Ollie

I wrote about Ollie back in November, and now he's gone. Bess and I first saw him as a tiny black kitten shooting across a street near our house. We stopped the car, picked him up, and knocked on a few doors. One of them confirmed that he was part of the litter of a feral cat living in the alley at the rear of her house. We brought him home because it didn't seem like one more would make much difference.

He was small, very friendly, good with the other cats, and had a personality I've come to associate with black cats. He seemed unusually intelligent. He'd chase toys thrown for him then fetch them back for us to throw again - like a dog. He was also our first cat to work out how to open our kitchen door by somehow hooking a paw underneath then pulling or pushing depending on whether he was inside or outside at the time. The door is kept shut by a powerful spring so it was impressive, not least because he was such a small cat. He spent most evenings curled up on my lap, and his best friend was Polly, a calico female of about the same age and size. Otto, a more recently arrived kitten would often join him on my lap and suckle on whichever part of Ollie was nearest. Otto clearly missed his mother, but Ollie never seemed to mind.

 

The name was short for Oliver, suggested by my stepson, possibly because he likes black olives - the stepson, not the cat. My wife had suggested Goliad, because we'd driven through Goliad, Texas on the day we found him - which was our tenth wedding anniversary; and in reference to Bean, our previous small black cat. This will all make sense to anyone with a reasonably thorough knowledge of Texan history and what happened at Goliad, but I preferred Oliver because it reminded me of Oliver Hardy.

He was fine last night, and this morning we found him breathing unusually heavy, as though suffering from asthma. I suggested we make an appointment at the vet in case it got worse, whatever it was. This I proposed as an alternative to our ending up taking him to the emergency veterinary clinic. They'll see you at short notice, but they charge an arm and a leg, usually about five-hundred dollars for there's nothing we can do and he's going to die - which at fifty dollars a word would be an amazing page rate.

As I was about to leave, my wife told me that the vet had said they were able to see Ollie right away so she left before me. Half an hour later, she called me as I was out on my bike. The news was bad. His lungs had collapsed and there wasn't anything they could do which seemed like it would have a happy ending. They were going to put him to sleep.

I felt numb.

He'd been fine the night before. It was a lot to take in.

I rode to McAllister Park as usual. I'm presently feeding a feral cat called Fluffy at McAllister Park. We've tried to catch her but she outwits us every time. She's a beautiful long-haired silver grey cat and provisionally friendly, suggesting she was probably dumped by some shitbag who didn't deserve her. I can pet her fine as I empty a tin of Nine Lives into her bowl and she meows at me, but she heads for the hills as soon as you try to pick her up, or even at the sight of a cat carrier. We're going to set up a humane trap as we already know someone who wants to take her in, but in the meantime I'm feeding her daily because she seems to trust me - apparently regardless of my picking her up, even attempting to net her with a bath towel at one point.

Anyway, today was sunny and I fed and petted Fluffy as usual, then retreated to a nearby bench to drink iced tea, smoke a fag, and leave her in peace. Today, once she'd finished eating, she made a beeline for me, walking towards me - fifty yards away - meowing with her tail in the air, only swerving off course once she was within a couple of feet. It seemed like a good sign. I think I prefer to cats to people right now, and I don't really care how that sounds.

As usual, as I do ever day, I poured out some juice - as the colloquialism has it - for all the critters we've loved and lost, although the juice was iced tea in this case. I pour out the juice and go through the roll call of names under my breath, like a prayer, and I don't really care how that sounds either because I miss every last one of them.

Charlie, Maisie, Tony, Gus, Fluff, Squeak, Holly, Jack, Enoch, Bean, Pip, SOF, Selma, Emerald, Tony, Jessie, Mr. Kirby, Gary, Gus II, Gus III, Charlotte, Simon, Barney, and today I add Ollie. About half of the names are those of cats who simply went missing - as cats have been known to do from time to time - but the others are buried in our back garden.

Once home, I look for a patch which doesn't already have a cat or a rabbit buried under the earth, and I dig a hole approximately the size of the cardboard box which came back from the vet. I pile up the heavy clay soil in a wheelbarrow, then spend ten minutes gathering a pile of largish stones from elsewhere around the garden. I've done this too many times, so it feels.

Bess comes out, and we take Ollie from the box. I'd already forgotten how soft his fur was - still is, in fact. I hold him and cry my eyes out. It's all been so sudden. He was fine last night. The vet suspected it was FIP or Feline Infectious Peritonitis, a coronavirus variant which tends to infect cats at a very young age and can be fatal, meaning Ollie had probably been living on borrowed time since before we got him.

I place him in the hole, scatter some cat treats for the afterlife, and empty the wheelbarrow. I cover the site with stones, treading them into the ground to discourage anything attempting to dig him up.

Polly has been hanging around the whole time, occasionally sniffing the cardboard box. I wonder if she knows her friend has gone the way of all flesh. He wasn't even a year old.

This is the eighth pet burial in our back garden, and it isn't getting any easier.