Green Dream

by Robert Gollagher

  “Well, Sally. Your resume looks all right. And you seem to have the right attitude. If you’d like to come on board, we can offer you a temporary position for three months. If it works out, then we can offer you a year’s contract. Salary would be reviewed annually.”

  Sally felt of knot of excitement in her stomach. Her heart quickened. She had made it! She was going to be a vet, a real vet, after all these years. “Thank you. I mean, I accept the job. Thanks.”

  Kellerman nodded. “Now, do you want to use the flat? It’s not much, just two rooms, a bed-sitting room and a bathroom, but the nurse’s moved out and you can stay there for free, if you want. The only condition is that if I need help with after-hours calls on nights you’re not on duty, you’d have to help me. And, every night, we’ll need you to check the animals in hospital, give their medications, flush their IV lines, and the like. Are you interested?”

  Sally had already decided that if she were offered the use of the little flat at the back of the clinic, she would take it. It wasn’t that she didn’t like living with Ruth, just that she was twenty-three now and she had never lived on her own. It was time for her to break out on her own, and she knew things would be tight on her salary – the flat would be a good way to save rent. “Yes, I am. I’d like the use the flat.”

  “Good,” said Kellerman. “Well, you start next Monday. You can move in this weekend, if you like.”

  Sally stood up and shook Kellerman’s hand. “Thank you, Dr Kellerman. You won’t regret this.”

  “Call me Thomas, Sally. We’re glad you can join us.”

  Saturday, March 18, 1995

  Dear Diary,

  Today I am moving into the clinic flat, and on Monday I will begin my first week in practice. I’m nervous and excited at the same time. Ruth is helping me move my things. I’m sad to leave her, but I must break out on my own. This is the first day of my new life ...

  The veterinary clinic was a small, single-floored, red-brick building with a flat metal roof, surrounded by a large bitumen car park. There was a tiny garden out the back which harboured a single, towering eucalypt. When she had first seen the flat at the rear of the clinic, Sally looked with dismay at the single room with its threadbare, brown carpet. There was space for a bed at one end of the little room and there was a small electric stove and an old refrigerator at the other. A door led to a toilet and simple bathroom, which needed badly to be cleaned. And that was all there was to the place.

  In fact, Sally had been too embarrassed to let Ruth see it. She had allowed Ruth to help her load her ancient car, a rusty, brown Kingswood station wagon, with clothes and books, and to supervise the removalists loading her bed and a recliner chair onto their truck, but she had discouraged Ruth from travelling with her to the clinic, saying that she could manage on her own.

  The flat looked a little better, once Sally had vacuumed the carpet, once she had scrubbed the cracked bathroom tiles and cleaned the toilet, gotten her bed made, and packed all her pots and pans into the small cupboard beneath the kitchen sink. She put a television on a coffee table in the corner. It wasn’t much, she thought, but it was her first home.

  It took Sally nearly the whole weekend to organise the flat. Then she had dinner at Ruth’s house on Sunday night. Ruth wished her well and tried not to show how upset she was, since she was truly proud of Sally boldly going out to start a new life.

  That night was the first night Sally slept in the flat. It took her a long time to get to sleep. She lay in bed, wondering about the challenges that lay ahead of her.

  The next day would be her first day in practice.

  When Monday morning finally arrived, Sally took a deep breath, walked into the back door of the clinic, and greeted the nurses on duty. They were in the treatment room, where most of the general medical business of the day was carried out and where the dogs and cats spent their time in comfortable cages. It was a small clinic and it did not have a separate kennel room.

  “Good morning,” said Heather Lorayne.

  “Morning.” Sally’s throat felt dry. She was nervous.

  “G’day,” said the other nurse. “How you going?”

  “Good, thanks,” said Sally. “Sorry, I don’t think we’ve met.”

  “I’m Michelle. You must be Sally.”

  “Yep.”

  Michelle was just a girl, barely eighteen years old. “Do you want me to give the diabetes cat its insulin now?”

  “Uh ... what diabetes cat?”

  “The one in the corner, on a drip.”

  “That’s Patches,” said Heather. “He’s crashed again.”

  Michelle spoke again. “And what about the Bully? Do you want it to have Clavulox or Tribrissen?”

  “The Bull Terrier?” asked Sally.

  “Yeah. Rambo. He’s got a broken leg.”

  “Well, I ... better have a look at him, first.”

  “There are some X-rays here that Thomas wants you to look at,” said Heather. “They’re from an old Kelpie that’s been vomiting and didn’t respond to treatment. The owners have been really difficult about it. Thomas asked them to come in and see you at nine-thirty.”

  Sally was bewildered. “But ... where is Thomas?”

  “He got a call from one of his mates. They went fishing.”

  “Fishing?”

  A buzzer sounded. “Yeah. That’s the front desk. The morning rush’s started. It never stops, around here. You can find the X-rays in that cupboard in the hallway. I left them on the top shelf for you.” Heather walked out of the treatment room, on her way to the reception desk in the waiting room.

  “What about Patches?” said Michelle.

  Sally was in a state of shock. Her employer had said nothing about a fishing trip. Was she going to face her first day in practice alone, without supervision or help? Kellerman had not even telephoned her to let her know about the animals in hospital, and there was no note, either. “What about who?”

  “Patches! The diabetic cat. Does it want insulin?”

  “Ah, probably. Where’s its file?”

  “Over here.”

  Michelle handed Sally a thick stack of 6-by-4-inch index cards, labelled ‘Patches Harris.’ The cards constituted the cat’s medical record. They were full of Kellerman’s spidery, illegible handwriting, and went back as far as 1986. Apparently the cat had suffered diabetes for a few years, but Kellerman’s mysterious shorthand was indecipherable. Before Sally could answer Michelle, Heather reappeared.

  “There’s two consults, Sally,” said Heather. “Have you had a chance to look at those X-rays yet?”

  “No,” said Sally.

  “Well, you’d better get moving. The stampede has started, you know. There’ll be more people in, any minute.”

  “Right,” said Sally.

  “You want me to give the insulin?” said Michelle.

  “Does he get it every day?”

  “Oh, yeah. Four units every day. He’s been in for a week.”

  “Okay. Give him four units. And I’ll have a closer look at him in a minute.” Sally knew she didn’t have time to waste.

  “First consult’s already in the room,” said Heather.

  Sally sighed. This was not the first day she had imagined. But there was no other vet on the premises, so she would just have to do her best. “Okay. I’ll be right there.”

  When Sally opened the door of the consulting room, she saw a big man with a Pit Bull Terrier. The man wore thongs, an old pair of jeans, and a blue singlet. His arms were tattooed from his wrists to his shoulders. He was leaning lazily on the consulting room table while his dog trotted around the room, unleashed.

  Sally picked up the dog’s card. The man was obviously a new client, since there was nothing on the card but his name and address. She noted that there was no telephone number. According to the card, the dog’s name was Satan. This didn’t surprise Sally and she didn’t find it funny, since large dogs were often given those kind of names. But later she would remember it as her
first ever consultation in private practice, without the supervision of another vet.

  “Right,” she said. “This is Satan, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” said the man, not bothering to stand up straight.

  Sally cast a quick glance at the dog. Its left shoulder was swollen up to the size of half a grapefruit and was covered in bite wounds. She could smell pus. Obviously the dog had been in a fight with another dog and come out on the losing side of the battle. Sally wondered whether it had been an accident or whether the man was one of those owners who fought their dogs deliberately. She supposed it was more likely the former, since the dog had no collar and the owner obviously didn’t keep it on a leash.

  Sally often wondered why people would pay a couple of thousand dollars for dogs like these, and then not bother to take proper care of them. The answer was ignorance, more often than a lack of care. Unfortunately there was no licence needed to be a dog owner and some dogs simply were unlucky enough to end up with ignorant owners. Since Sally was an animal-lover, this annoyed her greatly, but she did not show her annoyance. It was her first day in a new job and she could not afford a disgruntled client to complain to the boss about the new vet being rude. So she was polite. “What’s happened to him, then?”

  The man shrugged. “I took him down the park the other day. Bloody Rottweiler had a go at him. Fuckin’ pain in the arse. Can’t afford any bloody vet bills at the moment, you know.”

  “Right,” said Sally. She was never sure what to say when a client insulted her. She thought it was probably best just to ignore it and get on with the job in hand. “When did it happen?”

  “Oh, few days ago.”

  “A few days ago? You mean, last week?”

  “Yeah, it’s been a while, now.”

  “So, it happened last week?”

  “Nah. Happened the week before.”

  “The week before?”

  “Yeah, I reckon.”

  Sally was appalled. “So, he was bitten two weeks ago?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been putting Dettol on it. I thought it might come good. He’s been bit before.”

  “Can you hold him still for me, please?”

  The man looked annoyed. He stood up straight, called his dog, and then kneeled down next to the animal and held its head.

  Sally took a look at the shoulder. She didn’t touch it too firmly, since she knew it would be very painful. “Is he eating?”

  “Nah.”

  “When did he last eat?”

  “He had a bit of roo meat, Thursday night.”

  “So, he hasn’t eaten anything for three days?”

  “Nah. I give him food, but he won’t touch it.”

  Sally wondered if she should call the RSPCA, but dismissed the idea. What would the boss say, if she reported her very first client? No, she would just have to treat the animal and try to talk some sense into the owner. The man was not the kind of person she wanted to get mad, either, and she wasn’t sure how much she could safely say. He looked vaguely dangerous. “Well, there’s a bad abscess there, now. Let’s check his temperature.”

  A minute later, Sally had removed the rectal thermometer and checked the reading. “40.1 degrees, Mr Layton. He’s burning up. With a temperature like that, he might even have blood poisoning. The bacteria from the dog bite might have gotten into his blood. He needs antibiotics, right away, and he’ll need surgery on that shoulder.”

  “An operation? What’s that gonna cost me?”

  Sally thought for a moment. She knew that the muscles under the infected skin of the shoulder would be dying from the severe infection. It was going to be a big job, to debride all the necrotic tissue, try to reconstruct the muscle layers, place several drainage tubes to allow the pus to escape, and then stitch the damaged skin back together. And, on top of all that, the dog would need a long course of expensive antibiotics. “Well, it’s a big job. If we’d been able to catch it early, it would have been much easier. But this infection’s been brewing up for two weeks. I’m afraid it’s going to be a very serious operation. You’re looking at about two hundred dollars.” In fact, Sally knew she should have quoted much higher, more like three or four hundred, but she was afraid the man would refuse to have surgery done and she didn’t want the poor dog to suffer.

  The man’s breath stank of stale beer. “Two hundred? Come on, luv, you must be fuckin’ joking! Last time he was in a fight, I took him to the vet down the road. They only charged me fifty bucks.”

  “They did an operation for fifty dollars?”

  “Nah. He didn’t need it. They gave him a needle and some tablets. That’s all he needs. Two hundred dollars! You vets are all the bloody same. You’re only in it for money. Look, I don’t have a job. I can’t afford that kind of money. Don’t you do a discount?”

  “You’re on unemployment benefits?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been out of a job for a year or two.”

  Sally looked at the dog. Despite its name, and its habit of attacking other dogs, it was a gentle animal with people. She felt sorry for the poor creature. “We can give you a fifteen percent discount. That would make it a hundred and seventy dollars.”

  The man looked unimpressed. “A hundred and seventy?”

  “That’s the best we can do,” Sally said. She wondered what the boss would say, if he knew she was going to do the surgery at nearly half-price. But she knew the dog would not get better without the operation. The infection was just too far gone.

  “Well, if you reckon it has to be done. But this is a valuable dog. If anything happens to him under the anaesthetic ...”

  Sally felt threatened by the tone of the man’s voice, but she had simply had enough. “Mr Layton, Satan’s been ill for two weeks, and he hasn’t eaten for three days. If you had brought him in for immediate treatment, antibiotics might have been enough, but not now. He needs an operation. And, in future, if you keep him on a leash then you could save yourself a lot of trouble. You might want to think about having him desexed, too. That helps with aggression.”

  The man seemed offended by this. “No way. I’m gonna breed from him. Don’t touch his nuts.”

  “Well, that’s up to you, of course, Mr Layton. But this abscess needs an operation. Do you want to go ahead with that?”

  “Oh, yeah. Go ahead and get the bloody thing done.” He looked at his dog. “You’re costing me a bloody fortune, mate.”

  “All right, then. Leave him with us.”

  “When do I have to pay?”

  “When you pick him up, tonight.”

  “I can give you fifty bucks. The rest will have to wait until I get my dole check, next Thursday. I’m not made of money, you know.”

  Sally couldn’t believe it. The man had no respect for her at all, wanted surgery done at half-price, and now he even wanted credit. She toyed with the idea of giving the dog an injection of penicillin and sending him away, but something inside her rebelled at the idea of leaving the poor dog to suffer with this idiot of an owner. No, she would do the surgery. “Right, Mr Layton. Leave him with us and give us a phone call at five. Okay?”

  “Thanks, luv,” the man said, with a crooked smile. Then he turned and left the room after telling his dog to behave.

  Sally put a leash on the dog and led it out to the treatment room. She was very angry. She put the dog in a cage and knelt down to pat it on the head. “There you go, fella. We’ll get you well again.”

  Heather Lorayne appeared beside her. “Bit of a bloody dropkick, eh? And I suppose he wanted everything done but didn’t want to pay us for it.”

  Sally stood up. “Oh, it really pisses me off, Heather. The poor dog’s had this infection for two weeks.”

  “Yeah. Well, your next consult’s here. More of the same, I’m afraid. The lady looks as stoned as.”

  “Stoned?”

  “Oh, yeah. She’s totally off the planet.”

  “Great,” said Sally, sarcastically. “What’s the problem?”

  “She says her d
og’s been vomiting. Probably a parvo.”

  “The dog’s not vaccinated, then?”

  “Are you kidding? Of course not.”

  Sally sighed. “How old is it?”

  “It’s a little Kelpie. Five months old. Here’s the card.”

  “Thanks.” Sally took the card and went to the consulting room.

  As soon as she opened the door, Sally could see what Heather meant. A extremely obese woman, dressed in a black T-shirt and a grubby pair of jeans, was standing in the centre of the consulting room, swaying slightly. Her eyes had a vacant expression. She wore no shoes. Her bare feet were dirty. The woman was obviously stoned. Smoking marijuana was a very common thing in Perth, and many people secretly grew their own plants at home. Sally really hated it, but sometimes people even gave the drug to their pets, and when she looked at the little Kelpie puppy staggering around the room, she realised this was one of those cases.

  “This is Chookie, is it?” said Sally.

  “Yeah, mate,” said the woman. “He’s not himself.”

  “What seems to be the trouble?”

  The woman looked directly at Sally but seemed to be having trouble focussing. Her pupils were dilated, and one eye seemed to be pointing in a slightly different direction to the other. “He chucked up this morning. And he’s gone all wobbly on his legs.”

  “Uh huh. Has there been any diarrhoea?”

  “No, mate. His shit’s as solid as a brick.”

  “And was he okay yesterday?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hmmm. Let’s have a look, then.” Sally lifted the puppy onto the examination table. It was trembling slightly, having trouble standing up, as if it were drunk, and its pupils were slightly dilated. The poor thing looked confused and agitated. It jerked its head about in alarm at every noise and movement in the room. Sally felt herself getting angry again, and had to suppress it. She had no sympathy at all for people who gave animals drugs. It disgusted her. Although there was a funny side to seeing a dog just as stoned as its owner, Sally was not inclined to laugh because she knew that dogs could die from overdoses of drugs like this. “Look, Mrs Harris. I’m sorry to have to ask, and your answer is confidential, just between you and me, but is there any chance that your dog might have got some kind of drug? Because the symptoms look pretty much like a drug poisoning.”