The cats have gone

or should I say "My neighbours have moved out"?

I did not really know them but the neighbours on one side of me in my new abode have moved out. They were renting and the rent was high. He is a policeman and often works night shifts. It is a stressful sort of job at the best of times so the fact they have "split" does not really surprise me. I knew there was tension there. 

They had two cats. I liked the cats. We would "talk" to each other through the window as I passed. They spent a lot of time sitting on the windowsills looking out. 

"We have one cat each," J... informed me when he came to ask if he could fill my rubbish bin with their rubbish. (I told him he could provided he put it out in the street ready for collection.) 

I wonder about this. Will the cats miss one another. They never seemed to fight...or not that I heard them.

It also made me wonder about other animals missing their companions, including human companions. They do of course. I do not care what anyone says because I am certain they do grieve. They know humans not simply as strange two legged creatures but as individuals. 

When the Black Cat left to live somewhere else she left two cats with our parents. The cats did not seem too concerned about this. They had each other and that large and lively dog who chased them was gone. I was in and out at intervals and the cats seemed to know me but they were strongly attached to Mum (who fed them) and the Senior Cat (who would play "fetch" the table tennis ball with them). They would wait for them to come home.

When I moved back in they had an extra human to care for and they did. Their attention would be divided between us. All three laps were there for sleeping on. When the Senior Cat came home from hospital after quite major surgery the cats watched over him and Mum and I saw very little of them while he spent most of the time in or on his bed. 

Eventually, as happens, one of them died of old age. The younger cat spent hours wandering and staring out of windows. One night he gave the most heart-wrenching howl. It was as if he had finally realised that his mate was not coming back. He attached himself much more firmly to me. I put a towel on the end of the bed. As I worked for years in the corner of the bedroom (not a good arrangement but the only one available) he could spend hours there on "his towel". He "slept with one eye open" most of the time. If I left the house he would almost always be waiting for me. Mum would say, "I don't know how he knew but he went out to wait for you." Surely he could not hear me pedalling from afar? Perhaps he could.

He was almost twenty-one when he died. We all wept. I still miss him. Now I will miss the small "conversations" with the other two cats but not in the same way. I really did not know them as well as I knew our own. How could I?  I just hope they are not missing each other in the same way. 

I warned J... "You will have to spend more time with your cat." He gave me a rueful smile and said, "Yes, I have already discovered that." Cats know.