Rupert

I walked past that pet shop, many times in the past. Not once considering going in there. I had and still always believe that it is wrong, very, very wrong, to breed animals purposely, especially for money. Cats do NOT equal money! It goes against everything they stand for. How can you put a price on a purr?

One day, it was late August actually, 1988, 5 months after my mum left the living, it was all still playing on my mind. I made a detour on the way back from work, don't know why I'd gone that way, but remember my g/f was at the time walking with me. We'd recently moved into a 2 bed house in a new estate in woking with my other cat, Heathcliffe, who at the time was nearly 2.

To this day, I still hate pet shops with a vengeance, the highly tensed atmosphere of caged, taunted and lonely animals.

I pushed open the shop door, the bell fixed at the top triggered and announced our presence to the surly young shop assistant sat at the till by the window near the front. I walked past the shelves filled with small straw bales, the smell of that and rabbit food pellets cloying the air. Towards the back of the small and narrow claustrophobic shop I went. Drawn to a tall cage at the rear, to the right, I saw a very unhappy looking scraggly ball of big floppy ears and bright ginger fluff. His markings were so red and sharp, looking so much like a mini tiger.

He looked straight at me and sauntered, no, skipped to the front of the cage. I could see he hadn't been looked after very well, the cage was in a filthy state. I swear he asked me to rescue him, my heart jumped into my mouth. He gave me a strange 'I know you' look and that's when he first attempted to win my love.

I looked at the kitten and then back at my g/f and said 'are you sure it's all right?' without speaking, she gave me a nod of acknowledgment. I strode purposely up to the counter and threw caution to the wind and paid the blood money for his life. I still have the receipt stored somewhere, £25.00 It was a lot of money to me then but it didn't hurt one bit, to part from it for him.

I picked him up. He was so beautiful, but I could tell immediately he had too much mischief in his eyes. He was way too thin for my liking too. Damned pet shops! He so hated the ride home on the bus, howling in fright the whole way back. I talked to him and stroked his tiny paws through a hole in the cardboard carrier.

I put the box down on the red carpet in the lounge. I cautiously opened the flaps to see him sitting there, on his tiny haunches, just staring at me, with startling orange eyes, already overflowing with trust.

He decided to jump onto Heathcliffe and adopted him as his surrogate mother, going as far as to curl up with him on the sofa and suckle his nipples. I did try to tell him there would be no milk there, but he carried on regardless, and Heathcliffe, being the mothering sort anyway, seemed to relish the attention.

He was constantly flying everywhere, not jumping, not running, not walking, but flying. He'd fly from the back of the couch to the curtains at the window to the curtain on the front door and just hang there, thinking he was a bat. He'd lose numerous sparkly flea collars and bells in the tangle of cotton webbing from the bottom of the bed where he'd spend hours of naughty but playfull fun, ripping it to ruins, he'd be a bastard and mark his patch under the stairs and ignore the litter when he fancied, he'd follow me into the bathroom and play at my feet. He fell into the bath once and once only, his brother had done the same in the past and also learnt his lesson, ie; don't jump into the bath when it's full of bubbles and WATER! oh, and mummy's bare feet! youch! I remember proudly showing him off to my mum's best friend, when she visited. He was, as I recall, after the cream cake she was trying to eat. 'Que bonito' she said, 'ay que rubio'. This was quite poignant to me at the time as I still had memories of Vivien lingering around. My mum loved him too, I had him for only ten months though, his mother (a ten month old tortoiseshell called Caister) had given birth to him and his sister Rickie and brother Neil, in the wardrobe of my first housemate. When they were two days old, his mother carried them all into my bedroom and stayed there until they were a month and a half old. My mum used to call Vivien 'Rubio'. Rupert and Vivien shared the same flame red colouring. Unlike Rupert, Vivien used to love to travel in my car with me, visiting friends. He apparently was run over by a car. I wasn't allowed to see his body. My mum would have just adored Rupert.

Rupert used to love to be left to wander around, always running to my side when I came back in.

Being the fussy mum, I wouldn't let him out until I thought he was big enough, ie; one year. He came back many times, to put gifts of dead animals at my feet or on the door mat. A sparrow, a song thrush, even a leaf. He ignored my berating until one time, when he was about 6 years old, we'd (we being him, his brother, me and whatever g/f I had at the time) moved for the umpteenth time and only he was allowed out of the house, his older brother had a habit of getting disorientated and lost. Rupert made the most of this and went territorial over the kitchen and lounge. He brought in a family of baby mice. We hadn't lain the carpet down yet as we were still in the process of decorating. I came down to see mice running everywhere, bloody entrails following some of them and a grinning naughty cat called Rupert! He sat on the rug, looking so proud, 'look what I've brought you mummy'.

'RUPEEEEERT!'

Whooooooosh, he flew into the kitchen.

He didn't try to give me any more presents after that, but still took great joy in laying patiently, hour after hour, on top of the rusty corrugated roof of next door's ramshackle chicken shed, waiting for the next foolish mouse to run out to be his dinner.

Over the years, Rupert has been very naughty and also been a fountain of purrs and love.

His ears were ripped in places from long healed war wounds for he was always defending his territory.

He'd often come back with scratches on his face or other cats' fur in-between his toes. When taking the dog for a walk, Rupert used to always, but always follow me around the estate. No matter how many times I shouted at him to 'bloody well go home, I'm crossing this road and you are not, I repeat, not, following me'. Little did mr. purry listen to me, sulking into the shadows, then leaping out of bushes to jump onto a wall or a fence to walk alongside where I couldn't catch him, with that sparkle in his eyes.

I often stayed up late, calling for him from the kitchen door until he came in for the night. Only twice in his life did he stay out all night and both times I fretted so much.

He was always a happy cat, never grumbly at me, always extremely trusting, forever at my side. I took him for granted really, thinking that if Heathcliffe went first then I wouldn't be able to stand to look at him. I now know how much I miss him and how much I was wrong. The only time he was ever grumbly was when he was in pain.

He never ever once struck out at me in anger. He used to love to sit on my lap and 'need' but I wouldn't often let him as his claws were way too sharp, even though he didn't mean to draw blood, he did. I'd let him play with me if he managed to keep his claws in and he really really tried. Just the other day I threw him over on the bed and attacked his tummy. He wrapped his paws around my hand and gave me such a wicked and mischievous look, then withdrew his claws and just attacked me back with soft paws and a non-lethal jaw clamp. He just wanted love all the time, very annoyingly often. All my clothes have some of his fur on them. I'm loath to discard his memory completely by sellotaping it all off. It's his legacy really, that and the calmness he gave me.

He always, but always came when I called his name. He jumped off the worktop when he heard me walking back, knowing he was being naughty by jumping up there.

Heathcliffe is now being weird, looking about the bedroom and mewing, he misses him too.

It was nearly 2am, I was awoken by a scuffling. I thought the cats were fighting as Rupert had a habit of suddenly jumping on top of Heathcliffe and viciously fighting him. I jumped out of bed and reached for the light switch.

I looked over to the food bowls, Rupert was lying on his side, eyes glazed, tail puffed up, twitching, blood dripping from his mouth. I touched him, his response was that his tail deflated. I gingerly picked his limp body up, he was still breathing.

I stroked him and put him back down on his side, he tried to get up but his back seem paralysed, he tried to crawl/drag himself to my bed, his bed for comfort perhaps.

The phone call to the emergency vets confirmed he had run out of time. I drove him to his death.

It feels like murder.

All those in favour of euthanasia, think again. When you have to make the decision for someone else, it isn't the easy thing to do. It's all very well talking about hope but the survival instinct in a cat is so strong that they would refuse to die, no matter how much pain they were in, if it meant staying with their owner one more day. I had been told in the past that if their back legs went, then that was it, maybe complete organ failure would follow. He'd never really gotten over the hyperthyroidism he'd had, as it was over a year before it was diagnosed and only then at my insistence he should be given treatment for that condition, to a new vet- but that's another story, an angry story, about a very bad and dishonourable vet in braunston! So he suffered, I feel that he suffered a great deal in his short life. To some, his nearly but not quite 16 years is a lot, but to me, it is but one short breath. I'd hoped that by putting him through that operation to remove the tumours on his thyroid glands, he would go back to being the chirpy, bouncy big healthy cat that he used to be. It didn't happen although he got the shine back to his fur and bounced around a little for me and never left my side, except when he was in a strop, if I ignored him too much. He did strop a little and howled into the night, usually at some bloody stupid hour to wake everyone up. I'm here, come get me, teehee, he used to meow. He always responded to my voice, sometimes to scarper in defiance in the opposite direction, other times to dash straight to the hand stretched out to fuss him. He acknowledged who was boss and who held his life in their hands, but he never held it against me.

On the table at the vets, I held his head in my hand and stroked his soft little nose and the side of his face as he collapsed again, but for the last time. It took all of two seconds, if that. The vet stuck the stethoscope against his heart to make sure the deed had been done, it had. They left us alone, I thought he was still breathing, he was warm, his fur so shiny and soft and he still moved, then I realised it was the breeze from the air conditioning above us trying to fool me. I turned his head to check his eyes, they were glazed over and lifeless. I couldn't close his eye-lids. I gently placed his head onto the table, stroked him one last time, then left him all alone.

Thanks go to my flatmate who flew out of the house with me and tried to calm him on his last frightfull journey.

Rupert, I hope you are safe, out of pain and aren't scared anymore. You got me through some tough times.

Marti's mummy also misses you.