The Story of Fester Cat: How One Remarkable Cat Changed Two Men's Lives - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Paul Magrs is the author of many books, written for all ages and in many different genres, including the Adventures of Brenda and Effie and numerous Doctor Who novels, radio plays, and short stories. However, this is his first foray into memoir. He taught novel writing in the MA program in Creative Writing at UEA, and then at Manchester Metropolitan. Paul lives in Manchester, England, with his partner, Jeremy, and is now a full-time writer.

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Ungow!

I read a cat book a couple of years ago. Paul asked me to review one or two on his blog for him. He was like, “Look, Fester, you spend all that time lying on my chest when I’m reading. When I’m on the bed settee in the Beach House at the bottom of our garden, I’m reading and you’re lying on me. I’ve got to hold the book up over your head because you’re lying there, as close as you can get, until our noses are touching just about, and your paws are right under your chin.”

“Yeah, so what?” I said.

And he goes, “Well, while you’re lying about, maybe you could read some of these cat books for me. Maybe review them on my blog? It would be good to get a proper cat’s point of view.”

Well, I am a proper cat. That’s very true. I’m a cat!

And I’ve been one for quite a long time, as it turns out. Last time I went to see Mr. Joe the hairdresser I had a peek at my notes and they were saying there that I was probably about eighteen. Eighteen! What’s that? About a hundred and fifty in human years? Probably. But I’m not one of them who goes on as if they’re old, if you know what I mean? I’m nimble and trim and I can still run about at a fair clip. So, you know, people never really know my age.

Anyhow, I know Mr. Joe’s not really the hairdresser. I know he’s a vet. In a little shop on the Stockport Road. These two I live with—this daft pair—they hark on that I’m going to the hairdresser’s when they have to take me for pills or to give blood or have a checkup, whatever. I don’t know how the hairdresser thing started. Oh, maybe because he shaves a patch of fur under my chin to take blood (right in my Special Spot, as it happens, just as if Mr. Joe knows it’s the most delicious spot to have tickled).

So, Paul was like, “Review some cat books why don’t you, Fester?” And then he suggested this one about a cat who got on buses. He waited in the queue outside his owner’s house every day, apparently. And then jumped aboard the bus and went all over the city and people got to know him. Sounded pretty daft to me. You’d never catch me doing that. And then at the end some awful taxi driver runs the poor devil over and that’s the end of that. Well, I blame the owner, really. She had a houseful of cats and didn’t look after her commuting cat enough. I mean, I hear that the buses and some people round here can be pretty rough. No way would Paul and Jeremy let me get on those unsupervised. And I wouldn’t want to.

I don’t think this book about the bus cat was set in Manchester, though. I reckon it was pretty far away from here. Some dump down south where I’ve never been.

And this is the important part—this old wife who wrote the book—she was all pretty mawkish and stuff because her cat was dead and everything. She was full of regrets like, “Oh, why did I let him get on public transport unsupervised every day!” etc.

But then, in her book, she has these bits where the bloomin’ cat writes his own chapters! He writes letters from some kind of heaven . . . !

I mean, what’s that about?

He was on about sitting on the rainbow bridge and sending these letters back to his beloved owner and all her friends and—oh yeah—the readers of her bloomin’ awful book.

Rainbow bridge, my bum.

I thought back then, when I was reading that book and reviewing it for Paul’s blog, it won’t be like that. No decent cat would think very much of a rainbow bridge. I certainly wouldn’t walk on such a thing. Garish and not very solid.

Down the middle of our garden we’ve got a plank. I dunno where it came from. Jeremy’s always got bits and pieces of DIY and gardening stuff lying about, which is great. Anyway, for as long as we can all remember, this plank has been Fester’s plank. Nowadays it’s laid across the lawn diagonally between the shaded walk from the terrace, beside the pond wall, and it goes all the way to the Beach House. It’s a long, slightly muddy, sun-faded piece of wood that is great for scratching your claws and stretching out your body on.

And what I do is, I sit right in the middle of it. When the sun is full upon it I lie there and soak up all the light and heat and sometimes I doze, but what I do mostly is sit there and from my spot on that plank I can see the whole garden. I can see Paul working or reading in the Beach House or I can look back at the terrace where Jeremy might be reading the paper at the patio table, or diddling about with shovels and plants. He likes to move plants around and wear old clothes that he gets really filthy. He digs up all sorts of interesting stuff.

Also from there I can see the back of the house and the open windows and doors. The kitchen door is open at the top of the back stairs and any moment I like I can trot back down the garden and have a snack at Fester’s feeding station. These two fellas make up gags about Fester’s running buffet, but we all know it’s important I have food there all the time, just whenever I want it. It’s Fester’s smorgasbord. But I’ve got a thyroid problem, right? That’s what all the hairdresser stuff is about.

I can see the pond and maybe those frogs gadding about. I’ve got easy access to Poo Corner, should the mood take me. And I look up into the branches of the magnolia and the larch. Watching for those squirrels and what they get up to. I’ve a complicated relationship with the squirrels running rampant all over the trees of where we live in Levenshulme, but on the whole I guess they’re all right. They’re just getting by, I suppose. These are tough days for everyone, I’ve heard people say. The squirrels have to get along and survive, same as everyone else. So I’ve given up trying to catch them.

So the point is—my plank. I’m a materialist, I’m a realist. I don’t believe in rainbow bridges and cats sitting up there in cat heaven writing letters home after they’re dead. I don’t believe they write to their owners and say, “Blessings from the celestial beyond from your moggy who still loves you, even if you did let him get run over by a bloomin’ cabdriver.”

I think, if it’s like anything, it’ll be like sitting here, on my plank, with the whole world spread out around me. From here I can see nearly all of my world, and I’m happy because the sun’s out a bit today—it’s the start of spring. It’ll be my eighth summer here in this house with these two. And from here I can watch them doing the things they like to do.

And if it ever comes to it and I have to die, if my life turns into anything at all, I’d be happy enough if it was just this. Me being in the garden forever, with this daft pair, like this.

Oh, with the sound of that seventies radio station drifting out from the kitchen. They’ve got that on all the bloomin’ time. I guess I’ve been brainwashed and now I love all those silly songs as much as they do. At some point I’ll tell you about Cat Discos at Lunchtime.

I’ll tell you the whole lot. I might as well, mightn’t I? Doing those scathing reviews of other people’s cat books on Paul’s blog has given me the taste for expressing myself. Writing’s pretty easy, I reckon, whatever that dafty says.

So I’ll tell you everything I can remember about our lives here together.

Ungow!!

Mystery

Although I’m not like the cats in those books, today I feel like...