A Cat Called Merlot

Thursday 30th July 2020

This week I was told to be on my best behaviour, as Queenie was on her second date with someone called Nick. He described himself in his website profile as ‘Hedonistic artist with a VGSOH, penchant for long romantic dinners and log fires’. What’s VGSOH and WHO uses the word ‘penchant’? I hated him immediately. He arrived half an hour late and was a bit scruffy and I think he still had the residue of his ‘art’ under his finger nails. I sat on the chair opposite and stared at him, with distaste. With a nervous laugh, he described me as intense and said it’s a shame he couldn’t give me a pat as he’s a bit allergic to cats. He didn’t mention that in his profile! Jubilantly, I moved to sit next to him when Queenie went off to get drinks, so he promptly got up and moved to another chair. I followed, enjoying myself. He made a flapping motion with his hands, mouthing something that ended in ‘off’, whilst looking over his shoulder to make sure Queenie had’t heard. Game on! I jumped on the back of his chair and rubbed myself round his head, purring. In response he leapt up and sprinted to the farthest corner of the room, frantically searching his pockets for his inhaler. By the time Queenie returned with the drinks, Nick, ashen faced and without any sign of VGSOH, wheezed something about being sorry but ‘it probably wasn’t going to work’ and, to Queenie’s evident surprise, he departed. 

Liam O’Brien lives at number 33. Originally from County Cork, he’s certainly lived his life. Three or four lives probably and all very different. He owns the antique / bric-a-brac shop in town and he’s always involved in some scam or another. Sometimes I go and sit in his shop, among the clutter and smell of damp, to enjoy the latest one. As ever, I was rewarded because on Wednesday morning, I found him telling a customer how he’d just got back from a three-week trip to Russia, returning with  a consignment of priceless bronze figures, purchased from an oligarch in Vladivostok. That confused me as I know for a fact, he hasn’t been away, apart from a brief trip in his van, to a house clearance in Gateshead. Drawn in by the improbable tale, the customer eventually purchased one and he’d not got as far as the A27 before he noticed an arm had fallen off it. On his return, Liam (mortified) said the problem was, you couldn’t trust a Russian, look at Salisbury! 

On Monday morning, Queenie received a call from her mother, Lydia who had been detained at Bow Street Police Station, to say her camper van had been towed away and could she use Queenie’s credit card to liberate it? She’d tried Queenie’s brother Stephen but he seemed to have problems with his phone as it kept going dead. Apparently she’d been arrested for disorderly conduct in Hyde Park: Firstly for blocking in three crowd control police vans because “there was a lovely space right next to the park” and secondly chaining herself to the leg of a mounted police officer singing “We Shall Not Be Moved” whilst shouting at the handful of otherwise peaceful climate protesters, “Come on you lot, put some effort in! Follow me, I was at Greenham Common!” After an afternoon in the cells, she was released with a caution.

If you are enjoying my blog, please share it with your feline-loving friends! Thank you, Merlot x