Two summers ago, on a warm afternoon, I walked through the streets of north London, carrying my cat. Dollface was 17 years old, and had been diagnosed with kidney disease. It was severe and late-stage, and there was nothing to be done.
The previous night we had lain together on my living room floor while I fed her painkillers and small pieces of prawn. And then it was dawn, and we rose to meet the terrible day. A Covid spike meant a home visit from the vet was not possible, and Doll hated buses and car journeys, so I had decided that the best way to reach the surgery was on foot.
Our mission was at odds with the beauty of the day, but I was glad she got to say goodbye to the world like this: so verdant and fragrant and alive. I wanted her to take it with her, wherever she might go. She was not very heavy by then, but still we walked slowly, me cradling her carrier, her face pressed against its gauzy window.
We took the quiet backstreets, under ripening figs and crests of buddleia; stopped to smell the jasmine, honeysuckle, rose. As we walked, I told her the story of her life. How I had lobbied hard for a cat until my husband relented – though he had conditions: it must be a ginger boy cat, named after his favourite footballer.
When I collected her, from a house off the Blackstock Road, she was the last of a litter; in a clutch of gingers and tortoiseshells, the solitary black and white kitten. I thought my husband might forgive me, but the following day, when the vet announ.
