The Cat That Came In From The Cold

Ten inches we didn't have, after all, but enough even so. It's melting now, but driving to El Gigante yesterday in LandladyLynn's 4x4 on an emergency Diet Coke and bacon run, it was blizzard conditions, like a scene from Cold Mountain. [Much of which, incidentally, was shot in this state]. Even the screened in back porch was full of powdery snow, and the little aluminium cat food bowl which LandladyLynn keeps out there for any stray passers was frozen over. It was no day to be outside.

It was probably about two weeks ago, coming home from our Jackson Pollock-esque marbling session at BostonKate's house, when I noticed a flash of a movement through the beam of my the headlights. Over the next few days, the blur of movement slowed down and took the form of a tiny thin brown and white patched cat. Next time it started snowing, some nifty detective work following its little trail of pawprints indicated that the cat had taken up full time residence under the back porch, subsisting on, one presumes, mice and melted snow. Which is not a very comfortable billet, given the temperature this month have fallen down as low as minus ten celsius at night.

This week, as the weather worsened, LandladyLynn started putting out a few cat biscuits in the back porch for the beast, (now known as "NewKitty") and yesterday, with very heavy snow bucketing down, the cat was already waiting outside the french windows between porch and dining room. It seemed churlish not to let the cat sit just inside in the warm to eat its supper. While the cat was still munching, in a very hasty-Oliver-Twist-please-don't-take-the-bowl-away mode, LandladyLynn announced she was going out to dinner and said would I mind showing the feline visitor the door when he/she was done eating.

Easier said than done. I tried picking up the remaining food and putting it back in the porch to try to lure NewKitty out, but even a half starved beast was not so stupid as to fall for that schoolboy trick. No right minded animal, vegetable or mineral would have volunteered to sleep under the porch last night. I tried picking up NewKitty him/herself, but it saw me coming and bolted between my legs and hid between the bookcase and the desk. At around this point, just as I was beginning to panic that I had just let a potentially flea ridden rabies infested stray loose in someone else's house, I saw an ominous set of dark brown whiskers approach around the corner: the whiskers of Sapphirethecat - the deceptively heavy 15 year old male Burmese cat -in-residence.

Not being a feline expert, I desperately tried to remember what one is meant to do in the event of cat fights. Are you were meant to spray them with a hose, or throw a duvet on them, or distract them with a roll of toilet paper? While I was dithering, however, Sapphirethecat had seen NewKitty and was stalking it slowly but purposefully between the chairlegs and under the diningroom table, like a tiger padding through through the jungle.

NewKitty (outweighed probably five or six to one by Sapphirethecat) pretended to be completely oblivious, resolutely looking anywhere except at the approaching enemy. I held my breath, literally rooted to the spot in dread. Sapphire was within three feet, now one, now three inches. NewKitty actually put its paw over its eyes. Sapphire stretched out his head and sniffed. Poor NewKitty cringed. And then Sapphire turned around. And stalked off.

Phew. I decided to strike quickly, and, praying that I would not be clawed to death, pounced on NewKitty before it had time to realize what was happening. I must say that I did consider the sensible option: throwing it out into the back porch, but outside looked so bleak, I couldn't face it.

So I took it downstairs to my basement and shut it in my living room with the heater on, the spare litter box, and some water and cat biscuits. Later, as it curled up on my tartan cushion, we watched the final, appalling episode of The Bachelorette on TV together and then I played it the recorder to see if it liked music. NewKitty rested his head on my arm. And we both hoped that LandladyLynn would not call the animal shelter in the morning.