Cats in May
Authors: Doreen Tovey
“A chaotic, hilarious, and heart-wrenching love affair with this most characterful of feline breeds.”
—
The People’s Friend on Cats in the Belfry
“If you read
Cats in the Belfry
the first time round, be prepared to be enchanted all over again. If you haven’t, then expect to laugh out loud, shed a few tears, and be totally captivated by Doreen’s stories of her playful and often naughty Siamese cats.”
—
Your Cat
magazine
“An invasion of mice prompted Tovey and her husband to acquire a cat—or rather for Sugieh to acquire them. A beautiful Siamese, Sugieh turned out to be a tempestuous, iron-willed prima donna who soon had her running circles around her. And that’s before she had kittens! A funny and poignant reflection of life with a Siamese, that is full of cheer.”
—
The Good Book Guide
on
Cats in the Belfry
“Cats in the Belfry
will ring bells with anyone who’s ever been charmed—or driven to distraction—by a feline.”
—
The Weekly News
“A warm, witty, and moving cat classic. A must for all cat lovers.”
—
Living for Retirement
on
Cats in the Belfry
“Absolutely enchanting … I thoroughly recommend it … One of the few books which caused me to laugh out loud, and it sums up the Siamese character beautifully.”
—
www.summerdown.co.uk
on
Cats in the Belfry
“Every so often, there comes along a book—or if you’re lucky, books—which gladden the heart, cheer the soul, and actually immerse the reader in the narrative. Such books are written by Doreen Tovey.”
—
Cat World
Also by Doreen Tovey
Cats in the Belfry
Donkey Work
Life with Grandma
Raining Cats and Donkeys
The New Boy
Double Trouble
Making the Horse Laugh
The Coming of Saska
A Comfort of Cats
Roses Round the Door
Waiting in the Wings
Cats in May
Doreen Tovey
llustrations by Dan Brow
St. Martin’s Press
New York
CATS IN MAY
. Copyright © 1959 by Doreen Tovey. Illustrations © 2008 by Dan Brown. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Design by Kathryn Parise
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-37649-9
ISBN-10: 0-312-37649-9
First published in the United Kingdom by Elek Books
First published in the United States by Bantam Books
First St. Martin’s Press Edition: May 2008
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OneSeen Him on Television?It was stupid to write about those cats, of course. All it did—like getting their names in the Sunday papers was make them worse than ever.
In the old days when people stopped to talk to us over the cottage gate the cats usually disappeared immediately. Particularly if they thought anybody wanted to talk about them.
Got a mouse to catch, Sheba would say, marching determinedly up the garden when people pleaded for a closer view of the dear little Blue Siamese. Going for a
Walk, roared Solomon, beating it rapidly into the woods when somebody remarked what a big man he was and did he bite. Wasn’t coming back Ever, he would add when people committed the unforgivable insult and asked—as they often did, because he was so big and dark and Sheba so small and silvery—whether he was her mother. Often after the visitors had gone I would go after him into the woods and there he’d be, sitting forlornly under a pine tree as only a Siamese can wondering, he said sadly as I heaved him over my shoulder and carried him back to the cottage, whether to go and live with the foxes or join the Foreign Legion.
Fame changed all that. Any time anybody stopped to talk to us now, even if it was only the coal man asking whether he should come through the front gate or the back, within seconds they would materialise from nowhere: Sheba streaking down the path in a cloud of dust, skidding to a breathless halt on the wall to ask coyly whether they had read about her, Solomon swaying round the corner on long, languid legs to assure anybody who was interested that he had written it all himself.
How that cat could do it I don’t know. Every single sentence of that book had been written—unless I locked him out of the house, when he sat on the garden wall gazing at passers-by with sad blue eyes and telling them that he was unwanted, or shut him in the garage where he sat and screamed blue murder—to the accompaniment of Solomon leaping round the place like an overgrown grasshopper, saying the typewriter was bad for his nerves.
I felt like a criminal every time I used it. Sometimes, indeed, seeing him stretched out on the rug with the firelight playing on his sleek cream stomach and his great black head pillowed blissfully on Sheba’s small blue one, I would sneak upstairs and tap out a few lines in the spare room rather than disturb him. It was no use. Solomon, deaf as a post when he was in the woods and I, trying to get him in, was rushing up and down the lane yodelling ‘Tollywollywolly’ like something out of
Autumn Crocus
(it was the only call he would answer and the fact that it made people look at me rather oddly and back rapidly up the lane again was no doubt his idea of a huge Siamese joke)—Solomon, when it came to typewriters, had ears like a hawk.