The Wanderers Club

My mother was very strict on manners, and I have found that it now comes quite naturally to me. So let me be polite and start by introducing myself. I am a cat. My name is Garfield and my home address is The Wanderers Club, North Street, Johannesburg. My mother’s name was Gogo and I always believed that my father’s name was Tim. I never knew my father, but my mother spoke very lovingly of him. I was quite a few years old before I realised that what my mother was really calling him was TM. On questioning her about this strange acronym, she somewhat reluctantly told me that the letters stood for Travelling Man. She, even more reluctantly, told me that he had been travelling through the Club grounds on his way home when they met, very briefly, took a shine to each other and a little while later I was born. Enough said. My mother was a gentle lady, but a very good improviser, and she settled us into an adequate home in a little-used storeroom near the tennis courts. Fortunately the shrubbery provided us with an abundant supply of rats, mice and lizards, and there was a dripping tap nearby for water. So our basic needs were taken care of.

I have no idea what is involved in the game of tennis, but I must say that the people who came to play were very friendly, and I soon learned that I had nothing to fear from them; in fact quite the reverse. When I became brave enough to rub myself, very carefully, against their legs they responded with exclamations of delight, stroking my back, patting my sides and even lifting me up and holding me. When my gentle mother ventured nearer, she too was treated with this friendliness. And then I heard someone say: ‘’I wonder if Brenda knows about these two? I’ll have a word with her.’’ My mother and I looked at each other and I knew she was thinking the same as I was ‘’who is this Brenda? And what can we expect now?’’ But we need not have worried. Brenda came to see us the next day and explained that she had been feeding the cats at The Wanderers Club for many years, but had not known about my mother and me. She then went on to say: ‘’so we’re going to be friends from now on. You know my name, but I don’t know yours. Let’s start by saying that you, big fellow, are going to be called Garfield, and you, little old lady, are going to be called Gogo. In case you didn’t know it, Gogo is the Zulu word for grandmother. Okay?’’ She was quite a bossy woman, this Brenda, but I must say she made some jolly good arrangements for us. Two empty apple boxes were placed in the storeroom, with soft towels in them, brand new food and water bowls were placed alongside them, the door was permanently wedged ajar with a chunk of concrete, and, most importantly, she filled these bowls with food and water every single day. It took a little getting used to food that came out of a tin, but it certainly was a lot better than what we had been eating previously. I still hunted rates and mice, just to keep my hand in, but I let them go when I had had enough of the fun.

This situation continued for a long time. I heard Brenda telling someone that it was eight years since she had started caring for us, but time meant little to me. We had our ups and downs in that time, like the occasion when I slipped off the change room roof and Brenda rushed me off to the vet to get my damaged paw attended to, and the other time when she took me to the vet, without telling me why, and he had put me to sleep while he did something to me. I found this strange, but being a polite chap, I asked no questions. And then came the awful day when my mother took ill. She had not been quite herself for some time, and I know Brenda was worried because I heard her coaxing my mother to eat. But on this particular day she was too sick to get out of her box, and when Brenda came to feed us, she stroked and petted my mother before lifting her carefully into a basket and taking her away. I never saw my mother again and when Brenda came to feed me the following day she took me onto her lap and told me that my mother had died. The tears were running down Brenda’s cheeks as she spoke and when I tried to lick them away, she cried even more. I think she must have really loved my mother, as I did too.

Perhaps I was getting middle-aged and a little irritable about this time, because I suddenly found that the shrieking from the tennis courts, particularly from the children being coached each afternoon, was beginning to get on my nerves. I knew my way around the Club grounds pretty well, so I did a bit of a recce up towards the bowling greens. Bowlers don’t shriek- I think they’re a bit old for that sort of thing. I watched from a distance for a while and then I saw Brenda playing, so I wandered over towards her. ‘’Garfield, what on earth are doing up here?’’ she asked, picking me up and kissing me. I had got used to this cuddling and kissing stuff by this time, and I found I actually quite liked it. ‘’Looks, folks, this is gorgeous Garfield that I’ve told you about. Isn’t he lovely?’’ I was quite embarrassed by the attention I got, but I responded suitably.

For about a fortnight I continued to eat and sleep down at the tennis courts, but I spent most of my daylight hours in the area around the bowling greens. Then Brenda told me that she was going to move my quarters up to the bowling greens. ‘’I’ve got an asbestos cement kennel for you,’’ she explained, ‘’and we’ll put some nice soft blankets in it, and tuck it away here behind the summer house. You’re going to be very happy here with us.’’

Well, that was three years ago, and Brenda could not have been more correct. I’ve never been happier in my life. I have a host of new friends. They’re kind to me, they spoil me with nibbles and treats in addition to my regular food, they talk to me, and I think I can go so far as to say that some of them even love me. I know one thing for certain, and that is that I have never been happier in my life.