To quote Kitty of Coleraine, “misfortunes, they never come singly ‘tis plain,” for very soon after the living room television went kaput, my car radio conked out, joining the CD player which snuffed it months ago and I never got round to replacing it.
Minor inconveniences in the great scheme of things you may think, but you’ve not suffered the privation of having to move lock, stock and barrel into the kitchen and sit all evening on a hard chair to watch the wee tv, read the papers and write, even with two cushions. And how I miss shouting at Stephen Nolan in the mornings as I drive to the paper shop. Daughter Dear, a very present help in trouble, immediately ordered me a new television online, next day delivery guaranteed. Except to Norn Iron, where the ‘protocol’ has marooned it in a lorry park in Larne.
The sound of silence gives me the heebie-jeebies. It’s far too loud. I keep the radio on all night and dream the programmes. For writing, my constant accompaniment is the soothing aural wallpaper that is Classic FM. I can hum along with more than half of its Top Hundred, but couldn’t put a name to more than a dozen. Wasn’t it Wordsworth who praised ‘the bliss of solitude’? I don’t mind it so long as there’s something burbling quietly in the background.
When I lost the Loving Spouse, well-meaning people suggested, “Would you not get a pet?” As either Shakespeare or the late Frankie Howerd put it, “No. No. Thrice no.” People only keep pets to have something in the house that doesn’t contradict them. That love comes at a price, viz. damage, mess, fleas, fees (veterinary and kennel.) Worst of all, pets are unpredictable at both ends – and a tie. You can go nowhere without imposing their care on someone else. They pine if you’re absent for more than a day and, left alone, take it out on the furniture. Animals are calculating creatures. They sense tension, distrust and dislike. On the rare occasions the Loving Spouse and I had vociferous differences of opinion, an anguished Daughter Dear would appeal, “Stop fighting in front of Cloudy! You’re upsetting her!” Cloudy was her foundling kitten, grudgingly given three days grace, but stayed thirteen years, to the detriment of two sofas and the living room curtains.
Unlike her flint-hearted parents, Daughter Dear, from an early age, exuded the milk of mongrel kindness from every pore and compassion for all four-legged creatures however repulsive. Living independently she rapidly acquired two cats, a dog and a horse and provides a four star menu for a family of hedgehogs lodging in her garden – all of which make my visits not entirely an unmixed delight.
Pets are proprietorial. They have their favourite basking places and resent usurpers. I’ve only to choose a particular armchair and within minutes, the dog is upon the armrest staring at me accusingly and a cat is draped across the back like a fur stole, while I sit, rigid with apprehension. Articulate adults are reduced to gibbering idiots by small, cute creatures. “Oozalubblyboy then?” they croon. “Duz diddums wanna biccie?” Of course diddums does. It’ll have your hand off in a minute.
A policy of ignoring pets works in the long term, though it takes considerable strength of character to resist a small dumb creature, all winsomely cocked head and liquid brown eyes, patiently looking at you with a toy in its mouth, begging to play. Do not be tempted. You’ll be there all afternoon and not a hand’s turn done.
I attribute my phobia of animals to being doubly traumatised when young, having a litter of blind newborn kittens thrust at me, which clung to my chest with needle sharp claws, mewing piteously and a docile Alsatian who allowed toddlers to ride on its back, but made an exception in my case.
I’m planning a visit to Daughter Dear in the near future. By the time I pack the pets’ gifts in my limited luggage allowance, there’ll be no room for shoes….
