More Cats In The Belfry

  Whether he'd had it there for some time as reserve rations or had eaten it at one sitting I didn't know – he could have taken one out of the kitchen cupboard at any time – but the moment I did find him, sitting behind the bedroom curtains and looking wanly out of the window, which was quite out of character for him, I rang Langford, told them what had happened and they told me to bring him over straight away.

  Getting the car out, putting a cat in the carrying basket, tearing up the hill at panic stations – I'd done it so many times before. But this time it wasn't a matter of twenty-five miles to go. Ten minutes and Saph was on the surgery table. The teaching professor sounded his heart, felt him all over, took his temperature. That was up a bit, he said, but there didn't appear to be much wrong. He'd give him an antibiotic injection. Would I bring him back next morning and, if his temperature as still up then, they'd do an X-ray. He paused, looked at Saph, who was looking back at him with the most penetrating of sapphire stares, and seemed to remember something. On second thoughts, he said... seeing it was him... they'd do an X-ray anyway.

  What did he mean? I wondered. Was he remembering Saska? Or had Saphra blotted his copybook when he was neutered there?

  I took him home again. Back to the cottage. He didn't want any supper. But later, in the garden with Tani, with me standing by, worrying myself sick about what the next day might reveal, he stage-managed something that was absolutely typical of him. Suddenly darting across to a clump of ferns he caught, with one swift pounce, a mouse. A baby mouse which he brought across, dumped on the grass in front of me and then, as I bent to retrieve it, grabbed and tossed tantalisingly in the air. It flew sideways and through the mesh of the wire netting round the cat-run. Hoping it was still alive I dashed into the run after it – only to see him, on the path outside, toss his head again, and another mouse flew through the mesh and landed at my feet. He must have caught two at once. True, they were only babies – he must have found a nest – but only he could have picked up two at once. 'Waaah' wailed Tani disgustedly when I asked her what she thought of it, which I took to mean that he wasn't half a show-off and we shouldn't encourage him. He certainly was, I agreed, and told myself there couldn't be much wrong with him, prancing about like that – but he still didn't want any food.

  So there we were next morning in the X-ray room at Langford, the veterinary nurse and I in lead-lined aprons and Saphra stretched out on the table between us. I imagine I'd been asked to assist on the premise that my presence might stop him from being scared, but there was no fear of that. 'Now we're going to see whether your sins have caught up with you, young man,' the nurse said with mock severity. Lying on his side, confident that everybody was his friend, he regarded her with wide-eyed equanimity.

  The X-rays taken, he was put back in his basket and I was asked to sit in the waiting room while they were developed. It was just my luck – I had been full of equanimity myself until then – that while I was sitting there someone came out of an adjoining room, left the door open, and through it I was suddenly aware of two white-coated figures examining an X-ray plate. They were holding it against a light. It couldn't be Saphra's, I told myself, though I knew it most probably was. 'I wouldn't think that was a growth,' I heard one of the viewers say. I would, at that moment. I'd heard the uncertainty in her voice. I was going to lose my boy the same way I'd lost Saska, I thought, my heart sinking like a stone. Realising that the door was open, somebody closed it. I heard nothing more. A little later, someone came out and said the X-rays had been inconclusive. They were going to keep him in, give him a barium meal and watch its progress. Would I like to go home and ring around mid-day?

  I did. Nothing had happened, I was told when I rang. There was something there – at junction of the colon and the rectum. But it wasn't moving. Could I ring again in two hours' time? I did. Still no news. Could I ring in at five o'clock?