Vignette 5
Tipi of Orapiu
When I first met Tipi she was grooming herself atop a wooden table on Stu’s deck. She stopped what she was doing long enough to make eye contact with me. I called over, “Hello there.” She responded by turning back to her task as if saying, “Lady, you’ll have to come up with something better than that to impress me!” Stu was not yet living full time on Waiheke, but kept to a strict schedule, arriving via boat Thursday at straight up 10 a.m. then departing Saturday around noon. His weekly visits were focused on one thing only…flat out fishing. Tipi knew the minute that Stu’s boat entered the bay and off she’d dash down to the shore sometimes feeling cheeky enough to jump inside the boat. Her mission had everything to with fish as well.
I consider Tipi to be the poster cat for ultimate survivor. She grew up at the lodge along the foreshore of Orapiu Bay. When the owner remarried, her new mate brought along his cat and dog. This prompted Tipi to take to the bush as she was known for not playing well with others. I imagine that she grew to be somewhat feral during this period of her life, not knowing where her next meal would come from.
Permit me tell you now that Tipi was neither cuddly nor affectionate. No nonsense sums it up, along with an undying determination to get her needs met. Her tabby coat was not especially striking. Nor was she very large by cat standards. I think that it was her eyes that set her apart, a flat, dead look that seemed extremely menacing, sending a clear warning to stay well behind her invisible line. Anyone who knew Tipi would agree that she had another undeniable characteristic; a presence, a sort of quiet confidence. There was no meowing or demanding “pet me” cat behavior. In fact, all guests and that include Murphy and Stu’s guests too, were told to leave her alone even if she made the first advance. I reiterate; Tipi was a force not to be messed with.
One of our guests, an older man everyone called “Uncle Ray,” did not heed our warning. In fact I watched him grumble under his breath at Tipi who was minding her own business, lying across the room up close to the wood burning stove. Uncle Ray was saying things like, “you don’t scare me you waste of fur.” Some time passed, and since the room was full of people on this very rainy winter day I busied myself playing my best Martha Stewart, when all of a sudden, Uncle Ray shouts “shit,” “that damn cat just walked over like she was going out the door, swerved before going out and bit me on the ankle.” I saw her walk purposefully over to Murphy’s, where she stayed until Uncle Ray left the next day.
After her second family moved away Tipi became part of Stu’s Thursday through Saturday routine. It was a working relationship comprised of fresh fish in exchange for expert rat and mice patrol. Stu recalls that she delivered rodents to his bedside each night. A goodly amount of years passed and Murphy had arrived on the scene. He fell in love with Tipi’s ferocity. He admired her ability to drag a rabbit larger than herself all the way up to his front door step and then eat the entire kill in very short order. Murphy refused to call her Tipi, choosing to address her as Satan.
Tipi met her first American when we moved in. Being a first class opportunist she immediately figured out that I gave out the best Halloween candy. Thus began my illustrious relationship with a most remarkable cat. I don’t hesitate to say that Tipi was a hard case. She moved in with us without much hoopla and returned to Stu and Murphy when Scott and I went out of town, or when she got mad at us.
If I were to assign human qualities to Tipi’s personality, they would surely be that of a hardened head mistress from a boy’s reform school. The motto that could have hung on her office wall, “do not mess with me.” Our adult son Brett was afraid to be left alone in the room with Tipi. When visiting us, the first thing he’d do was stretch out on our big comfy leather sofa. Tipi wasted no time hopping onto Brett’s chest positioning her face two inches from his mouth, staring straight ahead with those eyes. It was quite intimidating given her track record. She would get into a zone of rhythmic kneading with her razor sharp claws. You felt each claw going in just deep enough to be driven mad. When she was in the zone she purred at full throttle, but if Brett so much as made a move or became anxious, her hiss signaled an eminent bite on the face followed by a hasty retreat only to sit a couple of feet away with her back turned to him.
About five years ago Rita came for a visit over a long weekend. She chastised Stu for making poor little defenseless Tipi stay outside in the cold weather. In Tipi sauntered, sized up the situation and jumped up into Rita’s lap. Rita immediately initiated long full length pets from head to tail. One or two of these were tolerated and then up went the claws to Rita’s face and in short order Tipi slit Rita’s right nostril, and inserted five punctures into her cheeks and chin. Tipi was then on the move with Stu looking for his gun. After that incident, Tipi was formally uninvited to Stu’s. Time healed Rita’s wounds and Stu occasionally called Tipi over for a small feed of bait sprats, but he never trusted her alone with Rita again.
You might wonder why anyone would put up with such a cranky cat as this. I developed great admiration for her spirit, amazement at her longevity in the face of adversity, and plain wonder at her audacious success in manipulating we long legged ones. Murphy told me a number of times that he believed that the original Tipi had died long ago and this was Tipi number three. This theory only added to her mystery.
Every other month throughout the entire year Tipi started fights with other feral cats roaming around the edges of our properties. She stopped going all the way to the beach and concentrated on protecting her three house domain. After a long night of battle she often returned for a recuperation period, by curling up in a corner of my closet. Typically after a week passed she might emerge with large abscesses along her hips. I was horrified the first time this happened and for a short while tried to unsuccessfully keep her inside at night. Several years of watching this scene play over and over, I gave up and decided to be happy with my role as food provider and quasi-roommate.
I have so many funny memories of Tipi. On one a summer evening a few years ago we were having a small dinner party. The dinner guests were enjoying their wine and nibbles happily engaged in the usual talk of fishing, gardens and stories about the Orapiu of yore. One of the guests asked if she might use our toilet. I told her that the bathroom was the first door on the left, so off she went. A few seconds later we heard a scream and Wanda came running out into the living room with her hand across her mouth. Tipi had somehow dragged a rabbit past our party, eaten its head off to the shoulders and left the rest of the poor creature laying gruesomely on the white throw rug directly in front of the toilet.
On another occasion, Scott and I were fast asleep when Tipi entered our bedroom and began making strange guttural sounds on my side of the bed. I had a feeling that we were not alone, and elbowed Scott a good one to wake him up. We lay very still and listened to Tipi’s antics for a minute or so before we watched a dark solid shape come sailing through the air and hit me square in the chest. I screamed bloody murder and threw the comforter over the top of what ever it was. Scott jumped out of bed naked and defenseless in order to turn on the bedside light. I slithered out of the bed sideways and grabbed for my robe, then hugged the wall. As Scott pulled back the bed covers trapping Tipi’s feline present we both said, “Oh my God,” in unison as a big black rat tried to limp across the bed and make an escape. Tipi by this time had lost interest in the whole affair and I heard her out in the kitchen eating her crunchy cat food. Scott grabbed the rat by the tail and flung it over the deck into the darkness in hopes of a very hard landing.
We shared six incredible years with Tipi. Sadly, last year she refused to come into the house any longer and spent most of her time hiding somewhere in the bush. Given her age I realized that this was her way of finishing her time on this earth, but I hated worrying that she might be cold and possibly in pain. Murphy agreed to help me catch her the next day and take her in to be put to sleep. It was if she knew our plan because the next morning when Murphy came over right on cue, she came staggering out of the bushes and allowed Murphy to pick her up and wrap her in a blanket. Up until this time, imagining taking Tipi in the car sent shivers up my spine, but she looked feeble and literally at death’s door so I mustered up all my courage and made the long drive across the island to put my little friend out her misery. Murphy took her into the vet’s examination room and held her while he gave her the injection. Murphy said that the experience was peaceful and gave him relief to see that her fight was over. I cried and cried on the way home much to Murphy’s dismay. I had just lost my father two months prior and the wounds were still fresh. Tipi was steadfast, and could always be counted on for companionship by the fire and the first one to greet me when I arrived home. I felt honored that she trusted me to be closely tied to her world.
I miss her terribly in the cold winter mornings right after the sun has peaked over the ridge and starts the wood railings on the deck steaming as they warm up. I can almost see her grooming herself in the sun, in her favorite place on top of the barbeque. Murphy carved a wooden headstone which I painted cobalt blue. I decoupaged a picture of her eating a rabbit at the top of the gravestone and added the following words: Here lies Tipi of Orapiu.
I am grateful Tipi-kitty for your friendship and all the things that you taught me about being wild.
