Books > Under the Paw > Excerpts

Prologue

First of all, the facts. My name is Tom, I am crazy about cats, and, just under thirty-three years ago, I was almost certainly responsible for the death of one.

Everyone knows about Mad Cat Lady. She's a social cliché, a cautionary tale, a character that, when she started to pop up in cartoon form on The Simpsons, was so instantly resonant that she didn't have to be named or introduced. She is the childless woman who lets her cat obsession take over her life, to the detriment of domestic and, finally, personal hygiene. In truth, as a stereotype she seems a little unfair. After all, there is no firmly established Mad Dog Man to counterbalance her. The subtext of all this seems to be that a Man's Best Friend will help him see out the autumn of his life with dignity, while a woman's will help her see out hers alone in a supermarket, giving off a slightly mildewy odour, pushing a trolley containing only a malt loaf, some hairnets, a packet of wafer thin ham and twenty-four cans of Felix. Mad Cat Man is a less widely reported phenomenon, but I am here to tell you that he exists, and has the capacity to be at least as obsessive as his female counterpart.

Of course, I am not really crazy. My house might get a bit smelly when I haven't vacuumed or checked under the sofa for a few days, but it is by no means a health hazard. I did once put a necktie on one of my cats when he was asleep, but I have never bought one of them an item of clothing and I don't call them 'fur babies'. I do, however, currently own six of them, which, in maintenance terms, can be a little bit like living with half a dozen miniature versions of Mariah Carey. No doubt, by the time you've read this, another little bundle of narcissistic fur will have wandered in off the street, decided it likes what it sees, and parked itself on one of the purpose-made hammocks that hang from the radiators in my house. I will probably even learn to ignore the obscene snorty scronking sound it makes while it cleans its bottom. It has happened before, and I'm sure it will happen again.

Telling you this feels more taboo than it ought to. What is it about cats that makes so many men suspicious of them, and so many people suspicious of the men who like them? What do they think their cat-fancying brethren are doing: hatching little furry plots for the downfall of our gender?

Being a heterosexual man and admitting to another heterosexual man that you like cats can feel a little like telling him that you still sleep alongside your childhood collection of teddy bears, or that you think his knitted waistcoat is 'cute'. Yet the statistics simply don't match up to the popular image of the Cat Man as society's outcast: there are currently more than 9 million cats in the UK, probably over a billion in the world itself, and it would be foolish to believe that, even as we speak, a sizeable portion of them are not currently being fed overindulgent snacks and tickled under their chins by men as well as women.

Who are we Cat Blokes, then? Are we real-life Dr Evils? Pensioners in long johns with hair in our home-made ginger nuts and urine on our sofas? Transvestite second-hand bookshop owners? Are we (claw, hiss, spit) metrosexuals? Maybe we are, but we are also great American novelists (Mark Twain), demon-fighters (Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Anthony Head), mathematicians (Isaac Newton) and world leaders (Winston Churchill). You can try to put us in a box, but, much like our four-legged allies, we'll escape, insouciantly shake ourselves down, and do our own thing. Some of us hide our cat love from the world. Some of us take things a little too far. Some of us are just normal blokes who see nothing emasculating about wanting to spend time with the world's most popular household pet, and our cat love does not serve as a metaphor or a crutch.

That said, some of us also have what a psychoanalyst might call 'a cat history'. To trace mine, you really would have to go right back to the beginning. And I mean the very beginning.

When I ask myself how my life became so completely dominated by cats, I repeatedly come back to two pivotal moments. One occurred in a dark rural garden in 1998 and seemed pivotal in a different way at the time. The other occurred in early 1975, in an even darker place, at a time when 'pivotal', like all other words, was meaningless.

Not having been blessed with the ability to see through amniotic fluid and skin, I never got to meet Puss, the first cat in my life, in person. From my parents' recollections of her, I tend to picture her as half Pac Mog, half gremlin, chomping and clawing everything in her path in a furious plume of smoke before retiring to the eves to make tiny cackling noises and plot her next move. 'SHE WOULD HAVE HAD YOUR HAND OFF IN A SECOND,' my dad has frequently explained. For many years it did not occur to me to question the veracity of this, or the wisdom of my parents' decision to have her put to sleep in the fifth month of my mum's pregnancy.

When I was growing up, The Legend of Puss was an indelible part of Cox mythology, right up there with The Legend of the Time I Almost Died of a Burst Appendix and the Time My Dad Bought A Morris Minor for a Tenner. It has only been recently that I've looked at the photographs depicting an undersized, sandy-coloured cat, and noticed that they don't quite seem to tally with the oft-repeated stories of shredded wrists and fleeing postmen. And what, I wonder, of Felix, my parents' other not stupendously originally named 1970s moggy, an animal best known for her gentle, pliable nature and pillow soft fur? According to my feline family tree, Felix was born in 1972. How did such an innocent creature manage to not only survive Puss's iron rule for two full years, but give birth as well? Wouldn't Puss have chewed her kittens to pulpy masses and spat them at the milkman?

As my mum remembers it, Puss had always had a mile-wide mean streak, but after my parents found her on the road outside their house, her back legs crushed in a hit and run, she became a cat out of hell. While Puss would walk again, her rear half never fully recovered from the accident, leaving her pained and furious. In the end, though, it was my impending arrival that was responsible for booking her final trip to the vets.

'You would have done the same thing, if you were getting ready to give birth for the first time,' says my mum. I find this hard to believe, but, since I don't plan to get knocked up any time soon, I am unlikely to find out.

Whether the millstone of Puss's death was responsible for my lifelong need to be around cats - to invite them in to soil my furniture, to spoil them, to let them push me around - I cannot say for certain. It is entirely possible that, had Puss survived my gestation, I would be sitting here writing this with one less eye and a Dobermann pinscher curled up at my feet. Whatever the case, when you grow up burdened with the knowledge of having been the catalyst for an animal's death, it's probably going to help to shape who you are, whether you like it or not.

Add to this an appropriate first name and initials - I'd been at primary school all of twenty minutes when one of my classmates started singing the Top Cat theme tune ('close friends get to call him TC!') - and the die is well on the way to being cast. Another theory regarding why I love cats so much is that I have always liked a challenge. There is also the possibility that, when you live in the back-of-beyond, ten miles from your nearest schoolfriend, you take what company you can get, even if the most positive feedback you can get from that company is a grudging half-purr and a disdainfully proffered chin.

A typical summer day in 1978 at our three-bed semi in the north-east Midlands countryside would have found the 3-year-old me eating soil in the back garden, trying to befriend Gordon Witchell's cows in the back field, or practising my before-their-time homoeopathic massaging techniques on Felix. My mum's child substitute must have breathed a sigh of relief when Puss mysteriously 'went to the furry retirement village' and never came back, but her respite was brief. If Felix looks nervous in many of the photos of her from my toddlerhood, it does not take a Zoology PhD to work out why - at least, not once you have spotted the small, clammy pair of hands frequently reaching out into the edge of the frame.

Not long after my fourth summer on the planet, she decided she'd had enough of being chased under furniture and treated like a pre-school stress-relief ball and went to live next door with a nice old lady called Flo, whom my dad claimed was just approaching her 134th birthday. There she stayed for the next three years, until Flo died and her house was bought by a retired alcoholic doctor: a man more likely to mistake the long-suffering Felix for an unusually furry black and white beer towel than ply her with titbits.

By the time Felix came back to live with us, I'd found other interests to occupy my time - making dens in the woods by the newly closed neighbouring coalmine, performing stunts on my BMX, and having my one, precious Star Wars figurine liquefied by a terrifying 9-year-old from three doors away called Ian Saw. But Felix remained circumspect around me, particularly at times when I happened to have haircare equipment upon my person.

Depending on whether I'm feeling self-pitying or upbeat at the time, I can look upon my early childhood as either a classic example of only-child rural isolation, or a classic example of pass-the-parcel, post-hippy urban utopia. I always liked the look of the place my parents referred to in slightly scornful tones as 'suburbia', but as I remained unfamiliar with its inhabitants, I knew it only as the place where my mum and dad's jalopies sometimes broke down on the way back from the inner city school where my mum taught and I was a pupil.

Claremont Primary School was an institution that seemed to embody a lot of the best things about the hippy era without being self-consciously progressive or predominantly middle class. Here, I churned butter and played 'Dungeons & Dragons' with kids called Aseef, Esme, Danny and Sorrel, before going home to read Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr Fox and Dick King-Smith's The Mouse Butcher for the umpteenth time, and hunt for water beetles for my DIY garden pond. The gummy, idyllic class pictures of me and my multi-ethnic, socially diverse friends from Claremont, with our straggly hair and towelling sweatshirts, tell one story of the first ten years of my life, but the photos from my back garden in Brinsley and my holidays from the same period probably tell the more accurate one. 'Ooh yes!' I say to my mum, as she gets the old albums out. 'Here's me with that boxer dog, Billy, that I befriended on that campsite in Dorset - the one whose owners took me to the funfair in Weymouth...And those Muscovy ducks that came in the kitchen when we stayed in Bath...And there's that black and white pair of kittens we met on the campsite in Italy, the ones we called Evil and Knievel...And that German kid who I played table tennis with, the one who got rushed to hospital when he banged his head on the bottom of the swimming pool.'

These photos speak of a socially active childhood, but one where all new acquaintances were greeted with equal enthusiasm, whether they happened to be human or animal. I would estimate in about 40 per cent of them I'm holding, or somewhere in the nearby vicinity of, a cat.

Given my alarming aptitude for remembering the names of other people's pets from over two decades ago, I'm somewhat abashed to say that I recall relatively little about Tabs, my second cat. I am certain this owes nothing to lack of care or affection, just as I am certain I had never before experienced anything approaching the gut-wrenching devastation I felt when, while making her way across the road to meet us in her customary, enthusiastic early-evening way, not long after her first birthday, she was hit by a car.

Her death was mercifully instant, leaving her looking peaceful, with just a single, tiny spot of blood beside her on the kerb. I still have a clear image of a wobbly lipped 12-year-old me explaining to Mrs Deeth, my maths teacher, about the tragic event that had prevented me from doing my homework (Mrs Deeth had a stern reputation, but Wayne Smith and Beau O'Dowd on the back row really were very unfair to call her 'Mrs Death' - she was actually very understanding).

My parents decided the best remedy for my grief was a visit to the Burton Joyce Cats Rescue Centre, where I formed an unmistakable bond with Monty, a sinewy, white and sandy-coloured chap - and I use the word 'chap' pointedly - with a look of mischief in his eye.

On the way home, as the smell of Monty's first bowel evacuation of the evening mingled with that of our takeaway curry, I began to feel like a traitor. Choking back the tears, I explained to my mum that I might be making a mistake trying to 'replace' Tabs so hastily. Much as they tore at my innards, these sentiments somewhat started to dissipate later that evening, when Monty started making gargling noises and running up and down the living room curtains.

Monty was one of those animals who come along every so often that seem a little more patrician than the rest of their species. He was the kind of cat that even lifelong catophobes could not bring themselves to loathe. Wild animals smaller than a pheasant feared him, other cats wanted to be him, divorced book group members with hennaed hair wanted to be with him. When I looked into his eyes, I saw something wild, yet controlled.

If Monty had had his own theme tune, it would either have been 'You've Got a Friend' by Carole King, or 'Theme from Shaft' by Isaac Hayes. He'd once prowled across the roof outside my bedroom while I'd been listening to the latter, and its funky string arrangements and lyrics about 'a complicated man' and 'the cat that won't cop out when there's danger all about' had seemed apt. Not, of course, that Monty would, in the words of Hayes, ever have been 'the man who would risk his neck for his brother man'. He was, after all, a cat, and wasn't going to transcend the self-absorbed limits of his species. But if he could have done, I'm sure he would have given it a go, provided it didn't involve venturing anywhere too damp.

After his initial, uncharacteristically unrestrained and alarmingly literal curtain raiser, Monty soon got down to business, outlining his primary requirements as a member of our household. These ran as follows:

1. The promise that I would not, on any account, attempt to transform him into a lap cat.

2. A strict 'No Hairdryers within fifty Feet' policy.

3. Thrice-weekly - at the very least - helpings of chicken breast (uncooked).

4. Permission to drink freely from the well of life - and the upstairs loo - without any snide comments regarding hygiene.

5. A promise that I would not react jealously or possessively, should his affections stray elsewhere, and know that, no matter how many milkmen/schoolfriends/ members of the medical profession he rubbed himself against, I would always ultimately be the Important One.

6. That I would stick to the classic 'one-two' format - a high 'wee' followed by a low 'woo' - whilst whistling him, and refrain from experimentation or creative hubris.

In return for this, I would receive:

1. A personalised fuzzy wake-up service, involving the gentle tap-tapping of a paw on my cheek between the hours of 6.30 and 7 a.m. daily.

2. A plentiful supply of mice, with no obligation to eat the spleens thereof.

3. A proud, reassuring face in the window upon arriving home.

4. My first experience of the rare and spectacular 'feline vertical take-off'.

5. Truly remarkable displays of aptitude for the game of 'Lawn Green Voles' (aka 'Rodent Keepie-Uppies').

6. The knowledge that he would never be far from the end of my bed, particularly in times of trouble.

Owning Monty could perhaps best be described as a bit like owning an unusually intelligent, non-sycophantic dog that took care of its own faeces. And, like a dog, Monty enjoyed nothing more than the opportunity to stretch his legs at his owner's side. My first experience of this was one morning in 1990 when, having completed about half of my mile-long walk to the school bus stop, I turned to see him trotting happily behind me. Not really wishing to introduce him to Wayne Smith and Beau O'Dowd or the rest of first period double biology, I walked him back home, got a mini Crunchie out of the kitchen cupboard and pretended to get settled on the sofa, then made a run for it out the back door before he had chance to follow me.

My parents had moved to relative suburbia by then, so further exploring the much-overlooked pastime of man and mog rambling would have been impractical for all sorts of reasons, not least of them a Harvester, a motorway sliproad and a neighbouring estate regularly featured on the national news due to its collective love of pyromania. Still, I made a mental note to look further into the matter the next time we moved back to the country. Experience told me that it was only a matter of time before we did.

My parents moved house a lot during my childhood. For me, it was part of the rhythm of life. You went to a house, you began to meet some new friends, then, around a year later, your mum came into your bedroom with a sombre look on her face and told you it was once again time to pack up your ZX81 and your Beano annuals. By the time I was in my late teens and had moved to my seventh and final childhood home, I was starting to get a little sick of the upheaval, and the last thing I wanted was to live in a rented cottage in the north Nottinghamshire outback, eleven miles from the nearest gig venue, a mile down a country lane not wide enough to permit two cars to pass one another without one of them nosing into the hedgerow.

It was, however, a very good place to walk a cat.

There was no lead or choke chain involved, and Monty didn't take long to pick up the rules. If a car or a Border collie was coming in the other direction, you zipped into the undergrowth, leaving your adversary blinking in disbelief, writing off the small white blob they'd seen in the periphery of their vision as a trick of the light. You then walked along parallel to your owner on the field on the other side of the hedge until the coast was clear. Much of the time, though, Monty and I had only each other for company. Having been told to 'WATCH OUT FOR NUTTERS!' by my dad at the front door - my dad always told me to watch out for nutters, wherever I went, but in this part of north Nottinghamshire his concern was more justified than usual - we'd set off up the hill and do an entire circuit of the Forestry Commission land overlooking our house: a walk of around three miles, which lasted almost as long as the refreshing drink of water Monty took out of the toilet when we returned home.

A wearer of spiritual breeches, he always looked extremely noble on our walks, striding out in front of me. Every so often, feeling it was necessary to puncture this self-satisfied, dignified air, I would jog ahead of him and hide in a bush. This was a shameless exercise, carried out purely to get him to do something he felt very self-conscious about: meow. Monty's speaking voice was an incongruously high-pitched, effete thing, and he only used it when absolutely necessary. I fooled him every time: two minutes after making my lair in the foliage, he'd arrive, squeak-wailing with genuine terror that he had lost me for ever. Either that, or he was just humouring me. After all, what kind of bloke in his late teens would hide from his cat? You'd have to treat a simpleton like that kindly and patiently, wouldn't you?

Monty and I had eleven years together in total. During that time, we had just about as perfect a relationship as was possible between man and man cat - both of us ineradicably bonded, but always keeping a sensible, masculine distance. When I was feeling low or ill, Monty was there - not up for a cuddle, maybe, but offering strong silent support, a bit like Gary Cooper with whiskers. When Monty wanted to walk past his favourite hollow tree - it never had anything in the hollow bit, but he remained optimistic - he could count on me. He didn't fetch my paper or bark when I called him, but he knew which of the manifold noises I made meant 'I'm cooking with chicken and if you promise not to claw the carpet you can have some' and which one meant 'I'm putting some more of this horrendous ground-up slop in a dish - please get rid of it quickly.' Similarly, I knew which of his rare and perfect squeaks meant 'I have caught and methodically assassinated one of Sherwood Forest's many stoats' and which one meant 'I went into the downstairs loo for another drink out of the bowl and now the door has inconveniently swung shut behind me.'

When I moved out of home permanently in the summer of 1998, I agonised over whether to take Monty with me, but the two-bedroom terrace just outside Nottingham that my girlfriend and I had put a rental deposit on had only the smallest of gardens, backing onto a supermarket car park. It was no place to take a cat accustomed to strolling authoritatively around his own infinite green kingdom. Who knows? I reasoned. Maybe in time I'll have more space. I was right about that, but I didn't realise that it was time itself, not space, that was the issue.

I'd been gone only four weeks when my dad found his body. Monty looked as pristine as ever, lying in the dew-soaked grass, they said. Was it a heart attack that had killed him? Rat poison? An embolism? Nobody knew, and it did not occur to my mum to take Monty's body to the vet to find out. The way she saw it at the time, it would not have made any difference. Only later did she and my dad begin to concoct other theories: a vindictive milkman, some local yobs from Ockwold, the nearby village. My maternal grandfather - the man whom I was named after - had died of a brain haemorrhage at the age of forty-six, suddenly, after a life of near-perfect health, but it didn't occur to me that a similar thing could happen to a cat, least of all this cat. Monty's indefatigable constitution had been legendary, his nose cuts self-healing in seemingly a matter of hours, his flesh a thing that vets came to dread on vaccination day.

I'd been working in London on the day it happened, mobile phoneless, and by the time I received the call, my parents had buried him beneath a damson tree in the garden (a place he'd often liked to sit, in duck-style posture, casually sizing up some errant partridges from next door). When I arrived that evening, all that remained of his presence was a half-eaten bowl of biscuits.

As I slunk back to my car after the tears had dried up, I heard myself whistle him, which was strange, because I had not moved my mouth. I wheeled round, stunned and paranoid, until I remembered the bird that liked to sit on the telephone wire outside my bedroom, alternately mimicking the sound of our cordless telephone and that time-honoured 'wee-woo' that signalled it was time for Monty's dinner. I listened for a moment, with half a mind to curse such a wretched, heartless sky beast. But I had to concede that it had a point, and as I drove home to my catless house that 'wee-woo' ran on a loop on my internal jukebox. 'Wee-woo, wee-woo, wee-woo...' it went, until it finally mutated into a different song altogether, played to the same tune: 'Your fault, your fault, your fault...'

That night I made a vow: from that point on, I would live a catless life. I remember feeling pretty determined about it at the time. Looking back now, it was obvious I felt that I had reached a turning point in my life. I just didn't realise which turning point.

2008 © Tom Cox