h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It has been a busy week in the Holme Valley, and almost a tragic one. Almost, but not quite, yet. Normally at this point I'd describe the weather, but to be honest, last week, I haven't noticed.

The week started out in the normal way, with the cooker still disconnected and no prospect of the plumber coming to fix it, and me trying to cook pancakes for Shrove Tuesday on a camping gaz stove with an omelette pan. All went well until the time came to flip them. I'd forgotten to allow for the fact that the heat from a camping gaz stove is minimal, and the batter takes a long time to heat up. Consequently, what I tried to flip was mostly still liquid, and landed partly back in the pan and partly across the sink, in a splattery mess. Deb commented acidly that she'd "always known I was a useless tosser" and made herself a sandwich instead.

On Ash Wednesday, while Gemma and her family were no doubt settling down to Corned Beef Hash, we were busy taking Russell back to the vet. Mick's manner was grave as he outlined what he thought was happening. Russell's problem in the digestive region had lessened, but they think he's not producing any red blood cells and he was very tired and very anaemic. And he still has massive kidney and heart problems.

Mick's diagnosis was that it would be better to end it there and then, but I could not bring myself to do that without giving it one last go, so we brought him home again and he goes back on Monday. Mick did give him a cocktail of steroids and vitamins which perked him up a bit and when we got back, we made up a warm bed, inside the hearth, for Russ, and a litter tray so he didn't have to go out into the cold night to do his necessaries.

He spent some time on Wednesday night eating cooked chicken and grated cheese, with Deb hand-feeding him.

Thursday and Friday passed in a blur. The plumber came, and went, leaving a bill for £45. I noticed that the Goddess of Wheeliebins had carelessly allowed the dustmen to leave ours all over the drive. Other than that, I immersed myself in the world of what E. M. Forster called "telegrams and anger".

When I did come up for air, it was then that I found myself blubbing. On Friday night, I got back, and sat in the chair by the stove. Russ roused himself from his cat bed in the hearth, and jumped on me, settling down on my chest, and purring feebly. I shut my eyes and found myself praying, to Big G, St Padre Pio, or whoever:

"Look, if he has to go, God, let him go now. I offer him up to you. Just take him now, while he's happy and he can feel my heartbeat under him, and he's warm and he's purring and being held, just let him slip away."

But he didn't, so after a decent interval I fed him some more chicken instead, then he settled back down. Since then, he's been eating Beef and Liver Dog Food, he's been outside a couple of times, and he's been snoozing in his warm cat bed in the hearth and using his tray when he has to. We know that, if he starts to exhibit signs of pain and distress, that will be the cue for ringing the vets' emergency number and getting him out here to do the necessary. But at the moment, we just take things one day at a time.

So certain was I on Thursday that he wouldn't make it, that I had even worked out what I was going to say in this column today about him, and that it would do for his epitaph. Since I have already published my *own* epitaph a few Epilogues ago, I might as well do the same for Russell now, then he too can be one of those lucky people who get to read their own obituary because the papers got their death wrong:

"In November 1992, when I had lost my partner, and my dad, plus Silvester, and Halibut, the two previous cats, all in the space of six months, the Cats' Protection League asked me to look after Russell for a few weeks 'til they could find something more suitable. On his way round to my house, he'd already escaped from the cat carrier in Dean (CPL volunteer)'s car, so he was handed to me through the door, alive and squirming, a kitten, the size of one of my palms.

He named himself, from his onomatopoeic habit of getting into open boxes of books waiting to be packed, and rustling constantly in the brown kraft paper we used for sending orders out to bookshops at the time. After saying "what is that rustle?" a few times, the emphasis changed and the comma got shifted.

He celebrated the passing of the first month in my possession by eating a GPO parcel band off the desk and having to have an operation which cost £127 to remove it from his innards. After that, he led a fairly blameless life, scaling the net curtains, bringing in earthworms as presents, doing all the things cats do. He celebrated his next major injury, breaking his leg, by lying in the sun in the window, giving himself dehydration, so he had to be revived by being wrapped in a damp towel. On his return from the vets with his leg strapped up, he promptly climbed on top of the wardrobe.

I can't say he was the best cat in the world, because there were times when he was the worst cat in the world. He was an accomplished food thief and beggar from plates. A snapper-up of unconsidered food generally, and not just trifles. In his prime, no worktop was impregnable, no dish too heavy to tip over and lap up the contents.

His other endearing trick was to invade the duvet in the middle of the night, often when wet as well as cold, then lie across your throat like a giant furry purry scarf, until you woke up unable to breathe and thinking you were having a cardiac, only to realise that this particular cardiac arrest had decided to purr.

It is always dangerous to start imbuing animals, which are essentially instinctive, with human characteristics, but I can honestly say that it was only the thought that he was relying on me that got me out of bed and to the office during those dark days of the winter of 1992/93. Without him, I would probably have given up. Without him, I would have been utterly alone instead of merely bereft, and for that I do owe him. To quote the Auden poem, he was my working week, and certainly for the last year or so, writing about him, he's been my "Sunday best".

He was a good little cat. He eventually became famous, as the virtual cat of I-church, but he never let it go to his head. He still hid from visitors in the cupboard under the sink, only emerging at the sound of food preparation.

That, at least, is true, and, with his small cat spirit going out into the vast dark that lies beyond, I have no doubt that all the trumpets in cat heaven will sound at his passing over, with lashings of sardines and cream all round.

Night night, Baggis. Go sleepies."

Like I said, I thought I'd be writing that epitaph this weekend, but for the second time in these columns, he's proved me wrong. Even so, I've been thinking a lot this week of giving up doing this writing every Sunday, or maybe only doing it occasionally for a while, so I can concentrate on what I once called "the things that matter." It's OK me sitting up here thinking I am some sort of big shot writer, justifying the ways of God to men and then sterilising it with Milton, but there are four other furry beings apart from Russ the puss that rely on me to get things right and earn some money, and some humans too that rely on me for help, companionship and inspiration, which shows you what a fix THEY are in right now! And like the song says

"What's the use of two good ears, if you can't hear those you love. "

I have to concentrate on turning things round now, and making sure they are all OK in the difficult weeks ahead, starting with Baggis. But at the end of it, I will still be me. And don't think for one minute that I am not eternally and endlessly grateful for the messages of support for Russ that have come winging in from places like Korea, Park Forest Illinois, Brighton, and other exotic spots on the globe, as readers of these weekly updates heard the news and responded, on the Archers Web Site and on I-church.

So, thank God I have still got Tiggy, Nigel, Dusty, Kitty, and Russ, for a little while longer, who knows. And thank God for my friends. Life is lent, as the Anglo-Saxon Bard puts it, but for the moment, it's Sunday night and once more I am here at my desk in the office at the top of the house, frozen stiff, with the hood of my fleece up, listening, indeed, even as I type this, to the sound of Dusty making a nest in the accounts filing. (If only she could hold a pen or use a spreadsheet, she might be some use, but, as a cat, her idea of "trial balance" is to jump up onto something rickety to see if it will hold her (considerable) weight.

I've been doing these Epilogues for a year now. 52 weeks out of my life, and a twelfth of Russell's so far. There is about 70,000 words of the stuff: mostly, if the parodists are to be believed, consisting of, "sick cat/the light on the Humber". On the other hand, you could read it as possibly the longest feline love letter in history, yet Russell's not even a lady-cat, and I'm not gay, (nor, indeed, a cat) so where does that take us? The plain fact is, though, even if I sat and wrote another gazillion words about him, it won't bring him back when the time comes.

Whatever happens with Russell, I will write a postscript, an Epi-epi-logue, if you like. But just in case I am not minded to write next week, for whatever reason, and because I don't want to end on a cliffhanger, I just want to reiterate what I believe this last year's taught me -

The indomitable nature of the human spirit

The holiness of the heart's affections

The value of friends

No retreat, Baby, no surrender,

and - probably most of all - in the words of Philip Larkin

"What will survive of us, is Love".

So we go into tomorrow, into a new week of new challenges and new problems. We shall not cease our exploring, and the end result, as Eliot says, is to end up where we started from, but to know it for the first time.

Night night, everyone. Go sleepies.