So, I'm a cat? Yeah? Does that mean I'm a pussy? What's all this crap I read, "Editors don't want stories from an animal viewpoint."?


You print black writing, "gay and lesbian lit", don'tcha? Those minorities you've bent over backwards for (if you get my drift), so why not the feline Felini's, Manx Maupassants? Exactly what is it you're afraid of, eh?

Look, judge us on the text, OK, what's on the page. There are things we see and feel you haven't got a cat-in-hell's chance of seeing (did you like the inversion there?)… Actually cats in hell do more than OK. We do well in all the dark places, make out fine in covens as well as ovens, so drop the crap metaphors.

There's more junk output from humans about humans than you'll get from us p-cats about our own. Trouble is (and this is on the Q-T) most of the "My Life as a Cat" stuff you editors get is by humans (if you can call them that), either string-skinny teenagers who haven't a clue or creative writing refugees (the ceramics class was full) who read so little they think they're original.

Well, I suppose it's no worse than the one about the man who gives the girl a lift home on a wet night, can't forget her, goes back to the house where he dropped her off and her father says, "Oh, Mary, she died exactly four years ago last night." Oh please!

So hear me out, OK? Be flexible. Go on, try it, just once, give a mog half a chance. I might surprise you.

Are we on? You still reading? Oh, good! I need the support. Have you any idea how long it takes to paw out a story like this and the extremes I have to go to just to get my gnat-brained "owner" out of his office? By the way, do not tell anyone you're getting stuff from a p-cat, OK? - not even a brilliant and erudite one like me. Trust me on this. I was into a long-term relationship with Jason, a hairdresser from East Grinstead (… he never married…) and I told him not to, but he started telling his clients. White coat jobbie, but I did warn him, silly sod. Sad really, he was harmless.

Oh, before I go on… (I have the feeling we could be special together, you know what I mean?)… before I continue, just one thing, kitty puns.

You have my permission to give me the hot needle if I let any of the old metaphors get by the self-editor. You know the sort of thing. "Big cats are dangerous but a little pussy never hurt anyone…"

I'm telling you now, pussy-puns are out this year, and I do mean out. Should I manage to get myself a bit too much sauce one night and something goes out unchecked, it's more than likely the paperwork will read like the cat crapped on it. That'll be because I did. When I'm pissed, I think I'm so-o-o-o funny, but just like yer average human, I ent. I just want you to know I've got standards, all right, but well I like a tipple and…

Pssst, while I've got the chance… I live with this bloke, right, a bit of a tosser, thinks he can write. Got in a school magazine once with a story - a total rip-off of O. Henry's Gift of the Magi - and since then has had these delusions of grandeur. Oops, you won't mark me down for stock-language, will you, I mean we're really just getting to know each other, right?

His name's Jeremiah Jenkins. Now, let's face it, with a name like that he's up against it from day one, right? But it gets worse, he's "Oxbridge" (scraped a third, I think) has teeth make Princess Anne look deprived, wears corduroy trousers, and he's a vegetarian.

Now this, I have to confess, really pisses me off. Look, if you decide, no meat today, I'm a Bhuddist or something, well, that's evolutionary bullshit but, OK, you're a sensitive type, I'll go half-way. But then you get a fucking cat, fer Chrissakes, and feed it tuna and horse-flesh! Now come on, who are we kidding here, where's the deep philosophy now? Do you actually need the cat, are you saving it? And then you dish out seven shades of shite for us, mostly dead creatures, whale, donkey, whatever. Does anyone ask us if we are sensitive? What about our karma? You think I wanna come back as a mouse just to be pissed about by some bored ginger and then eaten?

Actually, I just lurve eating dead animals, or half-dead ones, the prettier the better, friskier the better. It's my job, my evolution, so don't blame me, and I have to tell you, in the killing scheme of things, I am one mean mother! My fave trick is to toss some little thing around for ten minutes or so then look like I'm getting bored and slope off a few feet. I wait for the sucker to start crawling away and then, teeth-time! Well, what else is there to do during the day? Girl cats only shag at night (I don't know why) and there's only so many curtains to mess up, doddery old dears to purr at.

Life goes on, death livens things up a bit.

I was saying, the man-of-the-house, jittery Jerry. I don't know where he gets the money, but he's always here, never seems to work. And can he write or can he write or can he bloody write? (I mean produce words, not write as in produce art). J-J-Jerry is a word-machine, and it's all crap, believe me. He's worth an avenue of Brazilian mahogany a week, it's frightening and for what? I mean he pukes out the stuff; funeral stories, ghosts, alien visitations, coming of age (God knows why, he's still waiting), suicide stuff (I wish); it just goes on and on and on. He's worth about a tree a week in rejection slips. Like some huge meta-economy, J-J-Jerry produces, pays his comp fees, gets rejected, the fees go in the pot for bigger prizes, more Jeremiahs have a go, out come the anthologies which they buy but never read, and an area the size of Wales is converted to farmland.


Oh, and J-J-Jerry is in love, l-o-v-e. I could quite take a crack at love, if I wasn't so busy shagging, but out on the tiles (and this is not a cliché, we really do go at it on various roofs out of harm's way) I'm like too busy to ever wonder about something more lasting. Quick bite of the old girlie-neck, a little twist, that's cat-love for you. And a tom's gotta do what a tom's gotta do, right? I confess, though, I wonder about this l-o-v-e thing, what it must be like, mainly because of the effect it's having on J-J-Jerry.

Now Jerry really is a waz, appreciate this; the cords, being a veggie, reads the Guardian, watches Channel Four, and he writes, or tries to, walks to the post-box every day with his latest missive. And he st-stutters (slightly worse on tofu days), wears big baggy cardigans, likes bad live recordings of Celtic music and whale-sounds.

But he's pulled, and I mean pulled, and who he's pulled, Charlotte, I mean she is gorgeous, utterly shaggable, but with a brain as well. It's like J-J-Jerry has won the lottery or got Channel Five to work.

Charlie - she likes to be called Charlie - works at the library and attends Jerry's creative writing class. She's tallish, wears long loose stuff, cottons and silks, sort of beatnicky, under-stated stuff (and you just know that beneath there's a passionate, skinny body yearning, yearning). And she has her hair tied back and up, begging to be loosened to fall down on naked shoulders.

I find it hard to get this across, but Charlie is to Jerry as this gorge-ee-ous never-gets-let-out, Siamese seal-point from just down the road is to yours truly, absolute Press-Button-B, instant jolly. I can't get at Siamese Samantha Behind Glass so I've got my excuse, but Charlie, she's here most nights now and J-J-Jerry, in love he may be, but sheesh, he's taking his time!
It's affecting his mind too. This morning, before I tortured a baby squirrel in the garden to distract him and drag him away from the computer, he actually wrote something that wasn't, instantly binnable. He is too tired to think any more but her bright-eyed face dances around him like sparks from a winter fire.
Now that's almost OK, almost not-bad. So he's drifted into autobiography and will have to watch it, but nevertheless, this is promising. I can almost feel the frost, smell the fire, hear the crackling, and I know what Jerry means too. I get like this when the roof is quiet and I think of Indoors Samantha. Sometimes what you can't quite have, that's exciting, uplifting, even, but it makes you ache.

Look, it's possible I might have to cut this short if J-Jerry comes back, so I'll email where we are so far, if that's OK. You can tell yourself it's really JJ coming over the airwaves if it makes you comfortable, but if you want to check me out, ring the owner and tell him that there's lead flashing coming away from the base of the chimney and he needs to get someone to look at it urgently. Tell him he can't see it from the street but the problem is real. When he fixes it, you'll know either this is really me, or there's an extremely devious roofing contractor going through a pretty complex route to drum up new business.

Now tell me, Occam's Razor and all that, what's the most likely scenario? Oh, I should've asked. I don't suppose you keep a cat do you? Like a nice seal-point maybe, a chick with some class? I could come visiting. These things can be arranged.

---

Return to CONTENTS