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And meanwhile everything inspired me. I loved the light in Greece. I loved the air. I loved the fish! And Greek cats were no match for us, those skinny things, so we never had a bit of trouble (the cats in the Forum are another story!). I was so very happy on the isle of Symi in the Dodecanese – which wereunder Italian rule at the time, of course, as you’ll remember from your hellenic history at school – that I hoped we would settle there for ever. I pictured us living in a cave and becoming a bit famous, maybe even the focus of a cult – something like St John the Evangelist on Patmos. But it was foolish to dream of such things. Because it was on Symi that the Captain started to reveal an unfortunate trait – a kind of psychotic possessiveness – which in the end made me anxious to move on, and meant we were never safe for long in any one place.
    “At Symi, you see, something rather horrible occurred. The first of a series of horrible things. And I blame myself: I had ignored the signs. I had assumed the Captain was as happy as I was. A kindly waiter at a harbour-side taverna would sometimes tickle me under the chin and fling me a piece of octopus. I thought it was nice of him, and I played up to it – scoffing the tit-bit and miaowing for more. His name was Galandis, and I stupidly mentioned him to the Captain. I even made the excited suggestion that we might want to settle down at Galandis’s taverna, and be looked after for a while.
    “The Captain pretended to be interested in my suggestion. He made me point out Galandis when we were sitting on the harbour wall one evening. The next day, when Galandis was feeding me, I noticed the Captain was watching. It all seems so clear to me now, but at the time I thought he was weighing up the idea of making our home here, so I was (what a fool!) quite pleased that he saw me purring and nudging at Galandis’s ankles. Two days later, I arrived at the taverna, and there was no Galandis. His wife was sobbing, people were shouting (they’re always shouting in Greece, but this was different), and the church bells were tolling. The focus of attention was a black hand-cart dripping sea-water onto the ground. I hopped up on the harbour wall to see what was in it; what was causing the dripping water; what was causing all this unseemly humangrief. It was Galandis’s body, of course. My sweet Galandis! He had drowned himself.
    “The Captain joined me on the wall. ‘What a shame,’ he said. ‘That was your nice human friend, wasn’t it? They’re saying he jumped into the sea from his little fishing boat last night, and he had rocks in his pockets.’
    “ ‘But why?’ I said.
    “ ‘Who knows?’ shrugged the Captain. ‘Sometimes humans just lose the will to live.’
    “Three more blameless Greek people, on three different islands, had to set the church bells tolling before it dawned on me that it wasn’t a coincidence. The fat man from the Post Office on Samos; the hairy-faced woman on Hydra who sold honey; the fisherman’s idiot son on Cephalonia with the public-nuisance shoe fetish – how peculiar, that every time I got to know a human being, he or she immediately lost the will to live ! I thought for a while that it might be me – that I somehow infected these people with despair. But it must have been the Captain. He was possessive; he was a classic psychopath (obviously); and he had nothing but contempt for the average human. However, I never had evidence that he tampered with any of them – not Galandis, not the cuddly postman, not the honey-lady or the fisher-boy. The only time I saw him interfere directly with a human was in 1933, when we were strolling through the temple at Luxor on a fine afternoon and an American woman decided to take a photograph of us. ‘What enormous cats!’ she exclaimed and snapped the shutter. Well, the Captain wasn’t standing for that. And it was as if we had rehearsed it. He ran to her. She bent to stroke him. He slashed