I should have known better, of course. Ten minutes later Bill, having said yes, he'd help with the carpet at the weekend, came belting down the hill in his car. 'Thought you might like it right away,' he said. 'Then you can get on with putting it down.'
'It's raining,' I said aghast. 'It'll drag along the ground and get muddy. I can't lift it very high because of my back.' I had arthritis in it – the result, my doctor told me blithely, of doing so much riding in the past. And they tell you to take plenty of exercise...
He'd carry it, Bill assured me. He'd take the weight in the middle. I need only hold the front end lightly, to guide it.
You can guess what happened. The rolls were longer than he thought and, held in the middle, they sagged. I supported them in front, he held the middle, and the back ends dragged drearily, unnoticed till we reached the cottage, down the rain-sogged path. I suggested sliding them in through one of the sitting-room windows, to avoid turning a corner with them if we brought them through the hall, and that was another mistake. Bill slid each one over the window frame, came in and pulled them through the rest of the way himself to save me having to haul on them, stacked them one on top of the other along the wall beneath the window, dusted his hands at having accomplished his mission – and I let out a wail.
'Look at my fresh paint,' I moaned. It wasn't any more. Where the muddied carpet had brushed against the wall there were long black gritty steaks, like a Plimsollline along the side of a ship.
'That'll wash off,' said Bill complacently, and away he went, glowing with virtue at a good deed well done, leaving me to clean the wall as best I could and try to protect the carpet from the attentions of the two cats who, when eventually let into the room, discovered what they took to be the biggest stropping post in the world laid out along the wall especially for their benefit. It was the hessian backing that was the attraction – specially geared to their claws. They stropped away on it all the evening, daring each other with raised backs, bushing their tails, dashing up and down the length of the roll. It was obvious it was going to have to be laid as quickly as possible If I was to have a carpet left at all, so I rang Dora and Nita who had volunteered to help me put it down after the weekend, asking whether they could come the next day instead. They couldn't. They had an engagement they couldn't alter. Not to worry, I'd put it down by myself, I said, more airily than I felt.
The next day, with the cats shut in their garden house so they couldn't get in the way, I did. Not without event. I put the first place down in the main part of the room, pivoting the Welsh dresser, the sofa and the heavy carved bureau over it as I worked – and then discovered I'd got the rolls of carpet mixed. The second piece was actually the larger. Fortunately I hadn't cut any of it to fit. I rolled up the first piece, heaving the furniture back over it as I went, had a snack lunch and worked on. It was late afternoon before the room was covered to my satisfaction, and I sat back on my heels to survey the result. White walls, oak beams, deep-piled carpet and the old carved furniture back in place – it looked, as it was, a spacious, comfortable room with two and a half centuries of occupation behind it, needing only one thing to complete the picture – a roaring log fire with two cats in their Snoozabed in front of it, which was what, in next to no time, I had.
Worn out with the day's efforts, I trundled off to bed accompanied by my furry henchmen, woke around three in the morning and couldn't go back to sleep, and came down to have another look at my handiwork. Saph came with me. I made some tea and we sat there sharing Marie biscuits.
'Looks good, doesn't it?' I said to Saph, gazing round the room. WOW, he agreed enthusiastically. Any more Biscuits? he enquired, standing up against my knee to check for himself. At which moment, suddenly, from upstairs, there came a clarion call. Tani was addressing us from the landing. What were we Doing down there? Didn't we know the Time? We ought to be in Bed, she bawled. Obviously she had no intention of joining us. Like a Victorian parent she lectured us sanctimoniously from above and I found myself actually feeling guilty.
'We're coming,' I shouted defensively, gathering up my cup and saucer. Hurry Up, bawled her ladyship. 'We're coming,' I yelled again. Anyone hearing me would have thought that I was mad. Anyone seeing me would have been sure of it. So harassed was I by Tani's harangue that in a moment of nervous stress I found myself putting the teapot in the refrigerator instead of emptying it.
Next day it was Saphra's turn to upset our rural tranquillity. Looking again at the newly decorated sitting-room I decided that the one thing needed to complete its appearance of cosy winter country living would be one of my grandmother's honey-coloured brocade draught curtains over the door. I had a pair of them in the chest on the landing. I brought one down, spent an hour taking up the hem to fit the low-lintelled door, inserted the hooks in the runner bar and stood back to admire the effect. Pretty good, I thought, stooping to recover one of the bobbles that had fallen off the curtain edging. The curtain was, after all, very old. I threw the bobble for Saph to chase and he raced after it with delight, tossing it in the air and batting it round the room till eventually he lost it. He came back and sat by the door looking at me expectantly. With apologies to my grandmother, but I could never resist that intent little face, I pulled another bobble off the curtain and threw it for him. The worst thing I could have done, because Saph was no fool. By that time he'd realised where they were coming from.
When he'd lost that one – at least, I presumed that he'd lost it – he came back and sat down again, and when I pretended that I didn't know what he wanted, he took another bobble off the curtain with his teeth. I laughed, and said how clever he was. Off he went, and in no time was back for another. He was on his hind legs now, reaching up to his limit to get it… at which moment the telephone rang. Immobilised, I chatted to the caller, one worried eye on the curtain on which the bobbles were now missing to above Saphra's reach. As I watched, he shinned up the curtain, climbing like a monkey, pulled off a bobble, came down with it in his mouth, and dissappeared with it round the corner.
Suspicion began to dawn. He couldn't be losing them at that rate. Excusing myself to my caller I rang off hurriedly, rushed round the corner after him and was just in time to see what he was doing. Eating them. With evident relish. Bobbles that were, I calculated rapidly, a good fifty years old or more. Washed, but nethertheless probably containing residue dust of half a century. I dreaded to think what that could be doing to his stomach.
With more apologies to my grandmother – feeling guilty about it, but she loved cats too, I reminded her – I fetched the scissors, cut off the remaining bobbles (it seemed sacrilege to throw them away so I put them in the bureau drawer) and rang Lanford to ask what I should do. They'd probably go through him like everything else he'd eaten, they told me. Just watch him carefully to see what happened and ring them again if I was worried. Off my own bat I gave him some sardines in oil to lubricate the bobbles – it was helpful in cases of blockage, so I'd read – and every time I passed the bureau during the course of the evening a black-faced cat leapt ahead of me on the to the top of it, breathing sardines heavily on the cottage air and waiting for me to lift the lid so he could help himself to some more bobbles. Some cats never did learn.