Lovely Man

LOVELY MAN STOOD stooped in the kitchen, putting away the last of the clean plates, when a sharp movement in the garden caught his eye. He grimaced.

The two neighbourhood cats, his nemesis, had darted into the garden and were now standing together, staring back the way they had come, quite purposefully, on the soft soil. Correction, his soft soil, in his garden. The corner of his mouth curled upwards in a shadow of a smile.

He gently stepped out of the back door and quietly picked up the nozzle of the garden hose. Tiptoeing, out of sight of the cats, to the side of the garden shed, he peered around. The mangey things were now sunning themselves in the Spring warmth, in his garden, not ten feet away.

Perfect.

Using a starting car engine as cover, he aimed the nozzle at the cats and turned on. A powerful jet of cold water sprang out of the hose and arched towards the dozing cats, hitting the fluffy white one on the side of the head. In a satisfying scrabble of soil and fur, the cats like lightening disappeared up over the wall.

Lovely Man chuckled contentedly, returned the hose to its holder, stepped back into the kitchen and switched on the kettle for a nice cup of herbal tea.

A week later

Meowington cradled his left arm, trying to stem the bleeding, shaking uncontrollably from the attack. Seconds later Mr Tibbs came haring over the rough, wooden fence and flew under the car, skidding to a stop just before careering into his friend. He turned immediately and peered back out, waiting for Tinkerbell to come marauding and snarling after them.

‘Bloody hell’, he breathed. ‘That was close.’

‘Close?!’ Meowington held out his unharmed paw, saturated in his own blood seeping from the deep gash in his right shoulder.

‘Yeah, close. You know what she can do, man. We were lucky.’

Mr Tibbs kept sentry while Meowington licked his wound fervently, eyes never moving from the fence they had bound over, watching and waiting. But the seconds turned into minutes, without further danger.

‘OK’, he said, catching his breath at last. ‘I think we’ve lost her for now. Come on, let’s get to 119.’

‘119?’, Meowington snarled. ‘Christ. You really think we’ll be safe there?’.

‘Tinkerbell won’t follow us there. She won’t come, I’ve told you. They say that that’s where she grew up, where she was born, years ago. She won’t go near the garden. They say it’s where her dad battered her into...well, into what she is now.’

‘What, a fucked-in-the-head maniac! But 119? What about Lovely Man? You know what that bastard does to the likes of us.’

‘I know. We’ll just have to be really quiet.

Meowington looked unconvinced. ‘Look’, continued Mr. Tibbs, impatiently. ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. We can’t stay here. We’re too exposed. Next time it won’t be just your arm Tinkerbell will try to rip off.’

Meowington stared gloomily at the floor. ‘So it’s come to this. Choosing between a cold-blooded killer who murders for shits and giggles, or a human sadist who just blind hates us and wants us dead.’

Mr Tibbs sniffed. ‘Well, you do crap in his soil, to be fair. And you go after his birds.’

Meowington threw his good arm into the air. ‘Christ almighty, I’m a friggin’ cat!

‘I know. Sorry. Look, number 119’s garden is the only sanctuary we have. You know Tinkerbell won’t stop until she rips you and me apart. We set her up. You think she’s ever going to forget that she did time because of us? Time at the vets?’’

As if in confirmation, a terrible, mewling howl erupted from nearby; a piercing caterwaul of promised violence and endless suffering, like the banshee scream of a plummeting bomb.  

‘Christ, I wish I had thumbs. Then I could throttle the fluffy bitch!’

‘Tibbs’, said Meowington, looking Mr. Tibbs square in the eyes. ‘Why don’t we just keep going? Let’s not go to 119 and have fucking water sprayed at us again. Let’s just leave.’

Mr. Tibbs’ eyes widened in astonishment. ’You mean’, he whispered, incredulously, ‘leave the neighbourhood. Are you out of you tiny cat mind?’

’Mate’, replied Meowington, eyes narrowing. ‘We’re trapped between a rock and a hard place here. And when you’re trapped between a rock and a hard place, you fuck them both off and do one! How much money have you got?’

Mr. Tibbs routed around the folds of his fur. ‘Not much. About 20 quid.’

‘OK, I’ve got the same. 40 quid will get two cats a long, long way from here. Let’s just keep going, and never come back here.’

Mr. Tibbs’ eyes welled, but he nodded. He loved Meowington so much, but his dream of them settling down and adopting some kittens together, and finding a garden to call home, seemed more distant than ever. He loved Meowington, and would do anything to make them work. But Meowington was right. There was just nothing else left to do.  

Together they darted out from under the car, Meowington limping on three legs, a brush of engine oil colouring the tip of Mr Tibbs’ soft, white coat, heading in the opposite direction to the wooden fence over which they had just escaped.