Uncling Duties

A selection of conversations with my friends’ cats.

It’s spring, and before returning home to Galway, I’m staying with some very good friends, L & T, for a few days. This means time with their cats, too.

Day #0

L, excitedly, blue eyes sparkling: Would you like to see the children?

ME: Absolutely, yes, please, right now.

We go into the living room, where the children, Kira and Bercow, are on the windowsill. Bercow, a great beast of a tuxedo creature carved from black-furred beef, looks uncomprehendingly at us; Kira, sleek and agile, stares at us with slightly more comprehension, but not as much as she would like to have us believe.

I extend my hand for them to sniff.

L: It’s your beloved uncle, Johannes.

ME, naive: Did you miss me?

BERCOW, sniffing my fingers with powerful shifts of his nostrils, his white moustache twitching: What.

KIRA, her eyes suspicious: Fuck you.

ME: Okay.

We retire to play boardgames, and the children, disinterested, leave us be. Later, when I go upstairs to brush my teeth, I foolishly leave the bathroom door slightly ajar.

KIRA: Beloved uncle! It is time to spend time together!

ME, mouth white with toothpaste froth, one-handed: No, Kira, wait, I don’t want you in here —

KIRA: Let us play together by way of me knocking over all of these bottles!

ME: No, come here —

BERCOW: Oh, the bathroom is open! Finally we are permitted entry to the mysterious wet place! I want to look into the toilet.

ME: No cats in the bathroom!

KIRA: Well, that’s not true. Agh! Unhand me!

With outside aid, the cats are expelled, and I brush my teeth alone. They look at me with scorn and sorrow respectively when I finally exit again, and close the door behind me.

BERCOW, flopping onto his back: Rub my belly, Uncle?

KIRA, regarding him with disgust: You are a sycophant and a dolt.

ME: What a soft belly!

Day #1

I have been awake for some time, and Kira bats me in the head.

ME: Good morning.

KIRA: No one is awake! I am alone!

ME: I mean, I’m here.

KIRA, mournfully: Completely and utterly alone!

ME: Okay.

KIRA: Will no one ever play with me again, or touch my silky fur? Agh. Don’t touch me.

ME:

KIRA: Don’t stop! Pet me more.

ME:

—

KIRA, burrowing into a piece of fabric on the windowsill, set aside while L isn’t sewing: Yes. Yes! Yes!!

ME: Oh, no, is there a crumb in there?

KIRA, sniffing as though she’s a bloodhound rather than a tortoiseshell, ignoring me entirely: Yes, yes!

ME: Okay, let me see.

KIRA: Unhand me, fool!

ME: Okay, that’s a bee, and it’s not a good toy.

KIRA: Fresh prey!

ME: No, it’s a bee, and it will sting you.

KIRA: Allow me the hunt, Uncle, I am strong. No blade nor arrow might harm me!

ME: A bee sting might, though.

Kira is tossed from the room as I retrieve a glass to capture the honeybee, which is mildly agitated but mostly just seems disoriented at having been in the conservatory all night. She rushes past me back inside, and I use my elbow to awkwardly hold her back as I gently capture the bee.

Kira, a blessed idiot, continues to sniff and search for the bee, certain it has slipped back into the folds of the lace fabric she found it in.

I release the bee outside. Some time later, Kira comes over to give me a doleful look at being deprived of a fresh kill.

—

BERCOW: Good morning, Uncle!

ME: Hello, Bercow.

BERCOW, proudly: I’m going to do a poo!

ME:

BERCOW:

One gets the impression that were Bercow capable of smiling gormlessly, he would never stop.

—

Kira is sitting on the windowsill, looking interested out into the garden and peering to examine passers-by. Bercow, ever-affectionate, sees that she is settled in the narrow space and decides they should be curled up together.

BERCOW: Dear and darling sister! Let us snuggle!

KIRA: No thank you.

Bercow is already halfway into the space, and Kira’s face crumples in distaste and irritation as she leans back and away from her brother, keeping out of the way until he turns around and begins to lean, purring, into her.

BERCOW: Cuddles!

KIRA: No.

She hops up and away from him, settling down in a nearby basket, and Bercow stares after her longingly before sighing and sprawling out on the windowsill on his own.

—

In the afternoon, dozy and exhausted after the convention behind me, I lie down on the bench in the conservatory to have a nap. I entreat Kira to lie down with me, and she refuses point-blank, making no secret of her revulsion.

Showing me some small mercy and affection, she curls up in my laptop sleeve on the table beside me.

We fall asleep together.

We do not wake up together. An hour or two later, I am rudely awoken by screaming from my feet.

KIRA: Wake! Wake yourself, you awful man, you langurous pervert! Tend to me!

ME, bleary and confused: What? What do you want?

KIRA: Wake! Be awake! I want you awake!

ME, sitting up: Kira. Kira, what do you want? Come here.

KIRA: Yes, yes, pet me. I’m in distress.

ME: Why?

KIRA: I’m hungry.

ME: I can’t help you with that. I don’t decide when your dinner time is.

KIRA: I know. But I wanted you awake.

ME:

Reader, their bowl was still half-full.

Later, L and T’s roommate, W, tells me that she glanced into the conservatory while I was napping. I was a tableau, unconscious: the children were sitting together, side-by-side, and watching me with evident concentration.

W: It was like they were studying you. They were really into it.

ME: Awful. Thanks.

—

We are sitting and chatting at the table as L cooks dinner.

L, suddenly, turning toward the window: No! No, fuck off, fuck off! Absolutely not! Go!

The window beside the sink does not go to the outside — it goes to the conservatory. L, having opened the window to let out a bit of steam, had forgotten it, and Bercow is now attempting to stick his paws through the gap and beg our attention if not the bolognese on the stove.

L shuts the window.

Bercow’s pitiful miaows, silenced by the glass between us, go unheard.

—

We were playing games in the kitchen, and I went to the bathroom. The children are not permitted entry to the kitchen — it’s used as an airlock to always keep an additional barrier between them and the outside door.

The two of them sit in front of the door, boring holes into it with their intent gazes.

KIRA: Our fathers care not for us. They have abandoned us forever.

BERCOW: There’s food in there!

ME: Aw, have you been locked out? Unloved? Neglected?

BERCOW: I smelt the food earlier. It’s definitely in there.

KIRA: You will die by my hand.

ME, stepping over them and into the kitchen: Uh huh. See you later.

—

With a torrent of complaining miaows, thunks, and thumps, the children come down the stairs in a ball of fur and limb. Kira, often the quicker of the two, zooms into the living room with Bercow hot on her heels, and he pounces atop her, biting on the back of her neck and pinning her to the floor with his considerable weight.

KIRA: He’s abusing me!

ME: I see that.

KIRA: Release me, you fool!

BERCOW: Ha-ha. I’m bigger than you.

ME: Bercow, don’t be a pervert. That’s your sister.

BERCOW: I’m big!

ME: Yes.

KIRA: Agh.

T scoops Bercow up into his arms, and I rub Kira’s sides affectionately until she decides she’s had enough affection.

Bercow sprawls back in T’s clutch, his paws spread wide. When T tries to put him down, Bercow manages to get tangled in his jumper, and hangs on fruitlessly — he drops to the floor with a loud thunk, just as I walk toward the kitchen.

Bercow chooses to put himself directly under my feet, then looks at me, wounded and offended, when I have the audacity to trip over his bulk.

—

I ascend the stairs encumbered with a headache, which is making the space behind my eyes throb powerfully. This means it hurts when I see W brushing her teeth with two feline companions as an audience — Bercow and Kira are sitting in a two-cat row in the steamy bath fresh from L’s shower, and they peer at me through the glass.

BERCOW, not without enthusiasm: Our father wets himself in here!

ME: Cool. That’s not what that means.

When I pet Bercow as he passes me by on the stairs, his fur is damp to the touch.

—

I am lying in the dark, about ready to sleep.

From the conservatory, where the litter box is, comes T’s voice: Bercow, leave her alone. She’s shitting.

Day #2

At around six AM, I wake up and lock eyes with Kira, who is sitting behind the sofa and staring at me.

KIRA: You’re awake, then.

ME: Hi, Kira.

KIRA: No one else is awake.

ME: No. I thought as much.

KIRA: Hmph.

She departs and goes back upstairs.

A few minutes later, Bercow comes downstairs. He declines to let me touch him, and ignores my attempts to coax him into a cuddle.

—

I watch as Bercow goes over to their empty food bowl and paws at the air around and overtop of it, as if burying it under air. Some time later, I take a Tesco bag away from him to keep him from chewing on it.

He looks at me mournfully, wondering why I would so cruelly deprive him.

—

Some time around midday, I’m preparing food in the kitchen for dinner later — W is upstairs preparing for an interview, and L & T are both at work. I step out of the kitchen to get my phone charger.

KIRA: I’m alone! I’m being neglected! No one is loving me or paying attention to me!

ME: Sorry. I’m cooking.

KIRA: You’re not sorry. You hate me.

ME: I don’t hate you.

KIRA: I hate you!

ME: I believe that.

KIRA:

ME:

KIRA: Will you pet me now?

ME: Of course.

I sit with her and pet her for a while, then head upstairs to see Bercow curled up on the bed. He chirrups a greeting at me, and leans into my foot when I sit beside him.

BERCOW: Love me!

ME: I do love you.

He gets up and lies down again so that my foot is not touch him.

ME: Oh, okay. I see how it is.

—

I’m working downstairs, and at around five PM, Bercow comes downstairs and miaows pitifully.

ME: Your fathers will be home soon. Probably in an hour, two hours.

BERCOW: Where is everybody?

ME: It’s just me, buddy. No one else is home yet.

BERCOW: I’m hungry! And lonely! And sad!

ME: Okay, well, do you want me to pet you?

BERCOW: No!

ME: Okay.

BERCOW, with a long-suffering sigh: I’m going to do a poo now.

ME: Okay.

Day #3

No cats woke me this morning. I didn’t see either of them ’til later in the day, as I was working primarily in the kitchen and then went out for some meetings. When I returned home, I walked into the conservatory to have a nap.

Bercow was already sitting in one of the chairs; Kira hopped up ahead of me to sit on the bench.

ME: Excuse me, Mrs Lady. I was going to sit there.

KIRA: No.

ME: You know I was going to sit there.

KIRA: No!

ME: Okay, I’ll just scoot past, and sit down next to you.

Kira, to my unbelievable surprise, is pleased by this development, and she comes and places two gentle paws on my thigh, emitting a quiet purr and butting her head into my hand for pets.

KIRA: Yes, yes. A little love. You don’t deserve it, but I will give it to you anyway.

ME: I’m very grateful.

KIRA: As you should be.

She hops up onto the table, waiting impatiently for me to put my laptop sleeve on the surface so that she can curl up on it, which she then does. I lie down and look sideways at Bercow, who regards me with stupid, sleepy eyes.

I fall asleep, and when I wake, Kira has decided to sleep on top of my legs. I am immensely flattered by this, but tragically, I must move her, because I am in so much pain. Gently, I scoop Kira up and bring her to sit on my chest — a grievous insult, having just awoken her.

KIRA: Horrible! Horrible horrible uncle man! Hate him! Will never return!

She hops up onto the table and scampers to the other side of the room, where she sleeps on the windowsill.

I, sighing, look to Bercow, who regards me with the same blank-headed incomprehension he always does.

BERCOW, unthinkingly: Love you!

ME: I love you too.

—

At some point in the day, I sleepily reach out and brush my fingers over Bercow’s side while he’s dozing, and he leans forward and grooms the back of my fingers.

I am very touched.

—

ME: Miss Lady. Mrs Lady. What are you doing?

KIRA, the picture of innocence: Nothing.

She is on top of a box of tabletop figurines and peering over the side of her perch, looking down inside the nearest box to her. Within the box are a great many painted figures in rows, stored by category.

ME: It feels like you’re going to take one out.

KIRA: I would never do such a thing.

She is taking one out. Reaching in with both paws, she scoops a rogue up between them the way you scoop a fish out of pondwater, and holds it for a moment.

Then, she throws it across the floor.

ME: Why did you do that?

KIRA: To watch it fly.

ME: Are you going to do it again?

KIRA, peering down into the box and getting ready to fish out another: No, of course not.

I scoop her up and toss her, complaining loudly, out of the conservatory, until she’s gotten this out of her system.

—

Bercow is still sleepy, but Kira is now awake. If Kira is awake, Bercow must be awake.

KIRA: Avast, ye! Face my wrath!

She slaps her brother in the face from under the chair. It is obvious from his bewildered expression that he has no idea what has just happened.

BERCOW: ?????????

KIRA: Coward! Why will you not face me? Why do you fear a righteous duel?

She grabs hold of the side of the chair and hangs underneath it. Bercow notices her presence, and looks down at her with interest.

BERCOW: Sister!

Kira slaps him in the face again, and Bercow crumples like wet paper.

KIRA: Again, I say: face me, you fool!

Bercow jumps down from his chair and pounces on top of her — Kira immediately screams bloody murder, because Bercow effortlessly pins her underneath him, and she cannot get free from his bulk.

ME: It feels like you deserved that.

KIRA: He’s bullying me! Bullied! Abused! I can never know a moment’s peace in this househould, a new enemy around every corner!

BERCOW: I love to play wrestle and I love my sister!

ME: I know that, Bercow. You’re very good.

KIRA: Bastard!

—

I rise to help T put up some shelves.

BERCOW: No! No! Horrible horrible drill noise! Bad! Make it stop!

KIRA: I love the drill noise. I love that it pains my brother. I am so curious, though, may I —

ME: No, Kira. You’re close enough to the drill.

KIRA: I must examine it. I must step closer.

T: Kira…

KIRA, musingly: Mmm… Some sort of weapon…

BERCOW: Scary!

KIRA: Be scared, you fool.

BERCOW, his ears so far back it looks like he’s sticking his face into a pipe: Aaaah! It’s angry!

KIRA: Yes…! Yes…!

She climbs up on one of the tall cabinets in the conservatory for a better view as Bercow cowers under some laundry.

T finishes drilling, and we screw the shelves into place. The children are disinterested in this part of the task, but now comes the final culmination of it: picking them up and putting them up on their new tall shelf.

ME: Bercow, Bercow, come here. Baby man. Big boy. Come here.

I reach for him, and he evades me.

BERCOW: No!! No!! You can’t get me!!

ME: Bercow, what do you think I’m going to do to you?

BERCOW: No!!

T: I’ve got him.

T picks him up, which Bercow accepts — until T hands him off immediately to me.

ME: Hello.

BERCOW: Aaaah!

ME: No, no, I’m not being horrible to you, look, look —

I hold Bercow up to the shelf, and he ceases struggling, examining it with interest.

T: Aaaah. See?

BERCOW: What’s this?

ME: New shelf. Want to go up and see it?

Bercow vehemently does not want this. He kicks and tries to cling onto me for some reason, in case the shelf is evil and perhaps in league with the drill. Nonetheless, I manage to tip him onto the shelf before he can claw his way down my back.

Ass hitting the wood, he re-evaluates.

BERCOW: Huh. Okay. Hey… I’m tall now!

ME: Yep.

BERCOW: I could jump on Kira from here!

ME: Maybe not.

I scoop Kira up with ease, and also pop her onto the shelf.

KIRA: Oh… I’m so tall.

ME: Uh huh!

KIRA: I could lay waste to all civilisation from here.

ME: … Yeah, actually. I’m willing to believe that of you.

The two cats sit in parallel to one another as T and I go back to work.

—

I have gone into the attic in search of books, and unfortunately, I neglected to remember that Kira likes the attic.

Specifically, Kira likes to hop up the ladder into the attic. She does not enjoy the process of coming down again, as the ladder frightens her. Just yesterday T was telling me about how she clawed him up when he had to get her out last time.

This does not bode well.

I pick up one box of books and take it down the ladder balanced on my hip, then take down the rest. Kira comes to the side of the ladder and peers down at me.

ME: Are you scared to come down?

KIRA: I’ve never been scared of anything ever.

ME: Do you want to come down?

KIRA: No.

She miaows pitifully as I set books aside on the landing, and I sigh, pulling myself up the ladder and looking at her. Pacing up and down the length of the attic, she is measuring up the windows, as if the solution to her troubles is not to get out of the attic in the way she came in, but to escalate her situation — quite literally — and get onto the roof outside.

ME: Those windows are closed, and there’s not another way out of the attic. You have to go down the ladder.

KIRA: No! I bet there’s a secret way out via this box of Warhammer figurines!

ME: There isn’t.

KIRA: I love the attic. I will stay here forever.

She peers longingly over the side of the hatch, to where Bercow is sitting on the carpet and staring up at us. A minute ago he managed to hobble his way up three of the ladder’s rungs, but I gave him a firm no and tossed him on the floor. One cat trapped in the attic is enough.

From this height, looking down at him, he forms a sort of black and white oblong with just his tail interrupting the shape.

KIRA: Brother, why don’t you aid me?

BERCOW: Hullo! You’re very tall!

KIRA: Ugh.

ME: Come here, Kira, I’ll carry you down.

She comes up to me seeking comfort, rubbing her body against my side, and I stroke her from top to tail before gently scooping her under the ribcage. I drop back onto the ladder, holding her against my chest, and immediately she panics.

ME: No, no, Kira, I’ve got you, just let me —

KIRA: Unhand me! Unhand me, you pervert, you would kill me!

ME: I’m not killing you, I’m taking you out of the attic — Please don’t put your claws in the carpet, no, come here, stop —

KIRA: You will throw me on the ground!

ME: I’m literally not throwing you on the ground, stop strug —

KIRA: Ha! Defeated! I have evaded you, you clumsy oaf!

ME: Yeah. Joke’s on me. I’m the one out of the attic.

KIRA:

ME:

KIRA: I like the attic.

ME: Okay.

I climb down. Her piteous miaows for assistance are ignored for about thirty seconds, until I go back into the attic. We repeat this process — her seeking comfort, me giving it, me attempting to carry her out of the attic, she resolutely refusing to be assisted out of the attic, several times.

I give up, and abandon her (temporarily) to her fate.

—

Some time later, W, L, T, and I are all attempting to get Kira out of the attic.

W and I trade off so that W can pass Kira down to me — I, wearing a big thick jumper, am better protected from her claws than W would be in my position. Unfortunately, W cannot get a good enough grip on Kira to pass her down to me without Kira grabbing at the sides of the hatch.

She is furious, and is absolutely calling all of us slurs.

L goes up into the attic, and calls her his sweet baby, and tells her that he loves her, and that it’s okay.

L: I see that your tail is very big. Can we have a small tail? Can we make the tail less big?

KIRA: No! My tail is big because I’m angry, I hate all of you perverts and I hate the attic and I want to come down!

L: I’m actually trying to take you down.

KIRA: I’m not going down that way. Are you an insane person? You’re trying to kill me! My own father!

I say that she is not a sweet baby and that I don’t love her, actually, and that she’s no longer my beloved niece but my beloathed one. This isn’t true, and saying it made absolutely no difference to her behaviour, but it made me feel better.

L tries to wrestle her down the ladder. He, too, is unsuccessful.

We hear him attempting to coax her into his arms, which Kira permits — she still will not come down the ladder.

T: Honestly, you can just toss her down. Just get her past the edge of the hatch and toss her, she will be fine hopping down the ladder steps. She’s a cat.

L does not want to do this.

Finally, T gets the cat carrier, and passes it up into the attic.

L: Hello, Mrs Lady. Would you like to be in your special bag?

He does not need to ask twice. Mrs Lady is already in her special bag, no doubt furious that said bag was not offered earlier. She is lowered gently down from the attic, a sort of dumber-than-dumb dumb waiter.

KIRA: Finally. Some good fucking service around here.

Bercow tries to sit on top of the bag, because his sister is in there.

We close the attic hatch.

—

ME: Hello, Kira. I kiss you and smooch you and love you.

KIRA: Horrible. Horrible pervert man. I hate him.

ME: Oh. Shall I stop petting you?

KIRA: That’s not what I fucking said.

She shoves her chin harder into my hand. I keep scritching.

Day #4

This morning, Kira came to me and when I begged for her company and made kissy noises and extended a hand, she actually came closer. After nudging her head against my hand, I scooped her up and brought her up onto the sofa with me, and she, purring, collapsed into my side.

ME: Oh my God, Kira, my baby niece, my beloved.

KIRA: Yes, yes. Show all due deference and also, scratch my bum.

She purred and squirmed around a bit, leaning into me and accepting all affection, for approximately two minutes before she departed.

—

Kira is sitting on the edge of the sofa, and I scratch her under the chin and behind the ears until she’s decided she’s had enough of this and walks off down the sofa. She sees Bercow sitting patiently outside of the kitchen door, waiting for whomever is inside to cross the threshold and come back into the living room.

Her body drops into a crouch, primed for her prowling movement forward as she stealthily walks along the back of the sofa, her head down, her paws silent against the leather. Her ears are drawn slightly back and her tail is curled against her body, the whole of her form coiling tighter to ready her for the oncoming pounce.

Bercow is oblivious to the threat. He is fixated on the movement in the kitchen.

Kira takes one last step forward, her body coiling down tighter, and her butt slowly moves from side to side, adjusting her balance to allow for the perfect strike, and then —

The door opens, and T comes through.

BERCOW: Father!

Kira is suddenly standing up straight and moving off, her affect utterly blasé, her gaze forward. She is entirely innocent, and would never pounce so cruelly upon her brother.

—

Kira is sitting beside my boots, leaning into them.

ME: Are you going to be a pervert?

T: Oh, it’s pervert time.

KIRA: No! I am not a pervert, I would never be a pervert.

We watch her patiently. After not that long at all, Kira resists the desire to appear innocent and sticks her entire face into my boot. Classic.

—

A few minutes ago, T emptied the dryer of its clothes and the cats, with the dryer having finished its cycle, have been permitted back into the conservatory.

KIRA: Mmm, what is this curious black box with a hole to enter, and it is so very warm inside?

ME: Kira, that’s the dryer. Cats don’t go in the dryer.

KIRA: O ho ho, cats most certainly do!

She hops in, delighted by the lingering warmth inside the drum, and I rush across the room to get her out again. Deftly, she dodges my attempts to scoop in and pull her out.

KIRA: No! No! It is warm in here and I desire to be warm! Why would you freeze me to death?

ME: You won’t freeze to death, and you could burn your paws in here, or get trapped!

KIRA: Perhaps I want to be trapped. Haven’t you heard, dear uncle, of “consent culture”?

ME: That’s not what that means. Get out of the dryer.

—

Kira and Bercow are curled up in a pile on L & T’s bed, and I go in and drop onto the bed with them, resting my cheek on a pillow.

BERCOW, sleepily: Hullo!

In between grooming between his sister’s ears, he sprawls back and sticks out his back paws, one of them knocking into my chin until I nudge it aside.

Bercow slurps messily at his sister’s head, then looks at me lovingly. He has one of his paws fully wrapped around the back of Kira’s neck, but she’s perfectly fine with being held in a headlock — it’s an affectionate one.

I settle my hand against Bercow’s back, and he lets out a rumbling little purr. I close my eyes and doze with them for a little bit. It’s nice.

—

Today, I sat down on the floor of the conservatory with my laptop to work, and Kira came to sit beside me. After thunking her little skull into the side of my laptop and my shoulder a few times, purring a bit, she dropped back onto the rug and at the same time leaned into my arm, so that I was cradling her head in my palm.

She purred a little — several times in the day, she’d hopped up beside me or perched on my knees and purred as she kneaded at me, and each time it was very sweet — but mostly she just settled comfortably in place.

Bercow then came over and flopped half on top of her, happy for the three of us to form a pile. I love my little niece and my big nephew, and it makes me so happy that they love me back.

Cuddling with them is a favourite, favourite uncling duty.