It has been a busy week in the Holme Valley. Now that we’ve come back from holiday, and the start of a new teaching term looms ahead for Debbie, the weather has – of course – turned warm and balmy. Or perhaps walm and barmy. It was pretty balmy (and barmy) when we went to Walney Island last Sunday. Given the imminence of the new academic year, Debbie had decided she wanted one last paddle of the Summer, so we loaded up the kayak, the wheelchair, the wheelchair’s inhabitant, yours truly, Debbie’s Dad, and Freddie and Zak, into the old camper van, and set off into the sunrise, looking and feeling very much like a bomber crew setting off on a mission.
Two and a half hours later, Debbie was launching her kayak into the Irish Sea, Mike was walking along the sand while Freddie trotted along behind him and Zak ran excitedly in and out of the waves, chasing and fetching sticks, and I was alternately dozing in the sun and writing my entry for the Costa Coffee Short Story Competition.
The best bit of the day was undoubtedly Deb’s kayaking with the grey seals all around her at the mouth of Walney south channel; the worst was undoubtedly coming home to an empty house with no fire in the stove and no Kitty to greet us, querulously asking to be fed “Naow”. Oh, and the camper’s oil leak is more extensive, and therefore more expensive, than we thought. It turns out it’s got to go for life-threatening surgery at the garage next week.
In the midst of maungy Monday, the pit of the week, when I was finally forced to confront the pile of unanswered emails and the general bag of ferrets that is my “to do” list, and talking of life threatening surgery, the hospital rang to say that they wanted me on 13th September, to take out my gall bladder. I’d already knocked them back once, on the pretext that I was on holiday (I was, actually on holiday, but even if I hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have had it done). Anyway, I told them “no”. The consultant’s secretary seemed a bit surprised, and I expanded on my decision by saying that my reason for saying no was that I didn’t want to die by not coming round from a general anaesthetic. At which point, I think she realised that it wasn’t worth arguing, and she said, with a weary sigh, that she’d have to take me off the waiting list and make me a clinic appointment instead, so I could discuss my misgivings with the consultant face to face. I said so be it, and we left it at that.
I suppose I should really have it done, because my GP has told me that on a how ill are you scale of 1 to 10, when I had ascending cholangitis a year ago, I reached about level 8. And of course, if I have managed to breed one massive gallstone the size of a Ferrero Rocher, then there’s always the chance of more. We’ll see.
For the moment, I had other fish to fry. Well, not to fry, and not exactly fish. More like cats. Monday saw the advent of Betty the calico cat, who was picked up from the vets by Deb and Granny at teatime that day. Betty’s first act, on being released from the cat-carrier, was to vanish behind the fridge and stay there for most of the remainder of the day. By the same time on Tuesday, she’d begun venturing out for food, and making tentative forays. Then she took to sitting under the sink. Another day passed, and she’d progressed to sitting behind the settee, then she settled down on Kitty’s old binbag bean-bag in the hearth, and now, on a Sunday morning, as I type this, she’s snoozing on Zak’s armchair in the conservatory, in the sun, having seamlessly made the transition to being “our cat”, following in the pawsteps of Kitty.
Rather too seamlessly, in some ways. I don’t blame Betty, but we are both still heartbroken over Kitty’s sudden loss, and in a way, I could have done with more space to grieve. But of course, if we had stood on ceremony and done just that, then Betty would have outstayed her stay of execution, and would now be in a body-bag. Betty is, of course, a completely different sort of cat to Kitty. Where Kitty was small, Betty is massive. Where Kitty was loud and vocal, Betty has a much more subtle repertoire of trills and chirrups. In fact, of all the cats we’ve ever had, in her demeanour, she mostly resembles Nigel, who had a similar need to communicate using words like “draaarp” and “prrrt”.
We decided pretty quickly that she wasn’t a Betty, and she didn’t answer to the name anyway. Debbie said that, given her size, her mad staring eyes, and her propensity for living behind the fridge, we should call her “Nigella” and I thought this fitted in quite well, actually, but just as I was getting enthusiastic, Debbie changed her mind. We bandied several names around, then settled on “Phoebe” as a compromise. So for a couple of days she was Phoebe, because we got her on St Phoebe’s day, but it became obvious that she wasn’t going to answer to that, either, and Granny said that Phoebe had unfortunate associations for her, because it reminded her of her Auntie Lilly, also known as Phoebe, who went mad. That must be where Debbie gets it from, then. Meanwhile, Phoebe, blissfully unaware of the controversy raging over her name, continued exploring the house and finding the warmest patch of sunlight on the rug in the conservatory, rolling over onto her back with her legs splayed out in all directions, and squeaking and purring with delight. That must be where Debbie gets it from, then.
By Saturday, it had reached the proportions of a full-blown international crisis, so in the end we wrote down all the names we’d thought of, and allocated each of them a score, according to an arcane system of our own devising, so we could finally make a decision. Eventually, we came up with a name we can all agree on… Matilda. So, from this day hence, Matilda she is. We looked it up, and it means “mighty battle-maiden”, which does seem very appropriate, given that she’s already seen off Spidey from next door simply by growling at him through the glass of the (closed) conservatory door.
So, all in all, I should be happy. We seem to have successfully assimilated a new cat into the household, although she has yet to come face to face with Zak or Freddie. We had a cat, the cat died, we have got a new cat; what’s not to like. But the problem is, it doesn’t work like that, and my delight in Matilda has been offset this week by creeping feelings of sadness and grief over Kitty, which have come unbidden upon me, in the watches of the night. Monday night was especially hard. The evening was drawing in, and it is getting very back-endish now, twilight falling at about eight o’clock, and the fire was ticking away, just enough to keep the sharpness out of the air. I’d been busy all day, and then finally packed in working at about six, and it would have been just the time to have fed Kitty (“Naow”) and then settled down for the evening. Except she wasn’t there, she was out in the garden, with Dusty, Nigel and Russbags.
The fact that all cats are different was recognised in the Mass Observation diary of Maggie Joy Blunt, as shown in this bit, when she wrote about one of her cats, on 14 March 1947:
The cat died. Such an insignificant event. A dead cat - target for mockery, small boys, and dust. There are too many cats in the world. Why make all the fuss because now there is one less? Every cat is a miracle of independent, loveable life, if you have the eyes and the feeling to understand it as such. I have loved many cats and I expect I shall love many more. Each one becomes a friend with a distinct individuality, and the loss each time is a deeply personal one. No one else ever replaces that person exactly, but new personalities help you to forget your grief at the loss of others.
Apart from the fact that it should be “fewer” and not “less”, I agree with her entirely, and I would go further and say it’s not just cats, but, to an extent, all animals. I’ve certainly found it to be true of dogs.
So, the nights are drawing in. The owls are back in the trees on the valley-slope behind our house as well. For some reason, they’ve been very vocal this week, or maybe it’s just that I’ve noticed them more. Perversely, as I said above, now that summer’s more or less over, and all of the “fury and the mire of human veins” which constitutes a new academic year is about to kick off, the weather has, of course, turned warm and benign. Debbie has been missing Kitty’s presence as well, particularly on these sunny mornings of her last week of freedom, when she’s sitting out on the decking with her morning toast and coffee.
It’s all a bit “phoney war”, at the moment, and it’s difficult to shake off the feeling that worse, nastier times lie ahead. I’ve been out of touch with the news, since we got back, although I gather that various prominent members of the Junta responsible for The Blight were booed at the Paralympics, and serve them right, too. Oh, and Edwina Currie has complained that some people have been turning up at food banks by car. Really! The nerve of these poor people. Perhaps they should walk six miles to the food bank, carrying a rucksack, like Mark and Helen Mullins did before they were driven to suicide by the grinding pointless poverty and depression of their lives. Mrs Currie should, perhaps, pause to consider the wider question of why the hell, in 21st Century Britain, there have to be food banks at all, except that her answer is probably that there shouldn’t, and the destitute and desperate should stand in the street and beg, not forgetting to tug their forelock at every passing toff.
As far as our own phoney war is concerned, it’s very much the calm before the storm; next week teaching starts proper, and, for my part, I have only three weeks to do last year’s accounts and the next VAT return, not to mention the myriad of other tasks I’ve been neglecting because we’ve been away on holiday. I am seriously regretting every going, especially as I still maintain that, had I not put her in that damn cattery, Kitty would be alive today. But of course, the corollary of that is equally true, if Kitty had still been alive today, Matilda would be dead, because we’d never have known about her, she’d just have been part of the sad waste of unwanted animals that die alone and unheeded every year, a silent animal holocaust going on in our midst, which will only get worse, with The Blight in charge. By the next election, there could be packs of feral dogs roaming the streets. If there are, I sincerely hope they savage Edwina Currie.
So. That was the week, that was. The external world of idiocy and bluster, and me mourning a dead cat while trying to cope with a new one. Poor little Kitty, she will be missed for many a day and many a week, many a month and many a year. It seems totally unreal to me now that it was only four weeks ago that we set off on our benighted foolish Quixotic progress, and abandoned her to her fate, and, when I think back to our holiday, such as it was, it seems like a different person, not me, that sat at the side of Kilbrannan Sound watching the gannets plummet into the sea and singing “Blow The Wind Southerly” and wishing away the days until I would see my cat again.
Time turns, and the seasons turn; there is a time to every purpose under heaven. Summer turns, and changes to autumn. The leaves turn; the woods decay and fall, as Tennyson said. The old order changeth, and giveth way to the new. I have no option now but to add Kitty to the long list of regrets and mistakes that has clouded my life, and over which I brood from time to time.
The death of my cat has severely dented what little faith I had, I don’t mind admitting. At the end of the day, it does all come down to whether you believe that things happen for a reason, that there is some sort of underlying logic to this seemingly random shit, which for some reason we’re unable to understand, because we are confined to a fallen universe and the planes and angles of the dimension which bind us.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur, and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.
I played the recording of Eliot reciting East Coker, the day we buried Kitty, and tried once again to reconcile her loss to what shreds remain of my belief. With what success, I honestly do not know. I freely admit I haven’t looked in the Bible for weeks now, or my Book of Common Prayer. From East Coker it is a natural progression to Little Gidding:
Last season's fruit is eaten
And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail.
Still, today is apparently St Wulfhilda’s day. I am surprised, actually, that we didn’t end up calling the cat Wulfhilda, but I think it’s more of a dog’s name, especially as it seems that in real life she was the Abbess of Barking. I was prompted to look up the salient facts of St Wulfhilda, and found that Agnes Dunbar's "A Dictionary of Saintly Women" (1904) has the scoop on the lady in question:
Wulfhilda was brought up at Wilton Abbey in Wiltshire, where, it is said, the King fell in love with her. It is generally said that this king was Edgar the Peaceable (though he is occasionally called Edward). Presents, messages, offers being of no avail, he gained over the lady's aunt, Abbess Wenflaeda of Wherwell who, feigning illness, sent for her niece to attend on her. When Wulfhilda arrived at the house, she found she had been entrapped; and, upon conversing with the King, she found his fervour so alarming, that she fled, leaving her sleeve in his hand, and escaping through the drains.
Immediately after this, the lady took the veil and the King, convinced of her enthusiastic goodness, thenceforth "held her as a thing enskied and sainted" and made her Abbess of Barking, giving to that monastery considerable estates. Wulfhilda bestowed upon it twenty villages of her own and founded another monastery at Horton. Both these houses, she governed with great ability and set an excellent example to the inmates. Queen Elfrida became envious and, on the death of the King, ejected Wulfhilda from her monasteries, as she had herself foretold. She was restored under Aethelred the Unready and died at Barking during his reign. Her virtues in life and the cures wrought at her tomb at Barking raised her to the level of her two great predecessors there, Ethelburga of Barking and Hildelith
I must admit, the idea of King Edgar the Peaceable trying to grope me under false pretences would be enough to make me Shawshank my way out of there as well, sleeve or no sleeve. He must have been truly appalling in some gross way, Peaceable or not, for her to consider escaping via an Anglo-Saxon drain as a viable alternative, followed by life in a nunnery. But, maybe Wulfhilda was right. The answer to spiritual happiness lies in cultivating a contemplative life. That is why you will occasionally see me, in coming weeks, sitting at the conservatory window when I should really be working, contemplating that area of the garden where Russell, Nigel, Dusty and, now, Kitty lie buried. I will be there physically, but my mind and my soul will be out in the gloaming, lying among the heather, slightly the worse for wear from single malt, listening to the sad music in my head and singing “Blow the Wind Southerly” to myself, in a world where Kitty, now a thing enskied and sainted, is still alive, back at home, in a house we haven’t yet returned to find sad and empty.
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