The Great Sicilian Cat Rescue (3 page)

W
e had taken a day off to escape to Syracuse, choosing it as the one Sicilian city Andrew shouldn't miss. It was a painful decision. Should we leave Lizzie all day? we pondered. Was there a possibility she could get out of the apartment? Would she be all right?

But Andrew's ten-day stay in Taormina was passing and we'd hardly done anything. He'd been very good about all the changes of plan, spending afternoons at the table on the lower terrace with a book and cans of beer. Admittedly, it wasn't much of a sacrifice, with that incomparable view over the bay of Isola Bella. We'd done some local things, sat in the shade of the town's splendid public gardens, taken the bus along the coast. It hadn't helped that this spring had been disappointing, unlike the Sicilian springs I remembered from years ago. When we tried to swim, the sea was icy.

Lizzie had taken no notice of us. She suffered her imprisonment in silence under the bed, though managing to scoff the tasty morsels we put down for her; but we hadn't felt we could leave her alone for a whole day until now.

Syracuse lay prostrate under the sun: filled with tourists, each wearing a shady hat. We trailed behind them along the crowded Via Cavour, making for the narrow lanes of the old part of the city, Ortygia Island. It is a lovely place, the light clear and blue, evoking a definite sense of Greece. The sun glared down. Ironic that on the first really hot day we'd left the beach behind.

It was a relief to reach the Marina and step under the ficus trees, which line this waterside promenade. And so we arrived at Piazza Duomo. But it was lunchtime and the cathedral was closed so we would have to content ourselves with the guidebook.

There was a book called
A Cypress in Sicily
, which I used to read over and over again when I lived in Taormina. Author Howard Agg described Syracuse as the one-time New York of the ancient world, the thriving metropolis of Magna Graecia. It once rivalled Athens as the largest and most beautiful city in Greek times. I found it a labyrinth of intricately paved streets that open up into squares: an expansive, vital place unlike many other Sicilian cities, with their narrow roads and pocket-sized piazzas. Ortygia is connected to the mainland by several bridges and ringed by ancient city walls, relics of the defences designed by Archimedes. Considering it is a modern city, the sense remains of continuity from the period of antiquity and the mythological themes dominating that epoch: temples,
castles, fountains, amphitheatres, piazzas and palazzos, all awash with the light and air of the surrounding sea.

The present cathedral stands on layers of pagan temples. It is an example of the sacred/profane aspect of Sicily, where pictures of the Virgin Mary stand cheek by jowl with rings to ward off the Evil Eye. Religious
festas
may start off with the parade of an effigy – Saint Pancrazio, patron saint of Taormina, for example – but the day finishes up in carousing.

We stared at the front of the cathedral and tried to imagine what it must have looked like as the Doric Temple of Athena: magnificent, stuffed with art treasures, the golden shield of the warring goddess reflecting the sun's rays. I had an even stronger sense of the past, of violation and blood, as we stood before the Altar of Hieron 11, where the guidebook told us 450 bulls were sacrificed to Zeus in a day.

While Andrew went to order beers, I sat at a cafe table and thought of feral Lizzie. What a relief it was to have escaped for a day. I hadn't realised how difficult it would be to keep her closed up in the apartment. She had soon released herself from the Elizabethan collar Giulio had put on her; all she wanted was to be out roaming free.

I don't think any cat is wholly domesticated. One interesting thing I've learned in my ongoing dialogue with my cat Sheba is that cats lead a double life. In the house she is an overgrown kitten, gazing up at her human owners. Out on the tiles she's her own boss, a free-living wild creature. The moment a cat manages to persuade a human being to open a door she is off and away without a backward glance. While a dog might look back to see if the human pack mate is following, not so the cat. Her mind has floated off into a
totally feline world, where two-legged creatures don't exist. Cats have the dual capacity to evolve and revert to atavistic principles. In Lizzie's case she had never known a home, a warm hearth, and food put in front of her. Her life was spent in watchful survival. Was it any wonder she considered me her captor?

I glanced at my watch; I had an image of Lizzie and felt anxious: should we go back?

It had been comparatively easy to get to Syracuse but, as so often happens in Sicily, it turned out to be much more difficult to return. There was a two-and-a-half-hour wait for the next train. We resigned ourselves and went to sit in the station cafe. I drank a cheap but good red wine at a few liras a glass, while Andrew had a beer. It was obviously the local bar. At a neighbouring table a group of men played cards. Every now and then one of them shouted out ‘
Scopa
!' It took me back to winter evenings in Taormina's Arco Rosso bar.

I'd sit in a corner, nursing a glass of wine. I'd watch the groups of men crouched over cards fancifully designed as knights on horseback, swords and daggers, goblets, sheaves of corn and golden coins: the Sicilian game
Briscola
. Hawkish eyes would follow every card as it was thumped down until someone shouted ‘
Scopa
!'

Sitting in that bar, I used to wonder what on earth I was doing there. A vision of Brighton would rush into my mind, the flags flying straight out in the breeze that never really drops, my mother waiting alone in the seafront flat. After a few months I had to go home to see her; the cord between us was never truly broken.

Just as we were getting quite merry on the local brew,
we realised our train had arrived while we'd begun to enjoy ourselves in this shabby little station cafe. Sicily is like that. Within hours you can begin to imagine yourself thinking:
OK, we'll stop here and find a pensione
. If you did stay, I would bet that within days you'd enter into the
domani domani
mentality. D.H. Lawrence was right, the South does cure you of caring.

It was one of the dreaded
locale
trains, which scarcely get up speed before they start to slow down for the next station. They're pretty stations hung with baskets of trailing geraniums, but there are far too many of them.

About fifteen minutes out of Syracuse, a young man got on; he wore the latest in designer jeans and an Inter-Milan sports shirt, an Italian computer magazine tucked under his arm. At first sight I'd put him down as one of a new breed, which had broken the habit of living at home until the age of forty. This was an Italian man who'd struck out on his own. Then I noticed the bulging plastic bags he deposited gently on the seat. Ah! I knew those bags. I'd come across them on many a journey in Italy: cornucopias of food, every type of delicacy, from chicken fragrant with rosemary, pots of aubergines and tomatoes
sott'olio
, whole cheeses and salami. They represented
La Mamma
's obsessive fear that her child might face famine during the journey, or not find the quality food he was accustomed to.

The young man made himself comfortable and opened his magazine. We settled back with our books.

‘Soon be home,' Andrew said. ‘Shall we eat out tonight?'

But the train didn't move. Another five minutes and it remained stationary, not a whistle for departure, not a
judder… nothing. Giovanni or Stefano, or whatever his name might be was not about to be whisked away from his Sicilian homeland. He began to read but I could see he was losing his concentration; he didn't appear so cocky. As he looked across he met my eye. We shrugged. Another few minutes and he dived into one of the plastic bags and pulled out a
panino
. And what a
panino
! It bristled with nourishment: mozzarella and ham, tomato and olives. He bit hugely and olive oil trickled through his fingers. I could imagine the authority of its preparation. His father might have been dithering about, clapping his son on the shoulder, saying it was good to see him and not to make it so long before he came home again, but it was only thanks to
La Mamma
the household ran like clockwork. Early-morning calls would be organised, coffee made ready and those plastic bags stacked with food against likely starvation. Men may run Italy but it is the women who run men. When I thought about it, everything made sense. What do Italians call out in times of distress?
Mamma Mia
!

The mystery of the becalmed train was now revealed: we had been waiting for somebody. Here she came, a slender young woman in jeans appearing at the end of the platform, a young man behind her, struggling with two large suitcases. The retinue that followed made a great deal of noise and I prayed they wouldn't choose our carriage but they did, halting outside our window, laughing and talking and giving the girl advice. ‘Be good, phone this evening', ‘Take care' and the ubiquitous ‘
Ciao
!' Our companion glanced up, gave an audible sigh and went back to his magazine. I was fascinated by this group: there was a strong-featured woman in a two-piece, whose thick legs ended in court shoes, a tall, thin man
with wonderful mustachios, and a little man with a weasel face, wearing a trilby. There was also a much younger woman, jiggling a fat baby, and a boy in a T-shirt and shorts, trying to restrain a dog with floppy ears and a long muzzle. The young woman kissed them all on both cheeks but she wouldn't get away as easily as that.

And here they came: the supplies against the famine she was about to face when she started travelling North. At last she was seated with her two cases stowed above our heads. She glanced round at us, resembling a pretty pussycat with large brown eyes. Andrew and I glared back: her enormous family had no right to hold up a train. But now, as it drew away, they pressed forward and presented themselves with every accessory and behaviour as though taking part in a sentimental Victorian scene, ‘The Farewell'. They shouted, wept and waved handkerchiefs; the dog just wagged his tail.

Andrew and I had been treated to another sighting of ‘The Family' sticking together out of blind instinct, fearful of ever being alone. The Italy of the family is the quintessential Italy. Of course there are feuds; there are even, in Sicily, members of the same family skulking behind prickly pears with rifles, waiting to kill one another. But as a rule the family is the family and it revolves around children – everything is done for the
bambini
. Their smallest wish must be granted. Italians love children. A crowd will gather round a pretty baby just to admire such a wonderful object.

I'd had my own experience with the Italian family and its less positive features when I first came to Sicily and fell in love with a Sicilian. Amadeo and I got on swimmingly, laughing, loving, and generally being young and in love. All
went well until
La Famiglia
descended for the obligatory August holiday. They expected I would spend all my time with them and could not understand my need for silence and space to read and write. Every single day they shopped at the market and cooked enormous lunches and dinners. Once, when Amadeo's brother was called away for a day on business, his return was reminiscent of the Prodigal Son, complete with feasting until dawn. Like cuckoos, they finally usurped my nest and thrust me out into the cold.

On the train, the young woman opened a magazine and settled down. She was going away, but you knew she would return.

Sicilians travel the world but Circe's island always calls them back.

I
kept Lizzie captive for almost three weeks while her leg mended until she was at last ready to be released. Looking back, I marvel how I did it and whether I was completely mad. She was my first experience of feral cats and I had no notion of their lifestyle. As a child, there had always been cats and kittens in our household – my father in particular was a feline fan. Tabitha, Mrs White Puss, Ginger and Biscuit… they were purring, friendly creatures who loved to be stroked and petted. They liked to play and to snuggle up on any available lap.

Feral cats are as wild as their ancestors and like any other wild creature they have an innate mistrust of human beings. The mother cats take a firm paw with their kittens, training them to be quiet and stay put. A meow might attract predators, as could the movement of kittens running about and playing. Often a feral cat that is taken into a home
or shelter will revert to a playful kitten, making up for its childhood. Mothers will also make their kittens wash and wash to remove the scent of food from their fur, which again could attract the enemy. Their games have grim undertones preparing the offspring for the life of a feral. A mother may play very roughly with the dominant male kitten, training him to be an alpha male. She will teach her kittens to go to the food dish, forever watchful and poised to run, should a human appear. It is a game, but one of survival.

Dogs like wide, open spaces; cats like security. The mothers make their kittens follow them in a row like ducklings, and discipline those who get out of line, another survival instinct. They allow play at dawn and dusk when the night predators are not around but it is light enough for them to see well, but they make their kittens go into a safe place at night.

Many of them have spent their entire existence living rough near a source of food: a waste heap, dustbin or in the vicinity of a hotel or restaurant. Their lives are based on scrounging for scraps of food, often very scarce, and reproducing. They are likely to be riddled with fleas or ticks and certainly have worms. The tomcat battles for supremacy and can inflict nasty wounds on the female in their savage mating.

A human cat bond can be forged if the feral kitten is handled early enough in its life. Even so, not all kittens are the same and their degree of friendliness depends on other factors, such as the father’s genes. Also, because the female will have mated with several toms there can be different temperaments within the same litter of kittens as well as different colourings. The older they become, the more difficult it is to alter their wild nature, as I found with Lizzie.

When we opened that trap in Giulio’s surgery, I had no idea what I was about to take on. Lizzie’s one thought was to escape – throwing herself against the walls, dashing round the room; anything to get away from us. During her time in the apartment she was constantly stressed, wanting to be outdoors leading the life she knew. Anyone who takes it upon herself to tame a feral feline is in for a long haul. Humans have to learn to think like a feral and never to force contact: touching is viewed as a threat and direct eye contact regarded as aggression. If she is frightened she is likely to attack, and feral cat scratches can be very nasty indeed. As time passed and I gained experience in working with feral cats, I came to realise that the best way to help them is to catch them and have them neutered before returning them to their colony. It might seem a brutal existence to us, but it is usually far more unkind to take them away.

A few days later, I was in the bus park seeing Andrew onto the airport bus, bound for England. I waved him goodbye and shed a few tears. This had been an extraordinary time together. Then I went back to the apartment and Lizzie. Now I was alone and free to enjoy my contemplation of Isola Bella.

Every time I left the apartment, my little tower, I noticed a group of people standing on the nearby Belvedere gazing down at The View. I photographed it at different times of the day: morning, noon, evening, it was never the same. Fluctuating with the mood of the weather, it seemed to have a persona of its own; I had become enchanted by this constantly changing scene.

The light changed all the time and the blue through
shades of cerulean to turquoise to jade. Sometimes the water resembled ribbed silk as the currents from the Messina straits streamed in. Other times the sun painted it with molten silver so dazzling you needed dark glasses to gaze at it.

I never grew tired of looking.