Pets in a Pickle

by Malcolm D Welshman

  ‘Sorry. Hope you don’t mind,’ I said, turning to Lucy. ‘It’s just so beautiful.’

  ‘I don’t mind at all,’ she replied, smiling shyly at me. ‘In fact, I was rather hoping you would.’

  We sat in companionable silence watching the sun rise over the far, grey-green line of hills. It surfaced as a giant ball of orange, sending out shafts of shimmering light which gradually washed across the fields, painting in the yellow of the corn, the bright red of the poppies.

  Without taking my eyes off the scene, I spoke. ‘You know, I’m very pleased you came along tonight.’

  ‘So am I,’ said Lucy quietly.

  Tentatively, I reached across and laid my hand lightly on hers. ‘Then we must do it again.’

  ‘I’d love to.’

  As the sun continued to lift above the horizon, so did my spirits. Here it seemed was the dawn of a promising new day.

  CREATURE COMFORTS

  When Crystal and Eric returned from their trip to Venice, I was immediately asked about the Richardsons. No surprise there. I’d sensed Crystal had been worried about the foaling and probably wondered whether I’d be up to the job. But then maybe that was just paranoia on my part. What was surprising was the warmth with which she responded to the fact that I’d delivered the foal by epidural.

  ‘Let’s hope George and Hilary appreciated what you did for them,’ she said, eyeing her husband. ‘Some people have been known to get on the wrong side of them all too easily.’

  Eric reddened.

  ‘I’ll go and see what appointments Beryl’s lined up for me,’ he muttered and shot out of the office.

  Crystal shook her head, causing her copper curls to tremble as if each coil was charged with electricity. How I’d love to run my fingers through them and be shocked. I was given one of her dazzling smiles. Oh, those cornflower-blue eyes. Yes, she was still my Julie Andrews. And yes, I could still skip for miles through meadows similarly flecked with cornflower blue, clasping that dainty hand with the gold bangle at the wrist. Providing she could keep up with me, of course. After all, she must be a good 20 years older than me. That, actually, was the worrying thing. Not whether she could keep up with me, but why I, a 25 year old, should feel drawn to this older woman with all the Julie Andrews connotations. Well, as mentioned previously, my mum could have something to do with it. You see, over the years she’d been heavily involved in the Light Operatic Society down in Bournemouth where she and Dad had been living for about 20 years. Early on, when I was still a young teenager, she understudied for the lead in a local production of The Sound of Music. Yes, you’ve guessed it. Maria. I got roped in to help her rehearse her lines over and over again. Until I almost knew them off by heart. And of course there were the songs. Day-in, day-out, Dad and I were bombarded with snatches of the melodies being sung over the washing-up, often with the soundtrack on our old Dansette record player blasting out from the living room. So I sort of got brainwashed. Over the years, The Sound of Music has laid buried in my psyche. Locked away until Crystal Sharpe turned the key and Maria emerged once more. A bit creepy. A bit sinister. But at least I didn’t have the hots for Christopher Plummer.

  ‘Paul. You all right?’

  ‘Er, yes … sorry. Miles away.’ In Austria actually … with the von Trapp family … but all too complicated to explain. Whatever, it seems I’d struck the right note with how I’d coped with the Richardsons. Either that or Crystal’s holiday had put her in a particularly generous mood, for suddenly the practice cottage – the one over in Ashton – was going to be at my disposal at the end of July.

  ‘The tenancy finished then anyway,’ said Beryl when I told her. ‘So they’d want to make sure they got you in there as quickly as possible.’

  Thanks, Beryl. You make a guy feel really good. She was standing in the doorway leading to the back garden having what she termed her ‘in between’ smokes, cigarette in her right hand, with her left hand palm up, to catch the ash. Dreadful habit. But no one, it seemed, had been able to persuade her to stop smoking.

  ‘Been doing it for 50 years and what harm has it done me?’ she’d croaked when challenged, glaring out from a face full of wrinkles that would have done a prune proud.

  She dragged on her cigarette and gazed out at the tired back lawn, worn from dog exercising, bare in patches from urine scald.

  ‘You know, Mrs Paget will be sorry to lose you,’ she confided. ‘Cynthia’s been a lonely woman since Henry walked out on her. Though she’s got Chico, of course.’

  Ah, yes … Chico. The ankle-biting chihuahua.

  ‘But it’s not the same,’ she added, giving me a funny, one-eyed stare, ‘if you know what I mean.’

  To judge from the look Mrs Paget had given me when she’d caught me in my boxer shorts, I knew exactly what Beryl meant.

  ‘She thinks a lot of you.’

  I’m sure she did – especially out of my boxers. ‘She let me have some freezer space,’ I said for want of something to say.

  Beryl’ s good eye widened. ‘Did she indeed? Then you were honoured.’ She stepped on to the patio and tipped the ash in her palm over a wilting clump of lavender before stepping back in. ‘Still, you’ll have all the freezer space you’ll need over at Willow Wren. Especially if you’re going to be on your own.’ I was subjected to another glassy stare.

  There. I knew it. She was fishing. In my first few days at Prospect House, I’d told her I had a girlfriend in London – Sarah. I went up to see her a couple of times on my days off but she was never keen to come down to Westcott-on-Sea. Maybe she thought it too fuddy-duddy for her. Not surprising, since despite it being 2004, the town did have a mid Fifties feel about it with its sprawl of bungalows and retirement homes. Whatever – absence, in this case, made the heart grow weaker and we gradually drifted apart with vague promises to keep in touch.

  That was before the dawn of my relationship with Lucy, that magical moment on the Downs. We’d been discreet since, making sure nothing affected our working relationship. But people weren’t daft – Beryl and Mandy, in particular, would have caught me looking at Lucy with a love-sick puppy dog expression on my face. And I’m sure the old tom-toms would have been beating between Mrs Paget and Beryl, telling her of Lucy’s visits to my lodgings. Originally, I had intended to ask Sarah down to share the practice cottage with me, assuming that we’d still be together. In the event, I found myself asking Lucy. There was no hesitation. ‘I’d love to,’ she’d said.

  It did mean some reorganising of rotas for night duty, but Mandy was surprisingly co-operative. Probably glad to get Lucy out of Prospect House. The two of them sharing the flat above the practice must have had its problems … especially as they didn’t seem to get on particularly well.

  ‘Mustn’t upset the nesting love birds,’ she said. Sarcasm? Envy? There was a touch of something in the way she said it. But those damson eyes of hers gave nothing away.

  It was decided Lucy would keep her room in the flat over Prospect House and stay there when it was her turn to take the phone at nights. Crystal and Eric didn’t seem too bothered at us hitching up.

  There was just the one moment, during a lapse of restraint, when Lucy was in the dispensary counting out some antibiotic pills for a patient and I was hunting for a can of flea spray, that the narrow confine of the dispensary proved too much for me as I squeezed past her; I found myself giving her a kiss at the moment Eric bounced in for some worm tablets. He grabbed a packet and backed out, muttering about a castration that ought to be done.

  Willow Wren was a nineteenth-century farm labourer’s cottage, the end of a terrace of three, the other two having been made into one. It was next to what had been the village pond, surrounded by willows, hence its name. The pond had been filled in during the Seventies and was now a cul-de-sac of houses dating from that period. The cottage still boasted a tall flint wall running down the length of a narrow back garden which, when we arrived, was a riot of brambles and overgrown shrubs. Clearly, the previous tenants
hadn’t like gardening.

  The cottage itself was sweet – whitewashed, red-tiled, a cat slide roof running down over the kitchen at the back. Inside, the wall between the two main rooms had been removed to make one large reception area, beamed with roughly hewn timbers and sporting a large, brick-faced open fireplace with a honey-coloured, oak bressumer. Up a steep flight of stairs there was a tiny landing with two doors leading off; one into a front bedroom with an uneven floor and sloping ceiling, the other through into a second bedroom off which was a bathroom with timbered walls and a view across the garden and beyond to the Downs. Very picturesque. I felt privileged to have been given this; all the more so as I had a pretty girl to live there with me. What more could I ask for? In the event, there was going to be lots more. As I soon found out.

  It was as we were picking our way through the jungle of the back garden that we discovered, lurking under a welter of overgrown ramblers, a row of small aviaries backing on to the flint wall. There were three nesting sheds and four out-of-door flights; and considering the state of the rest of the garden, they were all in remarkably good condition with no holes in their mesh.

  ‘Hey, this is some find,’ said Lucy, gleefully. ‘Couldn’t be better.’

  I caught her arm and swung her round to face me. Her eyes sparkled like dew on young acorns; the freckles on her nose danced.

  ‘Now what’s this all about?’ I said drawing her close.

  Her lips drew back in a wide grin.

  ‘Come on. Out with it,’ I added.

  ‘It’s just these aviaries …’ She hesitated. ‘They’ll be perfect for waifs and strays.’

  ‘Waifs and strays?’ I echoed uneasily. ‘What do you mean?’ But I didn’t have to ask. Lucy’s life revolved around animals; they were her passion.

  So I might have guessed that when we moved into Willow Wren there would be a host of visitors moving in with us. To start with, it was perfectly manageable: a lame guinea pig and a rabbit that had lost an eye in a fight. But within weeks, the menagerie had grown. In one aviary twittered six budgerigars and two love birds; in another squeaked a hoard of guinea pigs; some ferrets and bantams appeared; and then the cottage became home to three tabbies and a deaf Jack Russell called Nelson. To compound things, a goose turned up – but she was my fault.

  I arrived back after morning surgery one Saturday with a wicker basket. As I heaved it on to the kitchen table, there was a loud honk from inside. Lucy turned from chopping up some tomatoes and cucumber for lunch and said with a wry smile, ‘Sounds like another addition to the family coming up.’

  ‘Well, it’s not exactly a pet,’ I explained, beginning to unstrap the lid. ‘I don’t know if you remember that incident with one of Eric’s clients. The Stockwell sisters’ sheep?’

  ‘Weren’t they the ones that got savaged by a walker’s dog? Yes, I do remember. Hawkshill Farm. He had to go out and stitch several up.’

  It had been three, in fact; and two others had had to be put down.

  ‘Well, this was a “thank you” present for him from the Stockwell sisters. Only he didn’t want it … and has passed it on to us.’

  As the lid of the basket creaked open, a long white neck uncurled from within.

  I added, ‘With five months to go before Christmas, she should fatten up nicely.’

  A large orange bill swung out; a steely-grey eye fixed me with a hard stare, and a loud hiss was spat in my direction. I felt almost obliged to say, ‘Sorry … didn’t mean to offend you.’

  In a flurry of snowy down and flaying webbed feet, the goose was scooped out of the basket. She ruffled her feathers, wagged her tail and promptly relieved herself on the floor before commencing a voyage of discovery, leaving a well demarcated trail behind her.

  Ignoring the mess she was making, I enthusiastically explained that she was a variety of goose called an Embden. ‘They make particularly good table birds,’ I added as our prospective Christmas dinner pecked at her reflection in the oven door.

  ‘Have you thought where we’ll keep her?’ asked Lucy, her voice slightly on edge as she watched our posse of three cats glide into the kitchen, their eyes wide and gleaming as they spotted the young goose.

  ‘I’m sure we can find somewhere.’ I thought for a moment. ‘There’s a spare aviary, isn’t there?’

  Lucy shook her head. ‘I’ve just put some more guinea pigs in there.’

  ‘Well, what about that old chicken coop?’

  ‘I’ve got bantams in it.’

  ‘The garden shed?’

  ‘Where would the ferrets go?’

  ‘No problem. They can be moved into the garage until Christmas. And don’t look so worried.’ I threw an arm round Lucy’s shoulder and gave her a reassuring hug. ‘I’ll get her wings pinioned so there’ll be no problem with her flying off.’

  But I’d misinterpreted the concern in Lucy’s eyes She was more worried about the hullabaloo that was imminent. The cats had encircled the goose and were crouched, ready to spring, tails twitching, whiskers quivering.

  ‘If we’re not careful …’ she warned as the cats leapt forward. The goose let out an ear-splitting honk, flapped her wings vigorously and sailed into the air, skimming over the cats’ heads to land with a deafening crash into the vegetable rack, its contents spilling out in all directions. The cats yowled and sprang for the back door just as Nelson tore in to start furiously yapping at an onion, convinced it was the trouble-maker. Lucy clapped her hands to her ears, hunched her shoulders and grimaced.

  After the weekend, true to my word, I took the goose back to Prospect House to pinion her wings. Lucy refused to have anything to do with it, declaring it was cruel. Mandy, in her customary style, informed me there was a slot available just before lunchtime; as in the case of Miss McEwan’s mynah, she was very efficient and had all the necessary instruments lined up waiting for me.

  As the goose slipped into unconsciousness, she patted the bird’s breast. ‘I reckon there’ll be enough there to feed a regiment come Christmas,’ she said. ‘Far more than you two could manage on your own.’ She gave me one of her doe-eyed looks, her long, dark eyelashes fluttering. If she was fishing for an invitation to Christmas lunch, I chose to ignore it.

  When I returned to Willow Wren with the goose, each plucked wing sported a neat row of stitches where the tip had been snipped off and the pimply skin edges sutured together. I carried the basket on to the patch of lawn we’d recently cleared at the back and tipped it on its side. The goose shuffled out with a couple of indignant honks before flapping her wings and, with head stretched forward, skittered down the garden clearly expecting to get airborne. Instead, she plunged straight into the overgrown shrubbery at the end and disappeared from view. There was much crashing about and snapping of twigs before she re-emerged with a necklace of greenery draped round her neck and gave vent to a loud cackle before wobbling back up the lawn, bobbing her head up and down.

  Lucy doubled up with laughter. ‘A star turn if ever there was one,’ she gasped, tears streaming down her face.

  I agreed. ‘A veritable Gertrude Lawrence.’

  The name seemed apt – so Gertie she became.

  By carefully re-arranging Lucy’s menagerie, I was able to find a home for Gertie in the potting shed. It proved an ideal shelter where she could be locked up at night to protect her from the local prowler – a fox with a taste for all things feathered. As for feeding her, this turned out to be easier than anticipated. Gertie liked eating grass – I disliked cutting it. So the lawn mower was abandoned in favour of the goose. As the grass grew, so did her girth. Unfortunately, though the lawn was quite big, it did not quell Gertie’s appetite to try pastures new, and we soon discovered Gertie had a knack of escaping that would have done the prisoners of Colditz proud.

  The phone rang one Saturday afternoon when I was off duty. I had been in the process of trying to persuade Nelson that the vitamin tablet I was attempting to push down his throat in a lump of cheese was good for his health. I reac
hed for the phone as he swallowed the cheese and spat out the pill. It was Joan Spencer, the postmistress who lived next door. She and her husband, Doug, had introduced themselves when we’d first moved in, presenting us with a welcoming bouquet of sweet peas picked from their garden – a beautifully tended garden, bursting with blooms that put ours to shame.

  ‘I’m sorry to trouble you,’ she said, her voice full of agitation, ‘but there seems to be a large white duck or something pecking at our pansies.’

  Oh Lord. That white something just had to be Gertie. I tore round. And sure enough, there was Gertie on the edge of Mrs Spencer’s patio now trying to decapitate a red plastic gnome. Seeing me advance up the path, she gave a cackle of greeting before turning to waddle into a bank of pink and white petunias. I headed her off but not before a neat row of dwarf marigolds had been trampled under web and a beakful of geraniums had been snatched.

  Gertie’s next port of call was the rectory across the other side of the lane. We were not church-goers and had yet to meet the local vicar of St Mary’s church; Gertie made sure we did.

  I answered the door to a tall, cadaverous man in a shiny grey suit with a dog collar that hung loosely round his scrawny neck. He had a long, lank head with muddy brown eyes and an upper lip that curled back over his teeth when he spoke. Very equine. I almost expected him to clasp his hands together and say, ‘Let us bray.’

  Instead, in a sing-song, reedy voice he said, ‘I’m Reverend James… James Matthews. I do apologise for any intrusion that I might be causing when your time is precious, but have you perchance lost one of your … er … uhm … flock?’ He swayed towards me before rocking back on his heels. ‘It’s just that a goose has taken it upon herself to go for a paddle in our pond. I feel the nature of her exercise might be an upsetting element for the residents – my koi carp. If you understand what I mean.’ Having finished his little sermon, his upper lip uncurled and settled into a wan smile.