Julia Romp - A Friend Like Ben: The cat that came home for Christmas

For George, who opened my eyes to your world and what a
wonderful place it can be, and in loving memory of my dad
Colin, who gave me the laughter that I try to
pass on to George every day.

When it came to first impressions, Ben didnt exactly shine. He wasnt a small, pretty kitten with a blaze of ginger hair or even a sleek adult cat with a shining tortoiseshell coat. In fact, his black and white fur was covered in dried blood, his red rump was completely bare and his thin tail looked more like a hairy twig. Thankfully, I couldnt tell by looking at him that he was also home to scores of fleas and ear mites.

But as off-putting as he looked, when the sickly stray started visiting my garden I left out food, because Ive always been soft when it comes to animals. Even my pet rabbit Fluffy lives in a shed that I painted with bright flowers its like the Ritz for rabbits so I made up a bed for the cat in a carrier, which I left in the shed, hoping it would sleep there. The stray was looking worse each day and, I thought, once it felt at home in the carrier, Id shut the door and take it to the vet.

Please let him be sleeping, Id think each morning as I walked up the garden with my 10-year-old son, George, to check if the food had been eaten or whether the blanket had been disturbed.

Together wed peer into the back of the dark shed and see the cats eyes peeping out at us. They were light, acid green, like the first leaves on a lime tree in spring, and every time I saw them, they stopped me in my tracks for just a moment. But although the cat was sometimes sitting on a shelf or sometimes next to a flowerpot, it was never in the cage.

Boo! George would say as he tried to play hide and seek with the cat whenever we went to see it, and I was glad because he didnt often play games with anyone.

Autism made Georges world a very lonely place at times and other children found him almost as inexplicable as he found them. They were afraid of the rage which burst out of him in screams and shouts, while he was just as frightened by the noises they made and the way they jostled him in the school corridor. Thats why it was good to see George take an interest in the cat, even though the cat didnt take an interest back. Whenever George or I went too near it, the cat would hiss and spit, its teeth bared and fur coat springing to attention. It obviously didnt want anything to do with either of us.

But time and good food can do powerful things to animals, just like they can to people. Slowly the stray got comfortable enough to start sleeping in the carrier bed, and after another few more weeks, I managed to shut the door with a broom handle.

When I took the cat to the vet, I explained that I wasnt its official owner and left the cat in their care, telling myself my job was done. Id put up posters in the local area with a picture of the stray, and if anyone came forward, I would put them in touch with the vet. But no one did, and a few weeks later came the call Id been secretly dreading.

Would you give the cat a home? the vet asked, and I didnt know what to say. Now, if you knew me, youd know how unusual that is. My mum says the phrase talk the hind legs off a donkey was invented for me and shes right. But I was lost for words when the vet asked me about the cat, because on the one hand I loved animals, and on the other Id vowed never to have a cat because my childhood home had been so full of them that there was hardly space for me. Besides, although George had seemed interested in the stray, we hadnt had much success with animals, because he found it hard to bond with anything. Polly the budgie had had to be rehomed because its noise disturbed George, and hed quickly lost interest in Fluffy the rabbit. It wasnt his fault. George just didnt connect with things the way other children did however much I wished he would and I didnt want to take on anything else, because it was such a full-time job looking after him.

But as I hesitated, the vet suggested that maybe we could just pay the cat a visit.

He seems sad, he said. I think hed like to see a friendly face.

What could I do? My heart won over my head and I took George to the vets, where we saw a familiar ball of black and white fur curled up in a cage. Then it stood up, and I saw that the cat had a huge shaved patch on its stomach and a plastic collar around its neck to stop it worrying its stitches. It looked even uglier than it had before, but that didnt seem to put George off in the slightest as he knelt down beside the cage.

Benny Boo! he said in a high voice Id never heard before, sounding expectant, excited.

Is you feeling better now, Ben? George asked. Is you well? Again, he spoke in a sing-song voice I didnt recognise, and the cat miaowed back as he talked to it.

I think he likes you, the veterinary nurse whod shown us into the room said with a smile.

George immediately went silent. He didnt like talking to anyone, let alone strangers, and he couldnt look people in the eye if they tried to speak to him; instead he stared silently past them at something in the distance, anywhere other than in their eyes. But as soon as the nurse busied herself with something else and George knew he wasnt being watched, he bent down to the cage once again.

Benny Boo! he said in his high voice. Is your tummy hurting?

He pressed his face even closer to the bars of the cage and I started moving forward, sure that the cat would claw at him through the bars, just as it had whenever wed gone to see it in the shed. But then I stopped because, as the cat looked solemnly at George, it stepped carefully forward before turning its body against the length of the cage and rubbing up against the bars. Where had the hissing, spitting, cat we knew so well gone? I thought I was seeing things. Then I decided I was hearing them when the stray started making a throaty, rolling purr as it moved in time with the words George was speaking to it.

Ben, Ben! he chanted. Is you well now? Is you well?

The cat sniffed the air and George bent down even closer to it. As his head drew level with the cats, it looked him square in the eyes and I was sure he would turn away. But George didnt. Instead of staring past the cat or hanging his head, he stared right back at the cat. The two of them did not break eye contact for a second as George carried on talking softly. I held my breath, looking at the two of them in shock: George talking to the cat and smiling as though it was something he did every day, the cat staring back with its green eyes full of something I can only describe as acceptance. It looked like an old soul whos seen it all and is surprised by nothing.

Well, I knew what I had to do, didnt I? Like they say, hope springs eternal. I didnt know why George liked the cat maybe it was just a moment in one day or maybe it was the fact that he knew the world would have a hard time accepting the strange-looking animal, just as it did him. But Id seen a glimmer of something that Id spent Georges whole lifetime longing to see him show another living thing: love. And the cat seemed to feel just as strongly about him. That was enough for me. All I hoped back then was that the cat might become a friend for George. What I could never have known was that it would change our lives forever in more ways than I could have ever thought possible.

London is a global city, but it can still be very small if you are born and brought up there. Away from the royal palaces and parks, sky scrapers and museums, red buses hooting around corners and pedestrians jostling for space on busy streets, are places where you know your neighbours and where the streets you walked on as a child dont look so very different when you finally grow up. Thats the kind of place I was born in: one of Londons western outer boroughs called Hounslow, where families who had been there for generations mixed with others whod arrived more recently and where everyone knew each other by sight at least, if not from a chat over the garden fence.