In the Company of Mr Pussy

May 3, 2013

by the gentle author

Unless I am out on the streets pursuing the subjects of my interviews, I spend most days of the week alone in the house with my old cat, Mr Pussy. When I am sitting writing, he likes to doze and thus offers undemanding company, savouring the quietude that reigns while I am composing my sentences. If I am working in bed, he will curl up on the covers so that I can just feel his weight pressing against my leg. If I am writing at my desk, he will perch upon an old stool with a seat woven of straw, attendant like a loyal secretary. If I am sitting beside the stove for warmth late at night, he will stretch out upon the bare floor to his greatest extent, until he resembles an animal skin rug.

A modest creature, he draws pleasure from my company and I am always flattered that he seeks me out to rest nearby. He does not draw attention to himself – just the occasional shrill exclamation upon entering the house to announce his return and sometimes a gentle tap of the paw upon my leg, as a reminder, should I neglect to fill his dish. At mealtimes, he commonly positions himself at my feet as I settle in the wing chair to eat my dinner, tracing the air with his nose to ascertain the menu. Yet he is rarely insistent and, if I grant him a morsel or permit him to lick the plate, he will do no more than taste, since he is curious rather than greedy and his concern is not to satiate his appetite but to feel included.

Even if others are around, it is in the nature of writing that it is a solitary activity. A connoisseur of stillness and a creature of tact, Mr Pussy understands this instinctively. He lounges in a silent reverie while I am working, before falling asleep and snuffling quietly to himself. During these long afternoons of contemplation, if I should lose concentration upon the task in hand, my thoughts often turn to my mother and how the pattern of my day has come to reflect hers. Once she had finished the housework, she delighted to sit for hours reading a novel just as I settle down to write once the day’s errands are accomplished – each of us enjoying the company of a cat.

I remember vividly how, when she was dying, she sought to make a reckoning of her life. My mother was insistent that I must have no doubt of her love for me and of my father, forgiving his volatile nature that had coloured the happiness of their marriage. “He couldn’t help it,” she admitted to me with a distracted frown. And then, quite unexpectedly, referring to the grey tabby that was my childhood pet, she said, “And the cat, she helped me, she was always with me.” In that moment, I recalled how the creature followed her around each day as she did the housework which caused her such anxiety and I remembered how, returning from school, I found her once cradling it as she wept for her loneliness. When the beloved animal expired, she vowed never to have another, such was the depth of her attachment.

Yet, after my father died, I acquired a black kitten in Mile End and presented it to her as a distraction from her grief. And thus, in my mother’s company, Mr Pussy grew accustomed to the afternoon routine, the empty house and the presence of one silently absorbed. Thus, when the cat and I are all alone now in the stillness of the middle of the day, it is as if time stops. My mother’s placid nature moulded his behaviour and, years after she died, his habits are the same. Mr Pussy seeks me out each afternoon to share the passage of the hours before nightfall and I acquiesce, thankful for the peace that prevails in his company.