Christmas Memoire

Once upon a time, back when my husband was still alive and we were first married, and my son was still a dream, I had a cat called Lord Peter Wimsey. He was argent on sable and a good mouser. In fact he was more than just a mouser, he hunted everything. He brought us rats, mice, birds and moles. And once he even caught a seagull, but that has nothing to do with this story.

My husband trained people in software and was often home late. It was the run up to Christmas and I was alone. The Christmas tree stood in the corner, bright and cheerful, and I was thinking about going to bed. I had no expectation of seeing my husband before midnight.

It was a dark night and Wimsey must have been sick of being out in the cold, so he brought his catch inside to play with.

Now it’s important to note here that I have a feather phobia. It’s the way the wings flutter on birds, I just can’t stand them inside. I can’t visit aviaries.

Wimsey brought in a blackbird and released it. It lay stunned. I was relaxed about a dead bird. Once he had finished playing, I’d pick it up and give it a burial in the bin. 

Then it twitched. It jumped to its feet and fluttered its wings. I screeched. The bird flew out of the room chased by the cat. Heart pounding in terror I ran out of the house, in my slippers without a coat. I couldn’t go back in there with a bird.

I stood shivering for a few minutes but still I couldn’t make the move back into the house. It would be hours before my husband got home to deal with the dreadful creature. As I stood preparing to freeze to death – everyone would be sorry when they found a frozen statue of me on the doorstep – my neighbour emerged from his house and asked what was wrong.

“There’s a bird in the house. Fluttering!”

I wrapped my shaking hands around my chest. My neighbour bravely entered the house to search for the bird. He looked high and low, and in the end concluded that the cat must have caught it and eaten it. He pointed out the feathers on the carpet and the smug cat washing in the sitting room.

I consented to enter the house again, but I huddled in the sitting – the one room I had seen the bird fly out of, so I knew it wasn’t in there.

When my husband got home, around midnight, I was still curled up in the chair. I poured out my tale of woe. He obligingly searched the whole house again and decreed the house avian free. 

Just then the Christmas tree rustled. The cat, which had been lying in a chair at the base of the tree, sprang to attention. I squealed and cowered in my chair as my brave husband investigated the tree.

Cringing in the tree was a little black bird. Carefully, my husband cupped the bird in his hands and took it outside. 

All the time I had sat in terror of the bird it had perched in terror of me.