Here is her official passport photograph (no smiling or sunglasses).
Phoebe was a rescue cat from the RSPCA. She had being abandoned in a pub car park with kittens, all with severe cat flu. She was about five when we got her, and we had her for eight and a half years.
I think we might have had a cat sooner had it not been for Grandma. She hated cats, especially when they rubbed against her legs. The look or feel of any kind of fur made her shudder. As a volunteer in an Oxfam shop, she had great difficulty showing any clothing with fur to customers, and once had to hand over a fur stole at arm’s length. After she moved to live near us and no longer needed to stay, when our Son went off to university we replaced him with a cat. Daughter thought it a great improvement.
“They’ve got a CAT”, Grandma told everyone, disgust and venom in her voice. When here, if Phoebe passed too close and Grandma thought no one was watching, out would come her stick and Phoebe would receive a sharp poke and a “pshssst”.
You don’t realise how much you will miss them: Phoebe I mean. She was the gentlest, most trusting animal I have ever known. She no longer waits for her breakfast in the morning, or comes wanting to snuggle up or play. We look for her curled in the places she slept, in her bed or under her bush in the garden, or in the window watching the birds. We expect to see her zig-zagging crazily back and forth across the lawn with the wind up her tail, or her pretty face at the front window waiting to be let in, only to go straight out of the back to run round and miaow to be let in again. For a moment, we start to check where she is before we go to bed or go out. She is no longer here to talk to. Her presence is missing from the house.
