Down One More Step
On tea, cats, and letting go
My first mug of tea of the day is usually drunk lying down. Not through any great decadence — just the simple physics of a long-haul body clock, a warm bed, and the several moments still available before I needed to be a functioning adult. A mug of tea in bed, and the first unhurried chat of the day with my wife, is a gentle luxury. One that seemed hard to improve on, as excellent starts to the day go.
It turns out it can indeed be improved on. At least in the warmer summer months. It just required putting on a dressing gown and going outside onto the balcony for the tea instead.
I should introduce the other party to this morning ritual. Cleopatra is our sixteen-year-old cat. She has outlasted six Prime Ministers, a fact that she is entirely indifferent about.
The day we brought Otis home — a dog built entirely out of optimism and suffering from excess personality — Cleo went upstairs and made a decision. She would not be coming down again until that thing was safely in its crate and the kitchen door was closed for the night.
This has been the arrangement for some time now. Otis, whose presence doesn’t even bother the wild rabbits invading our lawn, is in fact faintly terrified of her — which tells you everything about the actual power balance in this house.
But lately she’s been joining us out there. Otis isn’t allowed upstairs — that was always the deal, so Cleo would have somewhere in the house that stayed entirely Otis-free — and the balcony sits just off our bedroom, so it’s part of her territory by rights. Even so, it’s unexpected. And rather nice. Normally the only time she’s out of the house is at night, in and out through the cat flap on her own business. Seeing her out there in daylight, with us, is a different thing entirely.
She’s not entirely sure about it. Daytime, for Cleo, has been a suspicious and overrated concept for the eight years since Otis arrived; she’s a night operator by both instinct and long habit, and the world at 7am apparently comes with a soundtrack she’s not used to — cars, people riding past on horses, the general difficulty of stalking small creatures in daylight. But she’s out there anyway, sometimes startled, seemingly ready to run but deciding to brave it out, absolutely riveted by the birds. And each morning she goes a little further. Down one more step leading to the garden. A little closer to the railing. Casing the joint, slowly building confidence.
It is, genuinely, a lovely thing to watch. Sixteen years old and still willing to be curious about a stretch of decking. We should have started using the balcony sooner.
There’s another change, too. Cleo was always aloof — properly aloof, the kind of cat who tolerates affection rather than requests it. Well, at least to me and Otis. Her brother Caesar was never aloof — friendly, adventurous, too adventurous as it sadly turned out — but Cleo kept her own counsel from the start. These days she seeks me out. Climbs onto the bed uninvited or sits near the top of the stairs meowing for us to show her some attention. Head-butts a hand that isn’t currently available for stroking. It’s a welcome acceptance but one that brings a small catch in it, because I can take a fairly good guess why a cat who spent sixteen years keeping her own counsel has suddenly decided she’d rather not.
She’s more frail now. The nightly hunts that even occasionally brought a whole rabbit through the cat flap — presumably as a gift or a boast, we were never quite sure which — are mostly behind her. I think I understand a bit how that would feel: I chose retirement with plans for the future and on my own terms, and found I was still myself underneath it. Hers has arrived more quietly, on necessity’s terms. Which makes her small daily rebellion on the balcony actually quite a large one. She’s a little skinnier, too. You don’t see ageing day by day. You just look up one morning and realise the hunter has gone leaving behind a cautious explorer.
I’m slightly allergic to cats, as it happens. Something I found out after we brought Cleo and Caesar home. It never stopped me having cats, but it did mean the odd day with itchy eyes, an antihistamine kept handy. Lately it doesn’t seem to affect me so much, not that I’m prepared to notice anyway. Or perhaps I’ve simply decided it doesn’t matter as much. I couldn’t honestly say.
My wife and I can be out there on the balcony and just listen. The full dawn chorus. Warm air already settling in. That first cup of the day, always the best. A cat inching toward the railing. A dog somewhere below, no doubt wanting us to hurry up because it surely must be his breakfast time. It’s the kind of morning that makes you feel, for a while, like you’ve got things sorted.
And then, somewhere off in the distance, the builders start.
Half a mile away there’s a new estate going up, and at 8:00am precisely the dawn chorus gets competition.
But here’s the thing about small pleasures — they don’t actually require perfection. They just require you to notice them before something bigger comes along and demands your attention instead. The tea’s still good. The birds still sing. And somewhere below the railing, an elderly cat who wanted absolutely nothing to do with any of this a year ago is quietly, stubbornly, deciding to have a look anyway. Down one more step, in her own time. Not a bad way to approach whatever comes next, for either of us.
