A few nights ago, my foolish cat turned her nose up at a perfectly good dinner and went out into the night to catch her very last mouse. A plump, freshly killed rodent in her mouth, she then attempted to cross the busy road in front of our friends' house, where she had spent the past nine months. She didn't make it. This happened exactly one day before we were due to bring her back to the place where we will spend the summer.
I can't get over this: one cat -- one not very smart cat -- makes a stupid decision and breaks all our hearts. One foolish cat plus one speeding car in Scotland, and our entire household is reduced to tears; our eldest daughter in Tokyo cries herself to sleep.
We got her over four years ago. We wanted a kitten to begin with, but one day, our friend Dina told us she had found a peach of a stray cat. She described her beauty in detail: green eyes, dense, snowy-white fur, and pink accessories. "Is she a kitten?" I asked. No, but she was pregnant. We agreed to look after the cat until she had the kittens, then take our pick of the litter. Dina promised to take back the cat and the remaining kittens. We bought a cat carrier and went to collect her.
I didn't much like the look of her at first: she was indisputably beautiful, but a little coddled looking and snooty to the other cats she was sharing a house with. But we took her home, fed her, and set up a litter box inside the kitchen. She really liked that litter box. Even if she didn't manage to do anything in it, she seemed to enjoy trying. We spent the first month sweeping cat litter off the kitchen floor.
One month later the cat hadn't had a single kitten. Two months later, it was obvious she wasn't going to be a mother. We got rid of the litter box and let her go outside instead.
Dina was apologetic. "I'm so sorry! I could have sworn she was pregnant. Do you want me to take her back?"
"No!"
We'd all fallen head over heels in love with her.
In no time, she was the queen of our large garden. She slept in the bird-feeder and stalked mice in the borders. She charmed the little old lady downstairs into giving her extra cat food. When she napped on the garden wall, she invariably attracted the attention of passersby with her considerable charms. "What a beautiful cat!" I could heard people croon, "She's so friendly!" And inevitably, "I wonder if she's hungry." She was. No matter how much we fed her, she always had room for more.
She was a quiet cat. Some cats meow and yowl all day long; ours only did this to announce a successful hunting venture, which she generally had two or three times a day, 365 days a year. When she was hungry, though, she didn't make a peep. She would merely seek out the person closest to the kitchen and weave in and out of their legs until they were forced to give up and feed her just to get some peace. Watching her do this, all pleading eyes and swishes of her tail, was like observing a mime working a crowd expertly.
She was the most efficient feline killer I have ever met. She once brought home a stoat that was easily half her size -- a dead stoat. She was especially proud of that kill: on that occasion, her meow was deeper, richer, and more drawn out. When I came into the hall and found it, she did everything but scrape, curtsy and bow. The fact that she was so ruthless and single-minded in her killing always amazed me because she was such a dainty, graceful, well-groomed cat. It was like watching a ballerina wielding a pick-axe or a society matron gobbling down a sloppy hot dog.
Like all cats, she had established rituals. At night, she slept at the foot of our bed, but she would only jump up after kneading the carpet for a good long time. My husband and I would lie stiffly, wondering just when she would make her leap. I counted: she had to knead the carpet for 25 seconds, minimum. If I lost patience and picked her up before she'd finished her kneading process, she'd jump back down and finish it. When she brought back a mouse, she would always announce it, then wait breathlessly in the hall for me to come and exclaim over it. My angry curses never fazed her in the slightest. She would follow me excitedly to the kitchen door and watch as I flung the mouse -- if it was still alive -- into the hedge. When I had my writing group and could not use my hands to pet her, she was especially generous with her rodent offerings. I took to locking her cat flap.
She was my cat. If she was on someone else's lap and I came into a room, she would jump off and make a beeline for me. When I went out to work in the garden, she followed me everywhere I went, darting along the garden path, rubbing up against my legs. If I wasn't attentive enough, she'd cut to the chase, flipping over coquettishly and inviting me to rub her stomach. Whenever I wrote, she invariably sat on my lap, the keyboard, or the desk. She sat with me through rejection after rejection, always purring and worshipful. She didn't care if I ever got published as long as I kept scratching her under the chin or behind her ears.
When we left the U.K., it was hard to say goodbye to her, but we knew she would be in good hands with Dina. And she was. But having finally decimated the rodent population around the house, she decided to go further afield to find prey. Her own lust for hunting finally did her in.
Today, instead of going to Dina's to collect her and bring her back, we buried her in the back garden under an elder tree, near the place she loved to sun and play. We decorated her grave with bouquets of ladies' mantle and catnip, and watered it with many tears.
As we drove home, my tears would not stop falling. I could see myself objectively: a foolish middle-aged woman torn up over the loss of a mere cat. This world is full of sadness and horrors: famine, floods, massacres, endless wars, and cruel despots fighting for power, yet here I am mourning a cat. But anyone who has loved an animal knows the depth of the love they are given back, the incredible attachment they can feel. And if you can't mourn the loss of unconditional love, I don't know what you can mourn.
I hear and see her everywhere. At the foot of my bed, kneading the mat, waiting until just the right time to jump up. I feel her fur against my shins, the warmth of her hard little head under my hand. I see her sunning herself under every bush, on every windowsill. I picture her smiling up at me, her green eyes filled with sleepy adoration. She had a breathy, eager, fine-grained purr like a well-oiled machine. I keep thinking I can hear it; I want so much to believe I really do.
