Perkins
Mr Perkins was different - younger, smaller and lazier than the others.
Alfonse, half Siamese, had become a proud and prodigious hunter. Most mornings I would discover the fruits of his night’s work laid out on the patio. Normally, he brought only mice, except once I found him, sitting proud as punch, beside the corpse of a large rat.
Jericho’s taste was birds. She would lie stock still, beneath a bush, brown fur camouflaged against dark earth awaiting her intended prey. Then she moved like lightening. A vicious paw would shoot out as some hapless creature was snatched, pinned in her iron grasp.
Mr Perkins brought home no trophies, not even a sparrow. He spent his nights on my bed, purring contentedly or sleeping before disappearing sometime around daybreak. His sleek black body, white bib and paws were often seen to promenade idly down the path - a cat at a loose end. Only rarely did I see him scale the fence or climb a tree.
It all changed one warm Saturday in May, I’d been gardening, working hard, planting out potatoes. It would be nearly five o’clock, and I was about to call it a day, when I heard a scrabbling, scratching noise from the fence. Glancing up, I saw Mr Perkins’ head appear, looking down at me. In his mouth he carried a fully grown rabbit, nearly as large as himself.
‘Drop it’ I shouted. Then, when he hesitated I bellowed; ‘Put that thing down. Now! Drop it.’
Mr Perkins let go the petrified animal which thudded to the ground, where it at once began digging for its life, making good its escape beneath our hedge. Mr Perkins eyed me up: his expression, one of total incredulity said; ‘What’s wrong? Why don’t you want it?’
‘That’s the fourth one that little blighter’s gone for this week.’ Old George Moseley, our next door neighbour, looked down from his precarious perch on a tall stepladder, his pruning shears pausing their attack on an overgrown laurel.
‘What him!’ I exclaimed, shocked to the core.
‘That’s him all right.’ George laughed. ‘The butcher of Balmoral Terrace. See him in action most mornings. Four rabbits he’s bagged this week - meat and drink to him. Normally devours them behind my shed. If I didn’t clear his mess up, the place would be a charnel house. Fur, bones and innards, that’s all he leaves. No flesh – you can bet your bottom dollar he’s scoffed the lot.’
That was not the only change. Mr Perkins, who normally only picked at his food, now began taking the lion’s share, seeing off Alphonse and Jericho. His stomach began to grow. Concerned, I took him to the vet, an experienced man, who examined Mr Perkins before giving me a knowing grin.
‘That cat is pregnant.’ You could have knocked me down with a feather.
Sure enough, barely a week later, Perkins delivered four tiny kittens in a cardboard box beside the boiler.
I’d got that cat all wrong. From then onwards it was Mrs Perkins!
© Stephen Osborne