Paw Prints in the Moonlight (9 page)

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Authors: Denis O'Connor

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By late summer, when Toby Jug was about six months old, I felt reassured that he was here to stay and would not
suddenly be smitten by some terminal condition caused by his hazardous start in life. However, I was still not free from parental anxiety. I was uneasy about the possibility that he might catch cat flu or pick up something lethal through contact with another cat. Then there was the worry that, as he matured into a full-grown tom cat, he would go off seeking to mate with female cats. I had heard stories of male cats disappearing for weeks on end in search of a female cat on heat. All of these potential problems had but one solution and that was a visit to the vet.
If Toby was concerned at all by traumatic memories of the tragic loss of his mother and brother and his own near demise on his introductory visit to Mackenzie the Vet, he didn't show it. I took him into the clinic and sat him on the same wooden table from which I'd snatched him away that terrible winter's night not a year ago, literally from the jaws of death.
‘So you succeeded in rearing the wee thing,' Mac exclaimed, all smiles as he recounted the tale to his young female assistant. ‘Well he seems strong enough for us to neuter him now,' he said amiably, as Toby began to display the first signs of alarm at the feel of Mac's rough, searching hands.
‘I'll give him his injections too. Aye, he's turned into a bonny wee thing all right; all power to you,' he grudgingly conceded as he whisked Toby away. ‘You can call back for him in a couple of hours' time, aye?'
Suddenly I was alone, not knowing what to do with myself. Would Toby Jug die under the anaesthetic? Why hadn't I left him intact to enjoy his life instead of putting him through this? These were the questions that kept coming and going through my mind while I waited, fearful of the awful things that might happen to him.
I spent almost two hours in a tea shop in Alnwick agonizing about it all. After two hours and one minute I was back at the vet's surgery. Mac was there examining a huge but gentle Labrador as I entered the surgery area. After a moment he glanced my way and to my immense relief said, ‘You'll be wanting your wee cat now.'
With that remark he disappeared. He clearly hadn't heard my hoarsely voiced question, ‘Is he all right?'
Shortly afterwards, Mac returned with Toby Jug, looking slightly flustered and pained by what had happened to him but none the worse for all that. Toby celebrated our reunion with his habitual fulsomeness and ended up in his usual position on my left shoulder. I revelled in this public display of our bonding and indulged happily in the look of astonishment on Mac's face. I took the vaccination and other certificates he handed me and headed out to my car with Toby Jug clinging on to my shoulder like a koala bear.
Happily reunited we headed homewards with me whistling happily and Toby Jug still perched on my shoulder as we drove along. His claws dug in as he hung on over
every bump in the road but I didn't mind a bit. I was so happy to have him back with me, alive and well. Before we left the vet's surgery Mac's young assistant had handed me a tablet which, she explained, contained an antibiotic to prevent any infection after Toby Jug's operation. I told her that Toby would not take a tablet of any kind and that I had tried unsuccessfully on several occasions to administer some proprietary health tablets for cats.
‘Oh nonsense,' she exclaimed. ‘Look I'll show you how to do it.' And with that remark she took hold of Toby Jug's head and to his astonishment quickly prised open his mouth and popped the tablet in. ‘There you see, as easy as that,' she said. Toby snapped his mouth shut and stared pop-eyed at me in amazement.
After we had been on the road for quite some time, I heard a ‘Pitttth' sound from Toby. What remained of the said tablet was spat out and landed in my lap. He had kept the offending tablet in his mouth and waited until he was well away before spitting it out. So much for the expertise of callow young vets. I chuckled as Toby Jug, obviously feeling pleased with himself, purred loudly in my ear all the way home.
On arriving home Toby seemed to be suffering no ill-effects after his operation and ate a specially prepared meal of chicken livers with his usual gusto. However, when I went to file the veterinary certificates I noticed something strange. Under the column headed ‘Breed of Animal' there
was written in bold handwriting: ‘Cat: Black & White Long Haired Maine Coon'. I looked down at Toby Jug happily eating away and thought, ‘What on earth is a Maine Coon?'
I looked at him with new eyes. Here I was thinking of him in the most affectionate terms as an ordinary ‘moggie', but perhaps he was really a special breed of cat or some kind of hybrid. More than slightly bemused, I resolved to try to sort out Toby Jug's past history as soon as possible. The thought of telephoning Mac to ask him for information did cross my mind but I neither wanted to appear ignorant nor did I want to give him any satisfaction if he was playing some kind of joke on me. The local library in Alnwick couldn't help me at all but then on an impulse I telephoned the area RSPCA and a kindly woman's voice informed me that a Maine Coon was an American breed but apart from that she couldn't tell me any more. All the more intrigued, I determined to pursue the matter further. For the next five days I was going to be in Oxford to speak at a conference so I thought that I would take some time out to do more research there about the Maine Coon breed.
Assuring him that I would soon return, I left Toby Jug in the loving care of my mother and set off for Oxford on one of my rare trips away. It was the first time Toby and I had been separated overnight. A short distance from St Catherine's College, where I was staying, I discovered what I was searching for in Blackwell's bookshop at William Baker
House on Broad Street. There, in the Natural History Section, I found, among the various cat books and reference authorities, a photograph of a cat almost identical to Toby Jug. It was described as a ‘Black and White Maine Coon'. So Mac was right he hadn't been kidding me.
Scanning the information which followed I found a very comprehensive description of semi-long-haired breeds of cat starting with the Maine Coon. There before me lay the full historical details of my little cat's ancestry and an interesting one it was, too. It appeared that the Maine Coon was so called because the breed originated in the American state of Maine. The explanation of the name Coon was that it derived from a mistaken belief by the inhabitants of Maine who thought that, because of the cat's similarity in looks and mannerisms, the animal was the result of crossbreeding between cats and racoons. According to scientific evidence, this is not genetically possible.
As I read on it became clear that cats, such as the Norwegian Forest cat and the Persian Longhair, were taken on board sailing ships to kill rats and as a result they were introduced to North America by seafarers from Europe. The ship cats most likely interbred with the local short-haired cats to eventually produce, by a process of natural selection, the Maine Coon. This breed became very popular and appeared at cat shows in the USA as early as 1895. I was fascinated by all of this and it made me ponder just how a
breed of cat from over 3,000 miles away in the United States could have turned up in a semi-wild cat's litter just over a mile-and-a-half from my cottage in Northumberland. But then I suppose sea traffic goes both ways and cats are inveterate and promiscuous breeders. Whatever his background might be, it was clear that Toby Jug was an identifiable living descendant of the American Maine Coon breed.
I was further intrigued when I read the description of the particular temperament associated with the Maine Coon breed. The picture the book portrayed was a ‘spitting image' profile of my Toby Jug. I read that Maine Coon cats are friendly, good-humoured and uncomplicated cats that are highly adaptable. They are inquisitive and tend to retain a kittenish attitude to life even when fully grown and mature but they are easily bored and therefore need constant variety and stimulation; they love to romp and play and become easily attached to people, more especially to one or two persons who are primarily involved in their care and upbringing. This, in a nutshell, was Toby Jug as I knew him.
Reflecting at leisure on what I'd learned, I recalled the night of the rescue and the appearance of Toby's mother. She had a long body with a lengthy, fluffed-out tail that was darker in colour than her body, which was a light silver-grey. I remembered thinking what a beautiful cat she must have been as I watched her on the vet's table that awful night.
Consulting again the
Encyclopaedia of Cats
, the book by Esther Verhoef which I'd bought that morning, I leafed through the photographs. On page 34 I saw once more the image of my Toby with the description ‘Black and White Maine Coon'. As I flicked further through the pages I came at once upon the familiar face of the cat I had freed from the gin-trap and had last seen in her death throes. The simple inscription below the coloured photographic plate read ‘Silver Black Tabby Maine Coon'. Toby Jug's mother, from my memory of her, had looked very similar. And so I thought if Toby Jug is really a descendant of the Maine Coon breed then it followed that either or both of his parents must have been Maine Coon. I resolved that on my return from Oxford I would make some local enquiries.
 
Back in Northumberland, I was delighted to be re-united with Toby Jug who ran and leapt on to my shoulder the moment he saw me. Obviously we had missed each other but it must have been worse for him because he wouldn't have been able to understand that I'd be coming back for him. He had been well cared for by my mother but, of necessity, he had been locked indoors in one of the old stables on her land for most of the day. This was a precaution we had worked out before I left to prevent him wandering off in search of me and his home. My mother said that he hadn't eaten much and seemed to be suffering from homesickness in spite of all
the attention she had lavished on him. We were glad to be together again and we soon resumed our happy life at the cottage.
Whenever you want to know about anything in my village, there is always one sure place you can go. It's the place where people gather of an evening to relax over a drink and talk, namely the village public house. Felton has two pubs: the Northumberland Arms and the Stag's Head. Over the course of several nights and a weekend soliciting gossip in the two aforementioned hostelries, I discovered that there was a woman who bred pedigree cats in the nearby village of Shilbottle. In Shilbottle Post Office my attention was directed to a typed note amongst the advertisements with an address in the village where pedigree cats were for sale.
It didn't take me long to find the cottage which was set back from the road in an extensive garden. I walked up the well-kept drive that was bordered with a wide variety of flowering plants and shrubs. A Victorian-style wrought-iron gate led to an inner paved area and a huge front door. The cottage branched out on both sides of the frontage in keeping with the style of the period. The windows upstairs had old-fashioned wooden shutters which I noticed were closed even on this warm, sunny afternoon. It struck me as rather odd but then possibly there had been a bereavement or loss in the family which necessitated a time for mourning. I did not wish to intrude unnecessarily on private feelings but I
was anxious to pursue my quest, so I rang the bell and waited in anticipation. A frail woman of mature age answered the door and, on hearing my inquiry, invited me inside. I introduced myself to her and learned that she was called Sarah Erskins, that she was a widow who lived with her daughter and that she was a specialist breeder of thoroughbred cats.
There were well-groomed cats everywhere in the sitting room into which I was shown. There were Persian Longhairs, Colourpoint and Sealpoint, Siamese, Abyssinian Reds and Balinese Bluepoints, all of which she identified by name for my benefit, but there were no Maine Coons as far as I could tell. Over a cup of tea, standard local hospitality, I asked her if she'd ever had any Maine Coon cats. Her expression became serious and pained at my question and instead of answering she rose and walked over to an old writing desk just like the one my grandmother had. Rummaging about in the draws she withdrew a photograph album. Quickly turning the pages she found what she wanted and placed the album on my knees.
There before me lay an enlarged photograph of a silver cream tabby female Maine Coon. Underneath was inscribed her name: Silver Girl Bonny and there was a certificate pasted on the same page which identified her as being registered with the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy (GCCF). I was both surprised and a little shocked to see
that the cat pictured was one and the same she-cat I had rescued on that fateful January night. There could be no mistake. At the sight of her picture I was transported briefly back in time to the wind-swept and tumbledown hayloft where I had found her with her kittens. Suddenly the voice of Mrs Erskins cut through my reverie and I looked up to see tears in her eyes.
‘She was my Bonny,' she said with feeling. ‘And we lost her! And I haven't had the heart to seek a replacement for her. How could I?'
With that she sat slowly down on the edge of her armchair and I waited patiently for her to go on.
Holding her cup tightly in both hands, without drinking from it, she stared intently at the carpet as she recounted the story of her loss.
‘We were taking her to the Harrogate show along with Bluebell and Chi-Chi. Bonny was such a pet, I used to let her sit on my lap during most of the drive. I wish now I'd kept her in the show cage with the other two cats,' she said tearfully and paused. I sipped my tea in silence until she was ready to go on.

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