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Burlington's Arcadia

By Michael Shmith
July 18, 2004

Cats have always been an important part of my life. Even at those inexplicable moments when dogs have taken precedence, a cat has usually been sitting loftily on the fence waiting for an end to such obvious transient stupidity. There is something about these friends (the word "animal" is unnecessary, indeed insulting) that combines most of the pleasures of life in one small, unreasonably heavy package. Those who say cats are wilful and stand-offish are those who say 20th-century music is modern and describe risotto as "experimental".

Well, cats can be difficult, especially when they are given the extra powers that fiction can provide. Remember Saki's slinky, sly Tobermory who, blessed with the gift of speech, uses it to the maximum embarrassment of Lady Blemley's house party, including Major Barfield who blusters, "How about your carryings on with the tortoise-shell puss up at the stables, eh?" To which Tobermory uncoils a slow cadenza of revenge: "From a slight observation of your ways since you've been in this house I should imagine you'd find it inconvenient if I were to shift the conversation to your own little affairs". Alas, Tobermory meets a bad end.

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In truth, cats can suit themselves, but not all the time. A couple of weeks ago I was home, nursing a cold. My Burmese took up residence at the foot of the bed (inthe foot of the bed), rolled into a brown furry fist, and stayed there. I'm not sure when she got up to perform what a cat performs, in silence and looking into the middle distance, but perhaps she achieved this by auto-suggestion or powerful clenching muscles. The point is, she recognised an opportunity and made the most of it.

Of late, she has taken to sitting halfway up the stairs, a cross between a cat and an air-traffic controller, commenting on those beneath her. Walk too close, as I have found, she will inscribe four parallel red lines on the top of your head. She has also taken to asking the neighbours in when I'm not home. Thus Horace, a large white tabby from the vet on the corner, and a grey Burmese of no name, also choose to drop in at other, more unsociable, times, when they are hissed off the premises by a suddenly hostile brown friend-turned-temporary-enemy.

I'm feeling even more cat-conscious of late. Last week, one of the nicest I know went on the one-way trip to the vet. Burlington was 141/2 and from Adelaide. We brought him to Melbourne on the Overland; he slept in a shoe. He lived with my first wife and our two children and, I can tell you, never had a bad day in his long life. Burlington grew into a large brown Burmese with slow-blinking, almond eyes, long eyelashes and triangular face. If he had been human, he would have lived in the depths of a leather armchair, snoring under The Times by the fire in a gentleman's club; his home life was remarkably similar, except he would spread his not-inconsiderable bulk over a central-heating grille like an almost-set chocolate pudding.

Burlington came into our lives in succession to Fortnum (naming cats after London shops also yielded, over time, Simpson, Spink and Boosey), who died in 1989. A more capricious cat there has never been. In his time, Fortnum, who spoke entirely without consonants and loved McDonald's fries, was otherwise so sophisticated, one expected him to arrive at his food bowl in smoking jacket and fez. There was a touch of the Tobermory about him, too. For example, if he didn't like someone, he would not hesitate to extend his claws like shooting shirtcuffs from a sleeve, or give a nip to a proffered hand; he once expressed disapproval of a house guest by peeing in his shoes.

Burlington was not like that. In fact, he was genial to the point of selflessness: he rather liked children holding him upside-down, as long as he got a scratch under the chin. He was also such a part of my family's life, his presence bookmarking their lives, that it is going to take a while for them to adjust to life without that brooding brown friend. Jean Cocteau said: "I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul." There was none more visible or soulful than Burlington. Bless him. Please don't show this to my cat.