I am sitting in my office at the bottom of the garden, hiding from the cat. I have plenty of work to do – I am a businessman – but if it weren’t for the cat I’d be in the kitchen drinking coffee, or maybe lying on my bed.

In the months since we moved house, the cat has seized the opportunity afforded by the upheaval to reframe its dealings with me, so that I am more like its PA. The cat knows only one word in English – miaow – but it has learned to punctuate it pretty effectively.

“Miaow?” asks the cat, through the bedroom door. It’s 7am.

“Yes,” I say. “I’m awake.”

“Miaow!”

“I know,” I say. “We’re all thirsty.”

“Shut up, you stupid cat,” my wife says, from under the duvet.

“Miaow,” says the cat, which roughly translates as: I’ll see you downstairs.

The cat will not drink water except from a running tap. This seems pretty fussy when you also live with a dog that will happily lap from a puddle containing brake fluid, but I have a lot of sympathy for the cat’s position. I wouldn’t drink from a bowl on the floor. In our old house most of the taps dripped incessantly; in the new house the cat must be served on demand.

“Miaow,” says the cat when I walk into the kitchen.

“Yeah, I was getting dressed,” I say.

The cat leaps on to the draining board, and I turn the kitchen tap to a steady drizzle. The cat drinks while I stand by holding the empty reservoir of the coffee machine.

“In your own time,” I say.

The cat stops and looks at me.

“Miaow?” it says.

“Yes, I do have stuff to do,” I say. “I’m a businessman.”

“Miiaaoooow,” says the cat.

“Are you being sarcastic?” I say. “How dare you.”

Eventually the cat’s thirst is slaked; it jumps off the worktop, and I put coffee on. The cat then repositions itself next to the cupboard where the cat food is kept.

“Miaow,” it says. I glance at the cat’s bowl, which is empty.

“Fine,” I say. I pull a box from inside the cupboard. The cat follows me to the bowl, which I fill to overflowing. The cat sits, contemplating the bowl for a moment, and then looks up at me.

“It’s today’s special,” I say. “Cat food.”

“Miaow,” says the cat, which means: I thought I might try the dog food today.

“I’m not having this conversation again,” I say.

So I’m hiding in my office shed, the one place the cat will not go near. I know this because the cat did enter my office one evening last month, and I ended up accidentally locking it in overnight. When I opened the door the next morning, the cat stepped out with studied nonchalance, but the shredded window blinds told a different story. We both learned something that day.

I peer across the garden into the kitchen, where I can see the oldest one sitting at the table staring at his laptop. He moved out a few weeks ago but, if anything, we see more of him these days. I get up and walk to the back door.

“Hey,” I say.

“Yo,” the oldest one says.

“Miaow,” says the cat, already sitting on the draining board. I turn on the tap, adjusting the flow to a knitting needle-thin stream.

“He’s got you trained,” the oldest says.

“It’s low-level bullying,” I say. “If we had an HR department, I’d complain.” My wife walks in.

“What is that cat doing?” she says, rushing toward the sink and clapping her hands. The cat jumps down.

“It has to drink,” I say.

“Muddy paw prints on the worktop, paw prints in the bath,” she says. “I’m sick of it.”

“The solution to this problem has been obvious for many years,” the oldest says.

“Do you mean a cat fountain?” I say.

“This is my house,” my wife says. “I’m not filling it up with cat furniture.”

I secretly order a cat fountain anyway. I don’t know if the cat will drink from it, but I could probably use it to fill the coffee machine.