Читать онлайн "Cats In May [calibre 3.40.1]" - Тови Дорин - RuLit

143

Cats In May_Insides.indd 143

15/03/2006 16:50:06

FIFTEEN

Cats in May

It is Maytime now in the valley. The birds are singing; the lilac is in bloom; Solomon and Sheba are moulting; and

– judging by the ants in the greenhouse – our dandelion wine is a riot.

Timothy is still with us. Father Adams never got Fred Ferry’s summons after all. At the eleventh hour they united instead over a right of way running through some building land. Fred Ferry says he remembers distinctly using it when he were courting… Father Adams says so does he, and the elm tree is up there still… From the sentimental expressions they assume when they are talking about it I have a strong suspicion they are making it up, particularly since if they are successful it will result, according to Father Adams, in something unique even in this district – a footpath going 144

Cats In May_Insides.indd 144

15/03/2006 16:50:06

Cats in May

through a house. Meanwhile, there being nothing like a good fight for his rights to put him in a good humour, he has arranged to keep Timothy for the summer. Do ’un a power of good, he explained when he broke the news to us, and he weren’t much trouble, were he?

We are resting now from the turmoil on the lawn.

Charles has just come back from a hayfield, where he has spent two hours looking for Timothy’s scout knife which he – Timothy, that is – and Solomon lost while they were being naturalists. Tossing it up they were, wept Timothy, when a jackdaw distracted their attention, and when they looked round it was gone.

I, as a further mark of Timothy’s zest to be a naturalist, am now a swallow’s Mum. One just a few days old which he found lying in the lane one night in the shelter of the barn and brought to me for succour. Much good did it do me, too, to say I didn’t know what to feed it on. ‘Flies caught on the wing,’ advised Timothy pontifically, without a thought of the sight which would have ensued had we taken his advice. Charles and I and the cats, catching swallow’s flies on the lawn.

It is, as a matter of fact, doing very nicely on boiled egg and biscuit crumbs. Fed every hour, of course, which means my taking it to town during the day, but what is that to Timothy? Or to my colleagues, to whose delight – with happy memories of Blondin – it feeds clinging to the front of my dress, looking open-beaked up at my mouth and taking egg from a matchstick with aplomb.

It lives, when we are home, in the bathroom – which is why Sheba is now sitting on the bathroom windowsill, imploring us piteously to open up. Thirsty she says she is, 145

Cats In May_Insides.indd 145

15/03/2006 16:50:07

Cats in May

bawling so hard that already the Rector’s wife has stopped to ask if she is Well. So thirsty she can hardly speak… and we know she likes to drink from the washbasin…

But as Timothy says, we want the little swallow to grow up, don’t we? And fly, according to his bird book, away to Africa in the autumn? And come back again next year and nest in our roof instead of the starlings? And be a perishing nuisance for evermore, I think despondently. Throwing its fledglings down for me to look after – and I bet they all like egg.

I dare not say this openly, of course. We are all such naturalists now. Solomon, when I left a chicken in the kitchen this morning ready for the oven – and he, with a quick glance over his shoulder, nipped it into the yard –

was quite hurt when I said he’d stolen it. Fainted it had, he assured me sorrowfully. He’d taken it out for Air.

Solomon right now is lying in a deckchair, waiting for his tea and swatting – though not, I fear, with the swallow in mind – the gnatflies as they pass. Time we finished writing, he says – and probably he is right. Who, if we told them, would believe any more of our stories? About our getting a mate for Tarzan, for instance, at Timothy’s suggestion…

and what happened after that. Solomon in any case is tired

– and you know who really wrote this book? Not me, if you go by his expression. But a big, Seal-Pointed cat.

146

Cats In May_Insides.indd 146

15/03/2006 16:50:07

Cats In May_Insides.indd 147

15/03/2006 16:50:07

Cats In May_Insides.indd 148

15/03/2006 16:50:07

Other titles from Summersdale Cats In May_Insides.indd 149

Cats In May_Insides.indd 149

15/03/2006 16:50:07

Cats In May_Insides.indd 150

15/03/2006 16:50:07

Cats in the Belfry Doreen Tovey

£6.99 Pb

1 84024 452 6

‘It wasn’t, we discovered as the months went by, that Sugieh was particularly wicked. It was just that she was a Siamese.’

Animal lover Doreen and her husband Charles acquire their first Siamese kitten to rid themselves of an invasion of mice. But Sugieh is not just any cat. She’s an actress, a prima donna, an iron hand in a delicate, blue-pointed glove. She quickly establishes herself as queen of the house, causing chaos daily by screaming like a banshee, chewing up telegrams, and tearing holes in anything made of wool.

First published over forty years ago, this warm and witty classic tale is a truly enjoyable read for anyone who’s ever been owned by a cat.

‘If there is a funnier book about cats I for one do not want to read it. I would hurt myself laughing, might even die of laughter’

The Scotsman

‘Every so often, there comes along a book – or if you’re lucky books – which gladden the heart, cheer the soul...

Just such books are those written by Doreen Tovey’

Cat World

Cats In May_Insides.indd 151

15/03/2006 16:50:08

Cats In May_Insides.indd 152

15/03/2006 16:50:08

The New Boy

Doreen Tovey

£6.99 Pb

1 84024 517 4

‘So there we were, driving along with an earth-box, a bag of turkey and, squalling his head off on my knee in Sheba’s basket, the new boy.’

The Toveys are no strangers to disaster, particularly the Siamese-related kind, but when their beloved Solomon dies unexpectedly, they’re faced with a completely new type of problem – do they find another cat to replace the one they’ve lost?

The animals always win in the Tovey household and this time is no exception. It is with the interests of Solomon’s (very audibly) grieving sister Sheba at heart that Doreen and Charles set off in search of Solomon Secundus, affectionately known as Seeley.

Joined by a myriad of endearing characters, Seeley ensures he’s living up to Solomon’s standards in just the amount of time it takes to fall in a fishpond. This is an enchanting tale that will tickle your funny bone and tug on your heartstrings all in the same breath.

Cats In May_Insides.indd 153

15/03/2006 16:50:08