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by Heather Smith
 It
is a mixed blessing to be known at one's place of employment as 'Catwoman'.
True, it can result in some welcome homing activity, but for every triumph there
is very likely to be a fresh challenge.
There is something compelling about the phone ringing when
you are all but out the door and I have never had the strength of character to
ignore it. A few Fridays ago, therefore, I leapt back up the stairs to be
informed that a dear little stray kitten had turned up with some colleagues a
few miles away. She had enjoyed fish and chips with the rest of the gang at
lunch time, but now the weekend loomed and nobody could accommodate her although
they were, apparently, absolutely besotted with her and knew that I wouldn't
have any trouble homing her.
With the sort of weary sigh that so frequently escapes
Catwomen under pressure, I headed for Weybridge, pausing only to drag the
ever-present cat carrier out of the boot. They were right; she was sweet and
tiny and still quite peckish if her efforts to sniff out biscuit crumbs was
anything to go by. The main discrepancy seemed to be over age, as I suspect her
last birthday cake probably groaned under the weight of at least 15 candles.
Apart from acting as hostess to a battalion of fleas,
Elsie was a joy. She clung to me, purring raucously, as I popped her into the
carrier and still made time to nod graciously to her rescuers. All went well as
we jostled for road space with the refugees from the M25; all went well, in
fact, until we rounded the corner of my road when Elsie's bowels decided to call
it a day. Still, if a passenger seat can't take a joke it should have stayed in
the showroom and it certainly won't be the only misfortune to befall my
long-suffering car.
Elsie settled into her pen quite happily and approved of
the regular meals, a total absence of teeth proving no impediment. She loved the
summer and once allowed out would roll ecstatically on the lawn, sticking her
knitting needle legs in the air and exposing her painfully thin little body to
the sun. We soon learned that Elsie was almost totally deaf; that she had a
frighteningly overactive thyroid which kept her on the move day and night, and
that she loved everybody. What took a little longer to register was the fact
that Elsie made Ulysses look like a boring old stay-at-home.
Twice she gave me the slip with potentially dire
consequences.
Responsibility for the first escape must, I am sorry to
say, rest with my dear old cat Malcolm. Having carefully rigged up a barricade
under the side gate to prevent Elsie from getting round to the front of the
bungalow, I returned from a short absence to find that Malcolm had cleared the
way and there was no sign of Elsie. In blind panic I searched the garden,
thrusting aside a note from a neighbour reporting that someone down the road had
taken in a stray kitten.
I'd been searching for about 20 minutes when a vague
suspicion began to dawn. I pounded down the road and, sure enough, there was
Elsie, tucking into a plate of Kittydins and wondering whoever this mad woman
could be, kissing and cuddling her when she hadn't finished her tea.
The second episode was more worrying. After weeks of
pottering around the back garden, Elsie suddenly disappeared again and, this
time, nobody seemed to have seen any sign of her. I realised, too late, that she
had figured out how to use the cat flap and had a frantic two hours before a
very kind man appeared with our 'kitten' in his arms. She had reached the
extreme edge of the estate just before it degenerates into fox and dog territory
and I had reached the end of my tether. Reluctantly, I decided that Elsie would
have to move on.
A friend of mine has now given Elsie the most marvellous
home with a secure garden and all the attention she could want. Considerably
stronger following a successful thyroid operation, Elsie has only to snap her
paws and there is always somebody there to pass the zimmer frame or replace the
batteries in her hearing aid. Elsie is a very happy - and a very lucky - old
pussycat and, if she does sometimes look slightly wistful when watching a travel
programme, she still has her dreams. And to judge by the way those little paws
twitch in her sleep, Elsie is probably halfway down the Road to Mandalay before
the rest of us have finished cleaning our teeth.
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