Travel Reference
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cats. Samuel would be very angry with us for a bit and would have every right to be, but a
decision had been made and two of the cats must go.
Natalie had already advertised them - 'free to a good home' - on French eBay and there had
been a number of responses, all of them unsettling in one way or another. Most of the en-
quiries were from people who clearly just hoovered up all the animals on eBay because they
didn't think they should be on eBay, a very laudable exercise no doubt, but they tended to
be people who already had about forty pets, lived in wigwams in the middle of nowhere and
reckoned that they spoke fluent 'cat'. The others appeared to be looking for cheap food. None
of which made the task any easier.
'Samuel, we need to talk,' I said, nervously.
'I'm not getting rid of them!' he replied, stroppily.
'What? How did you know?' I was genuinely taken aback. I knew Natalie hadn't spoken to
him, so this appeared to be a level of intuition bordering on the Jedi, his
Star Wars
obsession
finally reaching its zenith.
'You're always saying that we don't need them anymore and that they're noisy and you're
always treading on them…'
'Yes, but…'
'… I like playing with them. All my friends play with them, everybody has at least one at
playtime!' He stopped, close to tears.
'Look, I know it's… what? Hang on - what are you talking about?'
'My marbles! I'm not getting rid of them!'
'Ah, right. OK,' I said, cunningly sensing an opportunity to take the upper hand, 'I'll tell you
what…'
'We'll sleep on it,' Natalie interrupted wisely, before I committed the kind of parental howler
you never really come back from.
Sleep that night was a fitful affair. I didn't feel good about insisting on getting rid of two
of the cats; it felt like a mean-spirited thing to do. I remembered one Christmas when I was
nine years old. Oswald was a King Charles spaniel I had had from a puppy. He was unruly,
disobedient and far too clever for his own good; he was also loyal, affectionate and fun and I
loved him. That Christmas Day I woke up, unwrapped my new football kit and went running
into the lounge to play the Subbuteo I had just got for my birthday a couple of days before
and immediately trod in one of Oswald's finest, squelchiest, smelliest offerings. I howled the
place down as my new football socks (not to mention my feet) were caked in dog effluent, the
day ruined. Oswald didn't last much longer as my parents took the decision that he was just
too much work in such a small house, so he was given away and, I was told, went to live on a
farm. 'Never did me any harm,' I muttered to myself unconvincingly and tried to get back to
sleep.
