CHAPTER 4
Taxi for Nancy
Every cat is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.
—(Adapted from) Jane Austen
By October, Team Nancy had started to take shape. Murphy had assumed the role of Robin to my Batman, being an enthusiastic sidekick on adventures around our streets. Pip, unsurprisingly, found the idea risible and made no effort to conceal this from me. I teased him, saying I had ordered a framed Team Nancy membership certificate for him to keep by his bed. For a brief moment he thought I was serious, and was about to tell me what I could do with my certificate, when he noticed that I was stifling laughter and stormed off in a huff. There was nothing that wound my stepcat up more than being teased, I realized. But he was still a member of my team, whether he liked it or not.
Brambles had doggedly maintained his swine flu quarantine, in spite of irrefutable evidence that the town had survived the epidemic with both its human and feline populations intact, so all communication with him had to be conducted through the locked cat flap in his kitchen door.
“I won’t have to do anything, will I?” was his muffled response, when I had explained my proposition. “Like, go with you anywhere?”
“Of course not. Not if you don’t want to,” I answered. “I’ll be the one doing all the hard work. You’re just there for moral support.”
I sat on his doorstep, listening to him pace the kitchen floor as he deliberated.
“Well, I suppose, if that’s the case, then you can count me in,” he said eventually. “But only if Bella joins too.” He added hurriedly.
“Great! Thanks, Brambles!” I replied. “I’ll go and tell Bella the good news.”
Definite class B membership for those two, I decided as I made my way to Murphy’s house. But at least they made up the numbers.
Molly still had a face on her like thunder whenever I was around, but, like most of the other cats in the neighborhood, she had become accustomed to me invading her territory. She seemed to have resigned herself to my existence, as long as I steered clear of her food. I therefore declared her, like all the other cats whose houses I visited, to be an honorary member.
It would be fair to say that I was gradually building up my brand awareness among the humans, too, what with my habit of pursuing people on foot or in their cars. I started each day with a visit to the corner shop, where I would scrounge for ham at the food counter before accompanying the shop girl on her newspaper delivery round. All in all, life was ticking along nicely. I didn’t yet have a fully formed career plan as such, but I knew there were cats and people out there who needed a bit of Nancy magic in their lives. As the saying goes, “There’s no such thing as strangers, just friends you haven’t met yet.” And I threw myself wholeheartedly into the business of meeting new friends.
NHQ overlooked a park, or “nature reserve,” as the humans called it (I told you my town was posh). It wasn’t huge, but it had everything a cat could want for a decent session of “in the wild” role play. Areas of long, uncut grass lay at the outer edges, and a stream ran through the middle, next to a children’s playground. For some reason most of my cat friends avoided the park, in spite of its myriad leisure activities. Even Murphy was reluctant to accompany me on my “wildcat” expeditions. I tried to tempt him with accounts of the abundant birdlife, but he showed an infuriating unwillingness to give it a go, citing the feeble excuse that “It’s just not for me.” It did not escape my notice that Molly was usually lurking nearby when these conversations took place. I asked him once whether Molly had told him not to go with me and he denied it, but I did not believe him, and the swish of the cat flap as Molly surreptitiously slipped out of the house confirmed my suspicions.
As well as being an excellent hunting ground, the park was also a great place for me to hone my talent for feline-human relations. It didn’t take me long to realize that the playground was a honeypot of cat-friendly humans. Any woman with a stroller was a dead cert for attention (and possibly a snack), and children invariably adored me. I easily trumped the playground equipment as the park’s main attraction in their eyes. If I liked them, I would follow them to their car and let them take me home.
I sometimes caught sight of Brambles in his bed, watching my antics with undisguised horror. He would leap up and down by the window, waving his front paws in an attempt to stop me, but of course I paid no attention.
He really hasn’t got the point of Team Nancy at all, I thought, seeing him spread-eagled against the glass one day, as I was driven off in a stranger’s car.
NHQ was also well-placed for nighttime socializing. There were three pubs within striking distance, and by sitting on the pavement of an evening I could usually find someone to escort me to one or another of them. The Marquis was at one end of my street, on the corner of Murphy’s road. It had an open fire and a garden overlooking the river, and as it was the nearest pub to me, the staff soon came to think of me as a “local.” I believe they were quite put out when they found out that I also frequented the Gibraltar Castle.
The “Gib” (to us regulars) was located on the far side of the park and was another excellent establishment for the discerning feline customer. Being a gastro pub, it also served hot food—just the thing for a cat who, even on a diet of three meals a day (excluding wildlife), had the physique of a starving waif and stray.
The third pub in my local triumvirate was the Amble, at the other end of my street. It, too, had an open fire for winter and a garden for the summer. Unlike the Marquis and the Gib, however, the Amble had a dog—an aging black Labrador called Guinness. Guinness was slightly taken aback to find that the pub had a new feline customer. But he was a laid-back animal, and it didn’t take him long to go from “Ugh, where did you come from?” (when he first lifted his head from the rug to stare at me) to “Oh, whatever” (as he sighed and lowered his head back to the floor). We negotiated our positions by the fire, and due to his arthritis he was happy to comply with my suggestion that I take the cushioned dining chair and he stick with the rug. Once this was settled Guinness’s attitude toward me was “live and let live” (the same as his attitude toward his fleas, I discovered to my cost).
Aside from Guinness’s fleas, the downside of patronizing the Amble was that it was also my owners’ favorite place to go for a drink. One chilly November evening I glanced up from my chair by the fire to see my owners at the bar, clearly oblivious to my presence. I remained motionless, hoping that they wouldn’t notice me, or that if they did, they would have the discretion to pretend that they hadn’t. When they eventually spotted me, however, they shrieked my name (causing all the other customers to fall silent and look at me) before marching over and prying me (still pretending to be asleep) from my seat. They then carried me like a baby through the pub, in full view of all the other customers (who were now cheering), and out the front door. Even Guinness had a smile on his lips as he observed my humiliating departure. In this manner I was carried all the way back to NHQ.
I made a point of not looking in the direction of Brambles’s house as we passed, but I could sense his eyes on me and vividly picture the appalled look on his face.
Still, though awkward at the time, I was happy to turn such experiences into comic anecdotes with which to regale my team. Pip rolled his eyes in disgust, but Murphy would listen in slack-jawed amazement, and although Molly scowled and claimed not to be interested, I noticed that she would be in the room whenever I recounted an adventure to Murphy. She would pretend to be asleep or washing, but I knew she was listening, and I couldn’t help but suspect that, secretly, she envied me.
CHAPTER 5
Milestones
Only the most acute and active animals are capable of boredom.
—Lewis Cass
When I was around six months old, I awoke one morning to find the world had turned white. Having been a summer kitten this was my first experience of what I learned was called “snow.” After wolfing down a quick breakfast, I rushed outside. The
snow took a little getting used to, coming almost up to my shoulders, but I quickly worked out that the secret of snow mobility was to lift my paws high and trot along like a pony doing dressage. I slowly made my way across the back gardens, looking for members of the team to share my excitement with, but they were nowhere to be seen.
Brambles had just relaxed his self-imposed house arrest when the snow arrived, so we had the pleasure of his company for approximately thirty-six hours before he slunk home to watch what he called the “inevitable carnage” from the safety of his windowsill. Bella too had retreated indoors, arguing that nothing was worth sinking up to her elbows in freezing slush for. Even Murphy was uncharacteristically reluctant to explore.
“Are you joking?” was his response when I told him I was heading to the park, where a noisy crowd had gathered at the brow of the hill.
“It’s cold, it’s slippery, and it’s wet. Sorry, Nancy, no can do,” he said as he made himself comfortable on the sofa.
I sighed, disappointed but not surprised. Clearly a cat who liked snow was in the minority. I had little choice but to leave Team Nancy to their radiators and fleecy blankets and head out to join the throng in the park on my own.
For the benefit of any cats reading this who have not tried sledding—you are missing out! What’s not to love about being put at the front of a sled, held in place securely by a human, of course, and whizzing down a hill feeling the wind in your whiskers? I felt like Kate Winslet in Titanic! The snow had transformed the park into a winter wonderland and everyone there, be they human or animal, was suffused by a warm glow of happiness. And as the only cat I felt like the guest of honor. Dogs were ten-a-penny, bounding around with their tongues hanging out, but it was me that people wanted to share their sled with. I felt like royalty as I worked the crowds, trying to make sure everyone got their fifteen seconds of my undivided attention.
A couple of days into the snowy weather a local news crew arrived, parking their van outside NHQ. I loitered in their vicinity as they unpacked their equipment and soon ascertained that they had come to make the annual “Snow Brings Chaos” news report and to film footage of children sledding while the schools were shut. I did my bit to help liven up their pictures by doing my finest snow leopard impersonation in the back of the shot while the reporter did her piece to the camera.
After about a week the snow finally began to thaw. Patches of muddy grass started to emerge through the blanket of white, and the crowds in the park also melted away. Around this time my cat box reappeared in the hallway, and I was placed inside and put in the back of the car.
“Where are we going today?” I asked my owner as she drove, but she stubbornly refused to give me any clues.
When I was lifted out at the end of the journey, I recognized the sights and smells of the vet’s, and my heart sank: another injection.
“This must be Nancy,” the receptionist said as my owner placed me on the floor by the desk. “Nancy’s here for spaying, is that right?”
I’m here for what? I thought, as my owner nodded her assent. I was handed over to a veterinary nurse, and then I watched in disbelief as my owner turned and walked out of the surgery.
“Er, hello?” I called after her. “I think you’ve forgotten something!”
“Don’t worry, Nancy, they’ll be back for you afterward,” the nurse said soothingly.
“After what?!” I mewed.
She placed me on the black examination table, and all I remember after that is a bright light, a needle, then darkness and silence.
When I came round my initial feelings were grogginess, soreness around my abdomen, and starving hunger. I realized I was lying in a cage and began to wonder what on earth had happened. After a while a nurse came in, so I let her know how unhappy I was with the situation, especially with the standard of catering (I had not had a bite to eat for twenty-four hours).
“Here you go, Nancy. Some water for you,” she said, placing a bowl inside my cage. Reader, I will spare your blushes by not repeating my reply. Let’s just say I was sore, I was hungry, I wanted to go home, and a bowl of water was not at the top of my list of requirements.
Eventually my owner turned up and I was free to go, although not until something resembling a plastic lamp shade had been fastened around my neck. This was, surely, some sort of practical joke. Not only was I unable to see anything that wasn’t directly in front of me, but the device acted as a megaphone around my ears, meaning even the slightest noise was painfully loud. As my owner carried me out through the waiting room we passed a man holding a birdcage containing two yellow canaries. I knew what was coming, but thanks to my plastic ear trumpet the birds’ commentary (“It’s a cat! Wearing a lamp shade!”) was so loud it felt as if they were inside my head. Combined with the hunger pangs I was suffering, it made me feel quite nauseous.
Being unable to look down or sideways also meant that I was unable to see my body, which was infuriating in the extreme, as I could feel an itchy scar on my side that I was dying to wash. I spent the journey home in an understandable sulk, and as soon as I was let out of the box at NHQ, I flung myself around the floor kicking my head-bucket with my back legs until I had managed to pull it forward over my ears. From that point it only took a few more twists and squirms to free myself of it completely. My owner, who had watched my performance with resignation and made only a halfhearted attempt to restrain me, fortunately had the good sense not to try to reattach the instrument of torture. I kicked the offending item away in disgust and headed straight to the food bowl, where I consumed two pouches of food in one go.
The lamp shade debacle was not to be the last of my traumas during this trying time, however. Having slept off the remains of my grogginess, I woke up thinking I would head out to see what the team had been up to in my absence, only to find that the cat flap was locked and the litter tray I had used as a kitten had been placed by the back door.
You’ve got to be kidding me, I thought as I pawed at the cat flap, mewing pathetically.
Pip poked his head round the kitchen door.
“Wouldn’t bother, if I were you. Vet’s orders.”
“What are you talking abou . . .” But Pip was already walking away.
Am I ever going to get more than one sentence out of that cat? I fumed.
Whatever the “vet’s orders” had been, the upshot was that for the next ten days the cat flap stayed locked, for me at least. I could hear Pip coming and going as he pleased, whereas I was trapped inside, the days and nights melding together in one long continuum of boredom. I was reduced, Brambles-style, to sitting by my front window watching the world go about its business, completely unable to partake. The snow had gone now, and the winter wonderland had been replaced by a steel gray sky and an icy sludge on the streets. My mood wasn’t helped by the itchy scar, which, no matter how often I licked it, stubbornly refused to disappear. To add insult to injury, it was surrounded by a large shaved patch, making me look utterly ridiculous.
I couldn’t keep the thought from my mind that perhaps I was never going to be allowed outside again, and I succumbed to a feeling of lethargy the likes of which I had never experienced before. I spent many hours on the sofa, often sleeping through the short period of daylight that each day brought, and when I was awake I ate huge amounts of food—a double portion of my own plus anything Pip had left in his bowl. Perhaps some of my readers will recognize the symptoms and understand my actions (although I was unaware of it at the time): it was emotional eating because I was depressed. Overnight, I had lost my independence and my raison d’être. I was no longer an adventurous young cat with a social life and a reputation. I had become the thing I despised the most: a couch potato, a layabout. A house cat.
Team Nancy and my exploits around town seemed like a distant memory, and I couldn’t imagine myself ever getting back on track. They say that you have to hit rock bottom before you can start to climb back up, and for me rock bottom probably came the day I discovered daytime television.
The children had turned the TV on to one of their usual cartoon channels but then vanished into another room, leaving the remote control next to me on the sofa. Irritated by the manic activity on the screen I figured there was nothing to lose from surfing through the channels.
I flicked past all the wildlife programs—I couldn’t bear to watch anything depicting animals in the wild—and past seemingly endless home makeover series. I ended up stumbling across an episode of The Jerry Springer Show. The premise of this show, I quickly ascertained, was to place a dysfunctional family (usually with an explosive secret) on a stage, encourage the audience to hurl abuse at them, and then allow them to go at each other like a bunch of scrapping alley cats. I’m sure you can imagine the effect such edifying viewing had on my outlook on life. If anything is guaranteed to make you lose the will to live, it’s watching six hours of back-to-back Springers. But I found them strangely compelling, and they seemed to complement perfectly my despairing state of mind.
One afternoon I was engrossed in a particularly unsavory episode, entitled “Who’s the Daddy?” Sprawled out on the sofa, I was waiting for Jerry to open the DNA test result envelope when I caught sight of Brambles on the windowsill, clutching a piece of paper in his mouth. He jerked his head in the direction of the front door and jumped down from the sill, whereupon I heard the rustle of something being pushed underneath the door. I dragged myself off the sofa (not before hitting the pause button on the remote control—reader, I told you I was in a bad way!) and walked into the hallway to investigate.
On the doormat lay a leaflet, slightly crumpled and soggy. I turned it over and read “MRSA: The Facts” on the cover.
“Brambles, I do not have MRSA!” I shouted through the front door.
“Better safe than sorry!” he shouted back, running down the path and back to his own, germ-free, house.
Oh, this really couldn’t get any worse, I thought as I heaved myself back onto the sofa and pressed play on the remote control.
Sex and the Kitty Page 4
