The Epic Tale of the Car Park Cat (or, Cat Among the Peugeots)

I don't go looking for cats to rescue. They just seem to find me.

It is an odd gravitational phenomenon.

One Saturday afternoon, I went shopping with my boyfriend. (It was fun. I bought exciting things, like shoes.)

We'd gone to a big shopping park near the motorway. The shopping park is called Fosse Park and it is surrounded by fields. There aren't any houses for miles.

So you can imagine my surprise when, walking back to the car, I saw a fluffy white cat sitting next to someone's Landrover. I did a double take. Yep, definitely a cat, albeit a slightly confused one. It did not have the look of a creature that regularly spent its spare time in the company of Landrovers.

"Um," I said.
"Um?" my boyfriend said, getting that worried look he gets when I have an Idea.
"There's a cat under that car," I said.
"A cat? Here? Don't be - Oh."

And there he was.

On closer inspection, he was a bit of a mess. He was thin with a bent tail - Tail would have been appalled at such disregard for his finest appendage - and his miaow was all croaky.

We decided to help him.

Helping him, of course, meant catching him.

This was easier said than done.

The car park was full of nice car-shaped places to hide. Every time we got near to him, he darted out from the other side of whatever vehicle he was tickling the undercarriage of.

I kept worrying he might run in front of a moving car, so I ran after him.

Before long, we were chasing him up and down the rows of cars. There were hundreds of them.

Of course, from the path next to the shops you couldn't see the cat. People stopped to gawp at the two weirdos apparently doing marathon practice around the car park. Honestly! Young people these days. We weren't even wearing tracksuits.

It wasn't working, anyway. The cat didn't seem to be getting tired, but we were. We needed a strategy.

We started trying to head him off. I would herd him towards a car and my boyfriend would go round the other side to intercept him. It was an excellent idea. But it failed miserably.

By this time, we were closer to the shops and a few passers-by started to notice what was going on.

"You shouldn't bring your cat to a place like this," one woman tutted.
"He's not my cat," I said.
"You STOLE him?" shrieked the woman, her hands flying to her face.

It wasn't worth explaining.

"I see you have a cat there," another girl said.
"Yes, we're trying to catch him," I said.
"I have a cat too," the girl said helpfully, and wandered off.

It was beginning to get dark. Once the shops closed and they switched off the lights, we'd have no chance.

I remembered I had some cat treats in the car (you never know when you might need some), so I went and fetched them. We started laying trails to try to entice the cat away from the road.

"Look at those idiots trying to feed the cars," I heard one lady mutter to her friend as they walked by.

I was close to giving up.

Just then, a member of security staff appeared. He had probably received reports of crazed marathon-running car feeders alarming his customers.

"Excuse me," I said, "But we're trying to catch this cat. Can you help?"
"Ah, you shouldn't bring your cat to a shopping park," the security man said.
"He's not my cat," I said wearily.
"Well, you shouldn't bring anyone else's cat here either," the man said, but he agreed to help.

The cat was under a nearby car. You could see his tail poking out.

I bent down and tried to grab him, but he shuffled just out of reach.

We were contemplating the best approach when two worried-looking ladies came over.
"I'm sorry, but I think there's a cat under this car," said the one in the blue jacket.
"A white one," added her friend, who was wearing a purple poncho.

I explained that we had spent the best part of two hours trying to catch it.

"Well that's very good of you," said Purple Poncho Lady, "Can we help?"

The security man, Purple Poncho Lady, Blue Jacket Lady, my boyfriend and I were all wriggling under the car when we heard someone clear his throat.

"Excuse me," a voice said, "But if you're trying to steal my car, you're not doing a very good job of it."

You had to laugh.

"There's a cat under your car," I mumbled from somewhere near the exhaust pipe, "And we're trying to get it out."

To his credit, the man immediately understood the problem and went round to the other end of the car to assist.

Between the six of us, we managed to get a hold of the cat and haul him out.

A great cheer went up from the crowd of people who had gathered unnoticed and were now surrounding the car.

"Now what?" I said, after taking a small bow.
My boyfriend wrapped the cat in his jumper. "Well, he can't live with us. Tail would eat him alive, and if that didn't do for him, Mouth's drool would finish him off," he said. "I think we'd better take him to a vet."

We put the cat in my car. He looked a bit dazed.

We tried our vet. We tried another vet. We even tried a local pet shop with a microchip scanner. Nowhere was open at 8pm on a Saturday night.

"I guess he's coming home with us," I said.

When we got back to our flat, the cat promptly made himself at home in the bathroom sink.

There were worse places, so we left him there while we had dinner.

When I went to check on him, he was fast asleep.

We took him to our local rescue shelter in the morning. I told the lady his story, but she didn't seem to be listening. I don't know if she believed us.

A few weeks later, I was passing by the rescue shelter, so I nipped in.

"I was just wondering what happened to the cat I brought in?" I asked the lady on reception.
"Which cat? We have a lot of cats here," the lady snapped.
"The white one with the bent tail. We found him at -"
"Oh, the one from Fosse Park! Why didn't you say!" cried the lady, her face breaking into a smile. "He was famous, he was. We don't get many all-white cats come in."

"Is he still here?" I said.
"Oh no," the lady said. "He's gone to a lovely new home. He's living in the lap of luxury now. They've called him Fosse."

Well, you can't beat a happy ending.

I just hope he uses his remaining eight lives wisely.

And confines his cargazing to the driveway.