The Hairy Tails of a Cat Sitter

by C H Hemington

Chapter 1 - The Crystal Healer and Her Carefree Cat

  “You seriously expect me to walk through that?”

  Spike looked at me from the inside of the cat flap with an expression that indicated I must be mad, whilst I stood shivering in the garden, surrounded by all manner of cat toys, treats and even a dead frog.

  “We’re training him to use a cat flap” his owner Marion had informed me in a hand- written note she’d left for me on the kitchen table. I wasn’t sure why, after eight years of acting as doorwoman she’d decided it was time for Spike to be a bit more self-sufficient, nor why she’d had a cat flap fitted just before going on holiday. Whatever the reasons, I found myself in a stand-off with a stubborn cat who knew he could out-wait me.

  I’d been cat-sitting Spike for some years and knew he wasn’t the most adventurous or outdoorsy of cats; so I did what all owners do when faced with a headstrong cat – I gave in. I opened the back door for him, expecting him to creep nervously into the garden, but as if to prove what contrary creatures cats are, he simply sniffed the air before turning on his hairy heels and walking back indoors.

  Whilst most cats love the great outdoors, as Spike demonstrated, there are exceptions to the rule. I’ve come across those that undoubtedly prefer to treat the house as their personal kingdom and take advantage of everything offered therein by their human ‘slaves’. These are cats that have no truck with the ridiculous and quite frankly, second class ‘self service’ facilities outside.

  Of course busy roads and cat-theft are all too real threats these days and just two of the reasons why some owners decide to keep their cats indoors permanently; whereas others choose to allow their cats outdoors either on a part-time basis, or with certain restrictions. I’ve looked after cats that have had extraordinary enclosures built for them in their back garden and others that enjoy the benefits of a fleece-covered sun-lounger on a balcony. Some owners will take their cats out on a harness and I’ve even been asked to take a cat out for a walk in a stroller, the shame of it! Walking down the street with the cat zipped into a bright pink coloured carry case on wheels with mesh windows was not my finest hour, and neither was it Marvin’s. He sat in the stroller with a look of utter resignation on his face whilst people walked past us with looks of surprise on theirs. One lady took it upon herself to tell me in no uncertain terms what she thought about cats in strollers. I tried to tell her I was just the cat sitter but it fell on deaf ears, and not just because she happened to be wearing a pair of furry paw-print ear mufflers at the time.

  Now call me old fashioned but I like nothing better than to see cats enjoying life alfresco. Watching them cavort in the wind, squaring up to their neighbourhood nemesis, even seeing them squirt urine on the same bush every day by way of marking their territory in that funny tippy-toe, tail quivery way. I’ve watched entranced whilst a cat slinks around the edges of his garden, using the same pathway of flattened grass that he’s created as a result of habitual use. Some cats, like secret agents on a covert operation, will seek cover in the nearest bush if they hear any sudden noise, occasionally poking their heads out to check if it’s all clear before moving quickly and silently to the next point of refuge.

  Then there’s the hunting. It seems to me that when it comes to this grisly past time, cats have one of two modes of operation. There are those who will identify the location of a rodent’s den and will sit waiting at that spot in the hope that a mouse or shrew, oblivious to the danger that lurks outside their front door, will saunter out. Then there are those cats who will stalk their prey through our urban jungles and, with a little wiggle of their posteriors pounce on their victim, not always successfully, and I have to laugh at the look of embarrassment on their faces that usually follows such an epic failure.

  Now I come to think of it, there are also cats who will use the ‘pot luck’, or even the ‘not a cat’s chance in hell’ method of hunting and haphazardly chase birds, flying or not, around the garden. I once saw a small, slender Siamese cat stalking a huge pheasant that was coming into land, announcing its presence with its raucous and ‘tinny’ sounding squawk. When it saw the cat it swerved and changed direction, but the little Siamese still insisted on pursuing this hopeless cause, ineptly jumping up at the pheasant even though it was some five feet above it. I can’t imagine what he thought he was going to do with it had he caught it.

  So I was pleased to be introduced to Nanda, a magnificent and very large, six year old Norwegian Forest Cat with a long, elegant body covered in apricot coloured fur and with a flowing, bushy tail. Nanda was owned by a curvaceous and ruddy-cheeked lady called Gloria who had long, jet-black hair.

  Gloria was a true free spirit. Over a cup of nettle tea when I first met her she told me how she’d rejected the shackles of a human relationship in favour of one with a species that was still effectively wild. I looked at Nanda slumbering on his Moroccan cushion, snoring uninhibitedly, and inwardly questioned this last statement. She also regaled me with stories of her time working on a Kibbutz as a student and latterly her trips to, amongst other places, Goa and Bhutan to seek spiritual enlightenment. In fact it was seeing the Buddhist Monks in Bhutan that had given Gloria the inspiration for Nanda’s name.

  “Nanda was the brother of a Buddha,” she explained. “One day Nanda was walking in the forest with his brother when they came across some beautiful celestial nymphs that he, erm... coveted. When the Buddha saw how captivated his brother was by the beautiful creatures he promised Nanda that if he took to living a Holy Life, he could in time ‘enjoy the company’ of the nymphs as a reward. I couldn’t help feel that this was a bit of a contradiction, unless it was a non-celibate sect of Buddhists we were talking about.

  Gloria continued “With this motivation Nanda apparently practiced the religious life with all due diligence, but in doing so he ultimately saw how depraved his wood-nymph based motives had been, so he cast aside all his former naughty cravings and went on to attain a high position in the Buddhist ranks!”

  As much as I was entranced by the story and the beguiling way Gloria told it, in my own secular way all I could think of was how difficult it was going to be for me not to call the cat Nandos, after the famous restaurant that sells PERi-PERi chicken.

  “Right!” said Gloria, her calm tone disappearing in favour of one much more practical. “Would you like to come for a walk?” The random nature of the question caught me somewhat off guard and I was inclined to make up an excuse to get out of it. However, I noticed that when Gloria had said the ‘W’ word Nanda’s ears had pricked up, his eyes had opened and as Gloria got up so did he. Intrigued, I agreed.

  “By ‘we’ I mean you, Nanda and I” Gloria said. For the second time in only a few seconds I’d been taken by surprise, but this time pleasantly. What could be nicer than a little stroll outside with a cat? After all it was more than likely that Nanda would only follow us to the end of his territory, after which we’d turn round and come back, making this a reasonably short amble, rather than a long hike.

  “Nanda usually likes a good couple of miles,” Gloria said. A couple of miles? I’d heard of cats going for long walks with their owners but nonetheless it was highly unusual, and as much as the prospect excited me, it clearly hadn’t entered Gloria’s head that I might have other engagements. But then that’s how she rolled, and I don’t mind admitting, it made a refreshing change.

  Gloria lived in a small cottage off the beaten track with a garden that backed onto a field which joined onto a public footpath. Initially Nanda ran ahead of us whilst Gloria told me all about her business ‘Tree of Life Crystal Healing’. Having never engaged the services of a crystal healer before I was curious to find out what it involved.

  “Our bodies are ethereal vessels and sometimes they can be prevented from working optimally,” she informed me. “So I’m trained to use crystal healing techniques to alleviate any problems and their symptoms. Firstly I’ll check your chakras to make sure they’re functioning as they should and
if any of them aren’t I‘ll use crystals to correct the dysfunction.” I was pretty sure I didn’t want my chakras checking but fortunately she changed tack.

  “It also works well on animals and I practice it regularly on Nanda.” Perhaps that explained his seemingly laid-back attitude to life? Should I have it done on my own two highly sensitive, some would say paranoid, Siamese cats?

  “Oh yes, I use all sorts of methods on him: healing layouts; crystal grids and obviously crystal massage,” she continued. Crystal massage sounded rather uncomfortable but I was saved from having to think of an appropriately enthusiastic response by Nanda re-appearing, a wet patch on his nose where he’d been sniffing the dewy grass and his eyes shining. I instinctively bent down to give him a stroke. To my surprise he jumped onto my knees, clambered up my body and came to rest on my shoulders. Gloria didn’t seem in the least bit surprised.

  “I knew it,” she said mysteriously as we walked on, my shoulders drooping somewhat under the weight of this Buddhist-inspired beast. Obviously I couldn’t see Nanda up there, but rather than imagining him looking like a man wearing an orange robe and having taken a chill pill, I preferred to think of him as resembling an imperious roman emperor being carried through the streets on one of those hand-held sedan chairs, a look of permanent disdain on his face. I wondered for how long I’d have to bear his weight.

  On we went, through the fields of long grass, Gloria chatting animatedly next to me. I was beginning to wonder if she’d asked me along just so she could have a nice walk without Nanda giving her a nasty shoulder strain. Don’t get me wrong, I felt privileged that this beautiful creature had chosen to place his trust in me in such an intimate way, I just wished he’d have been two kilos lighter.

  “If you bend down again he’ll jump off,” Gloria eventually said, and I couldn’t help but feel she might have told me this a tad sooner. True to her word, when I knelt down Nanda jumped off and casually started sniffing the ground. Occasionally he would jump up and bat his paw at a flying insect, and it was a delight to watch.

  I was eager to know how often Nanda accompanied Gloria on her walks. “Whenever I go,” she said in a very matter of fact tone.

  “And how often is that?” I asked slightly nervously.

  “Most days,” she replied.

  My brain started whirring. There was no way I was going to have time to take him on a walk every day; after all my time allocation was forty five minutes per visit. Should I mention this? Was I being unreasonable? Before I had time to compose my next sentence Gloria relieved me of my concerns. “Of course I won’t expect you to. He’s got his cat flap and can come and go as he pleases, so it’s not like he won’t get any exercise.”

  When we returned to the cottage, Nanda grabbed a bite to eat before resuming his position on the Moroccan cushion whilst Gloria gave me the dates of her next retreat. “You should try one too, they’re wonderfully relaxing,” she said. I didn’t doubt it, but the thought of all that chanting was a bit off-putting. So I nodded politely and left Gloria to her crystals.

  Looking after Nanda was fantastic. He was such a tactile cat and would often commandeer my lap or pat me with one of his chunky paws in an attempt to persuade me to give him a cuddle. Of course it worked every time. This was one gorgeous big teddy bear that had me completely and utterly wrapped round his paw.

  For a big cat he was also very agile and would often leap high into the air to reach a feather that I’d tied to a piece of string and dangled in front of him. He also seemed to love me hiding catnip toys around the room and with a remarkable display of dexterity that I felt sure would have scientists baffled, would squeeze himself into some ridiculously tiny spaces to get at them.

  One day, during the middle of my week looking after Nanda, and on my way to visit him, I received a call from one of my other clients to let me know that they had to come back early and would return home later that afternoon. I’d already visited their cat Captain Dumpy earlier in the day during which time we’d had some fun and games playing with a cat toy made out of reindeer fur. The result of our enthusiastic play session was that most of the reindeer fur had been stripped from the toy and ended up on the living room carpet which, when I’d left that morning, resembled the aftermath of a ‘to-the-death’ fight with the reindeer itself. I had planned to hoover up on my last visit but the owners’ premature return meant that I would have to delay my visit to Nanda and hot-foot it back over their house. However, what it did mean was that I would have the rest of the week clear to devote to Nanda which also meant I’d be able to take him for a walk! I couldn’t wait, and as soon as I’d cleared up the mess created by myself and Captain Dumpy I lost no time in heading back to see Nanda.

  It was a lovely sunny day and Nanda greeted me with his usual mix of laid back enthusiasm. After a bit of mutual cuddling and a game of ‘catch the catnip banana’ I decided to play my trump card. I’d waited all my life to utter these words to a cat and now was my chance.

  “Walkies!” I trilled in my best Barbara Woodhouse voice. Nanda looked at me blankly. He obviously wasn’t used to be spoken to in such a strident manner. Feeling a bit deflated that my big moment hadn’t worked out exactly as I’d hoped, I changed my tone “OK Nanda, let’s go for a walk,” I said calmly and headed towards the door. To be honest, I wasn’t sure that Gloria was expecting me to take Nanda for a walk so I hadn’t actually asked her if he was likely to want to come with me, and if he did, whether or not he was likely to stay with me. My first question was immediately answered when Nanda’s tail went up and he followed me to the door. I guess I’d soon find out the answer to my second question.

  Out we went, following the same route that we’d taken with Gloria. As I breathed in the fresh country air I felt like the luckiest person in the world and I couldn’t imagine any greater joy than walking in the sunshine with a large and enigmatic feline as my companion. About fifteen minutes into the walk I knelt down to see if Nanda would do his impersonation of Edmund Hillary and climb up onto my shoulders. The memory of what his bulk did to my back the last time was still very much with me but I knew that when I’d had enough all I had to do was to kneel down and he’d jump off. What I’d failed to think about was just how hot it was. Although I had dark hair my skin was very fair and for this reason I always wore long trousers and long sleeved tops if I was going to be in the sun for any length of time, but why on this occasion did I think it a good idea to then add a real-fur scarf? By the time we’d walked twenty paces I was panting like a dog and rivulets of sweat were dripping down my neck and onto the front of my top, leaving some quite frankly embarrassingly positioned stains. I knew that Nanda hadn’t had his quota of carriage-time but I couldn’t carry on like this so I knelt down to allow him to get off. To my frustration he stayed put. It seemed that it was also too hot for this furry monster and he was certainly not prepared to expend any more energy than was absolutely required. With resignation I heaved myself back up and took a long glug of water from the bottle I’d luckily thought to bring with me.

  What happened next was odd. In my eagerness to get the water into me a quickly as possible I let a few drops escape down one side of my mouth. It was at that moment that I felt a beefy paw pat my cheek.

  What the...?

  I deliberately allowed a bit more water out in a sideways dribble and it happened again. Was Nanda playing with the water? I knew that cats had their eccentricities but this was a new one on me and not something that Gloria had mentioned. With Nanda showing no inclination to disembark I trudged onwards, my mind becoming engrossed with thoughts of inventing a best-selling water-inspired cat toy and the accolades I would receive as a result. In fact I’d been so immersed in my imaginings that when I looked up I quickly realised that I didn’t recognise where we were. I suddenly panicked, not for me but for Nanda. Was I taking him out of his comfort zone? The fact that he was outstretched across my shoulders with a paw casually dangling down beside my head convinced me that he couldn�
�t be any more comfortable, but I still felt I should try and get back on track. I looked behind me and to my left saw the outline of a wood in the distance, so decided to make my way towards it in the hope that even if I wasn’t going in the right direction, I’d at least be in the shade.

  Ten minutes later and with Nanda’s long fur still tickling the back of my neck I entered the wood, trying to put aside any dark thoughts which were creeping into my head as a consequence of having recently watched ‘The Blair Witch Project’. However, with the sun shining through the trees like rays from heaven itself the wood was in fact beautiful and I wished I’d brought my camera, not that I could have carried it in addition to the load I was already baring. A sudden sound brought me to a halt. Weirdly it sounded a bit like rain. Following the direction of the sound I came across the source of the noise - a sparkling stream! You couldn’t make it up; I expected fairies to emerge from behind the trees and goblins out of the fox holes, with a unicorn thrown in for good measure.

  It was then than Nanda took me by surprise by leaping off my shoulders and making his way to the water’s edge. To my disbelief and after a few sniffs, he then carefully stepped into the stream, rather like a Victorian bather emerging from their changing hut and tippy-toeing into the sea. The movement of the stream had him entranced and he started trying to catch the glints of sunlight on the water’s surface. The whole scene had me transfixed. After several minutes my back told me it was time to sit down. Needless to say, the ground around the stream was damp and I wished I’d brought something waterproof to sit on. So I decided to sit on my haunches, momentarily forgetting that this was the signal that indicated to Nanda that his reclining airline seat had been cleaned and was ready to be occupied for the return journey. Out of the stream he dashed and in one movement launched himself onto my shoulders. The force with which this was done was enough to unbalance me and I found myself falling backwards, squarely onto my behind. Of course Nanda managed to hold on tight. Using a nearby tree as leverage, I hoisted myself and my excess baggage into an upright position.

  Having regained my composure I wondered how long it would be before my neck, which was now sopping wet thanks to Nanda’s watery adventures, would start to produce steam as it heated up on the journey back to Gloria’s. I headed towards the other side of the wood, blissfully ignorant of the fact that I not only had two embarrassing water marks on my chest, but a large muddy patch on my posterior.

  Once out in the open I began to recognise some landmarks and strode forth, confident that we were heading homewards. We can’t have been more than a quarter of a mile from Gloria’s house when I felt Nanda start to shift about. At last, he wanted to disembark! I knelt down and off he jumped, disappearing into the deep grass which oscillated eerily with his movements, as if it had a mind of its own. I ambled on, bedraggled but feeling like I’d been given an overdose of endorphins.

  After five minutes or so I heard a rustling in the grass and presumed it was Nanda returning from his little solo excursion. Sure enough, he emerged in all his magnificence from the grass onto the path in front of me, but he wasn’t alone. He’d been joined by an enormous rabbit, which had found its way into his mouth.

  Now some cats will stick to a traditional menu of mice, rats, shrews and birds (if they can catch them), whilst other will go a la carte and select frogs, voles, fish, moles and grass snakes as their catch of the day. I’ve even known the odd bat to be brought back (I assumed it was already dead when the Caesar the cat in question happened across it). In my experience, the size of the victim usually depends on the size of the cat. Now Nanda was a big cat and it made sense that he wouldn’t be put off by some of the larger country-dwelling creatures. However, the rabbit was enormous, in fact virtually the same size as Nanda himself. Obviously the poor thing was dead and hung limply from his jaws, its ears and legs easily touching the ground.

  Having shown me that his hunting prowess was clearly second to none, I assumed Nanda would dump the rabbit on the pathway in an act of flagrant waste, and trot home beside me. However, like a lucky dip this cat was full of surprises and held tightly onto the rabbit, clearly determined that I should make him a hearty rabbit stew supper when we got back.

  So we resumed our journey, but at a much slower pace and with me trying not to laugh as I watched Nanda awkwardly dragging this rabbit along with him, his front paws having to move out to either side at an exaggeratedly wide angle to avoid tripping up over the rabbit’s hind paws. I was tempted to put it across his shoulders to give him a taste of his own medicine but thought this might hinder us further, so I simply amused myself with the thought of it instead.

  Two hours after setting off, we eventually got back to Gloria’s and instead of tucking into his bunny booty, Nanda flumped onto his Moroccan cushion and was soon snoring and snorting like a good’un. I was also dead on my feet and not for the first time did I wish I’d been born a pampered cat.

  With Nanda immediately heading off into the land of nod I was left with a bit of a dilemma. What should I do with the rabbit? I certainly wasn’t going to cook it, nor was I prepared to leave it to rot inside, who knows how long Nanda was going to be asleep for? If I left it outside in the garden for him I would run the risk of attracting foxes and other cats onto his territory. Perhaps the local butcher might like it? The thought of the rabbit hanging from Nanda’s salivary mouth forced me to dismiss this idea and I ended up lobbing it back into the field at the back of the garden, no mean feat given its size.

  Whilst Nanda slept I prepared, what to me was a more palatable plate of food, and then took my leave. It wasn’t until I got home and looked in the mirror that I realised what a sight I was. My damp, dishevelled hair had gone frizzy from the steam bath created by Nanda’s heat and subsequent wetness; my face was glowing red; my top was covered with water stains and loose tree bark, and when I took my trousers off, I finally got to see the brown stain that I’d been sporting on my derrière ever since Nanda had knocked me off my feet. Thank goodness I’d not bumped into any other walkers on the way back. If someone had been walking towards me and then turned around for a rear view, they’d have seen the horror from both sides.

  Every day thereafter, for the duration of my time with Nanda, we went for a walk. I’d worked out that if I didn’t allow him up onto my shoulders in the first place he was quite content to amble along with me. I’d also worked out a shortcut to the woods, and armed with plastic bag to sit on and with a camera slung over my shoulder we’d make our way there and spend a wonderful time together, Nanda enjoying the delights of the stream and me enjoying watching him. I took some amazing photos and even some video footage to show Gloria when she got back. This had been my own personal retreat and I couldn’t imagine any other bettering it.

  So it was that I found myself regaling Gloria with stories of mine and Nanda’s time together, but rather than sharing my overflowing enthusiasm her response was simply to give me an enigmatic smile. It was this that prompted me to remember what she’d murmured to herself on the walk we’d taken on our first meeting. Referring Gloria back to this moment, I plucked up the courage to ask her.

  “Gloria, when we were out on our walk before you went away I heard you say ‘I knew it’ after Nanda had got up onto my shoulders. What did you mean?”

  She just looked at me and in a serious tone replied “as soon as we met I knew immediately that Nanda would love you. You have an amazing aura and your chakras are performing really well.”

  What a relief.