Outside on a dreich wet day our neighbours of the last seven years are moving house, a massive removal van currently blocking our drive. I'm watching from the bedroom window.
Meanwhile downstairs a small, frightened female cat cowers behind the couch.
Brian, Lesley and their two small boys are moving to another part of the town. They've been the perfect modern neighbours, I suppose; polite, distant, unobtrusive. Going about their lives and leaving us to ours. We've no doubt been exactly the same kind of neighbours to them. Its a smallish town and in all likelyhood we'll run into them again, in a supermarket or high street or public place. A smile will pass or a few hasty words will be exchanged and we'll all go away happy. In their own way we've probably each played a subtle but significant part in each others happiness over the last seven years: nobody wants a bothersome neighbour.
And yet even now, watching them go, I'm unsure of their surname.
And what will the new neighbours be like I wonder, slightly anxiously.
But enough of that. I now have to turn my attention to the scared little cat. She arrived last night from a rescue home. a small, neat, dainty little three year old, black with splurges of white and neat white socks. Last night she wandered around inquisitively, as cats do and seemed unafraid. She even spent time up on the couch with us, allowing herself to be petted, dozing briefly and purring loudly.
When I got up this morning, however, it was a different story. She was nowhere to be seen and I eventually found her behind the fridge. Once I dragged it out she immediately fled behind the couch in the living room, wedged between it and the wall. She lies their now, scared, confused and gone to ground, as cats do when they're frightened. I've put a small dish of milk to the side of the couch and retired to write this. It will take time but she'll come out eventually, and begin to form trust.
She still doesn't have a name, and neither do our new neighbours. Even our old neighbours only had first names. Thats life these days.
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