stroked the counterpane and his lips moved again. I bent closer to
hear. "Frisk ..." he was saying, "Frisk ..." Then his eyes closed
and I saw that he was sleeping. I heard next day that Dick Fawcett
had died, and it was possible that I was the last person to hear him
speak. And it was strange, yet fitting, that those last words were
about his cat. "Frisk ... Frisk ..."
Olly and Ginny The Greatest Triumph
Months passed without any thawing of relations between me and our
two wild cats and I noticed with growing apprehension that Olly's
long coat was reverting to its previous disreputable state. The
familiar knots and tangles were reappearing and within a year it was
as bad as ever. It became more obvious every day that I had to do
something about it. But could I trick him again? I had to try. I
made the same preparations, with Helen placing the nembutal-laden
food on the wall, but this time Olly sniffed, licked, then walked
away. We tried at his next meal time but he examined the food with
deep suspicion and turned away from it. It was very clear that he
sensed there was something afoot. Hovering in my usual position at
the kitchen window I turned to Helen. "I'm going to have to try to
catch him." "Catch him? With your net, do you mean?" "No, no. That
was all right when he was a kitten. I'd never get near him now."
"How, then?" I looked out at the scruffy black creature on the wall.
"Well, maybe I can hide behind you when you feed him and grab him
and bung him into the cage. I could take him down to the surgery
then, give him a general anaesthetic and make a proper job of him."
"Grab him? And then fasten him in the cage?" Helen said
incredulously. "It sounds impossible to me." "Yes, I know, but I've
grabbed a few cats in my time and I can move fast. If only I can
keep hidden. We'll try tomorrow." My wife looked at me, wide-eyed. I
could see that she had little faith. Next morning she placed some
delicious fresh chopped raw haddock on the wall. It was the cats"
favourite. They were not particularly partial to cooked fish but
this was irresistible. The open cage lay hidden from sight. The cats
stalked along the wall, Ginny sleek and shining, Olly a pathetic
sight with his ravelled hair and ugly knotted appendages dangling
from his neck and body. Helen made her usual fuss of the two of them,
then, as they descended happily on the food, she returned to the
kitchen where I was lurking. "Right, now," I said. "I want you to
walk out very slowly again and I am going to be tucked in behind you.
When you go up to Olly he'll be concentrating on the fish and maybe
won't notice me." Helen made no reply as I pressed myself into her
back, in close contact from head to toe. "Okay, off we go." I nudged
her left leg with mine and we shuffled off through the door, moving
as one. "This is ridiculous," Helen wailed. "It's like a music hall
act." Nuzzling the back of her neck, I hissed into her ear, "Quiet,
just keep going." As we advanced on the wall, double-bodied, Helen
reached out and stroked Olly's head, but he was too busy with the
haddock to look up. He was there, chest-high, within a couple of
feet of me. I'd never have a better chance. Shooting my hand round
Helen, I seized him by the scruff of his neck, held him, a flurry of
flailing black limbs, for a couple of seconds, then pushed him into
the cage. As I crashed the lid down, a desperate paw appeared at one
end but I thrust it back and slotted home the steel rod. There was
no escape now. I lifted the cage on to the wall with Olly and me at
eye level and I flinched as I met his accusing stare through the
bars. "Oh no, not again! I don't believe this!" it said. "Is there
no end to your treachery?" In truth, I felt pretty bad. The poor cat,
terrified as he was by my assault, had not tried to scratch or bite.
It was like the other occasions--his only thought was to get away. I
couldn't blame him for thinking the worst of me. However, I told
myself, the end result was going to be a fine handsome animal again.
"You won't know yourself, old chap," I said to the petrified little
creature, crouched in his cage on the car seat by my side as we
drove to the surgery. "I'm going to fix you up properly, this time.
You're going to look great and feel great." Siegfried had offered to
help me and when we got him on the table, a trembling Olly submitted
to being handled and to the intravenous anaesthetic. As he lay
sleeping peacefully, I started on the awful tangled fur with a
fierce pleasure, snipping and trimming and then going over him with
the electric clippers followed by a long combing until the last tiny
knot was removed. I had only given him a makeshift hair-do before,
but this was the full treatment. Siegfried laughed when I held him
up after I had finished. "Looks ready to win any cat show," he said.
I thought of his words next morning when the cats came to the wall
for their breakfast. Ginny was always beautiful, but she was almost
outshone by her brother as he strutted along, his smooth, lustrous
fur gleaming in the sunshine. Helen was enchanted at his appearance
and kept running her hand along his back as though she couldn't
believe the transformation. I, of course, was in my usual position,
peeking furtively from the kitchen window. It was going to be a long
time before I even dared to show myself to Olly.
It very soon became clear that my stock had fallen to new depths,
because I had only to step out of the back door to send Olly
scurrying away into the fields. The situation became so bad that I
began to brood about it. "Helen," I said one morning, 'this thing
with Olly is getting on my nerves. I wish there was something I
could do about it." "There is, Jim," she said. "You'll really have
to get to know him. And he'll have to get to know you." I gave her a
glum look. "I'm afraid if you asked him, he'd tell you that he knows
me only too well." "Oh, I know, but when you think about it, over
all the years that we've had these cats, they've hardly seen
anything of you, except in an emergency. I've been the one to feed
them, talk to them, pet them, day in day out. They know me and trust
me." "That's right, but I just haven't had the time." "Of course you
haven't. Your life is one long rush. You're no sooner in the house
than you're out again." I nodded thoughtfully. She was so right.
Over the years I had been attached to those cats, enjoyed the sight
of them trotting down the slope for their food, playing in the long
grass in the field, being fondled by Helen, but I was a comparative
stranger to them. I felt a pang at the realisation that all that
time had flashed past so quickly. "Well, probably it's too late. Do
you think there is anything I can do?" "Yes," she said. "You have to
start feeding them. You'll just have to find the time to do it. Oh,
I know you can't do it always, but if there's the slightest chance,
you'll have to get out there with their food." "So you think it's
just a case of cupboard love with them?" "Absolutely not. I'm
sure
you've seen me with them often enough. They won't look at their food
until I've made a fuss of them for quite a long time. It's the
attention and friendship they want most." "But I haven't a hope.
They hate the sight of me." "You'll just have to persevere. It took
me a long time to get their trust. Especially with Ginny. She's
always been the more timid one. Even now if I move my hand too
quickly, she's off. Despite all that's happened, I think Olly might
be your best hope--there's a big well of friendliness in that cat."
"Right," I said. "Give me the food and milk. I'll start now." That
was the beginning of one of the little sagas in my life. At every
opportunity, I was the one who called them down, placed the food on
the wall top and stood there waiting. At first I waited in vain. I
could see the two of them watching me from the log shed--the black-
and-white face and the yellow, gold and white one observing me from
the straw beds--andfora long time they would never venture down
until I had retreated into the house. Because of my irregular job,
it was difficult to keep the new system going and sometimes when I
had an early morning call they didn't get their breakfast on time,
but it was on one of those occasions when breakfast was over an hour
late that their hunger overcame their fear and they came down
cautiously while I stood stock still by the wall. They ate quickly
with nervous glances at me, then scurried away. I smiled in
satisfaction. It was the first breakthrough. After that, there was a
long period when I just stood there as they ate until they became
used to me as part of the scenery. Then I tried a careful extension
of a hand. To start with, they backed away at that but, as the days
passed, I could see that my hand was becoming less and less of a
threat and my hopes rose steadily. As Helen had prophesied, Ginny
was the one who shied right away from me at the slightest movement,
whereas Olly, after retreating, began to look at me with an
appraising eye as though he might possibly be willing to forget the
past and revise his opinion of me. With infinite patience, day by
day, I managed to get my hand nearer and nearer to him, and it was a
memorable occasion when he at last stood still and allowed me to
touch his cheek with a forefinger. As I gently stroked the fur, he
regarded me with unmistakably friendly eyes before skipping away.
"Helen," I said, looking round at the kitchen window, "I've made it!
We're going to be friends at last. It's a matter of time now till
I'm stroking him as you do." I was filled with an irrational
pleasure and sense of fulfilment. It did seem a foolish reaction in
a man who was dealing every day with animals of all kinds, but I was
looking forward to years of friendship with that particular cat. I
was wrong. At that moment I could not know that Olly would be dead
within forty-eight hours. It was the following morning when Helen
called to me from the back garden. She sounded distraught. "Jim,
come quickly! It's Olly!" I rushed out to where she was standing
near the top of the slope near the log shed. Ginny was there, but
all I could see of Olly was a dark smudge on the grass. Helen
gripped my arm as I bent over him. "What's happened to him?" He was
motionless, his legs extended stiffly, his back arched in a dreadful
rigor, his eyes staring. "I ... I'm afraid he's gone. It looks like
strychnine poisoning." But as I spoke he moved slightly. "Wait a
minute!" I said. "He's still alive, but only just." I saw that the
rigor had relaxed and I was able to flex his legs and lift him
without any recurrence. "This isn't strychnine. It's like it, but it
isn't. It's something cerebral, maybe a stroke." Dry-mouthed, I
carried him down to the house where he lay still, breathing almost
imperceptibly. Helen spoke through her tears. "What can you do?"
"Get him to the surgery right away. We'll do everything we can." I
kissed her wet cheek and ran out to the car. Siegfried and I sedated
him because he had begun to make paddling movements with his limbs,
then we injected him with steroids and antibiotics and put him on an
intravenous drip. I looked at him as he lay in the big recovery cage,
his paws twitching feebly. "Nothing more we can do, is there?"
Siegfried shook his head and shrugged. He agreed with me about the
diagnosis--stroke, seizure, cerebral haemorrhage, call it what you
like, but certainly the brain. I could see that he had the same
feeling of hopelessness as I had. We attended Olly all that day and,
during the afternoon, I thought for a brief period that he was
improving, but by evening he was comatose again and he died during
the night. I brought him home and as I lifted him from the car, his
smooth, tangle-free fur was like a mockery now that his life was
ended. I buried him just behind the log shed a few feet from the
straw bed where he had slept for so many years. Vets are no
different from other people when they lose a pet, and Helen and I
were miserable. We hoped that the passage of time would dull our
unhappiness, but we had another poignant factor to deal with. What
about Ginny? Those two cats had become a single entity in our lives
and we never thought of one without the other. It was clear that to
Ginny the world was incomplete without Olly. For several days she
ate nothing. We called her repeatedly but she advanced only a few
yards from the log house, looking around her in a puzzled way before
turning back to her bed. For all those years, she had never trotted
down that slope on her own and over the next few weeks her
bewilderment as she gazed about her continually, seeking and
searching for her companion, was one of the most distressing things
we had ever had to witness. Helen fed her in her bed for several
days and eventually managed to coax her on to the wall, but Ginny
could scarcely put her head down to the food without peering this
way and that, still waiting for Olly to come and share it. "She's so
lonely," Helen said. "We'll have to try to make a bigger fuss of her
now than ever. I'll spend more time outside talking with her, but if
only we could get her inside with us. That would be the answer, but
I know it will never happen." I looked at the little creature,
wondering if I'd ever get used to seeing only one cat on the wall,
but Ginny sitting by the fireside or on Helen's knee was an
impossible dream. "Yes, you're right, but maybe I can do something.
I'd just managed to make friends with Olly--I'm going to start on
Ginny now." I knew I was taking on a long and maybe hopeless
challenge because the tortoiseshell cat had always been the more
timid of the two, but I pursued my purpose with resolution. At meal
times and whenever I had the opportunity, I presented myself outside
the back door, coaxing and wheedling, beckoning with my hand. For a
long time, although she accepted the food from me, she would not let
me near her. Then, maybe because she needed companionship so
desperately that she felt she
might as well even resort to me, the
day came when she did not back away but allowed me to touch her
cheek with my finger as I had done with Olly. After that, progress
was slow but steady. From touching I moved week by week to stroking
her cheek, then to gently rubbing her ears, until finally I could
run my hand the length of her body and tickle the root of her tail.
From then on, undreamed-of familiarities gradually unfolded until
she would not look at her food until she had paced up and down the
wall top, again and again, arching herself in delight against my
hand and brushing my shoulders with her body. Among these daily
courtesies one of her favourite ploys was to press her nose against
mine and stand there for several moments looking into my eyes. It
was one morning several months later that Ginny and I were in this
posture--she on the wall, touching noses with me, gazing into my
eyes, drinking me in as though she thought I was rather wonderful
and couldn't quite get enough of me--when I heard a sound
from behind me. "I was just watching the veterinary surgeon at work,
" Helen said softly. "Happy work, too," I said, not moving from my
position, looking deeply into the green eyes, alight with friendship,
fixed on mine a few inches away. "I'll have you know that this is
one of my greatest triumphs."
Buster The Feline Retriever
Christmas will never go by without my remembering a certain little
cat. I first saw her when I was called to see one of Mrs.
Ainsworth's dogs, and I looked in some surprise at the furry black
creature sitting before the fire. "I didn't know you had a cat," I
said. The lady smiled. "We haven't, this is Debbie." "Debbie?" "Yes,
at least that's what we call her. She's a stray. Comes here two or
three times a week and we give her some food. I don't know where she
lives but I believe she spends a lot of her time around one of the
farms along the road." "Do you ever get the feeling that she wants
to stay with you?" "No." Mrs. Ainsworth shook her head. "She's a
timid little thing. Just creeps in, has some food, then flits away.
There's something so appealing about her but she doesn't seem to
want to let me or anybody into her life." I looked again at the
little cat. "But she isn'tjust having food today." "That's right.
It's a funny thing but every now and again she slips through here
into the lounge and sits by the fire for a few minutes. It's as
though she was giving herself a treat." "Yes ... I see what you mean.
" There was no doubt there was something unusual in the attitude of
the little animal. She was sitting bolt upright on the thick rug
which lay before the fireplace in which the coals glowed and flamed.
She made no effort to curl up or wash herself or do anything other
than gaze quietly ahead. And there was something in the dusty black
of her coat, the half-wild scrawny look of her, that gave me a clue.
This was a special event in her life, a rare and wonderful thing;
she was lapping up a comfort undreamed of in her daily existence. As
I watched she turned, crept soundlessly from the room and was gone.
"That's always the way with Debbie," Mrs. Ainsworth laughed. "She
never stays more than ten minutes or so, then she's off." She was a
plumpish, pleasant-faced woman in her forties and the kind of client
veterinary surgeons dream of; well off, generous, and the owner of
three cosseted basset hounds. And it only needed the habitually
mournful expressions of one of the dogs to deepen a little and I was
round there post haste. Today one of the bassets had raised its paw
and scratched its ear a couple of times and that was enough to send
its mistress scurrying to the phone in great alarm. So my visits to
the Ainsworth home were frequent but undemanding, and I had ample
opportunity to look out for the little cat which had intrigued me.
On one occasion I spotted her nibbling daintily from a saucer at the
kitchen door. As I watched she turned and almost floated on light
footsteps into the hall, then through the lounge door. The three
bassets were already in residence, draped snoring on the fireside
James Herriot's Cat Stories Page 9