Дорин Тови - More Cats in the Belfry

Praise for Cats in the Belfry

'A chaotic, hilarious and heart-wrenching love affair with this most characterful of feline breeds'

THE PEOPLE'S FRIEND

'If you read Cats in the Belfry the first time round, be prepared to be enchanted all over again. If you haven't, then expect to laugh out loud, shed a few tears and be totally captivated by Doreen's stories of her playful and often naughty Siamese cats'

YOUR CAT magazine

'An invasion of mice prompted Tovey and her husband to acquire a cat – or rather for Sugieh to acquire them. A beautiful Siamese, Sugieh turned out to be a tempestuous, iron-willed prima donna who soon had her running circles around her. And that's before she had kittens! A funny and poignant reflection of life with a Siamese, that is full of cheer'

THE GOOD BOOK GUIDE

' Cats in the Belfry will ring bells with anyone who's ever been charmed – or driven to distraction – by a feline'

THE WEEKLY NEWS

'A warm, witty and moving cat classic. A must for all cat lovers'

LIVING FOR RETIREMENT

'Absolutely enchanting... I thoroughly recommend it... One of the few books which caused me to laugh out loud, and it sums up the Siamese character beautifully'

www.summerdown.co.uk

'The most enchanting cat book ever'

Jilly Cooper

'Every so often, there comes along a book – or if you're lucky, books – which gladden the heart, cheer the soul and actually immerse the reader in the narrative. Such books are written by Doreen Tovey'

CAT WORLD

Praise for Cats in May

'If you loved Doreen Tovey's Cats in the Belfry you won't want to miss the sequel, Cats in May . The Tovey's attempt to settle down to a quiet life in the country but, unfortunately for them, their tyrannical Siamese cats have other ideas. From causing an uproar on the BBC to staying out all night, Sheba and Solomon's outrageous behaviour leaves the Tovey's at their wits' end. This witty and stylish tale will have animal lovers giggling to the very last page'

YOUR CAT magazine

'No-one writes about cats with more wit, humour and affection than Doreen Tovey. Every word is a delight!'

THE PEOPLE'S FRIEND

Praise for The New Boy

'Delightful stories of Tovey's irrepressible Siamese cats'

Publishing News

MORE CATS IN THE BELFRY

This edition published in 2009 by Summersdale Publishers Ltd.

First published by Bantam Press in 1995

Copyright © Doreen Tovey 1995

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, nor transmitted, nor translated into a machine language, without the written permission of the publishers.

The right of Doreen Tovey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Condition of Sale

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

Summersdale Publishers Ltd

46 West Street

Chichester

West Sussex

PO19 1RP

UK

www.summersdale.com

eISBN: 978-0-85765-875-3

Substantial discounts on bulk quantities of Summersdale books are available to corporations, professional associations and other organisations. For details telephone Summersdale Publishers on (+44-1243-771107), fax (+44-1243-786300) or email (nicky@summersdale.com).

Also by Doreen Tovey:

Cats in the Belfry

Cats in May

The New Boy

Donkey Work

Double Trouble

Life with Grandma

Raining Cats and Donkeys

Making the Horse Laugh

The Coming of Saska

A Comfort of Cats

Roses Round the Door

Waiting in the Wings

CONTENTS

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

ONE

I could have bet on it. Within minutes of taking my new Siamese kitten, Shantung, into the garden for the first time, Mrs Binney was peering over the front gate, mouth turned down to match her hat-brim, gloomily predicting that I'd never raise her.

Mrs Binney, once as rare a sight in the valley as a cuckoo in December, had taken to haunting it since the death of my husband Charles the previous year. She'd told me several times that her son Bert fancied the cottage if I was thinking of selling. Whether she was keeping an eye on things from that angle – to see if I showed signs of moving – or whether she didn't want to miss the excitement if, in trying to maintain the place myself, I fell off a ladder, or out of a tree, or did myself a mischief with Charles's electric chainsaw, all of which she forecast constantly – the fact was that whenever I saw Mrs B. coming down the hill, my heart sank like a stone. It was like having Cassandra perpetually around in a po-shaped hat and ankle boots. It didn't help either that, where Shantung was concerned, I was inclined to agree with her.

Almost from the time we'd first had Siamese cats there'd been a blue-point queen and a seal-point male at the cottage. Our first Siamese had been a blue-point female called Sugieh, and when she'd had kittens one was a seal-point male with big feet and spotted whiskers whom we decided to keep as a companion for her and call Solomon (Solomon Seal, we thought, was rather good). When Sugieh herself died tragically when the kittens were three months old, we'd kept Sheba, her blue-point daughter, as company for Solomon, and the tradition had gone on from there.

For almost all that time, too, there'd been a donkey called Annabel bawling for peppermints over the half-door of her stable or keeping an eye on us from the hillside behind the cottage – small, wilful, her idea of a side-splitting joke being to butt us from behind when we weren't expecting it; loving us, for all that, as dearly as we loved her. She'd died three months after Charles, whom she'd adored, and Shebalu, Sheba's successor, had followed her within a year. The cottage and its big garden seemed so empty then, with only myself and Saska, the current seal-point boy, in it, that when I was unable to find a blue-point kitten quickly to restore that part of my life, at any rate, to normal I settled for a lilac-point instead.

There wasn't all that difference between blue- and lilac-points, I reasoned. They often occurred in the same litter. Just so long as there was a prissy little pale-coated girl around the place. Then I drove down to Devon to fetch her, met a twelve-week-old lilac-point for the first time, and wondered what I'd let myself in for. I'd never seen anything so fragile.

All Siamese kittens are white when they are born. Longer than ordinary kittens, blunt at both ends, they look exactly like those white Continental sausages, boudins blancs . When their colour points start to develop, however, while their bodies remain basically white, there are subtle variations in the whiteness. Seal-point kittens' bodies take on a creamish tinge; the bodies of blue-points have more of a milky hue; the two lilac-point kittens I was looking at were the purest ice-white, with the faintest shading on ears and paws like shadows on a snowfield and – I couldn't take my eyes off them – the oddest-coloured noses. A pronounced pinkish mauve as though they were Orphans of the Storm and not half feeling the cold.