Wrong Destination
“Well, where on earth have you taken me now, Greg?” Hannah eyed the crumbling cottages with suspicion. Not a living soul around, unless you counted the startled magpie on the broken fence. It was hardly difficult to work out that this was a village only technically years must have passed since anyone actually lived here.
“But what on earth is Greg playing at this time?” Hannah thought, knowing full well her boyfriends appetite for harebrained schemes.
“Honestly, Hannah, Im as confused as you! Satnav conked out, didn’t it? I mustve turned at the wrong place.”
Greg climbed out of the car and wandered up the lane a bit, then back again, looking as lost as someone whos just realised their phones about to die and they still need to call a taxi.
“You sure you dont know?” Hannah smirked.
She wasnt quite buying the ‘wrong turn’ story. Greg was always up for mischief, and she was half expecting pranksters or at the very least a hidden pub with a weird name. But to give him credit, his confusion seemed genuine this time for once, she couldn’t smell a plot.
“Honestly! The satnavs had it and I mustve turned down the wrong lane,” Greg defended himself, hands waving.
“Alright, alright, I believe you,” Hannah smiled, eyeing the old houses with their boarded-up windows. “Shall we head back before we start seeing ghosts?”
“Fine by me,” Greg agreed and plonked himself behind the wheel. To turn around, he had to drive nearly to the end of the street. Then there was the obligatory comedy of back-and-forth, steering like he was trying to moor the Titanic.
Finally, after much enthusiastic reversing and muttering, Greg was ready to leave Londons newest tourist black spot. Hed barely gone for the accelerator when Hannah suddenly clutched his arm with a shriek.
“Greg, stop! Theres a kitten! Youll flatten it!”
“What? A kitten?” Greg peered purposefully through the windscreen nothing in sight.
“Under the wheel,” Hannah insisted, panting as if shed run a mile.
“Theres nothing there,” Greg replied, bemused. “You must be seeing things. Why would there be a kitten in a ghost village?”
He eased forward. No sooner had he started, than Hannahs vice-like grip returned, this time with more conviction.
“STOP!”
At that moment, something small and altogether too fluffy for its own good shot out from under the car a bundle of fur with paws and ears and all the coordination of a drunk hedgehog.
Instead of fleeing sensibly, the kitten splashed into a muddy puddle, mewed miserably, then perched on a tuft of grass, an island in the sea of mud, shooting Hannah a heart-melting, “Help me, I’m adorable and traumatised” look.
If not for this monster on four wheels, clearly intent on squashing him, hed never have dipped a toe, or paw, in that puddle. Not for all the Felix in the world.
“Mew…” he pleaded, hoping the nice human would do something.
“Greg, we have to help him,” Hannah looked expectantly at her partner.
“Help? You want me to wade through that swamp to catch a kitten? In these trainers?” Greg protested, glancing critically at his pristine white Nikes.
“Well, take your shoes off then! Honestly!”
Greg recoiled. “No chance. Im not catching pneumonia for a kitten. I told you Ive had a fragile constitution since I was a kid!”
“Oh yes, your delicate immune system,” Hannah scoffed. “But you were happy enough dragging me to a freezing lake in May, weren’t you?”
Greg had no answer, because the swimming idea was merely a ruse what he actually had in mind involved barbecued sausages and a tent (and, in his mind, a lot less paddling).
Hannah sighed and made to step into the puddle herself. “Fine. I’ll do it. But youd better believe Ill tell everyone you made me wade through a giant puddle to rescue a kitten because you were worried about your trainers!”
Just then, a voice rang out from behind. “Ah, there you are, you trickster! Been hunting for you all over the village whyd you run off so far?”
Greg and Hannah whirled round to find a young man, wellies and all, smiling at them as if hed just saved someone’s crossword clue.
“Er Hello,” Hannah stammered, feeling oddly relieved.
“Im Andy,” the man explained. “Let me guess, lost?”
“Er, yes,” Hannah admitted, quickly regaining her composure. “I’m Hannah. We thought no one lived here anymore!”
“Nobody does,” Andy grinned, scooping the soggy kitten from his makeshift island. “Well, no humans anyway. Just this lot.”
He walked briskly through the puddle, kitten tucked under one arm. “He does this. Dashes off, then finds strangers to terrorise. Sorry about that.”
“Actually, we almost flattened him” Hannah said guiltily. “Thanks for rescuing him.”
“No need,” Andy said, ruffling the kittens soggy ears, who promptly started purring like a tractor.
“Easy to rescue when youre wearing wellies,” Andy winked. “Anyway, what brings you here? Theres not much left except cats and ghosts and the ghosts are unreliable.”
Hannah explained the mysterious lake trip, producing a dog-eared map from the glovebox for good measure.
Andy squinted. “Ah. Well, yes, youre about ten miles off. And theres no lake round here. Just a pond, but you wouldnt want to swim in it. Or, perhaps, you would, Greg?”
Greg, still salty from the trainers incident, made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a whimper. “Whatever. Sorry to have bothered you.”
He flopped back into the drivers seat, started the engine, and without so much as a backward glance, dumped Hannahs beach bag towel, blanket, and optimistic swimsuit into a puddle. Then sped off.
“Charming,” Hannah muttered, watching the 4×4 vanish.
As if on cue, the drizzle thickened, the English summer reminding everyone what a sense of humour it has.
“Andy’s your name, right? Youre not going to leave me here too, are you?” Hannah asked, clutching her phone, which, predictably, had no signal.
“No chance,” Andy replied. “My cars just around the back. And besides, I was about to offer you a decent cup of tea. Cant leave you out here in this weather!”
Hannah considered her options: forty miles walk in soaking trainers versus a cup of tea and some feline company. She nodded. “I’ll take you up on that tea. But only tea, mind!”
“You have my word,” Andy said with a grin. He handed her the kitten, and Hannah instinctively cuddled the shivering fluffball. Somehow, holding a cat had a calming effect on the nerves.
They arrived at Andy’s house, which was surprisingly intact amid the ruins a testament to British stoicism, perhaps. In the kitchen, amongst mismatched mugs and a faint air of catnip, Andy asked, “So, black, herbal, or builders?”
“Black, please. Not sure I trust your herbs!”
They settled with two mugs of tea and a plate of digestives.
“So you live here? With all these cats?”
“Me? No, I just visit. My aunt did, though. Loved her cats there must’ve been a bakers dozen, patching up all the strays the village pensioners left behind when they well, when they moved on.”
“How sad,” Hannah murmured.
“My aunt passed away a few months back, but the cats remain. No one else seemed keen to move in, and the cats well, lets just say they wouldnt cope alone. I drop by daily to care for them.”
“Can’t you rehome them?”
“Tried! Friends, friends-of-friends, no one wants thirteen cats. Even the shelters arent interested we’re overrun as it is. The little chap you saved found him wandering the main road this morning. Somebody dumped him, I reckon.”
Hannahs sympathy grew. She finished her tea and asked, “Can I meet the rest?”
Andy grinned and led her outside. He rattled a tin, called “Here, puss, puss!” and, like a feline version of the charge of the light brigade, cats emerged from hedges, bushes, and, quite possibly, the fourth dimension. Tabby after tabby, black, ginger, white, calicos every variety imaginable.
“There you are,” Andy said proudly. “All thirteen. Well, fourteen now, with this little terror.”
“You do have a knack for acquiring cats,” Hannah smiled, finally exhaling the tension of the afternoon. “You know, Andy, you might be richer than you realise!”
Later, as Andy drove her back into town (the kitten snoozing on the backseat, utterly unconcerned by lost villages, ex-boyfriends, or life in general), an idea began to take shape in Hannahs mind.
Back home, after a good sleep and a restorative glass of wine, Hannah called Andy. “Meet me in The Cosy Teapot Café tomorrow, lunch time?”
“Absolutely!”
They chatted over teacakes and cappuccinos.
“Andy,” Hannah said, “what would you think of a cafe where people can drink coffee and spend time stroking catsyours, mostlywhile they de-stress?”
Andy blinked. “Like a cat café?”
“Exactly! There’s a hundred identical coffee shops in town, but nothing like that. Most people can’t keep pets but would love a cuddle. What do you say?”
Andy thought, sipped his coffee, and replied, “I think its brilliant. And, as it happens, I run a building firm. I can help you get set up for next to nothing.”
Within weeks, contracts were signed, the old bakery was transformed, and soon, Hannah and Andys “The Purring Partea” was open for business. At first, the locals eyed it suspiciously (after all, Brits are wary of anything new, especially if it involves wet paint and suspect cakes). A lovely couple did ask if it wasnt simpler just to go to the tip to see cats, and could they get a discount if they brought their own biscuits.
But within days, it was standing-room only. News spread, cats melted hearts, and soon, the original village cats were being adopted by families who visited “just for a cuddle” and left with a new furry housemate. Hannah and Andy restocked with shelter cats, and demand never waned.
So, really, it was just as well Greg turned down that wrong lane.
Hannah now had work she adored (and which benefitted her soul more than her wallet), the citys stray cat population was in sharp decline, andnot leastlove found her, in the most peculiar of places and puddles. Andy, never one to dodge through mud, was always just a wellington-boot away.
And as for that tiny, shivering kitten? The one who started it all? Hes gained two doting humans, a houseful of company, and, of course, a lifetime supply of gourmet cat food. Plus, he stars in all the cafés Instagram posts. Life, it seems, is best when youre feline fine.
