‘She said it couldn’t wait. It’s good news, though, isn’t it? It means Emma’s got some more embryos.’
‘I suppose it does.’ I’m glad, but I’m also surprised after what Mrs Dyer said about trusting no one but Emma. Still, Drew says that Emma okayed it, so I don’t question it further.
‘Would you like me to scrub? I can give you a hand,’ I offer.
‘No, I can do these with my eyes closed,’ Drew says.
‘I’d rather you kept your eyes open,’ I say lightly.
‘You’re so serious, Maz. It’s very … quaint.’
‘Thanks a lot.’ I pause. ‘You have got the X-rays, haven’t you? The ones Emma took the other week?’
‘Yeah, they came back with the report.’
‘Good.’ I can remember thinking I must mention the X-rays, but I can’t for the life of me recall why. ‘You’re going to get a picture of the dog’s chest before you operate, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, Maz,’ Drew sighs. ‘If there’s any sign that this tumour’s spread, I won’t do the surgery. I’ve agreed that with Emma, who’s agreed it with Mrs Dyer.’
‘So you’re absolutely sure you’re happy to do this?’ I try one last time, hoping he’ll say no, because I’d feel happier if I was dealing with Brutus’s case; but Drew’s supremely confident in his abilities as usual, and I can’t magic up a single valid reason why he shouldn’t do it, so I let him and Shannon get on with it while I see the appointments.
It isn’t long before I’m wishing Izzy was here.
‘I’m sure there’s something wrong with his eyes.’ It’s Mrs Cable with another of Saba’s offspring, who goes by the name of Hustle. ‘They’re always watering and I’m forever wiping them with cold tea. That’s what Old Fox-Gifford recommended for my other dog.’
‘Does he bump into things?’ I ask, trying to keep the puppy still on the table so I can get a glimpse of his eyes.
‘Sometimes,’ Mrs Cable says. She’s in her forties, and teaches at the local primary school. ‘I hope I haven’t paid all that money for a puppy who’s partially sighted.’
‘Would you mind holding on to him for me?’ I cut in.
Mrs Cable might be good at controlling classes of five-year-olds, but she can’t handle a puppy. Hustle fidgets and wriggles around in her arms. I switch off the light and try looking with a pen torch, but Hustle’s a moving target.
‘Hustle, keep still. There’s a good boy,’ says Mrs Cable over and over again.
I get a good view up one of his nostrils, but it’s another few minutes before I get the beam latched on to one of his eyes. He can see it all right. He lunges forwards and bites the end of the torch, yelping as his teeth make contact. I have one more go, then decide I’m either going to have to admit him so he can be sedated, or procrastinate. I choose the latter.
‘I think it’s his fringe,’ I say. ‘It’s getting in his eyes and making them teary. Perhaps you should have him clipped. We’ve got the number of a grooming parlour at Reception.’
‘How much is that going to cost me?’
I don’t tell her it’ll cost a whole lot more if it doesn’t work and I end up taking him in to look for other possibilities.
Somehow I get through the rest of the morning by enlisting Frances now and again to fetch scissors and forceps that have gone out the back for cleaning and not made their way back to the consulting room. I have to restock the fridge with rabbit vaccine and okay three requests for repeat medication, something that Izzy normally does, and by the end of surgery I’m running over an hour late.
‘That wasn’t too bad, was it?’ Frances says soothingly when I emerge into Reception, my hair scented with the Hibiscrub that flew out of the dispenser when I was unblocking the nozzle, and my hands still pungent with the aroma of ferret, in spite of having scrubbed them twice. ‘Have you heard anything from Emma yet?’ she goes on.
‘All I know is that she’s gone up to London, so I presume this round of IVF has been successful so far.’ I’ll ring her, I decide, then I’ll be able to put Frances out of her misery and have a word about Brutus. I go outside to the garden and sit at the table on the patio to make the call, so Frances can’t listen in. Ginge jumps up and sits on the table right in front of me, blinking vaguely in my direction with his old green eyes as Emma answers the phone.
‘Hi, Maz. How did Drew get on?’
‘You mean with Brutus? Why didn’t you ask me to do the op? I’m sure it would have been easier to square it with Mrs Dyer if your partner was doing it, rather than the locum.’
‘Why are you taking this so personally?’ Emma says.
‘It feels like a slap in the face,’ I try to explain. It’s as if she’s suggesting Drew is more capable of performing the amputation than I am, when I’m a good surgeon with more experience than him.
‘I didn’t intend to offend you.’ Emma pauses. ‘Look, Maz, I don’t want to waste time and energy getting into an argument. I asked Drew because if I’d asked you, you wouldn’t have gone along with it.’
‘With what?’ My skin prickles with suspicion. ‘Have you told Mrs Dyer that you’re not doing it?’
‘No, not exactly. I didn’t lie to her. I was economical with the truth – I had to be because she wouldn’t have gone ahead with the surgery otherwise. I was thinking of Brutus and his welfare.’
‘It’s a shame you didn’t think more about that before,’ I accuse her. ‘You shouldn’t have kept putting it off.’
‘What was I supposed to do?’
‘It’s completely unethical. You’ve put us in a terrible situation. Don’t you care about our reputation?’
‘Maz, stop panicking. Nothing will go wrong. Mrs Dyer will never find out. No one will ever know.’
‘Except you, me, Drew, Shannon … and Frances. Of course it’ll come out, and then how will we look? Everyone will say the Otter House Vets are liars.’ I start pacing up and down.
‘You know as well as I do that that tumour needs to come out ASAP.’ Emma’s voice is icy. ‘If I’d told Mrs Dyer of the change of plan, she might have decided not to have the op at all.’
‘But she’d have had the choice,’ I argue. ‘What’s wrong with you, Em? It’s like you’ve gone mad.’
‘I can’t deal with the stress,’ Emma says calmly. ‘I’ve got more important things on my mind – we’ve got three embryos this time.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘You said that as if you didn’t mean it.’
‘I do mean it. I’m pleased for you. It’s just that Otter House is important too. Our clients. Our patients. Our staff.’
‘Otter House will still be there when I’m finished with all this,’ Emma says. ‘This treatment – the visits to the clinic, the injections, the embryos – they’re all that matter to me now. I have to give them every chance, and if that means upsetting you or Mrs Dyer, then that’s how it is. I’m sorry.’
When Emma cuts off the call, I stare at the phone for some time. What is happening? Am I being as supportive as I should? Is Emma behaving irrationally? Will I look at Emma one day soon and, like a husband might look at his wife of many years, not recognise her? Is this acute sensation of loss the same as a lover might feel when the everyday stresses and strains of existence threaten to overwhelm a relationship?
By the end of lunchtime, Brutus is coming round, trembling under a blanket, his front end swathed with dressings, which seems unusual to me. Perhaps it’s some Antipodean veterinary custom. Whatever it is, I hope Drew remembered to charge it to Mrs Dyer.
‘Drew put it on to stop the bleeding,’ Shannon says when I enquire.
‘I hope it wasn’t bleeding that much. It didn’t make you faint?’ I say lightly.
‘It was just a slow ooze,’ she says, ‘nothing much.’
‘Where’s Drew oozed off to now?’ I ask, noticing his absence. ‘I thought he might have waited until Brutus was a bit more awake than this.’
‘He’s gone. I said I’d look after Br
utus.’
And I’m about to say, Well, you’re not really qualified, but change my mind.
‘Are you all right? You’re looking a bit peaky.’
She shrugs and bites her lip. She looks close to tears.
‘Is something wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ she says, and I’m pretty sure she’s being evasive. Perhaps it’s some problem at home.
‘I wanted to ask Drew about the unidentified sample in the fridge, but I guess it’ll wait until after lunch.’
‘Er, he said to tell you he wouldn’t be in this afternoon. He’s got a headache, a migraine.’
I make a self-diagnosis of compassion fatigue. I can’t be sympathetic because now I’ll have to do his evening surgery and his night on-call. I was up half last night with an unstable diabetic, and I was planning to have an evening in with Alex tonight.
‘Why didn’t Drew mention it to me?’
‘He was in a really bad way. He threw up twice in the sink in theatre.’
‘Too much information, I think, Shannon.’
‘It’s all right – I cleaned it up, and I’ve spoken to Mrs Dyer –’
‘You have?’ I interrupt.
‘Drew asked me to,’ she says, defiant. ‘All I had to say was that the op went well and Brutus is fine, and she’s to ring tomorrow.’
‘Well, as long as she’s happy,’ I say; then it occurs to me that with Drew disappearing off with a headache and Shannon moping about, all pale and wan, perhaps he’s finally got around to telling her about the fiancée who’s waiting for him to return home. That’ll be one problem solved, and hopefully Shannon will get over it in a week or two, and we can get back to some kind of normality.
‘If there’s anything you want to tell me,’ I say, giving her every opportunity to share it with me, ‘anything you want to talk about …’
‘No, there’s nothing.’ Shannon’s face grows paler than ever, making me even more certain something is wrong. She’s lying, her body language contradicting the words coming out of her mouth, like those people who make public appeals to find murderers and turn out to be the villains themselves. ‘I’m sorry, Maz, I’ve got a lot to get on with as Izzy’s not here, and I want to leave everything clean and tidy.’
I let her go.
‘Why do you have to stay over?’ Alex says when I call him with the news I’m not coming home. ‘I’ve got used to you being here with me. Why can’t Drew stay? I imagine he’d do it if you paid him.’
‘He’s gone off with a migraine. It’s the first day he’s had off sick, so I can’t really complain, although he never mentioned he suffered with migraines before.’
‘Stewart says Drew often has a sore head,’ Alex says, chuckling. ‘He can’t take his cider.’ By cider, he means the local scrumpy, its fermentation depending on the yeasts on the skins of ancient varieties of apple, and the odd rat that falls into the juices from the press and drowns.
We did ask Drew to live in the flat now it’s empty, but he refused. I think Lynsey makes life too comfortable for him at Barton Farm.
‘What about Emma?’ Alex asks.
‘Emma’s away.’
‘Again?’
‘She’s gone to have her latest embryos put back. There are three this time.’
‘That’s promising anyway,’ Alex says.
‘Yep.’ I sigh. ‘I know it isn’t her fault, but I feel like she’s always letting me down.’
‘You have me – I’ll never let you down,’ Alex says in a low voice. ‘I could drop by with something from Mr Rock’s later.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll get something from the Co-op.’ The decorators are out of the flat, and the scent of fresh paint lingers.
‘You haven’t had enough of me already?’ Alex says. ‘This isn’t your way of saying you’re moving out?’
‘Alex, how can you say that when I’ve just got used to the idea of living with you?’
I check on Brutus late in the evening when the practice is quiet, apart from the odd thud of a cat jumping off a piece of furniture, the rattle of the cat flap and the purr of the fridge. Brutus wags his tail when he sees me. I offer him a drink and a few pieces of chicken Shannon’s left for him. He gulps them down.
‘You can have some more tomorrow,’ I tell him while I’m debating whether to get him up to hobble out to the garden. I decide to leave him alone. He seems comfortable. ‘We’ll get that ridiculous dressing off too. With luck, you’ll be fine in a few days, and we can get you on to some chemo, and you’ll do really well.’
Brutus snuffles and drools on my trousers, as if to say, That sounds good to me.
With luck, too, Drew will be back tomorrow morning, Shannon will be more cheerful and, best of all, Emma’s embryos will stick.
Chapter Twenty-one
Back to Black
Ginge is better than any alarm clock, reliability-wise. It’s just a shame you can’t adjust his timing, because he’s clawing at the duvet at six the following morning. Unable to get back to sleep, I go downstairs and feed the cats in Kennels. Brutus is up on his three remaining feet, his dressing hanging off.
I slip a rope lead over his head, and let him out. He barges past me, hopping and limping along, towing me out to the corridor, where I have to persuade him to turn towards the back door.
‘Steady on, Brutus.’ I take him into the garden and he’s doing okay, until he tries to cock his leg to water the bushes, when he lurches forwards and hits his nose on the patio. ‘You’re going to have to learn to cope.’ It might take him some time, I think, helping him regain his balance. He isn’t the brightest.
I return him to Kennels, where I loop the end of the lead over the hook on the wall, so I can check his temperature and remove what’s left of his dressing. The wound looks good. If he can just go on to lose a few more kilos at Izzy’s Slimming Club, he’ll be able to manage very well on three legs.
I tug his inpatient card off the front of his cage and I’m filling it in when I notice Brutus trembling. His whole body shudders, then he slumps down onto his chest with a yelp, and oh-mi-God, I feel like I’ve been swept up by a river of ice.
I reread Drew’s notes from yesterday: Amputate LF. Left fore?
Can I remember which leg Brutus was lame on when I saw him before the operation? Think, Maz, think. Was it the left or right?
Drew can’t have got it wrong. Emma would have written which leg it was in her notes. She would have told Drew which one to amputate when she arranged for him to do the surgery. And Brutus was lame – Drew would have spotted which one it was … surely …
And even if he’d made a mistake, he’d have corrected it when Brutus reached theatre, because Shannon would have had the X-ray up on the viewer. It would have been marked L for left or R for right. Squeezing my eyelids together, I try to recall the X-ray Emma showed me, then, drowning in doubt, I find myself hardly able to breathe, because I remember now. The X-ray didn’t have a marker on it.
I sink to my knees beside Brutus, who seems quite happy now he’s lying in a comfortable position, and do something I haven’t done since primary school. Twisting awkwardly to protect my bump, I turn to face the clock to check my left and right, once, twice, three times over. It’s no use. Drew’s made a terrible mistake.
Choking back tears, I’m kissing the top of a dead dog’s head, because there’s no way out for Brutus now. He’s gone from having a small chance of making a full recovery to none at all, and I’m gutted because I’m responsible. I should have been more curious, more probing, when Shannon said Emma okayed Drew to do the op. I should have insisted on giving him a hand, then I’d have spotted any potential error as soon as he started clipping up. Izzy would have done the same, if she’d been here.
‘Maz? Oh, Maz.’ I turn at the sound of Shannon’s unrestrained sobbing and the clicking of her finger joints. I look up at her. She’s wearing a torn sweater, jeans and no shoes. Her face is white, her eyelashes pale, the shadows around her eyes dark.
‘Yo
u knew,’ I say accusingly.
‘I wanted to tell you,’ she stammers. ‘He made me promise not to say anything.’
‘And you went along with it?’
‘He said we’d be halfway round the world before anyone realised …’
‘Shannon, how could you?’
‘He said if I dropped him in it, he wouldn’t take me with him.’ Shannon cries. Brutus turns and licks my face, which makes me cry too. ‘He’s gone anyway,’ Shannon goes on. ‘He’s left without me.’
I struggle to stand up. This is far worse than I thought.
‘I’ve been out all night looking for him. I’ve been everywhere. Then Stewart called me back this morning and said he’d packed all his stuff and gone. He isn’t answering his phone – I’ve left hundreds of messages.’
I bet Drew’s already on a plane, drinking beer and chatting up the air hostesses, not a care in the world, but I’m not sure anyone can be that insensitive, especially a fellow vet. He’ll have realised his mistake, panicked and made his escape, but I doubt he’ll be able to get away from it that easily. This will play on his conscience for some time, and every time he performs an amputation, he’ll remember what he did to Brutus. I know that feeling, how it all comes back, the chill in the kidneys and the ache in the centre of the chest.
Will he spare a thought for Shannon? I gaze at her, at the bramble scratch across her cheek and the mud on her jeans. I doubt it.
‘For goodness’ sake, Shannon, stop whimpering.’ I swear out loud, several times. ‘You shouldn’t have lied to me. If I’d known what was going on, I could have stopped him.’ Although what I’d have done to him, had I seen him, I don’t know. I could kill him right now for what he’s done to Brutus. ‘What were you thinking?’
‘He said he l-l-loved me …’ Distraught, Shannon bites at her knuckles. ‘I believed him, Maz, but not any more. He’s a coward. A waste of space. A murderer. And I hate him for what he’s done – to me, and to Brutus.’ She pauses. ‘I’ll go and get my things.’
‘What for?’
‘Well, I expect you want me to leave. I don’t blame you.’
Must Be Love Page 29
