I think youre right, I said as we returned to the kitchen.
Anyway, the poor little things have had a good feed. I dont suppose well see them again.
But I was wrong. Two days later, the trio reappeared. In the same place, peeping from the bushes, looking hungrily towards the kitchen window.
Helen fed them again, the mother cat still fiercely forbidding her kittens to leave the bushes, and once more they darted away when we tried to approach them. When they came again next morning, Helen turned to me and smiled.
I think weve been adopted, she said.
She was right. The three of them took up residence in the log shed and after a few days the mother allowed the kittens to come down to the food bowls, shepherding them carefully all the way. They were still quite tiny, only a few weeks old. One was black and white, the other tortoiseshell. Helen fed them for a fortnight, but they remained unapproachable creatures.
Then one morning, as I was about to go on my rounds, she called me into the kitchen.
She pointed through the window. What do you make of that?
I looked and saw the two kittens in their usual position under the bushes, but there was no mother cat.
Thats strange, I said. Shes never let them out of her sight before.
The kittens had their feed and I tried to follow them as they ran away, but I lost them in the long grass, and although I searched all over the field there was no sign of them or their mother. We never saw the mother cat again and Helen was quite upset.
What on earth can have happened to her? she murmured a few days later as the kittens ate their morning meal.
Could be anything, I replied. Im afraid the mortality rate for wandering cats is very high. She could have been run over by a car or had some other accident. Im afraid well never know.
Helen looked again at the little creatures crouched side by side, their heads in the bowl.
Do you think shes just abandoned them?
Well, its possible. She was a maternal and caring little thing and I have a feeling she looked around till she could find a good home for them. She didnt leave till she saw that they could fend for themselves and maybe shes returned to her outside life now. She was a real wild one.
It remained a mystery, but one thing was sure: the kittens were installed for good. Another thing was sure: they would never be domesticated. Try as we might, we were never able to touch them, and all our attempts to wheedle them into the house were unavailing.
One wet morning, Helen and I looked out of the kitchen window at the two of them sitting on the wall, waiting for their breakfast, their fur sodden, their eyes nearly closed against the driving rain.
Poor little things, Helen said, I cant bear to see them out there, wet and cold, we must get them inside.
How? Weve tried often enough.
Oh, I know, but lets have another go. Maybe theyll be glad to come in out of the rain.
We mashed up a dish of fresh fish, an irresistible delicacy to cats. I let them have a sniff and they were eager and hungry, then I placed the dish just inside the back door before retreating out of sight. But as we watched through the window the two of them sat motionless in the downpour, their eyes fixed on the fish, but determined not to go through the door. That, clearly, was unthinkable.
All right, you win, I said and put the food on the wall where it was immediately devoured.
I was staring at them with a feeling of defeat when Herbert Platt, one of the local dustmen, came round the corner. At the sight of him the kittens scurried away and Herbert laughed. Ah see youve taken on them cats. Thats some nice stuff theyre getting to eat.
Yes, but they wont come inside to get it.
He laughed again. Aye, and they never will. Ahve known that family o cats for years, and all their ancestors.
I saw that mother cat when she first came, and before that she lived at awd Mrs. Caleys over the hill and ah remember that uns mother before her, down at Billy Tates farm. Ah can go back donkeys years with them cats.
Gosh, is that so?
Aye, it is, and Ive never seen one
o that strain that would go inside a house. Theyre wild, real wild.
Ah well, thanks, Herbert, that explains a lot.
He smiled and hoisted a bin.
Ahll get off, then, and they can finish their breakfast.
Well, thats it, Helen, I said. Now we know. Theyre always going to be outside, but at least we can try to improve their accommodation.
The thing we called the log shed, where I had laid some straw for them to sleep, wasnt a shed at all. It had a roof, but was open all down one side, with widely spaced slats on the other three sides. It allowed a constant through-wind which made it a fine place for drying out the logs but horribly draughty as a dwelling. I went up the grassy slope and put up a sheet of plywood as a wind-break. Then I built up a mound of logs into a protective zariba around the straw bed and stood back, puffing slightly. Right, I said. Theyll be quite cozy in there now.
Helen nodded in agreement, but she had gone one better. Behind my wind-break, she put down an open-sided box with cushions inside.