The Two Lives of Lydia Bird - Josie Silver Page 0,42

eventually replied to me just as I was on the edge of being offended, and then he sent me a text a month or so back when he was chaperoning his class at a theme park. He’s not a huge roller-coaster fan; he sent an image of himself in the front car, with the message:

Freddie would piss himself if he could see me now, the kids made me do it.

He was right. Freddie was always in the bigger-is-better camp when it came to roller-coasters and he found it hilarious if he could talk Jonah on to one with him. We knocked a few texts back and forth that day, but then nothing again, until I bumped into him on my lunch break on Friday. Before I knew what I was saying, I asked him to come with me this morning, and he couldn’t think of a reason to say no; so here we are, and someone has just opened the door for us.

‘Do you know what you’re looking for?’ he asks me as I fill in an application form.

Phil’s cat springs to mind. ‘Something pretty?’ I say. ‘One who’ll sit on my lap while I watch the TV.’

‘Boy or girl?’

‘Girl, I think,’ I say. I don’t really know why. I just fancy having another female around.

We file into the viewing area behind a green-haired girl who can’t be more than eighteen. The first pen has a brawl of black-and-white kittens and their tired-looking mother. I bypass it; I don’t have the time or the energy for a kitten. Jonah pauses by it, watching them, laughing as one of them hurls itself at the mesh and nips his finger.

Next along is a pair of adult black cats. There’s a note written on a whiteboard on the front of their cage telling potential new owners that these brothers need to stay together. Another no-no, so I move along.

‘Not these guys either?’ Jonah looks in on them. ‘Sorry, boys.’

‘I can’t manage two,’ I say, looking into the next cage along. The note tells me this is Betty, a two-year-old tortoiseshell.

‘Hello, pretty lady,’ I murmur, curling my fingertips through the mesh. ‘How’re you doing?’

She rubs herself against the mesh, all fur and big green eyes. I’m beguiled, and Jonah is too when he stands beside me.

‘Oh, she’s good,’ he says. ‘She’s giving you the hard sell.’

‘It’s working,’ I say, laughing when she headbutts my hand. Betty is ticking all my boxes.

‘Freddie would never have had a cat,’ I say. He really wasn’t a cat fan at all. He was one of those people who felt it necessary to nail his colours to the mast as either a dog person or a cat person, whereas I’m a more even-handed fan of both. All things being equal I’d probably choose to have a dog, but right now it feels like way too much responsibility. A cat though … their relative independence appeals to me, at the same time as giving me something to look after, another heartbeat in the house. Being back at work is great in terms of keeping busy, my days are full on, but it also highlights how quiet it is when I get home. I’m trying not to rely on Elle too much either; she’s still putting in extra hours at the hotel and has precious little time with David as it is.

‘Betty looks like a winner to me,’ Jonah says. ‘Although you might have to fight off the tomcats with a big stick.’

‘I can do that,’ I say. I can be Betty’s defender.

It’s almost a done deal when I glance down into the end pen and come eyeball to eyeball with a really ragged old boy flat out on the floor, white with one black eyepatch, which presumably accounts for the name written on his whiteboard. Turpin, approx. twelve years old, unsuitable for rehoming with children or other animals (not even fish), female owner strongly preferred.

I squat down for a better look almost against my will, and the rangy old cat stares me in the eye, Eeyore downbeat. Nothing to see here, girlfriend, he says. I’ve seen too much and I’ve heard too much, he says. Just leave me here to wallow around in my own misery, sister, he says. And then he shoves his face under his paw and dismisses me.

‘This one,’ I say.

Jonah hunkers down next to me. ‘You think so?’

He’s too nice a person to say anything mean, but doubt runs clear through his question. ‘Twelve,’ he says