Mow. Rhymes with cow. He is our remaining cat and is known for his abundant fur and inscrutable demeanour. He always played second fiddle to Saffy’s alpha-cat assertiveness, and yet… people developed protective feelings for Mow. Not because he is sooky or unloved, but because of his furry unknowableness. When he arrived over our fence in Seddon, a much smaller piece of fuzz, back in around 1999, we were going to call him Marcel, because he almost mimed his ‘miaow‘.

Seriously. Mow miaowing was merely the sound that came when he opened his mouth. If you open your own mouth - right now - without saying anything? That’s the noise. He can really turn on the volume when necessary, but that isn’t often. There are several people of our acquaintance who would happily pay to take Mow off our hands, including the nurse at our vet. Did I mention he would also make the perfect companion for any villain wanting to take over the world? (A la Dr Claw and Madcat in Inspector Gadget.)

However, for the past week Mow has been very quiet. Off his food. Still purring when doted on, but out of sorts. We caught him holding up his paw, and then the other paw and wondered if he just needed more love in a life that no longer had another cat in it. But extra love didn’t make him eat more than a few little morsels a day. We wondered if our landlord’s wife had fallen under the Mow-spell and was feeding him. But somehow doubted it.

I called the vet and spoke to the nurse who loves him, and last time clipped his fur for free (he is overwhelmed by it toward the end of winter). I told her I didn’t know if it was physical or psychological. She was the one who handed me the tissues last time I was at the vet’s and understood where I was coming from. They could fit him in at 2.30 the next day. But the next day (today) he was no better and I called early this morning to tell her. She said we could bring him straight in.

M had to take him while I looked after Small Z. Mow was tended to by Jamie, my vet of choice. He had a temperature and a lump on his chest. There didn’t appear to be any local trauma to the lump site - they thought he might have been kicked by a horse. I got a call from the vet tonight and he left a message saying that an x-ray showed no broken bones, but the lump was sort of moving into his chest area Thankfully, he said that it was most likely to be an abscess (albeit an odd one) and not some freaky tumour. He has been started on antibiotics and we’ll get an update in the morning.