The Great Sicilian Cat Rescue (7 page)

O
n the subject of the
gattare
, the sometimes mocked women who care for a number of cats, it certainly seems true there is a strong bond between the two. We go back a long way and have a lot in common, but perhaps the biggest thing we share is our history of being persecuted by the Church. After all we’ve been through, we have every reason to stick by each other.

In evolutionary terms the cat family is fairly modern, being only 3–5 million years old. They were domesticated, if you can ever say a cat is truly domesticated, by the Egyptians and considered, among other wild animals, to be the representatives on earth of gods and goddesses. One city in the Nile Delta had as its chief deity a woman with the head of a lioness called Bastet. She was attributed to sexual energy, fertility and child nurturing and her cult spread to other
parts of Egypt. A wild and raunchy Bastet festival was held in April and May, attended by as many as 700,000 people and who knows how many cats. Ferals came to possess a special protected status in Egypt and it was a capital offence to kill one, even by accident.

But the fortunes of felines had changed radically by the late Middle Ages. From being lauded as symbols of motherhood, they were dubbed agents of the Devil and the companions of witches. Feline phobia reigned. This was largely because the established Church wanted to stamp out all traces of pagan religions and cults. From the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, both women and cats were persecuted for their so-called involvement in witchcraft. A solitary female who believed in natural remedies and had as her sole companion an amiable puss cat would be denounced by suspicious neighbours and hauled before a court. There are stories of animals being put on trial, too.

Along with this hatred of cats came an element of hatred of women, in particular the link between female sexuality and the sexual habits of female cats. The very quality of fertility admired by the ancient Egyptians was to be condemned and stamped out by the early Christian Church.

In these so-called enlightened times it is awful to imagine a single and perhaps lonely woman with her cat companion judged and horribly put to death. But then perhaps things have not changed to such a large degree when I think of Maria, whose neighbours spited her in every way they could and gossiped about her strangeness just because of her love of cats.

I longed to talk to someone about the death of Lizzie
and the rest of her colony. There were so many questions I needed to ask. The person who could best answer them was Antonella and yet I kept putting off that bus journey to Castelmola. A few days before I was due to return to England, I couldn’t procrastinate any longer. When the bus drew into the park, I hesitated again, feeling anxious, afraid of what I was going to hear. In Castelmola, I set off down the streets and for a moment lost my way until I saw the now familiar slope downwards to Via Canone. It was strangely deserted with not a sign of a cat but for Lizzie’s mother and another small feline. Several times I rang on Antonella’s bell but there was no reply. I was beginning to think I would have to leave a note when I heard footsteps and saw her approaching. She was delighted to see me.

‘How did it happen?’ I asked the question I’d asked myself so many times.

‘I received your postcards,’ Antonella said. ‘When the first arrived she was always on the street and doing well with a hint of a limp. I had planned to send you a photograph but then she disappeared.’

‘When did it happen?’

‘It must have been in July.’

July! All those weeks I had felt happy that Lizzie was living a good life when, in fact, she was dead.

‘The first cat was found lying in the street near that old house and afterwards in various parts of Castelmola. They had a curious appearance as if they were made of stone. When I heard what had happened, I ran around looking for your cat but I couldn’t find her. I have never been able to find her.’

So the mystery remained of what happened to Lizzie. Had she escaped the poisoning? Or had she run off to hide and die a miserable death?

‘I kept on expecting her to turn up,’ Antonella continued, ‘but she never has.’

She took me to a piece of wasteland, where two of the cats she fed were playing. ‘It is so easy to wrap the poison in a bit of meat and throw it down here, no one would know who it was who had done it. The world is a horrible place and sensitive people like us have to suffer so much – we have to take on the sins of the world.’

I remembered the crucifix in her house. ‘It is hard to be sensitive,’ I noted.

Then Antonella confided: ‘I have some idea who has done this but I cannot report them because I don’t have proof. However, there was this woman who complained about the mess the cats made round her house and then two days later they were dead.’

I could see she didn’t want me to leave, enjoying the company of another human being who felt as she did. We kissed and hugged, and I said I would come again. As the bus drew away, I stared out of the window, shocked and upset. I had believed Lizzie was in good hands but, as Antonella said, no one would have guessed that is what these people could do.

It was a sad journey down to Taormina.

T
he first Saturday morning of October, early: the Public Gardens. It is all so lovely and fresh; I feel full of hope, in the moment. I have an appointment to meet the botanist Giovanni Bonier. He arrives with his bulldog, Bimbo, who is very interested in the cats. They arch their backs and spit at him, run up trees and glare – in particular, a large black one. In contrast, Bimbo seems an amiable bulldog who only wants to play.

It is the perfect morning to be strolling along these well-remembered paths striped with the now lengthening shadows. The sun has begun to relax its grip on the earth, the light is softer; there is a subtle change of colour on the mountains and on the sea. I love every season in Sicily, but perhaps autumn best.

I am to have a guided tour of the flowers. As Giovanni
explains, they come from all over the world, the names as sumptuous as the plants themselves.

There is
Capparis spinosa
, part of the caper family, whose small buds are picked as a relish. Then Cuphea from the Greek ‘
kyphos
’, which means ‘curved’, alluding to the curved fruit capsule; it has sprays of orange-red tubular flowers.

Every plant has its history. Here is the Bird of Paradise, the strelitzia, named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, wife of George III. Its name is apt, the three-sepalled, two-petalled blooms curiously resembling an exotic bird’s head. There is the Jacaranda, its name originating from the Brazilian/Indians. This variety,
Mimosifolia
, has numerous leaflets and small purple blue flowers with a white throat.

The nuts of the mandorla (or almond) tree are used widely in Sicily for all kinds of confectionery. This variety is the
Prunus dulcis
(Asia minor), easy to spot with its very dark bark and pink flowers.

Brugmansia sanguinea
lives up to its name, with its bright-red ‘Angel’s Trumpets’. Originally, these flowers were used by the American Indians as a hallucinogen; it takes its title from another ‘name’ in natural history: Justine Brugmans, who lived from 1763 to 1819.

Salvia leucantha
is a white version of the more familiar fiery red Sage. The stamens of its flowers work on a rocket mechanism: the visiting bee has pollen pressed onto its head as it pushes against a sterile projection from the anther. The word ‘salvia’ means to heal or save. Used herbally, it is medically approved in Germany. Extracts taken internally have been recommended for anxiety, insomnia and digestive
problems. It is sometimes used externally for insect bites and infections of the throat, mouth and skin.

London apothecary John Parkinson (1567–1650) gave his name to
Parkinsonia
. The more popular name is the Jerusalem Thorn – a spiny shrub with little sprays of yellow, pea-like flowers, dotted with orange. It comes from Central America.

We pause by a huge cedar tree, magnificent with its blue-green, needle-like leaves, but, as Giovanni explains, it is overshadowing other plants and drawing all the strength from the soil. Lofty though it is, he feels it ought to come down.

I ask him what it is like to be young and educated and living in Sicily. As a botanist he gives me an analogy in plant life: the roots of a kind of fatalistic thinking are planted so deep that it is impossible, in his opinion, to change it: ‘They cannot see the big picture, cannot get together. Each has his own point of view and won’t compromise.’

The garden is a mishmash of different periods. There are trees that Florence Trevelyan almost certainly brought from the East and many rare plants and flowers, which should stay exactly where they are. But there are others planted without any forethought and these should be severely pruned or taken out. He points out plants in the wrong places, such as the sun-loving hibiscus positioned among those plants that enjoy the shade.

The pavilions, designed by Florence Trevelyan, were christened ‘the beehives’. They were made of a variety of materials, from stonework facing in varying cuts and dimensions at the base to alternating brickwork and the lava-stone detail of the turrets to rustic logs on the little balconies and jetties. Now they are being allowed to fall into
ruins. There is also the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ behaviour of those who tend the parterre, which is a mixture of stones and bricks. Giovanni explains wryly that the gardeners spend hours sweeping it with old-fashioned bristle brooms. A machine exists, but it is not used.

We come to the cactus garden, where I say that I think it’s not in keeping with the rest of the garden. Giovanni agrees with me.

‘It has always taken outsiders to get things done here,’ he explains. ‘We’ve been colonised by so many different invaders, but, although the people have been enriched by their civilisations, they have never gone on to develop these ideas. [Di Lampedusa’s classic]
The Leopard
says it all. In spite of that, I wouldn’t live anywhere else. The climate is perfect. And I am not an employee of the council but a consultant so not as answerable, even if sometimes one feels unappreciated. When I first started to work in the gardens I catalogued all the flowers. But do you see any labels?’

‘There are two kinds of people,’ he adds. ‘You give some money, they eat the lot; you give it to others, of course they eat some of it but they do something with the rest.’

And so we continue, I to smile with delight, he to list all these flowers: the datura white, yellow cream and rose striped, purple Salvia, bright-yellow tagetes, the roses and hibiscus. Giovanni is a mine of information. There is the fascinating Dragon tree with its small, fragrant flowers. The resin from its stems is the source of ‘dragon’s blood’ used in varnishes and photo engraving. Good that it is here – in the wild this elegant tree is endangered due to overexploitation.

We gaze up into the odd whorled branches of the Araucaria
(the Monkey Puzzle tree); its leaves are whorled too. The fruiting cones take several years to develop and, as they mature, they break up. And here is a ginger tree, Zingiber, sounding straight from Edward Lear. The rhizomes of this species are used for the many kinds of ginger we find in the shops: fresh, green or root, crystallised, dried. Another variety, Alpinia, has three large, lobal lower lips.

But what is the name of ‘my’ beautiful weeping shrub, which I’ve stopped to admire since May? Russelia, Giovanni tells me, named after Dr Alexander Russell – sometimes ‘coral plant’, ‘fire cracker’ or ‘fountain plant’. It has pendant stems, simple leaves and two-lipped, five-lobal flowers that go on and on.

We part by the new statue given to the town hall by sculptor Piero Guidi in the previous year: two travellers cast in antique bronze sit on the bench by the entrance gates. Her head leans on his shoulder; she has a small case.

The only strange thing about them is that both sprout a full set of wings.

I
could not get Lizzie out of my mind. That image of her lying in the sunshine with contented, half-closed eyes kept returning. Back in England, well-meaning friends tried to tell me to put it behind me: they had similar stories to recount of holidays in Mediterranean countries where they too had come across hungry or sickly cats.

‘You do what you can while you’re there but, when you leave, you have to put it out of your mind. You’d drive yourself crazy, otherwise.’

But I couldn’t forget. The anger I’d felt that night at the Grotta di Ulisse renewed whenever I thought of the dreadful deed some animal hater had committed. If I could do something to help these feral cats, then Lizzie’s death would not have been in vain.

So what should I do? What was really at the core of this
cruelty towards animals, which appeared to extend throughout the Mediterranean countries? It wasn’t the first time I had come across it. Travelling in Cyprus, Greece and Tunisia always there were skinny and sickly cats that appeared by magic the moment you sat down at a restaurant table; always unfeeling waiters, who chased them away.

‘Next time we’ll take a holiday where there aren’t any cats!’ Andrew would sigh.

But there were always cats and the visits to a local super-market to buy tins of tuna, always the awareness that sooner or later, I had to leave them to their fate. Lizzie, I realised, represented a symbol, awakening my energy to act. But I didn’t know how to begin. And then something quite fortuitous happened.

Not long after my return from Sicily, I’d met up with a photographer friend, also called Jenny, to discuss feature ideas for our county magazine,
Sussex Life
.

‘There’s always something happening in Brighton,’ I said. ‘Why don’t we offer a series of monthly features on the 24/7 City?’

My friend was enthusiastic.

‘If they commission us,’ I added, ‘it would mean that some months we’d be up at an unearthly hour.’

‘It will be fun,’ she smiled.

I sometimes reminded her of that remark when we talked to the homeless at midnight, or shivered in Brighton Market at four in the morning. But it was the 10pm slot that was the catalyst for me.

A white Vauxhall Combo came to a halt outside Hove station. On its side was the distinctive logo of the Cats
Protection League. Beverley Avey, Welfare Officer for the Brighton and Hove City branch, waved us aboard and off we went. A stray, unneutered black cat and her three kittens had been sighted in a Hove garden. Our mission tonight was to catch them.

‘We have so many calls from people telling us of cats seen in the neighbourhood scavenging for food,’ Beverley explained as we drove through the night. ‘Owners move away and just leave their pets behind, believing they will fend for themselves. Cats are not as stand-offish and self-sufficient as people think, they crave love and attention.’

She told us she was never really off-duty. Working late into the night, she juggled this with being a wife and mother, as well as holding down a job.

‘I come home to find the answer machine jam-packed with messages. Calls range from lost cats to reports of ill treatment or accidents, to those who have given one of “our” cats a home and want to report on its progress. Other people have decided they don’t want their cat anymore and can we take it on.’

Felines are twilight creatures so our best chance of catching them was now. We knocked on the door and the owner led us through to the garden. I carried the food, strong-smelling pilchards, and Beverley lugged in the trap. Unlike the one I had seen Giulio use, this was sprung by remote control. It meant we could sit a distance away, ready to press the switch when or if the cats took the bait. So we sat on a garden bench in the darkened garden and prepared for a long wait.

Beverley stifled a laugh. The house owner had apparently let her own cat out and, notoriously curious as felines are,
this one was sniffing around the trap. We managed to pick him up and take him indoors.

While we waited, Beverley told us about some of her latest cases. There was Luca, who waited patiently outside his so-called family’s house to be let in until he collapsed. When he came to Beverley, he wouldn’t eat for some time. Happily, he decided there was life beyond his first unkind owners and was now being fostered.

The week before, Beverley had collected two very small kittens, which had been shut inside a shed for a week.

‘They were desperately hungry and crying so pitifully until I squirted syringes of kitten milk into their mouths. It was a miracle they had survived that long.’

When a lovely surrogate mother called Trina accepted them as her own, this resulted in a story with a happy ending.

‘There won’t be much difficulty finding pretty little kittens like those a home,’ she went on. ‘Older cats have so much to offer, although they are never as popular. They have a wonderful serenity about them and are truly the ultimate stress busters, if only people would give them a chance.’

Suddenly, we were on the alert: a shadow darker than the gloom of the night was making its way towards the trap. And another… Beverley pressed the switch and the door clanged closed.

They didn’t like it, not one bit. Their big green eyes gazed at us through the bars and I tried to tell them we were doing this for all the right reasons. But they weren’t listening; instead, they were leaping about, trying to escape.

We decided to call it a night. As Beverley said, Mum and
her other kitten had been alerted and would now give the trap a wide berth. She would return the following evening.

We drove towards Brighton, where fosterer Jo was waiting. Beverley had a team of people who were prepared to take on cats and kittens and care for them on a short-term basis. Jo led the way outside to her tiny garden, which she had given over to a series of purpose-built pens. Released, the kittens shot out of the trap, understandably freaked by this transition. One of them climbed up to the roof and then hung there, wondering how to get down. As Jo said, in a couple of days they would have calmed down and realised they were in receipt of lots of TLC.

Over a cup of tea, Beverley outlined the huge problem Brighton and Hove has with cats.

‘So many people won’t have them neutered and so they continue to breed. Did you know that one cat can be responsible for 20,000 descendants in five years?’

No, I didn’t, but I was learning fast.

Beverley shares her home with eight cats, not to mention several felines in the pen near the back door. Further down the garden is a log cabin, which her long-suffering husband imagined would be an office. Here, there are more cats, like the aptly named Angel.

‘I can’t turn them away,’ she explains, fondling Boris, a cat that wasn’t rescued but decided to move across the road from his former home. ‘And the joy they give in return makes it all worthwhile.

‘But I still find it hard to talk about William, a lovely old gentleman. He needed permanent medication for a kidney problem and I had terrible misgivings about letting him go.

‘I was persuaded by someone who vowed he loved cats and would give William a good home. When this man’s girlfriend returned to him, he moved out of his house and left the helpless cat to its fate. William crept into a cardboard box and died. I shall never forgive nor forget.’

There was such a passion in her voice. An echo of how I had felt, that evening sitting in the Grotta di Ulisse, when Filippo had brought me the news of Lizzie’s death. It was late but I couldn’t leave without telling her my story.

‘I can’t get her out of my mind,’ I finished. ‘I’m so angry about the way these people treat cats and I just feel I’ve got to do something about it.’

Beverley listened and nodded. ‘I know exactly how you feel.’

‘But Sicily,’ my friend Jenny put in, ‘surely that’s a bit crazy?’

‘Do it,’ Beverley said decisively. ‘Someone has to help them.’

It was nearly midnight before Jenny and I started on the drive home but I had made up my mind.

Beverley’s words rang in my ears: ‘If only cats were neutered the numbers would reduce and they would be chosen by those who really want to offer a loving home.’

‘It all stems from overpopulation,’ animal welfare campaigner Suzy Gale confirmed. ‘None of these countries has an efficient neutering programme for feral animals; consequently, they breed at an overwhelming rate. The mother cats are weakened by continuously giving birth and the kittens too are sickly. And local people seem to think the only method of control is to kill them.’

I’d come across Suzy as I researched people who worked for cats. For several years she had organised and carried out a neutering programme in Cyprus and had achieved a great deal in controlling the colonies.

‘It involves a lot of hard work and heartbreak, too,’ she told me. ‘But if you decide to have a go, I’m happy to advise you.’

Brighton isn’t called breezy for nothing. As you step out of the railway station and start down Queens Road, you receive a blustery greeting. That autumn of 2002, it was particularly wild, with high winds and rough seas; the poor old West Pier took another battering. By the end of the year, part of it collapsed, the beginning of the end. One man was swept out to sea, having clung to the girders underneath the pier and called for help. I battled my way to a cosy tearoom, where I met another cat lady, Angela Collins. The world was beginning to appear thronging with these feisty women who took it on themselves to do something practical for felines.

Angela’s project, Care 4 Cats, concentrates on the Balearic Islands, where she has made considerable inroads into controlling the cat population.

‘Several years ago, I was on holiday in Ibiza,’ she told me. ‘I was horrified to discover the many thousands of stray cats and kittens all over the island, having either been abandoned, or born on the street. There was no help for them, and they were simply left to die of starvation or diseases such as cat flu, leukaemia, AIDS and enteritis.’

This sad situation preyed on Angela’s mind and so she decided to try to do something about alleviating it. In the Millennium year she set up Care 4 Cats and the charity began
its work of neutering these strays to decrease the population in a humane way. She echoed Suzy Gale’s words.

‘It’s an uphill battle and you have to be prepared for local opposition. Sometimes you get so downhearted when they just don’t seem to understand what you are trying to do.’

I was to remember this advice during my own struggles in the years ahead, but at that time and with the poignant image of Lizzie in mind, I refused to see obstacles; I was determined to go ahead. If they could do it, so could I.

So what should I call my project? It’s been shown that people prefer words that are easy to pronounce and understand. My search revealed that many such names had already been taken. Finally, I plumped for Catsnip, liking the play on the words ‘cat snip’. I opened a building society account and set about raising funds. I’d never done anything like that before and I soon discovered it wasn’t easy. Take car boot sales, for example. I began by taking a stall at my local community centre. This proved to be a steep learning curve. I arrived early for my first sale, with a pretty cloth to lay over my table and set about arranging my goods. I’d scarcely finished when a fat woman arrived.

‘New to this, are you?’ she demanded, picking up and examining some pieces of porcelain donated by a friend.

‘I thought the doors didn’t open till ten,’ I said.

‘Oh, I’m not the public! My stall is over there.’

She held up a pretty glass, one of a set of six. ‘I’ll give you a couple of quid for these,’ she smiled, showing a missing tooth. ‘Take them off your hands.’

I hadn’t priced the glasses but instinct told me they were worth more than that.

‘I’m selling them for a pound each,’ I said, surprised at how firm I could be.

The smile faded. ‘Well, I hope you get it,’ retorted the woman and waddled away.

I’d learned my first lesson. Seasoned car boot sellers will often prowl the other stalls, trying to pick up a bargain, which they can sell on for a lot more at their own pitch.

On another occasion someone had donated a collection of costume jewellery – necklaces, bracelets and earrings. I’d brought in a mirror, which I propped against the wall so that people could try them on. There was one woman whom I swear tried on every piece and took her time about it. I struggled to keep my eye on her while I served other customers, but not long after she had gone I found a pair of earrings was missing too. Lesson number two: car boot sales can be very susceptible to thieves. Far better if you can persuade a friend to help out, otherwise you’re also stuck behind your table without the chance of a break.

I’d embarked on these sales with the idealism of a missionary but I soon discovered that, never mind my worthy cause, these canny shoppers were set on knocking the prices down to as low as they could get. They weren’t prepared to pay more than thirty pence for a paperback and were quick to point out if they thought one looked a bit dog-eared, lowering their offer to twenty-five pence. Sometimes they were simply out to swindle. It still hurts to remember Weasel, the name I gave to the tall, thin man who arrived at my stall shortly after the public had been let in.

‘Got any books?’ His tone was nasal.

As a matter of fact, I had a large number of them. Some
friends I’d known from our days of demonstrating against live animal exports had cleared out their attics. There was a large box of them I had yet to sort through.

Weasel laughed, an unpleasant sound. ‘Oh, don’t worry about that! Let me have a quick look at them.’

At that moment, a young woman arrived who had read my poster and wanted to know more about Catsnip. Her eyes filled with tears when I told her about the death of Lizzie.

‘I don’t want to buy anything,’ she said, ‘but here’s something for your funds.’

I was still basking in the fact someone had shown an interest when I realised Weasel was holding out a five-pound note.

‘I’ve had a quick look,’ he said. ‘And I’d like to buy this little lot.’ He opened a large checked bag, where I could see about five books already stowed inside. ‘I think that should cover them.’