More Cats In The Belfry

  'Looks good, doesn't it?' I said to Saph, gazing round the room. WOW, he agreed enthusiastically. Any more Biscuits? he enquired, standing up against my knee to check for himself. At which moment, suddenly, from upstairs, there came a clarion call. Tani was addressing us from the landing. What were we Doing down there? Didn't we know the Time? We ought to be in Bed, she bawled. Obviously she had no intention of joining us. Like a Victorian parent she lectured us sanctimoniously from above and I found myself actually feeling guilty.

  'We're coming,' I shouted defensively, gathering up my cup and saucer. Hurry Up, bawled her ladyship. 'We're coming,' I yelled again. Anyone hearing me would have thought that I was mad. Anyone seeing me would have been sure of it. So harassed was I by Tani's harangue that in a moment of nervous stress I found myself putting the teapot in the refrigerator instead of emptying it.

  Next day it was Saphra's turn to upset our rural tranquillity. Looking again at the newly decorated sitting-room I decided that the one thing needed to complete its appearance of cosy winter country living would be one of my grandmother's honey-coloured brocade draught curtains over the door. I had a pair of them in the chest on the landing. I brought one down, spent an hour taking up the hem to fit the low-lintelled door, inserted the hooks in the runner bar and stood back to admire the effect. Pretty good, I thought, stooping to recover one of the bobbles that had fallen off the curtain edging. The curtain was, after all, very old. I threw the bobble for Saph to chase and he raced after it with delight, tossing it in the air and batting it round the room till eventually he lost it. He came back and sat by the door looking at me expectantly. With apologies to my grandmother, but I could never resist that intent little face, I pulled another bobble off the curtain and threw it for him. The worst thing I could have done, because Saph was no fool. By that time he'd realised where they were coming from.

  When he'd lost that one – at least, I presumed that he'd lost it – he came back and sat down again, and when I pretended that I didn't know what he wanted, he took another bobble off the curtain with his teeth. I laughed, and said how clever he was. Off he went, and in no time was back for another. He was on his hind legs now, reaching up to his limit to get it… at which moment the telephone rang. Immobilised, I chatted to the caller, one worried eye on the curtain on which the bobbles were now missing to above Saphra's reach. As I watched, he shinned up the curtain, climbing like a monkey, pulled off a bobble, came down with it in his mouth, and dissappeared with it round the corner.

  Suspicion began to dawn. He couldn't be losing them at that rate. Excusing myself to my caller I rang off hurriedly, rushed round the corner after him and was just in time to see what he was doing. Eating them. With evident relish. Bobbles that were, I calculated rapidly, a good fifty years old or more. Washed, but nethertheless probably containing residue dust of half a century. I dreaded to think what that could be doing to his stomach.

  With more apologies to my grandmother – feeling guilty about it, but she loved cats too, I reminded her – I fetched the scissors, cut off the remaining bobbles (it seemed sacrilege to throw them away so I put them in the bureau drawer) and rang Lanford to ask what I should do. They'd probably go through him like everything else he'd eaten, they told me. Just watch him carefully to see what happened and ring them again if I was worried. Off my own bat I gave him some sardines in oil to lubricate the bobbles – it was helpful in cases of blockage, so I'd read – and every time I passed the bureau during the course of the evening a black-faced cat leapt ahead of me on the to the top of it, breathing sardines heavily on the cottage air and waiting for me to lift the lid so he could help himself to some more bobbles. Some cats never did learn.

  In due course the ones he'd swallowed passed safely on their way. Another Siamese crisis was over. It was no good, though. It just wasn't my week. On Saturday Bill the ambulance man appeared, accompanied by a helper in the shape of a youth called Norm – tall, lanky and decidedly gormless-looking, he reminded me of Rodney in 'Only Fools and Horses'. And in their inimitable, unbelievable way they started digging a passageway behind the cottage.

  It had been dug out previously, years before, but more earth and stones had since slipped down the hillside and piled up against the back wall. It was making the kitchen wall damp, and in places the pile-up reached to quite a height. It needed clearing out and cementing, said Bill. It would be a tight squeeze, working in that narrow space, but he and Norm would do it in two shakes of a turkey's tail. Where would I like the rubble dumped?