City Girl, Country Vet

by Cathy Woodman

“I got spotty spots.” Ruby lifts the hem of her sweatpants.

  “This isn’t a day care, Frances,” I say sternly. How’s she going to look after Reception and a child as well?

  “Look.” Ruby points to her shin. “Spotty spots.”

  I squat beside her and take a closer look.

  “Are they itchy?” I ask, and Ruby bends down to give them a good scratch. “Do you have a cat at home?”

  Ruby nods. “He’s called Chuckle and he’s big and brown and stripy.”

  “Frances, Ruby isn’t infectious. Those are flea bites.”

  “Oh, how embarrassing,” Frances shrieks. “I told her”—I assume from the tone of her voice, the tone she uses when talking down to certain Otter House clients, that there’s no love lost between her and her daughter-in-law—“to take that cat to see a vet about its constant scratching, but would she listen?”

  “You can take her to nursery now,” I say.

  “I’ll drop her round at lunchtime. It’s all right, Maz. I won’t let her run around unsupervised.” Frances looks at me disapprovingly. “You know, Old Fox-Gifford was more than happy to let her stay in the office and play with his dogs, and dear young Alex used to bring her toys and sweets.”

  “I don’t care what Talyton Manor Vets did,” I say, exasperated.

  “Izzy tells me Alex brought a cat in here last night,” Frances says. “She’s rather put out that you didn’t call her in to help with the op.”

  “I thought she’d be pleased I didn’t wake her.” I hope I haven’t upset her.

  “Eloise won’t be too happy when she finds out,” Frances says.

  “You mean the drug rep.”

  “Alex’s girlfriend, that’s right.”

  “I can’t see why she’d be the slightest bit bothered,” I say. “Alex dropped by with the cat, we operated, he went home. End of story, Frances.”

  “Do I hear my name being taken in vain?”

  “Alex?” I spin round to find him letting the door into Reception swing back behind him. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve come to see the cat.” He looks weary. He’s nicked himself shaving, and I find myself wanting to offer him a swab.

  “How’s the lovely Eloise?” Frances cuts in, apparently determined to extract the latest gossip straight from the horse’s mouth. “I thought I saw you two going into the Barnscote for dinner when I was driving past the other day.”

  “It was her treat.” Alex smiles. “The company’s promoted her to regional head of sales.”

  “How marvelous,” says Frances. “You must give her my congratulations.”

  “Will do,” Alex says. “Of course, I always knew she’d go far. Eloise is the complete package—bright, funny, and ambitious.”

  “And beautiful,” Frances adds. “She always manages to look glamorous.”

  “Come on through, Alex,” I say, feeling rather nauseous at the thought of this paragon of a girlfriend.

  In the corridor, Alex slips past me and holds the next door open.

  “Thank you,” I say, taking him through to Kennels.

  “How’s Frances getting on?” he says on the way.

  “I hope you’re not gloating because you’ve managed to off-load your receptionist as well as your more difficult clients,” I say, stiffening my resolve not to get too friendly with the competition by reminding myself exactly who he is.

  “Not at all,” he says smoothly. “It was Emma who poached Frances from us. We weren’t unhappy with her—we were used to her foibles.”

  “Then we’d better agree to disagree.”

  “That’s what we’ve been doing for these past three years, Otter House and Talyton Manor,” Alex says when we reach Tripod’s cage. “How are you, little chap?” Alex opens the door. In spite of the wires in his jaw, the cat is trying to balance on his three legs while licking his rear end. He has no sense of loyalty—he purrs and writhes in ecstasy as Alex tickles him under the chin, then plays with his paws. “I missed that last night. He’s got extra toes—look, six on each.”

  “He’ll be good at touch typing then,” I say drily. “Let’s get him out and fix this drip. It’s stopped completely.”

  Alex holds Tripod on the bench while I try to insert a fresh cannula into the vein in the cat’s front leg. I miss it. Twice.

  “Your thumb’s in the way,” I complain to Alex, the back of my neck growing hot with a mixture of embarrassment and confusion. I feel uncomfortable with him standing so close to me.

  “Sorry,” he says, shifting his grip.

  “Maz, there’s a phone call for you.” I glance up at the sound of Izzy’s voice. “Oh,” she says, stopping in her tracks.

  “Alex is helping me with Tripod’s drip,” I say quickly in case she’s jumped to the wrong conclusion.

  “I see,” Izzy says.

  “You don’t have to stay,” I say when she shows no sign of leaving us to it. I don’t need a chaperone. I don’t need another set of eyes watching me either. It’s making me nervous.

  I rip another cannula from its sterile pack. It goes in on the third attempt. I tape it in and attach a new drip bag.

  Poor Tripod. I pick him up and kiss him before putting him back in the cage.

  “Lucky cat,” Alex observes quietly.

  What does he mean by that? I wonder. Did he come to see me as well as the cat?

  I’m tired, a bit miffed with Alex for flirting with me when he’s going out with Eloise, and angry at myself for my clumsiness—I thought I’d overcome all that when I was at vet school. And I blame Alex for everything.

  “I wish you’d stop messing about, pretending you like me,” I say. “For all I know, it’s just another stunt to wind me up.”

  “Stunt?” Alex frowns. “What do you mean?”

  “You and your family, always trying to bring Otter House down. You made life hell for Emma, and now you’re doing the same for me.”

  Alex’s eyes darken, and I wish I hadn’t spoken out so forcefully.

  “You mean the slurry? My father didn’t have anything to do with that. He might have offered a bottle of malt here and there to help people come to the right decision on certain planning issues, but criminal damage? Absolutely not.” He paces a tight circle, his hands in his pockets, and for a moment, I think he’s going to walk straight out, but he stops and faces me.

  “It’s a difficult time for us right now. Many of our farmers—families who’ve been working the land here for years—have sold up, while others can’t afford to call the vet out every five minutes. They skimp on the routine stuff and use us as a last resort. It isn’t just a problem for us at the manor, it’s an animal welfare issue and a personal disaster for many.”

  “I see.” I hadn’t thought about it like that. I feel rather inadequate.

  “My father’s a sick man. The practice isn’t merely a business to him. It’s his life, and he’ll do anything to protect it.” Alex gazes at me as if he thinks I’m a bit dense. “Your lack of understanding of the issues affecting the countryside is exactly what I expect from you city types.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. Embarrassed? I’m mortified. “I really am sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. I rather like it when you’re arsey with me,” Alex says with a flash of humor. He turns away and opens Tripod’s cage again. “Going back to the subject of this cat, I called Gloria Brambles first thing. She doesn’t recognize the description I gave her. He isn’t one of hers.” He hesitates. “You assumed that I’d forget, didn’t you? In spite of everything Emma’s told you, I’m not all bad.”

  “If you’re really the kindhearted person you claim to be, why don’t you offer Tripod a home?” I suggest.

  “We have too many cats on the estate already. Mother took on a couple of kittens as a favor to a friend. Two females. You can guess the rest. By the time I got around to spaying them, there was a litter of kittens in the shed among the croquet hoops, and another in the top of the trunk where my mother stores her old
horse blankets.

  “We kept a couple of the kittens and handed the rest in to Talyton Animal Rescue, along with vouchers for free neutering.” Alex gives Tripod one last caress and closes the door. (I hate to admit it, but he has a great bedside manner, not that I’d want him anywhere near my bed, you understand.)

  “I’d better go home and let the hounds out.” Alex coughs—not a honking cough like a dog let out of kennels but a nervous kind. “By the way, there’s a talk on tonight at one of the hotels on the way into Exeter. It’s an update on the management of failing hearts, so it should be useful. I could give you a lift as you aren’t familiar with the area.”

  “It’s all right, thanks. I’ve got GPS.” I pause. “Won’t you be taking Eloise?”

  Alex frowns briefly. “No, she’ll be there already,” he says. “The drug company’s sponsoring the talk—Eloise is hosting it. Come on, Maz. I insist.”

  Go for it, I think. It isn’t a big deal. It isn’t like it’s a date or anything, and I’m beginning to see what Emma means—that it’s impossible to argue with a Fox-Gifford.

  And that’s the last thing I’m going to say about Alex and his father, because life is too short, and I’ve got Emma’s practice to worry about. I’m going to draw a line underneath it, like this:

  * * *

  I hope I didn’t hurt Izzy’s feelings a second time by letting Alex help me with Tripod and not asking her. She’s a little cool with me this morning, but it doesn’t last. By the time we’ve had coffee and started on the ops, she seems more cheerful.

  She opens Tripod’s cage to remove his food dish, sending him scuffling back into the corner, wary perhaps that he’s about to lose another body part.

  “I thought you were having me on when you said Alex Fox-Gifford had brought him here,” she says.

  “I didn’t send him an invite. He kind of gate-crashed my night duty.”

  “Why didn’t he take him back to his own practice?”

  “He thought the cat needed putting down and we were nearer.”

  “So it isn’t Alex’s cat?” Izzy sounds surprised. “He seems rather fond of it.”

  “I reckon he feels guilty because he was the one who ran it over. It’s a stray, so there’s no one to pay the bills.” I pause. “I’ll get Frances to put a notice up in Reception. Someone might claim him,” I say as Izzy brings a Persian cat, a blue one like Saffy, with orange eyes, to the bench.

  “Here’s your chance to try out the new clippers,” she says. “You did clear the cost with Nigel, didn’t you?”

  “Er, no. No, I didn’t.” I watch how Izzy rolls her eyes at me and quickly add, “I’ll sort it.”

  “Please do, because I don’t want to be the one to have to face him,” Izzy says sternly. “This is Cheryl’s stud cat for a tidy-up,” she goes on. “I can’t see what the girls see in you, Blueboy.”

  I have to agree. He’s cross-eyed, one of his teeth sticks out, and his coat is decidedly disheveled. In fact, it’s so matted it’s difficult to find the cat underneath, which I find surprising since Cheryl professes to be so fond of her babies.

  We give him a shot of sedative and wait a few minutes for it to take effect.

  “Did I hear right when you said you were going to the talk with Alex?” Izzy says in a disapproving tone. “Emma wouldn’t condone all this fraternizing with the enemy.”

  “He offered me a lift, that’s all. It seemed churlish not to accept it.” I change the subject. “How did Freddie get on last night? Did he pass muster?”

  “Chris hasn’t introduced him to the sheep yet. Meg, his other dog, tried to savage him, and Freddie didn’t settle down until about ten, but apart from that it all went well.”

  “Are you going to see him again?”

  “Chris invited me to the farm for dinner tonight—he doesn’t want to go out and leave Freddie alone with Meg just yet.”

  “Is romance in the air?” I ask, but Izzy plugs in the clippers and hands them to me, switching them on at the same time to avoid giving me an answer. I press them against the fur on Blueboy’s belly. The old clippers chuntered and snagged. These purr. The matted coat falls away from the skin in one piece, like a sheep’s fleece. It’s quite therapeutic, and very quickly Blueboy is parted from most of his fur.

  “What do you think, Izzy?” I stroke the soft, velvety pile that’s left on Blueboy’s flanks. He looks like a lion, a blue one with a sleek body, a ruff of mane around his neck, and four fluffy paws. I cover him in a towel in case he should feel the cold as he comes round.

  “He looks great. Less like Bob Geldof, more like George Clooney.” Izzy combs out the last few knots from Blueboy’s tail until it looks like a rather splendid bottlebrush and clips his claws.

  Unfortunately, Cheryl doesn’t share our opinion of Blueboy’s haircut when she comes to collect him.

  “Oh, what have they done to you, my darling boy?” She sweeps him up into her arms, and he lashes out at one of her earrings, sending it swinging from her earlobe while its partner trembles with fury; and, I confess, my knees are almost trembling with fright now that I study Blueboy more closely: my handiwork isn’t quite as great as I thought. Bloody awful, in fact. Decidedly ragged. His look-at-me attitude has been binned with his hair and the masculine assets under his tail revealed in all their glory.

  Cheryl stares at me, her eyes flashing across the room. “I trusted you!”

  “His coat will be far easier to manage now,” I say, as optimistically as I can.

  “He hasn’t got a coat anymore. And why does he look all spaced out?”

  “That’s just the sedation—it’ll wear off in the next couple of hours.”

  “You gave him a sedative? Old Fox-Gifford always managed without knocking him out.”

  What did he use then? A straitjacket? I bite my tongue.

  Cheryl glares at me, and I take a step back. There’s a nasty smell of entire tom suffusing the air.

  “I’m sorry if Blueboy’s tidy-up isn’t what you were expecting, but the hair will grow back,” I say defensively.

  “In the meantime, he’ll be the laughingstock of the Cat Fancy,” Cheryl says as she stuffs him back into his carrier. “I’m beginning to doubt if you’re really a vet at all.”

  “Of course I am. It’s just that I didn’t spend six years at vet school learning how to be a hairdresser.”

  “I wonder whether you learned anything. I showed Saffy’s scar to one of our friends who’s been in Persians for over fifty years, and she said she’d never seen anything like it. It looks as if you slashed her from end to end.”

  “It didn’t look unusual to me,” Izzy says, coming in to back me up, but Cheryl isn’t taking any notice.

  “It hasn’t healed at all well—it’s still red and lumpy.”

  “It isn’t as if Saffy’s going to have any hang-ups about her bikini line,” I say, then wish I hadn’t. Cheryl’s like a stroppy cat—she needs careful handling because you can’t be sure when she’ll strike next. “You’re welcome to bring her back and I’ll have another look at her.”

  “There’s no way I’m setting foot in this place again!” Cheryl storms out into Reception in front of a crowded waiting room (yes, it’s what I’ve wanted to see since I arrived at Otter House, but why, oh why, did it have to be right now?) and stares at Frances. “Where’s that form, the one I signed before I left here this morning, before your vet ruined my poor cat’s life? You’ve as good as killed”—a gasp of horror goes up from the waiting clients—“his career. We were going to enter him for the National this year. I know one of the judges, and she said he’d easily make champion of champions and really put Cheriam Persians on the map!”

  Frances shuffles through some papers beside the computer, mostly drawings of stick people and stick dogs, I notice. Ruby is strapped into a buggy behind the desk, alternately sucking on a breadstick and a pencil.

  “Where is it, Frances? Where’s the consent form?” The back of my neck starts to prick, as if a taran
tula is slowly creeping across my skin. “I don’t remember seeing it.” I haven’t got a good feeling about this.

  “I signed it,” Cheryl insists in an ultra-loud voice. “But I did not give you permission to drug him and hack all his fur off.”

  “Frances?” I say.

  She clears her throat, puts her glasses on, then takes them off again. “There’s been a bit of a muddle-up,” she says finally. “I let Ruby help me shred some of the junk mail, and the next thing I knew, she was using the shredder all by herself. I promise it won’t happen again. It was an exceptional circumstance.”

  Sure, I think, wanting to believe her. However, I’ve had enough experience of human nature to know that exceptional circumstances have a habit of repeating themselves.

  “Let me get this right,” Cheryl interrupts. “You made a mistake and now you’ve shredded the evidence. I’m not paying for the appalling service I’ve received here today. You—yes, you, Maz—are totally incompetent. I’ll be going straight back to Talyton Manor—the vets there know exactly what they’re doing.” She takes a breath, then continues, “I’ll be in touch with my solicitor for the way you’ve treated my babies. I’ll have you struck off, and what’s more I’ll make sure everyone in this town knows.” She gives the door a hard shove. It doesn’t budge.

  I point to the sign above the handle. “You have to pull it.”

  I return to Kennels to find Izzy for moral support. She’s stuck cut-out eyes and a tongue on the mat of Blueboy’s hair she’s dragged out of the bin and put back on the table.

  “I heard what was going on out there, so I came back to find this—I thought you might need to keep it as evidence,” Izzy informs me. “I should have chased up the consent form when it didn’t come through with the cat. I just assumed—”

  “So did I. It’s my fault.” I take a deep breath. “Well, it isn’t all that serious. Nobody’s died.”

  “If Cheryl takes her complaint to the Royal College, you could be in big trouble though, Maz.” Izzy stares at me, arms folded, giving me the distinct impression she isn’t on my side.

  “I know,” I say, picturing myself in front of the disciplinary committee.