Дорин Тови - The Coming Of Saska

Including, obviously, the Bannetts. It seemed that Miss Wellington had a cousin in town who always kept a 36

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man’s hat on her hallstand to ward off intruders and Miss Wellington, inspired by this and carrying it as usual to excess, had decided that eight hats would be even better.

She’d bought them at a jumble sale and the effect was quite spectacular. Understandable when she explained it, as she did to the Rector, but pretty rivetting when spotted by the milkman, or by people peering in as they passed.

Some interesting theories had gone round about those hats, particularly since Miss Wellington, to add authenticity to their being there, had taken to opening her back door and shouting ‘Frank’ into the garden at odd intervals...

followed, according to some observers, by her creeping along the hedge between her cottage and the Bannetts’ at dusk with one of the hats bobbing above it on a stick. Fred Ferry, of course, insisted he’d seen a real bloke. ‘Different

’un every night,’ he elaborated, capitalising on the fact of the several hats, and though nobody believed him for a moment it was just as well, rumour adding to itself as it does, that Miss Wellington had come to the end of that particular little fantasy. Or at least, we hoped she had.

What had led her to the discovery that the Bannetts were, as she put it, ‘like us,’ was her worrying, after several weeks had passed, because she hadn’t conformed to village etiquette and called on them. Few people had. For one thing both of them worked and were away all day; for another, people don’t do this calling business quite so much these days; for a third they were undoubtedly a bit odd... So far as we were concerned this would have been a reason for calling, having the reputation of being odd ourselves, except that we’d been so busy getting ready to go to Canada... Anyway having worried herself into her usual state of expecting to be punished by the Almighty at any moment if she didn’t 37

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The Coming of Saska forthwith do whatever it was she had left undone. Miss Wellington had tapped timidly on the Bannetts’ door one evening bearing a bottle of her elderflower wine. Liz had asked her in, and when she saw six tortoises basking in a semi-circle in the Bannetts’ fireplace, her doubts, she told us earnestly, had been stilled immediately.

Most people’s doubts would more likely have increased, particularly since each of the tortoises was tucked up separately in a bedroom slipper. Not Miss Wellington’s however. ‘That dear boy has loved tortoises since he was a child,’ she informed us rapturously. ‘There was one at his infant school, in the sandpit, that wasn’t being cared for properly, and he insisted, even then, on taking it home and looking after it himself. And that dear girl puts them into slippers to keep them off the flagstone floor. They bring them in from their pen at night because a couple of them have colds... and those two dear things light a fire every evening to keep the tortoises warm.’

Also, to keep the record straight, because they were thrilled with their open fireplace and liked to see a log fire burning in it. It was a long time yet to winter and the tortoises provided a good excuse – though there was no doubt either that they liked the heat. We saw them ourselves in due course. Six slippers fanned out in front of the fire, a small tortoise already asleep in two of them – and four big ones doggedly trying to clamber over each other on to the hearthstone, heads outstretched to what must have seemed to them like the warmth of the Caribbean, while Liz prepared hot milk for the pair that had the colds.

Add to that the fact that the Bannetts not only liked her elderflower wine but had embarked on making it themselves... their inglenook, where it wasn’t occupied by 38

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tortoises, was now packed with glugging gallon jars plus a couple of carboys for good measure... and Miss Wellington was well away. Tim with that beard, she told us, looked exactly like the photograph of her father as a young man that hung over the tallboy in her bedroom... and had I noticed that the long red string of Florentine beads that Liz wore was just like the one she had herself, only hers was blue? I had. As I’d noticed that there wasn’t much difference in the vaguely flowering dresses the pair of them wore, either, except that Miss Wellington’s were the real vintage twenties and Liz’s were mod-shop copies. Pass for mother and daughter they would... or rather for niece and slightly dotty great-aunt.

Miss Wellington’s ship had really come home. She had a pair of young fledglings to fuss over.

So had we. Four of them to be exact. Still happily occupying our garage with their parents and, with a fortnight to go to our departure date, showing no sign whatever of vacating it.

The garage door still leant against the plum-tree with Father Adams and his cronies passing comment on it – though to be honest, by this time we were beset by so many other pitfalls that a garage without a door was the least among our worries.

Shebalu had started the ball rolling, four weeks before we were due to go, by being sick and refusing to eat. This was a phenomenon in itself. At two years old she’d never been known to miss a meal in her life and usually had to be shut in the hall while Seeley, who was a slow eater, finished, or she’d have polished off his as well. After a day of watching her languish round the place like Camille... sitting in the middle of the floor looking fragile; turning her head wanly when we offered her food; answering us, when we spoke to her, in a faint little voice that indicated she was going 39

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The Coming of Saska any moment now but she forgave us for being Unkind to her... we called the Vet. We couldn’t take a chance, we told him. If she was incubating anything we must know at once.

Not only would we not go away if she were ill but, even if she meanwhile fully recovered, she certainly couldn’t go to Low Knap because of the danger to other cats.

Not to worry, he said after he’d examined her. His bet, bearing in mind the hot weather, was that she’d either been catching flies and eating them, or food on which a fly had pitched. He’d give her an injection by way of precaution, but he was sure it was just a passing stomach upset. If it was catching, Seeley would give us an indication fast enough, he added encouragingly. He’d go down with it too, probably within a week.

That then, took care of the fourth week from departure date. Watching over Shebalu, feeling like jumping for joy when she at last sniffed faintly at my finger dipped in salmon paste... sniffed it again and then began to lick with fervour... and then concentrating our vigil on Seeley. It still could have been an infection which Shebalu had taken only lightly. Any moment now Seeley, too, could go off his food.

He didn’t. No more, anyway, than was occasioned by his indignation when he found me hanging around watching him every time he attempted to eat. Why was I doing That?

he kept on wailing at me aggrievedly. Didn’t I know it put him Off? Couldn’t he even enjoy his minced pig’s heart in Private?

By which time we’d arrived at three weeks prior to departure date and Charles’s Aunt Ethel announced that she was dying. This in itself was not unusual. Any time for the past 20 years any of the family had gone on holiday, she 40

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Doreen Tovey