That Monday, at work, was hard going for Stacy. She’d got a cold from somewhere, although she couldn’t remember anyone sneezing over her at any of the classes she’d attended, recently, nor even at the supermarket when she went on Saturday. Or perhaps she got it from someone on the bus. She laboured through her list of priorities for the day in a bit of a daze because she was worrying about everything, especially the wellbeing of her cats. She put some books back in the wrong place and then her colleague couldn’t find them. She couldn’t concentrate on anything demanding so she decided to walk around and tidy the shelves instead. No brainpower needed for that.
‘Stacy!’ her supervisor hissed coming up behind her. ‘Please try to sniff more quietly. All we can hear is your cold reverberating around the library.’
Sniff more quietly? How could she do that?
Life was so stressful at the moment. She’d been completely stunned by her friends’ shocking revelations a week last Friday. The whole afternoon had been most revealing and totally upsetting. She’d mulled the whole thing over with a glass of shiraz at home, later that evening.
How on earth could Raymond go on living after blaming himself for his wife’s death? And how could Dora live with herself after giving up her daughter? But the bloody boyfriend had set the wheels in motion for that to happen.
Stacy completely understood testing families and errant boyfriends. Both had caused her grief and made her feel crap, too.
And poor Marjorie. That woman had had an absolutely dreadful life in Stacy’s eyes. No wonder she spoke out of turn, sometimes. Stacy was starting to understand what made people do the things they did in life. Yet who was she to berate people for the choices they made?
It seemed like everyone was struggling with their lives. If only her parents had encouraged better socialisation with her and Peter’s school friends instead of preventing them from joining in with village life as youngsters. She’d turned to her cats for companionship and Peter had got as far away from his strange family as possible. At least Peter had made a new, happier life for himself with Marvin. And from speaking to Marvin, Stacy knew he had accepted her brother without putting restraints on his life, the way their parents had tried to do. She could see how Marvin would be the making of her brother.
Stacy sneezed again.
Where had she got her cold from? It had started just before work, this morning, with a runny nose. And it was still summer too! Or was she simply run down? Probably after all the stress she’d been under this last month. She hoped to be well again by the time she visited Peter and Marvin next weekend. That was something worth getting excited about because Marvin was going to come and fetch her on Saturday morning and then drop her back late afternoon. Her mother had said she’d make the same visit one day, too, but not just yet. She’d said she was going to try and talk some sense into their father, first, because he definitely needed to change his ways.
But Stacy was also plagued with guilt about the mess she’d got into with her cats. She hadn’t slept properly since they’d gone. It was still so strange to not hear their familiar meowing all day and every day. Guilt also forced her to look up the charity, in her tea break. However, contacting them was not a straightforward process. She tried the phone number on the website but a lady wanted to take her details and said someone ‘will call you back’. She’d waited all morning but no one had rung. Then she’d tried emailing her questions but by the end of the day, no one had rung back or emailed. And, being as there was no address on the website where she might be able to go and see her cats she decided she’d call into one of their charity shops to see if they could help her make a start tracking her cats.
Stacy rang her boss, the following day, to say she wouldn’t be in work because her cold had worsened. Well, it wasn’t exactly a lie because she really wasn’t feeling any better. But she needed the day off in order to go to the charity shop. She was going to ask them if all her cats had been housed with new owners yet.
She took the bus and told herself she’d do a bit of food shopping on the way back, so it wouldn’t be a wasted journey if she discovered they’d all been housed. And if they’d been housed she was going to buy some comfort food at the supermarket and curl up in front of the telly for the rest of the day.
Stacy stepped inside the Cats Protection charity shop, and went to the counter where a cheery young girl was serving.
‘Hi there. My name’s Stacy and a few weeks ago my father brought my eight cats into your organisation for rehousing because I had an accident and couldn’t look after them. So I’m just here to see if they’ve all been rehomed and if not I’d like to take Melanie back home with me cos she’s the nicest. So could you ring your bosses and ask them to let me know what’s happened to them? I just want to make sure they’re all right, you see,’ she told the girl behind the counter.
‘Um well that’s not something I can do, unfortunately. What happens is that we have a bank of fosterers who house any cats we get until we can rehome them. So they’ll either be looked after by a foster carer or will have already been rehomed. So I can’t help you any further than that, I’m afraid.’
‘But could you just give me a telephone number or email address so I can contact someone directly about this? I’ve not had much luck getting through,’ Stacy persisted, starting to fret about how her animals would feel at being pushed from pillar to post, with no one giving them the specialised attention they needed or had been used to.
‘I’m sorry I don’t have those details, but we’ve got a website and a Facebook page and everything you need will be on there.’ The girl smiled encouragingly. ‘Good luck.’
Stacy left the shop downhearted. She thought they’d have known instantly about her cats. Surely eight cats coming into their care, in one go, would be a memorable event? The only thing the girl had said that made Stacy feel marginally reassured was that at least someone would be looking after them in some capacity. Just like her mother had said they would.
She sat on a low wall and googled Cats Protection again and then she ended up sending them another email. Perhaps her persistence would pay off.
Well, cats or no cats – cold or no cold – she was going to buy the largest strawberry cheesecake she could find and sit in front of the telly and eat the whole thing when she got home.
***
No one got back to her about her cats until the middle of the week when they replied by email and told her that her cats hadn’t been in a very good state when they’d collected them from her flat. But they’d now been properly vaccinated and microchipped and were awaiting new homes. Due to the state of her flat and the cramped conditions they’d had to endure they said they would not likely give her the opportunity to rehome any of their cats in the future.
She couldn’t believe it. Stacy had blanched, completely mortified. Oh, what must they think of me? How horribly embarrassing! She’d probably even be blacklisted by other cat charities now. She hadn’t meant to upset everyone or keep her cats in the environment they’d endured. She’d tried to do her best by them all but the situation had simply got out of hand. Couldn’t anyone see that?
She was annoyed with her bloody father, too. He said he’d taken the cats to them. Or perhaps he’d been too busy to do that? Damn, damn, damn!
A sob escaped her throat. Why was life so unbearable?
Black thoughts made her retreat even further into herself so she rang work and left a message to say she’d be taking another day off to deal with her cold, which actually seemed to be getting worse by the minute, not better.
‘It’s all the stress,’ she groaned to herself.
By Friday she’d had to ring her brother and cancel her trip.
‘I’mb sorry. But my cold is worsth than I’d expected.’
Peter said he understood and that they could always arrange another weekend or maybe she could come for a visit at the same time as their mother. Stacy said she would ring home and then let him know when that would be. Then she switched her mobile off and pulled the plug on her landline. She went to bed and curled up and cried herself to sleep.
Why was nothing working out for her at the moment?