Much to own bemusement, it strikes me, I have a great many animals, and each morning, as the business of feeding them is shared and undertaken, I feel this keenly. The time the household rises is not one set by me; the time is one set by the animals, wholly. All seem to rise at same time, in keeping with the regular pattern of day-to-day, and demand, usually quietly, all things considered, to be fed. First Omar and Olive, then Silla, the Chinchilla Persian lodging permanently temporarily with us. And so it continues, until the birds, Agatha and Claude, are uncovered from night’s shawl, their water changed too.
I had not meant to amass so many animal companions so early in life, but, as those who know me even only slenderly will point out, this is not very surprising a fact. My animal menagerie I love for their very animalness. They are not my children, even though I indulge in tremendous amount of pandering and cooing. They are my animal companions. I love them for their domesticity bred into them and the wildness that remains fixed (though the catching of pigeons and rats as cat’s sport or answer to boredom disturbs me still).
I like how they communicate with me. How they trust me. How, in some sense, they elect to share their life with me. All in return for affection, food, and a place that is safe to slumber both day and night. I like to sit in a room with them and read, or work at the computer with one rested near my bare feet. I like the contented sounds of the fish, Hercule and Arthur, bobbing to the surface, two fish perpetually like a pair of giant-bellied Labrador Retrievers never sated. I feed them more than I responsibly should and their water inevitably becomes cloudy, but I cannot resist their fishy ways of demanding food be issued. Fish can demand, if only in silent open-mouthed ways. They, like many, plead. Their bowl sits atop a large glass cabinet in a room I am frequently to be found in and they follow me about the room with their eyes. I am sure of it. Softhearted in the extreme, I am also.
She sits in her armchair, and, one by one, she defleas her cats. … She combs the fleas from their necks, stroking against the lie of the fur, and then she does the flanks and haunches. She fluffs up the fur of the long-haired ones, and gives them whimsical hairstyles which she then pats flat again, so as not to compromise their dignity. … Miss Feakes keeps all the fur from her combings, and puts it in carrier bags, because one day she is intending to have it spun, and then she can knit herself the softest and most personal cardigan in the history of the world.(Notwithstanding, Louis de Berniéres)
