ASHES TO ASHES
Humans and animals always die at the most inconvenient time. Even in spring when nature is at its most ebullient and bursting with new life you can bet your last pair of knickers that somebody of your entourage or your favourite pet is going to kick the bucket. Very inconsiderate I say. One should choose a month like November when nothing is happening and Christmas is only a blur on the future credit cards statements.
One of my cats is 25 years old. I know her age for certain because she came to me from a rescue centre in London when she was small enough to fit in my hand. She had been thrown in a dustbin. She never recovered and neither did I. She remained an impossible nervous furry bag. I became, at her side for a quarter of century, an insufferable sack of jitters. I have acquired the patience of a firecracker. It makes life difficult for human partner, friends and other family animals.
Now she is blind and deaf, eats like a horse, has no problems with her natural functions and has a coat to paint green any mink going to church on Sunday in winter.
But she howls the minute I am not near her. She is not in pain. The vet made sure of that The other two cats won't allow her outside the kitchen. She is just anguished. She knows that the end is near and she is frightened to be on her own. I know I will when the time comes. Won't you? So Chris and I take it in turn to sit with her at night. She lives in the kitchen, on a cushion with an electric pad in. She has got her toys including a catnip small dolphin but now she is not really interested in playing. The sand tray is there and so are the milk, water and food. She is waiting for it and for somebody to help her through that gate. I shall be there. Some of my friends can't understand why I don't have her put down. Well this is why not: in 1997 I suffered a very serious nervous breakdown. I always wanted to have one (some sort of status symbol) and thought that the time was right to have that experience. I worked at it and achieved my goal. I would not recommend it to anyone. In and out of hospital for weeks and the horrors of the night to look for. All that time that little cat slept on my pillow with her paw gently stroking my face. I lost friends and acquaintances who did not know how to cope with what they thought was a mentally unbalanced individual. But the cat was always there with a Cheshire smile on her lovely tabby face. When our gorgeous black cat, Mr. Pickwick, had to be put down because she (yes she was a female) was caught by those terrible caterpillars living in the pine trees and was rotting from inside out, my little tabby would not eat for days. After five days I went down to the supermarket (20 miles down the mountain) and bought a supply of prawns and the best ham they had in stock. I cut everything into very small portions and laid on the floor in front of her, eating a bit and presenting another one to her. It took me days to make that cat eat anything but finally she did. Nobody recovered from Mr. Pickwick's death. My back has been hell ever since.
This is why I am writing this at 3.30am, typing with my right hand and feeding her cooked fish with my left. I need a third hand to pour me a drink or chase the first fly of the season out of the window.
Two things are certain once you had the misfortune to be born: you will have to pay taxes and you will die. Neither of those prospects is wrapped up in your baptism presents but everybody including your godparents are keeping mum about it.
When the time comes for my old 25 years old Peggotty I shall call the vet at home. We then shall drive to the mountains and bury her under a tree, wrapped up in an old T/shirt of mine, and we shall place a heavy stone on her grave with a painted inscription of our love to her and her love to us for all these years. No incineration as suggested by the vet.
Kathy Reichs is forensic anthropologist for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, State of North Carolina, and for the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine legale for the province in Quebec. Nobody to mess about with or picking on a chicken bone. She is also a formidable crime writer. In her latest book she states, with obvious authority, that it takes about one and half hour at a temperature of 1800 degrees to burn a human body to mere ashes.
I have cremated two people. One was my husband (one of them) and one was a dear friend. After the ghastly impersonal service the coffin goes through the curtains. A few minutes later you are asked if you want the ashes (in an urn that you are going to pay for) or if you want them to be spread on "the garden of remembrance". Choose the latter. Otherwise you might be going home with the next door neighbour moggy's ashes or the remains of the old soak from down the road. There is no way that the ashes are from the defunct.
Talking about ashes we are thankfully getting past that time when people are putting their barbaric barbecues out. What a way to cook! Please! But there it is. Like bad weather, hurricanes and burgers and chips it came with the trade winds from America.
All the barbecues I went to were cheap affairs: sausages (burnt), chicken pieces (raw at the bones), baked potatoes that had been wrapped in foil and therefore soggy, and a cole slaw salad made with bottled mayonnaise.
Those are for ashes.
Parboil your chicken pieces for a few minutes. Dry them on kitchen paper. Do the same with the sausages. A couple of minutes will do. Make a mayonnaise by hand: one egg yolk, a teaspoon of mustard, salt and pepper and sunflower oil dribbled slowly. (All that can be done the day before). Add to the chopped cabbage. Mix well. Prick the potatoes all over with a fork, rub them with oil and 1 hour before serving put them in a hot conventional oven.
Baby light my fire! Remember the song? Only when the ashes are getting grey should you add the chicken pieces. At the last minute add the sausages. A good mustard and a spicy sauce from a bottle would go down a treat. In winter do the very same using a large frying pan instead of the barbecue.
Don't forget the potatoes in the oven otherwise it will be ashes to dust.
JOCELYNE
