Solomon’s Tale

FINDING ELLEN

I sat down in the middle of the road to think about why I had left home on that summer morning.

I was only a black kitten, eight weeks old, but I had a tough decision to make. Should I stay in my comfortable home and live a boring predictable life, or should I set out on a long journey to find the person I loved best in the whole world? Her name was Ellen, and I had been Ellen’s cat in another lifetime, when she was a child. She’d called me Solomon and I was her best friend. I wanted to find her again.

Suddenly a lorry was coming towards me. The road underneath my paws started to tremble. I could feel it vibrating along my tail and tickling the fluff inside my ears.

It loomed closer. Two glaring eyes, a forehead made of glass, and a name emblazoned across its chin. SCANIA. It had massive wheels and was roaring like fifty lions.

Hypnotised, I stared into its eyes, thinking that if I acted like an assertive tiger, the lorry would stop and let me finish washing my paws.

My angel didn’t usually shout at me, but she did now.

‘Run Solomon. RUN!’

I took off so fast that I left skid marks in the gravel. As I sailed into the hedge, the lorry thundered past in a gale of gritty air. Hissing, it pulled over, stopped, and was finally silent. A man climbed out and disappeared into a nearby building.

Being a very nosy kitten, I crept out to inspect the giant lorry while it was quiet. I sat in the road and looked at it. The sky darkened and icy hailstones came pinging down into my fur. Underneath the lorry was a good place to shelter. The wheels were hot and I sat close to one, watching the hailstones bouncing on the tarmac. I’d been outside for a long time and I needed to sleep.

I crawled into a hole at the front of the lorry. Inside, it was toasty warm. The stink of oil, the heat, and the chorus of hailstones made me drowsy. I curled up on a little shelf close to the engine, wrapped my tail around the tip of my nose, and fell asleep.

Hours later, I was jolted awake by an ear-splitting clatter. Every bone in my body was being banged up and down as the engine hammered into life. Terrified, I scrabbled to get out but saw only a chink of speeding wet road. I climbed higher, onto an oily ledge, my white-tipped paws ruined and stinking. Through a crack in the metal was a view of fields and bridges racing past.

I clung there, trying to communicate with my angel. But all she said was, ‘your journey has begun, Solomon’.

I understood.

And I remembered how, before I was even born, I had agreed to make the perilous journey to find Ellen.

It all began when I was a shining cat, living in the spirit world between lifetimes.

In the spirit world we cats are shining cats, and we live in a way that is impossible on earth. We are invisible to human eyes. There is no meowing or yowling, but we do purr, and we communicate by telepathy. Lots of other creatures live there, shining dogs and shining horses, even shining guinea pigs. There are shining people too. No one argues. There is no pollution, no illness, and no war.

Ellen’s mum had died when Ellen was young, and now she lived in the spirit world with me. She knew how much Ellen missed her and it was her idea to send me.

‘I’d like to send Ellen a cat,’ she said, ‘a special cat to love and support her. She’s going to need it with that husband of hers.’

My response was immediate.

‘I’ll go.’

Ellen’s mum took me onto her lap, where I did lots of purring, and together we sent the idea out into the light. Then we waited until an angel appeared.

Thousands of angels live in the spirit world, and they are all different. Some of them are immense and glittering warriors of light. Others change colour like holograms. My favourite ones are the comfort angels who are more like people, and their robes are soft and swishy. They shine so brightly that their faces are almost invisible.

The angel who came to us introduced herself as the Angel of the Silver Stars. I’d never seen her before, but as soon as her twinkling robe billowed around me I felt special.

‘I’ll be your angel for this lifetime, Solomon,’ she said. ‘It will be a tough assignment, but I will be there to advise you about the choices you make. Of course you will make mistakes, but that is part of your learning, and I will still be there for you. My light is so bright that I become almost invisible on earth, but if you remember to look at sparkles whenever you can, you will see me, especially if you study the sunlight glittering on water.’

‘I’ll remember,’ I said, and hoped that I would.

‘There will be times when you are upset or lost or hungry,’ said my angel as she covered me in stardust. ‘That’s when you might forget me, but I’ll be there, and from time to time other angels will come to help the humans in your life. But don’t expect it to be easy.’

It didn’t sound difficult to me, since I already loved Ellen. My mind was buzzing with excitement at the prospect of going to earth again. There would be tins of Kitekat, and cosy fires, and all those mice. I couldn’t wait.

‘You’ll have to be born as a kitten in the usual way,’ said the Angel of the Silver Stars. ‘I’ll help you, but you must help yourself too. It’s not just about Ellen. You’ve still got stuff to learn.’

‘I’d like to be a majestic tomcat,’ I said, ‘with a really powerful purr. Black and glossy, with white paws and a white chest. And please will you send me to the right address? Last time it involved being dumped at the RSPCA before Ellen found me.’

‘This time you will have to find her,’ said the angel. ‘You must learn to use your psi sense.’

‘Psi sense?’ I asked.

‘Humans call it Sat Nav,’ said the angel with a smile. ‘Are you sure you want to go, Solomon?’

Nostalgically I gazed around at my beautiful home in the spirit world. I loved being a shining cat. Here, you could just be. No one would chuck you out in the rain, or cover you in flea powder.

Then I remembered Ellen’s house, with its sunny windows. My favourite cushion was there, made of amber velvet. And the stairs were my best ever playground. Ellen had a cosy kitchen and a cherry tree in the garden.

I’d been Ellen’s cat when she was a child, and she’d loved me more than anyone else in her life. She wouldn’t go to sleep unless I was there, purring on her bed, and when her mum had turned out the light and gone downstairs, Ellen would turn it on again and play with me. When we were tired, Ellen showed me her secret diary, and read it to me. She had a lovely musical voice, and I was the only one who heard it because Ellen wouldn’t talk to people very much. She wouldn’t do her homework or tidy her bedroom. All she wanted to do was dance, and play the piano.

The best memory I had of Ellen was the way she shared her musical gifts with me. Early in the morning she sat down at the piano, on the velvet stool, and she was so small that her feet didn’t reach the floor.

‘Come on, Solomon,’ she’d say, and smile as I jumped up to lie on top of the shiny piano. I liked to be there and see the light in her eyes as she played, and watch her come to life. She played on and on, with her tiny hands dancing over the keys, her blonde hair bouncing. The music gave me a buzz, up my spine and along my whiskers. At those times there were always angels shimmering around us.

Her mum would come in with Ellen’s school bag and coat over her arm. ‘It’s time for school.’

‘I don’t want to go there, Mummy.’

‘You’re going.’

‘But I want to finish playing this tune, Mummy. I made it up and Solomon loves it.’

‘Ellen, it’s TIME FOR SCHOOL.’

I had to watch helplessly as the light drained away from Ellen. Her small face tightened, her skin paled and her eyes clouded as she closed the lid of the piano.

‘Listen to me, Solomon,’ my angel said, and I focused on her again.

‘Ellen is grown up now. She’s not the child you remember.’

‘So what’s the problem?’ I asked.

‘I must warn you that Ellen is in such a state that she may not be able to look after you properly,’ said my angel. ‘She has a little boy who is just toddling, and a husband who shouts at her, and they are in desperate trouble.’

‘I want to go,’ I said firmly.

My angel hesitated, as if she wanted to tell me something else.

‘And,’ she whispered, ‘there’s Jessica.’

‘Jessica?’

My angel was silent. She looked at me lovingly with her silver eyes.

‘I’m sure Solomon will be fine,’ said Ellen’s mum. ‘He’s a healing cat. And he’s brave and cheeky too. He’ll be OK.’

When the time came for me to be born, I watched my angel dissolve into a kaleidoscope of sparks. The silver stars turned hazy, and suddenly I was whizzing through space. The light crackled like fire, and I burst through the great golden web which separates the spirit world from the earth. It was a brilliant ride.

Then everything changed.

I was no longer a shining spirit cat. I had to be compacted to fit inside this tiny sausage of a kitten, which had just been born. All I could do was wriggle and squeak. My eyes wouldn’t open. My legs wouldn’t walk. I couldn’t see what colour my fur was. It was devastating. Why did I agree to do this? I wasn’t a proper cat. I was a sausage.

But I wasn’t alone. Four of us lay there in a purring heap, all silky and rhythmic. The power of the mother cat enveloped my whole being as she licked and suckled me.

Nine days later, my eyes opened to see the edge of a basket close to a warm stove. I saw my paws and they were glossy black with white toes, just as I’d requested. Big feet were walking around, two in slippers and two in boots, and hands kept coming down to gently stroke our tiny heads. It wasn’t Ellen, but I kept faith that she would come and choose me.

My early kittenhood was happy. Right from the start I was picked up and held tenderly against massive chests, with hearts beating so slowly I thought those humans would die between beats.

‘He’ll be the last to go, that little black one with the white paws. They always choose the pretty ones first.’

‘Yes well he’s the runt of the litter. He’s so small.’

The runt of the litter! Me?! That couldn’t be true.

Soon we had turned into proper little cats, bouncing like tennis balls, climbing up curtains and under chair covers, with the humans laughing at us. But I was impatient to grow up and get to Ellen.

‘He’s got a wistful look, that little black one.’

Looking out of the window was my obsession, waiting for Ellen to come down the road. People began to arrive to choose kittens, and each time my whiskers stiffened to attention.

‘Hide!’ said my angel sharply one afternoon. It was the first time she had spoken to me since my birth, so my reaction was fast. Through a hole in the fabric, I shot into the dusty innards of the armchair to listen to the latest arrivals.

‘I would have loved a black one.’

It wasn’t Ellen’s voice.

‘We have got a black one somewhere.’

‘Try under the chair.’

They slid the chair back, with me clinging well concealed inside, but they didn’t find me.

Finally the visitors took both the remaining kittens, and when I emerged there was no one to play with. I was eight weeks old, and about to grow up in a hurry.

Ellen didn’t come. Days and weeks went by and still there was no sign of her.

I stopped eating. Food was of no interest to a cat with a mission. The window was the only place to be, watching for Ellen.

‘He’s sick.’

‘Take him to the vet.’

They did, and that was my first experience of the cat basket, a terrible cage that squeaks and bounces you up and down. Being a wise cat, I sat quietly, thinking how pointless it would be to waste my energy trying to escape.

The vet held me firmly by the scruff while he ran his thumbs over my body. He squeezed my paws and all along my tail. Then he forced my mouth open to look inside. I noticed his fingers smelled like the kitchen floor. He put me down on a cold table and said something very insulting to a proud young cat like me.

‘Of course he’s the runt of the litter.’

‘But he’s very loving. He’s got a really special personality. If no one chooses him, we’re going to keep him.’

My mum cat bullied me into eating, but still I pined for Ellen. Exploring the garden and seeking out high places to sit and watch for her became my favourite pastime.

Seeing my angel was more difficult now that I was in a body. To see my angel on earth I had to concentrate on ignoring everything else, but even then it was disappointing to see her so mistily.

‘It’s no good just waiting, Solomon,’ she said. ‘Use your psi sense.’

Midsummer morning was overcast and dark. I closed my eyes and used what the angel had called my psi sense. Immediately Ellen’s location was obvious. She was due south of here, and it was surprisingly easy for me to sense the direction. The distance came more slowly, chilling me with the realisation that Ellen’s house was hundreds of miles away. I looked at my delicate white-tipped paws and twitched my long whiskers. A hundred-mile journey was some challenge for the runt of the litter. That description stirred up enough anger to fire me into action. Without a backward glance I trotted down the road, to the south.

And that is how I ended up inside the engine of a lorry.

I had nothing to eat for hours and hours. Too scared to sleep, I used every thread of strength to stay on the vibrating shelf. The alternative was to fall onto the speeding tarmac, or to be mangled by the engine. The fumes and noise gave me a terrible headache. My skull felt like an eggshell. I was cold and starving.

The hissing wheels sent filthy spray splattering in and soon I was wet through and spiky-looking. Ellen would not want me, I thought in despair. I was hardly cuddly and appealing.

It was dark when I felt the lorry slowing down. Exhausted, I now lay stretched out limply, at the mercy of every bump in the road, and when at last the lorry stopped, I just lay there, drinking in the silence and stillness. I hurt all over.

I dragged myself out. My legs were wobbly, and it was still raining. The lorry had parked outside a supermarket, but there were houses nearby. I sniffed the air. I could smell the delicious scent of a cake baking. Using my senses, I knew this was coming from Ellen’s kitchen.

Trotting from one garden to the next, I made my way along the road until I came to an iron gate set deep in a thick hedge. I could smell the sparrows who were snuggled up in there, lucky things. They were asleep while I was wide awake, covered in oil, shivering and homeless. Now the rain was pelting down, covering the road in puddles. My little paws were drenched and freezing cold. Flashes of lightning and echoing booms of thunder frightened me as I cowered under the hedge. There was no way through, so I squeezed under the gate. Despite the rain I knew I must go out into the middle of the lawn to attract Ellen’s attention, and came face to face with the four staring windows and big brown door of a house.

‘You have to meow as loud as you can. Now,’ said my angel.

So I did. Feeling small and dirty and spiky, I let rip with the meows. I wouldn’t have believed an exhausted kitten could make such a noise. My voice echoed all over the housing estate, and soon a window opened above me, and a face looked down. It was her. My beloved Ellen.

‘What on earth is going on?’ Ellen leaned out and saw me. Terribly ashamed of my appearance, I stuck my tail up, which is a cat’s way of smiling.

‘Oh look, there’s a tiny kitten! I’m going down.’

Ellen picked me up and cuddled me against her heart, I could feel its soothing rhythm through my fur, and she could evidently feel mine for she said, ‘Your little heart is racing! Where have you come from?’

I turned my pea-green eyes to gaze into hers. They were smoky blue in the summer darkness. Ellen still had long hair the colour of barley, just like I remembered. I patted it with my paw, intrigued to find it had become crinkly and fuzzed out around her head. Love glowed in her eyes, but her cheeks were thinner, and her hands felt different as she stroked me. They were tense and quick, less inclined to linger, and the healing light which used to shine around them was clouded. She seemed stressed, as if she had no time to use her healing gift. I knew that a storm was gathering, a storm right inside of Ellen. She was in trouble. And I was there to help.

From now on, it was my job to protect Ellen and to stay by her side through thick and thin. This was my first chance to try and ease her pain and so, with exquisite slowness, I turned my head sideways to touch noses.

‘Oh you little darling!’

That was the moment of bonding. As the clock struck midnight the rain began to fall in long needles of silver. Many times after that night I heard Ellen tell people how she had found me on midsummer night in a thunderstorm.

‘What a scruffy little object!’

A man stood there, emanating resentment, and outside that was a hard cocoon of humour. He didn’t fool me.

‘You must bond with Joe too,’ said the angel.

I hesitated, feeling afraid of the huge pink nose on Joe’s face. What if it sneezed? But I managed another nose touch and eye gaze. He did like cats, and he was stroking me gently. But I was not comfortable with those gingery eyes. They were too bright. Bright but not smiling.

‘He’s covered in black stuff!’

Ellen put me down quickly and there were smears of oil from the lorry over her pale blue T-shirt. I paraded into the kitchen leaving little dark paw marks, my tail up straight with a kink at the top.

‘What a skinny little tail,’ said Joe.

‘He’s in such a mess, poor little thing.’ Ellen was nearly crying as she realised the state I was in. ‘Let him eat something first. Then I’ll give him a warm bath and dry him off.’

Joe groaned.

‘Here we go again,’ he said. ‘I suppose you’ll be up half the night pampering him. I’m going to grab another beer and head back to bed.’

He opened the fridge and took out a black and gold can. I meowed, thinking it was going to be milk for me. Then he said something alarming.

‘Don’t let Jessica see him. She’ll have him for breakfast.’

Who, I wondered, was Jessica? A dog? A cross neighbour? Another cat?

A cold feeling of betrayal washed over me. In the kitchen was a dish with ‘PUSSY’ on it and some half-eaten food. I collapsed on the floor, my heart pitter-pattering against the blue and white tiles. My bones ached and my wet fur felt heavy. The burning taste of oil was on my tongue. I felt like giving up.

After coming all that way, Ellen already had a cat.

Another cat had got there first!

ANOTHER CAT GOT THERE FIRST

After a horrible bath, a long drink of milk and a good night’s sleep, I was feeling more positive. Especially when I awoke to find myself lying on the amber velvet cushion.

‘Cats always love this cushion,’ Ellen had said, putting me on it so gently after she had dried me with a fluffy towel. ‘It belonged to my mum. You go to sleep little cat, and in the morning we’ll find out who you belong to.’

But first, there was Jessica.

Jessica was the naughtiest cat I’d ever met. She was black and white, silky and cute with pink pads which she enjoyed flaunting, making out she was washing them. But when I saw her challenging buttercup eyes, I fell in love with her instantly. I felt intimidated by her, and a bit jealous; I could sense that she was tough and powerful, but she was gorgeous too, and I wanted her to be my friend. I could see that behind Jessica’s confident exterior was a charming little cat who wanted to be loved. Already my mind was planning how to befriend her. I wanted to curl up with her in her basket, and feel her sleek warm body against mine. But I was still a kitten, and right now I longed to be allowed to play with her. Being bossed around by Jessica would be hard, but give me six months and I’d be the boss, and, hopefully, her lover.

‘You wretched cat. GET OUT!’

What a shock. Could that really be Ellen’s sweet soft voice shrieking like that? At me? Kittens can move even faster than cats, and I shot straight under the piano, despite being mid-yawn.

I stayed under the piano and watched the commotion as Ellen evicted Jessica and cleaned up the mess she had made in bringing a dead bird through the cat flap. This was the first of many such episodes. Jessica was outrageous. She tore up carpets, shredded furniture, and bolted her food, especially if she’d stolen it. And if she was shut outside she would rap imperiously on the window, and glare with square eyes until she was let in. Worst of all, she scratched Ellen’s young son John and made him cry, and the crying started Ellen worrying. Then Ellen’s worrying sent Joe into a temper.

On that first morning I felt clean and optimistic. This was my old home where I’d shared Ellen’s childhood. My desire to see the stairs was overwhelming and I longed for Ellen to open the door into the hall. Persuading humans to open doors is achieved by sitting elegantly close to the door with your chin tilted up. Keep gazing at the handle and eventually they will get the message. It’s telepathy at its most basic.

‘He wants to explore.’

Joe opened the door for me. He obviously liked cats.

Walking into the hall was breathtaking. I remembered the fun we’d had in this lovely house. Those incredible stairs were still there, and they were perfect. To a kitten born in a bungalow, stairs were the ultimate in dry cat gymnasiums and power perches. The best spot was the post halfway up where the stairs turned left. From here you could see out of the landing window, sunbathe, and get attention from whoever came up or down. The scent told me that Jessica had already claimed it, and I soon discovered how cheekily she sat there, reaching out a draconian paw to swipe anyone who failed to acknowledge her as they passed by.