Graham Swift - Tomorrow

I said, “For God’s sake, Mikey — a cat? A cat ?” But we went along to take a look. And we were sold.

This is the simple truth that I don’t think your father will mention tomorrow, though, arguably, he has even more invested in it than I do. Before there was you, there was a cat. But it goes a bit further, since it would be true enough to say that you owe your existence, your very genesis to a cat. You came from a black cat called Otis. A remarkable train of events, since Otis, like so many cats, had been well and truly neutered. But without Otis you might never have found your way into the world.

There, it’s out of the bag. A secret that’s never really needed to be a secret — I mean the existence of Otis — but we’ve kept it so, all the same. You’ve never heard us, at least till very recently, even mention his name. He died before you arrived. He was still there, at Davenport Road, not so very long at all before you were born and we left Davenport Road when you were still three. I’m always surprised you have any memories of the place at all. Perhaps tomorrow you’ll try to dig up some more.

Otis. After Otis Redding, of course: the late-great Otis Redding, whose happy little paean, My Girl, had wafted over Brighton beach in the spring of 1966. And whose bitter-sweet but oddly buoyant ballad, Dock of the Bay, had later floated, one summer, over London — over Earl’s Court, over our basement and its red bedspread, over Mike’s snails in the lab at Imperial, where he sneaked in a transistor radio — and become, for some reason, our song, Mikey and Paulie’s song, the song of our togetherness, our co-existence, our future.

There, another little secret. Why should a song of heartache and separation have become the song of our happiness and togetherness? I don’t know, it just did. Perhaps it was because it was a seaside song and we’d first met in Brighton, or perhaps because of its unintended but gently meaningful resonance, even for us then in our early twenties. It was a swansong, after all, a posthumous hit. Otis himself was dead at twenty-six, that soulful voice imploring from the grave. Try a little tenderness…

Life is short, my darlings, or it can be. Seize it, treasure it, cradle it. But perhaps this has never occurred to you at sixteen.

There was never any question, anyway, once he’d entered our home and once we had to decide on a name, that Otis would be called Otis.

A cat. I know it’s obvious — glaringly and perhaps even amusingly obvious — but we never presented it to ourselves in the way you’re thinking. Otis was (as it would prove) before you, but not “instead” of you. We never spoke or even thought that thought. How could we have done when we didn’t even know you? We just went along, rather awkwardly, to see Otis. And blessed the day. We even blessed Mrs. Lambert.

And we became, so we discovered, cat people. The world divides, they say: cat people and dog people. And some people, of course, who never find out. That’s what our vet said, not Nokes, but the new one. “Some people, sadly,” he said, “never find out”—dropping in that little “sadly” rather delicately. But I suppose he said it to everyone.

I didn’t come from a family who kept pets, a home with an animal, nor did your dad — a strange thing, perhaps, for a future biologist. But I’d say my dad was a cat person, through and through. Perhaps I just mean he was a pussycat himself. And Fiona is a dog person. And perhaps in her case I just mean that there’s another, more strictly correct word I still can’t quite bring myself to use about my own mother. I’m harsh on her, I know. Perhaps it really stems from those days when I thought I’d never be a mother myself. I felt twice betrayed as a woman.

But we can all very definitely say that your Grandpa Pete was a dog person, since it’s become a sort of family legend. When he died last year there was a dog with him, his black Labrador, Nelson. According to your father, there’d never been any sign of it in all the years he’d lived in Orpington, but when he moved with Grannie Helen to Coombe Cottage, it emerged like part of some prearranged formula. What would he do when he retired? He’d get a country cottage, he’d get a dog and he’d take it for long, bracing walks over the South Downs.

Which is exactly what he did. Mike used to say that it was such a rigorously carried through project that he wondered whether some weird replacement wasn’t at work. First there’d been his dad, his mum and him: now there was the two of them and a dog. Uncle Eddie, living in the same place, had never had a dog, and he’d cycled rather than walked, but Grandpa Pete proved to be a dog person. And your dad proved to be a cat person (and a cyclist). It’s just how it goes.

Why Nelson was called Nelson when Grandpa Pete was in the air force is just another of those odd things, but it’s certainly true that Nelson was with Grandpa Pete, in all senses, right to the very end. Even beyond. Since, as you know, when poor Pete Hook dropped dead one crisp January morning in the middle of his regular walk, Nelson was not only with him at the time, but stayed with him patiently and dutifully for some time afterwards, till his body was found, perhaps under the impression that your grandfather would soon get up and they’d continue on their way.

It’s a cruel irony, perhaps, that Grandpa Pete should have been struck down by a heart attack in such healthy circumstances and on a such a sparkling morning. On the other hand, if you’re going to drop dead suddenly, there are worse ways of doing it. And a faithful dog remaining at your side, panting steadily into the frosty air, only completes the picture. It’s the same as with that grave, among the other Hooks, in that archetypal churchyard, you could scarcely have ordered it better.

And maybe the irony isn’t cruel at all. Once, when he was only twenty and only recently married, Grandpa Pete had had to jump into the night sky from a burning plane and must have thought he was more than likely going to die. There was no one to tell him he was wrong. No one to tell him that he’d die one day a retired businessman, walking his dog on the South Downs. Not even Grannie Helen could have guessed it.

Both of you always liked Nelson. You used to call him “Nellie,” Kate, but it was very affectionately meant. All the same, I think you were cat children, and you’re cat people.

A dog has all that trainable, loyal, best-friend stuff, which can sometimes even induce a tear. There’s no record, is there, of a cat sitting staunchly by its dead master? Nonetheless, I think there’s something servile, doltish even, about all that doggy doggedness (I’m sorry, Nelson, it’s nothing personal). Sit. Heel. Stay. A cat knows better, a cat retains its animal integrity and comes and goes as it pleases. A cat will curl up in your lap, all kitten-softness, then do something you could never predict. A cat has a life you never see. But Otis shared our life — and rather more.

The secret nub of the matter (I promised I’d be frank): Otis was a party not just to our reaffirmed coupledom, but to our very coupling. We’ve never needed much spurring into action. And since that day when Doctor Chivers made his pronouncement we could abandon all precaution. We were free now any time. Look, no sperm. Sadness comes in sadder forms. Enough of that self-punishment and back-turning.

And Otis, if nothing more, was our witness.

This is how it would work. Stop listening, if you prefer. Otis had his basket and an old cushion, his designated sleeping quarters, down in a corner of the kitchen, but he frequently — usually — ignored them. We put a cat flap in the back door. He’d slip out at night, into his cat life, then, a little before dawn, he’d slip back in. Just occasionally he’d go for his basket, but more often than not he’d make his way straight upstairs to our bedroom (where the door was left always thoughtfully ajar) and, with a little soft leap, a delicious sudden tautening of the bedclothes and a switching-on of his purr, to top volume, declare himself to be with us.