**Saturday, 15th October**
The cat sat on the windowsill, staring down at the garden where pigeons fought over a crust of bread. I watched him. Seven years we’ve shared this flat—well, aside from Sarah and Alice. But Jasper was mine. From the first day, when that three‑month‑old fluffball sank his claws into my jumper and fell asleep in the crook of my arm.
Sarah was stirring a pot of stew on the hob, the smell of bay leaf drifting through the kitchen. Alice, twelve now, sat at the table, swiping her finger across her phone. An ordinary Saturday evening—a hundred before it, a hundred more to come. But I noticed her glance at her mother with that expectant look. And Sarah, stirring, gave her a tiny nod, as if they’d already agreed something.
“Dad,” Alice began, in that voice she uses when she wants a new phone or permission to stay at a friend’s.
I put down the paper. “What?”
“Lucy’s cat had kittens. One of them nobody wants. He’s a bit lame—front paw’s crooked. They’re going to… well…”
She didn’t finish, but I understood. I looked at Sarah. She was stirring the stew harder than necessary.
“No,” I said. Not angry, not sharp. Just no.
“Why not?”
“Because we’ve got Jasper. He’s seven, used to being alone. Bring another in, there’ll be fights, spraying, more fur everywhere. I’m against it.”
Alice looked at her mother. Sarah turned off the hob and sat beside me.
“Simon, the kitten’s three months old. The paw healed wrong. If nobody takes him, Lucy’ll take him to the shelter, and they don’t find homes for ones like that.”
I understood. But I didn’t nod.
“I’m against it,” I repeated, and lifted the paper again.
—
A week passed. Alice stopped asking, but at dinner she passed me the bread in silence. Sarah stopped asking how my day was. I felt it like a draught—windows shut, but something cold creeping in.
On Friday, Alice came home from school with red eyes. She dropped her rucksack by the door and went straight to her room. Sarah went in after her, came out ten minutes later.
“What?” I asked.
“Lucy said they’re taking the kitten tomorrow morning. There’s a shelter on the outskirts, but Alice saw photos. Tiny cages, two hundred cats, the smell…”
Sarah wasn’t pushing. She just told me, then went to wash the dishes.
I stood alone in the hallway. From Alice’s room, no sound at all—worse than crying.
—
Next morning I woke before everyone else. Earlier than I do for fishing, and the season hasn’t started yet. The kitchen light was on over the stove, the window grey. I pulled on my coat, grabbed my car keys, and left.
I’d found Lucy’s address in Alice’s phone the night before, while she slept. Scribbled it on a scrap of paper, tucked it in my pocket.
I parked outside Lucy’s block and dialled.
“Hello?” Her voice was sleepy, annoyed.
“It’s Simon, Alice’s dad. Is the kitten still there?”
Pause.
“Yes… yes, still here. The shelter’s coming at eleven.”
“Don’t. I’ll take him. I’m coming up now.”
I hung up and sat in the car a minute.
Lucy opened the door in her dressing gown, silent, holding a shoebox. Inside, on an old towel, sat the kitten. Grey, striped, scrawny. One front paw stuck out sideways, as if put together in a hurry. Yellow eyes, terrified.
“He’s quiet,” she said. “Hardly meows. Eats anything. Litter‑trained.”
I nodded, took the box, and carried it to the car.
—
I got home while everyone was still asleep. I set the box on the hall floor, took off my coat. The kitten inside made no sound. I peered in: the little thing had cornered itself, looking up at me without blinking.
“And what am I supposed to do with you?” I whispered.
The kitten lifted its crooked paw, as if trying to reach my finger, but couldn’t. I sighed. Went to the kitchen, poured milk into a saucer. Then remembered kittens shouldn’t have milk, poured it out, got some cooked chicken from the fridge, chopped it fine.
When I came back with the saucer, Jasper was already sitting next to the box, looking in. Tail still, back not arched.
The kitten climbed out, limped to the saucer, and started eating. Jasper snorted and walked off to his armchair. No fight, no hissing.
Alice found the kitten first. From the bedroom I heard a stifled yelp, then quick footsteps, and she burst in with the kitten in her hands.
“Mum! Mum, where did he come from?!”
Sarah sat up in bed, squinting. She looked at the kitten, then at me. I was lying with my hands behind my head, studying the ceiling.
“Dad?” Alice turned to me, her voice trembling. “Was it you?”
“If you lot start yelling, I’ll take him back,” I muttered, not moving my eyes from the ceiling.
Alice sat on the edge of the bed and cried. Not the way kids cry at school from hurt feelings—a different kind, the kind you can’t explain. The kitten froze against her jumper.
Sarah said nothing. She put her hand on my arm and squeezed, quick and short. Then she got up and went to put the kettle on.
—
We named the kitten Pip. Alice wanted ‘Lord Byron’, but I said a cat from a shoebox is a Pip. And Pip settled in as if he’d always been there. For the first week, Jasper kept his distance. The second week, he tolerated him. By the end of the month, they were sleeping in the same armchair. Jasper, ginger and grand; Pip, grey with a crooked paw, tucked against his side.
I’d watch them in the evenings and say nothing. One night Sarah asked, “You were against it. What changed?”
I paused, scratched Pip behind the ear. He purred, eyes half‑closed.
“Alice was crying. I could hear it through the wall. And I thought: I fix things around here, but this wasn’t something to fix—it was just something to do. Drive over and pick him up. Simple. And I’d been kicking up a fuss over what? A bit of fur?”
Sarah smiled and didn’t add anything.
—
Six months on, Pip’s grown. His paw’s still crooked, but he tears round the flat like a mad thing, knocking over shoes and leaping onto the wardrobe. Jasper just watches him.
Sometimes, in the evening, I catch myself on the sofa with Jasper on my lap and Pip asleep on my shoulder, the football on telly, and I haven’t a clue what the score is because I daren’t move.
And that, I reckon, is better than any score.
