AWAKENED next day
by intensified cold and hunger the kitten crept out of the shed into a strange
white world. Snow lay everywhere as far as the eye could see. The outlines of
the frozen pond and the familiar tracks across the green were quite lost. It was
a different landscape. The kitten did not know what to make of it at all. The
very ground underfoot had undergone some strange transformation. It was yielding,
treacherous, alarming. After a cautious examination that failed to solve the
mystery the kitten returned to the shed.
It had no food
that day. Even if it had dared to venture as far as the green the journey would
have been fruitless. The storm had driven a flock of gulls inland from the
estuary and they circled incessantly over the hamlet waiting to swoop on the
poultry yards at feeding time. Wheeling and crying, they rode the wind over the
tossing trees, watching every movement below. When Mr. Trim came from his back
door with the chicken pail he had to fight them off, waving his arms and
shouting threats. They were savage with hunger, for the ploughlands where they
normally fed in rough weather were frozen hard. The sparrows that lived in the
ivy were afraid to fly to the windowsill for breakfast crumbs. The raiders from
the sea were there almost before the window closed. Having snatched the crumbs
they beat their hard wings on the pane and stared into the room with pale cold
eyes.
The kitten lay
quietly watching the white flakes swirling in the space between the doorway of
the shed and the back door of the cottage. It was still feeling the effects of
its fright in the spinney and needed more sleep for full recovery. It was
waiting for daylight to fade, for on the previous evening the kitten had made a
marvellous discovery. Miss Coker's back door had a glass panel through which
light shone into the yard from her kitchen, presenting to the occupant of the
coal shed a glowing golden rectangle. The kitten lay basking happily in the
delusion that heat as well as radiance came from it, stirring up memories of the
lamplit caravan.
During the night
the wind dropped and the sky cleared. The cottagers wakened to an ice-blue
glittering
morning, a grand day for a shopping excursion to the market town. The snow was
crisp and firm underfoot. A little party set off soon after breakfast, the
children in wool caps pulled over their ears, sliding and shouting and being
scolded for making the path slippery.
Miss Coker heard
them go by.
`Off to spend
their money on rubbish,' she said with a sniff. She often spoke her thoughts
aloud, though she tried to curb the habit. She was well aware that people who
talked to themselves were supposed to be mad.
She needed to go
to the village that morning to buy batteries for her radio. Having put on her
mackintosh and boots she went to the shed for her bicycle. It was then that
she Found the striped kitten. Angrily she shooed it out. It went a little way,
then turned and looked at her and mewed. She shouted at it, 'Go away ! Go on -
away with you!'
So unusual was it
for any sound to disturb the silence of Miss Coker's domain that Mr.. Reece, who
was up and about but not yet well enough to go back to work, came over to see if
the old girl was in trouble. When he saw the cause of the outburst he chuckled.
'So that's where
it got to, the artful little cuss.'
`Who does this
animal belong to?' Miss Coker demanded.
`Don't belong to
nobody. Bin knockin' at all our doors, like, asking someone to take it in.'
`Well, I won't.
And what's more, I won't have it hanging round here. I don't like cats. If I
did, I'd have got one years ago.'
'No one's
expecting you to feed it,' Mr. Reece explained patiently. 'My missus'll go on
doing that. She's not one to see an animal starve. But 'twouldn't hurt you to
let it sleep here while the cold's so bitter. They feel the cold, cats do, same
as humans. Come the summer I dare say it'll run off to the woods.'
'It can run where
it likes. I won't have it in my shed.'
Mr. Reece pushed
back his cap and gave her what he later described as 'a sarky look'. Then he
shifted his gaze pointedly to the gaping doorway of the shed.
'Puzzle you to
keep it out, seems to me.' He followed this up with a parting shaft as he
walked off. 'I'd have offered to come and hang the door for yer, seeing it's
only five days to Christmas and a time for folks to be neighbourly. But I
misremembered. I've got other things to do.'
Miss Coker was
left trembling with rage. She tried to prop the door in the entrance, but it was
made of old ship's timbers and was so heavy that she could not lift more than
one corner of it.
`Right old tartar
she is,' Bert Reece said, recounting the episode to his family when they
returned with their shopping at the end of the morning.
`Why don't she
like cats? Did she say?' asked Jinny.
'No she didn't. I
reckon she don't like nothing nor nobody. I reckon she's a bit batty. One day
there'll be a van come to take her away to the 'sylum, you see if there ain't.'
`Can't come soon
enough for me,' said Mrs. Reece
WHAT'S
NEW? 