Paw Prints in the Moonlight (7 page)

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Authors: Denis O'Connor

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The college where I worked was housed in a medieval castle owned by the Duke of Northumberland. The castle was situated in the town of Alnwick, often described as the Windsor of the North, whose feudal walls were surrounded by trees and fields that extended all the way to the farmsteads around my cottage. The quintessential rural landscape in which I found myself living was both a balm to my jaded spirit and a boost to my freshly awakened senses. It made for an improved and healthier quality of life. Even the air was sweet and full of the fresh aroma of flowers and woodland herbs. When the wind blew easterly the tang of the sea could be scented in the garden. Toby Jug's first experience of the outdoors reawakened me to the sights and scents of the
natural surroundings as I witnessed his rapturous response to the garden.
 
When I first took Toby Jug out into the garden, I rested his jug on a flat stone on the wall fronting the rose garden and sat close by to watch his reactions. The effect upon him was beyond my expectation and showed something of the tough personality he possessed. Instead of cowering in the bottom of his jug, as I anticipated, he stood on his hind legs with forepaws pressed against the side of his jug and gaped at what was for him a whole new world. His small eyes bulged with excitement, his tiny head pivoted all around trying to encompass these new sights and his firm little tail wagged feverishly with the inevitable result that he suddenly fell and rolled over on his cotton-wool bed. Scrambling up on all fours he began to dash around his jug, frequently bumping his head in his eagerness to see everything. Finally realizing that I was at hand, he rushed to the side of the jug where he could catch my attention and whined piteously. He was obviously desperate to be let out. So despite my fears, I lifted him out of his jug and plonked him on the grass.
The experience momentarily paralysed him with excitement as he became aware of the smells of the garden at first hand. With eyes half-closed and nostrils quivering he looked to be in a state of pure ecstasy. Then, as he
realized the immensity of space around and above him, his body began to tremble and shake all over. This situation lasted for several minutes before, at last, summoning up all his courage, he moved forward with exaggerated caution and deliberation. Moving only a few steps at a time and then halting to sniff the air, he proceeded as if he was stalking some huge and dangerous prey. After a while his movements ceased altogether and he lay down totally exhausted by his efforts. I guessed that the experience was proving too much for him. Tenderly scooping up the tired kitten, I laid him back in his jug whereupon he curled himself around as cats do and fell fast asleep. Toby Jug had made his first venture into the great wide world. He was no doubt now dreaming about his adventures, judging from the way his sleeping body gave occasional tremors, punctuated by squeaks, as if he was reliving the whole episode over and over again.
I decided to give him time to digest his encounter with the garden. There was a problem in that, for his own safety, I couldn't leave him out of his jug unless I could remain present. However, if I left him in the jug for security then he would not be able to see things clearly because of the distortion caused by the curvature of the glass and this would only increase his distress. Eventually, I remembered an old birdcage in the garage, left behind by the previous occupants of the cottage. I wondered if this might be the
answer. With some difficulty I retrieved it from where it hung beneath a dusty beam. After cleaning it out I tried him inside. It seemed to solve the problem admirably, at least for the time-being. Far from objecting to this indignity, Toby Jug seemed very much at home in his cage and explored it with great curiosity.
The next day was sunny and mild so I thought I would try him in the cage on an upstairs window sill with the window open. From this position he was able to see the entire garden. He became very excited and agitated by the small songbirds whizzing between the trees. After a few days I felt confident that he could cope with the garden at first hand and with his usual affable approach to life he really began to enjoy the experience safe within the confines of the cage, which I moved around periodically on the patio so that he could have a different view of his world. This was also a secure way of familiarizing him with the garden in preparation for the time when he could wander at will.
Meanwhile, I was free to do some minor gardening jobs. As long as Toby could see me he was content but if he lost sight of me he would panic and cry out until we were reunited. Needless to say, on many occasions I got very little gardening done.
Fresh, sunny, spring days and chilly nights eventually gave way to mostly wet summer days and not so chilly nights. Toby Jug grew in size and gained in health. At long
last I was able to dispense not only with his protective cage but also with the jug. It was clear that Toby would always be small in comparison with other cats but, considering what he was like when I rescued him, the change was gargantuan.
There remained, however, the problem of safety. How freely was I prepared to allow Toby to wander now that he had graduated from the protective environments of both the jug and the birdcage? I concluded that there would have to be limits imposed until he was mature enough to care for himself outdoors. The solution lay in buying him a harness.
One day I took Toby Jug with me to a local pet shop. The shopkeeper offered various harnesses for cats and rabbits which were far too large for Toby's small frame. The man, in his late sixties, was anxious to please and seemed both challenged and amused by the problem of getting a harness to fit Toby Jug. After desperately searching his mind, with a great deal of head-scratching, he recalled having specially adapted a fabric harness for his daughter's guinea pig which she had always insisted on taking with her when they went caravanning in the summer holidays. This sounded more hopeful. The only problem with this solution was that his daughter was now in her twenties and the guinea pig long gone. He was hopeful that she might have kept the harness for sentimental reasons because she had been inconsolable when her guinea pig had died and she was an inveterate hoarder. He promised to check with his wife and daughter
that night and made a note to remind himself. I thanked him and promised to call the next day.
In fact, several days passed before I had time to call at the shop again although I wasn't really expecting anything to come of it. Meanwhile, Toby had to be confined to barracks. When I called again I took Toby Jug with me and the shopkeeper's eyes lit up when he saw us. He gleefully produced a small, brown, worn harness which he held aloft in triumph. It would be a perfect fit for the little cat he said, grinning from ear to ear, and so it proved. He was very pleased to have solved the problem and refused to accept any payment. I was delighted with the harness and Toby seemed very comfortable wearing it. Thanking him profusely I nonetheless bought a week's supply of cat food from the shopkeeper which I anticipated Toby Jug might eat someday when he grew out of his present addiction to canned baby food. I suppose I was spoiling him rotten but then I thought he deserved it and it pleased me to do so.
When I got home I again tried the harness on Toby Jug and it fitted perfectly, just as it had done in the shop, although Toby wasn't too sure about wearing it now that the novelty had worn off. Next, I measured out a length of twine which allowed Toby to range freely on his own. Attaching this to his harness and securing the other end to the leg of an iron garden chair, I set him free. He didn't move much at first and kept looking up at me to see what
was required of him but eventually his attention was taken by some flying insects and he became engrossed. Now I could happily leave him for a while and get on with my jobs. This arrangement proved to be satisfactory as long as I remembered from time to time to change the place where I had tethered him.
For the most part Toby Jug was content to lie in the shade of a bush and watch the world of the garden go by, especially birds and butterflies. Occasionally, he would rouse himself to pounce on a fly which he then ate, quite a change from baby food. He seemed to appreciate the sights, sounds and the mysterious scents around him. I think it all unnerved him at times and he needed space to adapt. He always acted relieved when I untethered him and brought him back inside the cottage where he would start playing about more confidently in his familiar surroundings. Toby Jug was at heart a lap cat and at this stage content to be a house cat – a ‘homebird' as the saying goes.
I recall one day buying some liquorice from the village shop and noting that Mrs Brown gave it to me in a white paper bag reminiscent of those used in the old-fashioned sweet shops of my schooldays. I was working at my desk and it so happened that just as I finished the last bit of liquorice Toby, who was then about twelve weeks old, was trying to clamber up my sweater. On a sudden impulse, more for amusement than anything else, I popped him into the sweet
bag. Far from struggling to get out, he snuggled down and rested quite happily, with the paper bag wrapped around him and his diminutive, grizzled face peeping out of the top of the packet.
My enduring images of him at that early stage of his life are best described by words such as tiny, little, small, diminutive and so on. But for all that he had a strong body and a personality brimming with energy and curiosity as well as a huge capacity for affection. In addition, he had developed a deep-rooted attachment to me. To Toby Jug I was family and to me he was more than a cat. To me animals have unique personalities in the same way as people do. I have known budgerigars, cats, dogs and horses, each with their very own characteristics and personal ways of behaving which rendered them special, just like people. The cats in my life have all played an important part, helping me to understand the phenomena of animal behaviour and to realize that each of them is entitled to a life of their own. At a dinner party one evening I remember how I astonished a senior medical research scientist by asking him if he had ever considered, with regard to the cats and dogs he used in his vivisection experiments, that their lives were as important to them as his own life was to him.
 
My life with Toby Jug began to follow a routine that started at breakfast time, which he greeted with tremendous
enthusiasm. It was the start of a new day and a fresh opportunity for him to savour life to the full. Apart from holidays and most weekends, breakfast tended to be a rushed affair because I usually needed to leave for work at about 7.30 a.m. Once we were downstairs Toby Jug insisted on being served immediately. He was always ravenous and I largely fed him on the best quality tinned cat food unless there were some roast beef or chicken leftovers from my meal the night before. Then, as he was eating, I would open the upper half of the back door so that he could answer the call of nature whilst I washed, shaved and got myself ready. After which, weather permitting, I would join Toby in the garden.
Mug of tea in hand we would gravitate towards the top end of the lawn. The view over fields and woodland towards the distant Cheviot Hills was balm to my mind before the demands of work. Toby, like most cats, was a fastidious washer and the morning ritual involved him vigorously licking and preening himself as he sat at my feet – it was a definite policy of his to be as close as possible to me whenever opportunity afforded – whilst I drank my tea and gazed at the view. Soon I would have to leave him and I would catch a glimpse of him in my rear-view mirror as I drove off, watching my departure from his vantage point at the top of the old apple tree by the gates. I hated leaving him and I knew that he missed me enormously but I could
not take him into college and so he had to amuse himself all day until I arrived home in the evening, when he would be waiting with the warmest welcome a man could wish for. During the day when I was at work I always left one of the shed doors ajar so that he could make himself comfortable inside where there was an old clothes basket with a blanket inside and a dish of fresh water.
Breakfast on Saturday mornings was the best of the week. There were grilled venison sausages and lambs' kidneys bought from a country butcher in Rothbury and free-range eggs from a local man who boasted ‘Fresh Eggs From Happy Hens'. I would also have wild mushrooms, when they were available, that I collected, accompanied by Toby, from the fields by the river where the cattle grazed and, from the nearby farm, slices of home-cured bacon dripping with flavour. Toby Jug would share some of the morning banquet with me, including some sausage and fried egg which I cut up for him, but not the bacon which he preferred to deal with by himself. When he had finished, he would lick his plate clean, jump down from the table, have a drink from his water bowl then go and wash himself in front of the fire, after which he catnapped until I called him to go out.
He loved sitting in the car whilst I drove around the town collecting the shopping for the week ahead. If, for some good reason I had to leave home without him on a Saturday, he would be inconsolable and truly ‘miffed' with me when
I returned. This was because I belonged to him on Saturdays and he would do all in his power to insist on this priority. I must say that on the few occasions that I had to leave him I missed him too since I liked to think that the weekend was a time when both of us would enjoy being together.
Whenever I was able I would take him with me in the car on weekdays when my work entailed visiting schools to supervise students or when I was delivering cheques to landladies where students were billeted on special practice. On these occasions I would prepare a picnic for us to share and we had some memorable times picnicking in wild and picturesque rural settings of the Scottish Border towns from Duns to Lauder to Selkirk and beyond.

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