The Good, The Bad and The Furry: Life with the World's Most Melancholy Cat and Other Whiskery Friends (12 page)

Today was different. That he did not utter a single profanity at me from the moment I ushered him into his basket to the moment George began to examine him was perhaps the plainest measure of how poorly he was. I was amazed at how much weight he seemed to have lost in just a couple of days of not eating. George still seemed baffled by his condition, but gave him a series of antibiotics. ‘We’ll give him the works, and see if it helps,’ he said. ‘These will take a while before they have any effect. The best thing might be for you to go out for a little while, take your mind off it, then see how he is, and give us a call if there’s no improvement.’

As instructed, having
placed Shipley on the bed, with a plate of turkey chunks easily within reach, I left the house, striding deep into the Norfolk countryside: so often my saviour in times of trouble. As I walked, I thought about all the times I’d said mean things about Shipley to my friends – the occasion last week, for example, when Katia had asked after his well-being, and I’d described him as ‘a crocodile-faced thug’. I thought about the cats’ mealtimes, when I would purposely put his food out last. This was a mandatory measure, due to the speed and greed with which Shipley ate, but I still felt bad about it. Had I ever singled Shipley out for a special turkey treat while the other cats were asleep, in the way I did with The Bear? A few times, but maybe not enough. Because Shipley was so demanding, so completely, constantly in your face, there never appeared to be any need to make sure he got enough attention. But there was nothing to say he wasn’t just like Ralph and The Bear: nurturing his own little dream of being my only cat. Perhaps even more so, in a way. Maybe Shipley’s attacks on The Bear came about because he heard what I said about The Bear – my comments about how intellectual and gentle and special he was – and felt lonely and neglected. During my last relationship I’d always been the one who saw the good in Shipley, but maybe I hadn’t been seeing enough good in him. He was still the same kitten who’d waited at the end of the bed that night in 2001: wanting to be close to the action, and thinking of ways to get there, ahead of the prettier or more intellectual cats.

‘He’s an
amazing cat,’ Gemma had told me. ‘I’ve never known a cat like this, who’s so patient when you wobble him about and stuff. I mean, I know he comes across like a bit of a hooligan at first, but he never seems to go off in a huff, like other cats.’

Shipley’s default mode might have been ‘potential ASBO’, but when you were actually giving him attention, no cat could match him for tolerance. If Ralph was sleeping on my chest and I adjusted position, he’d usually storm out of the room, like a rock star waltzing off stage in a tantrum because the sound man hadn’t quite got the level of his vocals correct. If I did the same thing while Shipley was sleeping on or near me, he didn’t mind, as long as I was planning to stick around. There was none of the finessing you had to do with other cats; he wanted you to stroke him, ruffle him, jiggle him and turn him upside down, and he wanted you to do it as vigorously as possible. Or, to put it slightly differently, in the words of a friend who’d been massaging his neck at one of my parties: ‘Essentially, he’s a massive sado-masochistic perv.’ Shipley was so muscular and strong and resilient, and there was so little sadness about his demeanour, you never stopped to consider that he could ever be frail or ill. But his body was vulnerable to the same diseases, the same chance mishaps, as any other cat. Something had invaded his system, or had misfired, or broken for good, and all that invincible boisterousness I’d taken for granted suddenly seemed impossibly fragile.

In the last two
and a half years, I’d been repeatedly told by friends that I’d ‘done well to hold it together’, considering I’d been through a divorce, paid a large sum to buy someone out of a mortgage, and had to significantly rethink my future. But a lot of the things holding my life together still seemed very brittle: my ailing house, the fact that I was earning less than half of what I’d once earned and spending much of that on sustaining a new, long-distance relationship. I had doubts about how well I might cope if another of my cats died: another cat whose history was inexorably intertwined with a part of my life that I’d had to abandon.

Returning from my walk, I opened the front door with a lump in my chest. The house seemed eerily quiet. Ralph was out, and The Bear stood at the top of the stairs, as if he’d been waiting for me. ‘I intuitively know everything you’ve been thinking,’ said his eyes, ‘and I’ve got various responses, but I think it’s best if I put them in writing.’ Shipley was on the bed, just where he’d been before, but as I entered the room, he stood up. He seemed wobbly, and it took him a couple of goes, but he was soon on his feet, and a small, throaty noise emerged from him. I couldn’t make it out at first, but I leaned in more closely and asked him to repeat it.

‘You’re a
dickhead,’ he said.

‘Pardon?’ I said.

‘You’re a dickhead,’ he repeated. ‘Actually, no. A total nobhead. I’d kick your arse if I was twice as big as I am and didn’t have this headache. Now pick me up and turn me upside down.’

I did what he requested, and heard, just perceptibly, the beginnings of a purr.

By that evening, Shipley was swearing again with alacrity. He swore at me, he swore at The Bear, he swore at Ralph; he swore, in a more affectionate way, at the turkey chunks I fed him. He even swore at a leaflet I’d brought home for Barometer World museum in the Devon town of Okehampton. I called Gemma to report the good news, but before I did so, I let Deborah know: she’d been texting every hour for a report on Shipley’s condition, and was massively relieved. He was still a little wobbly, and didn’t quite eat as much as usual, but whatever had been in George the vet’s magic syringes seemed to have worked.

His reaction to being singled out for special treats, away from the others, and being allowed to sleep in my bedroom for a second night on the trot was much like what I imagine to be the reaction of a warlord who invades a new country and, instead of facing resistance, is greeted with open arms. He seemed a bit suspicious. However, he was soon taking full advantage of the latter privilege, purring
aggressively in my face, inserting his bottom directly in front of the book of Alice Munro stories I was trying to read, and waking me up at 4 a.m. by pinching the skin on my elbow between his front teeth. I took all this – and the bagel he bit into the following morning while my back was turned – to mean he was on the mend.

Dustbathing flirt cat (Castle Acre, Norfolk, December 2010)

Probable
name:
Desdemona

Notes:
Met subject
on hill leading back into village after long walk. Was extremely tired, so couldn’t actually be bothered to stroke subject, but subject refused to take no for an answer (abandonment issues?). Subject seems remarkably clean for one who patently enjoys rolling in dirt. Infer from this a possible tendency to overgroom as way of correcting mistakes subject feels it has made, and views as ‘unclean’. Ultimately found it quite hard to leave subject behind, despite severely aching blisters and desperate need for large ale.

Pub cat (Norwich, February 2011)

Probable name:
Albert

Notes:
Sensed
subject as easygoing presence, but instincts were wrong. Subject seemed irritable that I had taken its seat and when my friend Amy told subject that subject was ‘magnificent’, subject looked disdainful and let out small hiss. Subject clearly suffering from superiority complex, due to being fussed by punters all day. Could perhaps do with exposure to sparser environment, where people are not saying stuff like ‘Wow! A cat! In a pub!’ every five minutes, and take feline presence as more of a given.

Prowling streetcat (Ixworth, Suffolk, May 2011)

Probable name:
Derek Blackshaw

Notes:
Subject seems very comfortable in his habitat, though perhaps yearns to ‘off road’ in far flung places, such as copse about five hundred yards away. Some complacency shown by culprit about living in cul-de-sac, perhaps contributing to subject’s view of itself as ‘well-to-do’ and having ‘made it in life’. However, subject seems confident yet not cocky. Had to try very hard not to take subject home, or at least not to take subject on walk to nearby village of Fornham St Martin.