It was when I had reached this stage of the book that Ipsy was killed. There are too many cars driving too fast for a cat to live safely here. She was killed instantly. Perhaps there was a moment of brain-scrambling panic, but there can have been no pain. She often stayed out in the evening, but when she wasn’t either lying by my side or pawing my nose at six the next morning, I knew what had happened, even if it was two hours before I found her. Someone had put her gently in a box inside the churchyard gate with a note, ‘Found at 7.45pm 17/9’. It was kind of them.
I have loved a few cats, but Ipsy was the best companion I have ever known. We had our own businesses to attend to, but on coming home each would rush to find the other. We shared mealtimes, did the crossword together and whenever I sat in the garden she would leave what she was doing to join me. She spent her evenings either enjoying the warm pudginess of my lap and belly on the sofa, or out at her own affairs. When I descended the stairs she would follow a flight behind so that we could nuzzle through the banisters.
But now she is gone, though of course I forget it momently, leaving the back door open for her, reaching to put food in her dish. And the house is silent – no cantering paws, no curious brrooping noises, no blatant miaows and no conversation from me. If I speak out loud, the empty rooms echo its futility.
Presumably, if all this STA business has any merit it should contain some comfort for me. (And the writing should contain fewer typos without her lying across my wrists pinning them to the table as I tried to type it up without disturbing her.) And it does – or at least, because I am not yet in the mood, it will. The joy I had with Ipsy was real, deeply felt and mutual regardless of DNA difference percentage; the sorrow is a misconception. Nature is not a clinging to past memories or future hopes. It is a perpetual present (as Ipsy knew and acted upon unthinkingly, while I assert it at tedious length without action). I am out of kilter with the universe if I protest. That’s the truth of it, but it’s an austere philosophy and I feel I’m going to protest a little longer.
The evening after she died, as I lay on the sofa in the drawing-room, I said out loud (as much to break the silence as anything) ‘God, I feel lonely!’ at which instant a bat flew in, circled once around the room and then out again, finding its way through the hall and back into the night. ‘A bat! What pissing use is that?’ And yet, who knows? Had the soul of Ipsy migrated into one of the mice she found so plentifully in the garden, been given wings and come back to see me? Was it a message from God to say I was not alone? It seems rather fanciful and unlikely. And yet, if God does exist and did want to console me, (which, if He existed, He might) how else would He go about it? If, as was His custom in Biblical times, He showed me a dream with Him and Ipsy, paw in paw, smiling and saying, ‘It’s ok, G!’ I would have an array of psychological explanations to reject the message. If He used the weather – it’s been sunny since she died – I would be reluctant to assume it was all done on my account. I’ve never had a bat in the house before (except one Ipsy somehow caught and brought in dead) and never known one in any house to fly so ‘purposefully’ – they usually crash around for ages.
Tonight, the following night, back on the sofa, I have a hummingbird hawk-moth fluttering round my head for company. What is going on? I appreciate the effort God is making on my behalf (rather like a flustered hotel-manager trying to compensate an angry guest for some bureaucratic cock-up), but I wish He’d just let Ipsy stay with me in the first place.
Do I believe these are messages? Not really. My scepticism, my suspicion that these events are meaningless is, of course, an ingrained fashion – a Zeitgeisty attitude posing as ‘Enlightenment’, heroically free of superstition. Science and philosophy have not in any way disproved that the bat, the moth or the sunshine might be messengers from on high. They have instead changed our attitude. They can point to an anti-cyclone coming in from the west to explain the sunshine, they could trap the bat and run tests on it to prove it was a bat, but no test ever devised can prove that it was only a bat. The materialists have not proved that belief is superstition, merely asserted it so insistently that we (me included) believe them.
Perhaps these nocturnal incursions are simply a sign that I need to keep my back-door shut.
There is a danger, of course, that this farcical puzzling about signs and meanings clouds the real issue, the severance of a true and loving relationship – one between cat and human if you need to be species-ist about it – and one which we both, I know, would have liked to have lasted so much longer. Ipsy has been the personification of my relationship with cousin bacterium, cousin bat, cousin cauliflower and all living things, which can seem merely a cold assertion without the blood-warm connection of a personal relationship. Perhaps in the wintry months ahead, she can be some kind of Beatrice.
By chance (or something – more tiresome coincidences) I had been working my way through Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes’s wonderful poetry anthology The Rattle-Bag and, in bed the night Ipsy was killed, I came upon and lay reading out loud My Cat Jeoffrey, marvelling at Christopher Smart and thinking how like Jeoffrey my lovely Ipsy was even as, unbeknownst to me, she lay dead in the churchyard not twenty yards away.
So, not in any mood to compose anything myself, I’ll let Christopher Smart’s words serve as a eulogy.
from Jubilate Agno
For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry. For he is the servant of the Living God, duly and daily serving him. For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way. For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness. For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer. For he rolls upon prank to work it in. For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself. For this he performs in ten degrees. For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean. For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there. For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended. For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood. For fifthly he washes himself. For sixthly he rolls upon wash. For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat. For eighthly he rubs himself against a post. For ninthly he looks up for his instructions. For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having considered God and himself he will consider his neighbour. For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness. For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance. For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying. For when his day’s work is done his business more properly begins. For he keeps the Lord’s watch in the night against the adversary. For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes. For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life. For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him. For he is of the tribe of Tiger. For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger. For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses. For he will not do destruction if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation. For he purrs in thankfulness when God tells him he’s a good Cat. For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him, and a blessing is lacking in the spirit. For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt. For every family had one cat at least in the bag. For the English Cats are the best in Europe. For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped. For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him
exceedingly. For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature. For he is tenacious of his point. For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery. For he knows that God is his Saviour. For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion. For he is of the Lord’s poor, and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually– Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat. For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better. For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat. For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music. For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can sit up with gravity, which is patience upon approbation. For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment. For he can jump over a stick, which is patience upon proof positive. For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command. For he can jump from an eminence into his master’s bosom. For he can catch the cork and toss it again. For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser. For the former is afraid of detection. For the latter refuses the charge. For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business. For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly. For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services. For he killed the Icneumon rat, very pernicious by land. For his ears are so acute that they sting again. For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention. For by stroking of him I have found out electricity. For I perceived God’s light about him both wax and fire. For the electrical fire is the spiritual substance which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast. For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, though he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer. For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped. For he can tread to all the measures upon the music. For he can swim for life. For he can creep.
Christopher Smart
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