The phone rang one Monday morning while John and I were still in bed. A lady told us that a neighbour of hers had, while walking his dog, found a large charcoal cat that had been hit by a car.
Banjo was mewing pitifully at the mouth of the lane where he had been left. I brought his bed and he managed to climb into it. Sherpa watched as John drove out of the gate, with me sitting in the front passenger seat holding the box with her brother on my knee. I assumed that she must be feeling very distressed.
At the veterinary clinic Banjo was sedated, X-rayed and found to have a broken femur. The following day he had an operation to insert a metal plate and on Thursday he was discharged.
Sherpa came to meet the car. She had been very happy having the house to herself while Banjo was in hospital, but I expected her to feel pleased that her brother was still alive. Instead, when she caught sight of a cat with shaved and stitched legs and that smelt strongly of antiseptics, she hissed and disappeared. Terror kept her away from the patient for several weeks.
When Sherpa in turn had to have her tail amputated, she received no sympathy from Banjo. Her hostility to him during his recovery was fully reciprocated.
Cats are very different to us aren’t they? Since I started to write this I remembered an event from a time when I was twelve and a first-year pupil at grammar school. One Saturday afternoon I walked with a friend to visit someone she knew who was a patient at the local hospital. Years before, I had happily played in the grounds of this hospital while siblings were having arms encased in plaster of Paris, but on this occasion someone was burning rubber and that smell connected with illness disturbed me so much I avoided the road for a long time sfterwards.
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