Double Trouble_INSIDES.indd 87
Double Trouble_INSIDES.indd 87
18/01/2007 13:06:42
18/01/2007 13:06:42
Double Trouble
us because we knew what lay ahead of her. It had to be done, of course. We didn’t want her as a breeding cat – we wanted her as Seeley’s friend. And once Siamese come on heat they can become so hysterical that it’s a case of either letting them breed, going berserk or having them spayed. Safe though it is, however, there is always risk in an operation and Siamese, particularly, can be tricky with anaesthetics. Years before we’d lost our first cat, Sugieh, when she was spayed.
The depression hung over the cottage all the morning.
‘Ring at three,’ the Vet had said when we left her at his surgery. ‘She may be round by then and we can tell you when you can fetch her.’ At one we had lunch. Coffee and biscuits and cheese. Neither of us had appetite for any more. At two, sitting waiting, we checked on our watches. They appeared to be still going. Charles checked his again to make sure. At three, on the dot – ‘You ring,’ I said to Charles. My legs were shaking too much for me to walk to the phone.
She was all right. Still very dopey, of course, said the Vet. We could fetch her at six o’clock.
‘Gosh, I feel hungry,’ I said when I heard the news.
Charles said he was starving.
It was a far different drive to the Vet’s this time. Swishing through the lanes of burnished copper... it was autumn now and the leaves were coming down. Enjoying the picture of the sun setting low across the fields, and the smoke rising lazily from cottage chimneys. There was such a peaceful, secure feeling about it all – and in us, too, now that we knew our girl was safe.
She even, when we saw her, looked better than we expected. Sitting in her basket eyeing us with a placid 88
Double Trouble_INSIDES.indd 88
Double Trouble_INSIDES.indd 88
18/01/2007 13:06:42
18/01/2007 13:06:42
Doreen Tovey
almond stare. She’d done very well, said Mr Horler. All the same he recommended that we left her in her basket for the night. It would be best not to let her out, however much she asked. Not that she was likely to want to; she’d be still very weak on her legs.
So we drove her gently home, put her basket in front of the fire, admitted Seeley from the hall in the role of invalid’s visitor – and instead of sniffing at her warily as we expected him to do, on account of the smell of the anaesthetic, he stuck a large black paw straight in through the bars and gave her a couple of hearty prods.
Even as we jumped to pull him away, too, a blue paw came sparring out in return, reaching out full length to try to prod him back. Come on Out then, mrr-mrred Seeley, rolling enticingly on his back. She would if she Could, waaaahed his small blue friend, starting to roll on hers.
We did think of ringing Horler. Knowing us and the crises we could produce, he was probably sitting at home expecting it. But if we did and he still instructed us to keep her confined, without doubt she would burst her stitches.
‘Let her out,’ decided Charles. ‘If we’ve got to call him later, then we shall have to.’ So we unlatched the wire door of the basket, out she tottered – and that apparently was all she wanted. For the rest of the evening she lay regally before the fire like the queen after whom she was named.
We talked to her. Seeley washed her. He couldn’t think where she’d been, he mrr-mrred worriedly; it was going to take days to make her smell right. The fire played on her and she squinted contentedly when we looked at her. It was nice to be home she said.
89
Double Trouble_INSIDES.indd 89
Double Trouble_INSIDES.indd 89
18/01/2007 13:06:42
18/01/2007 13:06:42
Double Trouble
That was all right until bedtime. Then, having decided it would be better for her to sleep on her own – officially, after all, she was still supposed to be in her basket – we made her a bed on the hearthrug, put water and an earthbox within reach, picked up Seeley who could hardly believe his luck, and started towards the door.
Shebalu without more ado, got up and staggered after us.
She made no sound. Just, with a dogged determination that wrung our hearts, set out on the long, painful trek the length of the room. We’d done this before – the first night she Came, she reproached Charles when he rushed to pick her up. Why were we leaving her behind?
Didn’t we like her? What had she done that we were going to leave her down there on her own?
We couldn’t take her with us in her condition. We dare not risk her jumping off the bed. So, there being nothing else we could do, we left Seeley with her to comfort her. We came down twice in the night to make sure his idea of being a comfort wasn’t wrestling with her or practising kicking her in the stomach, all of which Charles imagined going on in the silence below. On each occasion they were lying before the fire together – her back against his stomach, her head against his shoulder, two faces raised to us like a pair of furry angels. Seeley squeezed his eyes when he saw us looking in at them.
He was taking care of her, he said. She’d be all right in the morning.
She was too. By breakfast-time she was up and about and eating like a horse. And then, just when we thought we could relax for awhile, we discovered a leak in the roof.
It was the fault of the starlings who’d taken over, years before, from the jackdaws who’d lived in our spare room 90
Double Trouble_INSIDES.indd 90
Double Trouble_INSIDES.indd 90
18/01/2007 13:06:42
18/01/2007 13:06:42
Doreen Tovey
chimney. It wasn’t a working chimney. The fireplace beneath it had been blocked in long ago. And we’d felt rather honoured to play host to a pair of jackdaws. They raised several families in the chimney-pot and obviously regarded us as friends.
When, one Spring, we found starlings there in their place, I felt it was rather a come-down. We’d had starlings around when I’d lived in town as a child, but the jackdaws had been so unusual. Ours had been the only pair in the Valley. Where they’d gone we never knew. Probably found a chimney considered more imposing, said Charles. Like Seeley’s fancying other people’s porches.
Whatever the reason there, in their place, was a possessive pair of starlings – evolving in due course into a very thriving colony as the children, growing up, stayed on the parental estate; merely overflowing into our roof.
It was like one of those village paintings by Brueghel, only with birds instead of people. Birds coming out of the chimneypot (the original pair presumably, still living in starling headquarters); birds coming out from the sides of the roof; and some through the front, into the guttering.
These last emerged through very small holes through which they squeezed flat on their stomachs. The struggling and scrambling of feet as they went in and out was really quite alarming and at nesting time, when they were carrying in materials, it must have been pretty exhausting. More than one bird dropped its quota of sticks and bits trying to manoeuvre them in through the hole and there was always somebody eyeing us ruffle-feathered from the guttering, having just squeezed out and, from the look on his face, disgusted with us for not providing a bigger opening.
91
Double Trouble_INSIDES.indd 91
Double Trouble_INSIDES.indd 91
18/01/2007 13:06:42
18/01/2007 13:06:42
Double Trouble
From the noise of hammering which went on inside the roof as some ambitious tenant improved on his quarters I wondered why they didn’t enlarge the entrance holes themselves while they were at it. That, said Charles, showed their intelligence. They knew we had cats around and they’d deliberately left small entrances. They didn’t want any Siamese cats getting in at them through the gutters.