It had been okay in my twenties, but I just couldn’t shake off the hangovers like I used to.ĭelilah began squirming uneasily in my arms, digging her claws into my forearm, and I let her go while I reached for my dressing gown and belted it around myself. I really needed to stop drinking midweek. The headache had started to set in on the journey home, and now that my panic was wearing off, I could feel it starting up again in the base of my skull. To be honest, everything from the tube station onwards was a bit of a blur.

I didn’t remember closing my bedroom door, but I might have swung it absently shut behind me when I came in. I sat, frozen, holding Delilah’s warm, panting body against my chest and trying to listen.Īnd then, with a gush of relief, it occurred to me-she’d probably been hiding under my bed and I’d shut her inside with me when I came home. There was no way Delilah could have shut herself inside. But my bedroom door opened outward-a quirk of the weird layout of my flat. I might well have forgotten to shut the kitchen door, or I could even have knocked it to without closing it properly. I sat up, my heart suddenly thumping, and Delilah leaped onto my bed with a glad little chirrup, but I snatched her to my chest, stilling her movements, listening. She thumped to the floor with an indignant little meep and I pulled the duvet over my head, but even through the covers I could hear her scratching at the bottom of the door, rattling it in its frame.

I tried to bury my face in the pillow but she continued rubbing herself against my ear, and eventually I rolled over and heartlessly pushed her off the bed. Delilah mewed and butted me with her head. I must have forgotten to shut the kitchen door last night. The first inkling that something was wrong was waking in darkness to find the cat pawing at my face.

The woman in cabin 10 blurb