'Look,' I said, pointing. Even as the heads swivelled, that cat half-closed his eyes – only half-closed them: he wanted to see the effect – and chicken vol-au-vents and prawns were immediately proffered. Connie put the electric fire in the middle of the room and switched it on in resignation, at which he swayed weakly out, almost Too Cold to Stand, we understood, and stretched full-length on the carpet in front of it. Saphra, I had to concede, had nothing on Ming when it came to histrionics. Ming would have made a pretty good Hamlet.
Now it was February and the snowdrops were out under the beech tree on the lawn, and the pussy willows budding yellow up in the forest. Winter wasn't over yet, though. Came the third week of the month and the sky turned leaden grey and it snowed. Heavily, covering the snowdrops and lying deep on the ground, with Saphra venturing valiantly out into it. Making his way, tail raised, up to the covered area beyond the garage, where he could pretend-hunt among the heaps of stones.
He soon got bored, though. No mice were about in that weather. And I got cold watching over him. I would pick him up and carry him back down to the cottage, where Tani sat sensibly in front of the fire. Sitting by the fire all day, however, wasn't for him. He wanted something more engrossing. That was why, when I found him sitting in the sink one morning studying the cold tap, which was dripping slightly, I didn't call a plumber immediately. Anything that kept that cat occupied and out of mischief was welcome, and the drip kept him mesmerised for hours. Leave it for a while, I thought. It was wonderful to know where he was, and that he wasn't raiding cupboards or baiting Tani.
So the tap dripped and, outside, penetrating frost set in. Frost that lasted for a fortnight, so deep that the septic tank outlet froze and the run-off couldn't get away into the ground and, due to the dripping tap, the tank filled up, back-fired up the pipe and overflowed.
Most people's septic tanks overflow round the inspection cover. At the cottage it came up under the sitting-room floor. When, some years earlier, we'd had our downstairs bathroom moved upstairs, the plumber hadn't sealed off the old pipes as thoroughly as he should have done and, when there was a backfire the water rose up through them. It had happened once before, and Charles had sealed the end of the main pipe thoroughly, never dreaming any of the other pipes could be unsealed. When I spotted a large damp patch on the carpet one Sunday night, however, I knew what it was at once. This time, judging by the patch's situation, it was coming up the old washbasin pipe, which had been covered over with tiles.
I'd deal with it tomorrow, I thought, being a bit of a handywoman. Change the tap washer, have the septic tank pumped out, take up the tiles and reseal the pipe... Simple it seemed until next morning, when the stopcock wouldn't turn off the water supply: it, too, needed a new washer. The tap went on dripping. I dared not take off its top, with the stopcock still full on. The local plumber's wife said he was round the bend dealing with people's burst pipes and there wasn't a hope of his coming for days. The septic tank emptying service couldn't come till Tuesday. The Water Company, whom I rang in desperation, said they didn't deal with washers or inside stopcocks, but they could give me another plumber's name from their list.
When I rang it, his widow said he'd died six years previously, she had frozen pipes herself and she'd been waiting for a plumber for a week. At that point I began to get anxious. Particularly when, belatedly putting a bucket under the drip, I found it was filling at the rate of two gallons an hour. 48 gallons a day, not counting what I normally used. No wonder the septic tank was full up! I fitted a length of hose to the tap, running it out to the snow-covered lawn. That would take care of things till I could get a plumber, I thought. No need to bother with buckets.
Not having a proper tap connection, I used the emptying hose from an old single-tub washing machine, leading it over the sink edge to the main hose so that the drips could trickle away easily. I relaxed that evening, watching TV, thinking how clever I'd been – only to go out at nine o'clock and find the kitchen floor flooded. The end of the hose on the lawn had frozen solid, the drips had built up behind, and the pressure had pushed the other end off the washing machine hose, which was hanging over the edge of the sink.
I mopped up the mess and put the bucket back to collect the drips. I didn't go to bed that night. I dozed in an armchair, Tani and Saphra on my lap, the kitchen timer at my elbow timed to go off every hour. When it did, the three of us erupted like Vesuvius, Tani hid under the sofa, and I trudged out to the frozen wastes of the garden to empty the bucket. Life seemed at its lowest ebb.
Not quite, it wasn't. That came next morning, when the tank-emptying people phoned to say their vehicle had broken down with all the work it was doing and they couldn't come till Wednesday. I rang the Water Company again, who said they were sorry, I'd have to get a plumber myself. They could give me a number... I told them about the six-year-old number they'd already given me and they changed their minds. They could send a man to turn off the water at their own outside stopcock till I could find a plumber, they offered. Anything, I said, weeping down the mouthpiece with gratitude. I couldn't tote buckets hourly through another night.
Their man came that afternoon, couldn't find their stopcock which was somewhere under the ice outside the garden wall, and while he was searching for it fell in the stream. With his feet wet, he too altered his mind. He changed the kitchen tap washer in minutes – happening to have one with him in the car, he said; said he'd locate the Company's stopcock when the weather was better, and drove off at top speed to dry out. I tottered indoors and gazed at the cause of it all, stretched out peacefully, paws twitching, on the Snoozabed with his head on Tani's stomach. Nobody would ever believe it, I decided.
FIFTEEN
Spring brought the daffodils out in the valley. A vast yellow sheet of them flowing down the opposite hillside, where Charles and I had planted them years before. A sea of the paler wild variety rioting in the field beyond the cottage, where Annabel was buried, and in the Reasons' wood further down the lane. It was called Daffodil Valley even before our time, on account of the wild ones, and people still came to see them and stare over the gate at Saphra, regarding them with his Sherlock Holmes look from the other side.
It was Saphra who solved the riddle of the man in the big hat. Our mysterious visitor was even more in evidence now. At weekends he seemed to be going up and down the lane continually, and it was then that the solution half dropped on me. He must have heard about its being called Daffodil Valley, and he either was an amateur poet or was hoping to be taken for one. I bet the book he was huddled over was Wordsworth, I thought. And sure enough one morning Saph squirmed under the gate, marched up to him, and looked enquiringly up at the hat. The man, bent over his book, saw Saphra at his feet and stooped to pat him, closing the volume abruptly. The Poems of Wordsworth I saw in gilt letters on the spine and reported it to Poppy as soon as he'd gone. He was a poet, or that way inclined: not a spy in disguise as Fred Ferry had insisted whenever the question cropped up. What was there to spy on round here? I'd asked on one occasion. 'Durin' the war they used to put decoy lights up on Black Down,' Fred informed me darkly. What that had to do with it I couldn't think, but Fred always was a one for drama.