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Nothing much has happened in the Six Foot recently, except for the kestrel. It was seen hovering two days ago, and yesterday, all in a rush, it swooped down and took a pigeon from next door’s garden. Everyone heard the screams. Alleycat doesn’t mind kestrels, or hawks, unless they get too big for their boots and start to trespass on his territory. Some folk say that cats are the villains of the piece where Mother Nature is concerned (they’re always on the hunt, apparently, looking out for prey) but Alleycat isn’t like that.  He’s a sage, a meditative sort.  He says that it’s Mother Nature who’s responsible and everyone (cats and humans too) have to treat her with respect and understand that She contains them and gave them all their lives (nine if you’re a cat). If a hawk kills a pigeon, or takes a vole, well, that’s Mother Nature for you, red in tooth and claw. There’s nothing to be done about that sort of thing. It’s life. But Alleycat won’t tolerate conflict on his lawns. His lawns are private, sacred to his clan , and he maintains a careful watch on his fences and Bamber’s out all hours (he has his orders) patrolling the Five Streets and putting down markers, while Alleycat remains indoors and sleeps and thinks and lays his plans. When Pink saw the kestrel she was pretty scared, I can tell you. But Alleycat sent Bamber on to the roof of the car-port, to keep watch on the perimeters, and that hawk hasn’t been seen since. He’s probably heard of Alleycat’s great power and understands there are better (meaning safer) places to hunt and trespass than Alleycat’s private lawns.

Time is a funny old thing.  It catches you out.  Memories come back whenever they please and sometimes they surprise you. They never go away, they only seem to.  Take yesterday.  I was at work, getting ready to go home, and suddenly, out of nowhere, I wasn’t there at all,  I was something like eight years old and the school bell was ringing and it was time to go home for tea. Alleycat says that time’s like a long dark corridor with a bright light up ahead.  If you look back you can see the past, the places you’ve already been, because the light is shining towards those things, but if you look ahead the light’s too bright and you can’t see anything because you’re blinded.  He’s full of wise sayings like that.  Sometimes he acts like an ordinary moggie, other times he acts like a sage.  Pink doesn’t act much at all, except like herself.  She’s very happy at the moment because spring has sprung, seemingly, and instead of basking under the reptile lamp on the kitchen table  she can start to wander at large from hot spot to hot spot in the house.

Pink’s playing up. She’s wants to dictate more of her adventures, but I haven’t had time to write them down and she feels I’m slacking.  That’s rich coming from her, the laziest cat in the Five Streets. Anyway, she’s ordered me to stick in and press on regardless of other commitments.  I’ve told her it’s Christmas and I might have to break off and drink some mulled wine or eat some strong cheese, but she’s impatient with that sort of thing and simply won’t tolerate it. This morning when I got up she was waiting for me on the kitchen table with her head in the angle-poise lamp.  She thinks that if she sits there she’ll have a bright idea.  It’s as if the lamp’s lighting up her brain as well as lighting my table, and Pink’s such a strong-minded little cat that she can probably make the light do anything she wants, including inspire her, just as she can require me to write when I ought to be eating Christmas cake. Maybe she’s right, because while she was boiling her brains and egging me on to listen to her, I managed to get another chapter done in draft  and here it is.

It’s been a while since I blogged, but I’ve been hard at work on a story that Pink told me while I was sleeping.  She crept up close while I was dozing in the armchair and whispered in my ear and said I’d better get on and write up some of her better adventures, not the latest ones, but the ones she had when she was younger.  Pink isn’t altogether stupid.  Mostly she just pretends to be silly because it means she can avoid difficult and lengthy tasks by claiming they’re beyond her.  But she’s clever really and she knows stuff.  She was quite right about the story.  I’d been letting things slide and it was high time I got to work.  Here’s a link to what she dictated.  While I was writing it Pink perched somewhat cheekily on the back of my office chair and watched what I was typing, in case I got anything wrong, and if there was anything she didn’t approve of she chirruped a warning and told me to blot.

Pink’s had a shock.  All the animals have.  It’s all because of the bears, who’ve suddenly appeared and started to spread across the house. But now and then I wonder if there’s something hidden in the dark that the bears are just a symptom of.  Alleycat’s resorted to purely practical, military measures.  He drills the dogs and makes them line up and gives them instructions to watch and guard and report any weirdness; but dogs aren’t the type to take instruction, and Alleycat’s just marking time in my opinion.  But he’s done more too.  He’s been in dark places, under the floor (we’ve heard him down there) and he’s been in the cupboards too, searching for a reason, or a sign.  But oddly enough it’s Pink who’s trying hardest. She might seem a lazy and vain little cat, but she sits by my PC and stares at the keyboard as if she’d love to write me a message, and last night she appeared in a dream and spoke to me urgently, not in a miaow, but in actual human words. Unfortunately when I awoke I couldn’t remember what she said. That’s how it is with dreams. They’re different.

Maybe it’s because it’s Halloween, but there’s a presence in the house, and Pink keeps looking behind her, scared of her own shadow. Last night she was with the dogs on the big yellow sofa, just as normal, when a nasty, grisly, horrid sensation gripped her and she wanted to turn around and look but she was too scared to move. The dogs felt the same as she did. Normally they’ll bark at the smallest disturbance (like a leaf blowing across the lawn) but they were so scared they couldn’t make a sound and it took all of Bernie’s courage to call for Alleycat with a little yapping bark. Alleycat ran in from the kitchen, but of course he’d been fast asleep and he’s not as quick as he used to be, so when he arrived on the scene there was no sign of uncanny intruders or walking shadows at all. You can imagine he didn’t take too kindly to be woken up for nothing, but Berne and Lucy were adamant that they seen (or felt) something nasty, and Bernie decided to put on her quilted jacket for extra protection and Lucy and Pink begged Alleycat to stay close and help them to settle down. As soon as they felt confident enough to be left alone, Alleycat returned to his gentleman’s chair in the kitchen, where he went straight back to sleep. But he must have half-believed that something was amiss because he kept one ear open, and presently he heard a weird, unaccountable sound that wasn’t normal at all, and he woke himself up to find a rather sinister looking bear snooping around the kitchen. As soon as it realized that Alleycat was on to it, the bear tried to escape through the outside door, but Alleycat chased it into the house and made it stay there. He’ll be questioning it later and that bear had better be sorry for frightening Pink and promise to mend its ways, or I wouldn’t like to think how angry Alleycat will be with that miscreant night-wanderer.

It’s business as usual in the Six Foot. Or is it? Pink’s retreated indoors, and the dogs are looking after her. Most of the time Alleycat’s glued to his gentleman’s chair in the garden, but Bamber’s decided he’s got to increase his patrols, and he’s also delved a lair for himself in the jasmine, overlooking the Six Foot itself. That’s his chosen spot.Indoors, the bears are reproducing. Don’t ask me why. They’re spreading over the furniture and generally taking over the house, whilst out in the world the black and white cats increase numerically, though sheer numbers aren’t the same as strength of arms and that’s why Alleycat isn’t worried and seldom moves from his easy chair. Bamber must be worried a bit though, or else he wouldn’t have built his look-out post above the garden gate, so he can watch for all-comers and cry to Alleycat if hostiles approach or seem to threaten. No one’s dared to encroach so far, and if they do Alleycat has plans. One thing I’ve noticed is that he’s getting fatter. Years ago he was poisoned and almost died (lots of local cats perished) but Alleycat survived. He lost a lot of weight back then, but his power and wisdom were so great that he lived through it all and learned to be even lazier (and wiser). Now he’s rebuilding his fat reserves in anticipation of a hard winter (or something like that) and being lazy is his secret weapon. So really, now that I think of it there’s quite a bit happening in the Six Foot after all.

The cats are sharing the house with a gang of teddy bears who’ve appeared as if by magic on the sofa and (more worryingly) on the mantelpiece. The bears sit and stare and rarely move, and they’re a bit like the cats in the way they manage to retain their composure no matter what happens around them. Nothing can make them stir a limb or move a muscle, and that’s quite all right by Bamber, who lies among them and sleeps right next to them. But Pink is uncertain and feels a little uncomfortable in their presence; she sometimes stares at them quizzically, as if she can’t understand what it means to be a teddy bear and even when she’s cleaning her paws she’s thinking about them. Alleycat’s reaction is different. He has no reaction at all. He carries on sleeping in the gentlemen’s club chairs in the garden and he hasn’t come indoors to speak to the teddy bears since they first appeared. I think he’s waiting for them to come to him.

Pink thinks everything becomes her. Some animals change colour to match their surroundings, but Pink’s surroundings change texture and hue according to her whim and fancy. In her youth she was abject and easy to upset. I found her once on the worktop in the utility room, crying because one of the local cats had been nasty to her. She slept on my pillow that night, and for many nights afterwards, and sometimes I think I may have given her too much confidence and paid her too much attention for her own good, because now it’s all so different and instead of being a shrinking violet she’s a little tyrant. In the old days even Bamber used to bully her a bit, because that’s what boys are like. Alleycat used to wonder if she could really be one of us (meaning one of the Ginge Club) and when she went out of doors we worried that she’d never come back – she was that weak and puny. But now the Ginge Club are all at her command and she’s their Queen and even Alleycat does her bidding and makes way for her.  Her glass might have started off empty but it didn’t stay empty for long, and these days it only takes one look from her for her cup to fill up with her favourite liqueur just simply because she wills it so.

Even our kitchen is PINK!
And our glassware is PINK TOO!

Do cats rate chips?  Bamber does.  I gave him a chip on my fork and he lapped it up. I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I did. For the last month we’ve been in the throes of getting a new kitchen installed, and during the whole of that time we haven’t had water in the taps.  Hence we’ve relied on processed food and home cooking has eaten dust.  But Bamber loves rubbish food, he loves fatty chips, meat products laced with bad chemicals and oozy fatty liquors.  And that’s what this episode has taught us. It’s also reminded us how stubborn he is.  He refused to give up asking until he’d had his chips.  He sat on the edge of my plate and demanded them until he was given.

This afternoon we couldn’t find Lucy.  We didn’t think she’d be anywhere except in the house, but one of the neighbours called over the fence to say she was out in the Six Foot, running up and down.  She’d been ignoring us.  We ran outside and saw Pink a few feet away,  looking down from a high fence post.  That little cat had been there all the time, watching and acting important and we realized that she’d tempted poor Lucy to slide under the gate and run over the lawned garden where the cats hold court; and once past that gate you can see the Six Foot through Alleycat’s hedges. You can bet Lucy didn’t hesitate when Pink showed her how to negotiate the twisted boughs and the prickly spears of hawthorn that stand guard on Alleycat’s turf.  Bernie didn’t miss her daughter at all and was quite happy to be on the sofa alone, without Lucy getting in the way and demanding our attentions.  There she is in the video, pleased as Punch.