‘Oh Leroy! You poor kid.’ She hugged him back, and Graham stood with his arms folded, shaking his head and mouthing ‘NO’ at Angie.

The carefree atmosphere in our home changed from that day, and it was all about Leroy. Angie and Graham talked far into the night, one each end of the sofa, Vati and I
blissfully asleep between them. Vati wasn’t bothered about what the humans were talking about, but I was. Pretending to be asleep, I listened to snatches of the conversation and felt sure
that Angie was winning. I was gunning for her, being her lucky black cat. She talked fast, waving her hands around, and Graham was grunting and sighing. I kept opening one eye to peep at Angie and
let her know I was on her side. If only she knew what I knew about Graham . . . the secrets he’d often confided to me when he came in late and Angie was in bed.

‘I’m glad you can’t talk, Timba,’ and then he’d tell me about a woman called Lisa and how he couldn’t help falling in love with her, and wanted to be with
her. ‘But Angie must never know. I don’t want to lose Angie, or hurt her, Timba. It’s our secret, isn’t it?’ Each time he said that, I’d look still deeper into
his soul with my clear golden eyes, and see how his ‘secret’ was troubling him, and how tightly he was clutching all the threads of his life. I couldn’t make him let go. I
couldn’t change him. All I could do was love him. It’s what cats do.

‘That was my mother’s clock,’ he said now, as the clock chimed midnight. ‘And she had a big heart . . . a heart of gold . . . like you, Angie.’ He reached across
the back of the sofa and touched her hair, moving a curl away from her cheek. ‘If Mum was here, she’d want me to say yes.’

I looked at the blaze of light by his left shoulder, and saw within it a lovely old lady, with a face like Graham’s, a coil of silver hair, and a smile that warmed the air in a circle
around him and Angie. She looked at me kindly, and I gave her a cat smile. Then she waved, and vanished, leaving a glow around us all.

‘So . . . yes . . . OK. Let’s give it a go,’ Graham said heavily.

Angie leapt to her feet and flung her arms around him. ‘I knew you would! Bless you, Graham. It’s right. I know it’s right.’ And she danced round the sofa. ‘The
Universe has sent us a child!’

Graham smiled, reluctantly, as if his face was out of control. ‘Don’t get too euphoric,’ he warned. ‘It won’t be easy with young Leroy.’

‘I can put up with the cats,’ Graham said heavily. ‘In fact I quite like them. But I can only tolerate THAT BOY in small doses.’

I knew he meant Leroy. Vati and I sat together in our basket, dozing, our eyes half closed, listening to the apparently endless discussions about Leroy. Graham only ever said that to Angie in
private. When the ‘social workers’ came with their sheaves of paper and laptops, and serious faces, Graham pretended to be busy. Or he would shrug and be dismissive. ‘Angie and I
are not married,’ he said now. ‘As far as I’m concerned she’s free to do whatever she wants. If she wants to foster Leroy, that’s fine, but she, not me, is responsible
for him.’

‘But will you welcome him into your home?’

‘I am prepared to,’ Graham said. ‘I realise Leroy hasn’t had a male role model, and I’ll do my best. But Angie is the foster parent, not me.’

‘He’s brilliant with him actually,’ Angie said.

‘But is your relationship strong?’

Angie and Graham looked at each other.

‘Totally,’ said Angie, with fire in her eyes. ‘We are soulmates.’

‘Hmm.’

Graham maintained an uncomfortable silence, and obviously the social workers didn’t ‘do’ soulmates.

I gave Vati a shove with my nose. The humans were getting too serious. We jumped out of the basket and confronted each other, making terrible fish faces and pretending we were deadly enemies.
Vati arched his back, leaped sideways and embarked on a wild, rug-crunching challenge with me trying to catch him, then hiding and trying to head him off. When I pounced out at him, we collided in
mid-air with our paws wide open like flowers.

Angie laughed, but no matter what we kittens did, Graham’s mouth just twitched, the social workers stayed po-faced, and the talking droned relentlessly on.

Eventually I jumped onto Angie’s lap and tried to calm her down. She was trying too hard, and I sensed it. To me she seemed like the only person in the room who was truly alive. Her
passionate words were beating against a wall of resistance, and finally she lost her temper.

‘We are talking about an abandoned child,’ she stormed, and I felt the heat from her aura and the drumbeat of her heart under my fur. ‘Why make it so complicated? Leroy’s
mother has abandoned him. He needs a home . . . NOW . . . not in six months’ time . . . and he wants to be with me. He’s made that perfectly clear. I’ve made my offer to be his
foster mum . . . and it’s a good offer, so let’s stop nit-picking and make a decision for the sake of this child’s emotional well-being.’

Vati climbed the bookshelves and sat up there disapprovingly, like he always did if there was a row. He told me he was getting clear of the bad energy, sitting close to the ceiling.

I stayed with Angie. Her fire had never hurt me, and it didn’t now. ‘Bless you, Timba,’ she whispered into my fur, as the social worker snapped her laptop closed and stood
up.

‘I hear what you’re saying, Angie,’ she said with infuriating calm. ‘We will make an assessment and let you know. Until then, Leroy can spend Saturdays with you.
We’ll bring him out.’

When they had gone, Angie marched around, imitating the social workers. ‘Make an assessment!’ she raged. ‘Meanwhile that boy is desperate. Ooh, I wish I could KIDNAP
him.’

Vati spent most of his quiet time with Graham, who seemed bewitched by the attention from the elegant little cat. Vati waited until Graham was sprawled in a chair, and then
walked gracefully up his arms, round his neck and shoulders, nibbling his ears and kissing his face. He usually ended up spreadeagled across Graham’s vast chest, being rocked gently by his
breathing. Once Vati followed him into the music room with his tail up, and got away with walking along the keyboard. But then he sharpened his claws on the furniture and Graham shouted at him.
‘Stop that, Vati. NO.’ But Vati coolly went on doing it until he was satisfied. Graham tried to chase him, but Vati just sat there and looked up at him beguilingly, and in the end
Graham picked him up, sighing. ‘We’ll have to find a way of stopping you doing that,’ he said.

Vati didn’t like Leroy, and when the boy came in on Saturday morning, and tried to pick him up, Vati used those sharp claws to scratch his hands.

‘Ow!’ Leroy looked at the beads of blood emerging from his skin, and Vati sat washing himself as if to cleanse all trace of Leroy from his fur.

‘He’s different from Timba,’ Angie said as she rubbed some cream on Leroy’s scratches. ‘Timba is tolerant. Vati is a hypersensitive cat. If you want to pick him up,
you must ask permission.’

‘But how do you know whether he says yes or no?’ Leroy asked, frowning.

‘Well, he said NO very clearly, by scratching you,’ said Angie. ‘But it doesn’t have to come to that. A cat wouldn’t come over and scratch you for nothing, Leroy.
So you have to approach him gently, and sense if he wants contact with you . . . and if he doesn’t, then you leave him alone.’

Leroy didn’t look convinced.

‘You wouldn’t like some giant to come and grab you and lift you up into the air, would you?’ said Angie.

‘I’d fight him.’ Leroy raised his fists. ‘Wham!’

‘Well that’s what Vati did. He’s teaching you.’

‘He’s not a teacher! He’s a cat.’

‘Cats are great teachers . . . and so are horses.’ Angie had a way of making her eyes sparkle with excitement when she was telling children something. Her eyes held Leroy
mesmerised.

‘But they can’t talk,’ he said. ‘Teachers have to talk, don’t they?’

Angie shut her mouth and shook her head. Still looking at him, she picked up a rope from the pile of horse harnesses that was lying in the kitchen, and tried to give Leroy a silent demonstration
of how to tie a knot. He ended up giggling, and so did she.