Читать онлайн "Double Trouble [calibre 3.42.0]" - Тови Дорин - RuLit

He was. His foot had slipped over the edge, he said, and the weight of the sack had pulled him down.

‘Wouldn’t believe it, would you?’ said Henry, looking at him in awe.

It was a massive multiple sprain and he limped like Long John Silver for weeks. Which, of course, was just when Seeley chose to go exploring on the roof.

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Double Trouble The cats had been interested in the alterations from the moment the scaffolding went up; balance-walking round the block work, nipping in and out through the empty windows. Seeley, in fact, got out one night and went up on the scaffolding in the dark. At least, hearing a plank creak as I searched for him, I hoped that was what it was. My heart thumping madly – but if I went back for Charles, and it was Seeley he might get away... I climbed into Annabel’s field, shone my torch along the supports, a plank rattled again and something took off into the darkness... It was Seeley all right but now he’d dodged up on to the hillside, and how on earth I was going to get him back...

The answer was psychology. One of the things the years have taught me is never to chase a Siamese cat. Just to hope to entice him back either by habit or curiosity, or he’ll only go further away. In this case the obvious bait was the scaffolding, as he was so intrigued by that. And the habit – that, of course, was my calling ‘Doo-doo’; ten o’clock at night or not. So I hauled myself up on to the scaffolding, turned the torch on myself so he could see me, and, feeling self-conscious as usual, started to yodel ‘Doo-doo’.

It worked of course. He was back like a boomerang. But I did wonder why I had to do these things. Supposing someone saw me. What on earth would they think?

That wasn’t Seeley’s big roof adventure, though. That happened when the old roof was opened up. The new roof was on at the back, there was an opening at the top of the stairs through into the extension and the cats, consumed with curiosity, were going in there first thing every morning. They weren’t allowed in after Henry arrived in case he accidentally walled them up.

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Doreen Tovey

This, I might say, was not so far-fetched a possibility as it sounds. They were in and out of everything like a pair of moles. Down into the cavity walls, underneath the floorboards... there was always a furry bottom wriggling backwards out of somewhere. Then one morning, just before the ceiling went up in the new section, Shebalu discovered a way through into the old roof over our bedroom. A dark, inviting hole at the top of one of the walls.

Before we could stop her she was up, through it and after the starlings. We could hear them in there twittering and scrabbling like mad – they hadn’t expected an attack from the rear. Charles immediately imagined her being trapped. Chasing birds in that old lathe and plaster, he said, and there was no way for us to get in. Some minutes later she emerged again. Birdless, but covered in cobwebs. No sooner was she out, however, than Seeley promptly went in.

He came out all right, too. It was a bit like waiting for Theseus to emerge from the labyrinth... a pretty woolly headed Theseus, busily copying Shebalu as usual... but out he came all right, apart from the cobwebs. It was Exciting in there, he said.

So exciting that they took to going in there every morning, with Charles eternally forecasting they’d get stuck. How would we get them out? he asked – he with his gammy foot? How could we stop them from getting in? I said. We had no answer to that.

Anyway, one morning Shebalu caught a starling. We could tell that by the flapping and squawking inside the roof. And Charles was having a fit – both for the starling’s safety and for his blue-pointed girlfriend.

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Double Trouble Starlings can be nasty if they attack a cat. I called her.

Never was ‘Doo-doo-doo’ uttered more heartfeltly. And I was answered – though oddly enough it sounded more like Seeley... except I was sure he was out. I called again, and kept being answered, and eventually Shebalu put in an appearance with a full-grown starling in her mouth.

I soon rescued him. Standing on the step-ladder, as she came through the hole I grabbed the scruff of Shebalu’s neck, held it – and in seconds she’d let go of the bird. It didn’t hurt or frighten her. It always works. And the bird was away in a flash. He didn’t seem particularly scared, either. I could see him watching me beadily over a rafter inside the hole. Only... there was still a Siamese calling...

and it wasn’t Shebalu. She was now in the extension with us.

It was Seeley. ‘Seeley!’ I yelled in panic. ‘Wooooo’ came a muffled voice from the direction of the roof. I knew that note, too. I know all of Seeley’s voices. Somewhere my seal-point friend was in distress. ‘He’s stuck!’ said Charles, visualising him with his head jammed under a rafter. ‘Or hurt,’ I said, thinking of a starling’s beak.

As a matter of fact he was neither. After a despairing moment in which Charles said why did it happen to us and I wondered if I could possibly squeeze through the hole, we pulled ourselves together and formed a plan of campaign. I was to stay where I was and keep calling to comfort him. Charles was to get a ladder round to the front of the cottage. Charles would then go up it, take off the tiles and try to find him. And if that didn’t work we’d call the fire brigade.

It was a sensible plan. It probably would have worked

– except that when Charles limped round the cottage 144

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Doreen Tovey

with the ladder he found there was no need for it. Seeley was sitting up in the rain-water gutter looking down at him. Marooned he was, said Seeley. About time we brought that ladder. Another couple of seconds and he might have fallen off.

He hadn’t been inside the roof at all. He must have got up on to the new flat roof at the back, walked down the steep-sloping roof at the front, my ‘Doo-doo-doo’ must have sounded as if it was coming from the guttering

– and there he’d been answering me, wondering why I didn’t appear. Probably he’d expected me to come out through a hole like a starling; Seeley thought I could do anything. One thing we did know, Seeley didn’t have a head for heights. There was nothing for it even now, but for Charles to climb up to get him. He was going up the ladder when Henry arrived. ‘Where’s he off to now?’ enquired Henry. ‘Going to practise parachuting?’

I looked at him. ‘Well,’ said Henry unrepentantly. ‘You never know in this place.’

Things were coming along, nevertheless. The partitions went up, the plumber arrived, in next to no time the new bathroom was installed. It didn’t have a door on it, of course – not for weeks. That was one of the jobs Charles was going to do.

My driving was progressing too. At least, according to Miss Prince. It wouldn’t be long before I took my test, she was saying now, though when I passed that on to Charles he raised his eyes to the heavens.

The thing was, I was used to her car by this time. It was small, it had four gears, the gear stick was on the floor...

and when Charles suggested I should try our car (we had to face it some time was the way he put it)... I found 145

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Double Trouble everything was exactly opposite. Ours was bulky, it had three gears, the gear-lever was on the steering-column.