I was drunk by an Italian lake last summer when the pet detective called. She told me she had found Biff – last seen 11 years ago. Astounded, I regretted that extra limoncello shot.
If you could design a pet, you would design Biff: cute, brave, affectionate and with none of the sharp edges sometimes found on cats. I loved him dearly, but he was a wanderer. I rescued him from sheds, cellars and coal stores where we lived in east London, or I would scale trees, shivering in pyjamas, to bring him down. When we moved to Gloucestershire in 2011, he walked out one midsummer morning and never returned.
I roamed the streets for hours, shaking treats and calling for him. I made posters, contacted vets and searched online. For years, I would stop local cats and examine them, regardless of any resemblance. Sometimes, I would crouch to the ground and ask if they had seen him. No answer, obviously.
I grieved for him and imagined that he had gone to live with an old lady with a penchant for pilchards and a gas fire. In my head, he was happy. In my more realistic moments, I assumed he had been hit by a car.
So when we got that call on holiday, I was tearful and dumbfounded. On walkabout again, he had found Louise, a wonderful lady who returns lost animals, who had scanned his microchip. But someone else had claimed him: Robin, a bighearted man who had never wanted a pet.
We spoke on the phone. Robin told me that he became friends with Biff when he arrived in his garden all those years ago. Robin gave Biff a remarkable life. He adopted a cat sister, Coco, to keep him company, took him to live on a farm and even got him a cameo in a movie. My family had grown, with children and a new puppy. There was no decision to make – Biff would stay with Robin.
Robin told me how Biff had carried him through personal tragedy. And when his house burned down, Coco perished and Biff was left blackened and earless. Robin nursed him back to health and Biff (renamed Fernando) thrived. He joined Robin’s business, where he was promoted to office manager, with a private parking spot on a soft office chair and his very own mug.
It was in this office that we were reunited. Excited, the kids and I made T-shirts and posters – because what cat doesn’t want that?
I don’t know what I expected. “So good to see you, old friend”? Biff lay there, ancient, poorly, beloved. We cuddled and I cried. I wonder what he thought. Probably: “Hello, you. Now please leave so I can nap.”
A few months later, a text from a heartbroken Robin: “Our boy is no longer with us.” Those were the final tears I would cry for Biff. They say that cats have nine lives. No one warned me I would grieve every one.
