A Comfort Of Cats

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There was a time when the sitting-room of our small West Country cottage would have done credit to a Christmas card with its white walls, dark-beamed ceiling, wine-coloured carpet, chairs covered in pale green rose-patterned linen and here and there a cherished piece of family china or glass – but that was before we had Siamese cats.

  The Copeland cabbage-leaf bowl belonging to Charles's grandmother which stood in one of the wide-silled windows, for instance... that departed from the family inheritance when our first Siamese, Sugieh, had kittens and some friends whom we invited to see them brought their own Siamese, James, along as well.

  Until then Sugieh and James had been the best of friends. She'd stayed with him as a kitten herself, while we were on holiday, and with the air of an indulgent elder brother he'd taught her to dig holes in the garden (she'd previously thought you went indoors to your earthbox for that); how to climb trees (within no time she was zooming up and down like a particularly ebullient piece of thistledown while he was hopelessly stuck); how to add a touch of Siamese variety to the everyday things of life... To quote one example the pair of them chose, entirely of their own accord, to sleep together in the cabinet of a record-player whose works had gone for repair. It was in the dining-room and according to James's owners the effect when people came to supper and two Siamese heads suddenly appeared through the hole where the turntable should have been – one big, dark and gravely contemplative, the other small, blue and spectacularly cross-eyed – was quite demoralising. More than one guest missed aim with his soup spoon as a result.

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