As I popped out into the garden to sprinkle breadcrumbs for the local woodpigeons and blackbirds, a large and well-fed cat lay just outside my back door. I stooped to stroke it. But it was cold, and it was stiff, and it was collarless. Was this the cat that had been shitting copiously in my border? The same cat that had regularly been extracting goldfish from my pond?
I left the corpse there for half an hour while I breakfasted – with snow on the ground and a chill in the air, it wouldn’t be posing a health hazard for a a good while yet. Checking with my immediate neighbour, nothing was amiss there. So I drafted a leaflet in terms that I hoped would make it clear what the animal looked like but broke the actual news in a sensitive way (“the cat has chosen my garden to pass away…”) and distributed it to a couple of dozen houses in the neighbourhood. No response within the first half hour. That’s when the paranoid fantasies began. Suppose the owner didn’t show up? Then I would have to dispose of the corpse myself. But I couldn’t just put it in the trash, or dismember it and flush it piecemeal down the toilet. I couldn’t bury it in my garden, yet if I snuck it out into the countryside and buried it in the beechwoods, some dog walker would be sure to spot me and next thing I know I would be the subject of a murder inquiry. I didn’t want to take it to the vet for cremation because that would cost a small fortune that I didn’t have. If I called the council or the RSPCA, they would just say it was on my property and there was nothing they could do; but if I hauled it quietly out into the street and then made the call, I would be detected by an observant and merciless neighbour, had up for fraud and find myself in prison – all because someone else’s cat had opted to pass away in my yard!
Eventually a neighbour called, worried that it might be her black and white kitten. I reassured her, explaining that this was a fully grown cat. But she was back at the door within a short time. I said she had better come and see for herself. And there it was. She returned with a cardboard box, an old towel, and her daughter’s boyfriend; to barely muted snuffling, the beloved kitten made its final journey off my premises. My neighbour had intoned its name as she gathered up the corpse but – to my surprise – I found I couldn’t remember it.
She said that this was the trouble with pets: that they died on you. Yes, I said – you couldn’t have the love without the pain. Case closed.
0 Responses to “Predator”