Jack and the Cat

Jack has always loved the cat but it has been unrequited love.  The cat is old and cranky and has no ears any more because they were surgically removed a few years ago after becoming cancerous.  Her eyes are rheumy and she dribbles a bit.

She didn’t like him as a baby, perhaps because she was always shuffled off when he arrived in his little pod.  We were so fearful for him and legend has it that a cat can suck the breath out of a baby.

Dislike on the cat’s part,  turned to hatred when Jack began to crawl.  Another quadruped was more than she could bear, especially as he was enchanted by her extravagant white tail and she has never let anyone touch that.

Jack was charmed by her little feeding station full of tiny biscuits and take your eyes off him for a second and he’d pop one in his mouth.  Thief and marauder he didn’t endear himself to the cat.

Jack’s mother asked us why we always addressed the animal as Cat and not by name.  Was she not properly loved?  Yes we did love her after our fashion.  It wasn’t that.  The problem was that we had allowed our youngest son to name her Fergus even though he knew she was a female.  The name never sat well on her so Cat she became, or when affection bubbled up, Catty.

As Jack grew and began what I understand is now known as “cruising” – that is, walking with the support of furniture, the cat’s hatred retreated a little.  She would eye him but not instantly flee.  He’d laugh when he saw her beside the heater.

“Gentle Jack.  Be gentle”

But Jack’s gentleness had so much potency behind it.  The flat of his little hand would touch the tips of her fur as he held his breath. ”Haaah” she’d hiss and run away.  Like any other massage client she likes a firm stroke without hint of menace.

“Cat all gone”   Jack would sigh.

Jack is monogamous.  We took him to the zoo once but not even the meercats stirred any tenderness.  His heart is pledged it seems.

He longs to please.  There is no mischief in his love.  No desire to pull her tail or, as one child I knew once did – chop off her whiskers.  He loves without judgment or curiosity and I wish more than anything for such feelings to be rewarded and  encouraged.  I want him in the fullness of time to be this kind of lover.

 I thought of improving the situation by getting him to help me feed her.  His hand in mine we scooped food from the tin and on to the dish and placed it on to the newspaper.  The cat came, not exactly bounding up but she came and nosed  the food.  Jack was ecstatic.

“Hungry cat.”  he said. “Very very hungry cat.”

After that, like a little trapper he would lure her to him with her dish.  I put a chicken drumstick in it once and Jack set off with it.

“Heavy bone” he said and I thought it a powerful phrase.  He carried the dish up our steep wooden stairs with impressive skill and offered it reverently to the cat hiding under the bed in the spare room.

“So it’s room service now” scowled Graham when he found the nasty remains later in the week.

I am trying to become more robust in response to Jack’s love. Painful though it is to witness this constant rejection it is not a viable relationship.  She is much too old for him for a start. A hundred and five in cat years to his two. But I am really not sure that a kitten or a puppy would do the trick.

Just the other night,  Jack’s parents came to dinner.

 “We’ve got a bit of news,” they said, “But you mustn’t tell anybody.  It’s much too early”

And of course I won’t, but suddenly my heart is easy about Jack.  Soon there will be a new target for all that love.  I hope the little one will be able to cope.

Scareda

 I look after my grandson Jack on Wednesdays.  He’s two.  Last week he looked up at me  and said confidently “Scareda ants”  He’s recently learnt about being scared of things and the mileage it can get out of any attending adult.

The first time he was unquestionably afraid was on the beach.  It was exasperating because the beach is such a nice place to be with a little kid – so much space and sand to dig in.  But Jack gibbered with terror at the sight of the lapping sea.  He cried.  He hid his face in my lap and then begged his mother for a cuddle.  We made a big fuss and eventually screened off the sea with our bodies while he mistrustfully held some sand in his little fists.

I think he was pleased when he found a word for the seaside experience and “scareda” is now applied promiscuously to anything a bit odd like the giant ceramic Pro Hart ant brought back (against my wishes) from a holiday with my husband in Broken Hill.

“No you’re not” I said, and gave the horrid thing a kiss.  “It’s nice” and  he agreed to kiss it too.  So that was that.

I wonder where terrors come from and where they go.  I was terrified of a whole lot of things when I was a little girl in England – steam trains that hissed and howled -  the gas that went bang when you lit it – the appalling pulsing din of the London tube trains as they crossed the bridge over Turnham Green Terrace.  My grandmother would snarl with rage at my intransigent refusal to pass under the trembling roar.  She couldn’t understand that fear and I can’t now.

But some fears one grows out of  for no very good reason.  Because I was born just after the second world war I grew up, as we used to say “in the shadow of the Bomb”  There were Aldermaston Marches and slogans like “What do you do when the Bomb drops? Kiss your children goodbye.”  That frightened me very much.  I was morbidly curious about radioactive disease and made it my business to find out all the horrible symptoms.  I remember suddenly starting to cry on the platform of Earls Court Road station.

“What’s the matter now?” my mother said.  I couldn’t tell her that it was the sight of the red patent leather handbag slung over the arm of an elegant lady.  I was sure The Bomb would have dropped before I was old enough to have a handbag like that.  In fact of course I grew up and now have heaps of handbags. 

It is still a dangerous and some would say a doomed world but I hardly ever think about it now.  I wonder where the terror has gone?  Do we get braver as we grow up or just stupider?

Anyway I decided to try and wean Jacob from the “scareda” game.  It’s no way to spend a childhood.

“So you’re not scared of ants any more?”  He loved the sound of “any more” and stretched it out so it rose and fell.  “Not scareda ants ennny mooore”  I could see I was on a winning run and pursued my advantage.

“What about the beach?  Would you like to go to the beach again – with mummy and daddy and me too.  All of us?”

“No,” he said quietly and so I let it go.

But when he was going down for his nap and we couldn’t  locate the much loved dummy he said mournfully

“Dummy all gone.  No dummy ennny mooore.”

I cashed in on the moment and said

“Not scareda sea ennny moore?” and he laughed at the joke and repeated ”Not scareda sea any more”

Well the proof will be in the pudding I suppose and we haven’t been back to the beach since then but I live in hope.

I just noticed this morning that there is another glass ant in our garden. Graham’s been at it again. This one has been perched in a bromeliad and is reading a tiny little book.  I hate to say it but it just slightly gives me the creeps.  But I take a leaf out of Jack’s book and brace myself.  “Not scareda anything any more”  And it feels good.