Bertie was found in 2005 under the floorboards of a building where homeless people were taking shelter. He was a tiny kitten with a cleft palate, runny nose and a chest infection. Those first friends loved him but when he needed regular medication and surgery to clear his throat they had no choice but to hand him over to a charity. Giving Bertie a second chance was such an enormous act of selflessness; I only hope they were afforded the same.
I was a university lecturer in social work then, caring for my mum, who had dementia. We were a team, Mum, Bertie and I, along with Derek and Pat, the retired couple next door. We’d spend hours chatting over the fence, then I’d get the call: “Come round for tea – bring the cat!” I would tuck Bertie under one arm and Mum under the other and off we’d go. Birthdays, Christmas and every season in-between, that was us.
My funniest memory is getting a new cat flap and the magnetic collar to go with it. One morning I heard a loud clunk and found Bertie stuck to the oven. Thankfully, it wasn’t switched on.
When Pat was diagnosed with cancer, it was Bertie who was always next door, lying on the bed as she went through chemotherapy, so much so that he too became ill from the chemicals. It was as if his humble beginnings had given him a huge empathy for everyone.
When Pat died, Bertie wouldn’t venture next door any more. Instead, Derek came to us to watch the match or have his tea, shouting through the letterbox: “Where is he then?”
Mum had never had an affinity with animals the same way as I had, not liking the feel of fur. But as her illness progressed and she took to her bed in the final weeks of her life, she asked after dear Bertie, reaching out her hand for him. He didn’t leave her side until she too had gone.
I broke when Mum died, like a frosted branch in winter. I almost heard the snap. I left my home and became lost. Sitting in a doorway in London, 200 miles away, being asked to “move on because decent people use this place”, I thought of Bertie and the friends he had started his life with. I had lost my mum, my career, my livelihood and my hope. I hadn’t even been well enough to take Bertie with me.
It wasn’t until I was found, and then diagnosed as autistic in my late 50s, that my purpose became clear. Bertie needed me, and it was time to look after him as he had looked after us.
He died in February. I still have some of his fur, in a locket with the word “Safe” on it. Because that is how he always made us feel and where I hope he is now – with Mum and Pat and Derek. He somehow knew what it was like to be broken, and he spent his whole beautiful 19 years trying to fix us all, our lion-hearted little miracle.
