Talk to the Tail: Adventures in Cat Ownership and Beyond (17 page)
Read Talk to the Tail: Adventures in Cat Ownership and Beyond Online
Authors: Tom Cox
‘Are you okay back there, Tom?’ asked Dee.
‘Er, yep! Fine,’ I lied, pulling on Boris’s reins to little effect.
We’d come off the bridleway and onto a road, but Boris insisted on walking at the top of the steep grass verge, making for a bouncy ride. I was already sizing up my leap into the abyss, making little practice movements with my legs, wondering how easy it would be to prevent getting one of them caught in the stirrups and get dragged along behind Boris, upside down, like some slightly less masculine version of Calamity Jane. I would have voiced my worries to the teenagers, but I could already hear in my head how pathetic it would sound: the pleading of a child to other children.
Hundreds of years ago, men of my age and physique were supposed to ride horses as a matter of routine. The only time they would have had a genuine concern about falling off was when somebody was shooting bullets or arrows at them. Weren’t these brave, unreconstructed males the kind I aspired to be, deep down? I needed to take control – that was what I’d been told to do, wasn’t it? But the funny thing was, when Boris bolted, he did so at the exact point I’d made the decision to man up and take control of the situation. I have no idea what caused it – perhaps he’d eaten a bad leaf, or suddenly felt insecure about being away from the gelding that Dee was riding – but I took it as a direct, stubborn response to what I was thinking.
In times to come, I’ll probably remember Boris’s run as being considerably longer. Time will no doubt colour and exaggerate it. Maybe I’ll add a couple of jumped hedges and some nightmare whinnying, a flashing vision of my own corpse, a startled farmer opening his mouth and dropping the piece of straw he’d been chewing as we flew past him. In truth, it probably lasted about forty seconds, but that was long enough for Boris to go up and down the bank at the side of the road, and charge past his fellow horses.
I’m not certain where the dividing line is drawn between jumping from a horse and being thrown, but I sense I was only just one side of it, though I’m not quite sure which side. In future, I imagine it will depend on my mood: if I’m with someone I want to impress, I’ll say I was thrown. If I’m feeling humble, I’ll probably say I jumped. Whatever the case, and whoever instigated it, my parting of ways from Boris was well timed. I came easily out of the stirrups, and I landed on my side, not my aching back. The one drawback was that the surface I landed on happened to be tarmac, not grass.
‘It was pretty amazing,’ Dee would later remember. ‘You did a sort of commando roll.’
She was probably being generous, but I’d certainly contorted my body in some impact-softening manner. Picking myself up, I realised I was reasonably unhurt. My hip ached, and, rolling up my trouser leg, I saw that I’d scraped a lengthy strip of skin off my shin, but I could walk. For a seventeenth-century cavalier, this was the equivalent of a paper cut. At the same time, though, I didn’t much feel like falling off Boris again, and expressed as much to the other three riders.
‘Oh, he won’t do it again,’ said the boy teenager, who seemed rather frustrated with my antics. ‘He’ll be
fine
.’ But how, I wondered, could he be so sure? Did Boris have a special reputation for throwing his riders off once as a ‘test’ then warming to them? I doubted it.
‘It’s entirely up to you,’ said Dee.
I could see from her look – slightly more gentle than the one she usually used when we were discussing horses – that she knew I was at a crossroads. I loved golf as much as she loved horses. She’d given the sport a go at the local driving range, and decided it wasn’t for her, and that was fine. But there’d never been a make or break moment there, not like this.
They say that the only thing to do when you fall off a horse is to get straight back on. If I didn’t, I might never ride again. I could live with that, if Dee could too.
As I announced my decision, the natural world seemed to rise up around me. Everyone in the vicinity was looking down at me. Dee. The sulky teenager. The chewing teenager. The three teenagers they were on top of. And the most teenage teenager of all: Boris. The blond stable hand had caught up with him and got him on the rope again now, and, suitably chastised, he looked happier. As he and the others trotted away without me, I was surprised not to feel like a failure. Instead, I just felt a sensation of overwhelming, peaceful smallness: a pleasant one that would stay with me for the duration of the long, lonely walk back to the stable, and was not undermined by the realisation that, during my decision-making process, I’d been standing in some of Boris’s freshly deposited manure.
Intellectually Challenged
Cat: Instructions
for Housesitters
1. Clear space on kitchen work surface. Scan surface for sharp or burning objects, keeping in mind The Time Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend Set Fire To His Tail By Walking Too Close To A Candle. Arrange food dishes and remove two pills from jar priced erroneously and unfairly excitingly on Internet at ‘50p for 30!’ (actual price: 50p each).
2. Call cats, using special patented Tomwhistle.
3. Place pouches of meaty slop on kitchen counter, carefully avoiding three-year-old packets of Felix As Good as it Looks (aka As Bad as it Smells) at rear of food drawer. Dispense meaty slop.
4. Throw Intellectually Challenged Cat Resembling TV Food Enthusiast Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall off kitchen counter with one hand, while using other hand to carefully place two pink pills inside one dish of meaty slop. If possible, try to insert pills into meaty chunks themselves, rather than just into jelly. While doing this, try not to dwell overly on substance concerned. Think of it this way: yes, it smells, but if you really thought about an egg or some milk, you probably wouldn’t want to go near that either.
5. Wash hands, thoroughly.
6. Dive across kitchen, just in time to remove face of Intellectually Challenged Cat Resembling TV Food Enthusiast Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall from pilled dish of meaty slop.
7. While looking the other way and pretending to be occupied, quickly swoop down and pick up Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend. Pick up pilled dish of meaty slop, and place cat and slop in adjacent room.
8. Remove face of Intellectually Challenged Cat Resembling TV Food Enthusiast Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall from bottom of Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend, and close door, firmly.
9. Feed remaining five cats. For full instructions on feeding, refer to ‘How to Feed Six Sodding Cats: Instructions for Housesitters’ (
Under the Paw
, Simon & Schuster, 2008).
10. Open door of adjacent room, and release Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend back into kitchen. Collect leftover pills from Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend’s now otherwise empty bowl, and place on kitchen counter.
11. Chase Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend downstairs, maintaining enough speed not to lose sight of Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend, but not so much speed that Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend runs out of cat flap in fear.
12. Carefully circle Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend, feigning great interest in object in entirely opposite direction from Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend.
13. At the count of three (please note: counting should be done purely in own head), dive at Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend.
14. Pick self up off floor, ignoring disdainful looks of suddenly appearing Sensitive Artistic Secret Warlord Cat. Sit down in Formerly Sumptuously Restored 1970s Armchair Now Permanently Jealously Overseen By Attention Seeking Grey Dwarf Cat. Relax and clear mind of feline-related thoughts, being sure to avail self of film collection on adjacent shelf. Please note: for purposes of continued mind-clearing, best to avoid
The Complete Bagpuss
DVD.
15. Wait ten minutes, then return upstairs. Call cats, using special patented Tomwhistle.
16. Throw Intellectually Challenged Cat Resembling TV Food Enthusiast Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall off kitchen counter.
17. Gingerly creep downstairs, gently calling Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend.
18. Pick Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend’s claw out of back, having not realised that, while you were heading down stairs, looking for Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend, Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend was above you, playing a game of ‘Prison’ (aka ‘Use Bars Of Balustrade As Protection While Violently Batting Soft Parts Of Passing Unsuspecting Humans’).
19. Open fridge, and retrieve Tesco Finest Honey Roast Ham from special minus-one-degree compartment infridge. Place on kitchen counter.
20. Open cat food drawer, and keep Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend’s interest by rustling sachet of meaty slop.
21. Take Tesco Finest Honey Roast Ham to pills. Realise ‘pills’ is now in fact ‘pill’.
22. Pick up Intellectually Challenged Cat Resembling TV Food Enthusiast Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and notice telltale pink smear around mouth of Intellectually Challenged Cat Resembling TV Food Enthusiast Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.
23. Wash hands, thoroughly.
24. Secrete remaining pill inside sheet of Tesco Finest Honey Roast Ham, creating pill sandwich. Step boldly towards Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend and sweep Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend off floor, then feed pill sandwich to Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend.
25. Witness small, girlish meow, and realise that, in attempting to follow ‘How to Feed Six Sodding Cats’ instructions, one cat, Prettyboy Tabby Cat, was omitted from melee.
26. Place Prettyboy Tabby Cat on Strange Plastic Grandma Stool, with dish of meaty slop.
27. Watch Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend begin to convulse in corner of room.
28. Grab kitchen roll and dive, belatedly, in direction of Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend.
29. Cautiously examine effluence of Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend, finding no pink pill.
30. Double-bag effluence of Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend and place in dustbin.
31. Sigh, and wash hands, thoroughly. Spot pink pill – now quarter of former size – stuck to trouser leg.
32. Repair to fridge, retrieve butter, and firmly cut off thumb-sized knob. Place pill inside knob.
33. Repair to bathroom, and grab clean towel from rack.
34. Sweep Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend off floor, harshly curtailing second game of ‘Prison’ in ten minutes, and swaddle Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend in towel.
35. Insert buttered pill between Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend’s mouth, and gently but firmly clamp shut.
36. Wait ninety seconds, gently rubbing throat of Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend.
37. Watch as pink and yellow liquid oozes from mouth of Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend.
38. Place Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend on floor.
39. Open fridge, retrieving remainder of Tesco Finest Honey Roast Ham, chicken curry leftovers, spare ribs and kabano sausages (six pack). Open all packaging, and place on floor.
40. Pick up coat and bag. Wipe hands on corduroy jacket belonging to male owner of Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend.
41. Exit house, posting spare keys through letterbox.
42. Receive phone call from owners of Intellectually Challenged Fluffy Cat Resembling Rock Musician Pete Townshend. Answer in high-pitched voice of elderly lady called Joan, from Fife, and profess ignorance of any subject mentioned. When subject of cats comes up, begin to talk about son’s upcoming rowing final. Please note: if actually called Joan, elderly, with rowing champion son, and from Fife in real life, choose different identity.
43. Call phone company and request new numbers.
44. Write note to self on hand: ‘Locksmith?’
45. Pour large glass of wine, and run bath.
46. Rummage in bottom of bag, and find bath bomb, bought from popular natural cosmetic company and summarily forgotten about two weeks previously.
47. Gently crumble and add bath bomb to warm, flowing water, savouring aroma.
48. Light candle.
49. Relax into suds, feeling physically and spiritually cleansed, and looking boldly towards future.
