A cat, the garden, a tree and me

I visited the Garden Centre in Spring and saw the Japanese Acer, a lone tree, cheap and straggly with discoloured leaves. So I bought it. I planted it in the hard Somerset soil.

By summer, the Acer was shooting towards the starling-filled sky, growing straight and tall with branches reaching out in every direction.

In early autumn, I came across a tortoiseshell in a rusty car in a field near my allotment. Both the car and the cat had been abandoned. She was thin and tailless, probably dumped because of her condition, as she had three kittens. Although the kittens were rehomed, no one wanted the mother. Hesitantly, I took her home and called her Polly after my grandmother.

Polly and the Acer became firm friends. She climbed it every day and never needed a fireman to rescue her. Her tortoiseshell coat provided a perfect camouflage. So even though one moment she could not be seen, when her tin was banged for dinner, Polly would scramble through the leaves, jump onto the gazebo, then leap on the sundial and race across the grass to receive her reward. In an instant, she changed from being a small panther to appearing as gentle as a miniature panda.

Polly and the Acer grew up and grew old together. In many ways, she was still a feral cat and remained untamed at heart. While she was happy to eat indoors and be fussed when it suited her, she was happiest in the garden. It was her natural sanctuary and territory. So woe betide any animal that wandered into her garden, as she would hurl herself at a cat, dog or a hedgehog with such fury that the trespasser was glad to escape.

Night after night, she would lift her right paw, point to the door and go out. Whatever kind of night it was, summer or winter, it did not matter. She had an atavistic need to sleep beneath the stars.

We are often blind to the truth until it is too late. Polly suddenly grew thin and frail before my eyes. One day, she looked at me with pleading eyes and howled such that it all but reached my soul. Voltaire was right in recognising his cat’s soul was the same as his own.

With a heavy heart that was quietly breaking, I took her to the vet. I never saw Polly alive again. I brought her home. Wrapped in her old favourite chewed blanket, I buried her beneath the Acer. Her grave was stained with rain and sprinkled with my tears.

Now I close my eyes and see a link between an abandoned cat, an unruly garden and a thirsty tree. The life-rings and roots of each one match and reach my own. Long after my bones have grown cold, they will find a route to Polly, the garden, the tree and me.

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