More Cats in the Belfry

SIXTEEN

To be fair to Fred, he had his own worries at that time. Like summer itself, things were coming to a head in the village. I hadn't known much of what was going on beyond the valley, being so busy with my own affairs, and I nearly fell flat with astonishment one morning when Miss Wellington came in to tell me that Poppy Richards and Mr Tooting had been married. At the register office in town, but when they came back from Torquay, where they'd gone on honeymoon, they were going to have a blessing in church. And Poppy was going to live in Mr Tooting's bungalow and her cottage would be up for sale.

Miss Wellington was sorry she couldn't tell me before, she assured me, but she'd been sworn to secrecy. They didn't want a fuss. Oh, that was all right, I said. And nearly fell even flatter when, the following day, Father Adams's wife told me another piece of news... that Mrs Binney's banns had been called in church on Sunday. Not, as I'd half expected, with Will Woodrow – but with Fred Ferry's father, Sam!

Perhaps she'd seen the way the wind was blowing and pre-empted matters. But I don't really think that was it. She'd been at school with Sam. They'd grown up together. This was obviously what his smartening himself up had been in aid of. And she'd make him a good wife, and they'd neither of them be lonely in future, and she was going to move into his cottage and let Bert and Shirl have hers... Everything was right in the village heaven except for Fred Ferry, who was going round with a face as long as his knapsack at the thought of having Mrs B. as his stepmother, after all he'd said about her.

As for me, there is one last event to record before I finish this chronicle. Revolving, of course, around the cats. I was watching over them one Sunday afternoon while they were having one of their free sessions in the garden. Fortunately I wasn't weeding this time. Just standing with them, cat-crook in hand, up by the garage while they decided what to investigate next. I spotted a girl and a young man coming down the hill with an Alsatian. The girl had the Alsatian on a lead.

I watched them approach the drive gate, which is some forty feet from the garage. The cats watched too, at my side: Tani apprehensive – expecting the White Slavers, as always; Saphra interested because he likes meeting people. You never know who might come in.

What came in that afternoon was a Jack Russell terrier, previously unnoticed because of the Alsatian – squirming under the gate, barking ferociously and nearly falling over himself in his haste to get at the cats. I lunged at him with my crook; he dodged me, still barking; and he and the cats vanished down the path to the cottage in a welter of dust and scraping claws.

I pelted after them, waving my crook and yelling, but they were faster than I was and as I passed the front of the cottage I could hear barking inside. Round the corner I shot, through the kitchen and into the sitting-room. There was no sign of Tani. She was obviously on her sanctuary chair under the table. But in one of the wide-silled windows, at bay with his back to the glass, drooling with fear and his eyes round with terror, was Saphra – and on a low chair beneath the sill, barking its head off and trying to get over the chair-back to reach him – only fortunately its legs were too short – was the dog.

I hit it with the crook and it turned and snarled at me. I hit it again and it fled. Out through the kitchen, back round to the lawn where it stood and barked at me defiantly, while the young man, making no attempt to assist, watched me from the other side of the gate.

'How dare you bring that dog down here without a lead,' I blazed. 'It might have killed my cats. Get it out at once!' It wasn't his dog, he excused himself. He was exercising it for somebody else. Could I catch it for him?

Could I! 'Open the gate,' I shouted. He did. I chased the dog out, and he put it on a lead and disappeared. I went back to the cats. Tani had surfaced and was sitting on the hearthrug quite composedly. Interesting, wasn't it? she asked. Saphra was visibly shaken and still dribbling with fear. That dog nearly Got Him, he said. I knew it had, and the window glass was cracked where Saph must have hit it trying to escape, but I examined them both carefully and they seemed all right. Until the following Wednesday morning when – they were still sleeping with me – I woke to find blood on the duvet cover. And later, blood on the bed valance.

I examined them again. I couldn't find any blood on either of them. It must be internal. And it must be Saph, I thought. Blood, wherever it was coming from, would have shown up on Tani's milk-white coat. I rang Langford, and they told me to bring him over. I had him there in less than ten minutes, explaining why I thought it was him. Either as a result of hitting his head on the glass, or heaven forbid – something internal. That had been the first sign before I lost Saska. But it couldn't possibly be Tani, I explained. Blood would be so visible on her.

The vet on duty examined Saph all over, including internally, which offended him greatly. You didn't Do That to Gentlemen, he said. She couldn't find anything wrong, she told me, but she'd give him a five-day course of antibiotics, in case he had an internal infection. If the bleeding didn't stop, bring him back on Monday and they'd do further tests.

It didn't stop. It wasn't copious, but it was there. Usually in the mornings, on the bed. By Saturday I was certain he'd be back at Langford on Monday, in spite of his taking his antibiotics so stoically. On Sunday, the last day of his tablets, I woke up sick at heart and leaned forward to examine the evidence. Saph yawned, got up and moved away. There was no blood where he'd been lying. Mystified, I leaned forward more closely, looked at Tani, who was lying with one paw extended – and nearly had a fit. There between the toes of that paw was an angry-looking wound, obviously the cause of all the trouble. One of her claws was missing and she'd obviously been worrying the place with her teeth, making it bleed, and later cleaning off all traces so that unless you parted the toes you couldn't see it. Poor old Saph had had his antibiotic course for nothing.

It was Tani I took to Langford on Monday morning. Apologised. Explained the mistake. The vet, sorry though she was for Tani, laughed heartily. Evidently she knew Saphra's reputation. Tani had broken the claw off at the base, said the vet – no doubt in escaping from the dog – and must have since been trying to pull out the rest of it. She dressed the wound and bandaged it. Tani would soon have that off, I said. So she wrapped the whole leg round with sticking plaster, right to the top, till it looked like a policeman's truncheon. She gave her a course of antibiotics too, and said wait till the end of the week. If I could get the plaster off on Sunday, well and good. If not, bring her back to the Monday evening surgery at 5 p.m. and somebody would do it for me.

I could well imagine myself at Langford for the evening surgery. Tani screaming the place down about White Slavers, my having to pull out afterwards on the A38 with her in the car, when all the office workers were streaming home from Bristol. I worried all the week, while Tani clonked round raising her paw determinedly sideways instead of forwards. Come Sunday I got the plaster off easily. Wouldn't you bet? And her paw had healed beautifully inside it. That was because she was a Good Girl, she assured me.

It is funny when you look back on it. Lots of things are funny in retrospect. Like the woman who wrote to tell me of her Siamese coming home with a joint of beef in its mouth, the carving fork still embedded in it. Like Pat telling me of her new seal-point female, Kiri, bought as companion for Luki, who wasn't turning out to be a good girl at all, but kept going up on neighbours' roofs, round their chimney pots, and bringing home everything under the sun. An enormous piece of pork crackling. An outsize sausage. Goodness knew where she got them. Luki was doing his best – he'd come home with another beefburger. But Kiri was definitely outstripping him: her latest trophy, which Pat had thought was the crust of a large loaf of bread and had gone up the garden to take from her, had turned out to be a whole breaded plaice. They'd be forced to move soon, she said.

There was the cat belonging to an Australian girl who came to see me. She'd left it at home with her parents while she was working in Europe, and one day it had got out and made off down the street. Her mother had rushed out and chased after it – and so, said Marie, had her father, who was confined to a wheelchair. He'd gone whizzing down the road too, and they'd caught it between them. Funny when you visualised it, wasn't it? she asked. Funny it was indeed. The longer one keeps cats – particularly Siamese – the battier I think one gets. Excuse me while I put the teapot in the refrigerator. I do it quite often these days.

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