The Enigmatic cat

The Cat

We never did find out where she came from.

Her appearance, scruffy and bedraggled outside our backdoor that morning in May remains as much a mystery today as it did then.

Not that it bothered her; she knew exactly what she wanted right from the start, young as she was.

She had the best possible entrance into the Turner household having been discovered by Melanie Turner, at six years old the youngest of the tribe and feline fanatic.

It’s not as if I had any choice in the matter either. Melanie had never been one for requests so it wasn’t a case of;

“Mummy, there’s a poor kitten on our doorstep, please can we keep him?” or even “Mummy! Look at this tiny kitten, please please can we keep him?”

No, it was; “Mummy, another kitten has come to live with us, Jesus left him outside our door last night”

I don’t have any hang-ups with religion being taught at school, I well remember assemblies, Rock of Ages and the Lords Prayer myself

(although it took me a while to work out why HIS name should be Hello ) but it has much to answer for when a six year old chit of a child can render her mother speechless by calling upon higher powers.

By the time I had found my tongue Melanie had swept past me, kitten protectively cradled in her arms and both well beyond redemption.

I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that cats are intelligent creatures and if I had any doubts they were quickly dispelled by the arrival of this dirty, smelly ball of mischievous Majesty.

I don’t use those words lightly.

When I look back on the weeks she graced us with her company, majesty is the one word that most adequately sums her up.

She knew precisely where she was best off in those early days when cats one and two, dog, elder daughter and husband treated her with varying degrees of suspicion as she tagged along behind Melanie as if attached by an astral cord, vanishing into the depths of her discoloured tee-shirt at the first hint of trouble.

There’s another word that slots into place.

Trouble.

Right from the start Melanie insisted upon calling our visitor Moses despite the fact that the rest of the household realised in quick order that “He” was in fact a “ She “ and consequently Moses was most inappropriate.

Daughter No.1 (Fifteen years old and all that entails!) took great delight in pouring scorn on Melanie over this fact and the resultant tantrum was one of the best ever seen in the Turner household.

The follow up had interesting implications as Melanie demanded to be told what gender meant and then insisted on proof.

This hot potato was tossed gleefully from elder daughter to me and from me (ever the coward) to dear old Daddy who manfully attempted to explain the difference between sexes whilst the rest of us looked on in eager anticipation and with great delight.

Not that it made any difference, youngest child had decided that Moses was the cat’s name so that was that.

It turned out to be very apt, had there been a Red Sea handy I’m sure it would have parted at the raising of a paw.

It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact time or method Moses used to become the dominant creature in our household. It seemed to happen by degrees as if she had prioritised us all and worked her way through us one by one.

Dear old Judge was first, he of the mournful hangdog expression much loved by members of the bench and his curious habit of tapping you on the knee with a gavel like paw when he required attention. This soppy old English Sheepdog was bewitched from the moment Moses snuggled down in the warmth of his huge belly on the evening of day five as if his whole existence was for the benefit of sheltering and protecting her.

He gazed at her with those huge liquid eyes, showed us his tonsils with a cavernous yawn and promptly fell asleep.

Oddly enough the next to succumb was husband Brian, seduced by the intelligence of this tiny scoundrel after she had worked out in short order that our fence was plenty high enough to frustrate all the efforts of next doors Yorkshire Terrier to reach her as she nonchalantly cleaned herself atop one of the support posts.

The terrier performed the most amazing gyrations in an attempt to assert his misguided dominance.

Brian took to rubbing his hands together and chuckling whilst expounding the virtues of feline intelligence over canine.

It took a little longer for twelve year old Patience to give in to the inevitable. This poor old cat had become quite cantankerous of late and I was somewhat dubious of handling her myself because of her unpredictable nature.

She obviously decided at some point that Moses represented some sort of superior race and gave way to her as some form of respect.

They were never going to be friends so Patience took to waiting, pretending to groom herself, whilst Moses nosed around in her dinner looking for the juicy bits.

I still find it unbelievable that this could happen even though I witnessed it with my own eyes.

Mind you, nobody’s dinner was safe and I’m surprised Judge survived at all after Moses had developed a liking for Chum with added Liver!

I did put my foot down when I caught the little tyrant merrily licking milk from Melanie’s cornflake bowl on the meal table.

For once the animal had the decency to be startled at my loud handclap and louder shout.

You’d have thought I’d used an axe to see the look in the eyes of husband, dog and children.

Achilles, our three year old Tom just stayed out of the way. He was never going to fathom the mysteries of womanhood, never mind super womanhood. Sulking is probably too stronger word but he gave a very passable impression of it.

The one thing Achilles and Patience never did was to bring their garden conquests back to the house, preferring to decapitate these poor unfortunates in the privacy of their own garden hideyholes.

Not so Moses.

In she pranced one fine summer morning squealing mouse held firmly in her jaws.

I swear to you she waited until she had an audience before dropping the poor creature to the floor and casually killing it with a single bite to the neck.

Elder daughter and I watched in horrified fascination from the safety of a half closed kitchen door as Moses sat back and surveyed the killing arena.

I fully expected rapturous applause from the assembled cats dog and six year old child followed by a medal presentation ceremony.

By the seventh week she had captured us all.

Elder daughter and I had been alone in the house watching television when Moses decided to investigate the fish tank.

It didn’t take her long to realise that the fish were somehow protected on four sides so she nimbly hopped up onto the rim began to deliver lightening quick paw strokes at the passing fish. Needless to say it wasn’t long before she became over ambitious and fell in.

Elder daughter and I shrieked with laughter as she scrabbled frantically for a paw old on the rim of the tank, finally pulling herself up so that her now rat like features appeared over the edge between two sodden paws.

It was those saucer eyes that did it, blinking in mute appeal for assistance.

Moses had finally been found wanting and it was this fact that endeared her to me.

She left us some time in the middle of the night during the tenth week.

Almost as if she knew good-byes were painful she simply wasn’t there when we got up in the morning.

Adverts in local shops, newspapers and days calling her name (feeling like God calling the Israelites!) proved utterly fruitless and we never saw her again.

Why she chose us I don’t know but for those ten weeks she enriched our lives and expanded our horizons.

I wonder if we did the same or her?