Alfie was a quiet cat, who did everything on his own terms.
I adopted him from the RSPCA in Sheffield on 16th December 2012. He chose me. When I visited the RSPCA, I applied for a cat but I didn’t know what kind of cat. When I walked round, I saw all the little animals in different stages of loss and worry. Alfie was standing on his hind legs, scratching at the glass to get out. I loved his spirit, his little fight. Every time I passed his cage, he scratched at the glass – so that was it, he chose me and he was already called Alfie and he was about 4 years old but there was no other information except he had been mistreated.
In the spring of 2013, a feral, handsome, tabby started to come into the house and steal any food left behind. He was terrified of me and ran across and through anything to get away from any human or any sound. When I was out, he would also fight with poor Alfie, who was a much smaller cat. Finally, the tabby let me ghost stroke him when he was gulping food – in other words, I couldn’t touch him but I could stroke the air above him so that he might realise that I would not hurt him. Until, one day, I caught him in the cat basket and took him to the vets to be castrated so that he would stop peeing all over the house. After that, Tiggy loved me and tolerated Alfie and Alfie was carful around Tiggy but that was it, we were a small family and we shuffled along. Tiggy was top cat and he was needy for my love and ate first and Alfie, was Alfie, he went about his day, choosing where to sleep and he ate as much as he could.
Four years later, I moved from that lovely little house on a steep hill, to a small ground floor flat in Sheffield so that I might be mortgage free and I could pay for myself to do an MA in Knitting at NTU. The flat opened onto a large manicured green garden and both cats settled. Tiggy ate as many mice as he could and Alfie slept on the soft grass. During my MA, I fell in love with Shetland until finally, in 2020, I moved, lock, stock and two cats a thousand miles from the city to live in a croft house that faced the sea in Levenwick. I transported the cats in a double cat pram which they fought hard and cried and whined the whole 12 hours up the country to Aberdeen to be released in our pet friendly cabin for the 14 hour journey to Lerwick. On the ferry, they settled in my cabin, at Orkney, we were all woken by the great clanking of chains as the ferry docked in Kirkwall – both cats frightened by new sounds and when we docked in Lerwick, they had become little celebrities in their pram.
We lived in a beautiful, untouched, 200-year-old croft house that faced the sea. Tiggy loved the stone walls surrounding the place – them being full of tiny creatures to catch. He wasn’t afraid of the winds or rains. Alfie loved the fireside; he warmed his face and didn’t leave his little spot. He was scared of the stormy weather and when he ran out to the toilet, he hid under the bushes in the abandoned walled garden opposite to the house. Who was I kidding? I was also scared of the storms. The harsh winds made Alfie squint and flatten his ears to his head, something I didn’t know that he could do, he sat out on the wall – looking out to sea, he followed me to the byre behind the house and watched me dig soil, he sat in the deep window sills looking out at the skies and waited for me to return home his vantage point in the bedroom window, sometimes he would follow me to the end of the lane and nose up to the neighbour’s horses and he still loved his food. By then, he had learned to purr and he was always there, just there for me.
In October 2021, I returned to the city. A single Island life alone was too much for me, too isolated and too much alone in every way and I was a strong independent woman. When we returned, I had no home or job and I continued to drag the cats around, I couldn’t find rented accommodation because of them and no one would take us in for short stay either. I had them fostered out for a week or a little more 3 times and twice, I nearly had to give them up – the Rspca’s law is that they will take back any animal that came from there so they would take Alfie but not Tiggy. I cried and dragged them from pillar to post until a friend took me and the boys in and finally, ironically, I bought a flat in the same place as the one that I sold to go to live in Shetland. But the new flat I bought was a wreck and broken and ugly. We made do. We had a home and the boys went straight out into an area they already knew.
We have been here for three years. Alfie watched the birds, sat with the badgers without fear, sent dogs running from his path on the pavement when he stood his ground, He only had two teeth but he was NO pushover and he still loved his food but over the last year, he had been renamed Alfie thin thin because he was getting thinner and thinner. In January, his breathing had bouts of what seemed like he couldn’t stop a rattling noise and I took him to the vet. They said, that he would be a different boy in a month. I took him home, he rolled in the sunshine, waited by the window at 3:30pm every day for me to return from work, and he met me in the car park when he heard me parking the car. He still ate everything and wanted more and sat beside me purring more and more.
I didn’t realise how much of our lives were together and how much we quietly meant to each other.
On Saturday 15th March, he woke at 6am and sat beside my face on the pillow, looking at me and purring. I told him how much I loved him and how grateful I had been for his friendship. On that day, he stopped eating, drinking and moving – except to find his comfort somewhere. He sat on my knee for 2 hours and I knew that he was dying. We went to bed and he crawled under the bed into the back corner – something he has never done before. I placed him a cat litter tray under the bed and wondered if he would be there in the morning. When I woke in the night, he was sleeping at the end of the bed. At 5am, he walked up the bed and got into the window sill above my head behind the bed. He lay and spread himself in a long thin line, in the coolness of the window sill, his chin resting on his right paw, his face turned towards me in the bedroom. His breathing was gentle and silent. I put the pillows up the wall and sat beside him, telling him how loved he was, how special he had been and how he had been the best friend ever and I thanked him again.
The pigeons cooed outside, the dawn chorus started at 5:30am for an hour and still he lay there with me silently crying beside him. I didn’t want him to know I was sad, so I kept gently stroking him from his nose to his top of his head and he just looked and listened. I told him that he was, ok. Below the pale sunrise of Sunday 16th March, and a dawn chorus to wake anyone, Alfie began to slip away in a place of calm serenity, a place he knew and felt safe. His once yellow eyes were all darkening. I opened the window a tiny crack and he wanted to get out, so, at 7:20, I gently lifted him up to take him outside where, he rose, dropped, arched his back and stretched out long and took his last breath. I sobbed a river holding him.
It is the first time that I have ever sat beside the approach and final act of death. I sobbed tears I didn’t even know were in me. I recognised that his soul had left him and he became heavier. I placed him in his favourite cardboard box where he stayed.
It has been interesting to note his absence this week – he isn’t looking out of the window, or waiting to meet me, his nails aren’t hitting the wooden floor as he walks and he doesn’t peer into my face first thing in the morning. I have greatly missed him, but today, Thursday, is the first day that I have felt a little energy again. The sun brought a new gentle energy and oh, how Alfie loved the sunshine. xx
tracey doxey 