Read Paw Prints in the Moonlight Online

Authors: Denis O'Connor

Paw Prints in the Moonlight (3 page)

BOOK: Paw Prints in the Moonlight
11.17Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
Grabbing the poker I wrestled the dying fire into an all-warming blaze. Then I embarked upon a course of action. I knew that the kitten needed to be fed as soon as possible. I remembered that somewhere in a copy of
Reader's Digest
I'd read an account of a woman who'd reared an abandoned litter of puppies who were only a few weeks old. Initially, she'd fed them by using a fountain pen to squeeze a kind of milky mixture into their mouths. Surely, I said to myself, I
must have an old fountain pen somewhere. Hurriedly searching through the congested rubbish in the drawers of my desk I retrieved an old Swan fountain pen. In great haste, I flushed out the dried ink sac and removed the pen nib. From the limited resources available to me, I filled the ink sac with some tinned evaporated milk which I fortified with halibut oil squeezed from a gelatine capsule. Next, I heated the mixture by immersing it briefly in a cup of warm water. I hoped that the kitten would accept this milky concoction.
I had never held any living thing which was as fragile as this. Holding the tiny body firmly, I gently opened the diminutive mouth with two of my fingers and, taking the pen sac in my other hand, I squeezed some of the milky solution into its mouth. The resulting reaction was both explosive and at the same time reassuring. The formerly dormant and almost lifeless body went into a convulsion of spluttering and gasping and then a minute pink tongue emerged to the accompaniment of gasps and wheezes. At least the little thing is still alive, I thought as I continued to squeeze some liquid into the tiny mouth. Gaining confidence from this show of life, I set about completing what his late lamented mother had started when I found her.
First of all, I cleaned the kitten all over. With cotton wool buds soaked in warm water I washed it down and cut away the matted tufts from its sparse fur coat. As all cat
lovers know, for cats washing is not only routine care, it is a way of life and I hoped what I was doing would be therapeutic. Soon, I noticed that the kitten's body had begun to tremble and quiver all over with barely audible sneezes and snorting noises as if its whole being was coming alive again. Wet and dishevelled-looking after its bed bath, it presented an endearing picture of frailty and baby-animal innocence.
There were bald patches on its head, hind parts and stomach, while its eyes were gummed shut with semi-hardened pus. In the gentlest way I could, I nursed the little being and then became afraid to do any more in case the attention caused it to go into remission and die on me. Using a hairdryer on a low setting, I dried it as best I could. Then placing it very carefully in front of the fire in a cardboard box lined with a blanket, I retired to my bed, weary and worn out by all the effort and worry of a dramatic night. I slipped at once into a relaxed doze, consoled by the thought that I'd done all I could for the kitten.
As I drifted off I mused upon my emotions which were already becoming attached to this little creature. I had saved it from what was almost certain death twice. Firstly, by freeing its mother from the trap and, secondly, by preventing the vet from putting it down because its chances of survival without a mother were nil. It began to register in my sleepy mind that I had accepted a challenge which would require
enormous luck as well as determination and effort. And then it dawned upon me that I was no longer thinking of the kitten as an ‘it' but as a ‘him'. Too tired to think anymore, I slipped into a deep sleep.
Fortunately, the following day was Saturday which I would normally spend at home. In view of last night's adventures, this was to prove fortunate in the kitten's struggle for survival. As soon as I awoke I remembered everything that had transpired the night before with startling clarity. I wanted to rush out of bed immediately and check that the kitten had not died during the night. I didn't, though, because I was scared of what I might find. As I lay in bed worrying I began to think negative thoughts like those I'd had the night before regarding the immensity of the task facing me. For one thing I very much enjoyed leading an independent life with as few ties and commitments as possible. Having a sick kitten to look after would certainly intrude upon my space and freedom. And ideally the little creature needed good nurturing from his mother for at least another month. ‘Face reality!' I told myself. But the she-cat was no longer with us and I had impulsively, but nonetheless willingly, taken responsibility for at least trying to salvage something worthwhile from the tragedy. It was therefore my job to see it through to some kind of satisfactory conclusion. Resolving to deal sensibly with whatever I would find downstairs, I got out of bed.
There are many advantages to living in an ancient stone cottage with walls which are almost three feet thick. One of these is the insulation from the world outside, not only in terms of sound but also temperature. On the hottest days of summer the inside of the cottage is pleasantly cool, shielded by the thick stone walls from the heat outside. In winter the reverse is true as the heat from the fire is retained by those very same stone walls. Downstairs was still warm from yesterday's fire, giving it a homely atmosphere.
Apprehensively, I approached the box in which I'd placed the kitten. At first I couldn't see him but on closer inspection there he lay: a coiled mite of fur with only the slightest body movements which I took to be his breathing. I felt rewarded beyond my wildest hopes but knew it was too early to expect that everything would be alright.
Feeling really happy, I set about restoring the cottage to good order and soon the fire was blazing and the smell of coffee and grilled bacon filled the air so that everything felt cosy and warm, in sharp contrast to the wintry scenes outdoors. Overnight the weather had grown more severe and temperatures had dropped below freezing. Later, when I replenished the bird-table with the breakfast leftovers, the thermometer near the birdbath read -5
C. Opening the front door to collect the milk required a supreme effort because the windblown snow had frozen and sealed the door edges to the frame during the night. It also required
a big effort to free the bottles from the ice which held them fast. The milkman must have had a superhuman struggle to deliver the milk at all. I was most thankful for his toil.
The open porch had been transformed overnight into an ice house, festooned with long icicles sparkling in the morning sun. Inspecting the frozen bottles of milk I saw that the blue tits had been there before me and had pecked neat little holes in the silver tops. Nearby, in a stand of pine trees across the road, a pair of magpies chittered in annoyance at me. Obviously, they also had their eyes on the milk.
The wintry scenery was breathtaking in its beauty but piercingly cold. The trees drooped under heavy garlands of snow. In addition there was an otherworldliness about everything, cloaked as it was in arctic white. The sound of the traffic was muffled as were the cries of the children sledging on the snowbanks above the river, a happy reminder of my own childhood in winters past.
Returning indoors, the temptation was to huddle up by the fire with a hot drink and observe the snowy wilderness through the glass of the patio door. Rousing myself from the desire to spend the day cosseted as a ‘couch potato' in the armchair by the fireside, I began to address the more immediate problems of rearing the sole survivor of last night's storm.
That day was spent working urgently to save the kitten
from reaching a life-threatening point of no return. I fed him with the fountain pen sac and kept him warm. I washed and cleaned him, stroking him with a cotton wool ball lightly dipped in lukewarm water to mimic his mother's licking and grooming behaviour. During it all I spoke tenderly to him to soothe him and encourage him to live. I did little else but minister to the kitten, even to the point of sitting next to his box, which lay close to the hearth, whilst I was sipping a hot drink. I sat by him, coffee mug in hand, watching him anxiously and speaking to him softly as he slept the day away.
Looking at him as he slept, I was in awe of the capacity of cats to sleep at will and with absolute relaxation. We have created the term ‘catnap' to describe the luxury of a short but reviving sleep, often taken in the comfort of a favourite armchair. For cats, sleeping is not only restful but also a healing process and I fervently hoped that was the case for this kitten. Still, healing takes time. This kitten needed time to sleep in safety, as well as warmth, with food and lots of tender loving care. My cottage had been effectively turned into a nursing home to enable this tiny cat to live as a testament not only to his own instinct for survival, but to my adamant refusal to abandon him and, of course, to my commitment to his care.
I told myself all of this as I retired once more to my bed after a final check that the kitten looked to be sleeping peacefully, apart from occasional brief body spasms. I found
it difficult to sleep that night and kept waking to tiptoe downstairs to keep the fire going and alleviate my anxiety about the kitten. It was similar, I assumed, to looking after a baby or a sick child and I became aware that I was adopting essentially the role of substitute parent.
As I nursed the kitten through these anxious early days of our life together, I reflected on how Owl Cottage fulfilled a long-held ambition of mine to live in the country after enduring several years in London at the start of my career. It had always been my intention to have a pet, most probably a kitten, as soon as I had a house with a garden. My dream of a house and garden had now become a reality but a pet had not been quite so high on my agenda at that particular moment in time.
Since buying and making my home in Owl Cottage over a year ago I had very much enjoyed living alone but it looked as if fate had taken a hand in my affairs. Out of the blue, I now had another life to consider, albeit one that sadly might cease at any moment. This tiny wild creature in just a few hours had made me realize how empty my home life had been without another living thing to care for. I found that I was rapidly changing my mind about being a completely free agent. Indeed, I was growing to like the thought of having another living creature to share my home with. I began to rejoice in the idea, however challenging, of raising this kitten as a pet.
Sunday morning came with a deep winter look about it. All the window panes were frosted over with what as children we called Jack Frost stars. Downstairs the cottage remained warm and I could see in the dim light that there were traces of glowing embers left amongst the ashes. Soon I had the fire roaring up the chimney, bringing the cottage awake again. Now I had to address the question of caring for this very sick kitten still lying precisely where I'd placed him the night before in the cardboard box. As I lifted him out and cradled him in my hand, he felt just like a tiny bag of bones and I despaired at my lack of common sense in hoping that I could nurse him back to health. Feeding him from the pen tube proved a messy business and I doubted whether he got much into his stomach. It was like holding a lifeless sack and several times I thought he had died, only to be reassured by a cough and what passed for a whimper.
There was no apparent progress that day and the kitten just lay in the box, dormant, in a curved foetal position. I really believed that he was dying but I stubbornly persisted in taking him out every few hours to force some of the milky mixture into him. At times I felt like giving up in frustration and I sensed hopelessness in what I was attempting to do. Sometimes I thought about taking him back to the vet so that he could die in peace. But I didn't and I kept thinking, ‘I'll give it one more try,' followed by another and yet another until the whole day passed in a succession of
depressing attempts to achieve the impossible, I concluded that nothing short of a miracle was needed, but then miracles sometimes happen.
I felt very much the same on the Monday morning when I had to shake off all of these feelings in order to go back to work. After feeding and washing him I left the kitten, a black lump of fur in the box near the fire, with the feeling that it had all been a waste of time. In fact, it was with immense relief that I sped off to college. I was finding caring extremely hard going. Once there, I didn't tell any of my colleagues about my traumatic weekend because I couldn't face the strong possibility that all my best efforts to save the kitten were doomed to failure. Now that I was away from the cottage and my patient, I was back in the real world in which the childish fantasy of rearing a sickly, half-dead kitten was farcical even to my mind. With a sinking heart I drove slowly home at the end of the day, afraid at what I might find, with a part of me hoping he had died and so released me from emotional torment.
BOOK: Paw Prints in the Moonlight
11.17Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

The Railway by Hamid Ismailov
Dark Embers by Adams, Tessa
A Boy Called Cin by Cecil Wilde
Inside Animal Minds: The New Science of Animal Intelligence by Virgina Morell, Mary Roach, and Peter Miller
The Reluctant Beauty by Laurie Leclair
Dirty Work by Chelle Bliss, Brenda Rothert