ALI’S CATS
Mitzi bewitches The latest Ali cat weaves her magic around Alison Prince …
F
ingal’s new young companion is, of course, chaos. Anyone who lives with a human teenager will know what I mean. Mitzi doesn’t have posters on the wall and piles of dirty socks and a mobile clamped to the ear, but when she’s around, things get constantly shifted from the places where they belong. Pens are swiped to the floor, papers scattered. The maps that used to live neatly on their shelf are strewn in wild disarray across the carpet. And the plants – dear Heaven, the plants! Mitzi started off with the idea that they were toilets, but when dissuaded from that, decided they must be playground apparatus. I have some very large plants. Most of them are cuttings brought home from odd places – a sponge bag is ideal for this purpose – and have grown with alacrity. Some of the more ambitious ones are what the interior decoration magazines call architectural, which means they are up to the ceiling. Mitzi climbs among them, scattering leaves and bits of twig and sways there insanely, watched by a puzzled Fingal. Sometimes she falls out, landing in a fresh clutter of green debris. I try to tell myself she’s just pruning. A large vine that used to be a quite bushy affair has been reduced to a raggy skeleton, but it is bravely putting out new shoots. No point in complaining – it has needed a trim for quite a while. Mitzi goes lolloping down the stairs, trailing the latest bit of greenery, looking like something that’s escaped from a maypole. I wondered if a proper cat toy might distract her from these green-pawed amusements and at that point a friend sent me just such a toy. It was a kind of feline doll, upholstered in pink chenille filled with catnip and adorned with yellow tail feathers. Mitzi adored it. She rubbed her chin all over it and quite soon appeared to be totally stoned – then Fingal came in and she fled for safety – they’re okay together now, but at that time she was scared of him. He grabbed the toy, discovered that it was filled with something that smelt lovely and decided to unpack it. In two minutes flat, he had disembowelled the catnip canary and was spitting out nylon wool and catnip flakes.
Illustration: Alison Prince
The next shot at Mitzi-amusement was a pack of five soft, yellow-and-white-striped catnip balls bought from our Post Office, which does everything from dog biscuits to pig nuts as well as things like stamps. She batted them about a bit and promptly lost the lot. We both hunted, in my case on hands and knees, peering under the sofa and behind the tangle of wires under the computer shelf. Not a sign. How can a small cat lose five stripy playthings in ten minutes flat? Three pounds fifty down the drain, I thought. Huh. And got on with something else. Two days later, five stripy balls had reappeared, waiting to be played with. Fingal regarded them as beyond contempt, so they’ve escaped destruction. Mitzi carries them about in her mouth when in playing mode, but like all young things, she goes abruptly from rushing around to being curled up, fast asleep. She is utterly different from wise, sensible Paddy, but perhaps that is a good thing. The sheer beauty of her enchants me – the fine pale grey stripes, the near-white paws, the eyes as light green as a celery stalk and rimmed like an Indian film star with dark mascara. I love the way she dreams, too. Deeply asleep, she often gives little, high mews that she never utters when awake, and I wonder what pictures are going through her mind. Less romantically, she is full of curiosity about everything, like Kipling’s Rikki-TikkiTavi, which means Run and Find Out. That was a mongoose, of course – my grandmother had one in India – but Mitzi is the same. She’s fascinated by the water that gushes around when the loo is flushed and stands on her hind legs to stare in. This morning, she went a bit further, and jumped on the seat – yes, you’ve guessed. She slipped and her hind end fell in. She was out in a splashy flash, scattering water across the bathroom floor and shaking her paws indignantly while I laughed. Fingal stared in astonishment. He’s not what you could call fatherly, or even avuncular, but he’s starting to think the newcomer is a form of entertainment. As to me – I’m totally besotted. Mitzi is just lovely.
The Cat Spring 2012
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