Trust Me, I'm a Vet: The Otter House Vets Series

by Cathy Woodman

  I feel as though I should start a conversation but I don’t know what to say. I can hardly say, ‘Nice place you have here’, can I?

  ‘That’s Tom.’ Gloria nods towards a photograph on top of the mantelpiece, which is cluttered with ornaments. ‘That was taken on our wedding day. And these’ – she pulls herself out of the chair and points to some urns – ‘these are the dogs we had together.’ She picks one up, rubs it on her sleeve and peers at the plaque at the front. ‘I can’t read it.’ She holds it in front of me. ‘What does that say?’

  ‘Julius.’

  ‘Dear Julius. He was Tom’s favourite, a handsome springer spaniel who had a penchant for chewing Tom’s slippers.’ She puts Julius back and picks up another urn, but I’m more concerned with the living than the dead. The more I see here, the more I want to see Ginge.

  Without a by-your-leave, I collect up the cups and take them through to the kitchen. It looks like a scene from How Clean Is Your House? before Kim and Aggie get their rubber gloves on. There are cats on the hob, the worktops and the windowsill. One licks at the fat congealed in a frying pan and another investigates the fridge, the door of which is propped open by a dish that seethes with flies.

  ‘How many cats do you have altogether, Gloria?’

  She’s right behind me and not looking too happy at my intrusion.

  ‘Twenty-seven, not including the kittens,’ she says eventually. ‘That’s just the house cats. There’s a small cattery out the back. I have another eleven out there. And then there are the ferals – I’ve lost count of them.’

  ‘I’d like to see the cattery.’

  ‘There’s no need for you to waste your time.’ Gloria’s neck stiffens. ‘Why exactly are you here?’

  ‘I told you – I’ve brought Ginge’s tablets. I thought I’d save you a trip,’ I say lamely. I edge around the kitchen, wondering how I can get out through the back door to see what horrors lie behind it. It’s very noble of Gloria to have rescued all these animals, but it’s beginning to look as if they now need to be rescued from Gloria.

  She blocks my way.

  ‘Go back to your surgery, young woman!’ Her voice rises to a plaintive wail like a cat in distress. ‘I’ll call the police.’

  ‘Not a good idea, Gloria. The first thing they’ll do when they see the state of this place is call the RSPCA.’ It occurs to me that is exactly what I should do, but something in Gloria’s eyes holds me back. It’s heartbreaking, like the gaze of an animal caught in a snare. I notice that she’s powdered not only her face and her hair, but her earrings too. ‘I want to help you.’

  I push past her and open the back door, ignoring her appeals to leave her alone. Two terriers, a white Westie and a black Scottie, come flying at me from the other side of a small concrete yard, jumping up and barking. They’re over the moon to see me, as if they know I hold the key to their escape.

  ‘You’re all mouth and no trousers, aren’t you?’ I squat down beside them. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Mac and Tosh.’ Gloria’s voice is thick with resentment. ‘Boys, go to bed.’ Wagging the stumps of their tails, they retreat to a cardboard box filled with skanky newspaper. ‘You’ll have to excuse the mess,’ Gloria goes on. ‘I haven’t had time to clean up after them yet today.’

  Not just today, I suspect, observing the dirty water bowl and heaps of dog-dirt, skidded through here and there with paw prints. It’s disgusting. Squalid.

  ‘They’ve been here with me for about eighteen months. They came from a broken home. Terribly sad.’

  ‘You couldn’t find new homes for them?’ I say, my throat tightening with a different kind of sadness. The yard is like a prison. Their only contact with the outside world is Gloria, an old woman who can’t possibly give them all the attention and walks they need. I’ve no doubt she loves them, but . . .

  ‘Fifi – ugh, I can’t stand that woman – she wanted to split them up, but I couldn’t bear it. It would have broken their little hearts to be separated. You may mock, but they’ve been together since they were eight weeks old.’

  ‘I’m not mocking.’ I stand up again. ‘Now, where’s the cattery?’

  ‘That’s it.’ Gloria waves her hand dismissively towards the wall of concrete blocks straight ahead of us. ‘There, you’ve got what you wanted. You’ve seen it.’

  ‘Gloria, I’m not stupid.’

  ‘I would show you around, but I seem to have mislaid the key’ – she pats the pockets on her housecoat – ‘and you must be needed back at the surgery by now.’

  ‘You’d better un-mislay it,’ I tell her. ‘I’m going to fetch the visit case from the car. If nothing else, the little black cat needs treatment for its skin, Mac’s claws could do with a trim and we need to think of the best way to wipe out all those fleas.’

  ‘Fleas? I don’t have fleas.’

  ‘You don’t, but your carpets are alive with them. I’ve seen kittens die from anaemia with that level of infestation.’

  Alternately I bully and cajole her, and ten minutes later, after I’ve fetched the visit case, the key miraculously appears from the depths of her pocket. Gloria fiddles with the padlock on the bolt of the door into a long, low building behind the yard. The sound of howling crescendos. I try to look through the tiny window to the side, but the view’s blocked by a bag of animal feed.

  ‘I have to keep the dogs and cats in the same building at the moment because the roof of the old kennels leaks.’ Finally, the padlock comes away and Gloria pushes the door open. ‘Good morning, my darlings,’ she coos, and the dogs go quiet.

  It’s afternoon, I want to say and it’s a bit late for breakfast.

  ‘How often do you feed them?’

  ‘Every day. I go without so that my animals are fed.’ Gloria fumbles at the wall and a light comes on. ‘Come on inside, if you must.’

  ‘I must.’ If the smell inside the house was bad, this is ten times worse. I run straight back outside and throw up in the grass by the door. Trying to hide my embarrassment and find a way to breathe through the stench, I tuck my nose into my top and head back in. Gloria seems oblivious to my struggle and the smell.

  She shows me into the first small room off the main corridor.

  ‘This is where I wash up and prepare the dinners.’ She waves vaguely at the sink which is stacked up with bowls, a sack of rubbish which spews its foul contents across the floor, and a workbench crowded with tanks and cages, some on top of each other like slum tenements. Something inside one of the cages starts to rattle: a gerbil on a wheel. When I look closer, I discover that Gloria’s retreat for small furries is running at 100 per cent occupancy.

  ‘You see,’ says Gloria. ‘They all have food and water.’

  It’s true, although the water in the various bottles and dishes doesn’t look too clean and there seem to be more husks than seeds in the various receptacles that she’s using as food containers.

  ‘I clean every one out at least once a week, unless I’m not feeling up to it,’ Gloria goes on. ‘I haven’t been so good recently.’

  ‘Don’t you have help?’

  ‘I don’t need help. Fifi said I’d never manage without her and Talyton Animal Rescue, but I manage perfectly well – better, in fact, without her constant interference. And I can manage without your help too. I haven’t asked for it.’

  ‘Let’s take a look at the rest now,’ I say, ignoring her protests. Somewhat subdued, Gloria leads me back into the corridor, which is lined with walk-in cages on either side. The building is well constructed, each cage having access to an outside run, but it’s showing signs of neglect.

  The occupant of the first cage stands on its hind legs and starts mewing and batting at the wire in the door. There’s a bowl of water and a litter tray overflowing with wet clay. There’s an empty washing-up bowl on the stage above its head, which I assume is where it sleeps.

  The occupant of the next cage is less fortunate. It’s a scrawny tortoiseshell cat lying flat out on her side, hardly
breathing, her eyes staring into the corner where a shaft of sunlight enters the building through a gap between the walls and the roof. As I unbolt the door and enter, it utters the low howl of distress of an animal that’s too far gone.

  What a miserable way to end your life, I think as I turn to Gloria, my voice grating in my throat. ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘That’s my Molly.’ Her voice quavers. ‘She’s been sick for a while, but she seemed so peaceful that I didn’t want to disturb her. I knew what you’d say if I brought her to the surgery . . .’

  ‘I think it’s time to let Molly go, don’t you?’ I open the visit case. ‘Have you got a blanket or towel handy, Gloria?’

  She fetches a rather grubby towel and I pick Molly up and wrap her in it, leaving her head and front legs exposed. I hand her over to Gloria, who holds her while I give her the final injection and a merciful release.

  ‘I wish they’d close their little eyes.’ Gloria tries to hold the cat’s eyelids closed, but they won’t stay.

  ‘I’ll take her back to the surgery with me.’

  ‘Not straight away.’ Gloria nuzzles the dead cat, staring up at me as if I’m the madwoman around here. ‘I like to spend some time saying goodbye first. When I had help, I used to bury them in the garden.’ She covers the body with the towel and leaves it beside the cage, by which time I’ve ascertained that there are another fourteen cats imprisoned in the cattery, and beyond that, seven dogs. At least the rest are on all four paws, so to speak.

  Five of the dogs come trotting up to the barriers to sniff me, wagging their tails. Two hang back, a beautiful white German shepherd and a big bully-boy of a boxer, who starts to move towards me then stops, slumps onto his bottom and scratches furiously at his ear, crying out at the same time.

  ‘Who’s that, Gloria?’

  ‘The boxer? Ugli-dog, I call him. I’ve had him here so long he’s almost part of the furniture. He’s on a herbal tincture for his skin condition – Mrs Wall prescribes it.’

  I stare through the chicken wire. Ugli-dog is a mess. His skin is scarred and angry, and he’s so thin you can make out the detail of his skeleton.

  ‘Old Mr Fox-Gifford said, “Gloria, that dog’s a hopeless case”,’ she says, steadying herself against the cage. I realise Gloria looks as forlorn and underfed as Ugli-dog.

  ‘The injections he gave him made him ill, so we stopped them altogether,’ Gloria goes on.

  ‘Doesn’t Fox-Gifford ever ask how he is?’ I put my fingers up to the wire. Ugli-dog sniffs at them, then gives them a friendly lick.

  ‘I wouldn’t expect anyone to remember to ask after all my animals,’ Gloria says. ‘Would you?’

  ‘I would if he’d been in this state when I last saw him.’ As a vet, I’d feel some responsibility for his welfare.

  ‘I don’t recall him ever being quite as bad as this . . . Still, you can’t put an animal down because they have bad skin, can you?’

  ‘Gloria, we must have a proper talk – this situation can’t go on. I’m going to take Ugli-dog back to the surgery so I can have a good look at him and treat him accordingly. He needs a bath and some food, if nothing else.’

  ‘You can’t do that.’ She blinks back tears, and whereas, when I first met her I found her a small but forbidding figure, she strikes me now as rather pathetic as she whines, ‘You can’t take him away from me.’

  ‘I have no choice.’ I harden my heart. I can imagine what it’s like to have your pets taken away – to many people they’re family. To some it would be like giving up their children, and I suspect that is how it seems to Gloria, who appears to have few friends.

  ‘Maz, I thought you of all people would understand. I thought you were an animal lover.’

  ‘I am, which is why I can’t stand by and watch things get any worse.’

  ‘You’re planning to take them all away from me, aren’t you? I’ll never let them go,’ Gloria says, pushing her way between me and Ugli-dog. ‘Over my dead body.’

  ‘All I’m going to do today is take Ugli-dog for treatment and call Fifi to get you some help,’ I continue firmly. ‘You need someone to help fix your roof, walk the dogs and clean up in here.’

  Gloria opens her mouth to argue with me, but I interrupt her.

  ‘You’re an intelligent woman. Surely you can see you aren’t coping?’

  She stares at me. Mute. Humiliated. Defeated. In fact, I don’t like to leave her on her own.

  ‘Is there someone who can come and sit with you?’

  ‘There’s no one left,’ she says weakly. ‘All I have is my animals.’

  ‘Why don’t I help you feed this lot and tidy up a bit, then I’ll be back tomorrow.’ I reach out my hand, but she shrinks away from my touch. ‘I promise you, we’ll sort this out.’ I leave my stethoscope behind, deliberately this time.

  ‘You’ve been hours,’ Izzy says when I return to Otter House with Ugli-dog in tow. I sat him in the footwell of the passenger seat in my car – he didn’t seem to mind.

  Izzy looks at the dog. ‘What have we here?’

  ‘A bit of a crisis, I think. I’m going to take some skin scrapings, hair pluckings, a biopsy and blood, and then he’ll need a bath.’ Ugli-dog wags his stump of a tail. ‘I’m going to need a bath too. I stink.’

  I describe the situation at Gloria’s to Izzy, as I take skin scrapings from various parts of Ugli-dog’s anatomy: his thickened, crusted ears; his greasy, spotty back; and the red-raw webs between his toes.

  ‘I didn’t even get to see Ginge. Gloria says he’s always out in the fields which means he only gets his medication when he turns up, and then she gives him extra to make up for the doses he’s missed. I can’t see how he’s ever going to get better.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Izzy takes the microscope out of the cupboard under the bench and sets it up on top. ‘I can call Andrea if you like – she’s our local RSPCA inspector.’

  ‘No, not yet. I’m going to call Fifi first.’ It might be a little awkward seeing I wouldn’t give her a better discount than Talyton Manor Vets, and I’m sure she’s heard every detail of Blueboy’s bad hair day and Cadbury’s demise. But it’s Gloria’s best hope of help without losing all her animals.

  ‘Are you sure that’s wise?’

  ‘She and Talyton Animal Rescue must take some of the responsibility. They can’t let their personal differences take precedence over the welfare of those animals.’ I pop Ugli-dog in a cage. ‘I’ve done what I can for now. None of them is in immediate danger. I’ll arrange to meet Fifi and as many volunteers as she can round up tomorrow at Gloria’s. That way, we can decide together which of the rescues can be rehomed, and make arrangements to look after the rest.’

  ‘You mean you’re going to leave some of them with Gloria?’

  ‘One or two of the cats, maybe three, no more than she can care for properly.’

  ‘Maz, you’re too soft.’ Suddenly, Izzy’s face falls. ‘How on earth will she choose which ones to keep?’

  ‘I want to give Gloria a chance, like she gave those rescues. I think it would kill her to lose them all.’

  ‘Look at poor Ugli-dog,’ Izzy says. ‘What kind of life has she given him?’

  ‘What kind of life does Gloria have?’ I counter. ‘She has no relatives, no friends, no one who cares whether she lives or dies. Imagine ending up like that.’ I have a quick look at Ugli-dog’s skin and hair under the microscope, finding the mites which are causing his skin problem. ‘Ugh, it’s mange. And I kissed him. I’m sure I kissed him.’

  ‘I’ll get him started on the washes,’ Izzy says. ‘You go and phone Fifi.’

  ‘I don’t see what I can do about it,’ is Fifi’s immediate reaction. ‘Gloria’s made it perfectly clear that I’m not welcome at Buttercross Cottage any more.’

  ‘I’d hoped that Talyton Animal Rescue would be able to help out, but if it’s that difficult, I’ll have to speak to the RSPCA . . .’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It co
uld reflect badly on you and your committee, but I’ve run out of options.’

  ‘Oh no, there’s no need to involve any other organisation,’ Fifi says quickly. ‘We’re more than able to handle any situation.’

  ‘It’s a pity you didn’t get a handle on this one sooner,’ I point out.

  ‘I admit that I should have kept an eye on her. I should have insisted.’ Fifi pauses for a millisecond. ‘I tell you what I’ll do.’

  ‘No,’ I cut in, ‘I’ll tell you what I want you to do. Come over to Otter House tomorrow at eleven, and we’ll go up to Gloria’s with Izzy and any other helpers you can rustle up.’

  ‘I’ll go up there now,’ Fifi says.

  ‘Please don’t rush in. Promise me . . .’

  ‘All right. I’ll wait.’ Her voice brightens a little. ‘What about Talyton Manor Vets? I’m sure they’d help us.’

  ‘No, there’s no need to involve the Fox-Giffords,’ I say. ‘There’s plenty of room here at Otter House.’

  ‘Oh? All right then. Well, I’ll concentrate on rallying the troops and organising supplies.’

  ‘Thanks, Fifi.’ I return the phone to Reception, where Tripod joins me, winding himself around my calves.

  ‘You had a lucky escape ending up here, not at Gloria’s,’ I tell him, at which my demons come howling back, reminding me that Cadbury wasn’t so lucky.

  I promise myself that I’ll make up for my perceived failures and make the pet owners of Talyton St George proud to have me as their vet until Emma gets back. I’ll ensure all those animals at Gloria’s so-called sanctuary are found good homes and treated well. To do that, there can be no more thoughts of closing Otter House down. Emma has still not returned my frantic calls, so like it or not I’m going to have to stay on in Talyton for a while longer, which means I’ll have to get hold of the bank and sort out the payments on the X-ray machine at least.

  Chapter Sixteen