I don’t like cats and their dislike of me is entirely reciprocal. Cats are sly, untrustworthy and judgmental.
I’m immune to the ‘oooh-aaah’ charm of small, furry, four-legged creatures of any genus. Perhaps it’s because I was traumatised at an early age when a crusty farmer with hands like shovels scooped up a litter of blind newborn kittens and flung them at me. They clung to my chest with needle-sharp claws, mewing piteously. I still recall with revulsion the feel of their little squirming warm bodies – tiny bags of eggshell fragile bones. I don’t know what psychological effect the incident had on the kittens, but it bred in me a phobia of any quadruped unpredictable at both ends.
My mother, who’d spent the early years of her marriage in a rural community with my father, four small children and two dogs, migrated with relief to the city and put an embargo on anything with more than two legs. Thus I was reared in a pet-free environment – for which I’m devoutly grateful.
History repeated itself in reverse when the Loving Spouse and I moved from a city street to a semi-rural road with a big garden and Daughter Dear, aged eight began agitating for a pet. We were adamant in our refusal. It was a dark and stormy night when Fate took a hand and a little grey kitten ran under the wheels of our car at the traffic-lights. Daughter Dear was out like a shot and gathered up the wet bundle of fur. Her father, doing his best ‘Victorian paterfamilias’ impression thundered, “That cat goes in the morning!”
Daughter Dear, who’d cry for the ducks going barefoot, wept and pled. Every animal refuge in the province was disobligingly full. Another day’s grace was granted – and another. Little Cloud, (so called because she was grey and no bigger than a man’s hand) outstayed her welcome for 13 years, vandalising several sets of curtains and two sofas in the interim.
Daughter Dear left home generously leaving us Cloudy as legacy, taking with her instead another bedraggled foundling who turned up before she departed. ‘Skipper’ became ‘Paddy’ the minute his paws touched English soil and thrives to this day, a hulking, handsome tiger-striped tom.
‘Cat-people’ tell you what wonderfully affectionate companions their darlings are. A recent study suggests that cats love their human hosts just as much as dogs do – if not so hysterically. I beg to differ.
Cloudy was not a cuddlesome cat. She and I understood each other, but there was little love lost between us. Cats KNOW. The warmest thing I every got from her was a basilisk stare. Then there were the vet’s bills, boarding fees, (she’d huff for days after being put in kennels while we were on holiday); the disgusting litter tray, the occasional puddle of catsick, the snagged curtains and the scratched furniture.
The Loving Spouse simply ignored her and got tetchy when I’d linger in the pet-foods aisle of the supermarket choosing Cloudy’s favourite flavours. “Fergawdsake!” he’d snort. “It’s a cat!” Cloudy was a tyranny and a tie, but when she had to be put down due to kidney failure, I confess to a few tears and the loneliness of coming home to a house with no living thing in it.
Meanwhile, far away, Daughter Dear acquired another cat, a dog and a horse. Visiting her is not an unmixed delight, but blood is thicker than water. I stand in a paddock admiring the horse from a safe distance. Close contact with the other pets is unavoidable. Izzy the dog sits on my left foot at the table watching the progress of every bite and looking up with reproachful eyes hoping for toast.
Second cat Layla is a black satin-coated, green-eyed beauty with a face like Victoria Beckham but dim as a 15 watt lightbulb. She likes to sit in my suitcase or creep along the top of an armchair and drape herself like a furtippett at the back of my neck. Less of a pet – more of a fashion statement.
Maybe I could live with that……
