Helen Brown - After Cleo

The girls and I did everything Vivienne, the internet and the vet suggested – from the orthodox to the wacky. We bought (even) more toys, gave Jonah Rescue Remedy, placed crystals under his cushion and took him for evening outings on his lead down the street. Nothing worked. We tried a different vet, and then another. The third vet recommended medication. Cat Prozac. No way. I drew the line at putting Jonah on drugs.

It was difficult not to take his behaviour personally, especially the day I discovered he’d desecrated Dad’s piano. Tears welling, I cleaned what I could and trussed the family heirloom in layers of cling wrap.

I hesitated before inviting anyone over the front doorstep. Yet most of the time Jonah was charming and lovable as ever. Sometimes I felt like one of those wives who endures abuse from her handsome husband, knowing that after he’s given her a black eye he’s going to dazzle her with charm and chocolates the next day.

Lydia found the phone number of a cat psychic in Queensland. Seeing I was paying for it, I didn’t feel too guilty lifting the receiver in my study to listen in. The cat psychic’s tone was rustic and cheerful. I imagined her in a condo by the sea tuning into feline frequencies.

‘Jonah’s talking to me now,’ she said down the line. ‘Oh my heavens! I’ve never heard so much complaining! Nothing’s good enough for this one. Your cat’s too big for his boots. You need to treat him less like a king and more like a cat.’

After we’d hung up, the girls and I agreed the psychic was talking sense. At bedtime Jonah was demoted to a leopard-skin cushion in the laundry. He accepted the indignity of being shut away. In fact, he had an active night life barrelling through his outdoor run to exchange insults with possums.

While keeping Jonah safely removed from our soft furnishings through the hours of darkness limited some of his excesses, part-time exile had no noticeable effect.

‘He’s doing what ??!!’ growled Philip when he phoned from his Stanford apartment which, judging by his emailed photos, was enviably stainless and smell-free.

‘It’s nothing,’ I lied. ‘We’ll have it sorted by the time you get home.’

Which was like saying the war would be over by Christmas.

Rejection

Rehoming a cat. Or husband

The night Philip was due to return from Stanford, Jonah paced the house – impeccable as always at intuiting something special was about to happen. When he wasn’t stalking around on his chocolate-coloured stilts, he was perching on the living room window ledge scanning the darkened street below. Maybe someday a scientist will find out how animals know when one of their humans is coming home. Is it to do with the power of love, an ability to tune into subtle energies – or a combination of both?

He emitted a series of urgent meows. I joined him at the window and together we watched a set of taxi headlights glow like a cat’s eyes and grow larger. Before the taxi had even stopped, Jonah bustled to Shirley’s front door and stretched his length up toward the handle.

Lydia bundled him into her arms and opened the door and we all ran down the path to welcome Philip. Jonah was overwhelmed with joy. His purring was thunderous as he buried his face in Philip’s hand, revelling in having his ears flattened, his chin stroked and his nose rubbed all at the same time.

I felt sure everything would be fine now our Alpha Male was home. The star was back in Jonah’s sky and he could comfortably revert to being secondary male in the household. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he slept in the laundry that night.

We started next morning with the old routine our cat loved so much. Jonah, fishing rod between his teeth, burst through the bedroom door while Philip went out to make tea. He quickly made himself comfortable on Philip’s pillow and waited for the games to begin.

But it was Saturday and Philip didn’t have to hurry off to work. Besides, he was jet lagged. Philip wasn’t interested in being relegated to a chair to have his tea and toast while Jonah had pride of place. He moved Jonah gently aside and climbed back into bed next to me.

Jonah emitted the nasal ‘hrrrrumphing’ noise he made when he was put out, and dropped to the floor.

‘Don’t worry about him,’ I said. ‘He’ll soon get used to you being home again.’

Fixing Philip with a steely glare, Jonah raised his tail and backed up menacingly against the bedroom curtains. I watched helpless as his tail trembled delicately in the motion I’d come to dread.

‘Oh no!’ I cried. ‘Stop him! He’s going to . . .’

It was too late. Staring Philip straight in the face, the cat unleashed himself.

Philip’s one of the calmest people I know. It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with him. He almost never loses his cool.

‘ That’s it! ’ he yelled, leaping out of bed and chasing Jonah out of the room. ‘ That cat will have to go! ’

Stomping down the hall after them, I saw Jonah’s tail flash through the laundry cupboard into the safety of his outdoor run.

‘Go!? What do you mean?’ I asked, my voice trembling.

Breathing heavily, Philip ran his hand over his scalp. ‘We can’t spend the next ten years like this,’ he said, turning away from me, his voice etched with ice. ‘He’ll have to find another home.’

The air turned suddenly cold, as if a fridge door had been opened.

‘But what if we can’t find him one?’ I asked.

‘Then he’ll have to go to a farm.’

Farm? The word echoed across the years from my childhood. That’s what grown-ups said happened to pets who’d disappeared. It took years for me to realise they weren’t talking about romping over grassy fields in the company of cows and geese.

‘Just look at the damage he’s caused,’ Philip continued. ‘He’s destroyed the new stair carpet; we’ve had to get the curtains cleaned umpteen times. There’s that smell in Lydia’s room . . . He’s got to go.’

An unfamiliar shiver ran through my veins. For the first time in twenty years I felt a chill toward Philip. How could a man who’d opened his heart to my two older children and raised them as his own, who’d been such a great husband and father, be so heartless?

Jonah wasn’t perfect, but neither were we. For all his faults and dysfunctional behaviour, he belonged with us.

The instant Philip left for work I grabbed the phone and punched in Vivienne’s number. We’d tried every form of therapy – conventional and otherwise. Our house was vandalised. My piano was mummified in cling wrap and my marriage was teetering on the edge of an emotional Grand Canyon. As Vivienne answered, I had a sudden flash of inspiration.

‘Is there such a thing as nappies for cats?’ I asked.

After what I took for amused silence, Vivienne said she didn’t think so. She wasn’t surprised when I told her about Philip’s ultimatum.

‘You’ve tried almost everything,’ she said. ‘I know it’s hard. Spraying’s the number one reason cats are put down.’

A boulder settled in my chest as I watched Jonah roll nonchalantly in a patch of sun on the family room rug. He seemed to know his fur blended beautifully with its pattern of soft greens and browns. Stretching his pipe cleaner body in a graceful curve, he blinked at me and yawned. I adored our madly affectionate, funny, crazy cat. We all did – well, most of us, anyway. I could never take him to a vet to be ‘put down’.

As well as all her other work, Vivienne was involved in the rehoming of cats. Her website’s heart-tugging photographs of abandoned kittens and strays always worked their magic. She and I discussed the sort of household Jonah might be comfortable in. Certainly not a family of noisy young kids, and he’d drive a little old lady insane. A farm, even if one genuinely existed, would result in physical and emotional collapse.