The arrival

In which Harry Cat is adopted into the establishment and makes a space for himself.

Harry arrived on the scene in 1990, shortly after our first Christmas at the Welsh cottage. There was an element of sadness in the search for a new kitten because he was needed to fill a gap in the family that had been left by the passing of Henna. It was a big gap, and, to be honest, I didn't think there was a cat on earth that could fill it. I was wrong.

Anyway, there I was, motoring around the Welsh lanes, visiting all my neighbours and asking the same question, and getting much the same answer.

"Have you any spare kittens around the place?"

This may sound strange, but not so if I tell you that all my neighbours were farmers. Welsh farmers, as you'll find in many other rural places, keep a family of cats in and around the farm buildings to keep the rodent population under control. They are strictly working animals but, in the main, strong and sturdy and resistant to disease. Natural selection takes care of that.

"No, John. It's the wrong time of year for kittens. You can have any of the cats, though!"

But, no, it had to be a kitten. Milly-Molly-Mandy would eat a grown up cat, and poor lonely Jones needed a kitten.

I was on the point of giving up and starting to trawl the local cat breeders for a pedigree cat when I had the bright idea of phoning Tom, the local artist.

"Tom? Do you have any kittens going spare?"

"Well, there is Leopold. Why don't you come up and see him? He's a little old for a kitten but he's very pretty."

Oh well, nothing ventured.

Tom's studio was the largest of a ramshackle collection of buildings on a windy hill overlooking the next valley but one. When I say "largest", I really mean "huge". Dark and cavernous, it's stuffed with mysterious survivors of past projects and the kind of collectable that only an artist would give room to. Part of the collection was a tribe of miscellaneous cats who "just turned up".

A freezing wind caught me as I stepped out of the car. At that point I nearly chickened out and hopped back into the warm but...

Creaking a side door open I walked in. To be absolutely honest with you I didn't much like this place. I'd attended a few poetry readings in the far end of the building, where an enormous wood burner created an occasional pool of almost-warmth, but the passage through the collection was reminiscent of one of those cobwebby horror movies. You know, the one where the hero walks into the dark and is the only one who doesn't know for a certainty that something horrid is going to leap out?

"TOM!" I thundered. Well, anyway, I did my best to thunder. The accumulations swallowed my voice up and gave back a feeble little "t-t-tom!"

"Down here, John!" came Tom's cheerful voice.

I made my way along to a point about three-quarters through the building, to find Tom painting something that looked like a dustbin on a bad dust day. Better not to ask.

It was at this point that I became aware of a scarcity of cat. Not a cat in sight.

"Hang on a tick and I'll get the mob in," said Tom, spooning a great dollop of cat food out of a tin into a huge dish. He placed it on the floor and rattled the spoon in the tin, warning me to "Stand well back!"

And with a furry rush some dozen or so of cats, large and small appeared from all directions to converge on the dish.

First of these was a beautiful, healthy little tabby boy, perhaps six months old. He was by far the smallest, but he was also the fastest - he got to the dish first, and held his own amongst the crowd, stuffing merrily away until all the food was gone.

"That's Leopold," said Tom.

I crouched down, held out a finger to him, said hello, and, while the other cats crept away, Leopold leapt on my lap, twisted his head round to peer up at me, and I was lost.

"Come on, puss," I said, as I popped him on to the seat beside me and started the car. "Behave yourself, though. Oh, and you're not going to be called Leopold. I'll think of a better name." The car purred off, heat whispered out of the vent, and little puss sniffed, almost smiled, and wriggled in the comfort of it. He behaved for all the world as if he'd never been warm before.

That was when I noticed the little knot of fleas disporting themselves on the puss-cat's head. "Oh, oh! Flea treatment first!"

When we got home I stood outside the kitchen door, kitten clutched firmly, and yelled for the other human. "Pass me out the flea spray."

Out popped a hand, proffering the spray. Puss was in for a treat. I took him into the woodshed and gave him a thorough dosing. Now, normally, when you spray a cat, he'll give you a real bad time, to say the least of it. Not this puss. No. He wrinkled his nose, but, blow me down, he cooperated. He seemed to realize the necessity of the operation. Every inch of him got dosed, every nook and all the little crannies, then he stood still while I rubbed him down, and I swear he almost smiled at me in gratitude.

In the kitchen, I put him down and he made a beeline for the range, settled down in a neat curl, looked up, and purred. A lot.

"OK, he's pretty. What's his name?"

"Harry."

The name popped out of my head, just like that.

Harry looked at me sideways. He still does.

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