Susan Finden - Casper the Commuting Cat - The True Story of the Cat Who Rode the Bus and Stole Our Hearts

I heard a bang . . . Casper ... Casper . . .

The woman said that she’d been walking along Poole Park Road when she was aware of a vehicle driving up behind her. She heard a bang so loud that she’d turned around. She realized that the private hire taxi was driving along at such a rate that she needed to push her little girl off the pavement onto a grass verge, as she thought the car might hit the toddler. The taxi sped past, not slowing down in the slightest. She checked that her child was all right, then looked back again to see what had caused the bang.

It was Casper.

She had heard Casper being hit.

I grabbed a coat to put over my nightdress, vaguely aware that she was still talking. ‘He was hit,’ she said, ‘but he’s still alive. I saw him crawl across the road, Sue. Maybe he’s OK?’ There was desperation in her voice and panic in my heart. I raced out the door, past the woman who was still standing there with her little girl, both of them quiet, both of them waiting to see whether Casper was safe.

The woman called, ‘I think he’s under a parked car,’ just as I realized the same thing myself. He was. Casper was there! In a neighbour’s driveway, under their car, he was hiding. Shivering and terrified, I scooped him up in my arms and hurried back inside. ‘Thank you,’ I whispered to the woman as I went in.

Casper was alive but only just.

My darling cat wasn’t making any noise. I laid him on the sofa with a blanket over him as I flew upstairs to grab some clothes. I needed to get him to the vet immediately. As I put on the first things I could find, I tried to put the image of Casper out of my mind and focus on the fact that he was here with me, and I would do everything in my power to save him I’d never let that dear cat out of my sight again. I’d lock doors, seal windows; I’d move a hundred miles away into the heart of the country if I needed to. I made all of these promises in my head, but it was a desperate ploy to try to block out the image I’d had when I picked him up. His back end had been swinging as if he had no control over it whatsoever and I feared with every part of my body and soul that his back had been broken. Vets can do wonders, I muttered. Vets can work miracles. I knew time was against me and I needed to get a taxi, get to the vet, get things in motion to try to reverse the awful thing that had just happened.

I was away from Cassie for less than a minute, but somehow, in my absence and despite his horrific injuries, he had managed to get off the sofa and was now lying by the door.

Everything seemed to slow down.

I’d been in such a rush, such a panic, but now I felt as if the clocks had stopped. My wonderful Casper was taking his last breaths. I just knew it. I needed no medical expertise, no veterinary education. This was it. This was the end.

I lay down on the floor beside him and stroked him constantly. I don’t know whether he was conscious or not, but I needed to whisper words of comfort for both of us.

What did I say? I don’t know.

What did I feel? During those final moments, I’m not sure.

Together, in love, I held my boy as he left this world.

The pain was almost unbearable, but not being there with Casper as he breathed his last would have been more than I could have endured. I was honoured to be there, even if my heart was breaking. And it was. It truly was.

CHAPTER 25

The Hardest Days

I had to do something. There was no doubt in my mind that Cassie had gone, but there were still things that I had to do for him I didn’t want to see him lying on the floor, shattered and empty, a shadow of the wonderful cat he had been. I knew that I had to get him to the vet, where he would be treated with dignity.

I picked up my gorgeous cat and wrapped him in a blanket. My hands seemed to belong to someone else and I fumbled desperately as I tried to swaddle him. It was important to me that he was treated with love and care from this moment on, and I tried to be so gentle with his poor broken shell.

I knew that the vet’s phone line had been broken for almost a week and time was against me. They closed at 10a.m., which meant I had only fifteen minutes to get there. I rang the animal hospital on the other side of Plymouth and asked if they could call my vet, tell them that Casper had been hit and that I needed to bring him in. I had a horrible feeling that if they didn’t know in advance, I’d be faced with locked doors when I arrived.

By the time I got there, it was after ten, but they were waiting for me. The receptionist was very fond of Cassie, and had read about him in the newspapers, so she was terribly upset. The rest of that visit is a bit of a blur. I knew he was dead; I didn’t need anyone to confirm it for me. Perhaps I just had to do something to make it real. By going to the vet, I was completing my commitment to Casper by ensuring that, until his last moment, he would be cared for. Maybe I also needed to say the words out loud – Casper is dead .

There were no more words to say to Casper. I kissed him and sent him all my love and then I left him I didn’t turn back; I didn’t run to his side a hundred times. He was gone. He wasn’t Cassie any more, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Chris had been away since just after Christmas, but was due home that night. I called him, in floods of tears, to let him know what had happened, and felt that I had to hold on until he got back. I spent the rest of the morning crying, and that was how it should be. Carrying on as if nothing had happened, going about life as if it wasn’t the darkest of days – how could I have pretended?

A picture of what had happened to Casper kept emerging through the tears. The lady with the toddler told me that the bang was so loud she’d heard it clearly and turned around in fear. The driver must have heard it too; he must have felt it. Why didn’t he stop? He must have known that he’d hit something. Didn’t he care? What if he thought nothing had happened and he continued to drive like that? What if next time it was a child?

Despite my grief, I could not, in all conscience, allow this to go unchallenged. I rang the police and told them what had happened. They informed me that there is no legal requirement for a driver to stop if they hit a cat, whereas with a dog they must do so. This seemed terribly unfair to me, but I expressed my concern that the driver was unsafe and that he could cause injury or worse if allowed to go unchecked. The policewoman was sympathetic but said there was nothing that could be done – dangerous driving required two witnesses and it would have to be those witnesses who made the complaint.

I lay down, my head full of the injustice of it all, my heart heavy with loss. I felt so alone. Then, as if someone had sent me a message, I realized that I was not alone. People cared. People loved Casper. They needed to know that he was gone, and I had a duty to tell them. My first call was to Edd at the Plymouth Herald. The words were so difficult to say, but the fact that he was shocked, sympathetic and emotional about it too made me realize this was the right decision. Casper had spent so long in the public eye that those who had rejoiced in his adventures had a right to know what had happened. I realized at that moment that Casper didn’t just belong to me, he belonged to everyone.

Edd’s immediate response was to tell me that he would put something in the paper as soon as possible to inform readers. I knew there was also someone else I had to contact immediately – Rob. By this time of day, the bus drivers on the number three would be starting to look for Casper, wondering whether he’d be in the bus shelter yet or taking their route that day. It made me terribly sad to think that they, too, were ignorant of what had happened and that they would never see him again.