R.I.P.

A truly ghastly moment in the garden. Digging in the area I’d cleared of salal I come across what looks at first like a decomposing, shredded plastic bag. A few moments later I realise the gruesome truth: the “bag” is matted fur. I have accidentally shoved a shovel into the remains of Clancy, buried, not as I misremembered Mike telling me, with Jenny, but close to her. And then I remember that Clancy died in the winter, when the ground would have been rock hard, thus the shallow grave. After a moment of feeling almost physically ill, I cover up his remains.

Clancy, that crazy black cat, as anyone who ever met him will attest, was quite a character. One of six kittens produced by the (as it turned out) pregnant stray cat a friend of mine had taken in, it was believed by many that he must be part Siamese. He had the build and the yowl and very definitely the tendency to bond completely with one person (me), while treating everyone else with at best disdain and at worst a vicious bite. (I used to warn everyone who visited me that Clancy was a biter, that, even if jumped on your lap looking very friendly, he should, under no circumstances be patted, nor should you ever take your eyes off him if he was on you. There was always some idiot who would say, “Oh, that’s okay, cats really like me.” Hard to sympathise when the inevitable happened.)

I think it was my friend Rowan who once said that in a previous century Clancy’s strong resemblance to a familiar would have seen me burned at the stake. No doubt. Clancy, who used up many of his nine lives, leaping from my third floor window to explore the wider world. (It didn’t matter how many times I repaired the screen, he would somehow rip it out again.) Clancy, who used to leap on to and drape himself over my shoulder, purring and content to be walked around, hissing all the while at anyone else who came near us. Other than my mother, Clancy, who lived to be nearly twenty, was the most sustained relationship I ever had. It was gutting at the time that he died when I was thousands of miles away, unable to see him one last time. (Until just now, of course, but that, tragically, is not the same thing.)

And so it is important that his desecrated grave be properly marked. It is too shallow to plant a flowering shrub on top of him, as I have done for Jenny, so something in a tub is called for.

I go to the garden shop, thinking I no longer just want that planter with the fuchsia. Now I actually need it for something important. But the planter is gone. I ask if they have any other fuchsias and we look everywhere. There are a few left, but none of them are right. I want the sort of fuchsia I had in Walthamstow (now residing with Irmani in Camden): deep purple and vibrant pink, strong colours to mark the grave of a strong personality. None of these will do.

There is another garden shop at the other end of the island. After dropping Mike at his physio appointment, I drive down there, wandering around aimlessly and feeling dejected that my mission may not be accomplished. But wait! The woman who runs the place asks if I’m looking for something in particular. Yes, I tell her. She leads me to the back of an almost empty green house and there they are: withering in the heat and desperate to be replanted, half a dozen fuchsias of exactly the colour I want. I buy four of them and head home.

It’s only a pedestrian black plastic pot which will have to be replaced at some point by something more in keeping with the vibrancy of the flowers and of the personality of the cat whose grave they will mark, but for now the plastic pot will have to do.


It looks pathetic just sitting on the dry earth, not looking at all like the memorial it needs to be, and so I start digging up more rocks to surround it. (No shortage of these.)

I stand back, knowing I won’t be entirely satisfied until there is a proper pot, and say a long overdue farewell to Clancy: So long and thanks for all the mice.