Cats In Clover

by Lea Tassie

  ***

  We'd talked of going to Mora Bay for the birthday dinner but the others decided it would be more relaxing to have it at home. It would be more work for me, but George and Henry were pleased. They knew, when they saw us changing our 'fur,' that we were going out and took offense at being left all alone. Not that they would be lonely with two dogs to tease, but the furniture might take a beating in the process.

  Sue was watching me stir gravy when I stepped back and tripped over Henry. The spoon hit the floor, spattering gravy, and Henry gave me a short sharp lecture before flouncing off.

  "You'd think that cat would know by now that I can move in reverse," I said, as I mopped up the spattered gravy.

  "Of course he knows," Sue said. "But he hadn't given you permission to move." For a woman who'd had only dogs as pets, she was catching on quickly.

  "Or he thinks I have eyes in my heels. Cats are weird."

  "I bet they think we're even weirder."

  "You're probably right," I said, wondering if Sue might turn out to be a Cat Person. "When they bring me a bird or a mouse, I lose it. I'm too clumsy to climb trees and too stupid to roll in the catnip. When I go outside they follow me until I'm safely back in the house."

  Ben came into the kitchen to check on the roast beef. Gareth followed, saw Henry sitting on the kitchen table, supervising, and cried, "Hey, there's a cat on the table!"

  "Oh, dear!" the Houseboy said, and quickly removed Henry, who blinked in utter disbelief. He'd been kicked off editorials before, but never the kitchen table.

  Ben and Gareth went back to the living room and Henry returned to his post. I poured Sue a glass of wine and began chopping vegetables for the salad.

  "We put in a new furnace a couple of months ago," I said, "and that experience proved cats think humans are crazy. Or stupid. When the heat came on, the cold air returns howled like a January gale. The first time it happened, Henry headed for the door, wailing."

  "Poor baby," Sue said, stroking him.

  "I petted him and told him I wasn't frightened. But he was convinced something was wrong and I was too stupid to realize it. It took three weeks for him to decide the noise was harmless, but meanwhile, every time the heat came on he yelled at me to go outside with him where it was safe."

  "Was George frightened, too?"

  "George? Never! He knows nothing in the house would dare hurt him. All he did was glare at the cold air return and go back to sleep."

  After dinner, we lazed in the living room, too full to do anything, including the dishes. Ben was working on his second brandy when George climbed up on his chest, stared him in the eye and bellowed.

  "What does he want?" Sue asked.

  "His ruff." Ben got up, sighing.

  Gareth said, "What's a 'ruff'?"

  I answered because the Houseboy was now following George down the hall. "A body massage. George demands at least two per day, more if he can talk Ben into it."

  "I take it there's a little ritual?" Sue asked.

  "Oh, indeed! The procedure is for Ben to take George to his den, kneel on the floor and gently massage His Imperial Fussiness all over."

  "Dad does this every day?" Gareth asked. "Sounds like George is as demanding as Beanbag. After all the insulting things my father has said about cats, it's hard to believe he's letting his life be run by two of them."

  "A ten-pound cat can wield a lot of power."

  Beanbag put his head on Gareth's knee and gave him an imploring look. "As much as a forty-pound animated sausage, I guess."

  A few moments later Ben, with George marching at his heels, came back to his chair and brandy. George sat down, stared at him intently and meowed.

  "Forget it, your Majesty! That's the third ruff today. You've had more than your share."

  George looked at me.

  "No way! I gave you a ten-minute brushing today." In April I'd bought a cat brush and given him a going-over with it. The procedure had instantly become an unbreakable thousand-year-old tradition. So far I'd successfully fought off his attempts to make me do it twice a day.

  George eyed Ben again, then walked over to one of the stereo speakers and inserted his front claws into it.

  Ben and I simultaneously screamed "George!" and leapt for him but, as usual, he eluded us, scooting through the dining room and into the kitchen with his ears back and tail lashing.

  "Can't you break him of that?" Gareth asked.

  I gave Gareth and Sue several examples of why it was impossible to train George not to do exactly what he wanted to do whenever he wanted to do it. "Anyway, the material used for those speaker covers is too strong for him to destroy. The threads are pulled out a tiny bit where George puts his claws in, but they don't break. I bet you didn't even notice the nubbly effect."

  Gareth admitted that he hadn't.

  "We do clip his claws, but this house will have to be advertised as a 'handyman special' if we ever decide to sell," Ben said.

  "They don't mean to do any damage." I pointed at the piano. "See the evenly spaced claw marks? Those were caused by George escaping from a playful Henry."

  We went upstairs and I showed them the second spare bedroom wallpaper, hanging in tatters on either side of the bed. "Before Ben built the scratching post, George used to scratch that to tell me he was hungry, thirsty, or wanted butler service. Like an order pad, I guess."

  "Or," Sue said, "maybe just because it seemed like a great idea at the time."

  I could definitely see a Cat Person lurking under that blonde hair and in those dog-habituated hands.

  "I suggested papering the room with steel plate in an interesting shade of gray but Ben said the walls would sink into the crawl space and there was no point aggravating the situation."

  Downstairs, Gareth suggested hanging the stereo speakers on the wall.

  "They'd just pick some other way of attracting my attention," I said. "They don't use the speakers to sharpen their claws – they have a scratching post for that. And they don't scratch the wallpaper upstairs anymore because we're sleeping downstairs now."

  "At least you can keep the hair vacuumed up," Sue said.

  "You mean I should be thankful for small mercies? All right, but what am I going to do about the stacked plastic filing trays in my den?"

  Weeks before, Henry had taken to sleeping on the top one and it cracked. Ben mended it with a glue reputed to weld steel to steel successfully. Henry climbed on for a nap and the tray broke again. Ben next glued a sheet of thin plywood to the floor of the tray. That, too, cracked under Henry's weight. Ben topped the plywood with more plywood. Henry went aboard, thumped down and the tray broke for the fourth time.

  Gareth said, "Why not buy new trays?"

  "Fixing them is a challenge," Ben said. "I just have to figure out how. In the meantime, we follow the principle of propping things up with other things, the way they used to do it in early Gothic cathedrals."

  "That principle really came in handy when one of the back legs on the couch fell off," I said. "We put two cans of stewed tomatoes under that corner. As long as nobody bounces on the couch, it works just fine."

  I took Gareth and Sue into my studio and showed them the stacks of paperbacks separating the three trays. "This works well, too. Henry couldn't possibly break a tray now. Of course, I can't file anything in them."

  Sue grinned. "A small price to pay for the happiness of a fat, good-natured cat."

  Gareth snorted. "I'm going to go drink brandy with my father."

  "I'll bet Henry hasn't slept up there since you did that," Sue guessed.

  "You're right. But if I take the books away, he's sure to come back. Then George will follow and start sleeping in the filing cabinet again. He's already shed hair into my files and kicked over the box of floppy disks."

  "Why don't you keep the file drawers shut?"

  "Because I'm always reaching in to grab a different disk or another file."

  "How about keeping your studio door shut?"

  "Wh
en I do that, they sit outside and yowl. Or scratch the door."

  Sue laughed and shook her head. "I'm not sure I'd want to live with your two babies. Beanbag can be a nuisance but he's not that bad."

  "I'd never give them up," I said. "They're too much fun, in spite of the mess they make."

  "I can suggest a different attitude. Pretend they're great artists, avant-garde deconstructionists."

  "What does that mean?"

  "In literature, deconstruction means to take each sentence apart and analyze the words in terms of culture. George and Henry are merely taking your house and furniture apart and analyzing them to determine what kind of culture humans have."

  "And I should rejoice in being a handmaiden to genius?"

  "Something like that."

  "I think I'd rather have a brandy."

  "I'll have wine." As she turned toward the door, Sue saw the jade plant she'd given me. "Oh, Holly, you really do have a brown thumb, don't you? Would you mind if I take this poor little plant home and nurse it back to health?"

  "Not at all. And don't give it back to me; you can see what will happen if you do."

  Pouring drinks in the kitchen, I said, "Nicky doesn't get into much trouble. Are all dogs easy to live with?"

  "No. Beanbag drives me crazy sometimes."

  "Do you suppose we're masochists?"

  "I hate to think so," Sue said, "but what other explanation can there be?"

  "I don't know, but I prefer being called a handmaiden to genius."

  We spent the rest of the evening by the fire, petting lap-cats and scratching dogs' ears. The conversation ranged from politics to cats to computers to cats to market gardening and back to cats again. At midnight, after Gareth suggested calling the farm 'Cat City' and Ben groaned, Sue and Gareth headed upstairs to bed.

  As I turned off the lights in the living room, I heard Gareth say, "They really do have two tins of stewed tomatoes holding up one corner of the couch. I looked. I wonder why they don't get it fixed properly."

  "They're living on an island," Sue said, her voice fading up the stairs, "They're supposed to be eccentric."

  "They were eccentric before they ever moved here. My father probably has his budget drawn up for the next year and didn't put in anything for furniture repair. Knowing him, that means the stewed tomatoes stay where they are until he does a new one."

  XVII - Lese Felinity

  The hot days of summer had Ben worried about the well going dry again and muttering about water for the garden. When I suggested doing a rain dance, he gave me a dirty look. I went off to my den and wrote a new short story, though the first two were still bouncing back with the persistence of moths against a lit window. I shut the royals out of my studio one afternoon so I could concentrate on finishing it. They were not impressed when I said I was sacrificing the pleasure of their company for my art and scratched at the door until I let them in again. Ben told me I'd committed lese felinity, akin to lese majesty, offending the power and dignity of the king.

  "What about the offenses those two commit against my person, property and sanity?" I asked.

  "You know there's no justice for slaves. Their Highnesses consider it sufficient that you have a warm bed and enough to eat. Where's your gratitude, woman? Why do I always have to remind you how lucky you are?"

  George suffered many offenses against his power and dignity. That evening, for example, Ben sat in his easy chair and opened a new library book. George immediately sat on the book, his front paws on the Houseboy's chest. When Ben didn't respond with a two-handed pet, George gently inserted his needle-sharp claws into Ben's chest.

  "Ouch! Don't do that!" Ben put George on the arm of the chair, patted him, and picked up the book again.

  They repeated this routine again. And again. After five minutes Ben committed lese felinity by putting George on the floor. The King sat with his back to the Houseboy, ears back, scowling.

  "I'm sorry, George, but I've had enough. You can come back up if you behave yourself."

  George flicked his tail again. If WHO behaves himself? This slave had better watch it or he'll end up in the arena with half a dozen lions circling him.

  I was on the couch with a coffee and my knitting. George curled up in my lap, flicking his ears in irritation when the strand of wool tickled them. Henry, sprawling on the back of the couch, decided to get in on the act. He started walking down my front, but there wasn't room to lie beside George, so he stayed where he was, hind feet on my shoulder, front feet on my stomach, and went into a coma.

  Normally I enjoyed the attention. On this occasion I committed lese felinity by announcing firmly that I had to go out to the kitchen to turn the pork chops and everyone would have to move now, please.

  I tried to atone that night, my back propped against the bed headboard, my usual cup of tea, handful of grapes, chunk of cheese and murder mystery in hand. Henry turned circles on my chest and stomach, occasionally stopping to knead, while George nuzzled my hand for little bits of cheese and Ben told me long complex theories about fertilizing gardens and building greenhouses. Though all these demands made it difficult to read, drink and eat, I didn't complain nearly as much as I wanted to.

  Then Henry thumped my forehead with his in affectionate greeting and got nose prints on my glasses so I decided to give up my selfish pursuits and go to sleep. But how could I? There were two cats curled up on my body and I'd be committing lese felinity by moving. I managed to wriggle out of my dressing gown, toss my extra pillow and the book on the floor, put my glasses and the grape dish on the bedside table and turn out the lamp without disturbing the royals. The hard part, as always, was squirming toward the foot of the bed so I could eventually rest my head on a pillow. At the moment of success, the royals, fed up with their heaving mattress, jumped off the bed and headed for the living room.

  Henry, these servants are hopeless.

  Could we trade them in, Your Highness?

  The new ones might be worse.

  Ben liked to sleep in on Sunday, but the cats rose with the dawn, no matter the day. They wanted their breakfast at once and, of course, nagged me instead of Ben. I didn't mind; I liked watching the sun rise. After the fur brigade had been fed and George and Nicky had gone back to sleep, I sat on the veranda with a coffee. Henry stretched out beside my chair, his chin resting on his front paws and watched the morning with as much interest as I did.

  His philosophy of 'live and let live' intrigued me. I'd never known a cat so unconcerned with privilege and territory. All cats live in the moment but Henry seemed to make it a special quality. As I was musing on this phenomenon, I saw an adult rabbit hunkered down on the meadow edge of the lawn. Then a half-grown squirrel came down the old Garry oak near the fence and bounced across to the rabbit. The rabbit ran to the swimming pool, stopped and looked back.

  "Surely," I said to Henry, who was sitting up now, ears perked forward, "that rabbit can't be afraid of an animal so much smaller than itself."

  The squirrel raced after the rabbit, turning a couple of somersaults on the way. The rabbit let it get within a couple of feet, then ran back across the lawn.

  And the game was on. The rabbit let the squirrel chase him round and round the yard, zigging and zagging. When they met face to face, the squirrel jumped over the rabbit and kept on going. They continued their game of tag for another five minutes, while Henry and I lazed on the deck. The game seemed to amuse him as much as it did me.

  Nicky wandered out and flopped next to Henry, who sat up and licked the dog's face, then worked on the inside of one ear. Nicky stood the tickling for only a moment before he lifted a big paw and pinned Henry to the deck. Henry squirmed, then put his head down and fell asleep. If that had been George, I thought, he'd have been yowling about lese felinity. But the King, always conscious of his superior status, would never have lowered himself to washing the dog's face.

  Later that morning I looked out the laundry room window and saw an adult squirrel playing with Henry on the
driveway. The squirrel danced back and forth, barely a foot from Henry's nose, flicked its tail and dashed away. Henry, his plume of a gray tail straight up, ears forward, trotted after it. When the squirrel approached again, Henry sat down and gazed with rapt attention at the saucy little creature. They repeated the maneuver several times before the mailman startled them and the squirrel vanished into the orchard.

  Perhaps wild animals, as well as tame, sense when another animal is prepared to mind his own business and forego aggression. The Mighty Hunter, had he been around to observe the incident, would have been appalled at Henry's lack of enterprise. Yet it had been George's idea to adopt Henry as one of his subjects and the King had mellowed since Henry brought his easy-going attitudes to the kingdom. Even Ben had become so mellow he was putty in the paws of both cats and I suppose I wasn't far behind. I decided I would try to write a poem about Henry and his Buddhist attitude.

  I told Ben about Henry and the squirrel and said, "One can't commit lese felinity against Henry because he doesn't think he owns the world. But Peri was more like George, quick to take insult."

  "Not another Peri story!"

  "She went after a bird sitting on the ledge outside my apartment window one day. She forgot the glass was there and nearly knocked herself out slamming into it. When I made the mistake of laughing, she gave me the silent treatment for two days."

  "Less than you deserved. George would have lectured you for a week straight."

  "It worked, though. I never laughed at her again."

  I was still doing door duty, though Henry was more eccentric than George or Nicky about using it. As June rolled to a close, he started asking to come in the back door instead of using George's window in the master bedroom. When I opened it, he'd say Prrrt!, turn his back and investigate the wood shed for a minute before coming in. I asked him several times why he did that and he always gave me a reply but, in spite of being a Cat Person, I couldn't understand a word.

  "Maybe," said Ben, as we carried our drinks out to the pool, "he thinks making a mystery out of his entrance will keep you so interested that you won't commit lese felinity by refusing to open the door for him."

  "Henry may be a smart cat," I said, "but I don't think his little head can hold such complicated concepts."

  I sank into my deck chair and picked up my martini. Henry, lying on the concrete apron with one mischievous eye open, reached up and batted George gently on the rear as the king sauntered regally by.

  "Look," I said, "Henry committed lese felinity!"

  George ignored Henry's insolence, strolled a safe distance away and began bathing himself.

  "George didn't hit back," I said. "Usually, he'd smack Henry across the face for that."

  "Do you suppose the balance of power in our small kingdom has shifted slightly?"

  "Between George and Henry perhaps. I doubt if our position has changed one iota."

  And it hadn't, of course. The next morning George decided he'd prefer to drink his water exclusively from the bathtub. Soapy leftovers, which suited peasants like Henry, would not do. It had to be fresh water from the cold tap and I soon discovered that I was not allowed to put the plug in, but forced to come and turn the tap on for a fresh batch every time.

  I told him there were two containers of water already available for his delectation and reminded him that the water was changed daily. He must have thought, if he paid attention at all, that I was complimenting him on his good taste because late that evening he again demanded a drink from the bathtub.

  Ben said, as I came back to bed for the second time, "You're right; nothing has changed. We're still the slaves, no matter that Henry has shoved George half off his pedestal."

  "I'd be willing to give Henry a little help," I muttered.

  We began to notice that Henry didn't need any help. When he flopped down beside George on the veranda, the King merely opened one eye and went back to sleep again.

  "Democracy at last," I said.

  Ben laughed. "Democracy, hell! We used to have a feudal aristocracy. That's been softened to a benevolent dictatorship. Henry puts up with George being king – or dictator-for-life – but he doesn't put up with injustice. And George still punishes most instances of lese felinity."

  I looked at Henry's cheerful face and ruffled fur. He still slept like a carelessly tossed banana skin.

  "Gandhi in a torn t-shirt?"

  "Don't waste time being fanciful," Ben said. "Remember your position and duties. George the Magnificent will want his dinner soon."

  There was no need to mention Henry or Nicky. Unlike Gandhi, neither of them had ever missed a meal.

  XVIII - Exhibitions

  In June Ben was back to using the pool almost every day. He loved playing in it but kept worrying about the pool cover motor breaking again and the disastrous effect on his budget. Every time he sat on the apron with the sun shining on him and a beer in his hand – his own personal definition of paradise – he began listing all the other things that could go wrong. He was doing such a good job of denigrating the pool that I didn't need to say a word.

  "Sue was right when she called you eccentric," I said. "Why don't you just relax and enjoy it?" After all, if we were moving back to Victoria the following spring, he might as well make the most of the pool while he had the chance.

  "Sue said we were both eccentric, not just me."

  "It's fun being a bit odd. Look how much Cal Peterson enjoys life."

  "He does some nice stuff, doesn't he?" Ben reached down to pat Nicky, who was lying beside the chair. "I wish we'd seen the wall hanging he won first prize for at the Saanichton fall fair last year."

  "Me, too. I think it's great that living on a small island gives people a chance to do what they want without getting a lot of raised eyebrows. If I had the time and inclination, I'd start a delivery service. This island needs one and I've always wanted to drive a big truck."

  "You have?" Ben eyed me as he took a swig of beer. "I never knew that."

  "I'm full of little surprises. Aren't you?"

  He stared at the glimmering pool for a moment. "Well, I'll admit I've got a yen to do something that's different. Every time I work with cement, I wonder if I could make sculptures with it."

  "So why not try? Isn't that why we're here? To do all the things we couldn't do when we were working for other people?"

  "I'd have to learn how."

  "Well, I can't help you with that. Of course, if you want to take up knitting, I could teach you how to knit socks and sweaters."

  Ben snorted. "I've better things to do with my time. Such as getting another beer."

  When he came back, he said, "You know, I think George is depressed. He's been looking grumpy lately."

  "I'll have Jerry give him a good going over. He needs to have his annual shots anyway."

  "Good; I hate the idea of him being unhappy. Oh, and guess what Nicky was doing when I looked out the back door?"

  "What?"

  "Giving a mini exhibition of his prowess; herding baby chicks."

  "And where was Mr. Mighty while this was going on?"

  Ben laughed. "Ignoring the whole thing. I think he figures Nicky is his personal slave. Looks like everybody around here is a slave except George and Mr. Mighty."

  "I wonder if the hen approves of Nicky herding her chicks." One of the Araucanas had nested under a blackberry hedge and was raising half a dozen babies. She was a busy little lady, bustling around the yard and clucking to the tiny yellow balls of fluff running along behind her, or sitting with her wings fluffed out, giving shelter to the chicks nestling beneath.

  "I don't think she has much choice," Ben said. "Nicky is herding her, too."

  A couple of days later we bundled George into the cat carrier. Henry took one look at the situation and, for the first time ever, went out the cat door, no doubt afraid we were thinking of caging him, too. Nicky paced and whined as if he was worried about his little tabby master being put into a box. The King, of course, was yel
ling loudly about the penalties for assaulting royalty.

  Jerry's examination revealed that George had to have a tooth out and a cut in the roof of his mouth fixed. When we took him into the clinic the following week, he moaned to the staff that he'd been kidnapped and it was some other cat who should be having his tooth out. Nobody believed this tale and he was carried away to the operating room, big green eyes blinking at us over the attendant's shoulder.

  We collected him at ten-thirty that evening and he yowled and tore ferociously at the cage all the way home.

  "He must be terrified," Ben said. "He's never acted like this before."

  "He's just furious at being treated in such a disrespectful way. Or else his mouth hurts and he's determined to get even with somebody or something."

  It had been a harrowing day and I wanted to crawl into bed, but George had other ideas. Though Jerry had assured me the King would be groggy and probably sleep for days, His Magnificence purred and prowled and paced and yowled and demanded endless drinks in the bathtub. He finally settled down on my pillow at midnight and I fell asleep. An hour later he nagged me to get up and, no matter how deeply I buried myself under the covers, I couldn't get away from those determined paws.

  "I suppose you want out." I'd blocked all his usual exits because Jerry had recommended George use the litter box until late the next day. I got up, put on jeans and a sweatshirt and took him outside. He didn't seem groggy but Jerry had told me to watch him closely and I had visions of him staggering off over the horizon, lost, confused and unable to find his way home. He prowled like a miniature tiger, examining much of our five acres, but refused to use the flowerbeds, the vegetable garden or even the convenient pile of sand a road repair crew had left beside our gate.

  He led me back to the house, apparently now as eager to go back to bed as I was. I showed him the litter box, in case he'd forgotten it was there, and went to bed. Ben began snoring. I poked him in the ribs. He continued to snore. Ten minutes later I gave up and moved to the couch. I'd barely fallen asleep when George complained in my ear. I burrowed deeper into my sleeping bag and ignored him.

  He woke me again at three, his complaints turned up full volume, so I retreated to my studio and shut the door. After a while I drifted off but at four my own traitorous bladder woke me. I stumbled down the hall to the bathroom, went in without turning the light on and stepped squarely into the mess George had made on the small mat in front of the toilet.

  When I'd got my foot and the mess cleaned up, I woke Ben. "That cat just showed his utter contempt for the way he was treated today."

  "What?" Ben muttered fuzzily into his pillow.

  "He made a statement on the bathroom mat. He says we are never to take him to the vet or the hospital again."

  "You woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me that?"

  "I am sick of that four-legged, fur-covered, mobile voice box yelling at me all night long. I am going to cut his tongue out, probably down around the kneecaps."

  "You don't mean that."

  "Yes, I do. George is just another version of the Chinese water torture. It's time somebody gave that cat his comeuppance."

  Ben sat up in bed and stared at me. "But the poor little guy doesn't feel well."

  "Just tell me this, St. Francis. Why does he keep me awake and let you sleep?"

  "You're his mother." Ben turned his back and snuggled in his blankets.

  What could I say? I knew George's mouth probably did hurt and that he was furious at us for letting it happen, but I couldn't do anything about that either. He was now sound asleep in Ben's chair. Four-thirty in the morning and all was quiet. Finally. I snuggled in my sleeping bag on the couch only to have Henry leap onto my chest and tell me a long complicated story about his own adventures.

  Next day Ben put the freshly laundered bathroom mat back in place. "I wish there was a mobile vet service on the island. It would be much easier to have the vet come here when there's something wrong."

  "I doubt it would make any difference."

  "There'd be no more cat carriers," Ben said.

  "George is still going to make statements about the treatment he gets. We were just lucky he chose the mat instead of the carpet."

  "I guess."

  "Anyway, Jerry says the reason he has no problem handling George and Henry is because they regard his office as his personal territory and, as guests, they instinctively behave themselves. George knuckles under to Jerry in his office the same way Clyde and Jeremy knuckled under to George when they were here. The mobile service would have to deal with them on their own turf."

  "Okay, let's not worry about it. With any luck, we won't have to go through this again until Henry needs his shots." Ben pushed back his chair.

  "Henry never makes statements. He takes things as they come and loves everybody. I'm sure if Henry had his way, every animal on the island would be invited in here for munchies and a game of tag. Have you noticed how he lets Nicky eat out of his dish?"

  "Yeah, out of George's, too."