For our rustic holiday, we packed up and brought along our city-bred cat, Simon. In the village, Simons own brother Barry resideda cat with eyes so distinctly bulging that hed earned the nickname Lemur. Villagers arent exactly famed for their subtlety in naming pets.
At first, poor Simon had a rather rough time. Despite being rather small, Barry immediately started behaving like a hard-nosed drill sergeant from a bad 70s sitcomchasing Simon away from every cozy nook and hissing like a contestant scorned on The Great British Bake Off.
There came a moment when Barry made the classic mistake of the village tough guyhe believed himself invincible and boldly lunged at Simon. Simon simply wafted a lackadaisical paw in that languid really, darling, must we manner, and by some miracle landed a right hook. Barry was subsequently fished out from inside a dustbin. Thus, quite accidentally and with all the drama of his usual luck, Simon found himself at the top of the food chain.
Village folk take an exceedingly practical approach to cats; the only reason Simon was spared agricultural duties was sheer good fortuneit was the dead of winter. Feeding, out here, is more of an abstract concept. Meals appear at odd hours and suspiciously resemble whatevers left. Simon found this shocking; back in the city hed been accustomed to dining by the clock, off the familys best china, with a butler inviting him to the table.
Stress quickly awakened the primal within. More than once, I found him in the middle of the night, head-first in a saucepan left on the hob. Barry, stationed on a kitchen stool as look-out, would hiss furiously, giving Simon a heads up as soon as he heard me approach. Simon would saunter towards me, meow to his brother, No need for alarm, this ones ours. If only you could see him raid the fridge in the dark.
One day we decided Simon was ready for a real village experience. We took him outside and plopped him into the snow. He turned to us, his entire face covered in white, with the mournful gaze of a misunderstood gangsterlike Al Pacino in Scarfaceand that was the last time we let him out.
One evening, Archiemy sonhad some of his local friends over. Wed gathered snugly in the living room and I was doing a dramatic reading of May Night by Gogol. As I reached the bit where the wicked stepmother turns into a black cat, claws clicking ominously across the floorboards, the sitting room door creaked open with the subtlety of a horror movie prop and in strutted Barry.
To our horror, Simon had actually taught his brother his signature trick: opening any door with an effortless swipe of the paw. The living room was so tiny, but the children managed to scatter remarkably. At one point, we had to extract a lad from the windowonly his grandmothers hearty Yorkshire pudding-filled arms had saved him from toppling out.
Oh, and by the way, I suppose this is the moment to mention: Barry is, in fact, absolutely, thoroughly black as midnight in Cornwall.
Its not often that a bit of classic literature leaves modern children so utterly shell-shocked.
