Дорин Тови - The Coming Of Saska

And it was a seal-point Siamese. But it wasn’t Seeley.

We concealed our heartbreak. How strange, we said, that there should be another stray Siamese as well. The farmer said we needn’t worry, it wouldn’t be stray for long.

If its owner didn’t turn up he’d take it on himself. ‘Very intelligent, that cat is,’ he said. He was telling us! In its adversity it had found a haybarn to sleep in, rabbits for the eating, a stream to drink from nearby... and, if it so wanted, another home where it would be welcome, with a prosperous farmer under its thumb. We hoped that Seeley, if he was alive, had been equally fortunate. We hoped, even more, that we would find him. Then we drove back to the cottage where a friend, keeping vigil by the phone, reported that another call had come in.

Siamese cats get lost all right. In the next few weeks we followed up more calls than we would ever have believed possible from people who had seen cats in their gardens whom they were positive must be Seeley. We went to see every one. Nine times out of ten it transpired that the cat lived across the road, round the corner, or in some cases wasn’t a Siamese at all. We did, however, see six seal-point 133

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The Coming of Saska neuters in three weeks, all in the West of England, that were completely and hopelessly lost, obviously miles from their homes, with no clue as to how they had got there.

The thing that upset us every time, apart from the fact that it was never Seeley, was the fear and bewildered hopelessness that looked at us out of those lost blue eyes. Cats that had been so cherished, forced to fend for themselves. If we could, we’d have given a home to all of them, but we couldn’t take on six... and obviously somebody somewhere, like us, was grieving and searching for them. Their best chance of being found was to leave them where they were. In each case the person who had contacted us was quietly keeping an eye on them. The only thing we ourselves could do was to go on hoping and asking and searching.

Our worst experience was when a farmer’s wife rang us one night from five miles away, to say she’d seen a Siamese cat hunting round their barn at dusk for several evenings and she wondered whether we’d found ours yet. No we hadn’t we said. We’d come over at once... Oh, it wasn’t there now, she said. She was just checking to see if we’d found Seeley. She’d watch out, and if the cat appeared again, she’d ring us as soon as she saw it.

For two nights we heard nothing, so I rang her to enquire.

No, she hadn’t seen it again, she said. Then on the third night, she rang us to say her husband had found it. It had been hit by a car and was dead. It was ten o’clock, and dark, but we drove over at once. I couldn’t rest without knowing but when we got there, I couldn’t look at the body. Charles had to do it. And, by dim torchlight in a shed, he thought at first it was Seeley.

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Doreen Tovey

‘If only we’d come over the night she rang us, and I’d called him,’ I said. There are so many ‘if only’s’. If only I had brought Seeley in from the doorstep that morning...

And we had called so much, so futilely, in so many different places. Then I looked at the dead cat, forcing myself to do it. If it was Seeley, I had to wish him goodbye. And hope surged through my heart again, because I knew it wasn’t Seeley. ‘It’s not his face,’ I said. We lifted the cat out of the box and shone the torch more closely on it, and sure enough, its back, too, was too light. I wept for the dead cat, and for the owner who had lost him – and gave thanks that it wasn’t Seeley.

It might as well have been. At least we would have known his end. As it is, we never shall. So many people told us of missing Siamese that had been found as much as a whole year later. The one that walked home from Wales to Sussex, for instance, taking a year to do it. And the one that vanished from its home one day and the owners hunted and advertised futilely... until six months later there was a phone call from a farmer who lived a few miles away. He’d just heard they’d lost a Siamese, he said.

There’d been one living wild in his wood all the winter.

They went over and called and their cat emerged from the trees, glad to see them and fit as a trivet. The only difference in him was the tremendous depth of his coat, which had automatically thickened for his protection.

So many tales we heard to give us hope, but it is over a year now since we lost him. Sometimes we wonder whether he is still alive – and at other times know that he can’t be. If he was killed, we hope it was quick and he knew nothing about it. If someone has him, we hope that they love him as much as we did. It is the worst way 135

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The Coming of Saska to lose a friend... not to know the end, and always to be wondering.

It would never happen again, said Charles. Any cats we had would never again be out of our sight. To which end we bought a collar for Shebalu and fitted a twenty-foot nylon lead to it. Charles took her into the orchard on it in the mornings, and it was surprising how quickly she got used to it. She seemed to think it was some special bond – a sort of token of her and Charles’s togetherness. She purred when it was put on, learned not to pull on it, undoubtedly felt it akin to a Lady Mayoress’s collar... which didn’t alter the fact that at the first opportunity she took off in it, lead and all.

She had been up in the vegetable garden eating grass and Charles had left her for just a moment to open the greenhouse. No more than a second , he panted, racing down to the kitchen to fetch me, and when he turned round she had gone. It was only a fortnight since we’d lost Seeley.

Supposing there was a rogue fox around... or a killer dog, or someone who didn’t like Siamese cats, and now Shebalu in her turn met up with them? Worst of all, she was trailing a 20-foot nylon cord which could get tangled up in anything.

Our minds rocketing from one possibility to another, we tore around like agitated ants.

Fortunately I found her within minutes, having picked the right direction by sheer chance. She must have gone straight up the ten-foot wall at the back of the garden, which was how she’d vanished so quickly, and she was up in Annabel’s field, hiding in a clump of bracken, thoroughly enjoying the search. Her lead rustled in the bracken as she turned her head to watch me and I heard it as I went past. When I stooped to look, there she was, eyes crossed with self-satisfaction.

Nearly missed her, hadn’t I? she said.

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Doreen Tovey

After that there was no letting go of her lead in the mornings. Whoever was with her stayed firmly on the end of it. Only in the afternoons did she ever run free, when she came up with me on the hillside. Now, though, I didn’t sit on a rug as I used to do, waiting for her and Seeley to come back from their undergrowth-inspecting sorties.

When Shebalu went round a corner I was right behind her.

She was never out of my sight. We walked in the woods together. We sat under the oak tree in Annabel’s field –

Shebalu perched on my knee, surveying the valley below.

She would watch the track through the bracken... waiting, it was obvious, for Seeley to come along it; wondering where on earth he could be.

One afternoon in September, walking with her through Annabel’s field, for once I was in the lead. She’d stopped to sniff the moss under a wayfaring bush and I’d gone around it and on along the path. Suddenly realising she wasn’t with me, I went back in a panic. Something I wouldn’t have done in the old days, knowing she’d be bounding after me at any moment, but now I couldn’t take a chance.