e Wonka – Golly Goes to Heaven
Copyright 2013 Madeleine Masterson
We are trying not to be sad but sad we are. Me and Wonka are sad. Baba, who is a strange sort of ugly beautiful black scruffy cat, used to living outside in all weathers, a hardened, outdoors cat. Well he is now on the inside. He is not sad, he is too busy recovering. Brought back from the brink of death, he is a sight. All the dynamics have changed for us, and we feel different.
All this happened suddenly and we had to catch up with the changes. Talking it through with Wonkit aka Wonka, has definitely helped. He likes to go through the order of events and funnily enough, so do I. Maybe one of the great psychologists trembling on the brink of new domains discovered this one, piecing things through, putting together their new and revolutionary theory – well, it’s most likely they had someone like Wonka bringing them back to reality all the time. Like ‘ who got ill first?’ I am immediately reminded of the sequence of events that removed our beloved Golly (the Good and the Wise) from earthly living. Of course the greater pattern will reveal all in the end I dare say, but for now, these simple steps and questions keep us going.
‘It was Golly who started sneezing first, but – ‘
We both look over at Baba. He is as I said, not a designer cat, or that new term, boutique, just sort of lopsided, dull looking fur, tongue often poking out and a weird thing going on with his mouth. If you didn’t know him, you would think he was gearing up for a fight. Hardly.. For a start he hasn’t got too much energy left after a two week bout of the worst cat flu on the block. I whisper through the next things that happened to Wonka, the visit to the vets on Christmas Eve, with Golly and the coming home without him.
‘Is he in heaven?’ And I paint the picture of Golly trotting alongside St Francis, for surely that’s who is heading up the animal sanctuary on the other side. Yes I say, then you fell ill and back we go to the Vets, and finally to round it off and make it the worst Christmas for a long time (daughter had fallen out with me just prior to) Baba developed a strange barking cough and his normal runny eyes got worse. No use going on about how he was a stray, not to the Vets. After all how would they go on their holidays to the Caribbean if I didn’t pay up?
Vets it was at around ten at night because that’s when you run out of good ideas and start thinking in a very negative way. Like, he is not going to make it through the night and I cannot stand losing another cat. That and finding reasons to keep going myself. The credit card poised to take more hammering, me and this wisp of a black coughing sneezing article, we draw up in my car that would also have cat flu if it could. We draw up and get anything that will save Baba and then go back home.
‘Then what?’ – prompts Wonka. I had gone off into a dream of how small the balance was on my credit card then to what it is now. Let me not think about it overmuch. Then I say – that’s when we fought to keep that lopsided, surely on the simple side cat alive. ‘I told you not to let him in!’ shrieks Wonka, hooking a claw into my knee to emphasise the rightness of this advice and darts off to bat one of his cat toys into a secret dark place. Well.
Once more my life is squeezed into a miniscule unimportant place, while I fight to save a cat I don’t love a quarter of how much I adored Golly. Who is now in heaven. We are still here, me and Wonka and the year unfolded in a strange way that left more questions – and lots of straightforward advice. Not from Baba I hasten to add, who is, as promised by Wonka, costing a fortune. How did this happen I wonder, that the household seems to revolve around a cat recently ‘let in’ and nothing to recommend it? And I wonder this to Wonka, who does not want to listen to all that unconditional love rubbish.
‘Guilt’ he comes up with – that’s why I have to rescue everything. Hmm, and he’s not even religious! Now if Golly were here, he would turn the other cheek and allow and accept Baba into the fold. Or Pack.
He’s not here though.
Stumbling back through the door with the usual amounts of shopping, mostly new brands of cat food that Baba could more easily digest, I barely reached the kettle before folding up into a fresh bout of self -pity. ‘I don’t like those pouches!’ shouted Wonka, chasing Baba under the table and hissing for good measure. I said how sorry I was, weeping and making myself a cup of tea. I’d just discovered a new brand called two of a kind or some such, which said it was giving me all the goodness of green tea whilst continuing to taste like builder’s tea. So far on I had taken a real liking to it and the fact that it promised a healthy lifestyle hit the spot..
‘We’re starving!’ shrieked Wonka, and even Baba dared utter a piteous cry. I paused in my weeping to see to them. It had become known to me, at the onset of the New Year that I was heading for a ghastly time of it. People at work had insisted on asking me how my Christmas was, that was just the needy clients, and as for the staff – Wonka had his work cut out there. ‘ You’re too giving!’ and the eternal ‘you worry too much!’
Worry? I was even now busy with a stress and anxiety workshop that to be fair I needed to go on far more that the twenty messed up clients I’d invited. Luckily, none of them turned up which of course had me on the run. Next thing I’d be inventing a caseload just to meet the targets. Have you ever felt caught between two impossible demands? The Greeks knew all about it, staged plays and built philosophies around it all. Oh and a word, dilemma. Back in the real world, life had gone into a Greek Tragedy.
The GP was most considerate and as charming as only people from far off lands can be. This had been noted and discussed. You will recall the failed attempts to find love locally, or even near to locally. It seems that British men (to me) (and to Wonka) are unable to couple manliness with gentleness and – here it comes, anything nearing manners. Whilst abroad, even if they are going to treat you badly, there is a certain grace to it all. For once Wonka is in strong agreement, but just about the manners thing. Anyhow, the GP listened carefully, picking out the main problems from the sobbing and silent gestures.
‘are you thinking of suicide?’ he prompted. The irony of it! One minute I am supporting the messed up masses, moaning about them to Wonka and the next I am one with them. This is just the kind of connecting I wanted to avoid.
Leaving my purse at home was my latest thing. That and getting wound up in the deep of the night. Wonka again took me to task. ‘You’re overthinking it!’ or ‘get over yourself!’. Like me he is watching too much pop idol. Any day now he will call me dog, or man or just Yo. I had though found a way forward, which helped me cope, sleep, function, confront the very situation I had been dreading for ten years or more, and look alright while it was going on. It wasn’t tablets, or therapy, or healthy eating, nor friends (who?) and I was amazed that no one was talking this one up. Me and Wonka were fine on it and as for Baba, he lived in a half dream anyway. The miracle cure? Boxsets.Yes and it turns out, the more violent and aggressive the storyline, the more macho the characters, infact the more gangsta ridden then the more I am likely to be glued to it. Again, the psychologists are in the money.
‘Don’t answer it!’ the phone had become the enemy, the bearer of bad news either about me, my aged parent or aged sibling. Daughter bore bad news via text and mobile which was standard. Wonka’s advice re the phone was solid, and when I did answer it Baba sat nearby miaouwing. And finally hitting me. Life really did warrant moaning about.
When I wasn’t seeing to Baba and his inner workings, my new name for the ghastly products of his digestion system, I was having to leave the home for short high anxiety trips down south. Carefully, and in between sobbing, I explained to Wonka that we needed someone calle
d a cat sitter.
‘It’s not happening!’ shrieked Wonka in protest and threw himself under the bed. Baba still in prolonged recovery, was fairly motionless on his pillycase at the top of the stairs. It was supposed to capture all the tufts of hair, miniscule mites and such that lived on him. Though how they got any nourishment was beyond me.
It is happening and it’s a fully professional cat sitting service with real business cards, recommendations (from my hairdresser they know everyone) and everything. It is bone fide. Of course Wonka fell in love at first sight and Baba hardly noticed any difference. All that was different really was my credit card and anxiety levels.
As the year juddered along I needed more and more advice and luckily the GP remained in a position of high regard. Wonka asked me straight out if I had a crush on him. ‘oh come on’ I muttered, already on a train of thought about therapeutic relationships and transference and so on. ‘and what if I am?’ I mean I could do a lot worse with my crushes.
As with most things that are bothering you, they suddenly feature all day long, confronting you whether you want this kind of brutal coming to terms or not. The daily discussion on my favourite radio show wanted to talk about this very topic and even had real Doctors revealing stuff. It turned out that this kind of relationship is fraught with dangers for patient and Doctor with everyone in a turmoil and in an impossible love tryst thing. It was the Greeks again. Made me question whether we have discovered anything else since. Mind you, there were some pretty heavyweight prophets on the go never mind Jesus who capped it all with his stories for the human masses. If we were to reduce this to the feline world, Baba would be the prodigal son.
Wonka has reminded me of a fatal visit to the ‘Christians’ who used to live next door, thus fitting the description entirely of the good neighbour. He had been but a kitten then, and still popping outside. The neighbours alerted me to his seagull obsession and so began the road back to being a cat on the inside. I had been going round to them for a short time, to investigate the world of the Christians. Unfortunately and Wonka did warn me (take it with a pinch of salt!) there was little of Jesus in evidence and rather too much of them. I put this down to my fragile state and need for something more substantial, more earthy really. Happily for us they moved on to be Christians elsewhere and a charming family from a far off land moved in. Wonka approved, peeking at them from behind the curtain and Baba drifted off into another dream. The year was moving on.
‘I don’t want to know!’ shouted Wonka as I pitched up, having handed my notice in. Leaving all that target driven, endless meetings and monthly reporting behind, oh and seeing a few clients if I had time. That was a good thing, but would my new philosophy stand up? The ‘follow your heart’ or was it ‘listen to your inner self’ one.
‘We’re starving me and Baba!’ and ‘I don’t like that one!’ as I tentatively shook out some new and expensive biscuits into a saucer. I could feel a fresh bout of stress and anxiety coming on and had two cups of favourite tea to fend off. Due to the latest warning on the dangers of self-medication – and Wonka said they meant aspirin, I was loath to chuck any down. This just left me with talking to myself, listening to Wonka, or borrowing another Boxset.
The volley of sneezing from Baba intercepted the anxiety attack and brought me back to the situation. Infact, and I did raise this with Wonka, the sneezing attacks pretty well matched my Dad’s allergic sneezing. Earthly sneezing that is, that would start and keep going for some time. It drove Mother round the twist and back and became quite a problem to be solved. Whether he is still at it in Heaven and someone there is searching for a solution, well maybe the Christians would know. Wonka did remark that once more I was finding traces of my Dad amongst the feline world, and it would keep some counsellor come therapist busy I dare say. In the meantime, comparisons with what Dad did to what Baba is doing keeps me sane. The three S’s, sneezy, smelly and scruffy had been applied to Baba, oh and the fourth, simple. Despite this he had somehow wandered into our affections. Well Wonka’s favourite game consisted of chasing him round, but all the same, he seemed to now belong. And instead of tripping over Wonka’s mice, plastic balls with bells in them and those plastic things inside choc eggs, I was tripping over Baba. For some reason he had no awareness of other beings.
‘I warned you!’ said Wonka from his perch near the back door. He had been peering under the blind for any sightings of the menacing looking but needy stray.
His name was Rugrat shortened to Ruggles which as I say belied his frightening exterior. He looked ready to sort out just about anything but hadn’t attacked me yet. In the days when beloved Golly was going out the back and sunning himself in the yard by the Buddlea, I had to juggle outings being on the look out for Rug. Now we were all on the inside, Rug trotted in and out of the yard exciting Wonka no end. He would rush from his perch at the bay in the front to the sideboard overlooking the back and sometimes it would warrant a rush upstairs to balance on a tiny windowsill.
We studied the back yard but there was no sign of Ruggles. I had been warned about the dangers of allowing him in. ‘under no circumstances…’
We were approaching the back end of the year, as I say so far frightfully demanding, relentless on the credit card and underlined with change. Again, the Greeks probably dealt with these situations in a reasonable yet entertaining way. In the meantime I had Wonka to guide me and Baba to challenge me.
It would have to do for now.