Simply the best

Nearly twenty years ago a cat had two kittens who weren't wanted. They were both dumped out in a bag and left to die but, thank God, they were found and handed in to the RSPCA. Emma took them on and called the two brothers Harry and Sid. From what I gather, Harry was the Ratso to Sid's Midnight Cowboy: he was the boss, but was a sickly individual too, and he died a year or so later. Emma feared that Sid was going to do likewise as he pined so much for his dead brother, but gradually the will to live re-asserted itself, his appetite returned and he ended up flourishing. And how he flourished! By the time I made his acquaintance many years later, he was the most wonderful cat, master of all he surveyed. To know him was to love him, as I was reminded every day of the three and a half years I knew him.

In his latter years, Sid was more generally known as Sebastian. This was my fault. Richard Sims visited us towards the end of 2005 and Sid soon latched on to the fact that Richard doesn't really understand cats. This became apparent the first evening that Richard was here, when Sid climbed up him, like a cheetah climbing a telegraph pole slowly. Richard was initially frozen in shock, but as Sid entered the second half of his climb his claws stuck into Richard's belly, galvanizing Richard into life: Richard yelped and sent Sid flying, and thereafter Sid wouldn't leave him alone. After Richard had asked me for about the fourth time, "What did you say this cat (who won't leave me alone) is called?", I gave up saying "Sid", and instead said, "Sebastian". And Sebastian he became, which rather suited him, as he was indeed as regal, as demanding, as dominating, as loved and as much the permanent centre of attention as Lord Sebastian Flyte.

In recent months, Sebastian lost a lot of weight, on account of nothing more sinister than old age. In recent weeks we had a couple of scares with him, as he went all groggy for an hour or two, as if he was about to die. Thankfully, he bounced back from those bad turns really well and retained his voracious appetite and his obvious love of life, but it was becoming increasingly impossible to ignore the inescapable fact that the little man was not going to live forever: not even he could do that. Monday last week, eight days ago, started pretty much like any other day for Sebastian. He came into the bedroom at 5.20 with his usual demands of "Breakfast now!"; and when I got up but moved through into this room to sit down in front of the internet rather than head straight downstairs to open a can of catfood for him and his friends/subordinates, he marched around my chair crossly for a few minutes before pissing on an old Racing Post which was on the floor behind me, just to remind me that, although 6.00 am had come, his breakfast still hadn't. Emma was working in London that day and I was due to head to Yarmouth to spend the afternoon helping Jason Weaver with the ATR telecast before saddling Polly in the last race, but Sebastian's day wasn't interrupted. He did all his usual things, including lying on my shoulder, purring into my ear, for a few minutes as I walked around the house, at another time hopping from one foot to the other at my feet in frustration at the facts that he was no longer able to climb up and that I was rushing around too much to usher him back up, and at other times lying in his warm patches in the sun on the kitchen floor and in the dirt outside. When I left for Yarmouth he was sitting up on his warm patch on the kitchen floor and, rushing as I was, his beseeching look meant that I just had to divert by him on my way out to rub his tiny head (he'd reached the stage of looking so small, like a kitten with his slightly unkempt fur too long for him, because he'd shrunk but his coat hadn't) and to say "Au revoir Sebastian". At the time, it didn't cross my mind that I was saying "Adieu", but it turned out that I was. Apparently he was mooching around as usual while Martha was doing evening stables. When Martha finished, she opened the door at the bottom of the stairs so the dogs could go back indoors, and Sebastian let it be known that he wouldn't mind going upstairs too, but that the climb looked a bit daunting for one of his advanced years - so, in the final act of kindness which this lovely cat received, Martha carried him upstairs and left him on the landing. I arrived home a couple of hours later, by which time he'd obviously fancied a bit more fresh air, as he had headed out through the cat-flap and back down the side of the house to the yard. When I drove in the yard, I could see this little shape resting in his usual dip in the warm, dry dirt surface. As had happened so many times recently, I had to look twice to see that this tiny, frail shape was actually still breathing - but the difference was that this time he wasn't. Only his long fur was stirring in the breeze. That realization was one of the saddest moments of my life and, eight days later, I still can't think about it, never mind write about it, without crying. Even sadder was the learning of his death by Emma, whose cat he was and for whom he had been the constant companion throughout adulthood. But time is a great healer, and already I am able to consider myself blessed to have known this best of all cats, and to have been treated by him as a friend. And not only that, to consider how blessed he was to have enjoyed a long and happy life, to have enjoyed it right up to the hour of his death, and not to have had to endure the physical and mental pain of the inevitable decline which would have had to have come to him before too long, and which would have left us with the worst of all decisions to take.

That evening I dug a hole in the garden, and Emma and I buried him in it, next to Alice.