Excerpt
How to Share a Cat and Other Life Lessons
Evelyn Fenn © 2024
All Rights Reserved
Chapter One
Nessa waited to be allowed inside St Drogo’s great hall. On the plus side, milling around like this meant she got to ditch her books and spend a few precious minutes with her friends. On the downside, she was a bundle of stress, nervous energy, and panic, and hanging around outside the exam room had to be the least fun anyone could have with their mates.
Next to her, Meg dropped her lucky ballpoint, swore, bent over to pick it up, and got flustered for an entirely different reason: Tim wolf-whistled.
Meg straightened. Her cheeks flamed but she brazened out her discomfort. She struck an exaggerated pose, hips out and spine twisted in a way that would have pained anyone less limber, formed her lips into a pout, and cooed, “Like what you see, do you?”
Nessa and the rest of the crowd, including Tim, laughed. For a fraction of a second, the pre-exam tension eased.
Meg was Nessa’s best friend. She had red hair, which almost touched her shoulders. It was unfashionably curly and had volume and body, and Nessa envied the way it looked great, no matter how little effort Meg put into styling it. Meg didn’t bother much with make-up either. All throughout puberty, her skin had remained enviably acne free and smooth, and she wore her freckles with pride.
Like Nessa, Meg was also stressing. Nessa could tell by the way Meg was bouncing on the balls of her feet.
If Tim—tall, devil-may-care, and an extrovert—was nervous, he hid it well, and better than his best friend, Tarone, who looked as though he might pass out at any moment. Not surprising, given he was about to sit an art history paper. When it came to the practical side of his favourite subject, Tarone was a force to be reckoned with, but his creativity was offset by his performance at anything more academic. Writing essays was not his strong suit.
Tarone was tall, had brown skin, and almost-black hair. He had caused a minor stir a couple of years before, when in a relationships-and-sex-education class, he had mentioned his dad was transitioning, and he now had two mums. Possibly the stir would have been greater had the lesson not been online in the middle of an English lockdown.
Tarone was fiercely proud of and loyal to both his mums, and they to each other. When the school restarted face-to-face teaching, he’d returned to lessons with a trans ally pin on his lapel, which the teachers told him to remove. Begrudgingly, he had done so, but he made up for his loss by putting an ally sticker on the lid of his laptop where everyone could see it and the teachers couldn’t argue he was violating the dress code.
Nessa not only admired him. She liked him. A lot.
As a friend.
*
Moira parked on her favourite side street and walked the few hundred yards to the craft shop, on the way dodging around roadworks and nipping into a bakery for a bacon roll and a takeout coffee.
In a desperate attempt to lure people into the town centre, money had been, and was still being, poured into efforts to improve the public realm, even though it was too late to save a lot of things. Some stores had closed entirely. Others had downsized. Moira had read that, in big cities, offices now encroached on areas where retail had once reigned supreme. There wasn’t the same demand for offices in Oban, so some retail spaces were being converted to holiday apartments instead.
The onslaught of change was ongoing, and several high-profile buildings remained empty, caught in the limbo between a glorious past and a yet to be determined future.
No doubt, in ten, twenty, thirty years, commentators would say the pandemic had been a watershed, but, in reality, change had set in years earlier. All Covid had done was accelerate the demise of the nation’s high streets.
Juggling her second breakfast, Moira got the key out of its key safe, opened the front door, and disabled the alarm. She was hit by a strong smell of banana, telling her the bin hadn’t been emptied the night before.
When had the shop switched from being a joy to a chore?
The last Friday in every month, Moira went into the shop she managed on behalf of a craft co-operative. Following a day spent behind the counter, she would hold a meeting with the other crafters. In theory, the meetings improved team dynamics by giving everyone quality face time together. In practice, judging by the number of people who found excuses not to attend, Moira wasn’t alone in thinking they were a pain in the backside.
During the pandemic, amidst its lockdowns and restrictions, Moira had seen the shop through a haze of rose-tinted nostalgia. She’d forgotten the everyday battles involved in covering shifts and getting other co-op members to pull their weight. She’d looked forwards to returning to the shop; she’d been excited at the idea of seeing people again and of business returning to normal.
But getting back to normal brought its own challenges.
Normal meant people shirking their shifts, not cleaning at the end of the day, missing meetings, and taking everything she did for granted. All the things that had niggled before, but which she’d forgotten during the Covid crisis, had resurfaced to torment her.
*
Friday morning’s exam over, Nessa sought Meg out. Together they ate their lunches picnic-style, sitting on top of the wall that flanked the steps leading to the school chapel. A quartet of Year 10s sat on the wall opposite them, content to be ignored, and ignoring the two Year 12s in return. On fine days, like today, the wall was a good place to hang out, legs dangling, and watch the world go by.
“They moved into the new house a few days ago.” Nessa pulled a prawn cocktail crisp out of its packet. She eyed it dubiously. What gave it its lurid colour and strong flavour? She read the list of ingredients on the packet and frowned: what was prawn cocktail seasoning made of? Shellfish wasn’t listed under the allergy advice warnings, so not prawns.
Maybe she’d look it up later as a break from revising.
Meg swallowed a mouthful of sandwich. “You still wish you’d gone with them?”
Nessa didn’t answer directly. Instead, she said, “I know it makes sense for me to finish school here, but it’s going to be weird at the end of term, going to a house I’ve never seen. And I never got to see all our stuff being packed.” She hadn’t got to say a proper goodbye to the house she’d grown up in.
St Drogo’s, named for the patron saint of shepherds, coffee, and unattractive people, was a public school. About two-thirds of St Drogo’s pupils attended the school on a daily basis; the remainder boarded.
Like most public schools, St Drogo’s worked on a system wherein each student was allocated to a house, which they usually stayed in throughout their time there.
The houses had once been named after alumni, but a recent review of the alumni’s accomplishments had suggested they should not be celebrated in a woke world. Had some of them been statues, the more idealistic students would have taken great pride in defacing them or upending them in one of the school’s ponds.
The idea to rename the day houses after mammals and the boarding houses after birds of prey had been intended to rob them of uncomfortable political baggage. Unfortunately, the new names came with baggage of their own.
Nessa had started out as a day pupil, but two months ago, because of the impending house move, she had switched to boarding. Although Nessa had known the adjustment would not be easy, it had proved harder than expected.
Nessa had had to change houses. She had moved from Beaver, a name which was supposed to evoke ideas of studious students eagerly toiling away but which, unfortunately, led to any number of crude jokes that had nothing to do with academic accomplishment, to Hobby, which rhymed with jobbie. The move meant she no longer had close contact with the peer group she’d come through the school with. Boarding also made it harder to hang out with Meg. Getting together at the weekends now required permission forms signed in triplicate for sleepovers.
“But you’ve settled in okay, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Nessa had been lucky; she’d been given a small room to herself. She’d feared her new housemates might have been jealous or resentful, but they didn’t seem bothered. Those students who shared had long since learned to accept their domestic arrangements and had no wish to disturb the status quo, and some of them, like Dinah and Dhriti, were happily inseparable.
Nessa, who had always had a room of her own at home, hoped she would be lucky again, come September, but she’d been warned the odds weren’t in her favour. If she had to share, she hoped she and whoever she found herself with would get along.
Moving into the boarding house had been stressful, and she’d barely had time to get used to it before she’d been faced with the added stress of exams. Her mind drifted to the morning’s paper. She felt sick. She was sure she’d got question three wrong and she’d managed her time so badly she’d left the last two questions undone.
Appetite lost, she put the crisps aside and left her sandwich in its wrapping. Even if the results of these exams didn’t count towards her A levels, they were still important. Her predicted A level grades would be based on her performance, and the predictions would influence whether she got accepted into her preferred university. She couldn’t afford to make a mess of another paper.
“Only a few more weeks of term,” said Meg, oblivious to Nessa’s inner turmoil. “Then you’ll see what the house is like.”
“I guess. But I’m not going to know anyone there.” The family had relocated to the west coast of Scotland, to a place with a name Nessa could barely pronounce.
“That’s what the internet’s for, right?” Meg nudged her. “I’m only ever a connection away. And you’ll get to drive!”
Nessa smiled. “At last!” She planned to take her theory test as soon as possible, maybe even on her birthday, and she was looking forwards to getting behind the wheel. “Hopefully I’ll be fully licensed by the autumn.”
“And I’ll be getting my own car soon.”
Meg, one of the oldest in the year, would turn eighteen in September, and her parents had promised her a car. Even if she didn’t get the shiny red vehicle she’d been dropping hints about ever since her seventeenth birthday, Meg would have wheels. It was cool to know how to drive. Cooler to have access to a car. Coolest to have a car of your own. Meg had been using her mum’s car to drive herself to and from school ever since she’d passed her test, saving her parents twenty-mile round trips twice a day from their farm, which was in the local hills. The novelty of driving herself had yet to wear off.
“Hello, Nessa.” Ms Breckenridge waved perfunctorily as she trotted past.
“What’m I? Chopped liver?” muttered Meg, who hated being overlooked by anyone, even a teacher.
“Don’t take it personally. She’s my Head of House. She has to say hello to me.”
Ms Breckenridge passed through the school entrance and came to a halt on the pavement beyond, where she glanced at her watch.
She was too far away for Nessa to be sure, but Nessa suspected Ms Breckenridge might be tutting impatiently. “What’s she doing?”
Nessa didn’t have to wait long to find out. An estate car pulled up on the zigzag keep-clear markings, and a lanky boy unfolded himself from the front passenger seat.
“Is that—?”
“—Thomas Mitchum,” finished Meg. “St Drogo’s very own bad boy.”
“Didn’t he get expelled?”
Thomas had been done for possession during a police raid on a club two towns over, and the school had a zero-tolerance policy when it came to drugs.
“According to Dad, the school couldn’t expel him, no matter how much the Head wanted to. It’s not like he was caught on school premises, and he’s a day pupil, so he wasn’t under the school’s care when he got caught. Dad says the Head and his parents came to an agreement. Thomas was told not to come to lessons, but as most of them had finished by the time he was caught, that’s not much of a loss. And he’s allowed on the grounds so he can sit his exams; however, he has to be accompanied at all times.”
Ms Breckenridge retraced her path, this time with Thomas trailing after her, slouching and with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. She acknowledged the girls but didn’t say anything this time. Thomas ignored them entirely.
“Do you think he’s making a point, wearing those clothes?”
“The marijuana leaf motif on the T-shirt? I’d say so.”
“Pillock!”
A group of townies shambling along South Road paused long enough to point at the “posh kids”. Nessa and Meg caught their eyes and stared until the townies looked away and walked on.
“Was that Jez?” asked Nessa incredulously.
Nessa, Meg, and Jez had all gone to Tovington Primary School, although they hadn’t been in the same class.
“Yep!”
“Wow. He’s changed.”
“I know! He’s fit! Never saw that coming when we were ten!”
Nessa reflected for a moment. “We’ve changed too.” It had happened gradually, and they saw each other so often, it had barely registered. But, yes, they were taller and had gone through the rights of passage of braces and training bras. Their bodies had shifted from childhood androgyny to obviously female.
“Don’t you think he’s gorgeous though?”
Nessa glanced at Meg, whose countenance had taken on a dreamy, besotted appearance. She quirked an eyebrow. “He’s okay, I suppose.”
“You suppose! You need to get your eyes tested if you think he’s only okay.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my eyes, thank you very much.” But she couldn’t see what Meg was making so much fuss about. The boy was tall and built and good looking, but so what? That was true of lots of boys, and she had never found one who affected her the way this one, or Kai, the crush of Meg’s life, affected Meg.
For a long time, Nessa had feared she was a late developer. Now she knew her interests lay in a different direction, although she had yet to admit it to anyone other than herself.
One day soon, after their exams were over, she would confide in Meg.
Meg clicked her sandwich box shut, shoved it into her backpack, stood, and dusted off her skirt. “French exam on Monday. I guess I’d better get cramming.”
“Me too. I’ve got my next chemistry paper on Wednesday, and I can’t afford to mess up again.”
As Meg hoisted her backpack over her shoulder, her sandwich box popped out and landed on the ground. Nessa picked it up and handed it to her. “What is it with you and dropping things?”
Meg returned the sandwich box to her backpack, which she didn’t bother to fasten. “To the library?”
“The library,” Nessa agreed.
*
Emily dropped by the shop before closing time. She was one of Moira’s favourite crafters: young, enthusiastic, creative, and didn’t take her crafting too seriously. Unlike most of the others, Emily had a day job; for her, crafting was a side hustle, something she did for pleasure and pin money in equal measure. She was always willing to lend a hand, and she helped Moira prepare for closing by bringing in the sandwich boards and vacuuming the floor while Moira balanced the till.
Emily had a thing for rainbows. They’d always been good sellers, but during Covid, rainbows had surged in popularity as they became a symbol of support for the NHS. Moira had bought one and put it in her front window, not that anyone other than the postman saw it so far up the glen.
It had taken Moira an embarrassingly long time to figure out Emily didn’t draw rainbows because they were pretty but because they were a political statement, a symbol of pride. Once she’d figured it out, she joined in Emily’s quiet amusement that people were buying the message unawares.
Moira had just finished cashing up when her mobile rang. She glanced at the screen, expecting the call to be one of the crafters explaining they were running late, had got caught up in something else, or were not coming to the evening meeting at all.
To her surprise, it was someone else entirely.
She answered the call. “Gareth? What’s up?”
“What makes you think anything is up?”
“It’s not year end, so you can’t be phoning about royalties, and you never phone for a casual chat, so…”
“Okay. You got me.” He hesitated, and Moira drew no comfort from the length of the pause. “I’ve got a proposition.”
“What kind of proposition?”
“It’s a TV show. The Cats’ Meow.”
“Sounds ghastly. The answer is no.” She always said no.
“At least hear me out.”
“It won’t matter what you say, and this way saves us both time.”
“Humour me.”
Moira huffed, a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “Go on. Give me your pitch.”
“Hour-long, Saturday night, prime time. It’s a feel-good 1920s flapper-themed competition in which pop singers, cool cats, perform jazz versions of their songs, and a panel of judges made up of professional musicians and comedians give their opinions on the performances. And, of course, there will be a public vote to see who carries on to the following week’s programme.”
“Of course,” murmured Moira. The format was tried and true, and it was one she hated with every fibre of her being.
“There will be dedicated hashtags for social media, an official Yapper account, and a ViewHoo channel. Plus, there’ll be payment for all participants. So what do you think?”
“Like I said, it sounds ghastly, and now you’ve explained it to me, my answer is even more of a no than before.”
“One day I’ll have something that will change your stubborn mind.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
“I won’t. And I admit this one plumbs new depths of horrible, but I had to ask.”
“Good grief! It must be awful if you’re saying that!” She paused for a moment before she asked, sombre again. “Does Nikki know about this one?”
“Yeah. The producers want her for a judge.”
“And?”
“Her manager thinks she can be persuaded.”
“Why?”
“She’s going through a slump. And she’s desperate.”
“You know she’s more likely to agree if I’m not involved.”
“Maybe, maybe not. The thing is, the producers want you both. They think it could be a ratings winner if you two are pitched against each other. Hence my having to ask.”
“So, if I say no, I’m the bad guy.”
“Moira…”
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re not wrong.”
“The answer’s still no.”
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