Of cat women and dog men

I’ll never forget the taxi driver who, after apparently enjoying a half hour conversation with me (and taking half the fee I had earned singing in the West End all evening in an extortionate fare back to Hackney), snidely enquired as to how many cats I had.

He hit me with it as I was standing by his window shuffling money to give him. It was a deliberate put-down, and it did what it was designed to do; it chagrined me, and shut me up. In that instant, I realised that the interesting conversation I’d thought I had been having with this chap had all been a farce. He’d been humouring me. Waiting to pick his moment to slap me down. I’d been enjoying chatting and winding down after a show. He’d been judging me and marking me down as an unacceptable female.

In that instant, I realised that on the comedown from the gig (and any performer will tell you that can take hours), I had probably talked too much. For a woman anyway. Women aren’t supposed to talk too much about too many things. I had knowledge of and an opinion on a variety of topics from politics to plants. I just had to be single. I must have cats. Possibly 7 or more of them. Despite the slick cocktail dress, my flat probably stank of cat piss.

He was a dog man.

I am a cat woman.

I mean that literally. I believe that half the human race are cat people, and half are dog people. I’m not referring just to furry beast preference. What I mean is that half the world behave like cats, and the other half dog their way through life.

We all know that enthusiastic person who’s up with the lark, always busy, always up for fun times, park, picnics, games, sports, going out. They like cuddling on the sofa with you too, and kissing and holding hands, and big suffocating bear hugs when they see you, and they get quite hurt if you wriggle within their clutches. They’ll get all pouty if you don’t return their emails or their ‘phone calls straightaway too.

Then there are people who are perfectly happy to see you when they see you, but they get on with their lives just fine when you’re not there. They’ll give great advice if you’re worried about stuff. They’ll take you to the doctor if you need a ride, and they’re great company on the rare occasions they find the time to see you, but the rest of the time, you can be forgiven for wondering if they’ve died.

It’s nothing personal.

Any more than it is with cats.

Thing is, though, what sneering men like my cab driver don’t seem to realise is that a cat woman - whether or not she actually rooms with a cat, is very possibly a woman who isn’t going to be a clinging vine. She won’t expect him until she sees him coming, and she won’t hang on to his coat tails when he wants to leave. A cat woman isn’t likely to be needy. She may love, but she’ll give space, too.

Men who make ‘cat lady’ jibes inevitably also seem to like to bang on about their damned independence. They fight marriage and babies and all the things they think women want from them, but they run a mile from women who choose companionship with a species of animal that one actually has to be pretty adjusted to live with.

What they fail to realise is that a woman who can go without docility, devotion, face-licking, jumping up, and someone trotting after her, probably won’t need it from them, either.

Maybe that’s the problem though. Maybe that’s actually what men who sneer and jeer at women who love and behave like cats are actually worried about. That they won’t be needed. That if a woman loves, but doesn’t need them, that she might stray, and move on to not needing someone else.

For my part, I have to admit that it’s a complete and utter deal breaker if a man says he “hates” cats. It concerns me when someone cannot appreciate an independent creature that doesn’t bolster their ego and do what they want it to do.

As far as I am concerned, it bodes ill for their expectations of me, and I worry that I am only going to let them down and disappoint them. 
 

"Unhand me, woman..." Me and Tigs, Regent's Park, c.1982
(Pic: Gerald Blake)

“So ‘ow many cats you got, then?” (arf arf).

Pause.

“Actually none right now. £32.50 wasn’t it? Here you go.”

“Wot, no tip...?”

Not unless you sit up and beg for it, Rover…

Night night.

© Emmeline Wyndham - 2018

"Dogs, dogs, and more dogs, and far too many rooms..."

('Orlando', Virginia Woolf, 1928, Hogarth Press)

 

“Here. Pick one.” Said my gentleman friend, flicking a card over the desk at me.

I had arrived for my regular weekend fix of coffee, cats, and newspapers. His house reminds me of the Ambassadorial London flat in which I grew up. I feel ‘at home’ with the cracks in the ceilings, the occasional dodgy floorboard, the wallpaper peeling a bit here and there. I’m even strangely fond of the Crittall windows that let in howling draughts. My home though, built in 1880, had massive wooden sash windows with huge weights inside the frames. When the rope in one of them broke, I remember rescuing the weight and dragging it around after me pretending it was a dachshund. I called it ‘Bozo’. We were inseparable. The window never did get fixed. We wedged it open with a brick.

I picked up the card and turned it over. He had apparently ‘won’ a subscription to one of a selection of four magazines, but didn’t fancy any of them. Thought he’d leave it to me to choose.

The choice was depressing. Fashion or Gardening. Nothing on aeroplanes or archaeology that would have delighted us both. Sighing, I picked one of those monthly glossies that was all about how to live in the English countryside.

“Yes” he agreed. “It’s probably going to be the least offensive.”

Famous last words.

When the first edition arrived, he had left it in its wrapper for me so I could have the excitement of being the first to view what we assumed were going to be articles on dry stone walling, coppicing, conservation, rural political issues, and the best footwear for staying upright in mud. What we found were page after page of adverts for weird granite-topped kitchen ‘island’ units (“What’s that even FOR? Not as if you can sit at the damned thing...”), obscenely priced copper ‘farm worker’ bath tubs stuck in the middle of bathrooms with billowing muslin curtains in the background, and article after article featuring the ‘work’ of yummy mummies making dollies and doylies, pottery, whimsical paintings, and carving ‘decorative’ wooden things in converted milking sheds.

All this industry went on, we noted, while the children were away at boarding school, and hubby was away all week in London, working to pay for it all.

It was a powerful emetic, but the thing that struck me most overall however, was the fashion for grey. 50 Shades of. Everywhere. Walls, floors, carpets. To top it all off, there was usually an arrangement of large stones featured in the middle of a table or something. The smarter the country residence, the more likely it had been painted to resemble the interior of a 19^th century institution.

As masochism took hold, I started snooping on Zoopla for houses in my area for around the £2million mark. The sellers had all been reading the mag too, it seemed. No matter how elegant the exterior, how noble, Georgian, or ‘character’, the interiors all looked exactly the same. Viciously ‘clean’ lines, savagely smooth surfaces, chrome, glass, skylights, brushed metal floor lamps, ceiling spot lighting. I found myself wondering why, if someone wanted a modern home, they didn’t just buy one, or have one built. I also found myself dreaming of a massive Lottery win so I could buy just one of these beautiful properties, rip everything out, and return it to its former gracious glory.

So inviting on a cold winter's day...

Yet, for a few months, I’ll admit we did continue to enjoy jeering at this magazine together. It was a bonding experience. I would find it in its wrapper every time. I liked to think my marvellously indulgent gentleman friend was indulging what he realised was my fondness for rending and tearing (first witnessed when he handed me a knife to pierce the film on a microwave meal). The reality was of course, that he just wasn’t interested. I made sure I read bits out to him though. I wasn’t going to keep the experience all to myself. Especially the icky, fake, ‘romance’ column.

This was a monthly glimpse into the world of a fictional country widow, looking for love among the hay bales. It was suitably ‘ditsy’, and frightfully middle class. One somehow couldn’t imagine our heroine copping off with a terrier man or a poacher. Game-Keeper or MFH, maybe.

At one point, this fictional Country Calamity Kate fixated on a new neighbour. Her stalking antics were terrifying. I rewrote the piece from his point of view and sent it to the editor. It was not favoured with publication.

Not even an acknowledgement come to think of it. Whoever was writing these giggly 1000 words every month was undoubtedly one of the Ed’s chums. They probably made jam together.

Nothing if not loyal, these ‘country’ folk…

© Emmeline Wyndham - 2018