So there we were next morning in the X-ray room at Langford, the veterinary nurse and I in lead-lined aprons and Saphra stretched out on the table between us. I imagine I'd been asked to assist on the premise that my presence might stop him from being scared, but there was no fear of that. 'Now we're going to see whether your sins have caught up with you, young man,' the nurse said with mock severity. Lying on his side, confident that everybody was his friend, he regarded her with wide-eyed equanimity.
The X-rays taken, he was put back in his basket and I was asked to sit in the waiting room while they were developed. It was just my luck – I had been full of equanimity myself until then – that while I was sitting there someone came out of an adjoining room, left the door open, and through it I was suddenly aware of two white-coated figures examining an X-ray plate. They were holding it against a light. It couldn't be Saphra's, I told myself, though I knew it most probably was. 'I wouldn't think that was a growth,' I heard one of the viewers say. I would, at that moment. I'd heard the uncertainty in her voice. I was going to lose my boy the same way I'd lost Saska, I thought, my heart sinking like a stone. Realising that the door was open, somebody closed it. I heard nothing more. A little later, someone came out and said the X-rays had been inconclusive. They were going to keep him in, give him a barium meal and watch its progress. Would I like to go home and ring around mid-day?
I did. Nothing had happened, I was told when I rang. There was something there – at junction of the colon and the rectum. But it wasn't moving. Could I ring again in two hours' time? I did. Still no news. Could I ring in at five o'clock?
At five o'clock they said they wanted to keep him overnight and I rang off sick at heart, convinced I was going to lose him. Tani, talking her head off, was busy shadowing me everywhere, being my Faithful Companion. I have noticed that she does this when she is the only one around. Whether she was missing Saph, or taking advantage of his absence to bring herself to the forefront whereas normally she took second place and occupied herself with her fantasy of kidnappers I don't know, but she went with me to the kitchen, to the bathroom, jumped on the freezer and lectured me while I bolted the back door for the night, stood on the bed and talked to me, tail in air, while I undressed, and curled in my arms and purred like a bumble bee when I lay down, though normally she slept downstairs with Saphra. She was sitting by me on the hall chest, still talking away, when I rang Langford next morning. Whatever it was appeared to have moved slightly, they said. Could I ring again at mid-day? The bulletins being issued about Saphra, as if he were royalty, would have pleased him had he known, I thought. Possibly, being Saphra, he did.
It was a Friday, when I always went to Bristol to see Louisa and help her with any jobs she wanted done. I would ring from there, I told them. At mid-day they said could I ring at three and ask for the professor, who would like to speak to me himself. Sure, once more, that I was going to hear bad news, I had to sit down to make the call at three o'clock, knees knocking together, while Louisa stood by with a glass of brandy. Whatever it was was on its way, reported the professor to my relief, but it was taking a long time. Would I mind having him home for the weekend and watching progress? He didn't seem to like their arrangements, he added in what I thought sounded a hesitant voice. Oh, Lord, what had that cat done now? I wondered. But at least he was coming home. Louisa drank the brandy herself when I told her.
The professor asked me to collect Saph before the five o'clock surgery. He would explain matters when I saw him, he said. It was just after four when I left Bristol, and as I drove out of the city I noticed groups of people congregated along the roadside. At first I wondered what they were waiting for, but then the penny dropped. The Queen had been in Bristol that day, opening a hospital extension. She was due to leave the airport just before five. This was the route to the airport and people were gathering to see her. Schoolchildren. Guides. Scouts. They stood there ready with their flags. A Guide grinned and waved her flag at me. The girl next to her waved and cheered as well. In a flash the whole line was cheering. Goodness knew who they thought I was but I entered into the fun of it, waving back with one hand and bowing graciously as I drove. The cheering and waving spread. I wondered what the royal party must be thinking if they were at all close behind me. For me, though, it was an occasion for celebration. I was going to collect Saphra who, diabolical though he was, had installed himself so dearly in my heart. I waved and bowed all the harder.
When I got to Langford, I found that the reason the Menace was being sent home – expelled, if one looked at it squarely – was, the professor explained, that he wasn't co-operating. Wouldn't use his litter tray. Had only used it once since he'd been there, so how could anything come out? And his bladder was fit to burst he said, feeling Menace's stomach gingerly with his eyes raised to the heavens. I knew at once why it was, but I thought I'd look silly if I explained. I used pine-needles from the forest in Saphra's litter and he wouldn't have anything else. And it had to be changed after every sitting – he wouldn't use a litter tray twice, however large it was. I didn't suppose they had time for that at Langford.
So I brought him home, and Tani was pleased to see him, and he headed for his litter tray and performed at once, a relieved expression on his face. It took until Sunday for anything of note to appear, however. Something that looked like a miniature Catherine wheel, about the size of a 1p piece, and I recognised it straight away. A piece of the fringe off the rug in the hall, coiled tightly round and round.
The professor had asked to see anything that transpired, however, so I put it in a box addressed to him personally, added 'from Saphra' by way of identification and took it over to Langford on Monday morning. Only afterwards did I wonder what his staff had thought, opening what must have appeared to be a present from a grateful cat. Probably by that time both Saphra and I had been written off as odd, I decided. Certainly there wasn't a modicum of surprise in the professor's voice when he spoke to me later on the phone, to tell me he didn't think that could have caused the trouble. They didn't know what had, but he was sure there was nothing wrong with him now. I needn't bring him back again, but would I contact them immediately if I was worried.
I watched like a hawk, but all was well. The only thing I learned from my observation was that Saphra had invented something. Was it, I wondered, the result of having been, if only for a short while, at such an august seat of learning?
It was the following day and it was raining. The cats were in their garden house with their infra-red heater on while I got on with some work. I went up to the garage to get some papers from the car and as I passed their run the flap in the cat-house door lifted smartly and Saphra's face appeared out of the opening. He didn't come out. Just watched me go past with the flap resting flat on his head, keeping off the rain. It wasn't an accident. He did it again when I came back from the garage, peering out with the complacent expression of being perfectly protected from the elements. Saphra had invented a cat umbrella.