Дорин Тови - More Cats in the Belfry

I did what I'd done for years, whenever a cat went missing. I couldn't go through the nettles – they were waist-high and covered too great an area. So I came back down to the lane and started my tour. Up the hill to the Rose and Crown, left up another hill to the top lane, back along that, looking down across the farm field to check there was no long-legged truant following the hay-mower, and beyond that, peering into the depths of my own wood. Calling 'Saffle-affle-affle', my diminutive for Saphra, as in years past I'd called 'Solly-wolly-wolly' and, to the cat who'd never come back, 'Seeley-weeley-weeley'.

Saphra didn't answer, but other people heard me calling. Fred Ferry, going along to the Rose and Crown, asked 'Cat gone missin' then?' as I passed him, which was pretty stupid as he obviously was, but it did mean Fred would spread the news along at the pub and somebody might spot him later. Miss Wellington came down the hill prodding the undergrowth with a walking stick, which was also still. Saph wouldn't wait there for her to poke him out, but at least she was trying to be helpful. Janet Reason said she'd take her retriever, Daisy, round the lane in the hope of tracking him down, but I didn't think that was likely. I couldn't see Saph coming unresistingly home in Daisy's mouth like a furry, long-legged pheasant.

For nearly two hours I circled that area of land; calling, looking, worrying. Nobody I asked knew of a black and white cat living anywhere in the neighbourhood. The two of them could by this time be miles away. Then, coming past Annabel's stable for the umpteenth time, looking across at the cottage case he'd returned by himself in the meantime, I suddenly spotted him. Ambling down the hill towards me: unhurried, confident, obviously knowing exactly where he was. He reached the bottom of the hill and looked towards me, but instead of coming along the lane to meet me he turned left and started down the other lane, where he'd have passed the Reasons' cottage. But Janet was out searching for him with Daisy and nobody could have seen him, and he'd have gone on to the remoter part of the valley. Was it coincidence that I'd returned at that very moment... or was it because I'd just been silently asking Charles for help? I hadn't asked at first. I only did it when I reached an impasse… and once again it had worked.

I ran after Saph, picked him up, hugged – never, ever, could I be cross with him – and put him into the cat-run where Tani, the perpetual Good Girl, was sitting surveying the world as though he'd never been missed. He rushed up to her, bit her on the neck and said he betted she didn't know where he'd Been. Didn't Care, Either, said Tani, biffing him with a reproving paw.

TEN

She did care. She loved him in spite of his consistently treating her as if he were Tarzan – when, if I was around, she would scream blue murder for me to come and rescue her. Fond of being the Rescued Heroine, was Tani, although when she thought I wasn't looking she often bit him back to encourage him to do it again. He was over-rough with her at times, though, and a vet I knew who was an expert in cat behaviour suggested I should get a water-pistol. He'd used it to cure one of his own kittens who'd had a habit of biting, he told me. It would dissuade the offender, who would associate it with what he was doing when it was pointed at him and would realise it was better not to do it. The water wouldn't hurt him – it was just that he wouldn't like it.

So it proved. The most embarrassing part of the exercise was buying the water-pistol. I can still see the look on the assistant's face when I went into the toy shop and asked for one. 'For my Siamese cat,' I explained in case she thought I wanted to play with it myself, at which her eyebrows went even higher. She knew Siamese cats were odd, her expression said, but she really didn't believe they used water-pistols.

I explained it was to stop a male Siamese from biting his timid companion. She smiled hesitantly and helped me select one. Blue plastic – with a good long range, she said. But she still eyed me somewhat warily.

It worked, anyway. It got to the stage where I only had to point it in Saph's direction and without waiting for the spray, he would stop whatever he was doing and flee precipitately. Fascinated by water he might be, but not when it came at him with that force. I caught him several times, however, examining the water-pistol when it wasn't in use, lying on the bookshelf near my elbow. Wondering whether he could operate it himself, no doubt, but fortunately that was beyond him.

Really, though, they were very fond of each other. Originally, once they'd become friends, they'd slept together on Tani's blanket in the armchair in the sitting-room, but Saphra, deprived of his purple towels, had started chewing pieces off the blanket during the night, pulling it down on the hearthrug to get a better grip and leaving Tani sitting forlornly on the chair arm, where I'd find her wearing her long-suffering I've-had-no-sleep look in the morning. So I replaced it with the Snoozabed set on the hearthrug – without a blanket on it for obvious reasons – and they slept happily on the fur-fabric cover, or so I thought.

Until one night, roused by blood-curdling screams which I recognised as Tani's and wondering what disaster had struck this time, I rushed down to find the Snoozabed disappearing under another chair, Tani sitting upright in the last visible corner of it like the Lady of Shalott going down to Camelot, and Saph under the chair, tugging the Snoozabed backwards with all his might, his teeth sunk in the opposite corner.

What did he think he was doing ? I demanded, picking Tani up in my arms. It was obvious when I looked at the Snoozabed. He'd been chewing holes in the fur-fabric in lieu of the blanket, obviously tugging the whole thing away to hide for future consumption, and not caring a bit about how much he was annoying Tani, which was probably part of the fun. I dumped the pair of them in the hall, shut the sitting-room door and took them up to bed with me. Better to have them where I could keep an eye on him, I thought. They curled themselves into a combined ball on top of the eiderdown against my back, and settled down for the night. Why hadn't I thought of this before?

It was comforting to wake in the early hours, aroused by somebody stirring, switch on the bedside lamp, look down the bed and see two innocent pansy faces, heads together, looking sleepily back at me – until the owner of the innocent black pansy face got up saying he was Cold, and came and prodded me with a paw to let him under the eiderdown, and the moment he was settled the owner of the innocent lilac pansy face plodded up and prodded me to let her get under as well, and all would be quiet for a time while they warmed themselves, till Saphra would suddenly erupt from under the bedclothes saying now he was Hot and Couldn't Breathe and struggle frantically out on to my pillow, and Tani, saying she was Hot too and the eiderdown was Squashing Her, would struggle out after him, and they'd sit bolt upright by my head till they'd cooled own sufficiently for the performance to start all over again.

After two nights of this I went out and bought a duvet which would lie more lightly on them, with mental apologies to Charles, who'd always resisted our having one saying didn't I remember how in Switzerland they were a foot thick and always fell off and left us frozen... but Charles had never had to sleep with exploding bedclothes.

The duvet was a great success and Saph soon resumed personal control of it. The duvet cover was sunflower yellow, and I put a bedspread over it to stop it getting dirty when they lay on it. Saphra's system was that when it was warm he and Tani slept on top of the bedspread, as I intended. When it got a little cooler, however, he'd stand on my pillow and lift the bedspread gently, with the slightest touch of his paw, as an indication that he wanted to go under the bedspread but on top of the duvet. Bang went the idea of keeping the duvet clean, but if it kept him quiet it was worth it, I thought. So I would hold up the bedspread and he would go under, and I would drop the bedspread over him. Seconds later Tani, who usually sat in the window alcove while this was going on, would pad across my pillow and lift the edge of the bedspread, too, insisting on being let under to join him.