The Mercy Dash

In real life a mercy dash is nothing like the way it looks on film or tv.

Last night our cat was taken ill. He was lying on his side with his tongue lolling, taking lots of shallow breaths. It was half past eight on a Sunday night, so we phoned our veterinary practice and waited for the call back.

The cat took a few steps and lolled back down on the floor. I stroked him, and he didn’t seem to be in pain. He didn’t miaow or growl or flinch, but he clearly wasn’t well.

Fifteen or twenty minutes later the phone rang and we were told to take the cat to our nearest on-call vet about half an hour away by car. The husband went out to put the address details in the sat-nav. I went to the loo and put my shoes on, and the daughter collected an old towel and the cat box.

The cat hates the car.

He didn’t complain when I put him in the cat box, and he didn’t complain when we put the cat box carefully on the back seat of the car. He’s never really had much of a miaow. Then, as we approached the first roundabout, the cat started to cry and to rasp and to yowl.

All I could do was talk to him, and all the talking was really only to reassure me. He scratched a little at the side of the box. He rasped some more and miaowed again.

The cat hates the car.

When we arrived at the surgery, I went to ring the out of hours bell while the husband got the cat box out of the back of the car. He put it next to me on the ground and said, “I think we’re too late.”

The vet was lovely. There was nothing obviously wrong with the cat, certainly nothing that she could diagnose. She said they could find out, but what use would that be?

It didn’t matter what killed him. Only an hour or so before his death the cat was his usual lovely self, rubbing around the husband’s leg, purring for a bit of attention. He was a splendid cat.

As difficult as it was, we said goodbye and left the cat with the vet. He’d always been an indoor cat, so I didn’t like the idea of burying him outside in the garden; that wasn’t his territory. 

We can pick up the ashes after the cremation.

Besides, I couldn’t bear to put the cat back in his cat box and drive home with him again.

The cat hates the car.