Thomas

I’ve nearly always had a cat, or cats: a succession of Sandys, Freddys, Moixitos, Tommys, Bettys and Friedas, ranging from ginger, chocolate point Siamese, short and long-haired tabbies and panther black.

The first childhood cat, a long-haired ginger, inevitably called Sandy and tormented by me pushing him around in my dolls pram wearing dolls clothes, was really my mother’s and the second, a beautiful siamese called Moixitos, was bought by me at a pet shop. The others just appeared in my life, either because they were dumped over my wall as kittens or because they turned up as adults, plonked themselves on the sofa and announced they were staying. What could I do? At the moment I have 3 two-year-old cats. One was adopted and the others were thrown over the wall at two months. Someone knew there was a sucker who would take them in.

Before I go on to the praising, I’ll start by enumerating the few drawbacks of these feline beauties to stave off the cat haters getting in there first:

1 The sofa and the carpet are their favourite scratching posts even if you have available trees outside. 2 If you don’t brush them regularly, balls of their shedded fur roll around the floor in moulting time and stick to your dark clothes. 3 If you have more than one, they like to have regular fights as part of their games. 4 They wake you at 7am or before to be fed, each in their different way. Some sit on your chest/head and pat your face with increasing intensity. Others leap on and off the bed meowing loudly. Some knock as many objects as they can off the bedside table to get your attention. I’ve suffered it all. 5 They are hunters, so they kill birds (their worst defect, for me), mice, lizards, grasshoppers, crickets, all types of crawling insects and bring their trophies to your mat.

So why the fascination for cats? First of all, their beauty. I love watching these sleek, elegant, graceful, silky and totally non-human creatures. I say this, because dogs can have almost human qualities. They are faithful servants to their masters, understand most human language and show emotions. Not that I don’t like dogs. I do, but they never seem to show up in my life the way cats do. Cats just about understand their name and ‘no’, but it’s probably more the tone of the voice than the actual word. So I never expect a ‘human’ reaction from them. They are purely feline and mysterious. You can’t be their master; they choose to be with you. That is the second reason why I love them : their apparent free will and independence. They probably see us as another huge, clumsy, hairless cat who feeds and licks them with our massive paws. And thirdly: they make me feel good. Even when I’m tired, stressed, annoyed, worried or sad, they always make me smile and forget myself for a while. Cats are therapeutic.

Some say they have supernatural powers and ‘see’ spirits. It’s true that they often sit like statues staring wide-eyed at something behind me and then follow whatever it is with scared eyes. It really gives me the creeps. And then they seem to ‘read’ me. They know when I’m coming home, know the sound of my car and suddenly appear at the gate to welcome me. They definitely study me and my reactions. They disappear two minutes before I give them a defleaing/deworming pill. How do they know? When I’m ill they curl up at my side, as if they were trying to heal me. They are also incredibly curious about everything I do. They follow me everywhere and don’t like it when I leave the house. When I am away on holiday, their substitute carers say they look quite depressed, so in their feline way they do miss me.

They love to play and they love to sleep. They are total zen. They give you space (apart from when it’s cold and they fight for your lap), they wash themselves and they cover up their poo. They don’t make a mess when they eat and are very choosey about cat food brands. All you have to do is admire their beauty and feed them. The perfect companions.

Of course when they die it’s a tragedy, as with any pet. Here is a poem I wrote some years back when my Siamese cat died. It’s taken from my book of poems: Poems of Joy and Melancholy.

MOIX

Such an emaciated old cat But I loved you for all that. How your absence hurts, You not coming to greet me Still with sinuous elegance, Still leaping to my lap To draw my warmth To your poor decaying body. A scrap of a cat you’d become, Little left of your magnificence. But love loves the essence Though excellence is gone. And you could still push out a purr With a stroke on your bony back.

What sphinx now will stretch On its thread pulled throne? What blue-eyed seer will Stare at invisible delights Beyond the realm of sofa? What fragile speck of life Will lift its sculpted head Once silken brown Then dull and stuck with age But still a soothing gift For weary hands And broken hearts To greet me on my return From vicious motorways That plunder fields And feed on skeletons Of sacrificial animals?

Can claw and fur And wild enigmatic eye, Insignificant and precious, Root deep in a human heart And rest there forever?