Catherine the great - a life in the lives of
A photograph of paws (from pohanginapete's blog) is set for the moment, as my desktop background. It reminds me of a cat I lived with for nine years - almost to the day. Black and white paws are of course such a generic look, but still... their image triggered a stream of ancient memories, of other places, times, and lives.
She was originally from Christchurch, but I met her in Wellington, and we first shared a big old school house in the hills out of Hikurangi when her owner relocated north. The move was brief and abortive - he returned to the capital a few months later. Then, the following year, we had a flat in Ponsonby, and six months later, a park ranger's house in the Waitakeres.
She'd started off as Catherine the Great, which at some point devolved to Kitty. It was the same principle as nicknaming a tall guy, shorty, and simply served to emphasise her personality which remained fixedly regal. But by the time I was actually living with her on a permanent basis, she'd become Fatty cat after packing on some weight and becoming quite tubby. Though she soon slimmed down, the name stuck. I suspect it was the only way we could subvert her innate feline authority without fear of reprisal.
Five years in the Waitakeres, where she'd come for long bush walks with my cat and our two dogs, was followed by South Coogee in Sydney. Three weeks after we'd arrived, we sent for her, having finally found a flat that would allow pets and which we could afford near the uni. When we picked her up from the airport late at night, she was groggy, confused and grumpy. But the next day she was her old self, and had claimed the top step outside the kitchen door which caught the sun and had a good view of the Malabu road cemetery.
Nine or ten months later, she was curled up on the front seat of a hire truck motoring across the desert to Adelaide. Occasionally we’d stop and get out in the middle of nowhere. The silence, the stars and most of all the straight road stretching from horison to horison was hard to take in, having only New Zealand's intimate geography to compare with it; there, roads curve and wind; towns and hills are never far away. We’d bought her a skinny little collar and lead for the occasion, so that when she emerged to have a pee, she didn’t disappear into the endless night.
In Adelaide, I lived with her at Eden Hills, where she got beaten up by the neighbour's huge black tomcat, then Seacliff, and finally Brighton, where things became unstuck - or the unstuck-ness could finally no longer be ignored. I’m reminded of Billy Bragg's lines, 'this would never happen, if we lived by the sea'. And ninety-nine times out of a hundred I’d agree. But this time not even the sea could fix things.
Her owner, or the person he was then, and the person I was then, sat at Tropicana cafe on a crisp blue spring Sunday morning with croissants and coffee. It was the first time we’d spoken in a week. The feeling was calm, and even warm, but I was waiting. I didn’t know what would come out of his mouth. Then he spoke. ' I guess nine years is a pretty good innings.' I heard she died some years later at the great age of 16 from heart failure in an Adelaide heat wave.
She was originally from Christchurch, but I met her in Wellington, and we first shared a big old school house in the hills out of Hikurangi when her owner relocated north. The move was brief and abortive - he returned to the capital a few months later. Then, the following year, we had a flat in Ponsonby, and six months later, a park ranger's house in the Waitakeres.
She'd started off as Catherine the Great, which at some point devolved to Kitty. It was the same principle as nicknaming a tall guy, shorty, and simply served to emphasise her personality which remained fixedly regal. But by the time I was actually living with her on a permanent basis, she'd become Fatty cat after packing on some weight and becoming quite tubby. Though she soon slimmed down, the name stuck. I suspect it was the only way we could subvert her innate feline authority without fear of reprisal.
Five years in the Waitakeres, where she'd come for long bush walks with my cat and our two dogs, was followed by South Coogee in Sydney. Three weeks after we'd arrived, we sent for her, having finally found a flat that would allow pets and which we could afford near the uni. When we picked her up from the airport late at night, she was groggy, confused and grumpy. But the next day she was her old self, and had claimed the top step outside the kitchen door which caught the sun and had a good view of the Malabu road cemetery.
Nine or ten months later, she was curled up on the front seat of a hire truck motoring across the desert to Adelaide. Occasionally we’d stop and get out in the middle of nowhere. The silence, the stars and most of all the straight road stretching from horison to horison was hard to take in, having only New Zealand's intimate geography to compare with it; there, roads curve and wind; towns and hills are never far away. We’d bought her a skinny little collar and lead for the occasion, so that when she emerged to have a pee, she didn’t disappear into the endless night.
In Adelaide, I lived with her at Eden Hills, where she got beaten up by the neighbour's huge black tomcat, then Seacliff, and finally Brighton, where things became unstuck - or the unstuck-ness could finally no longer be ignored. I’m reminded of Billy Bragg's lines, 'this would never happen, if we lived by the sea'. And ninety-nine times out of a hundred I’d agree. But this time not even the sea could fix things.
Her owner, or the person he was then, and the person I was then, sat at Tropicana cafe on a crisp blue spring Sunday morning with croissants and coffee. It was the first time we’d spoken in a week. The feeling was calm, and even warm, but I was waiting. I didn’t know what would come out of his mouth. Then he spoke. ' I guess nine years is a pretty good innings.' I heard she died some years later at the great age of 16 from heart failure in an Adelaide heat wave.
posted by jacqueline b at 3:25 PM
5 comments
