She would have been sixteen today – my precious leap year kitten, the youngest of The Cats, my Furry Family. I cannot grasp the ‘would’ in this sentence, keep stumbling over words that have crept into my vocabulary and taken away so much: ‘attack’, ‘broken’, ‘puncture’, ‘let go’. Glinka, aka Birdie Cat, aka Kleinkat, who inspired the feisty little cat in André’s Philida and features in the acknowledgements of the Booker-longlisted novel, died on 18 January 2024, two days after she was attacked by a feral cat. A team of vets fought for her life, but we could not save her. The brave, beautiful Glinka.

Whenever Glinka saw Mozart, she greeted him with a nose kiss and her chirping meow. That is how I imagine she greeted him when he left us and joined her in Cat Heaven on 21 February 2024. I still misspell the word ‘tumour’, refuse to accept its cruel reality. Mozart hadn’t been well for quite a while, but it was difficult to diagnose the cause, and once we knew for sure, we could only make him comfortable. My Mom was there when he was born in Austria in the Mozart Year of 2006, and she was here when he died in my arms, with her and my brother Krystian holding us. Mr Mozart, as he was also known, the oldest of The Cats, was the wisest Furry One I’ve ever known. His resilience and fierce independence were a source of great inspiration to me and many others who knew him. He was blind for half of his life, but it never made a difference to how he wanted to live, free and wild, no matter what.

Friends console me by saying that I gave them a good life, but I keep thinking: no, it was the other way around. They gave me a good life by honouring me with their purrs and trust and choosing to share their incredible lives with me for so many, many years. I cannot express how deeply I feel their loss. I loved them with all my heart.

Ever since Mozart, Salieri and Glinka came to live here, I have always called our home Threecatfontein, or Driekatfontein, and this it will remain, even if it is just Salieri and me now, and two purring furry ghosts.