Graeme Lay: Landing on their Feet (an extract)

As the flight from Tahiti began its descent into Auckland, I started to fill in the customs declaration card. As usual I had no firearms, my bag did not contain millions of dollars of currency and I carried no camping equipment. These "No" boxes were firmly ticked. Then I came to the "Food of any kind" section. Aware of the dire consequences should the food in my bag be undeclared but discovered, I ticked the "Yes" box.

The food was not fresh, but it was undeniably food: a threepack of canned kitten food, bought the day before in a Papeete supermarket. That wouldn't cause any problems with MAF. It was to be a special treat for the two youngsters at home.

The phone call from Elsa, our local vet, had come just before Christmas. Did I still want a pair of kittens? An abandoned pair, about three weeks old, had been handed into her practice.

Both our aged cats — Gemma and Georgina — had had to be put down during the year, and a cat-lover's household without cats is a bereft one indeed. I told Elsa I'd come right down and check the foundlings out.

They were brother and sister, tiny tabbies, with bright-white legs and chests. The mottled, grey-and-black markings on their backs were startlingly beautiful, like the skin of a python. They were gorgeous, adorable, irresistible.

The kitten's mother, probably a stray, solo parent overburdened with her lot, had left them under a house in Devonport. As the two kittens staggered to their feet and mewed at me beseechingly from the confines of their cage, longing to be free, I didn't hesitate. "Yes, I'll have them."

In just days they were part of the household. Bright blue-eyed, alert and energetic, they already knew what the kittylitter box was for, seldom failing to put it to good use. (In that respect cats are years ahead of humans, while dogs, those disgusting creatures, never learn.)

Endlessly entertaining, they played with each other for hours, tumbling and leaping and chasing and hiding and seeking and stalking their feathery toys, before they suddenly and inexplicably stopped and fell asleep, curled into balls, tails wrapped around their tiny bodies like furry string. We named them Pippy and Jimmy. The orphaned kittens had, you might say, landed on their feet.

I became a fretting parent all over again. I nailed chicken wire around the deck, built gates over every possible escape route and kept all the windows firmly shut, in spite of the summer heat. I bought special-formula milk and sachets of kitten food from the vets and mashed it up for them, just refraining from tasting it myself.

I made elastic leashes and tied them to the flea collars, so that when they did go outside, their movements could be closely controlled. When they caught their first weta and brought it inside, I was prouder than they were.

So, given this besottedness on my part, it was predictable that as I cruised the aisles of a chic supermarket in Papeete, I should pause at the pet-food shelves and seek out the kitten section. Not just gourmet kitten-food, but French gourmet kitten-food. Nothing was too good for Jimmy and Pippy.

And there it was, in 195-gram tins with orange labels: Champion. Terrine. Pour chaton. Replas complet. Aliment complet. Its vitamines were listed A, D. and E. I bought a three-pack.

The perfect overseas gift for the darlings.

At Auckland airport I collected my bag and joined the red queue. Studying my declaration card, the young MAF woman asked, "What food is it you have with you?"

"Kitten food. In tins," I replied. She looked puzzled for a moment, then said, "Join Queue C. The one over there."

Queue C was long, and slow. Ahead of me, people of all races and nationalities were tearing open their cases and rummaging among their personal belongings, extracting packets and tins and sachets. At the head of the queue was a long bench, behind which uniformed people were scrutinising and frowning and picking at declared-and-suspect foodstuffs.

I took out Jimmy and Pippy's three-pack, irritated now at the delay this was going to cause. The food had been cooked, it was in tins, for Christ's sake. How could it possibly be a threat to the nation's agricultural sector? Then I told myself, be patient, when they see that the foods is in tins, they'll wave you through.

The queue crept forward, and in 20 minutes I was brought before the bench. My inquisitor was a man in his early 40s, with black, close-cropped hair and a genial expression. He was wearing rubber gloves. When I handed the declaration card and the three-pack to him, his face darkened.

"What's this?" he asked. His voice was accented. South African perhaps.

"Kitten food."

"Kitten food?"

"Yes."

"Where from?"

"Tahiti. But originally from France. See, there. It says Fabrique en France."Unable to resist, I added, "That means Made in France."

The man rotated one of the cans in his hand, squinting at the label. His expression was now bordering on the hostile. "Kitten food ..."

"It's been cooked. And, obviously, canned," I said, trying to remain patient. It was very hot in the hall, my bag had to be repacked, and I hadn't even reached the x-ray machine yet.

The man was shaking his head, holding the cans as if they were primed grenades. "I'll have to take this away. For further examination." He looked at me through narrowed eyes. "Wait there." And he disappeared through a door behind the bench.

I walked away and sat down on my bag.

Ten, twenty minutes passed. The man had still not reappeared. I was about to flag it away and move on when I realised that he still had my declaration card. I couldn't leave the hall without handing it in. Then, at the half-hour mark, he reappeared, holding the three-pack. He looked around but at first couldn't see me. Angry by now, I called out to him. "Over here!" Then I muttered, "Nazi ..."

Handing over the cans, the official said airily, "They've been x-rayed. They're OK, they're just kitten food."

Back at home, it was left to my adult children to offer an explanation for the official's bellicose attitude.

"Drugs. He thought you had drugs in the cans."

"Drugs?"

"Yes. Hard drugs. It would have been a pretty good cover, wouldn't it? Kitten food. That's why he had them x-rayed."

I shook my head at the strangeness of it all. Then I looked down at the kitchen floor, to where Jimmy and Pippy were tucking delightedly into their Terrine pour chaton. And smiled.

* The Cat's Whiskers, edited by Peter Wells, Random House (Vintage) $29.95