Letter to a Siamese cat

Press, 30 May 1987, Page 16

Letter to a Siamese cat

Mary Quant, my Siamese cat living in the United States, celebrates her tenth birthday this month. I have not forgotten her, and nor have I forgiven myself for abandoning her when she trusted me implicitly. People think they can talk to animals, and maybe they can, but how can you explain the strict rules of quarantine to a cat?

Although she was only three weeks old when she joined our household in Seattle, she was already house trained and could drink from a dish. But she was desperately lonely and our first night was a nightmare. She would only settle in a dark corner.

She wouldn’t sleep in the bedroom, so I have to put this tiny thing in a shoebox in our heated basement. Even then she woke up six times, howling as only a Siamese can until I came down to pacify her. Climbing the stairs for the sixth time, I thought ... “This is our first and

last Siamese ..But next day, she met the two cats next door — Thomas, who was Burmese, and Arrow, Thomas’s half brother (and also his son) who had a Siamese mother. Tom and Arrow took to Mary Quant at once. They became an elegant, in-

separable, colour co-ordi-nated feline trio. Tom and Arrow cleaned her, slept with her, and played with her. Those two batchelor cats raised my Siamese to be a perfect little lady.

But when it was time to go back to Australia we faced the awful dilemma ... What to do with Mary Quant? After considering the alternatives we decided to leave her in the United States.

My husband’s secretary Anne was thrilled to have her, but it didn’t make me feel any better. That trusting little animal sat on my knee in the front seat of the car, without any restraints, while she was driven to her new home. I felt wretched. When we arrived she leapt from my arms and hid under a bed and would no longer come when I called. She realised I had betrayed her.

Because I couldn’t tell her then, I want to tell her now why we left without her.

“Dear Mary, Happy birthday! It’s hard to believe you are 10. Anne tells me your coat has turned quite brown (as Siamese do in cold climates) but your eyes are still as blue as periwinkles.

“Although you are very happy with Anne, you must find it hard to forgive me for taking you away from Tom and Arrow and everyone you loved. But honestly Mary, I had no choice. “We would have taken you to Australia if it were possible, but really it was not. It was not the $2OOO that deterred us, but the draconian quarantine laws.

“One option was for you to spend six months in quarantine in England, then six months residence followed by three months

in quarantine in Brisbane before you would join us in Sydney. The other option, through Hawaii, took even longer.

“You were barely three, years old. It would be half your lifetime before you could see us again.

“Quarantine would be a lonely place and something could happen to you there. Our friend’s dog died in quarantine in England. And think of all that flying you would have to do. You would be absolutely terrified, and probably drugged. "So I hope you can see that we decided to leave you, not because we didn’t love you, but because we did.

“Goodbye Mary Quant and good luck. I think of you every year on your birthday, when my heart goes out to all those people who have had to give up an animal they love. “And as for those who cruelly and deliberately abandon an animal whq, trusts them, they make, me weep.”