Michael Harding: Did I ever tell you the story of the two cats?

I saw the black cat limping down the garden this morning to do a poo. He scratched at the dead leaf beneath the trees and though his lame leg spasmed a bit as he evacuated, it was nevertheless a joy to behold him tucking his little dump into the ground. I presume it was the other cats that taught him where the toilet is, which signifies that he is part of the tribe now.

He is one of us.

Certainly his arrival has been the biggest event of the past nine months, since I took a break from writing columns last summer.

Back then there were two cats, Peabody and Charlie. Their story was so heroic that I dined out on it for years. Whenever there was a lull at a dinner party and my friends were tired of arguing about Brexit and Trump, I would open my beak and pose the question;

Michael Harding: Contrary to popular opinion, it’s all go in Leitrim all the time

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My camera notices details I miss. I’ve never had this experience with my iPhone

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Michael Harding: To me, Bundoran streets were once as glamorous as those of Las Vegas

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Michael Harding: Did I ever tell you the story of the two cats?

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“Did I ever tell you the story of the two cats?”

Charlie began life in a neighbour’s house, but got hit with a sweeping brush so often that he fled. The bean an tí suffered from bouts of rage about her husband’s habit of eating his dinner on the sofa, and leaving his plate on a cushion where the cat could not resist it when everyone had gone to bed.

The bean an tí would come brushing the floor each morning only to find the cat curled up on the sofa and the plate upside down on the floor. So rather than take it out on her husband, still abed, wallowing in post-coital serenity, she went for the cat, swinging the broom above her head and crashing it down on Charlie’s little rump.

He fled to the wilderness where he met the love of his life; Peabody, a feral cat built like a little hedgehog, and robust enough to ward off any fox or rambling dog. However, Peabody’s eyes were diseased as a kitten and his sight was rapidly fading. Though he could tackle a mouse with the enthusiasm of Conor McGregor, the problem was that he couldn’t see the mouse. So Charlie became the navigator, identifying targets and thus became Peabody’s other half.

It worked well until one winter when snow covered the roof and the pair of them sat on the window ledge for as long as it took to melt my heart. The rest is history.

And that’s eight years ago. In the meantime, Charlie survived the long bone of a chicken leg which I watched him suck into his gullet before I could stop him. Fortunately it didn’t perforate anything internally and with a few tablets from the vet, he survived. Although, he poo-ed hard cement for a few days which wasn’t a pretty spectacle.

Now, as we move into spring one year later they endure in the garden with foxes and badgers, two pheasants and a hen harrier

Peabody’s eyes deteriorated further and he went deaf, so now he spends his days in a basket at the back door, or clinging to his beloved Charlie with ferocious need and affection. He sleeps so deeply that sometimes he wakes in the night when Charlie has gone out hunting and the absence tears at his little heart. I know because he whines like a banshee until I get up and comfort him; assuring him that Charlie will be back in the morning.

Until recently their story was one of serenity in old age, gently folding their souls into the silence of interdependence. But then Jack arrived, last summer; dragging himself with his front paws, and his rear end as lifeless as a wet glove. I presumed he had been hit by a car. He made it to the shed, found an old basket beside the boiler and lay as rigid as a lump of coal for a few days, waiting for death.

The vet was alerted, but each morning the little black cat whimpered and shivered and gazed at me as if to say please let’s not do anything rash today.

And the days grew into weeks, and weeks into months, and by winter time we named him Jack, and with a permanent limp he joined the half-blind Peabody and the bewildered Charlie in a quiet but significant communion of love. Now, as we move into spring one year later they endure in the garden with foxes and badgers, two pheasants and a hen harrier who all sing this week to the Easter moon in their own peculiar ways.

I know there have been other things happening in the world; wars, famines, and the rise of dictators, but in the hills above Lough Allen the love of nervous animals is no small matter.