Little Figaro – A Story Rediscovered
by Jim Gregory
It was during the early stages of down-sizing –
discarding so much that we had hoarded up as too good to throw away, or things
that had some intrinsic use or value – that Mary discovered five pages of
hand-written notes that told the story of our first pet or master, depending on
how such matters are regarded.
We were into the second year of our shared lives when the story began of
an important part of our married life.
Mary had penned the caption:
An Elegy in Prose for Little
Figaro. Written by Jamie who first
brought him home.
He was very young when we first
met. He was past the stage of
being a little ball of fluff, but was, as yet, still quite small. Our meeting took place at the back door
of the farm house at Gayfer’s Vineyard, near Chiltern; not many miles distant
from our flat.
On this day, although he was surrounded by his brothers and sisters, he
seemed to me to be just a little lonely but it was his eyes, which captivated
me – tiny orbs of the clearest blue that were to change colour as he grew
older.
That day I had been hunting the bobtail and when my walk was over I came
back to where he was and it was there that I was tempted. “Would you like one of these kittens?”
I was asked. I would, but would it
be possible. I decided to risk
it. I picked him up and off we set
for home. I was driving our first
car, an 8hp Ford Anglia with a soft top.
Without anything better to put the kitten into, I had placed him inside
my shirt and with his head poking out of the open neck, he was able to look
about as we drove home along the highway.
Mary liked him from the start and straight away he ate and drank with us
and made himself at home in our upstairs flat.
He was well behaved and rather quiet on his first day, whereupon Mary
said, “What is the good of a cat that doesn’t play?” How deceived she was, for then he began to gain a momentum
that increased day by day.
The big job of naming our new arrival was then tackled. Several of my suggestions were
scorned. Then we arrived at
Figaro. Yes, he will be Figaro and
this name has been with us ever since.
Figaro was no longer just a cat, he was one of us. He liked knitting, making the bed, bits
of yarn, a cotton reel, shutting the kitchen door, Mary’s knee, Mary’s dinner,
climbing the loquat tree and when Mary was standing up he liked to climb up my
legs.
At times Little Figaro sprouted horns. He slept in our room, or I should say when he invaded our
hearts so that we yielded enough to let him come in. Once in, we spent the night wondering which of us would be
the next victim of his little games with our toes, or who would receive the icy
stare from the great monarch of number 97.
There were times when I was severely reprimanded by my master, times
when he would resort to brute strength and give me a well-placed cuff in the
eye or on the nose, just to remind me who was boss.
This loveable little dictator stampeded us and over powered our
hearts. There would be nothing
which failed to hold his deepest interest. He would question us on our arrival home from work, asking
us where we had been and what we had been doing. When we were not about he would sit up in the old loquat tree
growing by the back door all day long, observing birds, have occasioned naps to
give him energy for his nocturnal games.
When we were all together in the kitchen, Figaro would then play with
his own things, which consisted of anything to which he had taken a fancy, or
perhaps it would be Mary’s knitting.
How Figaro loved Mary’s knitting.
He would take the ball of yarn in his mouth then up onto the table and
over the other side, then around the table legs. It would not normally finish there, but someone had to
rescue the yarn.
With these pranks he could make you growl, but could also melt your
heart by giving you a kiss which was always administered when you came home, or
at night, or when there was a family H & M session on. This he did by reaching up and placing
his nose on mine or Mary’s. At
bedtime he warmed up for some fun with me. He would look at me to give me the signal, then off up the
passage at full speed to hide in the bedroom. My job was to find and carry him back to the kitchen. This operation would be repeated two or
three times and then he would stay quiet for a short while. It was a quiet that didn’t last very
long and when we were in bed he would then play Knick-knock with his cotton reel
that dangled on a string from the bedroom door handle.
These are just a few of the things I remember about Little Figaro and my
purpose in writing them down is to help the frail human mind in its job of
remembering our small friend, a part of our family that we will never forget.
We always called him Little Figaro because he never grew up to be a big
cat. For, at the beginning of the
month of May he sickened, then on Sunday May 4th at 5.00pm he left
us form a happier home.
Now there is no one to help Mary make the bed, nor to wave goodbye to me
with his tiny paws, but we always remember Little Figaro.
