I had intended to revive this somewhat moribund blog in the New Year, but I'm writing now because of what just happened. About an hour ago, Fifi, my/our beloved tabby cat died in my arms. I know its sloppy but I'm going to write about her, because I can, because it stops me getting too mournful and because I feel the need to communicate what I felt about her to anyone who might be interested. It's wrong to get too sentimental about our pets because they mostly live shorter lives than us, so we get that sense of loss more often than we, hopefully, have with human beings. Equally, its wrong to attribute human emotions or behaviour to creatures we cannot quite communicate with in the same fashion that we can with everybody else. They dont speak.
Nevertheless, its clear that we can have important and meaningful relationships with our companion animals, as we are now supposed to call them. And Fifi was an important relationship, not just because she was a lovely cat, but because of her place in my life and those around me. She was 18, old for a cat, and had been around for a third of my life.
She was born one dark November night in 1990, in a box at the bottom of the stairs at our home in Islington, where her mother, Flo, had chosen to give birth. She delivered five identical, gorgeously marked tabby kittens. Flo had come to us a year before through a colleague at the Independent and we picked her up on the day that I learnt that an old friend of mine had died, so this lovely tabby kitten was a welcome and distracting buffer against that particularly miserable day. Flo grew into a gentle, plump tabby, very affectionate and always ready to by picked up and made a fuss off. She was so relaxed, she would fall asleep in your arms.
Now Flo had produced five replicas of herself. So we elected to keep the smallest and last born, the nominal runt of the litter, the rest of which were given to family or friends. We named the kitten Fiesole, after the pretty little town outside Florence (which was her mother's real name - we had an Italy thing going at the time). But to everyone they were Flo and Fifi.
Fifi grew into an almost perfect, but always slightly smaller and skinner version of her mother. Possessed of a silky coat and perfect tabby markings, she had rings of kohl-black around her big green eyes, with black flashes trailing above her whiskers, and when she sat upright with her legs together, the marks on both formed a perfectly matching symmetrical pattern.
Flo had been a wonderful, caring mother to all her kittens and continued this with Fifi, who tended to behave like the pampered daughter who never left home. Flo would lick and groom Fifi endlessly and they would lie around, entwined together in a furry bundle that was never easy to dislodge from the sofa or bed. Since Fifi got all her attention from her mother, for many years, she was always a bit reluctant to be picked up or sit on your lap. She was attentive, affectionate and would run to you to be patted or stroked but preferred to sit beside you, or on the arms of your chair, crunching up her eyes with delight if she was patted and purring deeply.
About a year after she was born, they two of them were temporarily housed with my mother in Birmingham, while we had some work done on the house. There, Fifi was impregnated by a neighbourhood tom and gave birth to two kittens, the totally black Figgy, and the ginger and white Columbus, who both shared their mother's sinuous shape. Fifi, it has to be said, was not the best of mothers and left most of the caring of the kittens to her own mother, the ever maternal Flo.
Leaving the kittens with my mother, Flo and Fifi resumed their sybaritic existence in London, greeting visitors to house with whiskery curiosity and always occupying the seat you needed to sit on. They slept on the bed while my wife breast fed our sons and would always pick the spot closest to the cot, seemingly comforted by milk and baby scented warmth. My sons, of course, grew up with them, as a constant presence in the house and garden. Dozens of people who came on business, for family celebrations, Xmas parties, would meet and make a fuss of Flo and Fifi.
When my wife and I split up, I missed them terribly. Children can move back and forth between houses, but cats cant. I could have had them, but we didnt want to move two by now rather elderly cats from their familiar environment. I saw them when I returned frequently to the family home and fed them when my wife and sons were away.
Nearly three years ago, Flo died after a long illness, her body racked with cancer. It was terribly sad and we all mourned her loss. She's buried in the garden at the house where she lived for so long. If cat therapists existed, we should have called one in for Fifi, because her principal source of companionship and warmth had gone. But Fifi seemed okay, if a little more nervous and thinner than before.
Two months later, she came here, initially because my ex-wife was away and then permanently, by mutual agreement. I feel unbelievably lucky to have had her here since. Once she emerged from under the bed, where she had fled in terror at the unfamiliar surroundings, she gained in confidence and was soon queening it around the house. Causing enormous anxiety, she disappeared for one night of adventure - something she would never have contemplated before - returning the following morning, damp and with a slight limp. She explored the garden and had a few spats with the large and playful Felix from upstairs, eventually establishing some territorial rights. And she charmed Felix's owners, Julia and Tony, always happy to feed her when I was away.
But mostly Fifi's days were about finding the best places for a sleep, a prerogative of all elderly cats, because by this time she was getting on a bit and needed to rest. She liked to curl up on my bed, but curiously, only when the brown bedlinen was on. She never spent as much time there when the maroon duvet cover was in use. Maybe something primitive relating to her mother's colour? Another favourite spot was on one of the canvas chairs in the garden, where she spent much of the summer before last, slumbering under the shade of the pear tree. It was my first months at home after taking redundancy, so I was glad for her company while I recovered from 20 years at the Indy and plotted the rest of my life.
Just over a year ago, Fifi began to loose weight and developed terrible cystitis, which we eventually discovered were symptoms of thyroid disease. We feared the worst, but thanks to some miracle pills from the vets, she recovered and had a new lease of life. She put on weight, her coat improved dramatically, she largely stopped the intermittent vomiting which she had also been affected with and generally became more at ease with herself. I'm so pleased she had a wonderful last year.
She would come and sit on my desk next to the keyboard, positioning herself so close I couldn't move the mouse. Why she could never sit just and inch or two the other way only she could say. Another trait was to creep up behind me on the table and suddenly dig her claw into my shoulder, demanding I turn round to pay her attention.
Fifi loved just being near people. Not long ago, before her final illness, she spent ages one evening lying on my chest, her whiskery features just a few inches from my own face, her eyes screwed up with pleasure, as I stroked her. Whenever I stopped, she would lazily lift a paw and extend a claw just enough into my tee-shirt to give me the message that I was to continue. And she spent many happy hours asleep on my young son's lap while he watched tv, clearly enjoying his taste for the Simpsons and Futurama. A picky eater like most female cats, she developed a liking for only the most expensive Marks and Spencers cat food, which led me into an exploration of the cat food industry for the Independent magazine. She even got her own Facebook page.
During the last few months, I had to get up very early many mornings and we developed a little routine in the quiet, pre-dawn hours, when the rest of the house was asleep. She would climb onto my bed, still sleepy from her night on the sofa in the living room, and, always occupying almost exactly the same spot on the edge, would watch me get dressed and ready for work in that curious manner that cats have, knowing that I'd spend the last couple of minutes stroking her and tickling her chin, before she could settle down for a snooze on the still warm bed.
But Fifi's favourite thing during this time was having her tummy tickled, her body stretched out and her head thrown back in ecstasy, particularly if she was also getting her chin and ears scratched as well. Her favourite person for this task was not me, but my partner Cathy, seemed to have just the right touch and who devoted many hours to this job, usually when she should have been doing other things. Cathy would say to me that it was time well spent, because we didnt know how much longer we would have her with us. And she was right.
What is extraordinary is that Fifi, the smallest and weakest one of the litter, outlived all her siblings, the last, Snuffkin, who was with my sister, died in the summer, just a couple of months after Fifi's son Figgy. Her other kitten, Columbus died last year.
She began to lose weight again a few weeks ago and I delayed going to the vet for a while because I suspected the worst and didnt want to embark on the machinery of treatment until it was really necessary. When she went off her food, I took her. It was a fast growing tumour and inoperable, although given her age, I would have been reluctant to do so anyway.
She was weakened by the anaesthetic for the x-ray needed to confirm precisely what the trouble was and never really recovered. Fifi's last two weeks were spent mostly on the couch in the living room, being fed morsels of fresh salmon, about the only thing she would eat. As she grew weaker and her bones began to poke through her coat - which fortunately never lost its lustre - it was heartbreaking for all of us. She stopped wanting to have her tummy tickled. She could still walk around a little bit, but was clearly uncomfortable.
We've gone to bed the last couple of nights thinking that she might be gone by morning, but she was always a tough little thing and we felt it was better to let nature take its course than have her put to sleep. I hope - we certainly felt - that she was not in any great pain. But, up until last night, she would still purr when she was stroked and Cathy and I spent hours over the past few days, stroking and soothing her. This morning, when we got up, I found her almost comatose on the floor by her blanket. I put her on the blanket, where she was warm and comfortable. Unfortunately, having barely left the house for three days, I had to go and do some pre-Christmas things. When I returned, she was in a coma, her eyes were open and blank, although she was still breathing.
I lifted her and the blanket onto my lap, and, my eyes full of tears, held and stroked her. After a few minutes, she coughed a couple of times and gradually stopped breathing. I carried on stroking her until all the life left her frail little body. Then I rang a couple of people to tell them, poured a brandy and began writing this.
Tonight, we will mourn Fifi and celebrate her long life. Tomorrow we will take her body to be cremated. She was a wonderful friend and companion for almost a third of my life and we will all miss her terribly.
