“Oh, before I forget” said Rex, watching Sheila spoon kibble into his breakfast dish,
“that cat next door wants a word with you”.

Sheila put the dish down on the floor and went to fill Rex’s water bowl. He sighed, staring disconsolately at the unappetising heap of dry brown biscuits, remembering happier times when breakfast had consisted of moist and tasty tinned dogmeat. They’d discussed it of course, before adopting this “healthier” diet.

“It’s so much better for you, Rex” Sheila had said, “it’ll prolong your active life.
And besides, that tinned meat makes you fluff. It’s anti-social.”

“That wasn’t me, it was Bessie” Rex had always protested, but once Bessie died it had become clear who the real culprit was.

Sheila returned with a full water bowl and placed it beside the breakfast dish.

“Which cat do you mean? Dinah?”

“No” Rex said, talking with his mouth full, “the new one, Felix. Black and white, lives on the other side”

“Oh. I know the one you mean. Does he want to make an appointment?”

“No, he said he’d catch you around sometime.”

Sheila leaned against the sink, feeling vaguely irritated. Most of the other birds and animals accepted that she worked on an ‘appointments only’ basis. It was much more orderly, keeping the species separate. She’d got the idea from the zoo, where she regularly paused at each cage in order to chat. Some days it could take a full morning to cover the chimpanzee enclosure.

Still, she never turned a client away. Felix would be accommodated when he showed up.

She was hanging washing on the line when Felix strolled out from under the bushes.

“Good morning” the cat said politely, eyeing her from a distance.

“Morning Felix” she said, removing pegs from her mouth. “Did you want a word with me?”

“I did rather” said Felix. He sat down and started casually washing the side of his face with his paw, taking care to reach behind his ears. “It’s about my human.”

“Mrs Howard?” said Sheila, who had yet to make her new neighbour’s acquaintance but had gleaned her name from the postman.

“That’s her. I’m a bit worried. She’s not very well, been in bed for a few days. I wondered whether you might call on her. There’s only so much a cat can do.”

“Oh dear” said Sheila, who really was a very sympathetic soul. “I’ll pop round later. How will I gain entry, if she’s in bed?”

“No problem,” said Felix, standing up and stretching his front legs out in front of him, tail thrashing wildly in the air. “I’ll fix it so the door’s on the latch.”

He sauntered towards the fence and with a powerful leap, landed silently on the top. “See you later, then” he said over his shoulder, and displaying his elegant backside, fringed in white, he dropped gracefully down to the other side.

“What a very cool cat he is” said Sheila, returning to the house to find Rex squatting with his back legs either side of his front paws, sliding rapturously along the carpet, eyes raised apologetically heavenwards.

Sheila reached quickly into her ‘pharmacy’ and drew out a foil pack of pills.

“Oh God, worm tablets again” said Rex, ears flattened as he watched her.

Later that morning Sheila, mindful of the effect of the tablets, shut Rex in the garden and strolled next door. As Felix had promised, the back door was on the latch and she walked in, looking forward to meeting her new neighbour.

Pausing at the bottom of the stairs, she called out “Are you there, Mrs Howard? I’m your neighbour.”

She thought she heard a noise from the bedroom at the top of the stairs. She climbed the stairs and as she reached the top, the bedroom door was flung open and a wild-eyed old woman rushed out, brandishing a heavy vase.

“Thief!” shrieked the woman.

Sheila stepped back in alarm, losing her footing as something black and furry darted between her feet. She tumbled head over heels downstairs, landing unconscious in a heap in the hallway.

Some weeks later, after being discharged from hospital, Sheila went to pick up Rex from the kennels where her son had so kindly taken him on the day of her accident.

“Miss me, Rex?” she asked, patting the silky golden head.

Rex looked up at her his mouth moving, as he assured her that he had indeed missed her, but Sheila could make neither head nor tail of his conversation.

“Don’t mumble, dear” she said.

Passing a large dalmation in the last kennel before the car park, Sheila paused to ask him how long before he was to be collected. The dalmation stared, with a puzzled frown, and then launched into a frenzy of barking and howling which Sheila simply could not comprehend.

Perturbed, she made her way to the car stopping to greet a robin on the fence. The robin chirped happily, fixing her with his beady eyes, but Sheila could not make out a single word. And then the truth dawned on her. She had been robbed of her gift by the accident!

A week later Felix sat in Rex’s garden, one leg hoisted in the air as he groomed his pristine backside. Rex watched him enviously, fondly remembering a time when he too had been able visit that part of his anatomy.

When Felix had finished, he settled himself down in the shade of the hosta border and folded his black paws into neat semi-circles beneath his snowy white chest. They sat companionably together, enjoying the bird-song from the garden next door, and the occasional drone of an aeroplane drifting through the brilliant sky.

“This is so much better isn’t it” Felix said to Rex. “Couldn’t hear myself think with all that wittering going on.”

Rex nodded and sighed contentedly, dropping his chin between his paws.

Down at the zoo, the chimpanzees swung from branch to branch, chattering with unbridled joy.