More Cats In The Belfry

  Obviously undecided about that Mrs B. plodded back up the hill. Would she be back to try her wiles again? I wondered. Why was it my cottage she wanted for the errant couple, anyway? Because it was picturesque, I supposed. And Bert had professed a liking for it. People were always saying they'd like to live here.

  While I was still in the garden, putting bread on the bird-tray, Mr Woodrow happened past with his dogs. I hadn't seen him for weeks. 'You've just missed Mrs Binney,' I said by way of conversation. 'She's just this moment gone back up the hill.'

  'Have she?' he said. 'Can't stop this mornin'... In a bit of a hurry...' And paddled off up the hill in her wake. I ought to have suggested she married him, I thought. That would have left her cottage free for Shirl and Bert. Sharing it with them certainly wasn't on the cards. It would have looked too much like dire necessity.

  There was one bright interlude before the next trauma descended. I went to Connie's New Year party. As a naturalist she had a circle of very interesting friends, none of whom I'd met before. Other naturalists: a man who was an authority on otters and owls and actually kept them; a famous woman botanical artist; a man who made nature films for television and had just come back from filming alligators in the Florida swamps... We sat around her long sitting-room talking to each other – at least, they talked: I sat listening to their experiences with avid interest – until I suddenly spotted Ming, who'd been in the bedroom to begin with but had obviously realised he had a captive audience across the hall. He'd come into the room, edged himself around it behind the chairs and, not bothering with the radiator nearest me, which was the one he'd leaned on to impress me when I first met him, had made his way to the long one under the window at the far end of the room. And there, against the one area of radiator between the chairs that was open to view like a stage, leant his Lordship Ming. Bolt upright, sideways on, his cheek pressed pathetically against the white-painted surface.

  'Look,' I said, pointing. Even as the heads swivelled, that cat half-closed his eyes – only half-closed them: he wanted to see the effect – and chicken vol-au-vents and prawns were immediately proffered. Connie put the electric fire in the middle of the room and switched it on in resignation, at which he swayed weakly out, almost Too Cold to Stand, we understood, and stretched full-length on the carpet in front of it. Saphra, I had to concede, had nothing on Ming when it came to histrionics. Ming would have made a pretty good Hamlet.

  Now it was February and the snowdrops were out under the beech tree on the lawn, and the pussy willows budding yellow up in the forest. Winter wasn't over yet, though. Came the third week of the month and the sky turned leaden grey and it snowed. Heavily, covering the snowdrops and lying deep on the ground, with Saphra venturing valiantly out into it. Making his way, tail raised, up to the covered area beyond the garage, where he could pretend-hunt among the heaps of stones.

  He soon got bored, though. No mice were about in that weather. And I got cold watching over him. I would pick him up and carry him back down to the cottage, where Tani sat sensibly in front of the fire. Sitting by the fire all day, however, wasn't for him. He wanted something more engrossing. That was why, when I found him sitting in the sink one morning studying the cold tap, which was dripping slightly, I didn't call a plumber immediately. Anything that kept that cat occupied and out of mischief was welcome, and the drip kept him mesmerised for hours. Leave it for a while, I thought. It was wonderful to know where he was, and that he wasn't raiding cupboards or baiting Tani.

  So the tap dripped and, outside, penetrating frost set in. Frost that lasted for a fortnight, so deep that the septic tank outlet froze and the run-off couldn't get away into the ground and, due to the dripping tap, the tank filled up, back-fired up the pipe and overflowed.

  Most people's septic tanks overflow round the inspection cover. At the cottage it came up under the sitting-room floor. When, some years earlier, we'd had our downstairs bathroom moved upstairs, the plumber hadn't sealed off the old pipes as thoroughly as he should have done and, when there was a backfire the water rose up through them. It had happened once before, and Charles had sealed the end of the main pipe thoroughly, never dreaming any of the other pipes could be unsealed. When I spotted a large damp patch on the carpet one Sunday night, however, I knew what it was at once. This time, judging by the patch's situation, it was coming up the old washbasin pipe, which had been covered over with tiles.