On cats, dogs, and dinner parties
A black-and-white cat likes to sit itself on the wall above our garden storage box, and sometimes sunbathe on the box’s gently-sloping lid, which can drive my two dogs wild. They bark, it stares enigmatically back, unperturbed. A young urban fox also likes to curl up on the sun-warmed lid of the storage box – but cat and fox never appear at the same time. They seem to operate a shift system.
It’s strange not having a cat of our own just now, but these two dogs post-date our last two cats (one of whom looked very like our garden visitor) and previous dog, a delightful spaniel who knew his place, as ‘his’ cats were in residence before he’d joined us, and made their seniority perfectly clear. As he grew larger, they tolerated him as a useful ally in fending off any other felines that dared to cross the home turf. The youngest, he was also the last survivor of this much-loved trio.
But, this time round, it’s the current dogs who’d predate any incomers now and – going on the current barking quota – I don’t think introducing a feline now would work too well. We’ve left it too late, and must now wait for a sufficiently bold and imperious stray to decide to move in, and take charge.
My first city cat would fit the task’s requirements, but alas is long gone. He was a handsome feisty tabby, brought south in kittenhood from a Derbyshire hill farm and whose urbane sassiness subsequently inspired my cat-to-man character Felix in ‘Felix Unbound’. I’d named this bold creature Rambo. His vet later said he could guage a pet’s age before meeting it, by movie name. One of my more intellectual friends, on hearing the name assumed my cat was ‘Rimbaud’ after the unconventional and libertine French poet. Alas, not – although my Felix, the cat’s later avatar in human form, might have liked to imagine some resemblances; so perhaps my friend had a point, of sorts, in the end.
Although ‘Felix Unbound’ stemmed from a different friend’s comments about what kind of person my Rambo would actually be, if transmogrified, I only put pen to paper after the real cat had left this world. He chose his farewell moment with maximum impact, just before a dinner party I was hosting for a friend’s birthday. Distraught, I also felt unable to cancel my friend and guests; and the evening became a curious mix of ‘wake’, and lively birthday celebration. The fictional Felix would have approved.
Maybe that experience is why one or two supper gatherings in the book provide pivotal – if less tragic – moments. Rambo lives on in many forms. Now all we need is for one of his determined descendants, if he had some, to stroll casually down the garden path, and stand its ground. I suspect there would be mayhem.