Naples is ancient, full of history, culture, art, architectural wonders, music and of course, the finest food in the world. It can seduce you with any of these qualities, and with the sheer beauty of the sunlit bay upon which it sprawls. Naples was making me miserable. I had been living there some weeks, teaching increasingly ridiculous hours at a private English school in the city centre, suckered in by the salesmanship of travel bloggers and the fantasies they peddled. The “leave the rat-race, just go!” mentality was attractive, and the ease with which a new, fulfilling life could seemingly be built with naught but a can-do attitude and a TEFL qualification was enough for me to act on my wanderlust. My home in the city was a flat shared with two upbeat German students, a homesick Pole, a Neapolitan artist, a French teenager of moneyed background, determined to make it as a jazz busker, and a young ginger stray cat rescued from the airport. The flat itself was as dilapidated and near-collapse as the surrounding neighbourhood, Forcella, which deserves its own description. Forcella is a loud, lively, messy, crumbling Camorra-ridden warren of a neighbourhood. Long-neglected and ignored by the city government, it has an atmosphere of defiance and tooth-and-claw survival about it. Throughout history it has been a haven for trading, legal and otherwise, and today the streets are still jammed with jumble stalls, cigarette-hawkers, grocery shops, essentials stores, clusters of gossiping residents and, in the summer, lost tourists. There are diamonds in the rough though: most striking is the emotive mural of San Gennaro, painted by Naples’ own Jorit Agoch, gazing serenely from a wall next to the beautiful Chiesa di San Giorgio Maggiore. Each night I would glance up at Gennaro, hoping for some serenity myself, as I trudged home after another 10 or 12 hours of work. I’d buy a 2 Euro pack of cigarettes of indeterminate origin from one of the hawkers, kick open my building’s door, and plod upstairs to my flat. Sometimes I’d stop on the second floor (I lived on the third) for the first smoke of my packet, sitting on one of the rickety chairs in the hallway and nodding “buonasera” to neighbours as they passed, usually African immigrants heading in with their bundles of knockoff handbags, sunglasses and jewellery, tired from their days of selling on the street. I loved this final pause before climbing the final flight to my front door, where further hours of lesson planning for tomorrow lay ahead. The cat was my usual company, as my flatmates were either out enjoying the city, studying or sleeping. Not quite the Instagram-quality life that the bloggers had promised. I sure wasn’t a smoker when I had arrived! After three months, overwork, stress and sleeplessness had destroyed my health and will to remain in Naples. I interviewed for other positions, but the Neapolitan idea of promptness meant I wouldn’t hear back from employers for weeks. The only source of comfort or sanity was that cat. I had never been a cat-person, and in fact was borderline hostile towards him if he came to my room seeking attention while I worked. Like a child craving approval though, this only pushed him to try harder. Every night without fail, and always as I was about to go to sleep, he scratched at my bedroom door. Upon my opening the door he would pad into the darkened room and curl up by my shoulder when I returned to bed to sleep, until we both dozed off. As time passed and I debated leaving Naples more often, this persistently affectionate cat became an ever greater reason to stay. Eventually other reasons arose too: a job offer from another school, a relationship with a Neapolitan girl, but it was the unrelenting love shown by the cat that kept me around long enough to find them. His name was Robin, or “Gatto di Merda!” whenever he was underfoot, though it was the Italian term of affection “Patatino” that I knew him by, and that ‘Little Potato’ saved me in my darkest hours in Naples. For that, I love him still.