Usually Katy liked Elspeth touching her hair, but now she felt impatient and moved away from her mother’s grasp. She wanted the kitten desperately. ‘I’ll look after her,’ she promised. Huw was still holding the kitten and his big jolly face lit up as she began purring.
‘I think it will be good for Katy,’ said Huw. ‘A lesson in responsibility.’ He winked at Katy and she threw her arms around his large middle. In that moment she’d never loved anybody more.
Elspeth rolled her eyes, but Katy could see she was relenting. ‘Okay, then, as long as you promise to feed it and –’
They were interrupted by a huffing from the table. Viola pushed back her chair, threw her pen across the room and stormed out. For once, Katy didn’t care.
Katy decided to call the cat Mittens because of her little white paws. For the first time, she experienced real happiness. The cat slept upstairs with her in the attic and every evening, after another horrible day at school where she was ignored or jeered at for being a geek, or laughed at for her strong accent by everyone except Mandy, she’d come home, cuddle Mittens and feel everything would be okay.
And every day Mittens got bigger. Katy read books on how to look after a kitten, took her out into the garden so that she could get used to her surroundings and would know her way home when she was eventually allowed outside. And as March turned to April, Katy spent hours in the garden, playing with her new pet. Viola would scowl in their direction, but she didn’t seem bothered by the cat. Katy couldn’t understand it. How could anyone fail to find Mittens the most adorable ball of fluff imaginable? Maybe Viola wasn’t an animal person, she thought one day, while she was grooming Mittens. Katy was suspicious of anyone who didn’t like animals.
One Sunday evening, as she was coming down to feed Mittens, she heard Viola and Elspeth in the kitchen. The Top Forty was on the radio and she could hear Nik Kershaw’s ‘Wouldn’t It Be Good’， which she loved. She had a poster of him on her wall.
‘She’s always with that stupid cat,’ she heard Viola say, her arrogant voice grating on Katy’s nerves instantly. ‘Why did you say yes?’
‘We’ve talked about this. The poor girl has been through a lot. More than you could ever imagine.’ Katy felt a rush of love towards Elspeth, who always stuck up for her.
‘Oh, Mother. I find it tiring, I really do,’ said Viola, sounding much more grown-up than her thirteen years. ‘Why do you always have to have some kind of project?’
She could hear Elspeth sigh. ‘She’s not a project. She’s my daughter.’
‘I’m your daughter.’
‘I know that.’ She sounded cross.
‘But you’re supposed to love me more,’ Viola said petulantly.
‘I have enough love for each of you.’
‘You always take her side …’
‘Because you can be mean, Viola. It hurts me to think a child of mine can be nasty.’
‘So can you, Mother. I’ve seen the mind games you play with Daddy. How you always have to get your own way.’
‘Oh, don’t be so immature. You know nothing about it.’
Katy hovered by the door, Mittens in her arms struggling to get down.
‘Unlike little Goody Two Shoes St Kathryn, I suppose.’
‘Now that’s enough.’
‘What is it going to be next? Opening our house to all those tramps on the street? Or letting the impoverished artists you’re always funding come and live with us?’
‘I said that’s enough. Why can’t you be more altruistic, Viola?’
‘Like you, I suppose.’ Viola laughed sarcastically.
‘I refuse to argue with you. I know that’s what you want. But it’s not going to happen,’ she said, her voice cold. ‘And turn this rubbish off. Honestly, the amount of money I spend on your education and you listen to drivel like this.’
Kathryn shrank back into the shadows as Viola charged out of the room and thundered up the stairs.
Katy had Mittens for a year. A glorious, happy year. Until one day Mittens never came home.
Katy spent every hour she wasn’t at school or asleep traipsing the pavements looking for her. Huw helped her make posters, which she stuck on lampposts, and every night she cried herself to sleep.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Elspeth, one evening a few weeks later, as Katy sat hunched over her orange juice. She put her hands on Katy’s shoulders and gently squeezed them.
‘I just wish I knew what happened to her,’ sobbed Katy. ‘I did everything to make a good home for her.’