The Only Spanish People Here Are the Cats

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When I adopted my cat, Tupi, I was living with a Turkish boyfriend. He didn't really want to be in Spain. He would have preferred to live in the Netherlands but, the feeling clearly not mutual, they had already refused his residency twice. He ended up in Madrid after marrying a Spanish friend he had met in Eindhoven, in order to get his papers. She had since found someone she wanted to marry for real and, when he and I got together, they were in the process of getting divorced. The only thing he liked about Spain was the fact that it was part of the European Union, and so contained within its borders the hope of a European passport. He said the country was just a slightly more civilised version of Turkey, which he had grown to hate, that is, when he wasn’t missing it terribly.

Although I knew, deep within, that it was a very bad idea, I agreed to us getting married under my Irish citizenship, so we could move to the Netherlands together. I should have voiced a great many concerns, but the only condition I stipulated was that Tupi came with us. For this Tupi needed a passport.

Tupi was not keen on the Netherlands plan…

At the time, I was working at IBM on an North American timetable, so I didn’t start work until 2pm. I took Tupi for his shots in the morning, got the passport approved by the vet, hurried home, settled Tupi back in, dumped the passport on the coffee table and ran out to work. When I got home late that night, I found my boyfriend sitting on the sofa in semi-darkness, the passport in his hands. He held it up, brandishing it at me. The 12 stars of the European Union seemed to twinkle in the gloom. ‘Why can't I have one of these?’ He asked, glaring first at me, then at Tupi, ‘I'm the only non-European in this house.’ We broke up not long after that. To date, Tupi has not used his passport.

As with Tupi, all the cats I've known have made a point of marking significant moments in my life. It was my first cat who inspired my first ever piece of creative writing, for example. I loved Tiger very much, so much so that I used to carry him around in a headlock. When he died unexpectedly, I wrote this poem as his eulogy:

Check out those rhyming couplets.

When I moved to Madrid, one of the hardest and most guilt-ridden things I had to do was leave behind my elderly cat, Casey. On my first visit back to the UK after emigration, she died. She was living with my ex-boyfriend at the time, and I had gone to visit her. That last night, I slept with her on the sofa, she climbed onto my chest and purred a little, her breathing already laboured. We took her to the vet the following morning and they put her to sleep. It was like she had been waiting to say goodbye to me. My boyfriend, who I had also left behind when I emigrated to Madrid, cried more after Casey's death than he did when we broke up. It was like the end of all the other endings.

In my 10 years in Madrid, I've moved house a lot. It was only in my fourth home that I was in a position to invite a new cat into my life. I wasn't convinced, however, because the apartment was small with no outdoor access, and that Turkish boyfriend was not enthused by the idea. However, I hadn't counted on the persuasive talents of my friend Vanessa. Or, as I call her - Vanessa: cat hustler.

Vanessa is an incredibly kind person. And I don’t say that lightly, she really truly is. At the time that Tupi appeared in my life, Vanessa was volunteering at a cat shelter near her home. It was one of those places run purely on love. The space was small, but the need was great. New abandoned, injured or homeless cats were arriving constantly. Once I had my own apartment, Vanessa suggested I could provide foster care to help ease the burden on the shelter a little. Tupi was candidate number one for fostering. He had been left for dead in a rubbish bin after being hit by a car. His hips and back legs were broken and part of his tail was hanging off. Because of this he was having to live in a small enclosed space and not with the rest of the cats where he might get injured. But, as he recovered, he needed to gently exercise his legs and hips to get them strong again. Who could say no to that?!

After a month, during which Tupi recovered enough to jump up on the sofa by himself, had put on a little weight and commandeered my pillow as his sleeping place (whether my head was already on it or not), I asked Vanessa how we might go about finding him a permanent home. She told me his options were to stay with me, or go back to his little cage. This is why I call her the cat hustler. Obviously, I adopted him. (Thus, I also say that she introduced me to the love of my life.)

The part of Tupi’s tail that broke off. They gave it to me at the cat shelter when I adopted him. Now it hangs just by my front door like a tail-isman haha.

Last week I put Tupi on a diet, but when he first came to live with me, he was a little scrap of a thing. His physical changes put me in mind of how much we have been through together. Although I didn’t know it at the time, Tupi's arrival was the start of a big period of change. We weathered that horrible breakup together, he was my only company under the harsh conditions of the Spanish Covid lockdown, he was there when I got my first publishing job, he was the reason I moved for the fifth (and currently final) time, so that he would have access to some outdoor space. And he now has a stepdad who loves him as he deserves.

In March this year, after having thought about it for a long time, I decided Tupi was lacking feline company. He had grown up in a colony of stray cats afterall, he was probably tired of being surrounded by bald faces.

Tupi and Dotta keeping watch over the barrio.

Dotta made it clear from the beginning that she was in charge of this decision. The cat shelter (a different one this time) emailed me a list of cats that the volunteers thought would get along well with Tupi. My eye was drawn to a cheeky-looking ginger lad, but Dotta had other ideas. The shelter is located between the Metro and my house and every time I walked past, there was Dotta in the window, gazing out. To be fair, she looked very much like she couldn’t care less if I adopted her or not, but her little sad and regal face got etched in my mind.

I was given a date to meet all the cats on the list and when that day came, very oddly, of the eight or so, I was only introduced to Dotta. I questioned it once, mainly because it seemed strange, but the reply was a shrug of the shoulders. So, that was that. And, of course, Tupi and I are mad about her. Like all the other cats in my life, her arrival marked a key moment. In Dotta’s case, it’s that she made us into a family.

I'm not the only non-European in the house, though I am the only foreigner - I pay the rent, but I’m outnumbered by the four-legged locals. Despite the fact that we have different passports and were born in different places, we are a family because - of all the experiences I’ve collected, people I’ve met and things I’ve done here in Madrid - it's those two little cats that make the city home.