THE CASE OF THE FELONIOUS FELINE

UN BEAU CHAT SANS MERCI

Watson, a recent picture by Augusta Sagnelli. “I’m not bad really. It’s just the way I’m photographed.”

            We never had pets when I was a boy. In more cynical moments I’d speculate that, in our somewhat emotionally deprived family, there hadn’t been enough love to go around, but the real reason was more practical.  In an Australian country town, any domestic animal was prey to its feral relatives, not to mention snakes, poisonous plants and malevolent humans.

            All that changed when I came to Europe, a voyage that inaugurated a succession of more-or-less lovable moggies, culminating in Scotty, an amiable ginger who enlivened our life in Paris for almost twenty years.

            The trauma of his demise from the customary afflictions of advanced cat age made me shun the idea of replacing him,  but our daughter Louise, who represented pragmatism in our family, decreed otherwise, and in 2017 presented me with a squirming bundle of golden fluff. 

His almost blonde coat and white underside invited names like Creamy but both Louise and Marie-Dominique scorned such sentimentally, so I jumped to their obverse.  I’d just watched, not for the first time, the film of James Goldman’s delicious comedy They Might be Giants, in which a  jurist is reborn after a breakdown as a classic sleuth. If I was to be Sherlock, then this newcomer must be my Watson.

            From the start, however, Watson exhibited none of his literary namesake’s good nature. He bit, and scratched, and clawed.

Well, he was just a baby, we told ourselves. Once he got used to us…

As his manners failed to improve, however, we fell back on the rationalisation that neutering would improve his temper. It didn’t. (Well, it wouldn’t have done much to mine either.)

            Quizzing Louise revealed that Watson, like many who get by on beauty, had a shady past. Deprived of parents in infancy, he missed the essential training that teaches cats to behave in a civilized manner around humans. He was, in short, feral – and the feral nature, once inculcated, is, it seems, present for life.

            Understanding this did nothing to accustom us to Watson’s bad behaviour. He continued to prowl. And hide. And snarl. And scratch. And bite.

Lurking under our bed, he would leap out and claw passing feet and ankles, often drawing blood. He would sneak up as I worked, and jump up to bite and scratch my  arm – which, like my leg, soon bore a litany of scars.

            After each attack, he darted to the opposite side of the room and clawed for a few seconds at the carpet – obsessive behaviour that recalled what I’d read of the rituals that sometimes accompanied human acts of gratuitous violence; a kind of war dance?

            Strangers were not immune. Charmed by his almost glowing golden eyes, they would extend a hand - which Watson would sniff suspiciously, then, often as not, bite. We learned to lock him in another room when strangers were around. Visitors, however, looking for the bathroom, sometimes announced with a yelp and an epithet that they’d made Watson’s acquaintance.

            Books and websites on cats yielded no solutions. Some cats were…..well, just that way.  We tried medication - cannabis extract and flower remedies. Neither had any effect.  Trying to educate him was pointless; apparently cats don’t understand the concept of punishment. Or maybe it was just him.

He could, however, be bribed. The sound of opening a sachet of food would bring him from the furthest corner of the apartment and, after eating, he was generally content, at least for a while.

            It’s been five years now, and we’ve gradually got used to one another. He still slashes occasionally, although we’ve learned not to let him under the bed, and to lock him in another room at night. If he attacks my leg or arm these days, it’s generally no more than a poke or a prod, a reminder that my duties require the immediate furnishing of sustenance.

He sometimes sleeps on the bed, invariably curled up on a piece of my clothing. He even, very occasionally, vouchsafes a fragment of affection, settling down on the back of an armchair, just behind my neck, or even, on a couple of occasions, sitting on my lap – though I notice he more often does this if I happen to be eating a sandwich, since he will rush to snatch any scraps as soon as I put down the plate.

            Our relationship is rather like a bad marriage – one based on physical attraction rather than affection. I’ve been there before, and know that they always end in tears. This one too, no doubt, although all the weeping with be on my side. Watson, like most beauties, is not of the crying kind.