With Liddy more or less bed ridden & less than happy naturally her mind is looking for things to comfort her. What she would dearly like is Gyver, but Gyver, rest his purry little soul, is 6 feet under & inaccessable for all practical purposes. Memories of Gyver still distress me. He was a wonderful cat; Liddy had very much made him hers & he would be purrfect in her present circumstances, curled warm & companionable beside her.
Issi is a lovely animal but very much my cat, though I am NOT responsible for his presence in our house. Dino got him & promptly left for the west coast & months at sea on the trawlers leaving me with an unfixed, barely weaned kitten, whose propensity for following me round & sitting on my feet as soon as I stood still was nearly the death of both of us. He is not at all inclined to sleep away hours of his day in Liddy's room where he would be deprived of keeping a sleepy eye on the doings of the house & those tit~bits he has come to expect as his right as the only remaining cat.
However it is of another cat I was suddenly reminded as Liddy lay tangled amongst her pillows complaining that she was rather uncomfortable. As she is taller & heavier than I am shifting her is somethiing of a drama. She wasn't well last time either, as I recall.
My youngest son had spent $ 5~ of his birthday money to purchase a kitten who had, I am quite sure, an awful lot of feral in her. Definitely not the cuddly sort. Bindi was the unfriendliest cat we have ever owned but she became Liddy's by default & in time, spent her evenings curled in a ball at the foot of Liddy's bed. Like many females of the species she was a ferocious hunter & I worried for her as she was in the habit of catching snakes & lugging them about the place, her head held very high & dainty, the poor snake trailing awkwardly along the ground.
Now even when we had chooks we almost never saw a rat or a mouse despite the open bags of feed simply because the carpet snakes generally took care of the problem before I knew about it. Indeed it would be a race some days as to whether the snake or I got to the eggs first & the day the snake got in the pen but couldn't get out had all my boys behaving like amateur cavemen armed with rakes & hessian bags to capture & remove a snake who had overindulged & was scared out of its not so bright wits.
All this to say the day a lage black rat (quite dead) arrived in Liddy's room caused more curiosity than alarm. Not that Liddy was impressed. She managed quite a good impression of a hysterical, swooning Victorian maid. One of her brothers kindly removed the rat for her, waving it under her nose as he departed to deposite the body in a crab pot & we thought no more of it.
Several days later Liddy bedridden & unhappy, propped up amongst multiple pillows, was complaining there was a dreadful smell in her room. I had a cold so could smell nothing. Most uncharitably Liddy accussed her sister of creating the smell. Cass departed in tears declaring her innocence & I followed her to sooth her wounded feelings. The smell remained. Liddy vacated her room & took up residence on the couch in the living her with her father while I tucked Cass into bed & proceeded to follow suit. I had just reached that wonderful stage where at any moment you are about to tumble into a deep untroubled sleep when a piercing shriek tore through the house. My feet hit the floor & I was running before I even had my eyes open. My kids don't shriek without reason. The hallway was full of sleep fuddled bodies milling about in a bewildered way as Liddy frantically threw pillows & bedclothes through the door still shrieking & saying horrible things about the cat. Cautiously I edged into her room in case we had yet another snake on the loose; yes it has happened but our house is much too noisy as a rule for any self~respecting snake. Tears streaming down her face Liddy pointed to her bed.
'That horrible animal!' she sobbed. I gulped torn between laughter & sympathy. There neatly tucked under the piles of pillows was the source of the horrible smell. 'It's not funny!' Liddy wailed seeing my face working convulsively. I grabbed Theo, as the owner of said horrible animal, & suggested things would quieten down very quickly if he just removed the body. The boys were overawed. It was the biggest, blackest rat any of us had ever seen, much bigger than the tiny cat who had caught & killed it & brought it triumphantly home as a love offering.
I quiely went & got clean sheets & pillows & bedding & suggested Liddy would feel much better if she went & had a shower while I disinfected her bed. Those who live in urban environments will never know the joys of wildlife appearing in unwanted places & despite her failings Liddy was most distressed when her 'horrible cat' met an untimely end.
1 comment:
This reminded me of an incident when my hubby and I had been living in Colorado. We were living in a very rural area and mice were becoming a problem. They were so smart though because they would run right past the traps! I hated the thought of putting out poison because where they drop is where they decay!
We were sitting together and he had his feet propped upon the coffee table. I was smelling this sickening smell and accused his feet of being the culprit. (Anyone who knows my husband knows that he is Mr Clean! Even on remote fishing trips in the wilds of Northern Canada, the man bathes regularly and shaves! The same can not be said of the remainding Neanderthals that accompany him!)
He protested and denied and yet the stench remained. We started turning the house upside down when we narrowed it down to the sofa we had been sitting on.
When we turned it over there was a wet stain on the fabric lining that covers the underneath part of the furniture. He took a knife and slit the fabric. There to our disgust was a dripping, oozing decaying, poisoned, very dead mouse! I have never forgotten the looks on our faces and the reaction that came from finding such a mess! Stinky, stinky, stinky...
Connie
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