Vets of the Heart

by Cathy Woodman

  ‘I’d love to train for a qualification in hydrotherapy,’ I say, warming to the idea, ‘and we could expand the nursing clinics.’

  ‘There’s no way we’re moving out of Otter House.’ Emma puts her foot down. ‘That was never in my vision for the practice. Not only that, we’ve invested a small fortune here.’

  ‘So there’s still the concept of a branch surgery, or two, maybe,’ Maz goes on.

  ‘That would split the team,’ Izzy says. ‘Our clients wouldn’t like that.’

  ‘I understand why you’re all being so negative – that’s what happens when you instigate change,’ Maz goes on bravely. ‘We should embrace it, not be scared.’ She turns to Frances for support. ‘You’re on the front line. You know how hard it is to turn people away when we’re busy.’

  ‘I do my best to squeeze everyone in somehow,’ she says rather stiffly. ‘We do manage.’

  ‘I think you’re completely bonkers,’ Emma cuts in when Maz opens her mouth to pick up on what Frances has said. ‘I’ve told you, it’s too much to think about right now. I want to spend more time with the children, not less.’

  ‘I’m thinking of the future. When the children have grown up and left home, we’ll be free to work full-time again and, when we retire, there’ll be a nice little extra for the pension fund.’

  ’If you retire,’ Emma points out with a wry smile.

  I keep silent, not wanting to be seen to take sides. I love Maz. She saw my potential and gave me a chance when I was a rather awkward teenager, but I don’t know why she’s thinking about money and pensions when she’s married to Alex Fox-Gifford, who’s loaded. His family owns half the land around here, and I’m not sure she even needs to work. I like Emma too, and I can see how upset she is at her partner’s suggestion that they abandon Otter House altogether – it was her family home and she set up the practice as a tribute to her mother who passed away from cancer.

  ‘So, when’s the new vet arriving?’ I ask.

  ‘Tomorrow for eight, I hope,’ Maz says.

  ‘You hope? He’d better be here,’ Emma says. ‘I’ve arranged for Ben to have a daddy day with the girls tomorrow so I can show him the ropes.’

  ‘It’s okay. He’s texted me to say he’ll be with us by this evening. He’s staying at the manor with Sophia for now and I must admit I’m nervous – I’m not sure how my mother-in-law will cope with a house guest. On the other hand, it’ll be nice for her to have company for a while, now she’s alone in that big old house.’

  Izzy frowns. ‘I hope it doesn’t put him off.’

  ‘I’ve told her that she’s to look after him like he’s one of the horses.’ Maz grins. ‘That way, he’ll want for nothing, which will be fine as long as she doesn’t feed him pony nuts for breakfast.’ She grows serious. ‘I’m sure I don’t really need to do this, but I just want to remind everyone to make him welcome. Your job, Frances, is to persuade people to see Ross when they book appointments. Don’t let them insist on seeing me or Emma, apart from the really special ones, that is.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure that’s all of them,’ I observe brightly. All our clients are special, in more ways than one. ‘Ouch!’ Tripod turns and gives me a gentle bite to remind me to stroke him now that I’ve finished my doughnut. I run my fingers down his back, shocked to feel the knobbles of his spine.

  ‘If we can transfer as many of Will’s clients as possible straight across to Ross, that would be perfect. There’s bound to be some teething trouble as there always is when a new vet starts.’ Emma looks towards Maz. ‘Are we done?’

  ‘Not quite,’ I say quickly before the meeting comes to a close. ‘Has anyone noticed that Tripod has lost weight recently?’

  ‘I thought he was at the water bowl more often,’ Izzy says, as Maz and Emma shrug rather sheepishly.

  ‘It’s so typical of the vets not to notice anything.’

  ‘That’s why we have nurses.’ Maz laughs. ‘I’ll have a look at him later, Shannon.’

  ‘You won’t forget?’

  ‘You might have to remind me.’ She glances at the clock on the wall. ‘Let’s get going. Emma, you’re meeting with DJ about the plans for the flat, Frances, you’re at reception, and Shannon, you’re helping Jack with the baby bunnies. I said you’d be happy to sex them for him before he boxes them up to take them up to the rescue centre.’

  ‘You don’t think they’re too young?’ It can be hard to tell the boys from the girls before they’re six weeks old, and I don’t want to make a mistake.

  ‘You’ll be fine. I’m supremely confident in your ability to distinguish male from female.’ Maz turns to Izzy. ‘You’re with me for the visits.’

  I head to the consulting room to unpack the drugs order, tidying the shelves and restocking the fridge with vaccines while Tripod ‘helps’, pouncing on imaginary mice among the boxes and packaging. When I’ve finished, I whisk him into reception to weigh him on the scales – he doesn’t need a basket as he’s an old hand, standing there waiting for the reading to come up. He has lost weight, which isn’t good, but I’m quietly confident that he’ll be okay. I help Jack with the rabbits, assigning three to the girls’ carrier and three to the boys’, and sending each of them on their way with one last cuddle. That doesn’t help my allergy because, in spite of a dose of antihistamine, I’m still sneezing when Jennie arrives to collect Lucky much later in the day.

  ‘Am I glad to see you?’ Jennie scoops him up into her arms from the consulting room table, and plants a kiss on the top of his head. ‘We’ve all been so worried.’ The dog looks adoringly into her eyes. ‘You look completely spaced out.’

  ‘It’s the sedation. It’ll continue to wear off overnight,’ I explain, before I show her out and lock up behind her.

  ‘That’s another day over.’ Maz looks up from where she’s filling in a form to go with Lucky’s biopsy samples in the prep room.

  ‘Haven’t those gone yet? The courier should have been by now.’

  Maz stares at me. ‘I asked Frances twice to arrange collection.’

  ‘Shall I call her to check? She’s gone home.’

  ‘No, I’ll organise it. You’ve done more than enough today, thank you. I’ll have to have a little chat with her. This can’t carry on. I can’t keep sorting out her muddles.’ Maz grins ruefully. ‘I have enough of my own.’

  ‘Are you going to be around for a while? Tripod needs to see a vet,’ I remind her. ‘I don’t see why he shouldn’t get priority treatment, seeing as he’s staff.’

  ‘Let me do this first – I’ll be with you ASAP.’

  I feed Tripod and clean the theatre from floor to ceiling – I learned a long time ago that Izzy doesn’t miss a trick. The tiniest fleck of dirt or a single hair and she’s onto it. As I empty the bucket and rinse out the mop, Maz pops her head around the door into Kennels.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’ll have to look at Tripod another time. I’ve got to dash – Sophia’s got the children and George has fallen over and bumped his head. He might need a couple of stitches.’ Maz’s face is etched with maternal anxiety, but she forces a smile. ‘Perhaps I’ll bring him back here and do it myself to save waiting in A&E. I am joking,’ she adds quickly. ‘You were about to ask me if I wanted you to get a kit ready, weren’t you?’

  ‘The thought did cross my mind,’ I admit. ‘You’d better go. I hope he’s okay.’

  ‘He’ll be fine. The Fox-Giffords are hard nuts to crack.’

  I decide that there’s only one way to get Tripod seen by a vet – I book him an appointment for the following day before I walk the short distance home through Talyton St George.

  As I glance back along Fore Street, I notice how the evening sun casts its rays across Otter House, lending extra warmth to its clotted-cream coloured render. There’s a poster in the window of the pharmacy, advertising the maypole dancing on the Green which happened over a month ago on the first day in May, as it has every year since anyone can remember.

  On my way, I’m accoste
d by our biggest patient, a blue Great Dane who reminds me of Scooby Doo. He leaps up and plants his paws on my shoulders, almost sending me flying as he licks my face with a tongue like a dripping towel. I step back against the wall beside the greengrocer’s as his owner shrieks at him and tries to haul him off.

  ‘Nero, get down!’ Mrs Dyer, the butcher’s wife, struggles to drag him away. She’s in her fifties at least, and has arms like a bodybuilder on steroids. ‘I’m so sorry – he doesn’t know his own strength,’ she gasps, catching his lead around the adjacent lamppost to act as a brake. ‘Are you all right?’ she goes on as the bunting flutters in the breeze above us.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks. It isn’t every day you get a greeting like that.’ I avoid Nero’s gaze because I know that if I acknowledge him, he’ll be back to give me another slobbery kiss.

  ‘I must come in and make an appointment for him – he’s been scratching at his ears something chronic.’

  ‘You’ll be able to meet our new vet.’

  ‘I prefer to see someone I know and trust. You do understand?’

  Unfortunately, I understand all too well. When you’ve had a bad experience, as both of us have with losing much-loved dogs before, you’re much more wary the next time: once bitten, twice shy.

  Mrs Dyer wishes me goodnight and releases the lead. I watch her go, being towed along the street, recalling the times I used to scurry away in the opposite direction or pretend to be on my mobile to avoid her. As an idealistic and rebellious teenager, I was involved in an act of vandalism, spraying the message, ‘Meat Is Murder’ across her shop window with red paint. I meant well. I was fighting for a cause close to my heart. The police knew who’d done it because a couple of friends and I had already been in trouble for chaining ourselves to the gates of the fields in protest where the new estate was being built; we were taken to the station, where we had a meeting with Mr and Mrs Dyer and our parents. We apologised and paid for the clean-up – I was lucky not to end up with a criminal record.

  I stroll on across the cobbles in Market Square, stopping outside one of the shops, the place I call home.

  I look up above the window where ‘Petals the florist’ is painted in gold lettering on a green background. There’s a smear of mould in the top corner of the glass that Mum must have missed – not an unusual occurrence, as she is both vertically and visually challenged. The sign in the door is turned to ‘Closed’, but the lights are on and I can see a figure beyond the shelves and buckets of flowers which form a riot of scarlet, pink, yellow and orange among the different shades of green foliage. My mum, dressed in a tatty sweatshirt and jeans that are too tight for her, is sitting at a table, where the light from a desk-lamp creates a golden halo around her frizzy curls as she concentrates on wiring the stem of a bird of paradise.

  I slip the key into the lock, give it a jiggle and a twist and push the door open, at which the bell jangles, bringing a big black dog flying out from the shadows, claws clattering across the lino.

  ‘Seven!’ I exclaim as he jumps up, squeaking and wagging his tail.

  ‘Hello, Shannon,’ Mum calls.

  ‘Hi,’ I call back as I squat down to stroke his ears. He’s a labradoodle, the product of an illicit liaison on the Green between a Labrador and a standard poodle. Maz delivered the puppies by Caesarean, and the seventh puppy to be born had a hare-lip, which meant he couldn’t suckle. The owner of the bitch couldn’t cope with the commitment of hand-rearing him, so he became ours.

  ‘There’s egg, beans, tomatoes and mash for tea’. Mum says, cutting up blocks of oasis and placing them in baskets. ‘Would you mind putting the potatoes on? I’m all behind, like the proverbial cow’s tail.’

  ‘Do I have to? I’ve been on my feet all day – I could do with a shower and a long sleep.’ My nose fills with the scent of lilies.

  ‘I’ve got this anniversary do at the Bamscote tomorrow and it’s got to be perfect.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I walk over and hug her. ‘I’ll do cheese on toast, if that’s okay.’

  ‘Thank you, I don’t know what I’d do without you, darling. Or you, Seven,’ she adds, reaching down to pat him as he walks right in close to her and presses his nose against her thigh.

  ‘He thinks you’re having a hypo,’ point out.

  ‘I do feel a little shaky.’ She hunts along the counter among the bridal magazines and sample brochures for her tubes of glucose gel. She takes one and then uses her machine to prick her finger and check her blood.

  ‘How is it?’ I ask, peering over her shoulder.

  ‘My sugar’s been all over the place for the last few days.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say something?’ I say, annoyed. ‘Have you seen the doctor?’ I look at her and she gazes back, her eyes small and her cheeks puffy. ‘Clearly, you haven’t.’

  ‘There’s no need to give me one of your lectures. I know all about diabetes. I have to live with it.’

  ‘So you know how serious it is if it’s out of control.’

  ‘Yes, it could kill me, but I’m not going to let it. I’ll see Dr Nicci tomorrow.’ She relaxes a little and I can tell she’s feeling better. ‘Come on, lighten up. I don’t want my daughter returning to the dark side.’

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ I groan. ‘As if.’

  She’s referring to my Goth years when I dyed my hair black and hid behind dark, shapeless clothes. I change the subject. ‘Frances says you had an estate agent round the other day. You would tell me if you were planning to put Petals up for sale?’

  ‘The agency dropped a leaflet through the door a while back. I thought there’d be no harm in having an up-to-date valuation.’

  ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she shrugs. ‘One of the partners turned up – he says it’s a remarkably attractive property and he’d be delighted to market it personally, if that was what I wanted.’

  ‘So you aren’t selling?’

  ‘No,’ she confirms, looking aside as if she can’t quite meet my eye, which makes me wonder what she isn’t telling me.

  Chapter Two

  Itchy Feet

  I’m first at the practice the next morning to find that a new inpatient has arrived overnight. Emma, who was on call with Izzy, must have admitted the dog, a black standard poodle. I know who she is before I check the record card that’s clipped to the front of the kennel.

  ‘Saba, what’s happened to you?’ She looks up with mournful brown eyes and promptly throws up at my feet. ‘Oh dear.’ I clear up quickly and give her a clean bed. ‘Never mind.’ She’s Seven’s mum and one of our favourites, having lost some of the aloofness of her youth. Her coat is rough and going grey around her muzzle, although she’s still immaculately turned out. ‘No breakfast for you, I’m afraid.’ Emma has scribbled ‘poss op’ on the card.

  I feed Tripod and hang out the wet towels and pet bedding on the line in the garden, keeping half an eye on the robin that’s hopping about at the foot of the lilac. I can hear the starlings chattering in the roof where they’ve made their nest and hatched their first brood of chicks. It’s very peaceful, apart from the sound of a car now and again on the road outside. I love this time of day, although it’s often the calm before the storm. It won’t be long before Kennels fills with yapping dogs.

  Gradually, the sound of a motorbike cuts through the calm, starting as a faint buzz like an annoying wasp, and growing louder, until it’s so noisy that it could be a whole flight of Hell’s Angels roaring through Talyton St George and heading this way. I hear it pull up somewhere outside Otter House, its engine throbbing like a pulse. It’s the kind of sound that goes right through you, vibrating through your skull and all the way to your feet. Tripod flattens his ears and slinks back through the cat-flap. The robin flies up onto the garden wall and stays there, even when the engine eventually cuts out.

  I carry on pegging out the last of the washing until the sound of the buzzer from reception calls me back inside.

  ‘I’m on my way!’ I hu
rry on through the practice, wondering which of Talyton’s pets has come to grief and hoping that one of the vets will turn up soon, but when I get there, there’s a man in a helmet and leathers leaning nonchalantly against the desk, one finger pressed down hard on the button for the buzzer.

  ‘Ah, there is some sign of life, after all.’ He lifts his gloved hand and raises his tinted visor to reveal a pair of lively dark brown eyes.

  ‘I came as quickly as I could,’ I say, bemused at his impatience. Where’s the urgency? He doesn’t have an animal with him. He isn’t carrying any parcels, so I assume this isn’t a special delivery either, and then I remember that the courier’s due to take Lucky’s samples to the path lab today.

  ‘I believe you’re expecting me.’ His voice is rich and laced with dark honey. He’s very well spoken. In fact, he’s what I’d call well posh, much like Alex Fox-Gifford.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ I say, a little affronted by his rather superior attitude. He removes first his gloves and then his helmet, revealing a mass of dark, almost black curls that fall to his shoulders, which I can’t help noticing are broad and decidedly masculine. His complexion is tanned and his cheeks are adorned with dark stubble. He is heart-stoppingly gorgeous, maybe because he reminds me of Kit Harington, my actor crush of the moment – to look at, at least. I want to make the most of this occasion – it isn’t often, if ever, that a handsome guy, roughly my age, walks off the street into the practice, but I’m a little surprised when he places his helmet on the desk and unzips and strips out of his leather jacket. Underneath he’s wearing a grey T-shirt with a wolf on the front, which is stretched taut across his chest.

  This is getting interesting, I think, frozen to the spot, watching him, but if he’s expecting coffee and a chat, he’s going to be disappointed. I know what these couriers are like. They charge by the minute.

  ‘Wait there,’ I say, and I hurry out the back to grab the package I wrapped and labelled last night. I bring it back to reception. ‘This is for you.’ I hold it out to him and he stares at me, as if he’s a bit dense. My forehead tightens as he places the package on the desk, depositing it between the display of dog tags and collars, and a cardboard cut-out of a big brown flea.