I took her home, on my own and every hour I gave her 15ml of water. I syringed it into her mouth and she didn’t mind. And then, during the night, she jumped off my bed and she went to the water bowls and drank of her own accord. She hasn’t been eating either for a day or so, but she didn’t want any food. She wet the bed, which has never happened before, but at least it means she’s getting lots of fluids. The next morning I called Andrew and told him what I’d done.
When she went missing for 6 months, 15 years ago, I prayed to God ‘if you bring her back to me, I’ll pray my thanks to you every night for the rest of my life’ I said. And she did come back and so I did pray, every single night, for 15 years so far and part of my prayer is ‘thank you for letting us be together again, and thank you for letting her die of old age, when she’s in the house, next to me, sleeping peacefully in her basket, let her die peacefully, painlessly and happily’.
“What would happen” I ask Andrew “if you took her in?” and he told me that she’d be on a drip and that might revive her a little and then what would happen would be that they would have to change her diet to a low protein diet and she’d be on a lot of medication. “You’re doing the right thing” he said “I would do just the same. We have to suggest fluids, but Gussie, she’s too old to fight it now and if she came in here, she’d hate it, cats do, being cramped in a cage. And if she did survive this, then just the changing of her diet would probably kill her at this age. And then she’d be on medication, it wouldn’t make her better, just maintain her condition, maybe for days or weeks, but she will die from this. Some owners bring their pets in every few weeks to be put on fluids, it’s not fair for them. You’re doing the right then, but the next thing to think about is her going, you don’t want her to suffer, and it can be very painful at the end if they go into convulsions.”
That night Coningsby and I slept together in the small bedroom, with the door shut, I never shut doors. Coningsby didn’t sleep much, she walked around and around the room, all around the outsides, and then she stayed facing the corner for I don’t know how long. She drank again and I still syringed water in to her mouth. She is getting weaker. I am with her all the time. I put her on my lap and she likes that, she looks up at me and she knows I’m there and she wants to be with me. Occasionally she stands up and she cries.
It is Saturday and I’m sitting out in the garden with Coningsby, who I know is dying. It’s horribly, horribly hot, but we’re sitting in the shade. I’m sitting on the grass and Coningsby is in her basket. She looks tired, looks like she’s given up, but she’s still Coningsby. She is the greatest friend that I’ve ever had. The greatest connection I’ve ever had. If she dies I’ll be all that’s left. I think she’s suffering now and I’m taking her to see the homeopathic vet at 12.30 for her to be put to sleep. She always looks after me and I always look after her. She’s trying to cry, but sound won’t come out. I love her so much. “I love you so much” Joseph says to me
“I love you too.”
“Playing God is all very well, when there is no choice, but she’s not quite ready and neither are you. There’s nothing wrong with her going quietly in her sleep” the vet said and I came away. We will go out tonight, me and my girl, we’ll go and spend a night out together.
Coningsby loves getting in her cat basket. As soon as she sees it, she jumps in. If I ever have to take any of the other cats to the vets, she always gets in the basket too to make sure they’re OK. She has no fear and she looks after everyone. When I would go shopping for food, I’d come home and unload the shopping and just throw the empty bags on the floor. And then I would see that Coningsby would be snuggled up in one of them. I would pick her up in the bag, hold the handles and take her out down the track, in to the woods and her little face would peer out from the top of the bag, she loved it. It’s making me smile now. Don’t leave me on my own.
It is Saturday evening, I’m on the step of the fishing hut with Coningsby on my lap in her open wicker basket, she’s looking at the grass, looking at the river. I’m writing this, smoking a cigar, keeping my eye constantly on her and holding her with a hand every now and then. She is my darling and she’s going to die, and I still don’t really believe it because she’s immortal. She is padding from foot to foot occasionally, her tiny little velvet feet. Her beautiful fur is rich cream, the very richest from the top of the milk and her ears are lavender mouse. She is the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. I think of how much I love her and it’s a huge hot ball, hurtling through my body, taking up every single bit of space. I think of her dying – but I can’t. I think of missing her and every bit of me turns to biscuit and I crumble and vanish. I am a pile of crumbs on the ground, I am useless and helpless, I have no strength, I have no defence for pounding feet on the pavement. I am an open mouth, wide open, a big circle that takes over my whole face, and there are my eyes, shocked and frightened. I am a bolting horse, with saddle slipping and stirrups bashing against my sides, I am terrified and there is no escape, I will gallop until I drop down exhausted.
The fish are rising and I have no interest. A tawny owl is hooting and I don’t care, I care for nothing and no one except Coningsby who is trying to cry but she doesn’t have the energy and it is breaking me in two. All my insides melt away and I am left speechless and something with no name, no substance. She turns to look at me, her one eye all clouded from the ulcer all those years ago, so very precious. Her other eye, strong gold, the colour of the ball hurtling through my body “I will look after you Coningsby” and she will let me look after her. I want to say “don’t die, please don’t die” but I know she has to go and that I can’t keep her here and that for me to say something like that would be cruel because I have to be strong if she dies. She still looks after me as I look after her. She is all I have. You must die if you have to I am thinking and I promise that life goes on, and on and on.
We look out at the same things, in the same way and see the same. We see every single dock leaf and every single brown stain on that leaf, every single discoloured puncture mark. We see the same tangled, unruly grass. We see the same foxglove curling and writhing it’s way to our sky. We see the same Himalayan balsam and we see the same nettles, but they mean nothing, they are just illustrations on a page of no importance. I hear the tawny owl again but she can’t because she’s deaf, but I could swear that she does now, I really think she does now. A big sea trout heaves it’s silver body high over the water and pashes, bashes, splashes down again, and a fraction of a second later her eyes go to that spot. I hear a Little owl and I hear the rushing of the river down to a pool some way down below and I don’t know if she hears that. And I know that soon she won’t hear a thing. Soon she won’t see a thing or smell a thing and I’ll be all on my own. I won’t be able to go home and cuddle her. I won’t be able to hold her and smell her lovely, clean warm skin. I won’t be able to put both my hands on her sides and say “I love you, I love you, I love you.” I won’t be able to pray thanks for letting us be together, because we won’t be together.
It is Sunday evening. She was put to sleep this afternoon, gently and kindly and now I’m here without her, without the best friend I’ve ever had. And I have no one to hold my hand and I have no one to turn to and ask for love. I have lost love. I do not deserve love.
I’ve left her at home, in my studio, wrapped softly and gently and cosily in one of grandma’s floral sheets, her body caressed, held and protected. Her precious little face peering out from the top. I didn’t cover her face, I want her to be able to breathe, even in death. Her eyes look different now, her ulcer eye has suddenly sunken in, it is deeper in her skull, the other eye has fine and gossamer mist over it and I half expect morning sunlight to shine through, and as I look at her, as I caress her precious face with my hands, as I kiss, kiss, kiss her on her beautiful soft, chisel nose, her face suddenly changes and it is not Coningsby anymore, it is a soft, silken, velvet body, it is more glorious than anything ever created, but it is just a beau
tiful shell and I see Coningsby disappear, more and more by each fraction of a second, and her body is still warm. “Don’t go. Don’t go”. I touch her paws, they are still warm and soft and I can move them. They are not stiff and I know that when I get home she will be board, solid and rigid and it will rip my insides from me. It will bring my voice from my body. It will choke me and burn me. It will drown me in tears and whilst her body will be stiff, my body will be soft and will release me of gravity. I will fall and shout and scream and I will hug myself because I am all I have, I will look at her and I will look away from her. Where is she? She was to be with me for ever and here she is, dead on a bed. My mouth fills with fluid, with sweat, with tears, a flood of hopelessness, a pain, a pain through my eyes, through my soul. Where is she? And can I get her back? It wasn’t meant to be like this. “IT WASN’T MEANT TO BE LIKE THIS” I shout at the ceiling, at the sky. “It wasn’t meant to be like this” I whisper and suddenly I am on my back, in the grass, I am crying and gasping and my tears being pulled, wrenched out of me, it is violent. Sounds, like a creature being eaten alive are coming from me, and I see the sky above me, it is too far away. I have never seen it so far away, it is not the sky I know, it is not familiar, it is beyond my reach and I am a tiny insect lost in the grass. I am lost and I am vulnerable.
It is Monday and I am sitting on chamomile daisies on a bare patch of a field sown too densely with barley, it is up to my chest. I have waded through it and each stem is pushed back by my body, hits the one behind, which hits the one behind that and it sounds like someone creeping up behind me. I feel my knife in my pocket. I was going to bring Coningsby with me, I’d planned it all day but I picked her up and jellied loose blood came out from her nose. Blood that would once have run, just peeped out. I wiped her clean, I wrapped her up again and put her back on the bed and kissed her. I left the room, and here I am.
I remember when Coningsby was about two years old, she got her foot stuck in sheep fencing and cried and cried. I heard the noise from the house, ran out to see what was wrong and saw her hanging upside down, one foot up. I ran to her, picked her up gently in my arms and with difficulty I untangled her from the fence and she spun around, and dug all her claws into my arm, the sudden pain of it made me scream and drop her from my caress. That’s not the pain I feel now. And then Buxton died in my arms and in her last death throws she sank her teeth through my thumb nail and pierced the skin beneath it, and the pain was fantastic and welcome. I wanted that pain because she was suffering and for years afterwards my bumpy, badly grown nail would remind me of her. But that’s not the pain I feel now. I put my head in my hand and rub my face, and I won’t see her again. And my lips quiver and my mouth lengthens and my tears come and I can’t breathe because I won’t have her anymore. And I feel so tired and so sad and so forgotten and so tattered like these petals here. My head is hurting and bats fly around it looking for insects and I look for her, but I won’t find her. And my ears hurt, they are straining and they hurt and I won’t hear her anymore. I would put my hands on her body when I spoke to her so she could feel my words through my blood, through my veins, and we were electricity, but she won’t feel me anymore. She won’t quack at me when I pick her up, but her blood will show. She is dead.
On the first day of her illness the other three, Poppenjoy, Raffle Buffle and Everingham all slept around her on the bed, silken soft, catkin soft, soft as water, soft as glass, my cats. And as those very few days progressed they didn’t come very much near her, they didn’t take note of her and when she was dead they stepped over her body when I showed her to them. And now she is dead they are with me. Everingham wants to play rough with me again, Poppenjoy wants me to pick her up and carry her around again. Raffle Buffle is my companion and wants butter again. My tummy hurts, I turn on my side, but I won’t be holding her as she nestles in to my belly. And the other night, the night of the day she died, I cried and cried and then vomited and had diarrhoea and I thought of my dream just a little while ago. My back hurts, my neck hurts and I won’t be able to nestle her against it, under my chin. I thought, I knew she was immortal, and then she died and I was so shocked, because that wasn’t meant to happen, but now I know, that I got it wrong, she is immortal, but not in her silky soft and warm cat form. She will come back to me in some other way, as a child maybe or another cat, or something I can’t think of yet, but she will come back to me again and I will know her as soon as she does. My belly hurts, but I have a gut feeling, a certain knowledge that she will come back again.
Come Not When I Am Dead Page 25
