Cat People

by Michael Korda

  It’s hard to know what goes on in people’s minds, but to a lot of people kittens are the straw that breaks the camel’s back—they’re simply not prepared to deal with them, even though the simple solution is to have a female spayed, but then a lot of people are unwilling to spring for that too….

  In any case, one way or the other, Mumsie had been ejected from her home with her kittens, and promptly found a new one, so she did not arrive laden with a whole lot of physical problems and diseases. It must be said that she groomed both herself and the kittens to gleaming white perfection before making an appearance at our door—neither she, nor they, presented the usual bedraggled picture of strays, however hungry they may have been. Mumsie would, in any case, soon prove that she had considerable talents as a hunter.

  Neither Chutney nor Hooligan seemed to have much desire to kill things—“Live and let live,” might have been their motto—but Mumsie was a lethal weapon when it came to mice, moles, small snakes, and, unhappily, careless songbirds.

  Though she was poorly camouflaged—except on snowy days, you could see her from a mile away—she regarded the birdbath in front of the kitchen windows as her particular hunting area, and was quite capable of leaping up and catching a bird just as it landed or took off from the rim. She invariably brought small, brightly feathered corpses, or odd bits and pieces of rodents back to place on the door mat as a present for us, a kind of “thank you” gift for taking her and her kittens in during the storm.

  One would have thought that the sight of a pure white cat sitting next to a birdbath and staring up at the sky intently might have warned any bird off from the idea of a bath, but perhaps birds are color blind. Given the fact that Mumsie was snow white, relieved only by a pink nose and pink tips to her ears, hiding in the greenery didn’t do much to conceal her, and she mostly didn’t bother. She just sat there patiently, until something feathered or of the rodent family came within range, then swooped on it with truly astonishing speed. It was easy to see how she had managed to keep her kittens fed out there in the wild—as hunters go, she was a pro, though now that she was fed two squares a day, she clearly did it pour le sport, or perhaps to keep her hand in, just in case.

  When she was kept indoors for some reason—usually because we had taken pity on the birds—she sometimes sat on the kitchen counter, next to the sink, staring out the window longingly at the birdbath, eyes focused on each little feathered bather with sheer hatred in them, tail flickering with impatience. In every other respect, she was the nicest of cats, even though she was a menace if you happened to be wearing anything dark. We invested in small vacuum cleaners—the best was the Royal brand—and boxes of rollers with gummy paper for picking up lint and hair, the most effective ones being those sold at the vet’s, not surprisingly, but still, every time you put on a dark blue sweater, or a blue blazer, or black trousers, you saw evidence of Mumsie’s presence, and being a cat, there was naturally nothing she liked better than sneaking into a closet when the door was open and bedding down for a nice, snug nap on your darkest sweaters. No matter how vigorously Mumsie was groomed and brushed, she had only to rub against your ankles, if you were wearing black socks or stockings, to leave a whole layer of white hair on them. Since she enjoyed human contact, there was always plenty of vacuuming and pet-linting to be done in her wake, to which Mumsie was totally indifferent—like most attractive females, she was always perfectly certain that she was welcome everywhere. People with allergies to cats she singled out as her particular favorites, needless to say.

  All by herself Mumsie disproved the adage that “all cats look gray in the dark,” an old English saying (a favorite of Margaret’s father) the gist of which is that it doesn’t matter all that much whether a woman is attractive or not, since you won’t be able to tell the difference at night. Mumsie, however, did not look “gray in the dark” at all, she glowed a spectral white. It was possible to trip on Hooligan in the dark, and we not infrequently did, but Mumsie was as visible on even the darkest of winter nights as the cat’s eyes on the English roads, and impossible to trip over. She did, however, blend in with the bedclothes, so it was hard to tell the difference between Mumsie and the sheets, and, as it happened, sleeping on—or preferably, in—the bed, or between the pillows, was one of Mumsie’s favorite occupations. Perhaps it was the loss of her kittens, but Mumsie was exceptionally needy when it came to companionship, and quite the reverse of a standoffish cat. With or without even the slightest encouragement, she was on your lap, or on your chest if you were lying down, or on the pillow with her nose in your ear, breathing away gently, if you were asleep. To visitors who weren’t used to cats, this was not necessarily the high point of their weekend.

  Her relationship with Chutney was friendly, without territorial fights or jostling for position. Mumsie was apparently willing to concede his special place in Margaret’s heart, provided her right to a position on certain chairs, and to a place on the bed, was not interfered with. A good long snooze in the laundry basket was her idea of heaven.

  Although the picture of the cat with a dish of cream is firmly fixed in people’s minds, Mumsie was in fact our only cat who not only liked milk, and of course cream when we had it, but expected, rather imperiously, to be given a saucer of milk every time we had tea or coffee. Failure to produce a dish for her when you took a carton of milk of out of the refrigerator brought on a storm of angry protest and complaint, and Mumsie was nothing if not vocal.

  Breakfast was, in fact, her favorite meal of the day. Apart from milk, she expected to get a dollop of butter or margarine, and when possible a few pieces of bagel or—treat of treats—a raisin-bran muffin. She liked to eat breakfast seated on the table, between the marmalade jar and the teapot. At other mealtimes, she was mostly content to stay on the floor, but she seemed to think of breakfast as a family meal, and expected her place in it at, or rather on, the table. After breakfast, whatever the weather, she wanted to be let out for a leisurely patrol of the grounds, just in case there were any songbirds or rodents on the loose at low altitudes. Sometimes she would stay out until quite late in the evening—we have a fair number of acres to patrol—but you never had to worry about locking her out at night, since she quickly mastered a way up to the roof of the house, which involved climbing a tree and jumping onto the kitchen roof, then making her way up one side of the roof to a dizzying height and down the other, to appear eventually at our bedroom window, tapping her claws against the glass for admittance.

  Even when the roof, which was fairly steep, was covered in snow and ice, Mumsie could still manage her way up and down the shingles. She found a way, too, of sheltering herself on a narrow ledge below a small skylight window above one of our doors, a precarious position from which we often struggled to rescue her at first with an extended ladder and a pair of thick leather work gloves the moment the cry went out, “Mumsie’s on the roof!,” until it became apparent after numerous rescues that she was there of her own free will, and could get down by herself somehow whenever she wanted to.

  Occasionally, when she had vanished and an area search had produced no results, even at mealtimes, we would happen to look up while walking down the hallway, and there she would be, at ceiling height, looking in through the decorative window above the front door. To say that Mumsie had a head for heights would be putting it mildly—she could climb trees to a remarkable height, and go far out on the limbs, and as she grew older and more cranky would frequently pursue interloping cats far up into the big hemlock beside the barn, then plant herself in a convenient, strategically chosen branch to prevent their coming down. At such times, she ignored meals, weather, and pleading from the ground, determined to protect her turf, or perhaps, as she saw it, ours.

  It was, in fact, easy enough to see that Mumsie did feel a sense of responsibility. Feckless as we were, in her view, we were likely to let the place be overrun by intruders, but fair weather or foul, Mumsie patrolled it for us, even walking the fence lines, tiptoeing along the top rails,
in search of mice, birds, baby rabbits, and of course other cats that might take advantage of us. She liked to start out at the birdbath—scene of so many bloodbaths—then make her way around the flower garden, then go around the barn—rather more cautiously here, because there were often other cats in the barn, auditioning for a place in the tack room, or the laundry room, or ultimately, of course, the house—then from there out to the paddocks to inspect each one, and finally back again to the house, visibly satisfied with herself at a job well done.

  Fatigue, bad weather, the occasional cold—Mumsie was subject to sniffles and sneezing—were never allowed to interfere with her self-imposed duty. She never went farther than the indoor riding ring, beyond which there was second growth, dense bushes, miles of riding trails, and the unseen presence of more heavyweight threats, like packs of stray dogs and coyotes. Mumsie’s territory was large, but always in sight of the house, in case she had to beat a quick retreat. She had survived in the wild with her kittens, and had no desire to revisit it.

  In fact, the only animals before which she retreated were skunks—for obvious reasons—and raccoons, which are more than a match for a cat. Possums she ignored, as if they were beneath her dignity, and wild turkeys she watched with interest, but since they traveled in a flock, dominated by several large male birds, she could tell that the chances of her bagging one to bring home were slim. You could see that she was tempted—birds were birds, after all—but despite her taking up her attack position, belly flat on the ground, tail swishing impatiently, chattering her teeth, the turkeys were not impressed or frightened, and she never charged head-on into them, wisely, in our opinion. Small snakes she was quite good at dispatching; larger ones, she was wise enough to leave alone. In any case, every day was full of new adventures for Mumsie, even if they only consisted of teaching new cats on the property who was boss.

  The ability to switch between the two modes of a cat’s existence was remarkable. Stretched out on your lap before the fireplace, or on the bed, Mumsie seemed like the ideal housecat, as tame and relaxed as could be, but the moment she stepped outside the house, she reverted to her wild hunting state, climbing up and down roofs and trees and defending her turf tooth and claw. Most cats become—or remain—one thing or the other, but Mumsie was comfortable in both roles.

  One thing she was particularly good at was calculating the odds. So long as potential rivals stayed outside or in the barn, Mumsie treated them like the enemy, and harried them, whenever possible, into the uppermost branches of the trees, sometimes biting them quite badly, and quite often taking a bad wound herself. But once one of the outdoor cats was allowed indoors, Mumsie grudgingly, gradually accepted the newcomer, and made the necessary adjustments to the all-important social order. She was not entirely reliable, and a certain amount of infighting went on, but it was seldom the open warfare with which she defended her position outside the house.

  Fierce as she could be, she adapted to the inevitable—something we could all learn from.

  Anyway, the next “inevitables” were bigger than she was.

  6. “The Stonegate Strays”

  Over the years, they mount up, the strays who have arrived and stayed, the ones who have arrived and moved on elsewhere, the ones who never quite worked up the courage to appear at the door. After Chutney, Jake was Margaret’s favorite. There was no courtship with Jake, no hanging about in the weeds, or the woods, or under one of the outbuildings waiting to be let in. In Margaret’s words, “He was at the front door with a companion one morning. He was that lovely gray, like a Russian blue, his friend was a hodgepodge of shades; they were gaunt and very hungry. He was game to come indoors immediately, with his snaggle tooth and little goatee. I named him at once. I felt this might be pushing my luck, so I put them both in the garage. A good move, as when I picked them up, I discovered they were full of ticks. A part-time woman who was working in the barn said she would love to have the female, and took her home that day, but three weeks later brought her back, saying she was going to have kittens. ‘Lucky you,’ I said. ‘They’ll be loads of fun.’ ‘I don’t want her,’ she said. So I took her down to Mike Murphy. It was a long time ago, and his small animal practice was just starting, and the waiting room walls weren’t covered with photos of cats and kittens looking to be adopted, as they are now. ‘She’s a nice cat, I can find her a home,’ he said. ‘Just don’t tell anyone, or I’ll be swamped with strays!’ Jake did not pass his vet exam with flying colors, but I kept him anyway, telling Michael, ‘He’s terminal, he’ll only be here a short time.’ Over the many years that Jake was with us, Michael repeated over and over again the ‘he’s terminal’ story, pointing out each time that Jake was still with us. ‘And,’ Michael would add, ‘he still has scurf!’

  “Jake was very nurturing of anyone, and he would appear from anywhere in the house at the first hint of a sigh, a moan, or a tear, butting his big head against you, walking along one side and down the other if you were lying down, purring loudly and frequently touching your arm with a paw. When Michael arrived home from cancer surgery, Jake was in his element. ‘Get him away from me,’ Michael whispered. ‘He hates me, he always has, he’s going to sit on my head and smother me, get him away!’

  “Jake was very attached to me. Possessive, sleeping pressed against my side, or, when Michael was away, against my back. He would walk beside me outside, like a dog. He grew extremely fat, to the point where he could get up into the hay loft, but not down, so we learned to keep a fence board handy to act as a runway for him on the descent. Michael says you can always tell ‘a Korda cat’—they have small heads and huge bodies. Jake’s body let him down in the end. I cried for days.

  “Mr. McTavish (also known as ‘Mr. McT,’ ‘Mr. McTiggy,’ or ‘The Thug’) appeared in our driveway one winter morning. Maybe someone had dumped him from their car or truck, or like Hooligan his owner had moved away and left him behind here, or some place nearby. He was a black and white short-haired cat, with big yellow eyes, definitely an adult male. He would come and go—weeks went by sometimes without my seeing him. I fed him whenever he was here. But he grew thinner and thinner. Fleas, worms, and ticks, no doubt. His eyes were runny, his coat dull. Then one June evening he appeared and I let him into the kitchen and fed him a large meal. Michael—and the other cats—were bug-eyed. ‘You can’t do this,’ Michael said. ‘It’s madness. You can’t expose our cats to him, and what about me? He could have—’

  “‘Everything,’ I said, ‘but it’s only for a minute. I’m going to put him in the garage overnight, and take him down to Mike Murphy in the morning.’

  “For the first three weeks, he lived behind the washing machine and dryer, he ate little, and was very smelly. Our housekeeper at the time did not like him, but she didn’t stay long. Finally, he came out from his hiding hole behind the appliances, started to eat, his coat bloomed and he grew in every direction, but he did not make friends, especially with Jake and Mumsie, who was frightened of him. ‘He’s a thug,’ Michael said. He never wanted to go outside until very late at night, rather like a vampire, appearing on the front porch roof and staring in the bedroom window. ‘He can spend the night out,’ Michael would say. ‘It’ll be good for him, freshen up his coat, he’ll get scurfy like Jake if he spends all his life inside.’ Needless to say, he never spent a night out. Over the years, he eased himself into Jake’s spot in the order of cats, and as Jake’s health failed, McTavish became dominant. Years later, love appeared in McTavish’s life, but that’s another story.”

  Once they put on some weight, both Jake and McTavish were bigger than Mumsie, but, as is so often the case with neutered male cats, they were on the whole more peaceful and inclined to let the world go by without fussing. Jake was affectionate, at any rate to Margaret, and had the size and the heft to push his way close to her, but he was not inclined to fight, nor, given his size, was it often necessary for him to. He looked, in fact, more threatening than he was, a Mike Tyson with a sweet nature.


  For a good many years, until the arrival of Mr. McT, Jake was the only male cat in the house, and rather like a male lion, he expected to be looked after and deferred to by the ladies, and on the whole was. Bulky and dignified, he always chose the most comfortable chair, the plumpest cushion, the place closest to Margaret, for his nap, and expected not to be bothered. His routine included a generous portion of naps. A good night’s sleep, followed by breakfast, followed by a good long nap in a warm place, was his idea of time well spent, and although he had the feline equivalent of AIDs, he had a hearty appetite and put on a lot of weight—enough so that the only proper word to describe him was “portly.” His small goatee, his long whiskers, and his expression, all combined to give him a certain malevolent look, which was, in fact, deceptive—push come to shove, despite his impressive size, he was chiefly interested in his own comfort, and his relationship with Margaret. Everything else seemed to him beneath his dignity. He did not sweat the details or let small things bother him unduly. At night you could hear him wheezing and breathing loudly on the bed, and the moment he decided Michael was asleep he would move inexorably up toward the pillows, trying to get between us and push as close to Margaret’s face as he could, but beyond a certain disdain for careful grooming he had no bad habits.

  Of course, one couldn’t help noticing that we had gone from being a one-cat couple to a four-cat couple (counting only those cats who lived in the house), and with no end in sight, for the woods and fields were still alive with cats, and hardly a week went by without some newcomer turning up on the porch at night, waiting to be fed. We had not yet reached the stage of our cat-loving neighbors the Lynns, who bought kitty litter by the hundredweight and cat food in bulk, but four is still a lot of cats, particularly when they all get together in one room, or when it’s time to feed them. In the morning, when one woke up, it was to see pairs of pointed, triangular ears in every direction, as the cats woke and thought of breakfast, and cleaning the litter trays turned from being a minor chore to a major one.