by Chris Pascoe
For instance, it's apparently very rare to see a cat knocked out. Our vet* has confirmed this. Unconscious following a serious accident, yes. Out for the count after a smack in the face, no. And yet Brum achieves oblivion quite easily. The first time (to my knowledge RIGHT SQUARE BRACKET I presume he must be doing these things when I'm not around) was in the kitchen.
Brum's least endearing habit is his jumping onto kitchen work surfaces. Peaceful negotiation {'Get down!') and military action (pushing him off) have failed to break this habit. After a lifetime of bouncing straight back onto the worktops like some tabby Tigger he now no doubt considers this his job and, not wanting to interfere with his livelihood, I've largely given up the fight.
However, when we're preparing food, the old 'push and bounce' routine comes back into play. During this particular minced beef cremation, Brum had accomplished many footholds on easily reached surfaces only to be pushed to ground immediately. Distinctly peeved with the situation, he decided to approach from a different, and infinitely more difficult, angle.
He chose a route awash with peril RIGHT SQUARE BRACKET sharp knives, plates, pots and pans, open cupboards and drawers and, most significantly, a tray hanging over the edge of the work surface.
I saw him launch upwards out of the corner of my eye. All
* Our vet has a twitching eye. I have no idea if this only occurs when he's around Brum. His entire attitude to Brum reminds me very much of Herbert Lom's towards Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies - the same manic tic, the same contemptuous, wild-eyed glare - so I do tend to favour the theory that his seeing Bruin and I brings on a spontaneous nervous attack.
four paws landed firmly on the tray. Objective achieved? No. The tray began rocking in a wild see-saw motion before tipping backwards over the edge. Brum's frantic disembarkation attempt achieved three things - firstly he spilt a full jug of water over his head, secondly RIGHT SQUARE BRACKET the jug smacked him between the ears, and thirdly RIGHT SQUARE BRACKET he didn't actually get off the tray. The front half made it but his backside was already on the way down. The result was a cringe-inducing smack to the jaw, formica to tabby.
As the tray and various items of cutlery crashed to the floor around him, I have to admit that he himself slid to the floor with an easy grace he could never have hoped to have achieved had he been conscious. I automatically assumed him dead, shrugged and carried on with the cooking. No, not really RIGHT SQUARE BRACKET I automatically assumed him dead and rushed to his side, very nearly kicking a grounded bread knife into him and finishing the job. By the time I knelt down among the debris his eyes flicked open, and they continued to open until they were wide, staring shocked pools. He looked at me in wonder and bit me.
Not many weeks later, Brum sat staring at a cat-flap. Not long installed back then, this thing was a source of amazement to Brum, but of no practical use whatsoever. Not so for Brum's live-in-partner-girl-cat Sammy, who loved her new-found freedom, so much so that she actually bothered to get out of bed and clatter back and forth into the early hours of the morning.
Now, Sammy may be a nice-looking girl but she's quite a large and heavy beast. She also flies through the cat-flap with totally unnecessary force, as if trying to punch a hole in the door with her head. And, fairly predictably, she chose that very moment on a Saturday afternoon, with Brum making the transition from staring aghast at the cat-flap to tentatively sniffing it, to come hurtling through from the other side like a guided missile. . Brum was hammered squarely under the chin by eighteen pounds of ballistic cat and metal with such force that he rose a foot in the air. Staggering backwards on his hind legs like a cabaret dancing dog, his eyes rolled upwards and he slumped to the floor. Sammy, affronted by his sudden appearance in her flight path,
became a white and brown blur of teeth and claws as she launched a pointless offensive against an opponent whose lights were well and truly out.
Giving up in the face of no resistance, she offered him only a cursory backward glance as she trotted back off to bed, avoiding the legs of helpers rushing to Brum's aid. He came-to ki much the same way as the first time round and resumed his cat-flap vigil. I somehow avoided the temptation to knock him back out and went to find myself a plaster.
A little later he pushed his head through the cat-flap. Much later his front paws followed. His forward half remained outside, his rear end poking, a little unnervingly, back into the hallway. Much, much later it began to rain. Hard.
Have you ever seen a long-haired cat drenched from head to belly, and fluffy and dry from belly to tail? A viewing is highly recommended . . . looks very much like half a poodle.
The Babysitter
'Thou Art the Man!' II Samuel Chapter iz Verse 7
Brum is a warm and loving cat by nature. The old adage of the cats with the worst breath usually being the friendliest is completely true. But he is only this way with people.
He is not at all fond of most other cats. That may just be a jealousy thing. As with all cats, he can safely look down at the human race, seeing us as providers and taking us for mugs. But he must see other cats in much the same way I'd imagine a chimpanzee sees a human being or, for that matter, a miacis sees a cat, i.e. 'They look a lot like me, but they seem a hell of a lot smarter.'
Brum's levels of warmth and pity for mankind reached new heights upon the birth of our daughter Maya. We were warned many times during Lorraine's pregnancy that cats were dodgy and dangerous around babies. We were told terrible stories of cats lying on babies in the night and smothering them, of vicious scarring and jealousy. Brum and hard-as-nails Sammy were therefore eyed with deep suspicion for nine months.
For their part they acted with just a little too much nonchalant disinterest for our liking. Apart from shocked faces each morning at the horrendous gagging sounds emanating from the bathroom, they showed nothing. Poker faced. Holding their cards close to their chests. But we knew what they were capable of. We were on to them.
When Maya arrived, they were fascinated in a horrified kind of way. They spent many hours staring but never ventured close. This may have been purely down to the threatening looks from Maya's paranoid and utterly out-of-depth parents. What was very heartening however was that neither showed any signs of aggression.
And then Maya showed them the good life. The house no
longer slept at night. It was New York and Ibiza all rolled into one. There were bright lights, there was screaming, there was rocking and singing. They found that food was available at three in the morning and they could watch TV until dawn. This weird-looking little alien had transformed their lives and they idolised her for it.
If Maya cried they were there for her. Brum would stand at her bedroom door with a worried expression while Sammy would go for help. Consequently we awoke groggily to piercing baby shrieks only to have the wind knocked from our bodies by a frantic cat landing on our stomachs.
I envision this whole thing as a scene from ER. As one of us 'doctors' makes our way down the corridor to Maya's room, Sammy runs busily alongside, the worried orderly, filling us in on exactly what has happened. Brum is there to meet us at the door and hand us the patient's file. Both concerned and solemn orderlies stare into the room as the doctor attends to the howling patient. And then the orderlies want feeding.
The cats' attitude to Maya came as a bit of a relief. Far from becoming baby-hating vengeful monsters, they seemed to actually like her. This affection became more apparent in Brum as Maya got older. Whilst Sammy drifted back to normality after a few months, Brum got closer to Maya. Much too close in fact. Close enough for Maya to perpetrate indignities and unpleas-antries upon him that I will not describe here as this is supposed to be a nice, warm chapter. Let's just say that given what he went through in her first year, his affection was all the more surprising.
Now, whilst we were grateful for once to our feline friends for making life a little easier, we couldn't, in our wildest dreams, have anticipated what was to happen next.
So
me things in life are very strange indeed. Brum has taken his relationship with Maya to a stage that all hassled parents would willingly pay him for. He has become her babysitter.
Social Services will be on their way right now, so I need to explain that a little. We don't tend to go out and leave our sixteen-month-old child in the hands of a cat who has attained levels of
incompetence inconceivable even for a feline, never mind in the field of childcare.
Not often anyway, if at all.
Those with a baby should be very familiar with this particular scene of domestic bliss. Your child is in her cot. You've stroked her head and hummed inanely for most of the last hour. She finally falls asleep. You leave her door ajar as the click could wake her from her early stages of slumber. You grab a beer, put your feet up and settle down to watch the movie and . . . WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!
The next bit you may not be so familiar with.
Your sleeping tabby raises his head from the rug by the fire, and stretches in a resigned, fed up sort of way, as if the baby's crying is somehow his problem and he must deal with it. He slopes off out of the room without so much as a glance in your direction and heads off for your baby's room.
Your baby stops crying. There is some chatter as she welcomes your tabby to her cot-side. The tabby remains at the bars of her cot until she is sleeping peacefully once more. He then wanders back into the sitting room, head down, and slumps back onto the rug as if nothing has happened. If she wakes a little later, he will do it all again.
This is all absolutely true. We couldn't believe it either.
The first time he did it, I naturally went with him. I stood at the door and watched as he stared through the bars at Maya. Maya relaxed instantly and cooed and chuckled at him. He moved not an inch, just stood and stared. Occasionally a little hand would take a swipe at his head and he had to jerk back out of harm's reach. But he didn't leave until she was asleep.
How much can that be worth? A free tabby babysitting service?
He doesn't always do it, but he does it often enough to make a huge difference to our evenings. Enough in fact, that when we hear Maya's howl all eyes in the room, even Sammy's, turn automatically to Brum.
The only time he won't do it is during the early hours of the morning . . . and we do need to work on that.
Baby Trouble
/ like Little Pussy, her coat is so warm,
And if I don't hurt her she'll do me no harm;
So I'll not pull her tail, nor drive her away,
But pussy and 1 very gently will play.
Mother Goose, circa 1760
I marvel sometimes at Brum's patience. The physical and mental abuse he receives and calmly absorbs at the hands of Baby Maya is quite breathtaking. It's not as if he needs to either.
He is roughly the same size as her and their weights aren't much different, which from Maya's perspective, makes him the equivalent of a Bengal tiger. If Maya really understood what she was dealing with, she wouldn't go near him with any less than a whip, a stool and a couple of armed gamekeepers.
In short, he could have her over, no problem. But she really doesn't understand that, and Brum's good nature and lack of reasoning virtually rule out the possibility that he would have ever weighed up the odds.
And so it is that the balance of power lies with the baby and not the sitter. Unfortunately, like so many other despots in history, a little power has gone to her head and she has grossly abused it.
We try to protect Brum from her, obviously. But with Maya, as with most things in his life, he sets himself up for the fall, and there is often little we can do to help him. He takes the knocks and just keeps bouncing back for more. And more.
His first real interaction with Maya should have been warning enough. Alarm bells should have been ringing through the thick fog of his mind. But that fog seems all-consuming and even sound is lost in its dense grey blanket. His first little tentative sniff at Maya was greeted by a hard punch on the nose. His reaction was to lean back in goggle-eyed amazement. And then sniff her again . . . and get punched again. We had to pull him away. I think he would have gone into a permanent sniff and punch cycle had we not broken his momentum.
Thus started a relationship which has changed very little over the past sixteen months. It's not that Maya doesn't like Brum. She really does. Half of what she does to him is out of sheer lack of coordination. The other half is out of a baby's nattsral ability to find great humour in inflicting pain and punishment on those they love without guilt or remorse.
From the word go, Maya could not understand the concept of stroking a cat. We tried to teach her gradually by demonstrating whilst crooning ooos and ahhhs. She would manage a couple of strokes, and then slap him round the face and punch him in the kidneys, which to her mind obviously seemed a much better idea.
On one memorable occasion, she was stroking Brum quite nicely while he sat on the infamous kitchen work surface. I was holding her in my arms and keeping a close eye on the situation. Her hand was buried in his long fur and she was trying out the ooo and ahhh sounds. Then things went pear shaped.
The phone rang and I started heading for the hall. As myself and Maya departed there was an almighty crash behind us. I turned to see Brum staggering groggily out of the open dishwasher that had been immediately below him. A plate was in two pieces and Brum had a generous splattering of tomato sauce across his face.
I stared in wonder for a few seconds and then just couldn't help myself. By the time I answered the phone I was incoherent with laughter and tears were rolling down my cheeks. It was a market researcher if I recall correctly, who by my gasps and howls must have truly believed that either a dog had answered the phone or he'd called some kind of 'dial a pervert' chat line.
As with so many Brum mishaps, it was the sheer absurdity of the incident that had appealed to my sense of humour. How on earth had he managed to simply drop like a stone straight into the dishwasher as we walked away'
It was a couple of minutes later, while putting the phone down on the bewildered researcher who had valiantly attempted to carry on while no doubt feeling threatened, and possibly used, that I got my clue.
Clutched in my daughter's httle left hand was a great clump of tabby fur. What must have happened hit me, and I admit shamefully, reduced me to tears of laughter once again.
Maya had grabbed the fur she was stroking as I walked away, hauling Brum bodily from the work surface and never loosening that fierce monkeyhke grip even as he bade a sad farewell to his fur and hurtled rear first into the dishwasher.
Maya pulling his fur became a bit of a problem after that. She found that Brum would come down off the sofa much faster if hauled by fur and ears. The long-suffering Brum didn't seem to mind at all. He would shoot me a worried glance now and then as I remonstrated with Maya about gentleness and other things alien to her, but that was about it.
Her most notable early assault on Brum involved an armed attack with a mallet. This vicious toddling encounter ended with a fall, as do so many things for Brum. It came at the end of a particularly bad week in Maya and Brum's developing relationship. Brum had struck back for the first time, causing massive alarm in Maya's mother. He hadn't used his claws however, and merely dobbed her on the arm after she tried to wrench his collar over his head and half choked him. As usual the speed and suddenness of her attack prevented me from intervening in time to stop it. I chastised Brum with a few sharp words for 'going for her' which made me feel pretty bad as he'd put up with an awful lot and, I'm convinced, intended his swipe only as a warning. Brum was, quite rightly, deeply offended by this and started sitting in a back room and ignoring Maya altogether.
On the day of the mallet attack, it appeared he'd decided to forgive and forget. He raced down to greet us as we arrived home in the car and then rushed back to position himself on the lower part of our front wall, so that he'd be face to face with us as we reached the top of the steps.
It seemed at first that Maya was delighted he'd
seen sense and come over to her way of thinking, i.e. cats are great fun and don't mind being pushed about a bit. Sitting in my arms, she gently stuck her left hand out to him and he brushed his face against
it. The feint with the left was to cover the right, which now swung with great force and crashed its little plastic mallet straight into the side of Brum's head. While he was still off balance from the first blow and I was trying to get hold of her mallet, she rabbit-punched him with an outstretched left and threw her head at him in a vicious attempted head-butt.
A startled and totally off-guard Brum took decisive evasive action, i.e. fell off the wall. Lorraine was walking up the steps with a bag of shopping, totally unaware of the explosive violence that had just taken place, and watched as Brum inexplicably plunged down through the air and crashed into the bushes below. She sighed and carried on up the steps as if this sort of thing happened every day, which in truth, it does.
Brum is a forgiving creature and had forgotten about the incident by the next day, either because he understood that Maya was just a little baby and (possibly) meant no harm, or because he had actually forgotten, which is the more likely.
Maya tried to provide him with plenty of memory joggers over the next few months and his patience was tremendous as he allowed himself to be systematically poked, slapped and prodded. Also tremendous was the level of stupidity required to nearly always be within Maya's very limited territory and to almost never spot her menacing one m.p.h. crawling approach.
As she found her feet and became able to prop herself up against the furniture, she found that if she pulled on the black and grey tail dangling provocatively from tabletops and cupboards then there would be a loud squawking sound, often followed by a bonus cat crashing to the ground. It had the addictive quality of a one-armed bandit fruit machine.
As time went on, however, the pokes, slaps and prods became hugs, strokes and kisses. Maya began to warm to her big dopey man-eating tiger.