Have you ever noticed that the more one dislikes someone, the more they want to be familiar? Now to be fair, I know I have been guilty of what I speak, but my case was special, as I trusted a friend. There was back in the mists of time before I met Kitty – before she saved me from myself (her words) – a young fawn-like creature named Honour who pawed at my heart whenever I saw her. I simply could not help myself in her presence. I enraged her by prancing around, telling her I loved her and referring to her as “Your Honour. Your Honour.” She told me to my face on numerous occasions that she despised me, which I took as some sort of back-handed encouragement. Upon seeing her I would shout “I love you” and then giggle maniacally. All this had come about because a dreadful chap called Peregrine Plus-Fours told me Honour was mad about me. Needless to say it ended badly and ate away at my ability to trust anyone with the name of Peregrine.
A dreadful name anyway.
But I started this column the way I did is because of my wife’s cats Bertram and Pericles. This will come as no surprise to any of my loyal readers: I find these fiends from hell an appalling blister on my backside. They are well beyond the pale. Then why is it that they insist upon hanging about my person? I have made my position clear to them: Please expire. Here is an example, because I know there are several of you who imagine I exaggerate their awful behaviour, having written me to say they are troubled by my need to denigrate the little kittens. Phooey! They are a cross between Beelzebub and Vlad the Impaler.
Anyway the example I was going to expand upon happened the other morning when once again instead of sleeping on my nice pinkish wife who loves them, they chose to lounge across the boney ankles owned by a chap who finds them unspeakable. The upshot was that when I sent the orders down to said boney ankles to spring forth as it were, I found myself prostrate on the carpet reminding one of an early martyr before the baying Coliseum crowds. To add to this outrage, they run between my legs whenever I am on the stairs, making me perform not unlike an elderly Gene Kelly. The fact that I have not been found at the bottom of the said stairs as a steaming pile of sinew is food for thought for ecclesiastic scholars.
I will be sitting in our chintz living room studying Milton when one of the blessed cats will launch itself onto my unsuspecting lap. All thoughts of the republican poet leave my trembling mind and I am at odds with life. Then – and here is the real crime – the bloody-minded creature grinds its claws into my snoozing groin. I cry to the gods: Did Luther have a damned cat doing a slow dance on his mid-section? My wife of some 50 years, Kitty, just laughs when I bring these atrocities to her notice, and the cats make funny faces. I swoon with anger.
The jug-eared grandchild, the one who caused me so much censure when I attempted to give him away, does the same sort of thing. He knows I dislike him, yet he is always around me. He pulls on my sleeve at the most inopportune time, such as when I am walking towards the living room to deliver four martinis to expectant guests. “Hey, Goony!” he bellows as he jerks my arm, sending the silver yum-yums flying, not only referring to me by a name that I have warned him against, but making war on my handiwork. His mother gives an indulgent smile, meanwhile my disloyal wife simply gave a loud honk of delight. Bah.
I am alone with my misery.
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