A Comfort of Cats (16 page)

  We didn't let it. A toad needs a wider range than a cat-run. Besides which Sass was prodding it energetically through the bars, which hardly augured a congenial relationship, though it didn't seem to worry the toad. I covered it with leaves to stop him annoying it, leaving a hole through which it could breathe. It stayed there all day, looking out from its shelter like a contemplative hermit, withdrawing slightly when I bent down to look at it.

  Next day it had gone. We never saw it again. We wondered, though – had Sass some affinity with toads? How did two of them come to be with him in places where it was logically impossible for them
to
be – and why did the second one try to get back?

  If Sass knew, he wasn't telling. There is much that is mysterious about that cat. In any case, when we'd got back from Cornwall the previous autumn we'd had other things than toads on our minds. We found that the Valley had been invaded by what a friend termed The Pheasants' Revolt.

  They came from a nearby estate whose coverts had lain empty for years until, with syndicate shooting becoming popular, the owner had let the rights to a tenant who had started raising pheasants there again. We'd seen them in their runs when we took Annabel out for exercise and had felt sorry when we thought of their fate. True they wouldn't have been bred if it hadn't been for that purpose, but we hated to think of anything being shot.

  Apparently so did the pheasants. They'd been released from their runs while we were away on holiday, to get used to flying before the shooting season started, and it looked, when we got back from Cornwall, as if most of them had come to live with us. They sat in their dozens on our wall. They strutted about with Annabel on the hillside. They meandered about picking grit up in the lane. We had to absolutely crawl up the hill when we took the car out because they kept flying out in front of the bonnet.

  One theory was that the hillside where they'd been raised was too cold for them now it was autumn, and that when they were freed they had naturally made for the shelter of the Valley. The man who'd raised them still put corn out every night up at the runs but Fred Ferry said pheasants was wily. They seemed to know about guns by instinct and a lot of 'em would make off while the going was good.

  Maybe so – but why come to us? I asked. Fred explained that we were right by the stream. ''N thee bist right on the edge of the wood, and thee hassn't got a dog and 'tis quiet as the grave down here.' ''Cept when thic cat of thine starts up,' he amended, looking across the lawn at Sass who, probably with Fred's sherry in mind, was bawling matily at him from the cat-run.

  'Theest know what?' he said, suddenly inspired, 'Theest ought to put down some corn theeself. Then theest could let out thic cat... By gorry, he 'ouldn't 'alf be useful...'

  'Oh no he wouldn't,' I said.

  Fred muttered to himself all the way up the hill, but we wouldn't have dreamed of doing any such thing. In particular we wouldn't have let Sass chase Phyllis who, within days of our coming home, had adopted us.

  She was the smallest, drabbest, scrawniest pheasant hen you could ever expect to see, but she had the assurance of a Salvation Army bandswoman. You could well imagine her banging a tambourine as she approached with her deliberate, slow-stalking tread. She did approach us, too, unlike the showier, posturing cock-pheasants who flapped away, squawking their heads off, the moment we got anywhere near them. I only had to open the door to shake out the tablecloth and Phyllis would stroll quietly, unhurriedly, up.

  I could shake the cloth right over her, Phyllis didn't mind; nor was she the least bit concerned about Sass. She must have worked out what his being on a lead meant and when I opened the door to take them out and he shot out like a greyhound from a trap – silently, as was Sass the Mighty Hunter's wont – she knew he couldn't get far. She merely slow-stepped on to the lawn till she was sure we had him under control, then she'd slow-step nonchalantly back – which was heart-warming in that it meant she trusted us but extremely frustrating to Sass, almost nose to beak with a Siamese's idea of heaven and held back by a rotten old collar.

  She was hungry, said Charles. Look at her thin little body. Probably the other pheasants wouldn't let her eat with them. She was obviously attracted to the yard by the crumbs we threw out for the birds, and to us because she knew we put them out. If we put crumbs on the far side of the lawn for her, she wouldn't hang around the door and upset Sass. (Who, when he was indoors, now spent most of his time planning her downfall from the window above the freezer.)

  This meant two lots of crumbs, since we couldn't neglect our regulars. It also meant two lots of crumbs for Phyllis, who followed me across the lawn, ate the lot I put down over there, then stalked back to the yard and joined the sparrows.

  'Corn,' said Charles inspiredly. 'The packet Louisa brought back from Canada for popping – if we gave that to Phyllis she wouldn't bother about the crumbs – that would keep her away from the door.'

  Phyllis appreciated the corn. She waited eagerly for it every morning, following me across the lawn when she saw the packet. Unfortunately when she'd finished that she came back and ate the birds' crumbs anyway and all we had to show for that advancement was that now she expected corn from us as well – how could we stop giving it to her, once we had started? – and Sass was more frustrated than ever. Not only was she mooching unconcernedly around the yard whenever he went out, knowing full well he couldn't get at her, but if he went across the lawn to his favourite hunting corner with me holding on to his lead, he only had to look round and That Pheasant would be following close behind us, thinking that if I was on the lawn it meant corn.

  Other people were beginning to notice her, too, following me around like a domestic hen. Fred Ferry, seeing me throw down the popcorn one morning, said he seed we was following his advice. Oh no we weren't, I said. This one was tame. We were feeding her because she was so thin.

  'Thin?' said Fred. I followed his eyes. I'd got used to thinking of her as scrawny, but Phyllis, on a diet of popcorn and bird crumbs, was now sleek-feathered, practically as broad as she was long and ripe for anybody's table.

  It was November now and shooting had started. I hoped she would stay safe. The other pheasants gradually disappeared – scared off, perhaps, by the guns. Or they might have eaten what wild food there was and moved on to other grounds. Or gone back to the runs for the corn put out by the keeper and, inevitably, been shot.

  Whether Phyllis would escape was in the lap of the gods. I would
not
, I said, grow fond of her. But how could I avoid it – going up, for instance, to clear a bramble patch in Annabel's field and looking up to find her standing quietly watching me. Goodness knows where she had come from; we had no idea where she slept... but when I came back, she followed me down the lane to the cottage, walking like a devoted dog at my heels. Only because she was hoping for corn when we got back, I knew, but how could I
not
get fond of her?

  Charles did too. He didn't think she'd go back to the runs, he said. She was too content in the Valley. Certainly we weren't responsible for her being down here, either – it wasn't our fault she liked the bird crumbs. What he was afraid of was her strolling about in the lane the way she did and somebody coming past and knocking her on the head. He never had liked Fred Ferry's knapsack... Secretly I'd been thinking the same.

  We watched over her through November and on into December, nipping out when Fred Ferry appeared. He seemed to be going past more than ever. Even Father Adams noticed it. One of these days that old Fred'd meet hisself coming back, he observed.

  After the end of December Phyllis would be safe – from guns, at any rate, since the shooting of hen-pheasants ceases then. As for Fred – he wouldn't dare, I said. He knew I had my eye on him. So Phyllis continued, placidly content. She'd eaten her way through the popcorn. 'Better buy her some more,' said Charles. 'Not to get fond of her, mind, but she seems to have taken us on and we can hardly stop feeding her now.'

  Six days before Christmas I bought her a seven-pound bag of corn – and the next day Phyllis disappeared.

Charles said as it was nearing the end of December maybe she'd gone off to find a mate. She wouldn't have vanished as abruptly as that, I said – not when she'd been haunting us the way she had. We'd gone to town the previous afternoon. She'd been on the lawn when we left. Someone had undoubtedly spotted her, knew we were out, and had taken advantage of our absence.

  I was pretty certain who it was, too. I looked meaningly at Fred Ferry when I saw him. I intended calling on
him
on Christmas morning and if the Ferrys were cooking pheasant...

  Fred commented on her absence, too. Naturally he would, I thought. Part of his cover-up. Members of the moonlight fraternity are usually expert in the art of appearing innocent. I thought it a bit thick all the same when he asked where were thic li'l old bird then.

  'Goin' to have her for thee Christmas dinner?' he said. 'I thought thee wussn't feein' her for nothin'.'

  How could he, I thought – but just in case I was wrong I went clucking for her up the lane. Charles searched for her in the orchard – he'd been over there pruning trees a few days previously and had looked up to see her watching him from the nearby path as if she'd come along for company. If she did get broody, he said, that might well be where she'd build her nest, knowing it was our land and safe. She might already have decided on a spot and not be bothering to come down – obviously she'd get shyer as the mating season approached.

  Not a sign. We'd said we wouldn't get fond of her but inevitably, of course, we had. Every time I went out of the door I missed her and wished that she would come back. What a wonderful present it would be if she came back on Christmas Day, I thought, as the short winter days went by and the yard stayed silent and pheasant-less. She wouldn't, of course. Why Christmas Day, anyway? Pheasants didn't know about that. In any case she was probably hanging in Fred Ferry's larder, awaiting her Christmas Day appearance on his table...

  Believe it or not, she did come back on Christmas Day. We were expecting friends and I'd got up early to put the turkey on and gone out to change the cats' boxes – and there she was, padding quietly about in the vegetable garden as if she'd never been away.

  Six days' solid absence. We couldn't think where she could have been. Certainly she couldn't have been thinking of nesting, she was so obviously back to stay. She followed me down the garden, looking for her corn and stayed outside the kitchen door all day. We fed her with tit-bits till they practically came out of her ears and the cats sat in the window and watched her. On the lawn – it was Christmas, so never mind if she dug holes – Annabel ate apples and carrots and Christmas pudding and complacently watched her too.

  'Din' eat her then?' Fred Ferry shouted across, going past in the afternoon. He had a sprig of holly in his cap but why he had his knapsack on his shoulder on Christmas Day... Charles said he probably picked it up automatically and didn't feel right without it – just as whatever day it was he had to have his tramp around the hills. Maybe, I said. Personally I doubted it... Then I remembered how wrong I'd been in suspecting him over Phyllis.

  'Happy Christmas!' I called after him up the hill. Poor Fred. He nearly fell flat in his tracks.

  I was wrong, though, when I said now we were a complete unit again – ourselves, Annabel, the cats and Phyllis. A few days later an enormous cock-pheasant appeared – the most gorgeous we'd ever seen – and started strutting grandly with the little hen on the hillside behind the cottage. He wouldn't venture into the yard, though. When we threw out food and Phyllis came flapping down, he stayed where he was looking anxious.

  So that was where she'd been during those six missing days, we said. Up in the forest courting. She'd certainly picked herself a handsome husband and we were immensely flattered that she'd brought him back. Whether they'd stay together for nesting... we didn't know much about pheasants' habits; there is very little about them in bird books, but it would be nice, we thought, if they did.

  We imagined them bringing the brood down to visit us. Philip, as we named him gracing our lawn. He was as beautiful at close quarters as any peacock. His metallic copper back merged through gold to a glossy green head, his front was gold spotted with black, his tail swept the ground like a train. He had scarlet wattles, two feathered tufts that stuck up on his head like ears... indeed he was a gorgeous fellow. Crossed with an exotic, probably, and how dowdy little Phyllis had managed to attract him... She'd probably told him about the corn, said Charles. And anyway, had I looked at Phyllis properly lately? I looked now. Goodness gracious, she'd grown still more even since Fred Ferry had commented on her – and
her
coat was beautiful too. Probably the result of the way we'd been feeding her. Phyllis had changed from a woebegone waif into a most desirable young pheasant lady.