I must send a copy of this to Molly, I thought.
Princess’s album contained page after page of glamour photos, in which she tilted her head to one side and pouted at the camera, the same vacant look in every shot. There was very little to read in her album, apart from one profile piece detailing her “vital cat-istics” and giving the secrets of her beauty regime. Princess was a cat who traded on looks alone, I realized.
A fourth book lay, as yet untouched, on the coffee table. Presumably this was going to be my album. I flicked through it and wondered what cuttings were destined to cover its empty pages. My stomach fluttered with trepidation and excitement. Helen’s flat was not exactly a home away from home, but I had come this far and I had no choice but to keep going. My career lay in front of me, literally a blank page. How to fill it was up to me.
CHAPTER 18
Screen Queen
Dreaming about being an actress is more exciting than being one.
—Marilyn Monroe
Right, Nancy, I’ve had a job come through that might suit you.”
It was about a week after my arrival and I was dozing in bed, but my ears pricked up at the word “job.”
I followed Helen into the living room, where she sat down at her laptop and began to read from an e-mail.
“It’s for a TV commercial,” she said. “Cat charity. Fund-raising ad. You know the kind of thing.”
I didn’t, but I nodded anyway, not wanting to look like an amateur.
“They want plain-looking alley-cat types, nothing fancy. You’ll be perfect.”
I bit my lip. I knew that, as a black cat, I was going to have to get used to such prejudice. And besides, I figured any TV commercial must be a good way to start an acting career.
Helen scrolled through the e-mail with one hand on the mouse, while the other hand rummaged across her desk seeking out her cigarettes and lighter. She grabbed a cigarette, shoved it between her lips, and lit it without taking her eyes off the screen.
“Shoot’s tomorrow at eight a.m. We’ll set off from here at seven.”
And with that she took a long suck on the cigarette, slammed the laptop shut, and stood up. This, I realized, was my cue to leave.
I walked back into the bedroom, wondering whether I was, finally, on the cusp of a career breakthrough.
I looked at Princess, who was combing her long fur in front of the mirror.
“I’ve got my first job tomorrow, Princess. A TV commercial!”
“Good for you,” she replied distractedly, tugging at a tangle behind her ear.
“It’s for a cat charity. Have you ever done one of those?” Princess shot me a look.
“I’m a glamour puss! I’m far too attractive to be in a charity commercial!”
She turned back to her mirror and resumed her battle with the tangle, evidently unaware of the insult implicit in her words.
The following morning I awoke to the sound of Helen crashing around in the bathroom. I heard Gerald’s Litter Kwitter seat being knocked off the toilet and clattering noisily onto the floor tiles.
“F***ing thing!” Helen yelled as she kicked it across the room.
I had become used to being woken in this manner, but as I yawned, it struck me that today was officially the start of my new career: I was a working actress.
All my roommates were still asleep, so I crept over to peer in Princess’s mirror. My reflection looked back at me sleepily. I practiced a few smiles like I had seen Princess do many times.
Who are they calling plain-looking? I said to myself.
Then I had a few mouthfuls of food from my bowl, eased open the bedroom door, and went into the hallway to wait for Helen, who was now slamming drawers in the kitchen and, judging by the smell, burning a piece of toast. At quarter to eight she ran into the hallway and shouted, “We’re late! Where are my bloody shoes?”
I pointed to the heap of jumbled-up shoes inside the front door, and she pounced upon them, throwing random mismatched trainers and boots over her shoulder until she located a pair of pumps.
“Right, come on, then,” she muttered, holding the door open for me. I slipped through the doorway and down the stairs.
Outside, Helen opened the trunk of her sporty compact and I realized I would not be riding alongside her in the passenger seat. Clearly, the leather upholstery was, like Helen’s bedroom, a “cat-free zone.”
I compliantly jumped into the trunk, and once she had slammed the door shut, I made myself a makeshift bed among the coats. After a half-hour drive, the car stopped and I could hear Helen’s footsteps on tarmac. Even her footsteps sounded angry, I noticed. She swung the door open.
“We’re here. Come on, get out.”
We had parked next to a huge windowless building that looked, from the outside, like an aircraft hangar. There were lots of people rushing around, carrying metal boxes into the building from vans parked outside.
A portable office stood in the parking lot, with a makeshift sign on the window saying “Feline Rescue: Production Office.” I sat on the hood of Helen’s car while she went inside.
A car drove past and parked in the disabled spot right outside the hangar. A woman stepped out of the car, carrying a cat basket. She placed the basket on the ground, then she disappeared into the office, too.
Eventually Helen reemerged with an ID tag around her neck.
“Come on, Nancy. You’re going in there.” She pointed to the hangar’s entrance.
The building’s interior had been sectioned off with plywood screens, and in one of the sections a cluster of people were setting up lights and maneuvering cameras into place. I slalomed between people’s legs and around the power cables that trailed across the floor, keen to get a better view. I could hear meows coming from behind the screens.
Dodging a huge light on a tripod I finally saw the set: an eerily accurate re-creation of the inside of a cat shelter, just like the one I had spent a night in after New Year. There was a long row of hutches, each having its temporary cat resident installed. I couldn’t help but think of Number 29 and wonder what he would make of this show business version of his old life. A man with a clipboard and a baseball cap swung round as I approached, checking his list.
“You must be Nancy.”
I nodded and Helen said, “Correct.”
“Great. You’re playing Feral Cat Number 5. In there, please.” And he pointed to one of the hutches.
Feral Cat Number 5? The casting specification for “plain-looking” cats made sense now. I had not been cast in this commercial for my talent or my personality, but because I looked like the kind of cat who could be feral. The kind of cat whom nobody in their right mind would want as a pet.
I made my way toward hutch number 5, wondering if the Kit-e-Licious cat ever had to endure this kind of blatant miscasting.
I jumped into the hutch and immediately spotted the art department’s first inaccuracy: the tartan bed was brand-new, its quilted lining still firm and plump. There had been nothing firm and plump about the bed I had slept in at the real shelter. The hutch walls also smelled of fresh paint, and although they had the appearance of solid brick they wobbled when I touched them. After a few minutes the paint fumes made me light-headed, so I settled down to observe the scene beyond my hutch door.
I recognized the woman who had parked in the disabled spot outside. She carefully lifted her feline charge out of his cat box and placed him in the hutch next to mine. He was a gray-and-white tabby with one front paw tightly wrapped in a bandage. As his handler held him he glanced at me with a pained expression.
All around me the hutches were filling up and I could hear some of the cats greeting each other, obviously seasoned pros. They chatted sagely about the state of the industry and moaned about how slow things always got over the summer. A couple of cats were sharing a hutch, and as we waited for the shoot to get going, they practiced their facial expressions and discussed their motivation. Then they sat in silence for a few moments, before halfhearte
dly nibbling the cat biscuits in their bowl and complaining about the quality of the catering.
Eventually one of the crew members in jeans and T-shirt came and stood in front of the hutches.
“Can I have everyone’s attention, please,” he shouted.
The murmuring died down.
“We’re ready to roll for take one, the establishing shot of all our poor, homeless cats. Can all the talent please try and look miserable.”
I looked around, wondering who “the talent” were, but quickly gathered from the way the other cats had reacted that it was us. I closed my eyes and tried to summon up my state of mind when I had been at the real shelter, wondering whether my owners would ever find me.
The camera slowly rolled along on tracks in front of us, each cat doing its best to convey misery into the lens.
“Very good, everybody. Now, in our next scene someone is coming to choose a cat to take home. I need you all to look expectant and hopeful.”
We duly obliged, looking alert and pricking up our ears, but the director was dissatisfied.
“Come on, I need to see some movement, show a bit more enthusiasm! You need to get noticed if you want to be re-homed!”
I launched myself at the wire door, scrabbling as high as I could and clinging on while yowling like a crazed banshee.
“That’s more like it!” the director shouted encouragingly, and all around me cats were meowing, writhing on the floor, or pawing at their hutch doors.
When the actress saw me hanging off my door for dear life she looked faintly alarmed and quickly moved on to the next hutch, where the cat with the bandaged paw was lying.
She’ll never be interested in him, I thought, but to my great surprise the director called, “Cut!” and then told the actress to look tearful as she contemplated the injured kitty.
Still hanging from the door, I realized I could no longer feel my toes, so I unhooked my claws and tumbled, rather inelegantly, to the floor. I then sat and watched in disbelief as the actress was won over by the invalid cat’s fragile vulnerability and decided to take him home.
The sequence needed to be filmed several times to get the requisite shots from different angles, and I could tell the director and the rest of the production team were getting tired and frustrated, rather like the little people at NHQ when they were over-hungry. Instead of the relaxed smiles and friendly banter, there were now furrowed brows and snappy exchanges.
In the absence of any further instructions from the director, I returned to my bed and resumed my default “miserable” pose, before drifting into a light snooze.
Eventually the director said, “Well done, everybody. We’ll break for lunch and should have a rough cut to show you all before you leave.”
I had no idea what a rough cut was but I knew what lunch was, and I instantly ran to the front of my hutch, waiting for someone to come and unlock the door. A catering van was parked just outside the set, so I and the rest of the talent filed outside and formed a queue.
One Kit-e-Licious pouch later, I felt my normal self again.
Most of the cats were milling around in front of the catering van, chatting about the commercial and hoping for scraps of food from the production team. One cat had jumped into the plastic garbage can, in search of leftovers, and managed to topple the whole thing to the ground, whereupon he dashed out, looking embarrassed. The other cats gave him disapproving looks and made a few barbed comments about his lack of professionalism.
Eventually the director reappeared and announced that the rough cut was ready to view and we should all gather inside. I and the other cats made our way back onto the set and assembled in front of a small monitor perched on top of a metal box. The director stood close by, ready to read out the voice-over, which would be added in the postproduction phase. The room hushed, and the director pressed play.
The commercial started with a slow-motion shot as the camera slid past the row of hutches, each cat emanating misery.
The director intoned in a somber voice: “Nobody wanted these cats. They were all abandoned and unloved. Discarded family pets, rejected because they weren’t cute enough.”
The director spoke the words “weren’t cute enough” just as the camera lingered outside my hutch. I raised my eyebrows and looked around to see if anyone else had noticed the incongruity of words and pictures, but they were all staring intently at the screen.
“Some of these cats were abandoned as kittens and have antisocial behavioral problems, which have made them difficult to re-home.”
Now the screen showed me hanging by my claws from the door of my hutch with a demonic look on my face, before tumbling to the floor.
“Hang on a minute, that’s not fair, you told us to liven things up a bit!” I protested, but no one was listening. One cat at the back of the group said, “Shh!” so I had no choice but to turn back to the monitor.
Now the cat with the bandaged paw was on-screen.
“This is Hansel. Hansel was hit by a car and survived in the wild for three weeks before being brought to the shelter. Here he received life-saving medical assistance. He was lucky not to lose his paw.”
The director sounded like he was on the verge of tears, as Hansel’s face looked pleadingly into the camera.
Then, with a new note of optimism in his voice, he continued: “But here at Feline Rescue, we believe all our cats deserve a chance at happiness. Even injured ones like Hansel.”
I winced. Who had written this dreadful, sentimental script? I could have done a better job.
On-screen, the actress opened the door of Hansel’s hutch and lifted him out to cuddle him over her shoulder. The camera zoomed in on Hansel’s face, which was now beaming with satisfaction.
“Please give whatever you can afford to help Feline Rescue save more cats like Hansel.”
The image froze on Hansel’s smug face.
There was a moment’s silence before a ripple of selfcongratulatory applause spread across the production team and the cats murmured their approval. I looked around to see Hansel with tears in his eyes, being congratulated on his performance. My tail began to twitch as I ruminated on my portrayal in the commercial. “Not cute enough,” “antisocial,” and “behavioral problems” were the phrases that had variously been used to describe me. Not exactly flattering.
The production team began to disperse, and the cats’ handlers reappeared with boxes. As I waited for Helen, who was outside smoking a cigarette, I saw Hansel’s agent walk over to him. I watched in disbelief as she carefully unwrapped the bandage from his paw. Hansel sighed with relief and flexed his leg a few times before trotting off happily toward the exit.
Bloody hell, I thought. (Helen’s constant swearing had started to rub off on me.) He’s not even disabled!
I began to wash, wondering if anything one saw on TV was actually true.
Eventually, after all the other cats had been collected, Helen rushed onto the set, a scowl on her face, saying, “There you are. Come on, we’ve got to go.”
Back at the flat, Gerald was balancing on a set of scales next to his bed.
“How’d it go?” he asked when I walked in, lifting one paw off the scales to see if it made any difference to the flickering digital display.
“Okay, I think, if you can call being described as ‘not cute enough’ and ‘antisocial’ okay.”
“You’re a black cat, aren’t you? Par for the course. You’ll have to get used to it,” he replied, stepping off the scales. “A job’s a job, though, so don’t knock it.”
I knew he was right, but I wondered if I was wasting my time trying to build an acting career. I knew the dangers of typecasting and that I would only ever be cast in the “plain-looking” roles.
I stepped into my bed and started to lick my front paws. I had imagined acting would be exciting and glamorous, but in fact it was anything but. Instead of fruit baskets and limos there had been a wobbly set that smelled of paint, and the pitch-black trunk of Helen’s car. And as if t
hat weren’t bad enough, my character had been grossly misrepresented in the end product.
I mentally crossed out the “A” in MIAOW. Acting, on reflection, probably wasn’t for me. But that still left model, icon, or whatever.
Tomorrow, I decided, I would start at the beginning, with “M.”
CHAPTER 19
Model Nancy
Great art picks up where the call of nature ends.
—(Adapted from) Marc Chagall
The following day, Helen left the flat early for a meeting, so I took advantage of the peace and quiet to log on to her laptop. I opened Google and typed “cat model” in the search bar. Topping the results was a rather disreputable-looking agency seeking “adult cats for adult pictures.”
One for the Online Vice Squad, I chuckled.
There was also a feline modeling agency, although the small print revealed that an “administration fee” had to be paid up front, and that the agency could not guarantee that it would find work for its clients.
A mug’s game, I decided, inwardly pleased with my growing industry savvy.
Just as I was about to give up and try to think of a different profession beginning with “M,” I stumbled across the website of a cat who had started his career as an artist’s model, but subsequently made a name for himself as a painter.
I was intrigued. Artist’s model had not even crossed my mind as a profession, but it did have a certain bohemian air to it.
The website featured a photo of an overweight orange tom sprawled on an artist’s easel, wearing an expression of indifferent superiority. Displayed on the easel was a canvas covered in smears of paint, in which the traces of paw prints could just be made out. To me, the painting looked like a canvas that had been walked across by a cat with dirty paws, but upon closer examination it emerged that there had been an exhibition of these “paw-print paintings” in a gallery in east London.
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