One thing he was afraid of, however, was horses. Why, we couldn’t imagine. He liked Annabel to the extent, now, of sitting between her hooves and you’d have thought he’d regard a horse as being like her, only bigger. To Seeley, however, a horse was a par ticularly sinister bogey. I did everything I could to accustom him to them… holding him in my arms when one went by (Seeley was away like an eel before the horse had a chance to see him); letting him stand on my shoulder (I still have the scars of that particular take-off); hiding conspiratorially with him in the long grass when one passed below us on the hillside… I could stay there if I liked, said Seeley; personally he was going to hide in the middle of the forest.
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I was greatly encouraged, therefore, the day some one we knew came up the lane on a hunter and Seeley, instead of fleeing stomach-to-the-ground for cover, watched it come, wide-eyed, but standing his ground determinedly inside the gate.
What about there then? I said, putting him up on the gatepost where he would, I thought, feel safer than on the ground and could view the intruder with nose-to-nose equality. Up here was even better, said Seeley, climbing for the first time ever from the gate post on to the adjoining coalhouse roof. And so it was, of course; it was Sheba’s favourite vantage point and many an adversary Solomon had sworn at from up there, too – though in times of definite danger he’d preferred the still higher roof of the woodshed.
So, vastly pleased at this fresh step in the direction I wanted (Solomon had always liked horses and now Seeley, it seemed, was beginning to take an interest), I awaited the arrival of the rider and we began to ex change local news.
‘The new boy?’ I said… ‘Oh, he’s right here on the roof.
Don’t look as if you’ve noticed him, though – he’s just getting used to horses’…
If she’d passed by in the middle of the lane it would probably have been all right. Seeley on the roof under the lilac branches would have felt secure, and confidently in ambush. But we were talking at the gate and the horse, growing bored, decided to look around. He was sixteen hands high and his nose was right by the coalhouse roof.
His ears went forward with interest when he saw Seeley sitting on it and he stretched out his head, very cautiously, for a further, closer, look.
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I, concentrating on the horse, was saying ‘Seeley – come and meet Major’ – never dreaming that Seeley could feel unsafe. It was the rider, facing inwards, who saw what was going on – and she was so paralysed with horror, all that happened was that her eyes grew round. Catching the direction of her gaze, I swung round just in time to see the end of it. Seeley, frightened beyond measure by this close-up view of the monster, wasn’t scrambling down the coalhouse wall as most cats would have done. De ciding, it seemed, that distance was his only hope Seeley had jumped straight out off the coalhouse roof as if suddenly provided with wings. When I saw him he was actually sailing through the air – before, with a horribly resounding smack, he landed out in the middle of the yard, scrambled up and went on running.
He wasn’t hurt. He was large enough now not to be a tiny, fragile kitten – yet young enough, on the other hand, to take such an impact in his stride. Things were running true to form, said Charles reflectively later that evening.
Solomon had jumped out of the bedroom window once and landed in a hydrangea, and now Seeley, following suit, had jumped off the coalhouse roof…
Running true to form my foot, I said weakly. I hadn’t been so scared in years. Seeley mightn’t have lost one of his nine lives – but by gum, I’d lost one of mine!
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Things were running true to form all right. It wasn’t long before Seeley – who, after all, had never seen a horse before he came to us and animals as big as that took a little getting used to – was out there, just as Solomon had been, trotting happily up the Forestry trail in the wake of the riding school, while I dropped everything and hared after him.
He went even further than that. Major appeared with his owner, Miss Howland, one day, with a boxer running beside him. Miss Howland having stopped for a chat, I was never more surprised in my life than when Seeley stepped out through the bars of the gate over which we were talking and sat boldly in the road in front of Major.
Like to be Friends? said Seeley, gazing manfully up at the horse. Didn’t mind if he Did, said Major, putting his nose down to within an inch of him.
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At that moment up came the boxer. Miss Howland said he was fond of cats, so we didn’t whisk Seeley in again with our usual admonition about being careful – and the boxer wagged his bottom at Seeley and Seeley tried to look like a boxer back. It would undoubtedly result in his being more familiar with dogs than ever, I said, but it was worth it for just this moment. A horse, a dog and a kitten, communing happily in a quiet country lane. A moment out of Paradise, when surely even the angels must have smiled…
Not for long, however. Looming ominously on the horizon was Seeley’s trip to the Vet, and if the angels had heard him on that little lot, I reckon they’d have covered their ears in horror.
He should actually have had the operation weeks before, but we’d put it off. First, after Spice’s illness, to make sure he didn’t go down with anything him self, and then, to be perfectly truthful, because I hated taking a fit, bouncing kitten to the Vet. Sugieh, our first Siamese – Solomon and Sheba’s mother – had died as the result of being spayed.
Neutering a male is much, much simpler of course. Even with spaying, nowadays, there is nothing whatsoever to worry about. Sheba, when she was spayed, was playing unconcernedly the very next day…
All the same, remembering Sugieh I worried about it.
About his having an anaesthetic. About his going without food beforehand (he got all tragic if he just had to wait while his fish cooked; Hamlet wouldn’t be in it if he had to miss a couple of meals). About the sorry, frightened little kitten we’d take home afterwards – and we’d hate ourselves for days, I had no doubt.
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It had to be done, though. He was over six months old.
Any moment now those innocently enquiring explorations into the pine trees might turn into swashbuckling, long-distance forays after the girls. He was already beginning to show significant interest in Sheba – pursuing her with excited ‘Mrrr-mrrr-mrrrs’ and jumping embarrassingly on her neck.
‘Dear little man,’ beamed Miss Wellington inno cently.
‘Isn’t it nice to see how well he gets on with her?’ A little too well in our opinion; so we booked him up at the Vet’s for three o’clock one afternoon, kept him without food by dint of shutting him in our bedroom – putting Sheba up there to keep him company after we’d fed her secretly in the kitchen – and just after two-thirty, ignoring his protests about being Weak and Faint with Hunger; wherever it was he was going we’d be lucky if he Got There Alive… the procession set forth.
Just after three-thirty it was back again. It could only have happened to us. Knowing full well how germs can be floating about in waiting rooms – and Siamese, as we also knew full well, are particularly susceptible to germs
– I’d left Seeley, in Sheba’s basket, in the car with Charles and had gone in myself to wait our turn. There were two people there before me. A man with a dog, and a woman with a tabby cat in an open shopping basket. The cat lay listless and very quiet on its blanket. ‘What’s wrong with it?’ I asked the owner – and knew the answer even before I got it. ‘Cat flu,’ she answered worriedly. ‘At least, I think it is.’