Even
more Wonka – Golly Goes to Heaven
Published
by Madeleine Masterson at Smashwords
Copyright
2013 Madeleine Masterson
We are trying not to be sad
but sad we are. Me and Wonka are
sad. Baba, who is a strange sort of ugly
beautiful black scruffy cat, used to living outside in all weathers, a
hardened, outdoors cat. Well he is now
on the inside. He is not sad, he is too busy recovering. Brought back from the brink of death, he is a
sight. All the dynamics have changed for
us, and we feel different.
All this happened suddenly
and we had to catch up with the changes.
Talking it through with Wonka has definitely helped. He likes to go through the order of events
and funnily enough, so do I. Maybe one
of the great psychologists trembling on the brink of new domains discovered
this one, piecing things through,
putting together their new and revolutionary theory – well, it’s most likely
they had someone like Wonka bringing them back to reality all the time. Like ‘Who got ill first?’ I am immediately reminded of the sequence of
events that removed our beloved Golly (the Good and the Wise) from earthly
living. Of course the greater pattern
will reveal all in the end I dare say, but for now, these simple steps and questions
keep us going.
‘It was Golly who started
sneezing first, but – ‘
We both look over at
Baba. He is as I said not a designer
cat, or that new term, boutique, just sort of lopsided, dull looking fur and
tongue often poking out and a weird thing going on with his mouth. If you didn’t know him, you would think he
was gearing up for a fight.
Hardly.. For a start he hasn’t
got too much energy left after a two week bout of the worst cat flu on the
block. I whisper through the next
things that happened to Wonka, the visit to the vets on Christmas Eve, with
Golly and the coming home without him.
‘Is he in heaven?’ And I paint the picture of Golly trotting
alongside St Francis, for surely that’s who is heading up the animal sanctuary
on the other side. Yes I say, then you
fell ill and back we go to the Vets, and finally to round it off and make it
the worst Christmas for a long time (daughter had fallen out with me just prior
to) Baba developed a strange barking cough and his normal runny eyes got
worse. No use going on about how he was
a stray, not to the Vets. After all how
would they go on their holidays to the Caribbean if I didn’t pay up?
Vets it was at around ten at
night because that’s when you run out of good ideas and start thinking in a
very negative way. Like, he is not going
to make it through the night and I cannot stand losing another cat. That and finding reasons to keep going
myself. The credit card poised to take
more hammering, me and this wisp of a black coughing sneezing article, we draw
up in my car that would also have cat flu if it could. We draw up and get anything that will save
Baba and then go back home.
‘Then what?’ – prompts
Wonka. I had gone off into a dream of
how small the balance was on my credit card then to what it is now. Let me not think about it overmuch. Then I say – that’s when we fought to keep
that lopsided, surely on the simple side cat alive. ‘I told you not to let him in!’ shrieks
Wonka, hooking a claw into my knee to emphasise the rightness of this advice
and darts off to bat one of his cat toys into a secret dark place. Well.
Once more my life is
squeezed into a miniscule unimportant place; while I fight to save a cat I
don’t love a quarter of how much I adored Golly. Who is now in heaven. We are still here, me and Wonka and the year unfolded
in a strange way that left more questions – and lots of straightforward
advice. Not from Baba I hasten to add,
who is, as promised by Wonka, costing a fortune. How did this happen I wonder, that the
household seems to revolve around a cat recently ‘let in’ and nothing to
recommend it? And I wonder this to
Wonka, who does not want to listen to all that unconditional love rubbish.
‘Guilt’ he comes up with –
that’s why I have to rescue everything.
Hmm, and he’s not even religious!
Now if Golly were here, he would turn the other cheek and allow and
accept Baba into the fold. Or Pack.
He’s not here though.
Stumbling back through the
door with the usual amounts of shopping, mostly new brands of cat food that
Baba could more easily digest, I barely reached the kettle before folding up
into a fresh bout of self -pity. ‘I don’t like those pouches!’ shouted Wonka,
chasing Baba under the table and hissing for good measure. I said how sorry I was, weeping and making
myself a cup of tea. I’d just discovered
a new brand called two of a kind or some such, which said it was giving me all
the goodness of green tea whilst continuing to taste like builder’s tea. So far on I had taken a real liking to it and
the fact that it promised a healthy lifestyle hit the spot..
‘We’re starving!’ shrieked
Wonka, and even Baba dared utter a piteous cry.
I paused in my weeping to see to them.
It had become known to me, at the onset of the New Year that I was
heading for a ghastly time of it. People
at work had insisted on asking me how my Christmas was, that was just the needy
clients and as for the staff – Wonka had his work cut out there. ‘You’re too
giving!’ and the eternal ‘you worry too much!’
Worry? I was even now busy with a stress and anxiety
workshop that to be fair I needed to go on far more that the twenty messed up
clients I’d invited. Luckily, none of
them turned up which of course had me on the run. Next thing I’d be inventing a caseload just
to meet the targets. Have you ever felt
caught between two impossible demands?
The Greeks knew all about it, staged plays and built philosophies around
it all. Oh and a word, dilemma. Back in the real world, life had gone into a
Greek Tragedy.
The GP was most considerate
and as charming as only people from far off lands can be. This had been noted and discussed. You will recall the failed attempts to find
love locally, or even near to locally.
It seems that British men (to me) (and to Wonka) are unable to couple
manliness with gentleness and – here it comes, anything nearing manners. Whilst abroad, even if they are going to
treat you badly, there is a certain grace to it all. For once Wonka is in strong agreement, but
just about the manners thing. Anyhow,
the GP listened carefully, picking out the main problems from the sobbing and
silent gestures.
‘Are you thinking of
suicide?’ he prompted. The irony of
it! One minute I am supporting the
messed up masses, moaning about them to Wonka and the next I am one with them. This is just the kind of connecting I wanted
to avoid.
Leaving my purse at home was
my latest thing. That and getting wound
up in the deep of the night. Wonka
again took me to task. ‘You’re
overthinking it!’ or ‘get over yourself!’
Like me he is watching too much pop idol. Any day now he will call me dog, or man or
just Yo. I had though found a way
forward, which helped me cope, sleep, function, confront the very situation I
had been dreading for ten years or more, and look alright while it was going
on. It wasn’t tablets, or therapy, or
healthy eating, nor friends (who?) and I was amazed that no one was talking
this one up. Me and Wonka were fine on
it and as for Baba, he lived in a half dream anyway. The miracle cure? Boxsets. Yes and it turns out, the more
violent and aggressive the storyline, the more macho the characters, infect the
more gangsta ridden then the more I am likely to be glued to it. Again, the psychologists are in the money.
‘Don’t answer it!’ the phone
had become the enemy, the bearer of bad news either about me, my aged parent or
aged sibling. Daughter bore bad news via
text and mobile which was standard.
Wonka’s advice re the phone was solid, and when I did answer it Baba sat
nearby meowing. And finally hitting
me. Life really did warrant moaning
about.
When I wasn’t seeing to Baba
and his inner workings, my new name for the ghastly products of his digestion
system, I was having to leave the home for short high anxiety trips down
south. Carefully, and in between sobbing,
I explained to Wonka that we needed someone called a cat sitter.
‘It’s not happening!’
shrieked Wonka in protest and threw himself under the bed. Baba still in prolonged recovery was fairly
motionless on his pillycase at the top of the stairs. It was supposed to capture all the tufts of
hair, miniscule mites and such that lived on him. Though how they got any nourishment was
beyond me.
It is happening and it’s a
fully professional cat sitting service with real business cards,
recommendations (from my hairdresser they know everyone) and everything. It is bone fide. Of course Wonka fell in love at first sight
and Baba hardly noticed any difference.
All that was different really was my credit card and anxiety levels.
As the year juddered along I
needed more and more advice and luckily the GP remained in a position of high
regard. Wonka asked me straight out if I
had a crush on him. ‘Oh come on’ I
muttered, already on a train of thought about therapeutic relationships and
transference and so on. ‘And what if I
am?’ I mean I could do a lot worse with my crushes.
As with most things that are
bothering you, they suddenly feature all day long, confronting you whether you
want this kind of brutal coming to terms or not. The daily discussion on my favourite radio
show wanted to talk about this very topic and even had real Doctors revealing
stuff. It turned out that this kind of
relationship is fraught with dangers for patient and Doctor with everyone in turmoil
and in an impossible love tryst thing.
It was the Greeks again. Made me
question whether we have discovered anything else since. Mind you, there were some pretty heavyweight
prophets on the go never mind Jesus who capped it all with his stories for the
human masses. If we were to reduce this
to the feline world, Baba would be the prodigal son.
Wonka has reminded me of a
fatal visit to the ‘Christians’ who used to live next door, thus fitting the
description entirely of the good neighbour.
He had been but a kitten then, and still popping outside. The neighbours alerted me to his seagull
obsession and so began the road back to being a cat on the inside. I had been going round to them for a short
time, to investigate the world of the Christians.
Unfortunately and Wonka did
warn me (take it with a pinch of salt!) there was little of Jesus in evidence
and rather too much of them. I put this
down to my fragile state and need for something more substantial, more earthy
really. Happily for us they moved on to be Christians elsewhere and a charming
family from a far off land moved in.
Wonka approved, peaking at them from behind the curtain and Baba drifted
off into another dream. The year was
moving on.
‘I don’t want to know!’
shouted Wonka as I pitched up, having handed my notice in. Leaving all that target driven, endless
meetings and monthly reporting behind, oh and seeing a few clients if I had
time. That was a good thing, but would
my new philosophy stand up? The ‘follow
your heart’ or was it ‘listen to your inner self’ one.
‘We’re starving me and Baba!’
and ‘I don’t like that one!’ as I tentatively shook out some new and expensive
biscuits into a saucer. I could feel a
fresh bout of stress and anxiety coming on and had two cups of favourite tea to
fend off. Due to the latest warning on
the dangers of self-medication – and Wonka said they meant aspirin, I was loath
to chuck any down. This just left me
with talking to myself, listening to Wonka, or borrowing another Boxset.
The volley of sneezing from
Baba intercepted the anxiety attack and brought me back to the situation. Infact, and I did raise this with Wonka, the
sneezing attacks pretty well matched my Dad’s allergic sneezing. Earthly sneezing that is, that would start
and keep going for some time. It drove
Mother round the twist and back and became quite a problem to be solved. Whether he is still at it in Heaven and
someone there is searching for a solution, well maybe the Christians would
know. Wonka did remark that once more I
was finding traces of my Dad amongst the feline world, and it would keep some
counsellor come therapist busy I dare say.
In the meantime, a
comparison with what Dad did to what Baba is doing keeps me sane. The three S’s, sneezy, smelly and scruffy had
been applied to Baba, oh and the fourth, simple. Despite this he had somehow wandered into our
affections. Well Wonka’s favourite game
consisted of chasing him round, but all the same, he seemed to now belong. And instead of tripping over Wonka’s mice,
plastic balls with bells in them and those plastic things inside choc eggs, I
was tripping over Baba. For some reason
he had no awareness of other beings.
‘I warned you!’ said Wonka
from his perch near the back door. He
had been peering under the blind for any sightings of the menacing looking but
needy stray.
His name was Rugrat
shortened to Ruggles which as I say belied his frightening exterior. He looked ready to sort out just about
anything but hadn’t attacked me yet. In
the days when beloved Golly was going out the back and sunning himself in the
yard by the Buddleia, I had to juggle outings being on the lookout for
Rug. Now we were all on the inside, Rug
trotted in and out of the yard exciting Wonka no end. He would rush from his perch at the bay in
the front to the sideboard overlooking the back and sometimes it would warrant
a rush upstairs to balance on a tiny windowsill.
We studied the back yard but
there was no sign of Ruggles. I had been
warned about the dangers of allowing him in.
‘Under no circumstances…’
We were approaching the back
end of the year, as I say so far frightfully demanding, relentless on the
credit card and underlined with change.
Again, the Greeks probably dealt with these situations in a reasonable
yet entertaining way. In the meantime I
had Wonka to guide me and Baba to challenge me.
It would have to do for now.
The End -
Hope you enjoyed that story and there are many more if you did!! all published on smashwords.com and all free for you to read - go into next week with your tail held high folks!! Big Love Wonka XXXX
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