Mother-Cat
Heather Cameron

She is silent in her approach but I know she is there, as she pushes her nose against the door. It is the cold time of the morning, just before dawn and, from within my burrowed-warmth, I can see the misting rain settling on the greyness outside. She sits now at the end of my bed, calmly licking the silver fine droplets from her fur. I watch her. I hold out my hand, and her steady green gaze flicks across me. She delicately steps her way across my bed and settles within reach of my hand. I recognise the privilege I am being given and pat her gently. I am rewarded with a growing scratchy hum that vibrates her whiskers and the fur beneath her mouth. I smile at her and her eyes close into a cat smile.
I lie on my side in this bed, my knees drawn up, my arms around the pillow. She curls into the empty semi-circle my body has made. Her back and shoulders are rounded and her fur is close to my face, small bits of it move with my breath. I smell her cat smell; it is warmth and pine-needle crispness and soft rain combined. I run my hand across her softness between the ears, down the back. She turns inside out, her head upside down and stretches all four legs at once. She becomes a perfect circle. I mirror her movement and we lie, our heads beside each others, our necks twisted, our eyes to the ceiling. Her purr has slowed and is a whisper. Her eyes close. I untwist my neck and the pitch of her humming rises. We both settle, her cheek resting on her paws, nose buried in her tail. My cheek rests on the pillow, and I remember…
I am a child, young and clumsy with the cold, but I am wise enough to know I am watching an ancient ritual. I am engrossed in the beauty of this cat, speckled with grain colour on black fur. Her smooth sleekness has been plump now for several weeks and we have found her in the shoe cupboard, the linen drawer and in my bed. My mother has known and spoken warnings that my father seemed not to hear. My sister has chattered excitedly at school about the kittens. My brother has questioned the how, why and when, but he has, as usual, been ignored. I have been silent. I have stroked her sleekness and stared into her amber eyes. And now I sit in a silent vigil beside this warm nest of hay in the shed and I watch her as she works hard to lick clean each new body that gushes from her body. She purrs and whispers to them, as they seek out her nipples. Their minute paws push in rhythm against her body as they suck. I know that I am crying as I watch their blind noisy fumbling and she smiles her cat smile at me.
It is night and from my bed I can see the stars growing brighter in the blackness outside my window. It is a cold night, but my body is colder. It feels a coldness that cannot be warmed. I hear the mother cat miaowing as she paces the ground outside. I hear the rustling as she moves through the flower garden. I hear the emptiness in her call, and its echo jumps and flickers in my body. While I ate lunch today, my father went to the shed and took the kittens from their mother. He placed them in an old paint can, filled it with water, put the lid on the can, and placed a red brick on top of it. The can sits at the door of the shed.
I have sat in the garden this afternoon and watched the mother cat walk in circles, her soft paws urgent, her voice desperate in its calling. I do not know how to stop crying. My mother has told me to stop being silly, that we have to be sensible, that I am upsetting my father. ‘He does not like having to do these things, but they’ve got to be done.’ I look at my father but his face has not changed. He is not changed. He does not look at me.
The cat jumps from the garden up onto my window-sill. She is silent, knowing that I have heard her. I watch my bedroom door as I slowly get out of the bed and open the window. She leaps through the opening, onto my bed, and together we burrow down into the blankets. She does not call anymore, and I am silent too. I hold her curled within my arms, but she does not purr. She licks the wetness from my cheek with her sandpaper tongue, and I bury my face in her fur. I wish with all my young-old heart that I could do something to change this day, but I cannot. We lie, this cat and child-I, in my bed, and the stars come and go silently in the night sky.

Heather Cameron lives on the Surf Coast, Victoria, with her partner, two sons and one wild cat named Charlie. She has had a life-long affinity with cats, and was probably a cat in a previous life. She has had the privilege of being in loving relationships with many special cats, and has gained much wisdom from them, especially on how to eat rich foods, sleep in luxurious places, and get as much patting and loving as possible.

From: Cat Tales: The Meaning of Cats in Women’s Lives
Eds. Jan Fook, Susan Hawthorne and Renate Klein
pp 156-157

Website: http://www.spinifexpress.com.au