The Amazing Life of Cats (17 page)
I
t all began with Puss, a large black and white male cat and my partner Barb’s companion from early childhood through all her growing up years, long before I became part of the equation. Puss set the seal on a life centred around cats of varying shapes, sizes, colours and temperaments, all loved in spite or sometimes because of naughtiness and strength of character. Puss wove his magic through Barb’s early years; other cats followed with their own blend of needs and demands. The tapestry continues to this day; not unlike a garden, it is forever a work in progress.
Pookie, also known (at least to herself ) as the Queen of the World, joined the household a year or so after Puss died. She was found at the RSPCA, and the memory of that occasion lives with me to this day.
She was twelve weeks old when she looked up from her cosy position in the middle of a basketful of brothers and sisters and chose us with one look. As Barb asked to see the little black scrap of fur in the corner I thought I spied a smirk on Pookie’s face. I’m sure I heard her produce a kitty snicker when that black brother of hers latched onto Barb’s nose and refused to let go. I cast the kitten a suspicious glance. I swear she winked at me and said, ‘Well, that will teach her to look at another cat.’
Once we unhooked the little black terror from Barb’s person and she could see again, I pointed out the tabby—now looking as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth—who was stretching herself delicately and batting her eyelashes in our general direction. She tripped over to the cage door and sat down as if to say, ‘Come on then, peasants, get a move on!’ I don’t know what you would have done but we obeyed upon the instant and were her loyal and adoring subjects from that day forward.
In the first year she taught us some simple truths about the world:
1 If you buy a fancy expensive basket you had better be prepared to sleep in it yourself because the Queen prefers to spread herself out on the queen-size bed.
2 If you happen to fall asleep and roll too close you will be brought sharply awake by a single, breathtakingly painful claw to the big toe.
3 Feline royalty does not use store-bought scratching poles, no matter how much you beg. Making yourselves look foolish by demonstrating how to use a scratching pole will incite your cat to glance at you with disdain before she reaches up and sharpens her claws on the sofa to show you how it should be done.
4 Pookie owns the house, the garden, the dog, and any fruit and vegetable garden within a two-block radius of the house. Furthermore, anyone daft enough to own an aviary or a caged canary has only themselves to blame.
It was only a matter of time before the neighbourhood gardeners were rioting about their mangled strawberries and nervous birds. A few years into her reign Pookie came home in a state of outrage and showed us her very sore rump. The vet pronounced her safe and well but the pellets would have to stay; luckily they were lodged in the fatty muscle and would do no harm.
Did she learn from that experience? Certainly not! A few months later we found Pookie in the hallway. Her eyes were glazed and she was holding up her paw. This time the vet said she needed surgery as a pellet from a .22 rifle had shattered her shoulder. The operation was a success but required a very long convalescence. The patient was quarantined in a cage that usually housed a Rhodesian ridgeback. It was big enough for a kitty-litter tray and a bed, though a determined human visitor could just about squish into one corner. We were told she had to stay quiet and contained for three months; almost inevitably, this was when the real bonding began.
Barb and Pookie would sit in the cage together and watch television through the bars. Barb would talk to her, soothe her and generally encourage her to hang in there. They were like two peas in a pod for three long months. Once Pookie was well enough to leave her confinement she liked to spend time curled up in Barb’s arms, on her lap or occasionally draped over her shoulder. Every morning she would breakfast with us. She would be waiting at the door for Barb when she came home from work and every night she curled up and went to sleep in her mother’s arms. It turned out to be an eighteen-yearlong love affair.
During her later years, Pookie took to patrolling the house in the early morning, making imperious demands for breakfast. Who needs a bell to summon the servants when you have a voice like that? She did not whisper and would not be ignored. Like Victoria before her: once a queen, always a queen. Pookie’s loss to old age and renal failure was a devastating blow; the memory still brings tears and the love never dies.
A life without cats was unthinkable. Pookie could never be replaced but the void left by her departure had to be filled. We decided on a change of tactic: a male cat was needed.
We found Buddy at the RSPCA in a cage on his own; his splendid isolation was his by choice as he doesn’t like company. A big silver male tabby, he belies his size by being the quintessential ‘fraidy cat’, with a dollop of crotchety old man thrown in for good measure. A hermit by nature, he spends his days at cat gym, building his upper body strength by scaling the fence and hanging off the trellis while snarling insults at the people next door. When we met Buddy he didn’t like other cats, men, car noise or dogs; he really didn’t like children and was scared of the dark. You will often find him imitating a lump in the bed when guests or tradespeople come to visit. In fact, he is a highly skilled bed-messer and can wiggle his fraidy-cat body into and under the tightest hospital corners. His other great skill is coughing up fur balls and placing them in positions guaranteed to turn you off your breakfast. This, however, is not entirely his fault; he is the hairiest cat on the planet.
He has an uncanny knack of shedding only black hair when you are wearing light-coloured clothing and dispensing copious quantities of silver-white fur whenever you wear black. He has learned to protect himself from unwanted affection by perfecting the art of moulting at will. Quite deliberately, he will shed what looks and feels like a full body of cat hair with every pat we dare to give him. As we sit on the couch watching a favourite movie, Buddy jumps up and does a slow meander across our knees. He then jumps down and looks on as the two of us cough and sneeze, trying to comb the sticky hair off our faces. I say ‘trying’, since as well as having the densest coat imaginable, Buddy also has fur that is electrostatic, meaning it sticks to skin and gravitates up noses. I imagine that one day we, too, will begin coughing up fur balls.
We had not had Buddy long and had no plans for a second feline when Lucky made his presence felt. Actually, I found him in a stormwater drain three months after Buddy joined us.
It was a hot summer afternoon and I was relieved to be home from work. I had a date with a bath and a good book. As I emerged from the steamy car I thought I heard the faraway sound of a cat wailing. It couldn’t be Buddy, could it? As I walked to the back door the sound continued and I halted. Somewhere, something was not right. I put down my bags and walked around the garden searching for the source of the cry, which I was convinced was one of severe distress. I followed the sound down the driveway and onto the street, calling as I went, ‘Where are you, puss?’
The wailing became louder and more desperate as I reached the old stormwater drain. When I squinted into the dark hole I saw a pair of golden eyes peering back at me out of a tiny black face. The kitten’s voice was becoming ever louder, which was pretty impressive since he was already posing a threat to any nearby eardrums. ‘Get me out of here!’ he screeched. I pulled at the grate to no avail; it was rusted closed. Sitting down on the hot concrete with my mobile phone, not wanting the little fellow to think I was abandoning him, I rang the council for help, only to be told it was the responsibility of the RSPCA. I rang the RSPCA, who informed me I should contact the council.
By now the little voice had stopped and I was beginning to panic. It was too hot and I feared he would dehydrate down there all alone in the dark. I was enraged at the buck-passing, bureaucratic ping-pong played by the authorities. How dare they refuse to help when a life was at stake? In sheer desperation I grabbed an innocent passerby and asked for his assistance. Together we recruited another three men who came with crowbars and a desire to help. When the grate was finally lifted, the tiny black kitten reached up as I leaned in to grab him.
He was filthy, covered from nose to tail in sticky black muck and nasty red wriggly worms. I rushed him (dripping) into the laundry. He hung limply over my hand for a few seconds before I lowered him into the sink. I raced out, closing the door firmly behind me, and grabbed shampoo, conditioner and towels before racing back. I was away barely ninety seconds and that is all the time it took for the little horror to paint my walls and even parts of my ceiling black.
It took three washes before I realised the small black bundle was actually black and white. He seemed to love the bath and after I towelled him off and wrapped him in a dry fluffy blanket he snuggled in and slept and slept.
Naturally, the plan was to get him cleaned up and take him to the pound. Inevitably, he had other ideas. We christened him Lucky, for obvious reasons, and he wormed his way into our hearts. In no time at all he went from a tiny scrap of a kitten who could sit in the palm of my hand to a great bull-headed, long-bodied feline. He loved to sit on the back of the couch and rub his chin against your hair. He also adored sitting in the window to watch the traffic. Most of all he gloried in lying curled up beside his brother Buddy, though the latter was not amused by the interloper. Lucky was a cat who knew which side his bread was buttered on and liked plenty of it. If he could get away with it he would often endeavour to eat more than his fair share of each meal. He had been out adventuring and found it not at all to his taste. Once rescued he decided he would become a couch potato and he was perfect at it.
Lucky had been with us for around seven years when his luck ran out. He changed from being forever hungry to not wanting food at all; where once he was comfortably lazy he became tired and lethargic; worst of all, he was obviously in pain. The round of endless vet visits began. X-rays, exhaustive tests, scans, false hope, misdiagnosis, and finally the shocking news: our beloved foundling had lung cancer. We cried bitterly and kept him comfortable for as long as possible, but the end was inescapable and came upon us far too rapidly.
Barb was bereft and inconsolable when Lucky had to leave us. Was it something we had done wrong? Could we, should we, have spotted it earlier? Was there a treatment unknown to us that could have saved him? Such questions fix nothing but are an integral part of grieving and we all ask them. Barb can still barely read or write about Lucky, especially as painful anniversaries approach. He will always be part of the family.
The Lucky-sized hole in our lives had to be filled eventually. If you have ever been in this situation you will understand when I say that you know when the time is right to start looking for a new friend, just as you know when you have found her. It took us a few forays to the RSPCA before we encountered the petite black and white female who now dominates our world. We discovered her over an hour’s drive from home but she was definitely the one. She said so. It took longer to name her than to decide to own her. Various possibilities were put forward and rejected. Eventually, the perfect name suggested itself: Luka, a blending of Lucky and Pookie yet she has made it her own.
Luka is funny, naughty, playful and still at the age where you feel compelled to push boundaries to see how far you can go, how much they will let you get away with before they stop laughing and say ‘No!’ and mean it. She loves supervising Barb on the computer and we can lose hours simply watching her. We won’t mention the day a sparrow slipped in through the wire surrounding the cat gym and Luka brought it indoors as a gift. She was furious when we not only rejected her proud offering but also had the temerity to confiscate and release it.
As for Buddy, he has mellowed a bit since Luka arrived. He refuses to play with her but it’s easy to see that he loves her harassing him. She prances around him playfully as kittens are wont to do, rolling over in front of him as he’s walking along and occasionally jumping out at him from beneath furniture or around corners. He might have a long-suffering look on his face but you can tell he loves having recruited her into his fan club. Luka probably believes him to be
her
greatest fan, but we had best not go there. Buddy will always be a scaredy cat with phobias about loud noises and tradespeople but these days he tolerates other cats, dogs, children and even pats—though not too many, thank you very much.
Like many others before us, we dote on our cats and are pleased to say they appear to dote on us. Their successive and interlocking histories are woven through our lives and daily routines. They often determine what we do and where we go, whether we go away and for how long, as well as who looks after them if we do. We are not afraid to say that we enjoy our animals more than we care for some of our own species, and our friends are often chosen because of their regard for animals. All of our pets have played roles in teaching children about kindness and consideration towards creatures other than themselves. Best of all, they are always good to come home to, especially after a bad day, or stay at home with when we need a place to hide. May it always be so.
Michelle Nicholson
It is a very inconvenient habit of kittens
(Alice had once made the remark)
that whatever you say to them, they
always purr.
Lewis Carroll
