I meet the cat

Sunday 6th March

I knew there was a cat around this house and today I had the displeasure of meeting him.
But first things first. Last night was quite good fun. As before Ginny put me to bed in the utility room. As before I woke up feeling lost and lonely. As before I howled the house down. This time though Ginny bedded down on the kitchen floor and every time I started whimpering she called out to me to 'be quiet'. It was quite a game to see how many times I could get to howling volume before she shouted at me. Now when I say shouting I mean a sort of shout that's under the breathe but with menace. She didn't want to wake the boys but she wanted to show me who was boss . . . We'll see.

What they don't seem to understand is that if they let me sleep snuggled up with someone I would sleep soundly all night long, like I used to at home.

I got up at my usual hour of 5am. So did Ginny. She looked a little ragged around the edges this morning. I notice that her and Clive shared a bottle of Rioja last night over their steak dinner - perhaps something has disagreed with her.

I played quite happily for an hour or so while Ginny sipped cup after cup of strong Yorkshire Tea. The peace was shattered by a scratching at the nailed-up cat-flap.

'Festus,' Ginny jumped up from her chair. 'You've come home!' She threw the back door open and gathered up a large and impressively feisty-looking tom cat. He lay in Ginny's arms, his nose wrinkling and twitching, as she fussed him.

'What big girl's blouse,' I thought.

Ginny put Festus on the floor. It was then that he noticed me. Now cats are not a new thing for me. At the farm there were loads of them and when we puppies were outside they'd sit on the wall watching us, sometimes passing a sarky comment but generally leaving us alone. 'The situation with cats,' my Mum told us. 'Is that we dogs chase them as often as possible. But under no circumstances should you actually catch them or you'll be given a seeing to that you will never forget.'

Huh! Who's she trying to kid? Cats are made for chasing, teasing and generally having fun with, aren't they?

I looked at Festus who stood, stock-still in the middle of the kitchen floor. He seemed to have doubled in size. He was glaring at me. For some reason this cat was not happy. I decided to make his acquaintance and approached. Before I even had a chance to introduce myself he had leapt two foot in the air. The kitchen was filled with a banshee-like wail and the wimp fled. There was a tense moment as he hurled himself against the nailed-up cat-flap in a desperate bid for freedom. Ginny opened the back door for him and he shot off across the garden, over the stone wall and into the orchard next door.

'Oh dear,' said Ginny. 'Clive's not going to be happy.'

****

Clive is not happy.

'I knew bringing a b****y dog into the house would upset Festus,' was Clive's comment when Ginny told him about the incident in the kitchen.

'They'll get used to each other.'

It turns out that Festus is Clive's cat. Clive rescued him from the side of the road when he was a kitten. Although the animal is almost feral he appears to worship Clive. If there's a choice of a knee to sit on, or a jumper to curl up on it will be Clive's that Festus chooses.

I know all this because Jake, the little boy in the house told me. That was when he'd sneaked me upstairs to have a look at his bedroom. It was exciting. I'd never been upstairs before. As we mounted the stairs - me tucked under Jake's arm - I saw a red glow shining from what I now know is Jake's bedroom. He opened the door and I blinked several times before my eyes got used to the glare.

Jake is a true Liverpool Football Club fan. His room is wallpapered with Liverpool FC wallpaper. He has a Liverpool FC duvet cover and pillow. He has a Liverpool FC calendar on his wall. He has a Liverpool FC shirt - which, come to think of it, he has worn constantly all weekend. The predominance of red tends to give the room a warm unnatural glow - like looking into the glowing embers of a fire. Jake showed me around his room. I climbed onto his bed and snuggled up to him while he told me all about his favourite Liverpool player - Number 19 Morientes - who has come from Real Madrid and is the best.

Then his showed me his sticky putty. It was magic. When he rolled it into a ball it bounced. Then he put it on his hand and it spread out slowly over his palm. Then he rolled it into a ball and bounced it again. Unfortunately it bounced behind the radiator. he spent some time with a ruler trying to fish it out but he couldn't get it.

Then he showed me his alien in an egg. It looks like a day-old starling that's fallen out of its nest. I saw one the other day. It was sprawled on the garden path looking red and raw and dead. It tasted as bad as it looked.

Jake loves his Liverpool bedroom. Clive doesn't. Clive is a true blue Chelsea fan, so are Nick and Ben. Clive cannot understand what went wrong with Jake. Clive is not happy.

Clive was certainly not happy when I peed on Jake's floor. He was caught sneaking a bucket of soapy water and a cloth upstairs. Meanwhile I had been caught short again under Jake's bed. All hell broke loose. I was banished to the back porch. All I could hear for the next 20 minutes were muffled shouts as Clive shouted at Jake, Ginny shouted at Clive and Jake shouted at both of them: 'It wasn't my fault. Arrow wanted to see my Liverpool kit.'

I liked it upstairs. I'm going to try and get up there again soon.