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The love of my life
Your Cat November 2017I
first met Biffo at the house of a friend
I’ll call Can-Opener Two. Bolt upright
on the table, nailing me with an
amber stare, sat a very large cat. His
tufted ears were pricked, a thick, ringed
tail wrapped around his front paws, and
his expansive ‘shirt front’ was snow white.
“What a beautiful big cat!” I exclaimed.
Later, I learned that everyone said this
on meeting Biffo. He was undeniably big
and beautiful. His enormous paws had fur
tufts between every toe, and his thick tail
was ringed like a raccoon’s and as long as
his body. While most cats are intimidated
by stares, his big amber eyes would
always stare you out.
Biffo was already 10 when we met.
He was originally a Londoner, a rescue
cat adopted by another friend, who
shall be known as Can-Opener One.
In his metropolitan youth, Biffo led
a rambunctious life. C-O One named him
Biffo because, during his frequent fights
with other cats, he sat up and biffed
them with his front paws. “He was the
Great Beast of Tottenham Court Road,”
C-O One remembered.
When C-O One could no longer keep
Biffo, he entrusted him to his good friend,
Can-Opener Two. Three days after taking
possession, C-O Two let Biffo out on
a bitter February day and didn’t see
him again for three weeks, until he was
discovered sleeping in the snow under
the garden hedge. On being awakened,
Biffo opened those incredible amber
eyes, shook off the blanket of snow he’d
acquired and imperiously led the way
back to the house.
At first, Biffo and I didn’t get on. If
C-O Two was away, I was just about
acceptable as Replacement Can-Opener,
but otherwise that piercing amber gaze
lanced straight through me.
Then circumstances forced C-O Two’s
move to a third-floor flat with a ‘no pets’
rule. He couldn’t bear giving Biffo up. “I’ll
take him,” I said. “Then you can see him
whenever you like.”
Biffo was 16 years old when I became
Can-Opener Three. His roistering days
were done. My house and garden, in
a quieter street than any he’d known
before, became his retirement home.
He had one last adventure. When, afterTru
e^ Cat^ Tale
Image:^ Nancy^ Trott.Biffo was a cat like no
other, writes Susan Price.
two weeks,
I let him out to
explore, he vanished
— just before Bonfire Night. He
was lost for three weeks of almost
non-stop fireworks. C-O Two and
I walked the streets, calling his name,
all the time fearing the worst. We
questioned neighbours and eventually
found someone who’d seen a cat heading
downhill that matched Biffo’s description.
In desperation, I tried thinking like
a cat. My friend’s garden, further down
the hill, was an overgrown wildlife haven.
She fed anything that moved. Since Biffo
was heading that way, wasn’t it likely he’d
find his way to her garden? I phoned her
and described Biffo.
She called back early the next day.
Waking at dawn, she’d padded to the
window. Outside, eating the foxes’ food,
had been “the most enormous cat, with
a long bushy tail like a wildcat”. It was all
C-O Two and I needed to hear; we were
there in minutes. As we pulled up, Biffo
emerged, wailing, and threw himself intoour cat carrier, eager
to be a pampered kitty again.
Once home, Biff and I became better
acquainted. For one thing, I stopped
shutting him out of my bedroom. Sleep
was impossible anyway, given his furious
onslaught on the door, which sounded
like looters breaking in. So I left the door
open and Biff triumphantly leaped on the
bed, curled into a tight ball at my back,
and produced window-rattling purrs.
After that, he always slept with me.
One night, we started upstairs together,
but I turned back, remembering an
unfinished chore. Fifteen minutes later,
Biffo stalked into the room, with an
exasperated look, which plainly said:
‘Why haven’t you come to bed?’
He was a communicative cat with
a range of wails. One meant: ‘I find my
bowl empty and needing to be filled.’
Another: ‘I strongly advise you to
empty my litter tray.’ But he spoke
loudest and most eloquently with that
gimlet amber stare, which could bore
a hole between your eyes. It’s a sign,66-67 YC TCT1 CS2(am).indd 66 29/09/2017 12:46