1
There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned
– Antony and Cleopatra
‘You’re fired.’
It wasn’t the first time Cesca Shakespeare had heard those words. It wasn’t even the sixth time, but it was the only time they’d been said to her inside the ridiculousness that was Cleopatra’s Cat Café, London’s premiere fine-dining establishment for lovers of the feline species.
It was a crazy idea, Cesca thought, combining afternoon tea with furry cats who seemed to take pleasure moulting their hair all over the food and drink. Yet since she’d begun working here two weeks ago it had been completely booked out, full of cooing, selfie-stick-clutching tourists, who loved the way the cats curled up on their laps while they sipped lapsang souchong out of fine bone china cups.
The people, not the cats. The kitties preferred licking cream out of the hand-painted jugs.
‘I’m sorry?’ If it wasn’t for the fact she needed this job – or at least the way it paid her rent – she’d be laughing in the owner’s face right now. You couldn’t really describe it as her dream job, carrying trays of sandwiches while trying not to trip over cats as they seemed to deliberately jump in her way. More than once they’d sent her flying, launching plates full of cakes over the unsuspecting clientele.
‘You obviously aren’t cut out for working here,’ Philomena, the owner, told her. ‘In your résumé it said you were a cat lover, but you’ve done nothing but shout at Tootsie, Simba and the others. And what you just said to Mr Tibbles, well that was unforgivable.’
‘He’d just peed on a whole tray of afternoon tea,’ Cesca protested.
‘If you’d have picked up the tray as soon as I called service there wouldn’t have been a problem. These cats are highly strung, they need to mark their territory. It’s our job to give them boundaries. You told me you had experience of rare breeds like Mr Tibbles.’
From the corner of her eye, Cesca saw him prowl along the floor towards them. Mr Tibbles was a Sphynx, a hairless breed that made him look as though he’d taken all his clothes off and was prancing around the café in the buff.
‘I do have some experience. There were lots of cats around when I was growing up . . . ’ Cesca trailed off weakly, knowing she’d lied through her teeth to get this job. Not that the job was a catch, but by the time she’d seen the advert in the window, she was desperate. Enough to take a job surrounded by hissing cats who seemed to want nothing more than make her life a misery.
‘Well it isn’t working out. Customers have complained about the way you’ve been treating the animals. You can’t just drop-kick them whenever they misbehave.’
‘I didn’t drop-kick them, I swiped them off the table. And it was my first day, I didn’t know the customers liked sharing their food.’
‘That’s the point.’ Philomena sighed. ‘A real cat lover wouldn’t think twice. You’re clearly an imposter.’ She lowered her voice, brushing her hair away from her sweaty face. ‘Do you even like cats?’
Torn between a natural urge to be truthful, and her need for a job, Cesca hesitated. As if he could sense the drama, Mr Tibbles wandered over, weaving his way between Cesca’s legs. Looking up at her through his watery blue eyes, he narrowed them as if in challenge.
‘I . . . um . . . I’m not that fond of them. But I needed the job and I’ve never had a problem with animals. I used to spend every weekend playing with our neighbour’s dog.’
Philomena shuddered. ‘Dog lovers aren’t welcome here,’ she hissed, sounding almost cat-like herself. ‘Now get your things and leave before you upset Mr Tibbles with your nasty words.’
‘Can I at least have my wages?’ It had come to something when Cesca had to beg for money, but with this week’s rent looming ominously above her, there was nothing to do but embarrass herself. Too many times she’d had to make up excuses for paying late, or sometimes not paying at all. Living hand-to-mouth in London wasn’t for the faint-hearted.
What choice did she have though? At the age of twenty-four she was on a downward spiral when her friends were all on the up. While they’d been studying hard at university, and getting professional positions that paid them a good salary, Cesca had been rebounding from job to job like a pinball, not staying still long enough to really take a good look at herself.
She’d become good at that avoidance, too. Six years of pretending she was happy, she was OK, that she actually liked a bohemian lifestyle of drifting between flats, making her friends double over in laughter every time she lost another dead-end job, or told them about yet another failed relationship. But when she was lying in bed at night, trying to ignore the pervasive smell of damp and mould that seemed to permeate the walls, she wasn’t laughing at all. She wasn’t even smiling. That was when the monsters seemed
to crawl out from their hiding place in the bottom of her brain, whispering in her ear, reminding her she was a failure, a loser, and she would never amount to anything.
That she’d had her big chance and she’d blown it.
‘Here, take this.’ Philomena shoved a thick envelope into her hand. She’d not bothered to close it, and Cesca could see the curled up corners of bank notes through the opening. ‘Please don’t ask me for a reference,’ her boss continued. ‘I won’t be able to say anything nice.’
Cesca wouldn’t dare. There weren’t many of her previous employers who had agreed to say anything pleasant about her, which was so unfair because she was genuinely a nice person. She simply wasn’t very good at holding down a job.
Stuffing the envelope full of cash in her bag, Cesca shrugged on her summer jacket, zipping it up to the neck. It might have been June outside, but nobody had bothered to tell the weather that, and a cold wind had decided to make its home in the city, whipping through the streets like an angry ghost.
‘Goodbye.’ Cesca walked across the kitchen floor, heading for the back door that led to the small, paved yard full of rubbish bins and cardboard boxes. Just before she reached out to open it, Philomena yelled again.
‘And close the door behind you, we don’t want the cats escaping.’
Resisting the urge to slam the door, Cesca stepped into the yard and took a deep breath, immediately regretting it when the pungent aroma of used cat litter filled her nostrils.
Maybe getting fired wasn’t the end of the world, after all.
On Friday afternoons London took on a life of its own, full of wandering tourists who barrelled into suited city workers in search of their first drink of the weekend. Even the cars seemed noisier, engines roaring a little louder, their honking horns full of fury. The streets were full of people on a mission, with places to go, things to do, and that didn’t include being polite to anybody else.