Authors: Chris Kelly
Downton Tabby (7 page)
I’m not blushing. I have demodectic mange.
Sometimes I feel as if I were chewing the spine off an H.G. Wells novel.
I have nothing against stage people. My great-aunt was the strings of a cello!
Why are male calicos generally sterile? Shame, I suppose.
People who say I’m cold and unemotional have never seen me unravel a roll of toilet paper.
I’m not “judging” you. That’s far too active a word for it.
S
ERBIA
, B
ULGARIA, AND
G
REECE FELL
upon Turkey, already weakened by her war with Italy, and swept her of all her European possessions save the territory between Adrianople and Constantinople, while at Downton Tabby, an inventory of the board games revealed the rope from Clue had been chewed on, a crime for which Boots, being the newest cat, was of course framed.
Lord Grimalkin inquired after Cousin Purrcey, and was told he had gone to live on a farm.
Time being a problem that never goes away, the Clowder girls continued to grow in grace and comeliness, and to go into heat. The prettier sister, Lady Serval, was pursued by a local tom who didn’t have two cents to his name, which was Tom. He also lacked a pedigree, which was like forbidden catnip to Lady Serval. At first it looked like Lord Grimalkin would never forgive her, but then he did.
Lady Korat consulted a cattery for a suitable new
suitor for Minxy, and they came up with Matthmew Clowder, a cousin she didn’t know from a vole in the ground. But Minxy was in heat again, and it was time to set aside formalities before someone got hurt.
The Lord and Lady Grimalkin
request the pleasure of the company of
Mr. Matthmew Clowder
on Sunday, the eleventh of June at twelve o’clock
P.M.R.S.V.P.
P.S. Minxy’s in the shed.
Just listen and you’ll know which one.
Matthmew arrived and immediately fell head over haunches for Minxy because pheromones. Minxy wanted to marry Matthmew, and then she didn’t, and then she did again. If you’ve ever let a cat out, and back in, and back out again, you’ll know this makes perfect sense.
This was before the invention of the balled-up sheet of printer paper, so cats had time on their paws, and love/hate courtships dragged on and on.
Not everyone was pleased to see another new cat at Downton Tabby. As the Dowager Catness once said, “Visitors bring fleas.”
Which was, unfortunately, both cruel and true. Lady Korat asked Mrs. O’Celot to run her a flea bath.
And you know how a cat can be sitting there, and sitting there, and sitting there, and then suddenly tear out of the room like ball lightning? Well, after a lifetime in fawning worship of her mistress Lady Korat, the evil maid Mrs. O’Celot suddenly decided she hated her.
When I take a bath, I put everything neatly back in place. You wouldn’t even know I’d been in the bathroom.
—S
IR
A
LFRED
H
ITCHCOCK
F
OR THE WELL-BRED
E
NGLISHMAN, ROMANTIC
love was so difficult to arrange, it’s a wonder there was any breeding at all. And things were scarcely easier for the servants, as we know from Kazuo Ishiguro’s magisterial work
The Remains of the Day (Vom Kriege)
, in which a butler and housekeeper almost kiss once in thirty years, but don’t, which says something about fascism, but I forget what.
Which is why, if you watch
The Remains of the Day
on Netflix, it hardly ever recommends that you might also like
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
By the Regency era, the whole rigmarole of romance had become so subtle and complex that gentlewomen developed the Language of the Fan—a system of communication still used, in a modified form, by cats today.
HE
L
ANGUAGE OF THE
F
AN
Drawing the fan across the cheek:
“I love you.”
Drawing the fan through the hand:
“I hate you!”
Twirling the fan in the right hand:
“I love another.”
Rapidly closing the fan:
“I am jealous.”
Fanning quickly:
“I am engaged.”
Fanning slowly:
“I am married.”
Spinning the head:
“I am possessed.”
Changing the fan from left hand to right:
“You are impudent.”
Rapidly opening and closing the fan:
“You are cruel.”
Sliding the fan across the forehead:
“You have changed.”
Twirling the fan in the left hand:
“Go away, please.”
Twirling the fan in the left hand, drawing it though the right hand rapidly, opening and closing it rapidly, drawing it across the forehead and eyes, and tapping:
“I hate you, you’re cruel, you’ve changed, go away, don’t let the door hit you.”
HE
L
ANGUAGE OF THE
T
AIL
(Note: The Language of the Tail differs from the Language of the Fan in that cats don’t know where to buy fans, and wouldn’t be able to hold one, anyway. Also, while the Language of the Fan was used by women and their suitors, the Language of the Tail is used by cats to “speak” to their “masters.”)
Resting the tail:
“I love you.”
Resting the tail:
“I hate you.”
Swishing the tip of the tail slowly left:
“Feed me cold cuts.”
Swishing the tip of the tail slowly right:
“No one knows you as I do.”
Tapping the tail:
“I meant it about the cold cuts.”
Tapping the tail rapidly:
“Our bond is stronger than death.”
Tapping the tail slowly:
“I pooped in the shower.”
Tapping the tail slowly while making eye contact:
“I adore you, even in those sweatpants.”
Drawing the tail in, and to the left of the body:
“Each moment away from you is torment; each in your company, ecstasy.”
Drawing the tail in, and to the right:
“Have you lost weight?”
Tapping the tail slowly, stopping, breaking eye contact to look at a point just behind you:
“Oh, God! It’s a murderer!”
Tapping the tail slowly, stopping, breaking eye contact to look at a point just behind you:
“Oh, God! It’s a june bug!”
Touching the top of the tail with the tongue:
“I shall forgive, but never truly forget.”
Touching the underside of the tail with the tongue:
“I ate your underpants.”
Turning around and leaving, tail in air:
“This never would have happened if you’d given me the cold cuts.”
