Cats In Clover

by Lea Tassie

  ***

  "I have a confession to make," I said to Jerry the next time we met for bridge, this time at Jerry's and Cindy's house.

  He smiled. "You removed Henry's bandage and stitches yourself."

  "How did you know?"

  "Well, you didn't bring him in and it's long past time for the stitches to come out. Did the wound heal cleanly?"

  "It was perfect," I said. "If anything had been wrong I'd have brought him in right away. Even if getting Henry into a carrier is the worst trauma I've ever had."

  Cindy laid out cards and score pads. "You should bring Ben along some evening to kibitz."

  "I doubt he'd come. He's not interested in bridge and anyway, he thinks one of us should stay home to keep the animals company and let them in and out. Henry still scorns litter boxes as an invention of the devil."

  "Cats have big bladders," Jerry said. "They can usually get by for at least twenty-four hours without having an accident."

  "Clive's a good example of that," Cindy said. "And here he comes. I don't think you've met him before, Holly. He's usually outside pretending to be an alley cat."

  Clive marched over to me, sat down with his tail curled tidily around his feet and gazed up as though ready for a long conversation. He was mostly black, his fur short and sleek. He had four neat white paws and on his chest a white dickey that came up over his mouth and nose, punctuated with a black slash like a mustache.

  "Gosh, he does look like Adolph Menjou," I said.

  Jerry grinned. "You're right. Acts like him, too. Every inch the gentleman."

  "For sure," Cindy said. "We went to Victoria one day last month to do errands and didn't get back until early evening. Clive usually meets us at the front gate, but he didn't that day."

  "He wasn't anywhere around when we went into the house, either," Jerry said.

  "We'd just put our parcels down," Cindy continued, "when we heard an anguished yowl from the bedroom and I rushed to open the door. Clive raced past, giving me a sharp, short 'Merrrow!' on his way, and streaked out of the house. When I caught up, he was squatting on the nearest patch of bare earth, a look of blissful relief on his face."

  "So the twenty-four hour bladder isn't necessarily true for all cats," I said.

  "Oh, I think it is," Jerry said. "Clive probably slept on our bed all night. We must have shut the bedroom door on him without realizing it and we don't leave windows open when we're away for the day. So he could have been in there close to twenty-four hours."

  Cindy put a plate of brownies on the sideboard. "We're just lucky he didn't decide to water any of the potted plants in the bedroom."

  "Clive is certainly a gentleman," Frank said. He'd come in during the story and was on his knees scratching the cat's head. "Bring him over to meet Jezebel. I'm sure she'd be delighted to teach him the ultimate in gentlemanly behavior: using the toilet."

  XIV - The Colonel and the Corporal

  Tom and Ginna came for Easter weekend. The first morning was sunny and redolent with the smell of new green growth and we trooped down to the beach, guarded by the two cats and Nicky, to pick over driftwood and gather clams. By afternoon, however, Tom was pacing around the yard, pretending to admire Ben's progress at staining the cedar siding forest green, but really looking for a weekend-sized construction job.

  "Aren't you going to put siding on the wood shed?" Tom asked Ben.

  "That's an idea. The place does look like a shack."

  "No kidding! Come on, let's measure up. And this time I'll enlarge the pump house and put cedar on that, too."

  I patted Ben's arm. "It's a great idea. You won't have to wriggle in there on your hands and knees next winter to prime the pump when the power goes off. And if you keep the wood shed filled, nobody will ever know what the walls looks like on the inside."

  Ben gave me a mock salute. "Yessir, Madam Colonel! Next time your brother-in-law visits, I'm leaving. When the two of you get together, you turn into a pair of slave drivers. Not to mention what you do to my budget."

  By dinner time, a batch of cedar siding was piled in the yard and the two men had stripped off the old weathered lumber on the pump house and were putting in footings for the new frame. Ginna and I had spent the afternoon planning the renovation of attic bedrooms and dreaming up a gourmet meal for our building crew. Compared to the frantic pace of last July's renovation, this was like being on vacation.

  Later we sprawled in the living room and caught up on the news. Clyde and Jeremy had been left in Calgary with a friend of Ginna's, so the resident pets slumbered in their usual chairs, undisturbed by territorial arguments. Nicky still wanted to claim all the furniture as his, but we'd managed to restrict him to one easy chair with his own special blanket. I sat on George's favorite chair and he sat on my lap so he could be close to it.

  After I told the story of how Nicky had banged his head against the blocked cat door, I said, "Did I ever tell you about the two orange tabbies I had when I lived in Vancouver?"

  "No," said Tom.

  "Yes," said Ben.

  "No," said Ginna. "Ben, you're outvoted."

  By ten we'd exhausted our repertoire of cat stories and Tom was yawning. "Come on, Ginna, let's hit the hay. I want to get some sleep before that feathered alarm clock of Ben's goes off in the morning."

  High-pitched squalling woke us at midnight. Ben and I rushed out of the bedroom to find George and Henry in the hall, face to face, ears flattened, teeth bared, tails twitching, and growl-yowling, as cats do when they're threatening to kill each other. George was trying to evict Henry. Henry said he had as much right to live in this house as anybody else and he wasn't leaving. Nicky stood a safe distance away and whined.

  This was something new. Henry had always yielded to George's wishes and superior status. His happy-go-lucky nature didn't lend itself to palace intrigue and he'd made it clear he was no threat to George's sovereignty.

  We separated them before they damaged each other and I put Henry in my studio. Ben shut George in his den, had his arm clawed in the process and swore loudly.

  "We must have paid too much attention to Henry after his operation," Ben said. "It's obvious George has decided Something Must Be Done."

  "So he's decreed Henry will have to go. Well, I'm not letting George win this one. I'll invoke the War Measures Act and assert my latent authority as Head Cat."

  "George is being ridiculous; Henry's a member of the family," said the Houseboy, as he mopped the blood off his scratches and handed me the Band Aids. "If you're going head to head with His Majesty, you'd better wear elbow- length leather gloves. He's very upset."

  George wasn't the only one.

  Ben went back to bed but I paced the rest of the night, sick at heart. I told myself not to worry but I couldn't help it. Nicky paced with me for a while, nuzzling at my hand as though he knew I was unhappy, but eventually got fed up and went back to bed, too. In spite of my brave words about being Head Cat, I knew George would never give in. But I couldn't allow Henry to be kicked out.

  One of them would have to go to the SPCA. Which one? I couldn't bear the thought of either of them leaving. He might be adopted by someone cruel. Or he'd be put down. I crushed the tranquilizers left over from our bout with Henry and the cat carrier, nursing some vague idea of keeping both of them in permanent la-la land.

  At seven I decided there was only one thing to do. It probably wouldn't work but I had to give them another chance. Apprehensive, I opened the doors to both rooms. George and Henry met in the hallway, gave each other a friendly sniff, marched into the kitchen and sat side by side at the feeding station. I was so relieved that I cursed both of them in English, my night school Spanish and a few words I made up on the spot. I told them they didn't deserve food, then opened a can of the most expensive tuna we had.

  At breakfast, Ben said, "Now that I know cats so much better, I'm seeing a lot of similarities to humans." He shook pepper on his hash browns. "I've come up with nicknames for our two according to military
rank. George is The Colonel and Henry is The Corporal."

  At that moment Henry made the mistake of infringing on George's personal space at the French doors and got a smack on the head. George marched through the kitchen toward the cat door, Henry trotting along behind.

  "See?" Ben said. "George metes out punishment and never smiles. Henry allows George to precede him through doorways and backs down the moment George raises a paw."

  Pleased with Ben's conversion to cat-watcher, I got into the spirit of the game. "And in civilian life, George wears a tie and tails, sips martinis and uses a cigarette holder. Henry wears a torn T-shirt and baseball cap and slurps beer right out of the can."

  "I'd call them Patrician and Peasant," Ginna said. "That fits with how they were sleeping in the living room last night. George had his tail, paws and head tucked in neatly and looked like a perfectly round ball of fur. Henry had his head hanging off the edge of the pillow and his legs were sticking out in every direction. He looked as though someone had tossed him there when he was drunk and he still hadn't sobered up."

  I liked Ginna's idea. Patrician George had delicate legs, a svelte body and tiny feet, and carried his head proudly and his body erect like a true aristocrat. Peasant Henry had stocky legs, big feet and long, messy hair and tripped over the carpet. When he chased a string, he didn't snatch it out of mid-air with precision, as George did; he trampled it to death.

  "How about Batman and Robin?" Tom drained his coffee mug. "George leaps tall buildings in a single bound."

  "You mean refrigerators and upright pianos," I said.

  "Ginna's idea is closer to the truth," Ben said. "You should watch George on the open shelves in the dining room. He parades around among all the knickknacks and delicate china and never knocks anything over."

  "Henry goes to sleep on the back of the couch," I said, "and falls onto the floor behind it. He staggers out, eyes half-shut, fur ruffled, and clambers back to his perch, wondering how it got away from him."

  Ben poured second mugs of coffee. "I still like Colonel and Corporal best. George bellows loud, imperious orders and, if we don't obey instantly, he lectures us just the way officers lecture men on the parade ground."

  "That's right," I said. "Henry, on the other hand, never lectures, never demands. He waits patiently until I notice him, or says 'Prrrt', which sounds like a purr and a meow together. Then he leads me to the door or the food can he wants opened."

  Tom said, "And I suppose you're so grateful not to be yelled at that you do everything he wants."

  "How did you guess?"

  "Because Clyde and Jeremy operate much the same way. I think Henry knows exactly how to handle you."

  "If George and Henry are The Colonel and The Corporal," Ginna said, "then what is Nicky?"

  At the sound of his name, Nicky got up, wagging his tail, put his chin on Ginna's lap and gave her a soulful look. She buried her hands in his thick white fur, then caressed his softly pointed ears. "You're adorable," she said. "Maybe you don't need to be anything but a dog."

  "There's only one thing he can be." I said. "Both cats order him around, so he has to be The Private."