Oh I don't know – Auguste Escoffier? Jamie Oliver? All I know is that our dere little black domestic shorthair, the incomparably idle Beamish – to my certain knowledge the only creature ever to put 'Iron Lung' on his Christmas list in order to save him the bother of breathing for himself – is getting very antsy about eating cat food.
It's my fault, I expect. You know how it is. You find yourself with a magret of duck on your plate at exactly the same time you find your ankle being moistened by a persistent nose and before you can say "Look, would you mind awfully not doing that?" the duck is inside the cat, the cat is snoring on your foot and you are explaining defensively to various cackling family members that vegetables are good for you and there's nothing wrong with the occasional root supper, especially when it is made all the more palatable by the judicious addition of a short sauce that would also go nicely with duck, if one happened to have any.
Actually, I'm not going to take all the blame. I can lay a good 50% of it at the feet of my beloved husband; a hard man who once explained, apropos something else entirely, that the best thing to hit someone with was a Ford Cortina but who is helpless in the face of half a stone of purring carnivore. I have watched that man take a medium-sized chunk of sirloin steak, cut it into bits and – having first taken the precaution of sucking any nasty mustard off it – allow it to fall into a handily waiting protein digester built on the lines of the Tardis – small on the outside but an eighteen-roomed mansion within, all of them dining-rooms.
Anthropomorphism reigns in our household and has done ever since we worked out how to say it. Accordingly, Beamish has been invested with the voice of 'Tim Nice But Dim' and we think he may be pretty much a feline Idiot Savant – utterly toss at cat stuff, but a world expert on fighter aircraft. And what we're having for supper.
I do buy catfood, obviously. I even take it out of its tins and place it on his food mat. I just don't know why. I stand like a lemon in supermarkets, wondering if his sophisticated little palate would go for Stoat'n'Beaver In Gravy, or did I try that last week? What about Furrykins' "Poussin and Sole Fillets in Lemon Mousseline"? I even once – and I'm not ashamed to admit it – bought him a tin of "Christmas Dinner" – and disposed of it the moment I opened the tin. "He'll never eat this," I whined, "There's far too much sage in it." So he had my pork chop, instead. Well I like carrots, all right?
The only person in our house not to fall victim to Beamish's blandishments is the house yoof, Oli. When Henrik came home one evening to explain that he was going to be away on business overnight, Oli simply looked at me and said "Oh great – lamb!" a meat Henrik doesn't overly care for. Beamish, on the other hand, goes berserk for it. An accurately grilled cutlet, or 'Baa Baa' as we think he refers to it, is something for which he is prepared to do the unthinkable and actually storm across the dining table to get at. He knows better than to expect anything – particularly lamb – from Oli who, on the last occasion, simply hurled invective at him and carried on chomping.
Having looked across at my Only Born, to enquire icily if he thought that was the sort of thing he should be saying at all, let alone to a cat, we had a few words on Appropriate Language and I returned to my dinner....or at least to some petits pois and gravy. As the knife and fork clashed onto the porcelain glaze where my chop used to be I looked around bemusedly. "Oh, see, there it is Mater dearest," Oli pointed out helpfully, "In the cat."
"Get on with your dinner!" I snapped tartly "And thank you for constructing a sentence with an object in it for a change."
When Henrik returned, carrying a large parcel of Irish smoked salmon he had the unutterable gall to pretend was for me, he sniffed the air and said "You've been eating lamb again, haven't you? I do wish you wouldn't, we'll never break Beamish of his snippet habit."
Which was all very well and good, until I caught the damned cat cutting the crusts off some very thinly-sliced brown bread and butter.
(Following the writing of this article, Beamish died after a short illness and his last acts on this earth were to have a little something to eat and a nap. He was, in fact, utterly Beamish to the end and will remain in our heads and hearts forever.)
