‘Larger cats behave rather like small dogs,’ said the vet on Friday night, when we were telling her about Bramble’s larger than life personality, which matched his proportions. I was stroking his head, behind his ears as he liked best, while providing a running commentary of the many ways he liked to destroy our upholstery, bed linen, flower beds, and often our peace of mind. We were slipping in and out of the present and past tenses, because this chat was taking place after she’d introduced the first dose of euthanasia, which turned out wasn’t enough and she had to administer another. Bramble, it seemed, was hanging on.
Les than two hours before he’d been snaking between my feet as I tried to bake a chocolate bundt cake. He’d been in and out, mewing plaintively at the window, before pestering me for food. Now, he wouldn’t be content until he’d either sampled the cake batter or thwarted the whole process. I’m not the most competent baker at the best of times, and Bramble was doing his utmost to disrupt proceedings. The Small Child scooped him up and in doing so sent plumes of white fur into the atmosphere. ‘OUT!’ I shouted, holding a tea towel (clean, I promise) over my big bowl. ‘Fuck’s sake Bramble,’ I muttered, as the pair of them exited, and I set to folding the cocoa and butter mixture into the flour.
Fuck’s sake Bramble, we would mumble, when he scratched at our bedroom door at four am with his big white paws every flipping night.
Fuck’s sake Bramble, I’d gasped, as he launched himself on to the table, almost landing on the oven-baked brie which my guests were trying to enjoy.
FUCK’S SAKE Bramble, we’d said, when we came home from skiing, to find he’d not only shat on our mattress, but pissed on it so extensively that LSB had to trail to IKEA for a new one the next day.
All cats take liberties, but Bramble made it an art form.
Shortly after cake-gate I heard LSB use an entirely different tone, ‘Come on big fella, what’s up?’ as Bramble yowled and panted for breath, trying to walk but falling over on his side. There followed a frenzy of ringing the vet, fishing the cat box from the shed and then sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Boucher Road to reach the only surgery still open at six-forty on a Friday evening. He never was a good traveller, and this journey was no exception. One look at the vet’s face when we arrived told us it wasn’t good. A blood clot, she said. The prognosis was bleak, and options were limited.
Few things make you feel more like an adult, than making decisions like this. We know, because it’s the second time in two months we’d had to do it. We lost Izzy at the end of August, in remarkably similar circumstances. Her ashes are still sitting on the kitchen dresser in a little pouch. We can’t quite bring ourselves to deal with them.
I didn’t write about it. These are turbulent times- it felt indulgent to mourn a cat; publicly anyway. But again, maybe that’s why we should mourn them; in troubling times their exacting presence can offer solace. Bramble turned up in lockdown, in a time of chaos and uncertainty. He brought more of that with him, albeit in gentler, feline form. He was habitually ‘in your face’, with a myriad of ways to wake us up, either by a paw on the cheek or by purring so aggressively that little flecks of cat saliva landed on your pillow. ‘Some people wouldn’t tolerate that,’ said the Mothership.
But suddenly having a third pet seemed to make the house a busier, more playful space. He was a definite distraction, and a welcome one for the most part. We could have lived without the revenge shites on our bed, of course, as he took being left at home as a very definite slight, no matter how lovely his cat-sitter. (Nobody could nurse a grudge like Bramble.)
Izzy initially loathed him, but a détente was soon reached, and they would often be found together, bathing in the morning sunshine by the back door, or at opposite sides of the sofa. She was the absolute queen, and once that fact was established, they got on mighty well. The girls think Bramble has been depressed ever since she passed away.
And so we told him this, on Friday night. How glad we were that he’d chosen us, how we would miss seeing him at the window when we came home, and how we’ll miss him sitting on our desks, dunching us with his head for attention while we try to work. (His white hairs are clinging to my keyboard as I type.)
It took Bramble a long while to go. A mantra I hear often, is that it’s ok to take up space. Bramble lived this mantra- he took all the space he needed, on our beds, our sofas and ultimately our hearts. We’re glad he chose us, and our space already feels a good deal emptier without him.
