Freddie and Gemma – 1

Introducing Freddie and Gemma the main characters in the books Diary of a Buddhist Cat andOur Cats in Amsterdam. 

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I went to a cat shelter called Mioaw-Aid and found two cats I’d like to share a home with. One of these, a calico called Kitty, was promised to someone else, but I agreed with the shelter that if the people hadn’t picked up Kitty by 8pm on the following Monday then I’d willingly take her along with another cat called Kai, a neutered male. 

On the Monday, I went to the shelter at 7:30pm and spent an anxious half hour waiting to see if anyone would arrive for Kitty. 8pm came and went very slowly. At 8:01pm, I handed over $60 for Kitty and the same amount for Kai. I took them in carriers on public transport.  

Unfortunately, Kai decided he could start peeing everywhere and anywhere and wasn’t really house-trained. Kitty on the other hand was perfectly well-behaved and reminded me of one of the cats I grew up with, who was called Emma. Emma was aloof, a real cat if you like, who didn’t mind being with you as long as it was on her terms. She would always sit just out of reach so that you had to move to touch her; this gave Emma plenty of time to get out of the way if she didn’t want to be stroked, which was almost always. Kitty was like this too and as she didn’t really respond to the name anyway, I decided to rename her Gemma in honour of the Emma cat. Now Gemma never did respond to the name Gemma either, but it seemed to be a better name for her.

Kai continued to pee in all the wrong places and I decided to return him to the shelter and find another male cat. At the shelter there were some new arrivals including a shy cat, who withdrew when I tried to stroke him, but then started to purr very loudly once I gained his confidence. I tickled his chin and the cat responded. The cat’s name was Freddie and I decided he would be a perfect foil for the Gemma cat. He didn’t like being in a carrier with people around him on public transport, but his yowling eventually subsided once he’d realised that he was wasting his breath.

Once Freddie arrived home he ran around the house looking through all the rooms and staring out of the windows at the garden. He tried to be friendly with Gemma but was cold-shouldered in favour of a snack. Freddie was hungry too, a lifelong trait, and thought he should eat Gemma’s food instead of Gemma. This was a mistake he didn’t learn to rectify for several years. Freddie tried to push Gemma aside and was hissed at very loudly, so he went and hid behind a box although he forgot to flatten his ears and lower his tail, so he was still perfectly visible to Gemma.