Double Trouble_INSIDES.indd 106
Double Trouble_INSIDES.indd 106
18/01/2007 13:06:44
18/01/2007 13:06:44
Doreen Tovey
were intrigued by the sight of a fishing-net hanging from our coalhouse roof for weeks (those fish were as wily as trout, said Charles; the only way to catch them was to take them by surprise)... if they stood open-mouthed at the sight of Charles, when he’d caught one, running, net before him, up the garden... if all that shook them, they’d have been rocked to their foundations if they’d seen the set-up in the conservatory. Where, being another of Charles’s inspirations, the fish were swimming around in a cider cask.
He’d bought four of them the previous spring – huge things, iron-banded, nearly six feet high, and reeking to high heaven of the local cider. Sawn in half – which they’d obligingly done at the cider farm – these were Charles’s idea of tubs in which to grow his blueberries. Our soil is lime, and blueberries must be in peat, and the whole thing was perfectly logical. Except that, as usual, people didn’t know this and the appearance of eight huge half cider casks at our gate aroused considerable speculation.
‘Whass they for, then?’ asked Father Adams. Even he was at a loss for words when I told him. Ern Biggs decided their use for himself. He told people they were for my home-made wine. What with horses jibbing at passing them, people coming down to have a look at them, Ern Biggs’s tale given credence by the fact that the garden now had a distinct aura of alcohol – I could have sunk through the ground over those casks. Even when Charles with considerable difficulty, had rolled seven of them up into the orchard, people still came by and speculated. ‘D’ee reckon they be really makin’ wine in they?’ I heard one say. ‘Maybe they’m for treadin’ the grapes,’ came the thoughtful reply.
107
Double Trouble_INSIDES.indd 107
Double Trouble_INSIDES.indd 107
18/01/2007 13:06:44
18/01/2007 13:06:44
Double Trouble Eventually it became obvious that Charles was growing something in them. People still wanted to know what, of course, and looked curiously up as they passed.
‘Wortleberries from up on the hill,’ advised Ern, who knew nothing of cultivated blueberries. So they shook their heads and classed us as bonkers anyway. Who’d grow little old ’urts in bloomin’ great cider tubs? And of course there was still the eighth and unused half-tub, parked emptily at the side of the drive...
Through the summer and autumn it stayed there, waiting for Charles to move it. And when finally he did and it could be seen through the conservatory window, Ern’s excitement knew no bounds. ‘Started thee wine then. Whass be making? Parsnip?’ he enquired, craning his neck from the gate. I avoided telling him that we were keeping fish in it. Heaven knows what he’d have made of that. But there they were. And was it my imagination, or did they zig-zag more than usual as they swam?
They were protected from the weather, at any rate. And Seeley didn’t bother about them when he was in there having his breakfast, while Shebalu wasn’t interested in the conservatory during the winter. She stayed indoors, except for her morning outings. Driving us crazy with her ball with the bell on which, when she wasn’t towing the dish-mop or stowing eggshells under chairs, she carried about perpetually, like a child with a favourite rag doll.
This wasn’t her original ball. That at least had been big enough to see. This was another old one of Seeley’s, which before that had belonged to Solomon, and she’d found it for herself in some forgotten corner. Such a 108
Double Trouble_INSIDES.indd 108
Double Trouble_INSIDES.indd 108
18/01/2007 13:06:44
18/01/2007 13:06:44
Doreen Tovey
small, bedraggled object you couldn’t even tell when she had it in her mouth. All you could hear was the tinkling of the bell.
What it had beyond any of her other toys we couldn’t imagine. That she had found it for herself, perhaps; that it was small and it appealed to her to carry it; or perhaps it had an air about it of having been loved by other cats.
At any rate it was now Shebalu’s favourite toy. She toted it around during the day, expected us to throw it for her at night... she would have made a jolly good gun dog, said Charles. She never got tired of retrieving.
Maybe so. Except that gun dogs, in my experience, don’t park their trophies under the furniture. And then sit down and howl because they can’t remember where they put them.
Shebalu was forever doing that. Not when she tired of playing with it, because she never did. But when I got tired of throwing it she’d carry it round in her mouth for a while and then, as she did with the eggshells, tuck it carefully under a chair or somewhere while she spoke to Seeley or had a drink. Minutes later, when she wanted it again, the bawling would start. Either she’d pushed it too far under something and now she couldn’t reach it or else – and this caused havoc – she’d forgotten where it was.
Wanted her Ball! she’d wail, getting on her stomach and peering hopefully under the settee. Very antique it was. She didn’t want to lose it. Had he seen her Ball?
she’d demand of Charles, reaching up to tap his knee and fixing him with worried blue eyes. By the time she’d done a bit more shouting she’d have us all looking for her ball. Even Seeley was going round with me peering 109
Double Trouble_INSIDES.indd 109
Double Trouble_INSIDES.indd 109
18/01/2007 13:06:44
18/01/2007 13:06:44
Double Trouble intently under the chairs. When we found it, too, she gathered it up like a long-lost child – first giving it a little snort to show it how cross she was – and then, if I still wouldn’t throw it for her, promptly poking it under something again.
Once it was missing for days, and so despondent she looked, sitting waiting for it in the middle of the carpet, that I practically spring-cleaned the cottage, thinking of places it might be and not being able to rest until I’d gone and searched them.
I thought it was gone for good that time. A few days previously she’d been playing with it while I was cleaning the bathroom and she’d put it down the lavatory. Stood on her hind legs with the ball in her mouth, looked down for a moment and deliberately dropped it in. I’d fished it out and washed it, knowing how precious it was. Now I could only think she’d done it again and somebody had pulled the flush.
We had visitors when she found it. Shebalu was after the sandwiches and Charles put her out in the hall.
That was odd, he said, coming back. He’d put her in the armchair and she’d actually stayed there instead of trying to race him in. She seemed to be interested in something behind the cushion. He supposed she hadn’t put a mouse behind it?
Shebalu in fact had never seen a mouse as yet – but the look on our visitors’ faces when Charles suggested there might be a dead one in the chair (they themselves had no experience of Siamese cats) was only equalled by their expression when a second later there came the tinkling of a bell and I, rushing to open the door, said
‘She’s found it! Thank heaven for that!’
110
Double Trouble_INSIDES.indd 110
Double Trouble_INSIDES.indd 110
18/01/2007 13:06:44
18/01/2007 13:06:44
Doreen Tovey
She had too. In just about the one place I hadn’t looked because I’d never known her put it there before.
In she came, across the room, and deposited it proudly on the hearthrug. Charles told her how clever she was.
I assured her it was beautiful. Even Seeley came and sniffed it appraisingly.
A scruffy scrap of wool with a bell on it. Our visitors regarded it with amazement. ‘I thought it was one of the Crown Jewels at least,’ said one of them after a pause. In this house it was, I said, gathering it up and locking it for safety in the bureau.