The Love of Arthur

When old Mrs Anderson finally gave up her independence and reluctantly agreed to go into an Old People's Home some three miles away, her cat, Arthur, was adopted by my Aunt Jane.

Aunt Jane lived across the street from Mrs Anderson in one of those now quiet cobbled streets of terraced houses in the north west of England which once housed busy factory workers. She'd lived there for a good twenty years and Mrs Anderson had been a fixture when she moved in. It was just after the death of her husband, seven years ago, that Mrs Anderson had acquired three-year old Arthur from the local Animal Shelter.

Arthur was a ginger cat with something of a piratical air about him. He was fiercely independent and spent most of his early years on frequent jaunts into neighbouring back gardens and the local park which backed onto Mrs Anderson's property. If truth be known, Arthur was a bit of a bruiser among tom cats back then. If he occasionally came home with a tattered ear or a scratched nose, you could be sure the opposition was worse off! Mrs Anderson was secretly quite proud of his pugilistic antics. She would make a fuss of his war wounds when he finally turned up for his supper, and lavish him with affection. This was something he would only accept from her, remaining aloof and indifferent to any attention from others.

Another source of pride for Mrs Anderson was Arthur's remarkable timekeeping. Mrs Anderson would always prepare Arthur's supper at 7.20pm before settling down to watch her favorite TV soap. Arthur invariably burst through the cat flap issuing a loud "BRRRP! MEOW!" in greeting, just as she put his dish down on the kitchen floor. After he'd eaten his fill, he'd rub himself against Mrs Anderson's legs, purring engine-like in gratitude before indulging in a thorough wash and a deep, contented sleep in the deceased Mr Anderson's fireside chair.

As old age crept up on Mrs Anderson, so it was with Arthur. His jaunts got less frequent until his days were mostly spent watching the world go by from her front windowsill or curled up on his favourite chair. It was a sad day indeed when the time came for Mrs Anderson to say goodbye to Arthur. Even though Aunt Jane had promised to bring her over in the car from the Home to visit him, Mrs Anderson knew that Arthur was old and tired, just as she was, and she feared she may never see him again. She hadn't realised until then just how much more than a mere pet he had become to her and just how deep the rapport between them was. She'd never felt lonely when he was around and now she was facing an empty life in an institution without the only creature in the world who seemed to understand and accept her unconditionally, as she did him. Strangely, she was less upset at leaving her home of forty years, than of leaving Arthur behind, because it was only Arthur who made home feel like home to her.

Aunt Jane did her best for Arthur. She tried, at first, keeping him in the house until he got acclimatised to it, providing him with a litter tray, a comfy cat bed and the best food. She was as loving and attentive as he'd let her be - which wasn't much. Arthur wasn't having any. He refused the litter tray and soiled everywhere. He ate very little. He howled at the doors. Aunt Jane eventually gave in and let him out. He made a beeline for his old home across the street and settled down on the windowsill. He refused to come back and Aunt Jane had to take his meals over to him. He sat on that windowsill night and day. Aunt Jane was at her wit's end. Then, on the fourth morning of Arthur's lonely vigil, Aunt Jane got up to find that he'd disappeared.

She spent most of that day looking for him, walking the streets, peering into gardens, searching the park, until with a growing sense of dread, she wearily returned home, half hoping she'd find him back on his windowsill. He wasn't there. Aunt Jane reported him missing to the local police and put notices in all the local shops, and the local newspaper. She had to face the fact that if he didn't turn up by the weekend, she'd have to go and tell Mrs Anderson. Where could he be?

She'd read somewhere that old cats often go off on their own to die, as if they know when their time is up. Maybe Arthur had decided that without Mrs Anderson life wasn't worth living.

It was with a heavy heart that Aunt Jane greeted Mrs Anderson at the Old People's Home that Saturday. Mrs Anderson was in a comfy armchair looking listlessly out the window of her ground floor room, into the garden beyond. Just as Aunt Jane was steeling herself to break the bad news, Mrs Anderson suddenly stood up, and pointing excitedly at something in the garden. Waving her hands about frantically, she exclaimed,

" Jane!Look! Its Arthur! It is! I'd know him anywhere! Open the window!"

It was, indeed, Arthur and there followed a touching reunion. Aunt Jane had never heard a cat purr so loudly in her life before!.

In the end, it turned out that Arthur had appeared at the Home a couple of days previously and been taken for a stray. The manageress of the Home, being a cat lover herself, decided to let him stay as the official Home cat, since the last cat had recently died after ten years of service keeping residents happy. Little did she know that there was only one resident Arthur was interested in! And because Mrs Anderson had been pining for Arthur she'd kept to her room and didn't know he'd found her, until she spotted him in the garden.

No-one ever found out how Arthur was able to find the Home where his beloved Mrs Anderson was now living. He'd never been that far from his old home as far as anyone knew. But somehow the love between them was strong enough to guide him there. He soon got used to being the Home cat and even learnt to tolerate the other residents' attentions. Mrs Anderson would always be his first and only real love though.