It seemed that every time I was at my lowest ebb, Talisker – that beautiful, gorgeous knight in furry armour of a cat – came to my rescue. I could have kissed that beautiful creature. In fact, I did, several times on the top of his velvety, smoky-grey head. He seemed to take that as no more than his due and rubbed his forehead against my chin by way of telling me that I was more than welcome, and that any further such displays of gratitude would be accepted with equal pleasure.
I knew I’d have to come clean eventually about Alex – hadn’t I just been about to do that very thing until fate intervened? But just this one final week doing the job I loved and getting to spend time with my favourite cat – I couldn’t turn that down, could I? Henry Halliday had asked specifically for me to stay with Talisker, I couldn’t let him down. And there I was again, doing the old dieter justifying the biscuit routine, but this really would be the last time.
It felt wonderful to be able to legitimately leave my things there in the spare room. OK, so I was a day early – it was tomorrow night I was officially staying, but a lot of people let fireworks off in the days running up to and after Guy Fawkes’ Night, so it would be comforting for Talisker to have me there tonight too. And if I was supposed to be there tomorrow, I could make myself cheese on toast for dinner! Whoever would have thought that the notion of making myself cheese on toast would get me so excited! Of course I’d have to do a very thorough clean-up afterwards.
There were indeed a few odd fireworks going off that night – not here in Netley Parva, of course, where I would imagine the average resident was probably in bed with a mug of cocoa by half past nine. No, they seemed to be coming from the far end of Netley Common, the end closest to Wintertown, so their whizzes and bangs were quite muted by the time the airwaves brought them as far as us.
In any case, Talisker wasn’t bothered in the slightest. He was far more interested in what I was having for my dinner and how many tasty morsels would be coming his way than anything going on outside. We snuggled up together on the sofa in the back room, watching television and sharing my cheese on toast before having an early night – also together – to make up for last night.
I told Talisker all about last night’s cats and I must say, he did look indignant on my behalf. But after a while he leaned over on his side and started licking his nether regions with a great deal of concentration, before lying down and going to sleep. I got the distinct impression that he thought he’d done his duty by showing an interest, but the conversation was now over.
So he’d welcomed me, eaten my food, invited himself into my bed, and now I wanted more than a few seconds of attention he was snoring his little head off. Typical male.