Home life
Tomfoolery
Alice Thomas Ellis
Every decade or so I make up my mind that now I've cracked it, that I have understood the secret of the universe, the meaning of life and the motivation behind human behaviour and every single time it is revealed to me five minutes later that I have not. I thought, at least, that I under- stood the cats but they have all turned out to be not what they seemed. The cat
'I think he misses the postman more than I do.'
Cadders whom I considered to be a terrible thug can be charm and gentleness itself, whereas Puss whom I thought was an innocent, loving creature has shown herself to be frequently devious and spiteful. She lies in wait for Cadders, swipes him as he passes and then when he retaliates, flies screaming and Cadders gets the blame. As Janet says — that cat is a cow. I have known children to behave in this way. I suppose most parents have found that they have punished a larger child for biffing a smaller only to discover that the curly- haired little one with the brimming eyes was undoubtedly the prime aggressor.
We have a 19th-century work on The Cat by M. Champfleury who writes that 'Dupont De Nemours' a "naturalist" philo- sopher who was under the direct influence of the great minds of the 18th century' suggested a method of understanding the brute creation which was simply 'to study the animal in ourselves'. Easier said than done since how does one ascertain where the one ends and the other begins, if indeed there is a division. He goes on to quote Montaigne: 'A point undecided, and of guesswork, is, to which of us belongs the fault that we do not understand each other? For we understand them no more than they understand us: for this same reason, they may esteem us beasts, as we esteem them!' What? I feel that could have been better put but maybe it's clearer in the original. Anyway I don't think I agree with him. I think cats may well model their behaviour on that of the people around them, and have sometimes wondered un- easily who Puss imagines she is imitating when she lies on the windowsill waving her feet seductively, only to roll off in undigni- fied fashion. (Being impersonated by a child can give one a nasty turn too. Recognisable bellows of 'you just wait till get you home' etc can make one feel quite sweaty.) I once went to Marrakesh with Diana Melly and we stayed not in La Mamounia but in the more modest establishment over the road and there were cats everywhere. They lounged around in groups, lying in the shade on the terrace and near the swimming pool. Every now and then one of them would go for a little stroll or dash into the dining-room to grab a momentan- ly unattended morsel. They argued very little amongst themselves although they seemed to be of all ages, shapes and sizes. They just hung around, sort of resting. British cats don't behave like that. They are not gregarious; they leave their homes only to go out, as it were, on business and when they meet they seldom speak. They like to hurry home and settle down by the telly. You will sometimes find one napping under a bush when the weather is fine but seldom in the company of its fellows. We were fascinated by these cats since while their demeanour seemed to us to be uncharacteristic of the species it was also reminiscent of something else. Then it came to us. They were behaving like tourists, like people on holiday. The cat
languorously licking his stomach was scarcely different from the blonde by the pool rubbing suntan lotion into hers. The • cat rising to his feet and stretching himself was precisely similar to the Frenchman doing likewise on the other side of the bush. The one drinking the dregs from a cup of coffee was just like us. Their sorties into the dining-room were unlike ours only insofar as they were quicker off the mark and we were never kicked by the waiters. They exhibited the same degree of distant tolerance to each other as did the hotel guests caught in proximity in conditions of complete idleness and it was all faintly humbling.
But the oddest bit of feline behaviour I ever witnessed occurred only the other day. Puss and the many-toed cat are both female (only Puss being spayed) and Cad- ders is an altered tom. One afternoon I was in the drawing-room and observed Puss raising her tail and wiggling her bum in the Way that tom cats do and then she sprayed the curtains. I leapt to my feet thinking she must be, not Puss, but an alien male only to find that it was undoubtedly her. I didn't know lady cats could do that. Then a few days later I caught the many-toed cat doing the same thing to the wastepaper basket. I can only put it down to an outbreak of feline feminism, though this still leaves me bewildered. I am just as confused by human feminism because if you disapprove of them so much why wash off the make- up, crop the hair and slap on the boiler suit In order to resemble the rotters? No, I haven't cracked it at all.
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