R.I.P. Stumpy 


It never does to get complacent. I'd been thinking we were getting on better these days and maybe there was still hope. I also thought it was time I tried to get some sort of fence up on the land at the back to keep dogs and goats out. Now I'm just thinking what a bugger that the first time I ever got to stroke or cuddle this boy was when he was dead. Departed this life in the cat box in the 3 minute journey to the vets where he was rushed by the wonderful receptionist and totally indispensable factotum Erica who came without hesitating when I phoned. By the time I'd locked the door' got the car out and got to the vets it was already too late and it was Erica cuddling him and saying sorry and tucking him neatly back in his cat box. I can't ask for him to go in the freezer let alone be cremated as I haven't managed to pay for Napoleon's ashes yet.

Stumpy - latest known victim of the goatherd's dogs who pounded on him and pulled him about and even tried to drag him away when I ran to try to rescue him, on our own land behind the house. Born in July 2104 in the garden of a different house, to a feral mother from an inbred tribe of black cats in the area who happened to think she lived in our garden. Father, one big squat ugly tomcat, also black, with a deformed tail, which this son inherited along with his build. I've waffled on about this bunch before, their mum Sooty inevitably was pregnant not that long into our residence in that house, Judy and I, and neither of us had any stomach for trying to catch her let alone abort what turned out to be 5 kittens, 4 jet black and one grey. The difficulty in telling them apart you can read about elsewhere, although Stumpy helped by having half the length of tail normal in cats and with a bumpy bit in the middle almost as though the tail was there but bunched up inside the fur, as if the fur wasn't long enough.

Sooty was a good mum and taught them well to sleep on the chairs in the garden and demand food but to hiss and spit like she did, and they learned well. It's all been described before, but an obituary is in order, so you can refresh your memories. They were cute bundles of fur and enjoyed playing, shinning up the bougainvillea which spilled onto the balcony outside the bedrooms, pulling towels down which were airing, and generally tearing about being kittens until the abrupt shock of being trapped and lugged off to the vet to be neutered, a few short weeks before being trapped and lugged off to the new house, only 6 months later to be trapped again and lugged off to THIS house.

For the first time, all the cats seemed in harmony or at least more than usual, everyone was equal and came indoors to eat and sleep if they wanted to. Stumpy rarely ate in the line with the others, we developed the habit of him running under the chair in the living room and me putting  his food down there, because as ever one step towards him and he ran from me despite my often declared lack of bad intentions towards him and no further need to be chased, trapped or indeed transported. Until tonight, unceremoniously dragged out by his tail as he was too poorly to move even to run (and right in the middle underneath a transit van where he shot in shock once the dogs let go), stuffed into a cat box as fast as possible and no chance of him trying to get out even though we couldn't get the door shut in the twilight and in a hurry. All things considered I'd rather have spent the usual minimum of 3 hours running round a house with a sheet to throw over him which he inevitably and determinedly shed every time........

He did consent, more recently to stare back at me though the stair rails when he was in his under the table mode, he did sleep on the sofa downstairs but if it was the one next to the stairs he'd shift as soon as I went up or down. He had actually been in my bedroom a few times, who knows what for, unless he is the phantom piddler......and he did appear to be playing with Mischief of late (I say "appear" as nobody gets the option where that little pest is concerned). Best and happiest of times was finding him and Nelson cuddled up together on the sofa at times. I bet I never got a photo of that because he always shot off as soon as I came near. He didn't trust me except for food and being allowed shelter despite my best efforts and now I've failed to save him, poor lad, he always seemed a bit vulnerable, the loner, the deformed tail and the butchered ear (the vet in Nerja made a pigs ear of Stumpy's ear when they nicked it to show he was neutered, he had a big lump missing but I can imagine the trouble they would have had doing anything to that one unless he was unconscious......)

And now, the ritual is complete in terms of his obituary except photos, he's safe in his cat box in the laundry room until I can dig a hole. I'm rather afraid Nelson knows what happened and is going to be sad, and I haven't seen Smokie since to know whether she is aware her brother is dead. A couple of the others came to see what had happened when he was under the van and they are all unsettled of course, apart from the small grey pest who is impervious to everything except his next bit of mischief. I'm mad as hell and I'm equally sad, I  want someone to blame, to take it out on, and I want to be oblivious to how scared he must have been and how much he must have hurt. I knew he wasn't going to make it when I saw him under the van and I can't even begin to think "what if?" as always happens, if I'd been out there the whole time (today yes, what happens tomorrow when I'm at work?), what if I'd got out there quicker, what if I'd put up some kind of fence, what if I'd never come to Spain and started having cats again.........