When I think of my mother's mother*, it is not the blue hair, Irish accent or extreme political views that come to mind initially.
*Of course, I can bring other thoughts to mind - hair, accent, politics, an almost ceaseless list of characteristics and associations. 'Think of' in this context means 'that which more often than not comes immediately to mind without being forced - that for which no concentration is required.'
Instead, I think of cats. Millions of cats, though of course there were perhaps not even ten, maybe not even five.
Cats everywhere, slithering underneath the door of the coal chute with huge, scared eyes reflecting the light as human footsteps passed; cats stretched idly across the tops of pieces of furniture; cats crying in stereo at the door of the flat for a mouthful of food and attenuating the beat of metal fork against tin.
I remember my grandmother's tetchy disposition towards her husband, her children, and how it contrasted with her attitude towards the local felines - the homeless ones she sustained, and the cunning ones who tapped her for a mid-morning snack. Outright hostility on the one hand; a deep well of patience on the other.
Lonely people - more of them later! - complain bitterly that there is not enough love or attention in the world to go round. Somewhere along the line, somebody has appropriated their share, and they have to go without. My late grandmother is proof that the opposite is the case: there's too much love, an EU surplus of the stuff.
It exists in sufficient amounts to dish out liberally to random cats demonstrating husky purring sounds and pretty faces.
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Like my grandmother before me, my breath is utterly taken away by cats. They are insanely flirtatious creatures.
The monochrome specimen who owns me is capable of purloining a meal at any hour of the day or night.
No sanctions are forthcoming when his whiskers arouse my sleeping face at something after five in the morning; laughter stifled (because I'm supposed to be asleep. Laughing aloud is proof that I've snapped back into reality, thus ending the game) at his latest plan to wake me for an early feed - knocking small objects from the bedside table and onto the floor. Batteries, pen-tops and coins cascading earthwards in a short-lived weather system of plastic and metal.
Ours is a relationship based on my wish to be amused, comforted and have the surroundings beautified; and on the necessity for him to obtain regular meals and receive occasional, short bursts of affection (on his terms.)
Other cats, though, hold endless fascination for me. I stalk them late at night when walking home from my friend's house, trying to grab their attention. Yet I curse them when they run towards me, and say out loud: "Hey! Not all humans are this easily pleased! You need to be more careful in future!" Nevertheless, I am secretly pleased.
If nothing else, then, my grandmother and I have a fascination for cats - the ones that own us, and the ones we're not fortunate enough to be owned by - in common. Does this one statement, from which our two lives thereafter diverge, contain enough predictive power to draw the conclusion that if she was catwoman in the last years of her life, I shall likewise be catman?
I suspect I shall become catman, cramped in a tiny flat stinking of cat piss, with the fridge empty save for rotting, half-eaten tins of Whiskas.
My grandmother's life ended ten years ago last week, her mind splintered into a trillion pieces and sustained only by a retinue of machinery. I never really knew her - this taciturn, loud woman with terrible language caused me to recoil. She was catwoman, though, and she fixed it that I shall one day be catman.
The pull of an ancient, long-gone lady catapults me inexorably towards a similar ending.... a dotage punctuated by squabbling cats and their dumb, directionless beauty.
