The next time we took her out I was the casualty. She got demonstrably bored tramping to and fro like a Holloway trusty along the twelve-foot path from her house to the hurdle gate, which was all we'd been able to clear for her in the two feet of snow that covered her paddock, and when we appeared with her halter it was always a cause for exuberance. When, therefore, I put my cheek against hers, enquired tenderly whether she was going out, and Annabel upped with her head to indicate less of the soft stuff, open the gate and get going Pronto, it was my own fault entirely. It didn't alter the fact that she'd nearly broken my nose, though. Clutching it, my eyes filled with tears, I staggered in painful circles outside her gate. Blood started dripping on to the snow, too – a sight at which I felt even sorrier for' myself.
Charles, starting to comfort me, at that moment spotted people coming down the hill. 'Shh – they'll hear you', he said – Charles being the typical British type who believes in keeping a stiff upper lip in front of strangers. Still holding my nose, groaning that it was broken and nobody cared, I reeled into Annabel's house and sat sadly in the straw till the people had gone, ruminating on the debit side of keeping a donkey.
I had my revenge sooner than I expected. After the people had gone I came out of the donkey house, Charles having assured me that my nose was still in one piece; Annabel tugged at my duffle coat to show that it had all been in fun; and we set out belatedly on our walk. Through the Valley; up the Slagger's Path to the village, along which the old-time miners used to carry the lead; back past the caravan where the singer lives, who to Father Adams's disgust grows geraniums in his wheelbarrow in the summer and Wur, Father Adams comments loudly every time he passes, do the tomfool put his weeds?
We were passing the caravan ourselves, Annabel doing her swaying pack-donkey walk in case there was anybody inside to see her, when she picked up a cigarette packet. Vastly pleased that we laughed at her, she trudged on, carrying the packet in her mouth like a dog with a bone, till I said I wished somebody could see her; nobody'd ever believe she'd do that sort of thing just by our telling them. At that moment two people did come into view, climbing up the hill towards us, whereupon Annabel drew the packet inside her mouth – still, however, leaving enough outside to show that it was a cigarette packet – and proceeded to eat it.
She would, I said with feeling. Carry it like a circus act for ten minutes and the moment we passed anybody you bet she'd eat it, just to show people how hungry she was and how we starved her.
There was no answer from Charles. Looking around from my position on Annabel's right I discovered that, suddenly, there was no Charles, either. Peering over Annabel's broad brown back I saw him kneeling, red-faced, on her other side. When I asked what he was doing he staggered to his feet and began limping in circles himself. Slipped on the ice, he informed me. Broken his kneecap (which he hadn't, actually; fortunately it was only bruised). Couldn't I do something, he demanded, continuing to reel in circles and at the same time hold his knee, which was quite a feat on the slippery ice. I was laughing so much I nearly fell down myself. Not to make a fuss, I said hysterically. Remember what he'd told me. People might hear, and what on earth would they think?
Charles had to laugh himself at that, and Annabel, chewing placidly away at her cigarette packet, glanced curiously at us over her shoulder. Couple of nut cases was her verdict.
Robertson seconded that before the winter was out. By this time he had taken to sleeping in the garage. Annabel was all right, he explained to us in his reedy little voice the first time we found him there, but she would walk in and out over the snow and it made the straw all damp to sleep on, whereas in the garage there was nice dry hay. Just the thing for a cat like him in weather like this, he wheedled, weaving ingratiatingly round our legs. Helped keep the mice away, he proffered as an additional inducement, seeing that we were obviously wavering. So now he slept in the garage, had his milk in there to make sure he got it himself instead of a donkey who was already overweight, and though Annabel nudged him pettishly when he joined her in the mornings by way of reproach for his absence, he merely brushed his bushy tail against her nose, assured her that he'd been on important business where donkeys couldn't go, and settled down to breakfast.
Solomon's activities at this time being given over to bird watching in the yard outside the kitchen, while Sheba, complaining that it made her feet cold, rarely went outside at all, Robertson now took to accompanying Charles most possessively from garage to donkey-house, and from donkey-house back to garage. Probably for the first time in years he had a feeling of belonging, which was undoubtedly how the trouble arose.
The Hazells went to London for a weekend, asking us to stoke their Aga and feed their ginger cat, Rufus, while they were away. The first night we went up Rufus was ready and waiting, one eye on the Aga and the other on the refrigerator. The next morning he was there too, bawling vociferously for us to get cracking with the tin-opener, that was the tin he fancied today. That night he was missing, however, and it was only after we'd been there quite a few minutes, stoking the Aga and refilling the fuel hod, that I spotted him watching us through the window.
He was sitting out on the lawn, at the edge of the light patch cast by the kitchen window. Perhaps he was suddenly nervous of us, we thought. Resentful maybe of the fact that there were strangers in his house. He had his own way in, but, wishing to see him eat before we left, we went to the door and called him. He came to the threshold but would come no further, so Charles picked him up. His hand raked from stem to stern, Charles hastily put him down again. This was the way to carry a strange cat, I said, grasping him by the scruff of his neck, my other hand taking the weight of his feet, and scuttling speedily in to deposit him in the hall. Rufus bolted immediately through the lounge door, which was open, and sat just inside it, on the edge of the divan. There he stayed in the semi-darkness while we clattered his food-dishes, rattled the tin-opener and made enticing noises from the kitchen. Finally we gave it up, wished him goodnight as we passed, and unlatched the front door. What made me go back and take a closer look at him in the torchlight I don't know – but when I did, it wasn't Rufus at all. It was Robertson.
He'd said he didn't want to go in, he protested as I hurried him out. He didn't like being in houses, anyway, he said as we found the real Rufus hiding behind the coalbunker, carried him in and gave him his supper at last. Only came to go walks with Charles, wailed Robertson plaintively from the garden.
Waving the empty tin under his nose we enticed him home so he wouldn't disturb Rufus, locked him in the garage for the night with some supper of his own, and went back to our fireside. Solomon sniffed suspiciously at us for the rest of the night like Sherlock Holmes, saying we'd been with other cats. Sheba went and sat in the hall as the nearest thing she could think of to leaving home without getting her feet cold. Honestly, we couldn't win!
SEVEN
And Spring is Far Behind
That was the winter we became so friendly with the blackbird. He'd been with us for years; chivvying us for food from the corner of the woodshed roof in the mornings; baiting Solomon, when he felt in a merry mood, by fluttering low across the lawn with Fatso leaping like a trout in pursuit; turning ragged as a scarecrow every summer because he was by no means young and raising families at the rate he raised them certainly took it out of a bird.