One of the many drawbacks of city living is the difficulty involved in keeping pets. Even if you have the space, chances are you don't have time for a four-legged friend, after you've satisfied the demands of all your two-legged ones.
But there may be a solution to this problem. I refer to "cat-sharing," an exciting new concept that allows you to experience some of the joys of having a pet, without any of the commitments. I'm still not sure exactly how the scheme works, but I was introduced to it recently by the organiser for our area, Whiskey.
Whiskey (not his real name) noticed our back door open one day and showed himself in. After a cursory introduction, he embarked on a tour of our kitchen and livingroom, checking out the fridge and the rubbish bin and paying particular attention to the legs of chairs and tables, which he tested by running his back and tail along them several times each.
He moved on to the livingroom carpet, sampling this in several areas by rolling over and back with his legs in the air. Then, he shrewdly spotted a new jacket on an armchair and proceeded to lie on this until someone, using a floor brush, indicated that this was not a good idea.
All of this was done in a businesslike manner. We offered milk, but he indicated he didn't drink on the job. He was more interested in seeing the upstairs part of the house, at which point we drew the line. So he gave up trying and left, with a backward glance that said: "this all appears to be in order".
Which it obviously was, because the next day Whiskey, accompanied by a friend, came by to announce we'd been approved for membership of the cat-share scheme.
This was some weeks ago and, since then, we've been keeping several of the area's cats on a timeshare basis. Exact times still haven't been worked out, but what usually happens is this: we open the back door at any hour of the day or night and, within a given period - about five seconds - cats arrive. They then stay until they get bored, or until they have a floorbrush waved at them.
It's a good system and everybody seems happy so far. Mind you, even casual cat-keeping has its dangers, as the occupants of the house know from a painful experience. It was a few years ago and it involved a completely different set of cats and circumstances, but the problem was one cat in particular.
He was only a kitten in fact, orphaned and living in a derelict house nearby. We started leaving milk for him, and he kept coming back until we feared he was dependent on us for food. Then we started feeling guilty if we were away for a weekend or on holidays, or we had to work late, so we thought it would be better for everybody if we gave him a new life. In the country.
It was a good plan, but it ignored the problem of his breeding: he was pure alley-cat, on both sides of the family. Worse, he didn't possess the gene that contains "trust"; so that, despite overwhelming evidence over weeks and months that we were deliberately leaving food for him, he persisted in the belief that he was stealing it.
He must have thought we were really stupid. He just came by every evening, hid in the garden until we put the food out, "stole" it when we turned our backs and fled. A fugitive from the law.
So we hatched a plan whereby, over a period of time, we would coax him into the house. We started by putting his food nearer the front door every evening. This worked perfectly until the crucial bit, which involved a specially chosen volunteer (my wife) crouching behind the door and shutting it on a signal.
The next part of the plan involved the cat giving himself up, becoming suddenly domesticated and rolling around the carpet with his legs in the air.
What happened instead was a brief pause, during which the cat's pulse rate climbed from normal to about 4,000 beats a minute. Then a wail, which translated (I think) as "you'll never take me alive". Then the cat performed a pirouette, during which he checked all the exits and noted there were none. Then he ran - across chairs, tables, a floor, three of the four kitchen walls, the hallway and the hall door, roughly in that order.
This all took some time, possibly a second and a half. Then he was gone, having apparently disappeared into the wall. An eerie silence fell. Piecing together his last known movements, we concluded he had prised open the door of an alcove which contained an old gas meter, where he had discovered another aperture leading into the bowels of the house, in the direction of the ceiling.
For three days he lived up there, with nothing but wiring and some pipes for company. In the middle of the second night, he emerged to go to the toilet. With the hygienic instincts that even alley-cats have, he used the bathroom for this purpose, although, unfamiliar with the fittings, he chose the bath for the operation.
Then he returned to his lair. So, swallowing our pride, we left the bathroom window open on the third night and he made his dash for freedom. I came to admire that cat. And to show there were no hard feelings on his part either, he returned the very next evening to steal the food we left for him.
We decided that, if he hadn't been scarred before, he was certainly that way now. So we sought professional help, from a vet and the animal welfare people, and by means of a cage and some crushed sedatives in his food, the wildcat was finally subdued.
Arrangements for his extradition to a high-security facility in Munster were rushed through. I last saw him in his cage in the back of a car, spaced out of his head and mewing quietly. It was a relief to have finally ended the business, but a little part of me was disappointed he'd let himself be caught.
It needn't have been. After a couple of days in the country, probably when the drugs wore off, he disappeared and hasn't been seen or heard of since. I hope he's still out there somewhere, stealing the food people leave out for him.