More Cats In The Belfry

  But Miss Wellington rushed through the gate, threw her arms round my neck and burst into tears, causing Tani to bolt for the cottage. Saph stayed where he was and yelled 'Waaah' at her in greeting, but Miss Wellington had other things on her mind. 'Don't do it,' she sobbed imploringly. 'You mustn't do it. Think of the poor little cats.'

  'Do what?' I enquired. 'I'm only scrubbing the sails. That isn't going to hurt them.'

  It came out then. What Fred Ferry had said. And Mrs Binney had told her Bert was hoping to get my cottage. And I always had been adventurous. Look how Charles and I had gone to the Rockies searching for grizzlies. But I mustn't think of doing such things now, without him. He wouldn't like it.

  I put her right on all counts. I wasn't going anywhere, I assured her. I noticed, though, that when I'd sold the canoe – I advertised it in the paper that weekend and someone bought it the following Monday (a man wanted it to sail with his young son on the Somerset rhines, as Charles and I had done, and I couldn't think of a better future for it) – I noticed that no sooner had it gone up the hill on top of the purchaser's car, its yellow warning streamer fluttering from its stern, than Miss Wellington came pattering down the hill to look over the gate. To make sure I was still there?

  That same week, while I was watching over the cats in the garden one morning, a little man arrived who'd been coming through the valley almost daily for quite a time, on what seemed to be a regular walk around the forest. He always stopped to pass the time of day with me and admire the cats. He liked gardening and he loved cats, he told me regularly, while Tani equally regularly fled indoors growling and Saphra, crouching, fixed him with a suspicious look and said he didn't believe him.

  He was short, pompous – another Mr Tooting. I found him boring, but he would stay and talk. He was a comparative newcomer to the village and he lived on the Fairview estate – a widower, he informed me. He watched me for a while that particular morning as I nipped about in the wake of Saph, dead-heading a rose here, pulling a weed out there, crook in my hand ready to field the Menace should he try to take off. 'What you need is a man about the place,' he said suddenly in a sympathetic voice, leaning confidentially over the gate.

  I nearly jumped out of my gumboots. Was there no peace anywhere? Mrs Binney. Miss Wellington. Now him. So far as I was concerned there was nobody in my life but my tall, handsome Charles. Never had been. Never would be. I hoped he was, indeed, waiting somewhere for me in the wings. Perhaps I misjudged my visitor's intentions, but I wasn't taking any chances. I had no desire to be thought another Mrs Binney. 'I've just acquired a very good handyman,' I told him icily. He stood for a moment, then walked on up the lane. He never came past again.

  I had indeed acquired a handyman. His name was Bill, he was an ambulance man, and he did household repairs in his spare time. He lived ten minutes away by car and had been recommended by friends, who said he was a good, quick worker – not like Mr Panting, the awful old man I'd employed before, who dragged every job out to its limit. He didn't charge fancy prices and genuinely liked helping people. There was only one thing, said my friends. Never let him do any indoor decorating. He went at everything at the speed of sound, and if he was painting a door, for instance, he never put a dust sheet or even newspaper on the floor. Just worked away feverishly, splashing paint in all directions, then trod happily and obliviously through it afterwards.

  I remembered that. He did a lot of jobs for me but I never let him work indoors. Even outdoors, however, his speed was apt to run away with him. Whatever he came to do he would belt down the hill as if answering a 999 call, leap out of his car, shoot down the path, rope me in as assistant, and within minutes be deep in the job, usually without giving me a chance to change out of my slippers. The first time he came to my rescue was when a length of rotten facing board fell off the apex of the cottage roof, and I noticed a crack in the wall beneath it.

  I had called a builder who shook his head and said that was going to be some job. He'd have to bring along his brother-in-law, a roofing specialist, to do it – but he could tell me himself it would entail taking off the overlapping row of tiles, renewing the wooden tile supports, moving the bathroom downpipe to investigate the depth of the crack, filling it in and re-whitewashing the wall. 'And how much will that cost?' I asked, fearing the worst. He couldn't say exactly, he answered. Five hundred pounds. Maybe more. Scaffolding cost a lot to hire.

  'Scaffolding?' I echoed. 'Can't it be done with a ladder?' Not with the conservatory built against the wall, he said. It'd need scaffolding to cover the sloping glass roof underneath. Nobody'd go up there otherwise.