Missy, a very pretty cat.

by Peter Oddbrook

This, sadly, is a story about a cat that we no longer have.

We had not that long moved into our very first home. I arrived home from work, to be greeted by my wife smiling from ear to ear. "Come and see what we have here" she said and took me by the hand and led me into the small kitchen at the back of the flat.

There sitting rather forlornly in the corner was a very hairy, and also very pretty cat. "Isn't she just gorgeous" my wife said, "If you say we can keep her, she's ours". In those days my dear wife actually implied that I had a say in the matter, today I've no doubt that I would just be told that we were keeping her!

I was taken aback, I did not know what to say or think for some moments. "where did you get her?" I eventually asked. My wife told me that a very good friend of a very good friend, had been told by her landlord that the cat had to go. Then it hit me. We also had a no pets allowed clause in the lease for our flat.

When I pointed this out to my wife, she used all kinds of illogical arguments. Our landlady will never find out, she never comes to the flat, the cat will be very quiet nobody will know that she is here. To reinforce her persuasion she picked the little cat up and placed her in my arms. I guess I was sold there and then. Another thought entered my mind " We don't have a garden, and we can't go and put a cat flap in the place it's not ours and we are not supposed to have pets". "Is she meant to stay indoors all the time, won't we have a flat smelling constantly of cat's wee?" My wife then produced a large bag containing a litter tray, a feeding bowl, a grooming brush and several tins of cat food. "She's very good" my wife said with not too much conviction, "I was told that she always uses the tray and never piddles on the floor ".

As it turned out that information was perfectly correct, not once did Missy, as she was called, ever have an accident. She did not scratch any of the furniture either. All in all Missy was a very good cat.

I said she was pretty, she was in fact part Birman. White with a deep chocolate face and tail, her eyes were an unusual blue. She was very small and quite light. I could not help but think of her as a kitten but she must have been four or five years old when we first got her.

Missy managed to remain undiscovered by the landlady through our years in that flat. My wife and I did have a bit of a row with a family in one of the other flats in the building. The parting shot from them was "And you know that you are not supposed to keep any pets." This kept us on tender hooks that they were going to make a report about Missy, but the row blew over and the landlady did not make a visit to tell us to get rid of her.

When we had enjoyed the company of Missy for about five years, we moved from the flat to our own small house with its own small garden. Missy can now enjoy the outside, she can have a wander around the garden we thought. I resolved to fit a cat flap to the kitchen door so that she could come and go as she pleased. I never did get around to fitting that cat flap. Maybe I was just too used to having Missy indoors.

We had only been in that house about 6 months, when I arrived home one day to be told by my wife that pretty little Missy had passed away. I would not have believed that I would get so upset about the loss of a pet, but I was heartbroken.

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