Under the Paw: Confessions of a Cat Man (2 page)

My parents decided the best remedy for my grief was a visit to the Burton Joyce Cats Rescue Centre, where I formed an unmistakable bond with Monty, a sinewy, white and sandy-coloured chap – and I use the word ‘chap’ pointedly – with a look of mischief in his eye.

On the way home, as the smell of Monty’s first bowel evacuation of the evening mingled with that of our takeaway curry, I began to feel like a traitor. Choking back the tears, I explained to my mum that I might be making a mistake trying to ‘replace’ Tabs so hastily. Much as they tore at my innards, these sentiments somewhat started to dissipate later that evening, when Monty started making gargling noises and running up and down the living room curtains.

Monty was one of those animals who come along every so often that seem a little more patrician than the rest of their species. He was the kind of cat that even lifelong catophobes could not bring themselves to loathe. Wild animals smaller than a pheasant feared him, other cats wanted to be him, divorced book group members with hennaed hair wanted to be with him. When I looked into his eyes, I saw something wild, yet controlled.

If Monty had had his own theme tune, it would either have been ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ by Carole King, or ‘Theme from Shaft’ by Isaac Hayes. He’d once prowled across the roof outside my bedroom while I’d been listening to the latter, and its funky string arrangements and lyrics about ‘a complicated man’ and ‘the cat that won’t cop out when there’s danger all about’ had seemed apt. Not, of course, that Monty would, in the words of Hayes, ever have been ‘the man who would risk his neck for his brother man’. He was, after all, a cat, and wasn’t going to transcend the self-absorbed limits of his species. But if he could have done, I’m sure he would have given it a go, provided it didn’t involve venturing anywhere too damp.

After his initial, uncharacteristically unrestrained and alarmingly literal curtain raiser, Monty soon got down to business, outlining his primary requirements as a member of our household. These ran as follows:

In return for this, I would receive:

Owning Monty could perhaps best be described as a bit like owning an unusually intelligent, non-sycophantic dog that took care of its own faeces. And, like a dog, Monty enjoyed nothing more than the opportunity to stretch his legs at his owner’s side. My first experience of this was one morning in 1990 when, having completed about half of my mile-long walk to the school bus stop, I turned to see him trotting happily behind me. Not really wishing to introduce him to Wayne Smith and Beau O’Dowd or the rest of first period double biology, I walked him back home, got a mini Crunchie out of the kitchen cupboard and pretended to get settled on the sofa, then made a run for it out the back door before he had chance to follow me.

My parents had moved to relative suburbia by then, so further exploring the much-overlooked pastime of man and mog rambling would have been impractical for all sorts of reasons, not least of them a Harvester, a motorway sliproad and a neighbouring estate regularly featured on the national news due to its collective love of pyromania. Still, I made a mental note to look further into the matter the next time we moved back to the country. Experience told me that it was only a matter of time before we did.

My parents moved house a lot during my childhood. For me, it was part of the rhythm of life. You went to a house, you began to meet some new friends, then, around a year later, your mum came into your bedroom with a sombre look on her face and told you it was once again time to pack up your ZX81 and your
Beano
annuals. By the time I was in my late teens and had moved to my seventh and final childhood home, I was starting to get a little sick of the upheaval, and the last thing I wanted was to live in a rented cottage in the north Nottinghamshire outback, eleven miles from the nearest gig venue, a mile down a country lane not wide enough to permit two cars to pass one another without one of them nosing into the hedgerow.

It was, however, a very good place to walk a cat.

There was no lead or choke chain involved, and Monty didn’t take long to pick up the rules. If a car or a Border collie was coming in the other direction, you zipped into the undergrowth, leaving your adversary blinking in disbelief, writing off the small white blob they’d seen in the periphery of their vision as a trick of the light. You then walked along parallel to your owner on the field on the other side of the hedge until the coast was clear. Much of the time, though, Monty and I had only each other for company. Having been told to ‘WATCH OUT FOR NUTTERS!’ by my dad at the front door – my dad always told me to watch out for nutters, wherever I went, but in this part of north Nottinghamshire his concern was more justified than usual – we’d set off up the hill and do an entire circuit of the Forestry Commission land overlooking our house: a walk of around three miles, which lasted almost as long as the refreshing drink of water Monty took out of the toilet when we returned home.

A wearer of spiritual breeches, he always looked extremely noble on our walks, striding out in front of me. Every so often, feeling it was necessary to puncture this self-satisfied, dignified air, I would jog ahead of him and hide in a bush. This was a shameless exercise, carried out purely to get him to do something he felt very self-conscious about: meow. Monty’s speaking voice was an incongruously high-pitched, effete thing, and he only used it when absolutely necessary. I fooled him every time: two minutes after making my lair in the foliage, he’d arrive, squeak-wailing with genuine terror that he had lost me for ever. Either that, or he was just humouring me. After all, what kind of bloke in his late teens would hide from his cat? You’d have to treat a simpleton like that kindly and patiently, wouldn’t you?

Monty and I had eleven years together in total. During that time, we had just about as perfect a relationship as was possible between man and man cat – both of us ineradicably bonded, but always keeping a sensible, masculine distance. When I was feeling low or ill, Monty was there – not up for a cuddle, maybe, but offering strong silent support, a bit like Gary Cooper with whiskers. When Monty wanted to walk past his favourite hollow tree – it never had anything in the hollow bit, but he remained optimistic – he could count on me. He didn’t fetch my paper or bark when I called him, but he knew which of the manifold noises I made meant ‘I’m cooking with chicken and if you promise not to claw the carpet you can have some’ and which one meant ‘I’m putting some more of this horrendous ground-up slop in a dish – please get rid of it quickly.’ Similarly, I knew which of his rare and perfect squeaks meant ‘I have caught and methodically assassinated one of Sherwood Forest’s many stoats’ and which one meant ‘I went into the downstairs loo for another drink out of the bowl and now the door has inconveniently swung shut behind me.’

When I moved out of home permanently in the summer of 1998, I agonised over whether to take Monty with me, but the two-bedroom terrace just outside Nottingham that my girlfriend and I had put a rental deposit on had only the smallest of gardens, backing onto a supermarket car park. It was no place to take a cat accustomed to strolling authoritatively around his own infinite green kingdom. Who knows? I reasoned. Maybe in time I’ll have more space. I was right about that, but I didn’t realise that it was time itself, not space, that was the issue.

I’d been gone only four weeks when my dad found his body. Monty looked as pristine as ever, lying in the dew-soaked grass, they said. Was it a heart attack that had killed him? Rat poison? An embolism? Nobody knew, and it did not occur to my mum to take Monty’s body to the vet to find out. The way she saw it at the time, it would not have made any difference. Only later did she and my dad begin to concoct other theories: a vindictive milkman, some local yobs from Ockwold, the nearby village. My maternal grandfather – the man whom I was named after – had died of a brain haemorrhage at the age of forty-six, suddenly, after a life of near-perfect health, but it didn’t occur to me that a similar thing could happen to a cat, least of all
this
cat. Monty’s indefatigable constitution had been legendary, his nose cuts self-healing in seemingly a matter of hours, his flesh a thing that vets came to dread on vaccination day.

I’d been working in London on the day it happened, mobile phoneless, and by the time I received the call, my parents had buried him beneath a damson tree in the garden (a place he’d often liked to sit, in duck-style posture, casually sizing up some errant partridges from next door). When I arrived that evening, all that remained of his presence was a half-eaten bowl of biscuits.

As I slunk back to my car after the tears had dried up, I heard myself whistle him, which was strange, because I had not moved my mouth. I wheeled round, stunned and paranoid, until I remembered the bird that liked to sit on the telephone wire outside my bedroom, alternately mimicking the sound of our cordless telephone and that time-honoured ‘wee-woo’ that signalled it was time for Monty’s dinner. I listened for a moment, with half a mind to curse such a wretched, heartless sky beast. But I had to concede that it had a point, and as I drove home to my catless house that ‘wee-woo’ ran on a loop on my internal jukebox. ‘Wee-woo, wee-woo, wee-woo . . .’ it went, until it finally mutated into a different song altogether, played to the same tune: ‘Your fault, your fault, your fault . . .’

That night I made a vow: from that point on, I would live a catless life. I remember feeling pretty determined about it at the time. Looking back now, it was obvious I felt that I had reached a turning point in my life. I just didn’t realise
which
turning point.

Bagpuss (1976–9)

Colour: New rave pink and white.

Home: Emily’s shop (what kind of 7-year-old owns a shop?).

Owner: Emily.

Defining Features and Characteristics: Can’t-be-bothered manner, all-round sagginess, propensity for hoarding junk and dreaming up improbable stories involving mermaids.

Catchphrase: ‘Yeoooaaawnnnn!’

Why It Could Never Work between Us: Possessiveness of Emily could mutate into homicidal rage, upon finding favourite cloth possession gone. Limited need for old rags, bottles, shoes and assorted other old tat in my house.

Scampi (1988–93)

Colour: Tortoiseshell.

Home: Cripsley Edge Golf Club, Nottingham.

Owner: Club Steward, Cripsley Edge Golf Club.

Defining Features and Characteristics: Roly-poly yet stand-offish manner, unpredictable hiss valve, tendency to walk onto eighteenth green at inappropriate moments.

Catchphrase: ‘It’s not me, it’s you.’

Why It Could Never Work between Us: Growing antipathy towards golf (mine), growing antipathy towards being over-stroked by Ladies Bridge Team leading to lasting grumpiness and ‘I’m not just a plaything’ hissy-fits (Scampi’s).

Grundy (1994–8)

Colour: Ginger and white.

Home: Gedling, Nottingham.

Owners: Absentee couple at rear of girlfriend’s house.

Defining Features and Characteristics: Nicotine-stained Rod Stewart meow. Take-me-home eyes.

Catchphrase: ‘I am a cat of constant sorrow.’

Why It Could Never Work between Us: Constant low rasping noises very beguiling, but potentially grating on a day-to-day basis, not to mention possible hitch in any kidnap plot.

Archie (1995)

Colour: Deep tabby.

Home: York.

Owner: Unknown.

Defining Features and Characteristics: Waddling run, enormous belly, suspicious need to get into broom cupboards.

Catchphrase: ‘Yeah, so I’ve got a boy’s name – big deal. It never stopped Jamie Lee Curtis. What did you think I’m carrying in here – bananas?’

Why it Could Never Work between Us: My curtailed stay in locality because of dropping out of university after three months. Possible offspring rehoming problems.

Hercules (1996)

Colour: Rich Tea tabby.

Home: Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Owner: Science Faculty of the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (unconfirmed).

Defining Features and Characteristics: Formidable bulk perfectly meshed with winning softness. Penchant for wrestling with undergraduates.

Catchphrase: ‘Love the one you’re with!’

Why It Could Never Work between Us: Limited visiting privileges. Insecurity deriving from unacademic status. Danger of squashage. Potential ‘How can I know you truly love me, when you love everyone else too?’ disagreements.

Nameless Strangely Silent Cat from Italian Campsite Where Feral Dogs Kept Me Awake at Night (1998)

Colour: Black.

Home: Donoratico, Tuscany.

Owner: Unknown.

Defining Features and Characteristics: Unaccountable fondness for getting under wheel arches, laconicism bordering on the disturbing.

Catchphrase: ‘. . .’

Why it Could Never Work Between us: Language barrier. Geographical obstacles which could only be conquered by Mediterranean move on my part and, even then, would probably lead to constant state of worry about attack from Tuscan wild dogs.