The New Boy

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There was nothing, that last summer, to warn us of the sadness that lay so short a while ahead.

True, Sheba had been ill the previous autumn. ‘Kid ney trouble’ the Vet had diagnosed after examining her. And when he told us gently that she was now an elderly cat, that her kidneys were very much enlarged but that with treatment and careful diet we might, if we were lucky, have her with us for another year – we were numbed at the prospect of the future without her.

For thirteen years life in our West Country cottage had been dominated by a pair of Siamese cats: Sheba, the clever one; tiny, blue-pointed and as fragile as a flower: Solomon, her noisy brother; seal-pointed, huge, our bumble-footed clown.

Every inch of the place held a memory of them doing something. Sheba playing tag with us on the coalhouse roof 7

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25/05/2006 14:24:36

The New Boy

on a summer’s night, for instance. Hanging over the edge bawling she was Here, we weren’t to go in without her or the Foxes might Get Her – and then, as we reached up to lift her down, retreating light-heartedly to another corner saying Ha! ha! That one fooled us, didn’t it? She wasn’t afraid of Foxes…

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