Wednesday, 29th October 2008.

Lofty Ambition

"Tabitha? Come down now. Please, sweetheart. Come here. Come on. There'll be catnip in it for you."

It was eight o'clock in the evening, and I was three quarters of the way up a ladder. Specifically, my head and upper torso had emerged inside our loft, where I'd been putting things into storage. This is normally done in the evenings, once the boys have gone to bed - largely because Thomas has recently developed the ability to climb, and I wouldn't put it past him trying to clamber up after me, or at the very least knock over the ladder while I was still standing on it. So typically the ladder stays in the garage until after seven thirty, and I can enjoy a swift, incident-free trip to our makeshift dumping ground and then close up the hatch before the cold gets in.

This would have been fine, except that I reckoned without the cat. Tabitha has become increasingly affectionate since Moppet vanished - affection that has ranged from the sweet and endearing (curling up to sit next to you or perch on your lap when you're watching the tube) to the amusing (jumping onto the edge of the sink, only to fall straight off again) to the plain irritating (digging her claws into your knees, or refusing to budge from the office chair). Actually, the chair deserves a separate note, because one particular annoyance is that even when you've managed to get her out (usually by tilting the chair to a right angle so that she slides off the edge), she will respond by jumping onto the desk and plonking herself down in front of the monitor so you can't see a thing.

At this point, the only way to resolve the situation is to physically remove her from the desk and then shut the door. If I do no more than tell her off, I am simply given The Look. Those of you who own or have been around cats will know what I'm talking about. For those of you who have never experienced The Look, try and imagine that you've just told your partner that the naked man / woman in the bed only came to fix the shower, but cracked open a pipe, flooding the bathroom and forcing both of you to strip. Then multiply that by seventeen. It's a glare of utterly soul-destroying contempt, and all must beware its power to wither your confidence and suck your will to live.

Anyway, I had just about finished in the loft when Tabitha decided to come and keep me company. Her timing was, as ever, immaculate: firstly, she waited until I'd heaved up the final box before springing up the ladder, almost knocking me over in the process. I have often felt that we were premature in christening her with her given name, and that Heineken would somehow have been more appropriate - largely because she is able to access the parts of the house that other creatures cannot reach. First and foremost amongst these was the hot water tank, still gurgling and churning as Emily ran her bath.

Tabitha sat at the other end of the loft, miaowed teasingly and then peered out at me. The path to the tank lay over narrow wooden beams, a foamy yellow sea of cavity and the occasional plank, installed for good measure, like driftwood in the Atlantic. To say that it was precarious and unsafe for human travel would be an understatement, and there was no way in hell I was following her along there.

"Tabitha?" I said. "Please come out from there. I want to close up the hatch."
"Miaow."
"Tabs, c'mon, please. I'm tired. And I can't come and get you."
"Miaow!"
"Tabitha? You know that taxidermist in Wantage?"
It was yards away, and the view was partially obscured by pipes, but I could still catch her giving me The Look.

"Come on," I said. "Or I will shut you in here, and you won't like that."
"Miaow." Which, translated, literally means "Of course you won't. You haven't got it in you. You're still terrified I'm going to do the dirty and run out on you the way Moppet did, which broadly speaking means I can get away with murder."

Eventually, just as my legs were starting to get tired, she came out from behind the tank and headed over to the south side of the loft. Then she bypassed the wooden boards entirely, and went and sat in a corner, where the slanted roof sloped upwards and made it impossible for all but the smallest of humans to gain entry. I was, for a moment, almost sorry that Joshua was in bed. Here she spent the next ninety seconds alternately poking at the cavity, or sharpening her claws on the beams.

"No, look, come here," I said, starting to get cross. "You know perfectly well that I can't come and get you, and you're just playing games with me."

Scratch, scratch. Yawn. Eventually, she seemed to get bored, and strolled across to some boxes that were lingering near the hatch. I saw my chance and reached out to grab the insufferable moggy, but it was clear that this wasn't going to be easy: I've never been totally comfortable picking her up, and she knows that. She wriggled free and momentarily flashed a newly-sharpened claw, as if to say "I was easy on you that time".

I'd had enough, and started back down the ladder, with the cat in tow. I was, after a few seconds, perched three rungs up, arms high above my head and grabbing onto the back half of a three-year-old tabby with its arse languishing in my face. Meanwhile, Tabitha's front paws were clinging on to the edge of the hatch, digging in hard: she clearly wasn't going down without a fight. It was like the finale of Cliffhanger, or indeed nigh-on every action film ever made, but it called to mind the scene at the end of The Search for Spock where Christopher Lloyd is dangling over the edge of a precipice, trying to drag Bill Shatner down with him (sadly, he doesn't succeed). I'd half expected an emerging claw to ravage my cheek, a final blast of lightning and an angry feline howl, presumably bellowing something along the lines of "I...HAVE HAD...ENOUGH...OF YOU!"

Eventually I hauled myself back up into the loft, picked up Tabitha firmly, and then chucked her down the ladder, where she landed with the grace and elegance that is afforded cats. And off she trotted to scratch the upholstery.

As a Bond movie type postscript (you know, that trend they had in the seventies of bringing back the idiosyncratic henchman for one last fling), there was a final battle of wills. Having already disgraced herself over the loft incident, Tabitha then decided to follow me out to the garage, where I was replacing the ladder. The autumn rain was still pattering and the wind was blowing, and I was wet and cold.

"Tabitha?" I said, almost defeated, as she trotted up to the far end of the garage by the spare fridge (and the supplementary cat food). "Please come out. I want to shut this door and go inside before I freeze to death."

Tabitha's response was wordless; instead she rolled around on the ground, a clear sign that she wants some affection. I approached, realising that stroking her would be the best way to get her to do what I wanted, but the moment I reached her she bolted. The whole thing had been an exquisite tease. I switched off the light and returned to the kitchen, and much-needed imported lager.

Forget about curiosity killing the cat. One of these days, the cat's curiosity is going to kill me.