Perhaps it is because she was so near death, but black cat’s appetites are enormous: in black cat we are witnessing the redressing of a balance.
She eats three or four times as much as grey cat, and when she is on heat, she is formidable. Grey cat was luxuriously amorous. Black cat is obsessed. For four or five days, the humans watch, awed, this singleminded force of nature. Black cat announces the onset of her need for a mate in a frenzied purring, rolling and demand to be petted. She makes love to our feet, to the carpet, to a hand. Black cat yowls around the garden. Black cat complains at the top of her voice that it is not enough, not enough – and then, sex no longer being her concern, she is a mother, full time and a hundred per cent, with never an impulse towards anything else.
The father of black cat’s first litter was a new cat, a young tabby. That summer there was a new population of cats. The vivisectionists, or the cat-fur suppliers, had made another haul in our block, and six cats had disappeared overnight.
There were available: the handsome tabby; a long-haired black-and-white cat; a white cat with grey patches. She wanted the tabby, and she got the tabby. With supplements. Towards the end of the second day of her being on heat, I observed the following scene.
Black cat had been under the tabby for some hours. She came running in to the hall, wanting to be chased. There she rolled over, waiting. The tabby came in after her, looked at her, licked her, then as she rolled and coaxed, pinned her down with a paw as if to say, be quiet for a minute. Indulgent, affectionate, there he crouched, pinning down the importunate black cat. Under his paw she wriggled and pleaded. Be quiet, said he. Then she wriggled free, and chased out into the garden, looking back to see if he followed. He did follow, taking his time. In the garden waited the black-and-white cat. Our cat rolled and enticed the tabby, who sat, apparently indifferent, licking his fur. But he was watching her. She began to roll in front of the black-and-white cat. The tabby cat went over and crouched by the pair, watching. He sat there, observing, while black cat mated with black-and-white cat. It was a short mating. When black cat got free of her new mate, purely for the purpose of coquetry, tabby cat punished her for infidelity by boxing her ears. He got on top of her himself. At no point did he take any notice of, or punish, the black-and-white cat, who from time to time during those three, four days took a turn with black cat, whose ears got boxed, but without much emphasis.
Cats have a double uterus, like rabbits. Black cat had six kittens. There was one greyish kitten, two black ones, three black-and-white, so it looked as if the second-string mate had more effect on the kittens than the favoured tabby.
Like grey cat, black cat is very far from the natural law which says kittens should be born in a dark hidden place. She likes to have kittens in a room which is always inhabited. At that time, the room at the top of the house was used by a girl who was studying for examinations, and therefore mostly in. Black cat chose her leather chair, and gave birth while grey cat watched. Once or twice grey cat climbed up on the arm of the chair, and put down a paw to touch a kitten. But in this area, the maternal, black cat is sure of herself and commands grey cat, who was made to get down.
The kittens were born properly, neatly, and with dispatch. As usual we went through the awful business, as there appeared one, two, three, four, five, six kittens, of hoping that each one would be the last, hoping that just this once she might have two, perhaps three. As usual we decided that three would be enough, we would dispose of the rest, and then, when they were clean, standing up, front paws on mamma’s chest, vigorously nursing while she purred and was proud of herself, decided that we could not possibly kill them.
Unlike grey cat, she hated to leave them; and was best pleased where there were four or five people around the chair, admiring her. When grey cat yawns, accepting homage, she is insolent, languid. Black cat, among kittens, told she is clever and beautiful, yawns happily, without self-consciousness, very pink mouth and pink tongue against the black, black fur.
Black cat, mother, is fearless. When there are kittens in the house, and other cats invade, black cat hurls herself down the stairs and rushes screeching after them: they go pelting off and over the walls.
But grey cat, if an unwelcome cat appears, will growl and threaten and warn until a human comes. Then, supported, she rushes after the intruder – but not before. If nobody comes, she waits for black cat. Black cat attacks; after her, grey cat. Black cat trots back to the house, purposeful, busy, mission accomplished; grey cat, coward, saunters back, stops to lick her fur, then screams defiance from behind human legs, or a door.
Grey cat, when black cat is occupied with kittens, is almost, not quite, restored to herself. She strolls around the bed at night, choosing her favoured place, not under the sheet now, or on my shoulder, but in the angle behind the knees, or against the curve of the feet. Grey cat licks my face, delicately, looks briefly out of the window at the night, acknowledging tree, moon, stars, winds, or the amours of other cats from which she is now infinitely removed, then settles down. In the morning, when she wishes me to wake, she crouches on my chest, and pats my face with her paw. Or, if I am on my side, she crouches looking into my face. Soft, soft touches of her paw. I open my eyes, say I don’t want to wake. I close my eyes. Cat gently pats my eyelids. Cat licks my nose. Cat starts purring, two inches from my face. Cat, then, as I lie pretending to be asleep, delicately bites my nose. I laugh and sit up. At which she bounds off my bed and streaks downstairs – to have the back door opened if it is winter, to be fed, if it is summer.
Black cat descends from the top of the house, when she thinks it is time to get up, and sits on the floor looking at me. Sometimes I become conscious of the insistent stare of her yellow eyes. She gets up on to the bed. Grey cat softly growls. But black cat, supported by her nest of kittens, knows her rights and is not afraid. She goes across the foot of the bed, and up the other side, near the wall, ignoring the grey cat. She sits, waiting. Grey cat and black cat exchange long green and yellow stares. Then, if I don’t get up, black cat jumps neatly, right over me, and on to the floor. There she looks to see if the gesture has wakened me. If it hasn’t, she does it again. And again. Grey cat, then contemptuous of black cat’s lack of subtlety, shows her how things should be done: she crouches to pat my face. Black cat, however, cannot learn the finesse of grey cat: she is impatient of it. She does not know how to pat a face into laughter, or how to bite, gently, mockingly. She knows that if she jumps over me often enough, I will wake up and feed her, and then she can get back to her kittens.
I have watched her trying to copy grey cat. When grey cat lies stretched out for admiration and we say Pretty cat, pppprrreeetty cat, black cat flops down beside her, in the same position. Grey cat yawns; black cat yawns. Grey cat then pulls herself along under the sofa on her back; and now black cat is defeated, she can’t do this trick. So she goes off to her kittens, where, she knows quite well, we come and admire her too.
Grey cat was turning into a hunter. This was not in pursuit of food. Her hunting is at no time connected with food – that is food considered as a substance to nourish, rather than as a remark, or statement, about her emotions.
One weekend I had forgotten to buy the fresh rabbit which by then was the only thing she would eat. There was tinned cat food. Grey cat, when she is hungry, sits, not in the food corner, black cat’s lowly place, but across the kitchen in her place. She never miaows for food. She sits near an imaginary saucer, looking at me. If I take no notice, she comes across, weaves about my legs. If I still take no notice, she jumps up, paws on my skirt. Then, she gently nips my calf. As a final comment, she goes to black cat’s saucer, turns her back on it, and scratches imaginary dirt over it, saying that as far as she is concerned, it is excrement.
But there was no rabbit in the refrigerator. I opened the refrigerator, while she sat close, waiting, then shut it again, in order to say there was nothing in it to interest her, and if she was really hungry, she would have to eat tinned food. She did not understand, and sat herself by the non-existent saucer. I
