Дорин Тови - More Cats in the Belfry

Starsky also attached himself to the goose and duck patrols. He seemed to have struck up a friendship with Gerald, and I often saw him going up the hill with the gang, or sitting on the hillside with them behind my cottage. Another hanger-on down the lane at the time was a large Muscovy drake called Charlie, who'd flown in one day from a smallholding over the hill, apparently attracted by the ducks. His owners had another, even bigger, drake, which was why Charlie had left home, and they said he could stay here if he wanted. So he, too, got added to what was beginning to look like a menagerie.

No prizes for guessing who was eventually to be seen leading them like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, of course. I'd parked my car outside the front gate one morning, ready to take off for town. I'd put the cats in the cottage, gathered up my coat and handbag, gone out to get in the car – and there, surrounding it, were Gerald and the geese and Charlie and the ducks; Gerald as usual admiring his reflection in the car panels.

'Out of the way,' I said, waving my arms. The crowd shuffled back a fraction. Leaving, in the foreground, a black kitten with a white star on his chest, inquisitively examining the wheel arches. The geese and ducks, I knew from experience, would scatter when I started the engine. Starsky – I wouldn't like to bet on what he'd do. I wasn't taking any chances, either.

Picking him up, I started down the lane to take him home. Gerald and the geese fell in, honking, behind me. Behind them waddled Charlie and the ducks, for all the world like a Scouts' and Guides' parade – until halfway down the lane Charlie, realising where we were going, decided to show the others he knew. He took off and passed us all, quacking, at shoulder height, and flew on down to perch on the terrace wall. A horse, coming up the lane, panicked, turned and bolted, his rider with her arms around his neck. Fred Ferry, appearing, knapsack on back, round the corner, said 'What d'ust think thee'st be doin? Runnin'a circus or somethin'? Thee bist lucky that 'ooman din't come off!' And all I'd done was try to take Starsky home. I sometimes wondered where the justice was in this world.

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.