Greetings, Visiting Slave

My two best friends in Elsewhere live next to one another, 15 minutes from where I live. Michael and Margaux are an architect couple who sometimes ask me to cat-sit their four-footed buddy Alexander, when they’re away. Muriel, who lives on the other side of the boundary hedge, invites me over for tea when I’m visiting the cat.

My duties involve talking to Alexander, replenishing his food bowl and letting him stroll about in the garden. He’s a great orange powder puff of pure sweetness, a cat without a single mean bone in his body. When I enter the house, he advances towards me at a stately pace, his whiskers twitched forward as if to say, ‘Greetings, Visiting Slave! You may stroke me here and here and …’ Then he sniffs the Tuna and Wild Rice that I’ve emptied onto his plate from a tin, nods his approval and wanders out into the open air.

I am familiar with the house and have my own key. Margaux had mentioned something about the lock but I’d forgotten it by the time I reached the house at 3pm. I let Alex out and went over to Muriel’s place. We chatted over herb tea and fresh strawberries. Then I returned to take Alexander back in when … uh-oh! Too late, I recalled Margaux’s advice about not using the lower lock. The upper lock works, the lower one sticks. I had locked both.

It was five o’clock. The sun was fading. Alex was looking up at me with his huge golden eyes. Come on, Visiting Slave, he said, I’m hungry. Thirsty. Cold. Panicking, I grabbed the surprised cat and ran over to Muriel’s house. “Front door — locked-out — cat!” I panted as I struggled to maintain my grip on the now struggling pet. He’d never visited next-door before. “Can’t leave him outside!”

But Alex was churning in my arms like a tangerine whirlwind. If he hadn’t been de-clawed, I’d have been shredded. Just as Muriel opened the door, he sprang free. She collapsed in giggles. I ran back, scooped him up once more and returned to Muriel’s house. The moment he was inside, he calmed right down, posing at the edge of her sofa like a huge fluffy sphinx.

I spent the next half hour coaxing the key into the door’s handle. Finally I managed to get it in the lock, but the handle itself refused to rotate. Muriel called her brother Daniel. He’s the one who had helped me move into my flat. He strolled up, took in the situation and, a moment later, click! The door opened. I’d been turning the handle the wrong way.

Alexander sauntered home with slow dignified steps. He did not so much as look at me. Beat it, dummy, he said, as his luxurious orange tail swished scornfully from side to side. You are an embarrassment to your species. I sighed and nodded, as I trudged my way home.

Manjula Padmanabhan: Author and artist, tells us of her parallel life in Elsewhere, USA, in this fortnightly series (marginalien.blogspot.in)

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