The downside of being an animal lover

Tonight I think my cat is dying, so permit me a bit of self-indulgence.

I've known this little boy just about five and a half years - he was my husband's cat - and I really didn't like him to start with. Grumpy, noisy, inclined to brawl - I used to joke that he was the reincarnation of my grandfather, especially when he would come in at 2am making a hell of a racket, ensure that everyone was fully awake and then pass out for nine hours.

But just as I loved Grandad despite his foibles, I came to love our scrappy little Persian. An experiment in breeding that didn’t quite go to plan, he features an underbite worthy of a cartoon bulldog and fur the texture of cotton wool. He is chronically clumsy and famed for his ability to fall off tables when asleep. He will not tolerate being groomed and has to go off to be shaved under anaesthetic once a year, coming back looking like a little grey shammy leather, wobbly on his legs.

And I adore him. His fur is rainclouds over the sea and his little monkey face and black rubber lips - even that damned underbite - render him the sweetest, funniest-looking cat I’ve ever seen. He also has the most human personality of any animal I’ve met. Once, when I intervened in a standoff between him and a border terrier, he accidentally scratched me on the nose and I would swear to this day that he felt guilty - he sat and watched me for half an hour afterwards looking very contrite.

He is only 12 and I am not ready to lose him. I only took him to the vet because he seemed a bit short of breath, and the next thing I knew words like heart failure (at this point, the least worst outcome) and chest tumours were flying around the consulting room and favours were being called in at another branch to get him an X-ray first thing tomorrow.

I am on the sofa next to my boy, drinking him in, watching his little chest rise and fall at what is clearly too fast a speed, and I hope more than I have hoped for anything in a long time that he isn't lost to me just yet.