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Authors: Doreen Tovey
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cheek to cheek like the kittens you see on Christmas cards. They were always locked in a close embrace trying hard to kick the daylights out of one another.
  Their sister had decided on her career, too. She, when she left us, was going to be a vamp. She was already practising hard on Charles and the boy who did the garden. At night she spent long periods sitting on Charles's knee, gazing into his face with half-closed eyes and swaying with passion when he looked at her. At weekends, while Sidney cut the grass or hoed the potatoes, she languished determinedly round his neck and caused him to slow down his 3/6 per hour output by fifty per cent in case she fell off. She held long, intimate conversations with both of them which ceased abruptly when I appeared â and the net result was that when any reference was made to putting the kittens up for sale Charles and Sidney, with their girlfriend preening herself complacently in the background, looked at me as if I were a Gorgon.
  There were, however, still a few weeks before we needed to think seriously of selling the kittens. In the meantime, with a sense of relief mixed, on my part, with considerable foreboding, we had arranged to go away for Whitsun. The foreboding arose from the fact that, not liking to ask the Smiths to take them after that catastrophic tea party, we had booked Sugieh and the kittens in at the cattery where she had been mated. It was a place run specially for Siamese, where they would have their own chalet and an enormous run to themselves. Undoubtedly they would be happy there. The only snag was that it was forty miles away.
  I worried about that. I worried so much that every morning for a week I woke up at the crack of dawn sweating at the very thought. Charles, of course, was as optimistic as ever. Somebody had told him it was possible to get tranquillisers for cats. He would get one, he said, from the vet. He would give it to Sugieh himself. The kittens could travel in a basket on the back seat, and Sugieh would doze quietly on my lap all the way to Halstock. It was as simple as that.
  It might have been if he'd asked for a tranquilliser for an elephant. For the first twenty minutes of the journey indeed we did have perfect peace, with Sugieh dreamily gazing over my shoulder at the passing trees and nothing but a gentle scuffling from the back. Then the effect wore off, and in a second we were back in our usual state with those cats. Complete pandemonium. Sugieh was tearing round and round the car like a greyhound screaming not only had she been Kidnapped, she'd been Drugged and where were her precious Children; Charles was shouting to get hold of her for Pete's sake or she'd have us in a crash; the kittens, entering enthusiastically into the fun, had their faces pressed to the airholes of the basket screaming Here they Were, Mum! In here! and I was quietly howling my head off.
  How we finished that journey I never knew. We tried going slowly. It made no difference except that it gave passers-by more chance to gawk. We tried going fast â and Sugieh threw herself hysterically under the clutch pedal and nearly killed the lot of us. We put her in the basket with the kittens, thinking they might calm her down, and within fifty yards we had to stop and take her out again before she trampled them to death. Then, no sooner had we got her out and strapped the basket of kittens up again than there was one almighty screech â and Solomon pushed his big, stupid head clean through an airhole and hung there like a stuffed trophy on a wall, choking rapidly and screaming in terror.
  That was one of the worst moments of my life. Even Charles seemed to have gone mad. He leapt out of the car, slamming the door so that Sugieh couldn't follow him, and began frantically turning his pockets out on the grass. He was, he shouted, when I asked what he was doing, looking for a penknife. The only way to rescue Solomon was to
  Their sister had decided on her career, too. She, when she left us, was going to be a vamp. She was already practising hard on Charles and the boy who did the garden. At night she spent long periods sitting on Charles's knee, gazing into his face with half-closed eyes and swaying with passion when he looked at her. At weekends, while Sidney cut the grass or hoed the potatoes, she languished determinedly round his neck and caused him to slow down his 3/6 per hour output by fifty per cent in case she fell off. She held long, intimate conversations with both of them which ceased abruptly when I appeared â and the net result was that when any reference was made to putting the kittens up for sale Charles and Sidney, with their girlfriend preening herself complacently in the background, looked at me as if I were a Gorgon.
  There were, however, still a few weeks before we needed to think seriously of selling the kittens. In the meantime, with a sense of relief mixed, on my part, with considerable foreboding, we had arranged to go away for Whitsun. The foreboding arose from the fact that, not liking to ask the Smiths to take them after that catastrophic tea party, we had booked Sugieh and the kittens in at the cattery where she had been mated. It was a place run specially for Siamese, where they would have their own chalet and an enormous run to themselves. Undoubtedly they would be happy there. The only snag was that it was forty miles away.
  I worried about that. I worried so much that every morning for a week I woke up at the crack of dawn sweating at the very thought. Charles, of course, was as optimistic as ever. Somebody had told him it was possible to get tranquillisers for cats. He would get one, he said, from the vet. He would give it to Sugieh himself. The kittens could travel in a basket on the back seat, and Sugieh would doze quietly on my lap all the way to Halstock. It was as simple as that.
  It might have been if he'd asked for a tranquilliser for an elephant. For the first twenty minutes of the journey indeed we did have perfect peace, with Sugieh dreamily gazing over my shoulder at the passing trees and nothing but a gentle scuffling from the back. Then the effect wore off, and in a second we were back in our usual state with those cats. Complete pandemonium. Sugieh was tearing round and round the car like a greyhound screaming not only had she been Kidnapped, she'd been Drugged and where were her precious Children; Charles was shouting to get hold of her for Pete's sake or she'd have us in a crash; the kittens, entering enthusiastically into the fun, had their faces pressed to the airholes of the basket screaming Here they Were, Mum! In here! and I was quietly howling my head off.
  How we finished that journey I never knew. We tried going slowly. It made no difference except that it gave passers-by more chance to gawk. We tried going fast â and Sugieh threw herself hysterically under the clutch pedal and nearly killed the lot of us. We put her in the basket with the kittens, thinking they might calm her down, and within fifty yards we had to stop and take her out again before she trampled them to death. Then, no sooner had we got her out and strapped the basket of kittens up again than there was one almighty screech â and Solomon pushed his big, stupid head clean through an airhole and hung there like a stuffed trophy on a wall, choking rapidly and screaming in terror.
  That was one of the worst moments of my life. Even Charles seemed to have gone mad. He leapt out of the car, slamming the door so that Sugieh couldn't follow him, and began frantically turning his pockets out on the grass. He was, he shouted, when I asked what he was doing, looking for a penknife. The only way to rescue Solomon was to
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