Here is how my friend related the story to me, Let us call him 'Hugo'.
HUGO: as best as I can remember here is what happened. I am waiting to get into the lift. When I am addressed by my neighbour, 'Tristan', I think his name is.
He is standing by a box which has a cat in it.
"Oh Heliair, how's it going? Yah. Any chance of you taking this
moggy down in the lift, Yah? do us a favour. This is Sabi', my daughter she doesn‟t like lifts, do you darling? Gets a bit claustrophobic. Where did that start, honey? PJs' was it.
"Harvey‟s Nick‟, Dad."
My friend is very surprised but you know do a good deed, why not?
"Sure, be glad to help."
"Excellent."
"...that‟s great, cool, yeah, great man.
"Meet you on the ground floor, great then?"
"Yah, excellent, great, cool man, not a problem."
ME: So you are now in the lift with the cat box?
HUGO: yeah...I place the box in the lift and I am descending...
ME: No one else gets into the lift as you go down,
HUGO: No one else gets into the lift. So, as I descend I look at this cat it's curled up in a ball, it doesn't move, it's curled up like a figurine. The lift arrives on the ground floor... I get
the cat box out carefully. I then wait and I hear footsteps clattering down and it is Tristan and his daughter. I deliver the cat box over to them.
“Thanks a bunch,” says Tristan, in his 'hooray Henry' way. He then pulls me aside, taps his nostril and says „...if you ever fancy a toke." And makes an inhalation to accentuate the point.
“Do you want me to pencil you in? Not a problem.”
I make my excuses, as they say, and go.
A few minutes later I am walking down Mandela Drive just outside,
feeling, well that was OK, I have done a good deed for the day, when I hear footsteps running behind me. I look round to see it is a frantic looking Tristan with a distressed looking
daughter not far behind.
“What the fuck, man. What did you do to her cat?”
“What are you talking about, what did I do?”
“The cat‟s dead, it's fucking dead."
"Dead, what do you mean dead?"
"I mean, popped it's fucking clogs...taken the last train to Clarksville You topped it, you bastard."
I tell Tristan to be calm, as we hurry back. We head back to the lift and there, right enough in the cat box is a curled up cat, looking perfectly content. But none the less, after a bit of
prodding, undeniably dead.
Tristan informs he will get me for this. He has an uncle on his
mother's side who is a Barrister and he will “have your fucking guts for garters, man.” He also assured me that he would 'get me' through the RSPCA, the United Nations, and the European Commission for Human Rights and the Financial Times; as his sister in law works
as a sub editor there.
I try to calm him and say...Look you know where I live.‟
“I certainly fucking do, man and you life won‟t be worth living”
I try to suggest that the cat might have passed away peacefully.
“You heartless bastard, does it look fucking peaceful? It died a terrible fucking death.” (a vet friend of mine suggests heart failure).
I try to calm him down. I suggest... maybe there could be a kind of autopsy?
"Autopsy! Don't you try and put the frighteners on me. I want nothing to do with the filth" (Police).
To sum this bizarre story up,
Apparently there was a very quick burial for the
said cat.
HUGO: The whole thing has a kind of quantum weirdness;
was the cat in the box, alive or dead when I looked at it. From my perspective it was alive,
but it was probably dead at that point...the question is at what point was it alive and at what point dead? I know this all sounds very kooky."
Me: Yes, a little odd...but funny none the less. Not for the cat I hasten to add, before I
am clubbed over the head by the animal liberation front.
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