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Drusilla, Princess of Privilege, 2005-2007
I am in a state of deep shock. In a horrible twist of coincidence, after writing my last entry in which I referred to cats being sacrificed on the altar of expediency for the Olympic stadium to be built, it seems the fates have required a sacrifice from our own family of felines before we move house. Drusilla, my beloved black cat, is dead. She was hit by a car and killed instantly.
A neighbour from across the road knocked on our door to tell me she had bad news. It could have been another, different, black cat until she told me the cat was wearing a bleeping collar. Drusilla wore it to impact a little on her vole-killing exploits over the summer months. She was a very proficient hunter, and continued to manage to catch prey in the woods even with the collar on. Just not so many as before. It might seem perverse, but I believe a cat that enjoys life to the full is inevitably one that enjoys hunting and killing. Because that’s what cats are supposed to do. And Drusilla loved life with us.
An unknown motorist hit Drusilla on what I’ve long referenced as the ‘corner of death’ because it’s a sharp bend and cars take it at too much speed. She or he must have got out of the car, picked my little girl up, and placed her on our neighbour’s doorstep. The lady was so sorry, and I told her I was grateful to her for letting me know, she had nothing to be sorry for. I wrapped Drusilla up in a towel and carried her home.
Drusilla is to the fore in the above picture; Belsham, behind her, died in February.
The kittens Jasper and Billy were, and are, devastated. They display real grief and sorrow. Drusilla was like a mother to them, teaching them to hunt toys, play-fighting with them, grooming them, curling up asleep next to them. More than any of the other cats, she made them welcome. Tom, our fat tabby, joined the kittens in grooming Drusilla’s face. They all knew she was dead but they did it anyway.
B’Elanna, our black and white adult female, has never been able to handle the deaths of other cats. She freaks out, and true to form has gone in on herself and right now I’ve no idea where she’s gone into hiding. She’s somewhere in the house. We are not going to let any of them out again until after we have moved, and only then when a month has passed.
While waiting for a taxi to take Drusilla to the vets, I called for our marmalade tabby, Mandrake, and he came home, as agile as ever on his three remaining legs. Regular readers will know that he has been hit twice by a car this year. The first time he lost a leg, the second he nearly lost sight in one eye and suffered what now appears to be permanent brain damage. I allowed him to see Drusilla, and, quite honestly, he immediately knew she was no longer present—though she looked as if she were sleeping—and he, too, groomed her. I can only surmise the grooming is a cat’s way of saying farewell.
I took Drusilla to the vets because I find it very hard, it may seem strange, to actually tell if an animal or human is dead unless there’s visible damage. Drusilla just had a bit of blood in her mouth, that’s all. I had to be sure. I thought she might have been in a coma, I simply couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not. She was warm, and I held her in my arms for quite some time. I’ve heard many a cat apparently purring after death, and my senses are… Let’s just say my senses sometimes seem to number more than the usual five.
I thought, if she was in a coma, there was a chance the vet could save her; and if she wasn’t, if she was dead, then I wasn’t about to bury my girl in a garden we’re shortly going to leave behind forever. So she is to be cremated and her ashes returned to us in about a week.
I didn’t shed a tear until the vet confirmed Drusilla was dead and gave me several minutes alone with her to say goodbye. I kissed her and told her she was beautiful, and that was that. I had to leave her there. Leaving a loved one with strangers, albeit compassionate professionals doing their job, is very difficult. But needs must. I went outside, cried like a baby in the dark of the night, composed myself as it is incumbent upon adults to do, and went back inside to make arrangements for the cremation.
I’ve felt hollow ever since. Like a bell with no ringer. Useless. There is, however, what appears to be a large stone positioned at the very bottom of my stomach. I don’t expect it to go away for quite some time.
We rescued Drusilla just over a year ago. She was approximately one year old, overjoyed to make our acquaintance. She rapidly became my special favourite, not replacing Dolly—who was with me for 19 years and will always be what she always was to me—but most certainly assuming her predecessor’s status in my affections in the day to day. I jokingly referenced to Drusilla as my ‘Princess of Privilege’. She was spoiled rotten not with sweets and toys, but with love. There is no doubt in my mind that the adoration went in both directions. In a great many ways she reminded me of Dolly.
And now Dru follows Dolly, follows Belsham. We lost DJ just before we moved here; now history repeats, in a way. We plan a move, a cat dies.
I hate this house. It is no longer a home, it feels like somebody else’s tatty leftovers. The move cannot come soon enough for me. It becomes increasingly oppressive living inside these walls, what with the damp taking over in the kitchen, bathroom and back bedroom like I’ve never seen damp do before. It doesn’t help that, while we have small kittens in the house, we can’t leave external doors and windows open to get some air flowing through the place. I may well lock the cats for an hour or so in the cellar or our bedroom tomorrow, so that I can fling open all the other doors and windows. This place needs a complete change of air. Dust is everywhere because every day I pack more boxes, open up drawers and cupboards, sort the stuff we want to keep from the stuff we don’t.
Tonight this house and the darkness outside—the isolation of the countryside while D is away on business—are conspiring together to choke me. He, by the way, is absolutely devastated because, of course, he was away on business when Belsham died back in February. Again, history repeating.
I don’t hate the countryside around us. It remains beautiful, although the stark nakedness of it at this time of year matches my current mood perfectly, given that I, too, feel like a tree stripped of its leaves. But I do find myself hating the motorists who take that corner too fast. Absurd as it sounds, I hate the road here. I despise it for taking away my girl, for taking away my gentle ginger’s leg, for nearly taking his eye, for screwing up his brain. I hate it for taking the life of that nuisance black tom, a stray, a few months back. He was a noble creature, unloved by anyone but remembered by us not for his sociability—he wasn’t a social creature at all—but for his feral magnificence.
I know the hateful feeling won’t last. I’m not a person to whom hating anyone or anything comes easily, and it’s an instinctive rather than a knowing reaction to events, one that eventually passes. But I am so looking forward to a fresh start in a new place. I regret that my lively little girl, and Dolly, and Belsham, are no longer alive and will never see our new home unless they visit us there in spirit. Of course, if they do we probably won’t know. Or maybe we will. But Belsham and Dolly were, at least, old. With Drusilla, I expected to face up to her death as an inevitability in, say, 18 or more years. Not now. It’s too soon. The sense of the fates having betrayed us will be familiar to anyone who has ever suffered the loss of loved ones. It’s always too soon.
I have told my beloved D that even though I was a mess at the vets I asked them if they had details on any cat rescue agencies in the local area. I got the number for the local RSPCA and intend to see if there is another black cat needing a home. Not now, not tomorrow. But soon I will make the call. I have never before had my thoughts turning to getting another animal companion immediately after losing one so very dear to me (hell, they’re all dear to me). But I can’t explain it. All I can say is I think Drusilla, like Dolly and Belsham before her—we’ve lost three cats in two years, and nearly lost another not once but twice—would want us to open our hearts, not close them to the possibility of new friends. We already have so many but there’s plenty of room in our hearts for another that would otherwise be put down. But for now I need to grieve, and I am waiting for more tears to come as they surely will.
There will, I know, never be another Drusilla. No two cats, like humans and snowflakes, are ever the same. I wouldn’t want that anyway. What is lost can never, and should never, be replaced.
This last photograph, above, is likely to be the one I frame to adorn a wall in our new home. Drusilla looks stunning in every photograph we have of her, but this one in particular for me captures her elegant beauty and was taken in the woods she loved.
Drusilla, we loved you and you loved us right back. Your adopted children, Billy and Jasper, are frighteningly subdued right now. You were to them, and to Mandrake, a very good friend. And to us. Rest in peace, Princess.
And to you, my dear readers, my thanks for bearing with me as I am aware I’ve written a very long blog entry and I have absolutely no idea, the state that I’m in, if any of it makes any sense whatsoever. I’m in no mood to proof-read, I write purely from the gut, no looking back. I am devastated.
