An Irishman's Diary

NOT THE least traumatic aspect of the cold spell is the bit, last thing every night, where I have to put the cat out. This is always a difficult moment for both of us. The cat will invariably be asleep – or pretending to be – by then: curled up in a foetal position on whatever piece of soft furnishing she can find close to a radiator.

So first I have to wake her. And then, since it might be too much of a shock to eject her straight away, I have make small talk for a minute or two, subtly introducing the subject. After that, the blow is further softened with a saucer of milk and some supper. Finally, I usher her towards the back door – a gentle prod with my foot is sometimes required here – where, inevitably, she will pause to survey the bleak scenario.

As the door closes behind her, her tail will always linger until the last possible moment before it would be truncated. And once outside, she will sit for a further moment, staring at the foot-deep snow with apparent incredulity. Then – this is the bit I really hate – she will look back at me through the glass, her plaintive eyes suddenly somehow reminiscent of the little matchstick girl in the sad fairy tale.

Perhaps she will also miaow weakly, as if inquiring whether, for this night only, there’s any chance of a reprieve. And not until I turn off all the lights will she at last surrender to her fate. Then she will tiptoe through the snow to her night quarters, an abandoned children’s play-hut. Where, incidentally, she has a nice, comfortable bean-bag to sleep on. And where, minutes earlier, I will also have placed a hot water bottle to warm her bed.

I CAN’T RECALL when it was, exactly, that I turned into such a sap. I don’t even like cats. And my concern about this one is all the more misplaced because, strictly speaking, she’s not ours. As I’ve told my kids on the many occasions they asked for one, we don’t have room for a pet. And if we did have room, it would be a dog. Yet here we somehow are, in a situation where we have none of the advantages of pet ownership and all the responsibilities.

I suppose it started about 12 years ago, when the cat was still owned – nominally at least – by one of our neighbours. Despite which, she always spent large amounts of time in our house. We didn’t mind much. It was a kind-of informal, community pet-sharing scheme, and it worked well. The animal could be amusing company for an hour or two. But it wasn’t a serious relationship and we never had to worry about her when we went away for the weekend or on holidays.

Even then, however, the cat may have had plans for us. It was a sign of things to come when, one evening about a decade ago, she brought a mouse to the same back door through which I now put her out every night.

Peering through the glass, we realised with horror that the mouse was still alive. Indeed, the cat demonstrated this fact by pawing the unfortunate victim, to make it squirm. And even though we knew this was intended as a token of our friendship – which she would further cement by bringing the mouse in and perhaps torturing it on the rug for a while, before dispatching it in our honour – we thought better of letting her in that night.

But it was probably already too late. When her owner moved away some years afterwards and the cat – for reasons unexplained – stayed behind, new owners were required. There was no consultation process. The cat just adopted us and, by hanging around our back garden more and more, allowed that fact to sink in gradually.

HER mouse-torturing days are long behind her now (in fact, a whole family of mice could be behind her, and she wouldn’t notice), but she has acquired other skills to compensate. Chief among these is an ability to stare through the back door long enough to make you feed her, or let her in, or by a process of guesswork, provide whatever else she requires.

For a year or two now, I have become as used to buying food for the cat as for the children. When we go away anywhere these days, we always make arrangements with other neighbours to mind her. And any lingering resistance on our part to the arrangement succumbed to the first cold spell last Christmas, when we also started providing her with sleeping quarters, and hot water bottles, and what not.

I’m sure the cat’s bewilderment at this second Arctic spell within 12 months is genuine. But I also suspect she is using the cold weather to her advantage. When she stares at me from the doorstep these nights, I think she may be trying to plant the idea in my head that it might be better for both of us if I just fitted the door with a cat-flap.

When I do that, her triumph will be complete. And then she will know, if she doesn’t know already, that human owners are not just for Christmas, they’re for life.