by John Hartnell

Created on: March 12, 2010

Selling Betty

It was the beginning of September. Our bolt hole in the south of France had been rented out for the busy French holiday season and we were anxious to make sure that our holidaying tenants had looked after it well. We arrived at about 10:00am, having been up very early to catch our flight. Having spent a couple of hours putting things in order, we were just settling down for an after-lunch, restorative nap when in walked a black, fluffy kitten. It shouted a loud “hello”, head butted the fridge and then sat staring at it. It was quickly joined by another kitten, a smooth haired tabby. These two obviously knew their way around. We realised that our holiday tenants had been entertaining.

They weren’t complete strangers. We had first met them a few months earlier but, for me anyway, it had been a brief encounter. Their mother had arrived at a neighbour’s place carrying a very small kitten, which she had left in the cool shade under their decking while she made two further trips, each time returning with another kitten. My wife had watched as the young ones started to play and to explore their new home. They were lucky in that the owners of the decking were people who liked cats.

We were familiar with feral cats, a number of which formed part of the local four-legged fauna, alongside the frogs, lizards and wild boar. Occasionally, one would appear in the garden, usually at dusk or after dark, just to check out any fast-food opportunities, but would disappear at the first sign or sound of human activity. The kittens’ mum, however, was not feral - not by birth anyway, nor in her attitude. She was sleek, handsome and jet-black. Her head, with its pointed face and large ears, could have been the model from which the ancient Egyptians produced their images of the cat goddess. She was perfectly confident with humans – almost condescending.

If the kittens’ mum was something of an up-market mystery, her story was, probably, not uncommon. We imagined that she had arrived with her owners when they came for a holiday (as do quite a few cats). She was young and inexperienced and then she met the local Jacques-the-lad!

When we reported their arrival, at our fridge to friends, they said,” That’ll be Betty and Wilma!” We don’t know who named them all, but it was probably their de facto landlords. Mum became Lucy and the kittens were called Betty (the black fluffy one), Wilma and Pebbles.

As the

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