paper sack.
‘Yes, dear. May I ask why and where?’
‘This.’ She put the sack on my kitchen table. it tilted and a kitten walked out. A
jellicle cat, small and neat and black and white, just as described in Mr Eliot’s
poem.
I said, ‘Oh, dear!’
Susan said, ‘It’s all right, Mama. I’ve already explained to her that she can’t live
here.’
The kitten looked at me, wide-eyed, then sat down and started pin-pleating its white
jabot. I said, ‘What is her name?’
‘She doesn’t have one, Mama. It wouldn’t be fair to give her one. I’m taking her
down to the Humane Society so that she can be put to sleep without hurting. That’s
the errand I have to do.’
I was firm with Susan. She must feed the kitten herself. She must clean and refill
its sand box as long as it needed one. She must train it to use the cat door. She
must see to its shots, taking it back and forth to the veterinary hospital at the
Plaza as necessary. The kitten was hers and hers alone, and she must plan on taking
it with her when she married and left home.
Kitten and girl listened to this, round-eyed and solemn, and both agreed to the
terms. And I attempted not to get friendly with this cat – let her look entirely to
Susan, bond only with Susan.
But what do you do when a square ball of black and white fluff sits up on its hind
legs, sticks out its little fat belly, waves its three-inch arms beside its ears,
and says, plain as anything, ‘Please, Mama. Please come fight with me.’
Nevertheless . Susan remained committed to taking her kitten with her. We did not
discuss it but the deal was never renegotiated.
I went to the front door – no cat. Then I went to the back door. ‘Come in, your
Highness.’
Her Serene Highness, Princess Polly Ponderosa Penelope Peachfuzz, paraded in, tail
high. (`It’s about Time! But thank you anyway and don’t let it happen again. What’s
for lunch?’) She sat down, facing the kitchen cupboard where canned food was kept.
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She ate a six-ounce can of tuna and liver, demanded more and did equally well on
veal in gravy, then ate some crunchies for dessert, stopping from time to time to
head-bump my ankles. At last she stopped to clean.
`Polly, let me see your pads.’ She was not her usual immaculate self and I had never
seen her so hungry. Where had she been the past three days?
I was certain from examining her paws that she had been on the road. I thought of
some grim questions to ask Susan when she telephoned. If she did. But in the mean
time the cat was here and this was home and the responsibility was now mine, by
derivation. When I moved out of this house, the cat had to go with me. Unavoidable.
Susan, I wish you were unmarried just long enough for me to spank you.
I rubbed Vaseline on her paws and got back to work. Princess Polly went to sleep on
a pile of books. If she missed Susan, she didn’t say so. She seemed willing to pig
it with just one servant.
About one in the afternoon I was still sorting books and trying to decide whether to
make do with a cold sandwich or go all out and open a can of tomato soup – when the
front door chimed. Princess Polly looked up.
I said, `You’re expecting someone? Susan, maybe?’ I went to the door.
Not Susan. Donald and Priscilla.
`Come in, darlings!’ I opened the door wide. `Are you hungry? Have you had lunch?’ I
did not ask them any questions. There is a poem by Robert Frost, well known on that
time line in that century, ‘The Death of the Hired Man’, which contained this
definition: `Home is the place that, when you have to go there, they have to take
you in.’ Two of my children had come home; they would tell me what they wished to
tell me when they got around to it. I was simply glad that I had a house to let them