A CAT CALLED MERLOT

Thursday 17th December 2020

Queenie purchased a Christmas tree-with-a-root on Saturday. Her plan was to plant it in the back garden, after Christmas. It was bigger than last year and Marcus from Number 18 helped her indoors with it, groaning at the weight, from behind his mask. When it was unwrapped, It looked like a good climbing tree, with nice, evenly spaced branches. Once in situ, she spent a couple of hours hanging things off it with one hand, while having a conversation with her friend Michelle while holding her mobile, with the other. Marjorie and I watched from the back of the armchair and agreed if Queenie had been concentrating harder, the tree could have looked better. So, when she went out for a walk with an ‘internet friend’ who was a definite contender post-lockdown, as he presented as ‘sane, solvent, smart and single’, we took all the baubles off the tree to give her a second run at decorating it properly, when she got home. When she arrived back, in a bad mood, to find all the decorations scattered around the flat and the tree at a jaunty angle, she wasn’t best pleased so we made a swift exit through the cat flap and went to see Oliver and Amelia at Number 36. 

As it happened, they were busy making their own decorations under the guidance of their mother, Saffron. Their ‘tree’ was fashioned from a town ‘litter pick’ which according to Saffron, would concentrate the mind about waste, whenever the family looked at it. Dad, Luke went ‘for a run’ to escape the craft morning and tuck into a crafty Full English breakfast, fashioned from saturated fats, at a backstreet cafe, where he was unlikely to be recognised. Marjorie and I were allowed to sit at the table and watch the painting of plastic bottles and fixing of reclaimed fishing net to make baubles from discarded Special Brew cans and empty cigarette packets. As our input was not required, we departed and went to share Alfred’s lunch at Number 16. 

Earlier in the week, Jeff called Saffron and enlisted Oliver and Amelia to help with the forthcoming TARTS (The Avenue Residents’ Theatre Society) performance in the garden at The Last Gasp Residential Home. He thought if he had a couple of decoy children dressed as elves, ‘waving sweetly’ to the elderly residents, it might distract from the truly atrocious singing from the handful of tone-deaf choir members. Perhaps predictably, the plan didn’t work. On Tuesday the six performed Silent Night to the sound of an elderly man shouting at a nurse that elves were in the garden stealing from the shed. This was accompanied by a lady resident relentlessly getting out of her seat, attempting to close the patio windows to the residents’ lounge while complaining the racket outside was stopping her watching Eastenders.

On Sunday, Judith came home from hospital. Wendy (Number 27) did a shop for her and Martha, Hector’s wife cooked a Caribbean version of casserole. Marjorie and I felt sad we wouldn’t be living together any more but were comforted in the knowledge that we could see each other whenever we wanted. Judith and Queenie agreed both cat flaps would be programmed to allow us to go in and out of our respective houses so we could hang out together. I was therefore shoved through Marjorie’s cat flap to allow it to read my ‘chip’. I learned to tolerate this indignity when I first arrived at Queenie’s. I’d used cat flaps before I ended up homeless but I’ve never really liked them. I prefer to have doors opened for me when I ask and to this end, I did put ‘Full-time Commissionaire’ on my Christmas list. When Judith saw Marjorie, she cried with joy which made me feel emotional and suddenly a bit anxious how I’d be if Queenie wasn’t around, so I turned nonchalantly away and helped myself to a festive biscuit from Marjorie’s food bowl. 

Thank you so much for reading my diary. Have a lovely, safe Christmas and I hope you’ll visit me again in the New Year! Love Merlot xx