Like heck it wouldn't. I took the precaution of taking her basket downstairs ahead of her next morning and putting it on the sofa in case she needed a refuge, though I didn't think she would. I went into the hall and called her. I'd forgotten how steep the cottage stairs were for a kitten. She came down as if she was climbing Everest in reverse, front paws plopping down together, bottom perpendicular in the air. Nothing to that, she announced when she reached the bottom. Lay on, Macduff. Was it chicken again for breakfast?
Unfortunately Saska was crouched in ambush behind the sitting-room door and spat 'Tchaah' at her as she passed. She made for the sofa and into the basket as if shot from a gun and there she stayed for the rest of the day emerging only when he went out of the room, vanishing into the depths the moment he reappeared. When he was around, meals and litter box had to be handed in to her. She wasn't taking any chances. The evening passed like the previous one: Saska on my lap acting as if kittens had never been heard of – couldn't be one within miles – and boy, I gathered from his attitude, wasn't that Western good on the telly, look at those horses run; Shantung in the depths of the basket not making a sound; me with despondent visions of her living in there on the sofa for ever, and what sort of existence was that going to be for all of us?
Tuesday was much the same, except that was the day my school-teacher friends, Dora and Nita, came to see her, took her photograph with a Polaroid camera and said, as we watched it develop, that it was odd, but she didn't appear to be on it. She was, but you needed a magnifying glass to see her. For the occasion I'd got out the cats' Snoozabed, sent by an American reader years before as a present for Solomon and Sheba. It consisted of an enormous rectangle of foam rubber four inches deep, with an oval hollow big enough for several cats scooped out of its surface and a pale blue fur-fabric cover over the lot. 'Washable, hygienic, draught-proof – the ideal bed for your pets', read the wording on the outsize box in which it came, and the postman was so intrigued that he asked for days afterwards 'How'd they like the Snoozabed, then?' until in desperation I invited him in to see it, taking up most of the hearthrug with two cats stretched out in it like Turkish pashas, whereupon he said 'Trust the Yanks to think up something like that' and went off, as was duly reported back to me, to tell everybody else on his rounds that I had friends over in America as daft as I was.
Successive generations of Siamese had luxuriated in it; since Shebalu's death Saska had slept alone in it at night; and now, as he was out in his garden run, I draped a pale pink blanket over it as she was a girl and put Shantung in it to have her photo taken.
What with her hiding in the folds of the blanket from the two strangers she was sure had come to kidnap her, and the fact that film colour can vary, the picture that came out was what appeared to be an expanse of pale pink sand-dunes with, if one looked hard enough, a couple of pallid pyramids faintly visible over the top of one of them. 'Shantung's ears,' I said, pointing them out. Nita told me later that that was the moment she decided I'd never raise her, but she hadn't liked to say so.
Wednesday morning was when Mrs Binney gave me her opinion, overheard as he came up the lane by my neighbour Father Adams, who called out to me to take no notice of she, she'd put the damper on th' Angel Gabriel hisself if he listened to her, to which Mrs B. replied that he was a daft old fool and marched up the hill in high dudgeon. Wednesday I spent reflecting on how right Mrs Binney probably was – about Shantung, at any rate. And on Wednesday evening something happened.
I was sitting in an armchair sewing. Saska lay curled in the opposite one, his black whip tail over his nose. Between us, on the sofa, was the cat basket – from which, after a while, there stealthily emerged the small white figure of the May Queen. She paused, studying the recumbent form across the way. The Big Cat was obviously asleep. Paw by paw she crept along the sofa on to the armchair and crouched there, studying him intently. At that point he snored a resounding snore, woke up with a start, saw her looking at him practically nose to nose, and nearly hit the ceiling, after which he hid under the bookcase while the May Queen fled for her basket.
Next day, presumably having taken comfort from the fact that he hadn't eaten her so far, she ventured into the Snoozabed while he was in the garden house and stayed there when I brought him in. He made no attempt to frighten her, but sat on a nearby chair looking long-suffering. By Thursday evening they were walking past each other across the room – obviously deliberately, and obviously equally deliberately ignoring each other. And on Friday evening, washing up after supper, with the door to the sitting-room open so that I could rush to her rescue if need be, as they still showed no real sign of becoming friendly, I nearly dropped a plate with astonishment when something big and dark flashed past the open doorway closely followed by something small and white travelling like a midget express train.
Before I could move, they hurtled back in the opposite direction, Shantung whizzing along in front this time, ears flattened for lessened wind resistance, Saska bounding behind her in full chase. I peered furtively round the corner after them. Shantung, all six inches of her, had stopped and was sitting in the middle of the floor with a paw raised, daring Saska, advancing across the carpet on his stomach, to come One Step Nearer and she'd Bop Him – and Saska, everything forgotten save that he had a girl to play with again, was looking happier than he'd done in weeks.
One small hiccup barred the progress of the entente cordiale. Later that evening, ensconced in his favourite armchair with Shantung between his front paws, washing her fit to flatten her to show she was now one of the family, Saska slipped his tongue accidentally into one of her ears. The rest of her, having been around the place for nearly a week, had obviously acquired the cottage smell by this time and was acceptable. Protected by those enormous pyramids, however, the insides of her ears still bore the taint of other cats and places. He withdrew his tongue, curled back his lips in the familiar feline gesture of having just smelled something unbelievably awful, and said 'Tchaah' again – which could have set things right back to square one but for the fact that Shantung took no notice, presumably having decided that he was a bit potty and did that sort of thing from time to time, or else that it was me he was swearing at. As she didn't respond to his Monster act he considered the situation for a moment, steeled himself, then shut his eyes and licked the inside of both ears thoroughly until they tasted right. Had to be done Some Time, he said – after which they curled together in a white and seal-coloured ball and went to sleep. Things at the cottage were apparently back to normal.
TWO
Not quite, they weren't. Saska, having been looked after for as long as he could remember first by his mother and then by Shebalu, obviously thought that was what female cats were for, and was anxious to re-establish the fact as soon as possible – to which end, having been accustomed to stretching out in the Snoozabed using Shebalu as a pillow, within no time I found him trying to do it with Shantung. She was so small he looked quite ridiculous, spread there like a big brown ink blot with only her tiny head poking out from underneath him. Time and again I rushed to rescue her only to find her purring like a barrel organ, obviously revelling in what she thought was his fond attention. I hoped she wouldn't complain if one day she came out flat, I told her.