He was old, cantankerous and smelly. He rarely hit the cat litter tray and would pee on anything you left on the floor. His ears were raggy from a series of fights, his eyes were dodgy, he only had a handful of teeth and his breath would melt plastic at 100 paces. And he didn't really meow - it sounded more like the kind of strangled grunt you get from a tramp who smokes 200 tabs a day.He was my old Tom and I loved him to bits.
When we first met him, he was a feral cat, living wild in stables at the bottom of our garden in an old shed. When he was "evicted" from his home due to the arrival of another mog he moved in with us and our lives were changed, for the better, forever.
Tom was quite a timid creature, if you belched too loud within hearing distance he would run off in a panic, convinced someone or something was about to kill him. He even had his own equivalent of the SuperNanny naughty step - round the side of the tree in our garden was a patch of weeds that became the "naughty bush", somewhere to escape too till his latest poo-related misdemenour had been forgotten.
I don't think he ever did anything out of badness, he was a crusty, stinky flea-bitten old mog, but if you looked into his eyes there was a spark, a little twinkle that showed there was more to the old boy then you would first guess. He loved attention, and sachets of cat meat - especially the ones which contained GRAVY. It wasn't uncommon for him to be first to the food bowls in the morning and then to devour the gravy in it's entirety, leaving dry chunks of food for the others. Then we would have a quick stroll round the garden before retiring to one of his many beds around the house for a bit of a nap.
He always made me smile with his oddities and routines - even the one that involved using the litter tray minutes before guests arrived, filling the house with an utterly evil stench - it was a Tom thing (and he was at least 20 so he pretty much get to do what he wanted.. pretty much ...).
For an old stray he had a remarkable vocabulary, there were many easily distinguishable trills and chirrups which we could easily translate as; "no", "food" and "hungry" - there was even a noise for "good morning" though I doubt he ever waited for a response as it was always followed quickly by "chunks", "now" and "please".
The last two or three days he deteriorated quickly. His kidneys had been failing and he had a tumour in his mouth which was getting steadily worse. I knew when we woke up this morning it was time to let him go - he just wasn't the cheeky old monkey we'd come to love over the last nine or ten years. Taking him to the vets was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, coming home without him was even harder...
It's weird, now he's gone there's a small, slightly smelly hole in the world, like someone's cut out a dishevelled shape in space that won't fill itself back in.
Wherever you are old lad, behave, be polite and don't eat all the gravy off the chunks!
Goodbye Mr Tom and sleep well, we'll never forget you x x x
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