I wished him a weak good afternoon and, when he'd passed me, began to follow back behind him, hoping to meet up with Charles and Annabel and thus prove I wasn't loitering with intent. Alas, when I got to the corner where they should have been, there was no sign of either of them. I guessed at once where they were. Just beyond the corner was a deserted Forestry cottage. When people lived in it Annabel was always embarrassing us, if we didn't remember to put her on her halter first, by running through their back gate and galloping round their garden. She hadn't done it for ages, but I had no doubt that that was where she was now – and that Charles, not realising how suspicious it looked, had disappeared in there after her.
I called to him – frightening the Forestry man, who hadn't realised how close I was behind him, practically out of his wits. Placatingly I explained that my husband had gone back to look for our donkey and now they'd both disappeared. Presumably into the cottage garden, I said, and I'd better go in and look for them.
'I can see a bloke dodging about in the garden', was the reply. 'But I can't see no donkey'. I couldn't see no donkey either, until – yelling my head off to Charles and (which looked even more suspicious) getting not one peep in reply – I went round behind the cottage and there he was, too breathless to speak, chasing Annabel round and round the garden.
Eventually, after a great deal of running, we rounded her up; I pantingly enquiring of Charles why on earth he had to go in there just when there was a patrol man about who no doubt thought he was concealing a stolen tree, while Charles panted back how the Devil else was he going to get her out?
Things weren't improved meanwhile by my noticing the patrol man crouched behind the hedge and periodically peering over the top of it, undoubtedly checking on whether there really was a donkey in the garden with us.
It was a very docile Annabel we led on her halter for the remainder of the trip – during which, needless to say, we met no further patrol men at all. Charles said of course we couldn't have looked suspicious. All I knew was that I hadn't seen that particular Forestry man before. He obviously didn't know us, either, or that we owned a donkey. And for safety's sake – though we always buy it from the greengrocer anyway – I insisted that we didn't have a tree that year. I had no wish to have my Christmas festivities interrupted – undoubtedly just when the Rector was with us, having an after-church sherry on Christmas morning by the local constable and Forestry chief coming to uproot it from its pot to check on its identity.
SIX
When Winter Comes
The snow started on Boxing night. We were on our way home from Charles's brother's party when the first few flakes began to fall. Congratulating ourselves that we'd got Christmas over before it started and there were still two days yet before we need think of getting through it to town, we swept down to the valley, put the car into the garage, and couldn't get it out again for a fortnight. Even after that we were only able to take advantage of a break in the weather to get it towed up to the farm at the top of the hill and use it, when practicable, from there. Six weeks in all we were snow-bound in the valley, and as a study in character it was fascinating.
There were the Hazells, for instance, who lived up the lane beyond us. This was their first winter in the valley and Jim Hazell absolutely revelled in it. Every time we looked out of the window he was trudging past dressed like a prospector in the Yukon. Up the hill to get the groceries, which he towed back down to the valley on a sledge. Up the hill to get a film – three miles it was to the nearest chemist's shop, but it was worth it, he said, to get the scenery. Up the hill to the Rose and Crown, where Father Adams encouraged him nightly by prophesying that it would be worse than ever tomorrow.
True to the pioneering spirit Jim was first, after the night when it drifted ten feet deep by the church, to climb over the top to the road. First, when it was obvious that the lane would be blocked for days, to have his car towed out by tractor across the fields. As a result he was also first to break his back axle on a frozen furrow and, pushing the car down the main road to the garage for repair, he slipped and hurt his knee. He passed our window at breakfast time like Jack London en route for Alaska. At lunch time he limped past in the other direction like Napoleon on the retreat from Moscow. But still he pioneered on.
A few nights later he prospected up to the Rose and Crown for his usual discussion about the weather and, while he was there, a blizzard sprang up. Half an hour later he came out into the night and headed homewards. A hundred yards along the top lane his knee gave way and he fell into the snow. The wind howled, the snow lashed like driven needles against his face, but still he got up and staggered on. He must have fallen a dozen times, he told us later, and when we asked why he hadn't come into us for help he said, in the best pioneering tradition, that he'd had to get home to Janet.
Actually he got as far as his gateway, where his wife, hearing faint cries for help above the play she was listening to on the radio, opened the door and found him practically frozen rigid on the path. She dragged him in, laid him in front of the fire to thaw him out, and bandaged his recalcitrant knee. Jolly tough stuff was Jim. Next day he was pioneering up the hill again as hard as ever and when, a while later, we heard that Janet was expecting in the autumn Father Adams said he weren't a bit surprised. Give some folk energy, the cold weather, he said.
Father Adams pioneered too, but more slowly. Mornings he trudged up the hill in his balaclava and war surplus overcoat, with an additional woollen scarf over the balaclava and, on particularly slippery days, old sacks tied for foot grip over his boots. He was helping the Council workmen clear the roads – the usual expedient of the countryman when the land itself is out of commission. When Jim complained that they hadn't got round to clearing the snowdrift by the church Father Adams said no, nor they hadn't fallen down nor broken their axles, neither, which kept Jim quiet for quite a while.
Miss Wellington was in her element. She had a thing about snow and every year she rang the Council at the sight of the first snowflake demanding that they come out and grit the lane. The Council having more vital matters to attend to, it was usually some days before they got round to us, and the next step was Miss Wellington attending to it herself up and down she bustled with her buckets of ashes, ladling them carefully with a hearth shovel not only on the part of the lane that led outwards to the main road, but backwards, down the hill to us. Why she wanted to get down to the valley – as far as he was concerned he wouldn't mind being cut off from she till Whitsun twelvemonth was Father Adams's comment when he saw her – goodness only knows. But there she was. Scraping away at the snow till the under-part shone like an ice-rink. Hacking, one bitter day, a series of steps down the side of the hill with a coal hammer, down which steps Father Adams, not knowing they were there, slid like a seal on his way home at night and wished Miss Wellington to eternity as he sat at the bottom in the snow.
Undaunted, she exhorted the rest of us to follow her example. She rang Charles one night about the drift by the church. People couldn't get through it, she explained to him earnestly. She couldn't ask the Hazells to work on it, she said. Mr Hazell had already got his car out across the fields and it wouldn't be fair to ask him. She couldn't ask the people down the lane. Their car was stuck in a snowdrift with its battery flat and quite unusable. She couldn't ask Father Adams. When Charles asked why she said she wouldn't demean herself and passed on to the upshot of her idea, which was that Charles, whom she was sure was anxious to get his car out, should dig his way through the snowdrift for the benefit of the community.
Apart from being ten feet deep, the snowdrift was a good fifty yards long. Charles said if he dug his way through that lot he'd be no benefit to anybody, he'd be in hospital, and after that Miss Wellington didn't demean herself by speaking to him for a week or two, either.
Meanwhile, until the snow-plough got to us, the drift was one of the local sights. People climbed it until there was a hard-packed track across it like a mountain path. We took Annabel over it one S
unday, by way of experiment, and she crossed it as sure-footedly as a goat. Single file – with Charles in front, me behind and Annabel in the middle – Annabel, we discovered, would go anywhere in the snow.
She was doing a Sarah Siddons again, of course. Annabel Crossing the Snowdrift... Annabel Doing King Wenceslas (which involved treading carefully in Charles's footsteps, head demurely bent, taking no notice whatsoever of the plaudits of passers-by)... Annabel Coming Down From The Snowdrift (a sort of Conquest of Everest in reverse in which, back to ground level but still with modestly downcast eyes, Annabel accepted apples and bullseyes from anybody who had them, allowed herself to be petted, and snorted deprecatingly to show how simple it had been)... We had all her acts in turn, but at least she got some exercise.
So – at times rather more than we expected – did we.
There was the day, for instance, when, exhilarated by the way she'd gone over the church drift, we decided to bring her back via another. Through the drift on this occasion, for it was in a lane unused by anyone, but it was only about two feet deep and as we forged our way through the virgin snow – Annabel behind us this time, while we broke the trail ahead of her – we felt like Yukon prospectors ourselves. Unfortunately it got deeper as we went on. Soon we were pushing through it more than waist-deep, Annabel obediently behind us – until, in a particularly stubborn spot, I happened to look back to see her standing with her head laid resignedly on the snowdrift, her eyes closed, and her nose a peculiar indigo blue.
We'd read that a donkey in a tight corner can make up its mind to die and do so, but this was the first time we'd experienced it ourselves. By the colour of her nose Annabel had decided to die pretty fast, too. We scooped the snow panic-strickenly away from her with our hands, pivoted her on her hind legs and carried her, stiff as a ramrod, back to open country as fast as we could stagger. She recovered as quickly as she'd wilted, of course. Ten yards out from the drift her nose was back to normal and she was capering happily in the snow trying to bite our ankles. Only we, having, in our extremity, lifted a small fat donkey who for years we hadn't even been able to push, were feeling the worse for wear. Didn't run about and enjoy ourselves very much, did we? enquired Annabel disappointedly when we refused to play.
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!
Raining Cats and Donkeys Page 5
