Rumble and his offspring

I should not delay any longer writing a tribute to this other cat. Time is moving along and soon this diary’s claim to  being “a composer’s impressions of life in rural Northumberland” may start losing credibility, becoming more of "a composer's memories ...". And, speaking of memory, my recollection of details will turn fuzzier, as is happening already, at least on some of the matters of secondary importance. 

As many people know, K is a lover of cats. She has had a succession of them, each leaving an indelible mark in her psyche. At the time Rumble’s story begins, or rather in the story’s prologue, this cat love was well catered for by two strong, interesting individuals: Douglas and Tiger, each of them eulogised in their own entry elsewhere in this diary. 

But one of K’s friends, an extraordinary musician working abroad (I don't know if she would like to be named here), seemed to hit on the idea of amusing herself with K’s weakness for cats. She - the friend - began to send random pictures of cute kittens, with thinly veiled allusions to the joys of having a kitten. K played along, knowing it was all a big joke, although perhaps a slightly cruel one. One of these images was from an advert about two young siblings from Hexham, going free to a good home. One of them looked conventionally pretty, with a tabby pattern of silver and white not unlike our existing half-Bengal; the other was a curious kind of kitten, with a face where black, white and brown patches combined in what looked like a harlequin mask. 

The sustained campaign of photos and hints must have worked its effect on me, since I volunteered to drive to Hexham to meet the siblings. I took very young human company with me, guaranteeing an intense experience. At the siblings’ house, we were told that Mr Harlequin was spoken for already, but that Mr Tabby was still available. We met Mr Tabby, we stroked him, he purred, we said we would consult, and we left. We reported our findings to K when she came home. Still not sure of what we were going to do, we all drove to Hexham. K must have found Mr Tabby satisfactory, since the drive back home was with Mr Tabby in the car. His purr was so uninhibited, so profuse, that there was only one possible name for him: Rumble.

Rumble proved a sweet cat. He purred, he played with the girls, he tried to be civil to the other animals, even though Tiger did not welcome him. Indeed, the newcomer’s arrival exposed a mean streak we had not known in Tiger. In spite of Rumble’s evident disadvantage in size and strength, Tiger hissed and made as if to attack him. Little did Tiger know that she was digging her own grave with this behaviour; it would not be forgotten. 

But right now Rumble was the undercat, and he needed protection and affection. He got them, and, inexplicably, he seemed especially receptive to affection from me. And I seemed to have something of a soft spot for him too. “He’s your cat!” K would say, with surprise but without a trace of envy. 

As he grew, Rumble lost the cute kitten’s endearing qualities, but Tiger’s relentless hostility toward him and a certain nerviness in Rumble’s developing character endeared him to me. Maybe he was my cat. Then came the issue of Rumble’s gender. 

It would take only a little dose of poetic licence to sum up the story thus: when he seemed to have reached the right age and size, Rumble was taken to the vet for neutering. “I cannot neuter this cat” was the vet’s reaction. “because he is in fact a she”. As if this were not surprising enough, he added “and, moreover, she is pregnant”. 

The combined news of gender reassignment and early pregnancy came as a minor bombshell. Rumble female? Rumble pregnant? The mind reeled. Some psychological realignment was required of us, and some of us did not quite manage it. Rumble had come to us male, had behaved like a male (whatever that means) and I found it hard to alter my idea of him. He would stay male for me, even if he was pregnant. This was to cause some disagreements within the family, particularly with the young contingent, but only as regards terminology. We were all determined to support Rumble through pregnancy and motherhood. 

Rumble’s bulk increased only slightly, but his temperament altered. He became nervier still, as if always on the alert for danger, both in and outside the house. We guessed that he might be fearing a return of the cat who had stolen his virtue. And, of course, danger was only too real in one respect: there was an enemy within. It was not long before Rumble stood up to Tiger, hissed back and, where necessary, used his claws in self-defence. Mindful of his delicate state, we were quick to support Rumble in cases of conflict, putting Tiger out of the house. To what extent her repeated evictions hastened Tiger’s self-exclusion we will never know. 

As full term approached, Rumble began moving heavily and with an exploratory attitude, as if looking for the right place. K made preparations for catbirth: a cardboard box with cushions and old clothes for comfort. A balance between spaciousness and the private confinement cats like was sought. We rehearsed various locations; I am not sure we had agreed a final one, when Rumble took her own decisions. Although he had been showing a partiality to me, Rumble began to follow K around. There was little doubt who Rumble wanted for midwifing duties. And he chose not the specially prepared box, but a dark corner in a wooden wardrobe in our bedroom. 

It was a dramatic time and I wish I remembered more of the details. Were this a piece of fiction I could add in touches for atmosphere and transitions between the scenes. But this is a diary, and I must stay close to the facts as I remember them. 

The next scene memory records is of K kneeling down and bending over into that wardrobe, taking one kitten after another, in slow and painful succession, out of the dark and into the cardboard box. I cannot remember the order of appearance; only that four kittens came out, of various sizes and colours, and that after prolonged labour both K and Rumble were about to breathe their relief, when they realised that all was not yet over. Needing some extra help from the midwife, a little afterthought came out. This was the quintessential runt of the litter, and very unusual colours it had too. 

The naming of the kittens was straightforward, even though some of them took a bit of time to settle into their names. Our young contingent had, of course, a part to play. Ginger was uncontentious; so was Stripy. Mackerel had an earlier spell as Snaky, but he grew into Mackerel. Baby Dee obeyed some reasoning of K’s I never quite followed. The little runt, for whom K was quick to develop a special affection, was named Tiny. 

Life was a riot with five kittens, three grownup cats and one dog. The children amused themselves endlessly with the kittens, cuddling them, talking to them, teaching them their names, devising toys for them, teaching them how to use the toys and so forth. 

Rumble turned out to be a surprisingly devoted mother. In spite of his modest size and, surely, limited milk-production capacity, he made himself always available for feeding, and the kittens showed insatiable greed. He was less solicitous with the grooming, but he did some of that too. And he was, of course, fiercely protective of the kittens when Fluffy the dog or Douglas the cat came anywhere close. As to poor old Tiger, he knew by now it was best to make herself scarce and to stay that way. 

Soon I began to feel sorry for Rumble. Having coped with early pregnancy, he was now a long-suffering mother of five. The children’s attention had switched to the kittens, depriving Rumble of his former role as the spoilt darling. His childhood had been short, and his premature adulthood was marked by the strife with Tiger. 

I should have been a stauncher defender of Rumble, were it not for his attitude towards Tiger. What had started off as Rumble’s legitimate self-defence, soon after the kitten’s birth became a vicious animosity. Rumble was now no smaller than Tiger - if one discounts the latter’s fluff - and Rumble revealed a fearsome streak. He would hiss, growl, cuff and chase until poor Tiger was a helpless wraith. This dented my affection for Rumble, at the very time he most needed it. I do regret that now, Rumble, old friend. 

Fortunately Rumble did not seem to take it too personally. He settled manfully into his new status as a mother, no longer the littlest beauty. And, just when his strength might have begun to desert him due to the bottomless hunger of his rapidly growing offspring, their number began to dwindle. 

Baby Dee went to Donkleywood, Stripy went to Wark under a new name borrowed from a local character, Ginger went to Lee Hall to become, of all things, Tiger. We kept Mackerel and Tiny. Rumble did seem to wonder at each reduction of his family, looking here and there in seeming search of the missing ones. But the lessened mealtime demands must have come as a relief. 

As Mackerel grew into a strapping youngster and even Tiny became a nimble, self-confident little madam, the supremacy of the Rumble family over old Tiger was assured. Any lingering concern would have been removed once and for all by Tiger’s demise. Relations with Fluffy and with Douglas were cordial. I would like to think that Rumble’s life took a turn for the better. He was firmly ensconced in his Redesdale domain. 

More recently, one more thing was to supervene to make Rumble’s life even better: he became somebody else’s favourite. For reasons no one quite understood, the youngest human in the house chose him as the subject of her predilection, giving him a special place on her bed - when allowed - in her games and in her conversation, where his name pops up often in the refashioned form “Rumboy”. It is not clear to me how much Rumboy appreciates the privilege. He is an enigmatic cat, hard to figure out behind his residual neurosis.

This leaves Rumble’s Redesdale children left to deal with in this diary. Mackerel and Tiny are two characterful, attractive, endlessly amusing cats. Much as I love them, and special though it feels to have watched them being born, I don’t know if I am the right diarist to chronicle these characters. It may be better to leave the story unfinished, as so much else, in the hope of resuming it when the circumstances are right. 

Tiger

Strange time for a cat to go. The news came on 23 December in the form of a phone call from The Farmer. The information had to be embargoed so as not to darken the festivities.

Eleven years ago, Tiger was located online in a search for a Bengal kitten. She was a half-Bengal; our contact with her seller was early enough for the new-born kitten to be named Tiger, our name of choice, from day one. When she was ready, we drove down to Lincolnshire to collect her. At her birthplace, the children of the house seemed sad to part from her; the children’s mother had seemed caring throughout the preliminary contact. “She is a cat that doesn’t purr” she warned us as we left her house. In the car, during the long drive back, we cuddled the kitten, stroked her and talked to her soothingly. Tiger purred.

Back in Northumberland – we lived in the Coquet valley at the time – Tiger’s arrival caused a commotion. Douglas, the slightly older black kitten, was delighted to see us after what had been our longest absence from him – about twelve hours. Douglas ran from K to me and back to K, as if to make sure we were really there. At a suitable time we introduced him to the newcomer. The look on Douglas’s face was something to remember. Thunderstruck first, then incredulous, then hypnotically entranced. His first attempted action was, of course, to come up to her, but his advance was not welcome: Tiger hissed and recoiled. This was the beginning of a difficult acquaintance. Things had not been going badly for Tiger on her journey north; she might have enjoyed her new house by the Coquet, but a needy black cat was more than she was ready for.

For her first night we put Tiger in the kitchen, the warmest room in the house. The following morning she was nowhere to be seen. It took a long search by two people to locate her: she was crouching in the narrow space under the cooker. She had to be forcibly pulled out. As days went by, she showed herself to be a needy cat, quite affectionate if on the demanding side. She did not have the best digestive system. And she remained wary of Douglas.

She grew up to be a lovely cat, with attractive tabby shades and a most elegant white glove on one of her front paws. She seemed inordinately proud of this, judging by her habit of stretching the gloved paw in front of her. She liked to be the centre of attention, and she often demanded this with an imperious miaow that was almost a scream. This was immortalised in a tune K titled after her, Tiger’s First Bird.

Tiger had an unfailing attention-seeker’s instinct, always present when there were visitors, often assuming what she uncannily knew to be her most fetching poses, such as the one with the outstretched white paw. She also ensured she never missed a photo opportunity. I had a goodly collection of images from this time, but it was lost when, ironically, Tiger herself pulled my Powerbook’s cable when the computer was charging, sending it crashing down on the stone floor. This was before the days cloud-based storage became widespread; the loss of this and many other valuable documents marked a turning point in my storage habits.

When, in her second year, we moved to Redesdale, Tiger found herself surrounded by vast fields in which to explore, play and hunt, and more prey than she could catch.  She slowly came to an entente cordiale with Douglas and with Fluffy the dog, and her digestive problems seemed to vanish. Tiger thrived in her new environment.

She particularly enjoyed walking the dog, almost invariably joining in when I or K took Fluffy across the fields or along the river. If the excursion had not started with her, she would demand to join in halfway, announcing herself from a distance with her unmistakable call. Although normal to us, this often caused the hilarity of visitors and passers-by. 

Little by little, though, we became aware of a change: Tiger did not always come home. She disappeared for days, then for weeks, and then for months. More than once we gave her up for lost, but every time she would return. Sometimes she would answer my call around the neighbouring fields; other times she would come back of her own accord. Each time we noticed that her features had become rougher, her voice had grown gruffer and her frame more sinewy. She was no longer a pretty princess: she had become a feral cat.

It would be only too easy to blame the arrival of a younger contingent - Rumble and then Rumble’s kittens - for this change in Tiger’s behaviour. But the fact is that her wandering habit began earlier than that, not dictated by any external circumstances we could see. What kind of inner dictate guided her actions is anybody's guess. 

She certainly was far from welcoming to Rumble when he turned up, hissing at him viciously. Unluckily for her, Rumble grew up to be a plucky fighter, and soon it was Tiger who was in retreat. Rumble acquired a vicious streak of his own, attacking Tiger in and out of the house, sometimes cornering her in such a way that Tiger would start wailing in an uncharacteristically defenceless tone. We found that heart-breaking, and punished Rumble with exclusion whenever we witnessed that behaviour. The tide turned further against Tiger when Rumble had kittens and they grew up, the hostility becoming tribal, and entrenched. Tiger was now a pariah.

We got used to Tiger’s long absences. There were enough cats in the house to look after – four without Tiger, and this only after three of Rumble’s kittens had found new homes. Every now and then, at irregular intervals, when out in the fields, I would hear that imperious call demanding my attention from afar. It was an unexpected joy when that happened, even though the call was getting hoarser every time, and could by now be described as the growl of a wild animal. Sometimes I would pick her up, all wet and sinewy, and would carry her back to the house to ensure she had a good meal and some warmth before resuming her wanderings.

This December, Tiger’s visits became more frequent. She was not an inch friendlier towards the other cats, but she avoided confrontation, and she did not disdain opportunities for human affection or even a nap in a warm place. In the couple of weeks before Christmas, K reported that Tiger had come home almost every day. Was she again a regular member of the family? That would have been a pleasing thought.

On 23 December in the evening, The Farmer phoned to say that he had seen Tiger lying dead on the side of the road. He thought that a speeding car must have run her over. He offered to send a farm hand the following day to give her decent burial. He was insistent that I should not tell K until after Christmas, but K had been in front of me throughout that call and it would have been futile to deny that something was amiss.

Later that night, I decided that Tiger’s funeral should not be The Farmer’s responsibility. When the time came for Fluffy’s night walk, although it was raining I took a shovel with me. I walked in the rain to the spot described by The Farmer, but found no dead body. I walked a long stretch of the road in both directions, but there was no sign of Tiger. The following morning I drove up and down, still to no avail. In the evening, The Farmer dropped by for a Christmas Eve chat. As he was leaving I asked him to clarify where the spot was, but he was evasive; he said he had dealt with it.

So Tiger, the coquettish kitten princess who became a wild animal of the forest, braving foxes, badgers, hostile cats and countless winter nights in the woods – Tiger ended her life not succumbing to any of those extreme dangers, but a victim of a more mundane threat: the stupidity of a human driving too fast.

It is a tribute to this unusual, courageous cat that what overcame her in the end was not any of the dangers she had chosen to face, but the fiercer power of human destructiveness. In the contest between a cat and the forces of nature, Tiger won.

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