Page 19 of Xel: Broken Bond
“When we have time, we play with the cats a bit as well,” he said, indicating the box of toys nestled neatly in the corner of the room. “It really depends how many staff we have on any given day, and how many animals overall.”
When we reached the end of the row, Mr Beans came up to the wire and peered up at us, then rubbed his head against the door of his cage. “Good morning, Mr Beans,” my mastersaid solemnly, then opened the cage. Mr Beans trotted straight over to me, bypassing my master entirely, and rubbed his head against my leg. I grinned, leaning down to stroke him.
“Well, we know who his favourite is,” my master said, attempting to sound put out. But he was smiling as he said it, and just this once, I let him clean the cage by himself while I gave Mr Beans a nice rub all over his head and under his chin, his purr rumbling through the hallway the whole time.
“I’m sorry, but you have to go back,” I said to him, once my master was finished. I picked Mr Beans up and set him on the ledge in his cage… but he immediately turned around and leapt straight back into my arms.
“No, I’m sorry, but you have to stay here,” I said, attempting to sound firm, and failing. “Yes, you’re beautiful, but we have other animals to look after.”
Mr Beans was having none of it. He wrapped his paws around my arm and snuggled his head in against my elbow. I looked helplessly at my master, feeling terrible about abandoning a creature that so clearly just wanted some company.
My master reached out and gently prised Mr Beans out of my arms. “Come on, Beans,” he said, more resolutely than I’d managed to be. “That’s enough for now.” He set the cat back on the shelf, and poor Mr Beans seemed to know he wasn’t going to get away with any more shenanigans. He pouted for a moment, then set about cleaning his paws, doing a fine job of ignoring my master.
My master sighed as he closed the door. “He breaks my heart every day,” he confessed. “He’s going to end up like Bribie, too old for anyone to give him a new home. Poor little sod.”
Bribie, for his part, had followed us into the cattery but made himself comfortable in a corner, content to simply watch the action. His ears perked up at the mention of his name, but heseemed to realise we weren’t quite done yet, so he put his head down on his paws and went back to relaxing.
I wanted to ask my master why he didn’t adopt Mr Beans, if he was so sure that no one else would, but we’d already had that conversation this morning. And however much I might disagree with his reasons, it was not my place to tell my master how to do his job.
There was one more cage to go, but before my master could start on that one, the door at the far end of the room opened and Bo came through, leading two Wasop women. “I’m so sorry to interrupt,” she said, before the door had even closed, “but Regi and Lena were in the area and were hoping to take a look at the cats while they’re here. I know you haven’t finished cleaning yet, but…”
“No, it’s fine. It’s all good,” my master said. “Come on in.” But even as he said it, he was turning his back on the visitors and hunching his shoulders. “I’ll just leave you to it.” A moment later, he was gone, escaping out the rear door and abandoning the trolley in the process.
I stared after him in alarm, then glanced back at Bo. Had I done something wrong? Or was his sudden departure entirely due to Bo’s arrival? And furthermore, was I supposed to follow him? Or stay here and finish cleaning the cages?
Bo shot me a look that was half apology, half guilt, then just as quickly banished the look to smile at the two women. “Were you looking for an older cat or a younger one? Any particular colour? Or were you possibly interested in a soova, rather than a cat?”
My master had already said I would be learning this part of the business, so, not quite knowing what else to do, I went and joined Bo at the end of the hallway. “Do you mind if I tag along?” I asked. I didn’t know much about Bo, but she’d seemed friendly when I’d arrived yesterday. “Cole said he’d like me to learn howto show the animals to visitors. The forms and legalities and so forth.”
“Absolutely,” Bo said, with what appeared to be sincere enthusiasm. “Ladies, this is Xel. He’s only recently started working here, so he’s still learning the ropes.” That was a polite way of putting it. I’d wandered in the door yesterday, as stray as many of these animals, and now, I was just trying to make myself as useful as possible.
For the next half an hour, I followed Bo up and down the row of cages, helpfully opening doors or picking up cats for the visitors to see, while Bo gave them a running monologue about each of the cat’s history and personality. Regi and Lena were apparently a newly married couple, looking to make their house into more of a home with the addition of a furry ball of trouble, and I couldn’t help but grin as they told us stories about how they’d met and a few of the dramas in their wedding. It was delightfully refreshing to hear people just chatting about their lives, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was going to enjoy this part of the job.
In the end, they selected a middle-aged ginger male named Pancake, and left in a flurry of coos and smiles after they’d signed the requisite forms. Bo beamed and waved at them, but once the door was closed behind them, she sighed, the smile sliding off her face.
In the brief time I’d spent with Bo, I hadn’t yet got a solid feel for her moods or personality, so I found myself frowning at her apparent drop in enthusiasm. Had I annoyed her by butting in on part of her job? Would she have preferred for me to leave her alone with the visitors?
“That seemed to go reasonably well,” I hedged, hoping I wasn’t misreading the situation.
“Oh, that was wonderful,” Bo said, stretching her arms over her head. “It’s always a good thing when they decide to takeone of the animals home. I’m just sorry I didn’t get to give Cole more notice. We usually ask people to make appointments to come and see the animals, but like I said before, they were in the area and wanted to take their chances with just dropping in. It probably spooked the hell out of Cole, though. I’ll have to go and apologise to him.”
I nodded, but her explanation raised more questions than it answered. “May I ask you something?” I said. I’d figured by now that Bo and my master knew each other fairly well, and based on my master’s behaviour this morning, I also suspected that if I attempted to ask him the question on my mind, he would likely react badly. Bo might choose not to answer, but I didn’t think I’d offend her with the asking.
“Is this about Cole?” she asked.
“It is,” I said. Then, seeing no point in prevaricating, I jumped straight in. “Why did he run off? He seems not to like greeting the customers. And Aiden said yesterday that he didn’t want to come to the hotel to meet me. Why is that? Does he not like people?”
Bo looked at me pensively for a long moment. And then, rather than answering the question, she said, “I’ve read a little about the dimari. I don’t know a great deal, but everyone says you’re unwaveringly loyal to your masters. Is that true?”
I considered that for a moment. “Yes,” I said, even though I didn’t quite know whether it was true or not. I had been loyal to my old master. But then he’d died. And now I was here, pretending that I had a new master. Was that disloyalty? Or, given that he was dead, did it even matter?
But Bo nodded and hummed, as if I’d just explained something profound. “Have you noticed the marks on Cole’s face? On his neck and his right hand?”
I opened my mouth to say yes – the marks were quite obvious, and it would have been impossible not to notice them.But then I had to pause. I’d made note of their existence. But I’d given no thought at all as to what the implications of them might have been. “I hadn’t really thought about it,” I admitted. It was something I would rather admit to Bo than in front of my master. If the marks were significant, then I didn’t like the idea of being forced to admit my ignorance.
Bo nodded. “I suspected as much. He was burned in a fire,” she explained briefly. “I won’t give you any more details than that. If Cole wants you to know, then he can tell you himself, but otherwise, that’s not my business. But people – strangers – tend to judge him for that. Some of them can be quite cruel. So he tends to avoid people he doesn’t know.”
“Oh,” I said, as a whole array of details of my master’s life suddenly slotted into place. That would explain why he lived alone in a cottage in the middle of a large, vacant property. Why he’d given me the choice about learning to tend to visitors, but avoided them himself. Why he seemed to know so little about the dimari in general. If he was living as a recluse, then many of the details of the outside world might have eluded him.