Grayson & Otto

Otto and I have just had breakfast and we are looking out of the kitchen window at a stunning sunrise.

‘Isn’t it lovely’, I remark.

‘Nothing is lovely if you can’t eat it’, is his ungracious reply.

Otto, who is 8, is always hungry. Even when he has just finished the generous breakfast I have just put down for him. His twin brother, Grayson, is lean and picky. Otto is, shall we say, stout and greedy.

The two cats get fed together. Grayson picks at his meal, grazing lightly, and pauses. ‘I was told to chew everything 40 times’, he says. Otto is head down in his bowl, eating as if he has not been fed for a month. ‘Chewing is for sissies’, he splutters, mouth half full. Then he’s across the floor to Grayson’s bowl, who with a sigh but without other comment, steps aside to let his brother eat half of his share, too.

If I stand over them, I can actually ensure that Grayson gets his fair share, but since he doesn’t seem that bothered, I rarely act as chief of the food-police.

The relationship between the brothers is not always too clear. At mealtimes you would hardly doubt that Otto is dominant. ‘What I say, goes,’ he tells Grayson, who meekly nods – ‘if you say so’ – and makes way.

But at other times Grayson, a smaller, lighter, mackerel tabby, picks a fight with his black-and-white relative. ‘Put ‘em up, fatty. Let’s see what you’re made of.’ It could be play-fighting, but there are low growls and high squeals and when I witness it, I break them up, like a teacher in the playground.

Grayson appeared to be the runt of the litter when I first saw him: tabby-grey and tiny. Eight kittens curled up with their mother and too young to be separated. We were not in the market for a cat, which was just as well for their owner had homes for all eight. The ‘phone rang a few days later. One of the would-be carers had backed out and could we step in? Several weeks later we were entreated to take his brother when another recipient defaulted.

For eight years these two have rubbed along well enough most of the time like the loving siblings they are. They still curl up together although now they don’t both fit into the snuggle-bed we bought for them when they were kittens. Whatever the reason for the aggressive spats, they seem temporary and all is soon forgiven.

Grayson is the better hunter. He will sit for hours glaring at some spot in the undergrowth, sure that edible fun will emerge. When it does, he brings it in through the cat flap to show me what a clever boy he is, making a distinctive sort of trill sound: ‘Look at me, aren’t I skilful. Watch me bat this thing around some more. No, don’t turn away in disgust. This is fun’.

Otto, on the other hand, is rarely seen with wildlife. There was a time when he would leap high in the air, snatching at a bird perched on the peanuts. ‘I’m in training for the Olympic bird jump’, he would tell me, poised and crouching low in the flower bed next to the feeders. But not anymore. Half his brother’s share of food and gravity have taken their toll.  Now he watches enviously as Grayson crunches through the catch-of-the-day, leaving only little jewel-like orbs of spleen on the carpet for me to squelch on when, mistakenly, I come downstairs barefoot.

It is with very mixed feelings that I have to deal with those poor creatures which are caught, brought in and are then released or somehow escape. A bird perches high up in the kitchen, still in shock and entirely out of reach. Cats vanquished and all windows wide open whatever the weather, we have to wait hours for the frightened avian to recover enough to find its way out.  At other times a mauled four-legged-furry-thing crouches, terrified behind the cooker or a cupboard, unreachable by cat or human. I cannot remember if I have ever managed to save the life of such a refugee. Sometimes they cannot be retrieved. Months later during spring-cleaning desiccated remains are found. And if I do manage to extricate one from its hideout, it either scuttles to another safe haven or into the jaws of the former aggressor.

From the gusto with which anything Grayson’s size or smaller is devoured, you would never imagine that he and his brother could be picky eaters. But just as we are congratulating ourselves that we have, at last, found a food brand they really like, they turn away from the feeding bowls in unison like a couple on ‘Strictly’ giving me a reproachful look. ‘Do you really expect us to eat this muck?’

‘But you did yesterday, and the day before - in fact for a whole month.’

‘You just don’t get it do you?’ they tell me in chorus. ‘You don’t eat the same food for every meal every day, do you.’ It is not a question.

‘No, but you have four delicious flavours, which will delight you. It says so on the pouches.’

‘Pah! Marketing slush. We expected better from you,’ and they exit through the cat flap, presumably to make their own catering arrangements.

In fact, one or other of them sometimes does possibly find better provisions elsewhere. It is not unknown for either of them to disappear for a few days. It happens every year when the warmer weather arrives. Reasonably regular it may be but we still panic when it happens. Several times I have been on the point of plastering local lamp-posts with ‘Lost’ photo-flyers when a somewhat haughty tenant reappears with that smug air of someone who has actually enjoyed the anguish he has caused. ‘That’ll teach you to operate a low-quality canteen,’ I am told. ‘I’ve been dining at a gourmet restaurant. It is so much nicer. I have only come back because you look so pathetic when I am gone’.

This medley of joy and anguish probably goes with the territory for every pet-owner. Today Grayson is extended on the back of the sofa, soaking up the sunlight coming in through the window. He has been like that, unmoving, for hours. His brother is upstairs, similarly disported where, under the floor, central heating pipes warm the carpet. Contentment personified. But two days ago Mr Greedy was off his food, uncharacteristically ignoring feeding times and standing with his head slightly lowered. ‘Is it something you’ve eaten?’ I ask him. He glowers at me reproachfully. ‘Don’t talk about food, thank you very much. I don’t wish to discuss it.’ This is not his usual demeanour.

Then there are the slicks of vomit, left camouflaged on the carpet for you to discover just as guests are arriving. We don’t know which one has been ill or why… Fur balls? A rodent too many?  Occasionally the slick may not be vomit but something else: I’m too disgusted to properly investigate. Out comes the scrubbing brush and the disinfectant.

‘When were you last de-wormed’, I ask Grayson who looks back at me reproachfully. ‘You’re the one keeping the diary, not me,’ he says, all superior. Fortunately, they have not yet connected the question to the forthcoming ordeal, or else they would probably be off again for several days.

Worming your cat used to be a fun game in which you tried to push a small white pill into their squeezed open mouth. ‘OK,’ Grayson would say. ‘All gone’. Was it Hell. Twenty seconds later a slimy tablet would emerge from the corner of his mouth. ‘Don’t you know how much these remedies are costing me?’ I would ask. A blank expression. They have no interest in such mercenary matters. That has changed now, ever since DrugMyCat.com introduced an even more expensive remedy which comes in the form of a tiny pipette of thick liquid. This needs to be squeezed out onto the skin under the fur at the back of the neck of your patient. It is a two-person job, holder and squeezer, which is performed every three months. When completed the cat in question looks back at you like someone with early onset Alzheimer’s. ‘I remember now, you’ve done this before haven’t you. I didn’t much like it last time, either’.  ‘It’s for your own good. You’ll feel better without those nasty worms in your gut,’ I reassure Otto. ‘Worms, Schworms’, he says, suddenly Yiddish for the day.

The flea treatment is a similar process. And just to prove that you are fussing too much, they continue to scratch themselves afterwards.

Wouldn’t be nice if sometimes they showed a little appreciation.  They live in a comfortable home with adequate heating and generous provisions and never have to pay a penny in rent. They roam the garden and further afield at will. When, occasionally, a competitive feline enters their territory, they can rely on the landlord/landlady to take appropriate action. You might have thought that this was idyllic, but on the rare occasion when their domain is visited by something as terrible as a dog-owner with a pet or, almost as bad, a young child, they will slouch off to some secret observatory, where they will stay for hours, long after the invaders have departed, exchanging anecdotes about the unfairness of life and the careless cruelty of their owners. ‘Whose house do they think this is, anyway?’ Otto asks his brother. ‘I know. I’ve told him. We ought to be consulted first’, Grayson replies. ‘It is so unfair’.

And of course, when they do slink back, it is straight into the routine of the food critic. ‘Not this muck again’, says Grayson, picking lightly at his bowl. ‘Prison rations,’ splutters Otto, ‘do you want all yours?’