After the warmth
of her living room the air was so biting that it hurt the lungs. Freezing again,
she thought, as she crossed the few yards to the doorway of the shed. Holding
the torch high she peered into the interior. The animal was still there. It lay
facing the entrance, the wide-open eyes glowing like emeralds. Miss Coker
withdrew, frowning.
Swinging the
torch in a wide arc she studied the walled yard. Its white carpet was unsullied
from corner to corner except for her own heavy prints and the tiny arrow tracks
of birds. And at last she knew what it was that worried her. It was the absence
of paw prints. If the cat had gone out to eat the food provided for it during
the past two days there would be a double set of tracks between the coal shed
and the garden wall. There weren't any. So it had not gone out.
Perhaps it wasn't
hungry. But how could it not be hungry? There were no mice in the shed to her
knowledge. Formerly there were scores of them. They used to eat her carrots and
potatoes and even the daffodil bulbs. But now she no longer stored anything
edible in the shed, so the mice had departed.
She was puzzled
about the cat. It looked very thin. It might be ill, of course. In which case,
in such bitter cold, it would probably not live much longer. Best to leave it
alone and hope that death would come quickly.
Returning to her
living room she banked up the fire and warmed her numbed feet. She picked up her
book, but the words that she was reading made no sense. She began to smoulder
with annoyance, both at herself for being so stupid, and at the wretched
creature that disturbed her peace and would not be rejected. Why doesn't someone
drive it away, she fumed. It's a conspiracy. They're all in it, trying to make
me take it in. Why does it lie there, watching and waiting? I won't give in. Why
should I ? I won't. I won't.
She held out for
one more night and one more day.
During the night
she dreamed that she was taking a tea tray down to her father's workshop in the
basement. He was making an enormous piece of furniture. It looked like a
kind of wardrobe, except that it had a door made of iron. The dream started off
as a funny one but it ended in a way that was frightening. For some reason
they got into the wardrobe to have their tea, and then the iron door slammed and
they couldn't get out. They banged and shouted, but nobody came, and then the
wardrobe, which had been so huge, began to shrink. It became smaller and smaller
till they were crushed together and could hardly breathe, and still no one came
to the rescue.
`Help! Help!'
they screamed.
The cries that
Miss Coker uttered in her sleep, like those of a child in pain, were clearly
audible to the kitten. In that icy stillness every sound was magnified. A
snapping twig was like a gunshot. Even the rustle of roosting sparrows in the
ivy outside the shed reached the animal within. So did the patter of claws as a
big buck rat ran across the roof.
The rat was one
of a foraging party travelling inland like the gulls from the frozen margins
of the estuary.
While probing the
ivy that covered the stonebuilt shed it came upon a hole in the roof. The
storm that had damaged Mr.. Trim's cottage had dislodged a tile on the roof of
the shed. Owing to the thickness of the ivy this had gone unnoticed.
The rat slipped
neatly through the opening on to the beam spanning the structure. It sat for a
moment, nose questing, eyes darting from side to side in the moon-broken dark.
Soon it saw the animal lying motionless on the potato sack. The kitten's eyes
were closed and its body temperature was so low that it gave out no scent.
Concluding that
it was dead, the rat ran a little way along the beam and was about to jump down
and fulfil its natural function of scavenger when the kitten stirred and opened
its eyes. The rat paused and squatted. From this point it had a better view of
the animal below, which was more than twice as big as itself and not dead but
alive. This called for different tactics.
It withdrew to
fetch the other members of the band, two females and a young one, which were
waiting outside. In a few moments all four of them were ranged along the beam,
hairless tails twitching, eyes burning like tiny red coals in the half-dark. The
buck rat was grinding its long yellow teeth. Normally this sound would have
recalled to the kitten one of the worst terrors of its babyhood. But now it
seemed unafraid and lay watching the rats with steadfast calm.
The big one moved
forward an inch or so at a time and the others closed up behind. They were now
directly above and the kitten could smell their breath. Suddenly came a sound
from outside. Yikyik-yik, yik-yik-yik.
Up the outer
wall, over the roof and through the hole, came a pair of stoats, which had
picked up the trail of the rats. Expert little hunters, they wasted no time and
no effort. The rats bunched up together and faced round. The stoats leapt
straight at them, gripping one of the females by the throat. The buck rat came
to her defense but in the constricted space the fight became a scrimmage in
which the dog stoat was knocked off the beam. It was up again in a flash, but
its smaller mate was unable to hold the female rat which broke away followed by
the rest, and they all went streaming out, pursuers and pursued, the squeaking
and yikkering fading with distance till the silence of the winter night closed
in again.
Throughout the
skirmish the kitten made no move. Now it dropped its head on its paws and lay as
before, staring through the open doorway. The moon waned and just before dawn a
line of swans flew past. Honka-honk! They sang, high in the paling sky.
A barn owl
floated out from the elms along the lane, silent as a puff of smoke drifting
from shadow to shadow.
Another day
dawned.
WHAT'S
NEW? 