Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

by Danielle Hawkins

  ‘Oh, can’t complain. No point: nobody listens.’

  I smiled. ‘What can I do for you today, Kelvin?’

  ‘One old girl with a cold, and a couple of empties to check. Think you can handle that?’

  In the race was an elderly Jersey cow with a nasty-smelling nasal discharge, and after catching her in the head bail I pulled three long spiky sticks from her left nostril with a pair of curved forceps. I love pulling sticks out of cows’ noses; not only do you get a pleasant self-congratulatory glow from having done the cow a major service, but removing thirty centimetres of thistle stalk from a nostril looks so nice and impressive. It’s almost as good as lancing a really serious abscess.

  I had just removed stick number three and was feeling around cautiously with my forceps for more when the cow sneezed, hitting me squarely in the chest with about a cupful of bloody snot. Squarely in the chest isn’t too much of a worry – it’s squarely in the face that puts you off your stride – and I continued probing undeterred until Kelvin pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket, bustled forward and began to wipe me down.

  That did deter me, and taking a hasty step backwards I turned to rummage in my drug box. ‘Um, right,’ I said. ‘Antibiotics – and we’d better give her an anti-inflammatory, or she’ll push another stick up there to try and stop it itching.’

  ‘Whatever you feel is best, my dear,’ he said warmly. ‘You’re the professional.’

  I had cleaned up and was writing a docket on the milk room bench when he approached again, holding out a spray bottle. ‘What do you think of this stuff?’ he asked.

  I looked at the bottle and discovered that it contained a miracle udder liniment, guaranteed to reduce pain and swelling. ‘I’ve seen the ad in the Dairy Exporter, but that’s about it,’ I said. ‘Does it work?’ Personally I doubted that it would, since it’s a bit of a stretch to ask something you rub on the skin to kill the bacteria lurking in the tissues ten centimetres down, but I had learnt through bitter experience that belittling someone’s pet alternative treatment is almost as offensive as telling them their kid looks funny. (My all-time low was attending a cat after-hours wearing a T-shirt which read Homeopathy, making damn-all difference since 1796, and then learning that the cat’s owner was a certified homeopath.)

  ‘It’s marvellous,’ said Kelvin. ‘Absolutely marvellous. I even used it on my daughter when she had a touch of mastitis after her little one was born. You just massage it in . . .’

  ‘What happened to you?’ asked Richard half an hour later, pausing en route to the back door of the clinic to look me up and down.

  ‘Fell into a bucket of zinc oxide,’ I said, scrubbing at the backs of my legs with a wet towel.

  ‘I suppose you get that when you can’t see your feet.’

  ‘No, you get that when Kelvin Pryor tried to do a special, hands-on demonstration of how to rub your breasts with udder cream, and you trip over a hose as you’re trying to escape.’ And even worse than being felt up by Kelvin the Gnome was the recollection that rather than getting up and slapping him, I’d apologised for my clumsiness as I climbed out of my overalls and tipped white slurry from my gumboots. Being brought up to always be nice to people can be a terrible handicap. And then, just to really add insult to injury, I’d had to go back because I’d forgotten to give him his parcel.

  ‘It’s your own fault,’ said Richard, stepping into his gumboots. ‘You’re too nice to him – he probably thinks you’ve got a crush on him.’

  ‘Oh, shut up.’

  The seat of my shorts was caked in zinc slurry, so I took them off and put them in the washing machine, and donned a clean pair of Nick’s overalls. This, however, only partly solved my clothing problems, because when I bent down the overalls gaped at the sides, showing my knickers. In a burst of inspiration I went along the hall into the vet room, took a stapler from Anita’s top drawer and stapled up the side vents.

  Nick was at his desk, immersed as usual in paperwork. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ he asked, turning in his chair.

  ‘I sat down in a bucket of drenching zinc and had to wash my shorts, and I thought walking around with my undies showing through the slits in my overalls – well, actually your overalls – wasn’t the most professional look,’ I said.

  ‘Right. I see.’ He looked me up and down. ‘Whereas your current look is highly professional.’

  I grinned. ‘Sorry, boss. It’s the best I can do until my shorts dry. Have you got a minute?’

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked.

  ‘Would you mind if I went on maternity leave a bit earlier than I was going to?’

  ‘When were you thinking?’

  ‘Another few weeks?’ I asked tentatively.

  Nick sat back in his chair and looked at me. ‘I thought you were planning to stop on the side of the road somewhere between calvings to produce this child, and then tie it on your back and keep going,’ he said.

  ‘There’s been a slight change of plan. I’m going to go and live with Mark instead.’

  ‘Are you now? Well, that would have to be a step in the right direction.’

  ‘Mm,’ I said, feeling my cheeks get hot. It would have been nice to think I’d succeeded in hiding the shambles of my love life from my colleagues behind a facade of dignified calm, but evidently I hadn’t.

  ‘So presumably you won’t be coming back to work,’ he said.

  I shook my head. ‘I’m so sorry to be leaving you in the lurch.’

  ‘That’s alright,’ said Nick. ‘We’ll manage. Although I must say it would have been a lot more considerate of you to get yourself knocked up by someone local.’

  ‘Then you’d never have got rid of me,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Well, there is that,’ he said, returning to his paperwork.

  I left him to it and went along the hall to the shop to see if Thomas had recovered from the vaccine debacle. He had the portable phone in his hand, but on seeing me he put it down and said crisply, ‘Cat for you to see.’

  So that would be a no. I let myself into the consult room, where I found Fenella Martin.

  Awesome, I thought, and meant it. It wasn’t even morning tea time, and I’d already been sexually harassed, and now my veterinary skills were about to be examined and found wanting. If I had needed some kind of sign from above to reassure me that leaving was the right move, here it was.

  ‘Hi, Fenella,’ I said, closing the door behind me. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine. It’s Fiona who has the problem.’ She opened the door of the wicker cat cage on the table and bent to peer in. ‘Come on, precious. Come on out for Mummy. Yes, I know it’s scary.’

  While she extracted Fiona I admired her new haircut. She had mowed a patch on top of her head, fifteen centimetres square and a precise half-inch long, leaving the sides and back untouched. It looked like a landing pad for tiny helicopters.

  ‘What’s Fiona’s problem?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s got a nasty urine infection,’ said Fenella, unhooking the last claw from the farthest corner of the box and dragging the patient out into the open.

  ‘Have you seen blood in her urine?’

  ‘I’ve been finding little red spots on the carpet for weeks, but I didn’t know which cat it was,’ she said. ‘I put garlic in all of their food, and it did help, but this morning I caught her weeing on my bed, and she cried when I picked her up. Didn’t you, baby?’ She picked up the cat and rubbed its cheek against hers.

  ‘Is she a nervous cat?’ I asked.

  Fenella stiffened. ‘None of my animals are nervous. They’re all loved and secure. Every one of them is special. People who aren’t prepared to care for their animals shouldn’t be allowed to have them.’

  ‘The reason I ask is that cats are quite prone to getting a funny irritable bladder syndrome,’ I said. ‘You tend to see it in more highly strung animals.’

  ‘She is very sensitive,’ said Fenella. ‘She was mistreated as a kitten before I got her, you know.
’

  This came as no surprise – Fenella claimed that every animal she owned had been mistreated before she got it.

  Fiona’s bladder, when palpated through the abdominal wall, was the size and shape of a walnut, and she cried when I pressed it.

  ‘You’re hurting her!’ Fenella snapped.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I stroked the little cat between the ears. ‘I won’t touch it again. You’re quite right: she’s got cystitis.’

  ‘I don’t want those little pink tablets. They don’t work. Give me the paste.’

  ‘Actually, I don’t think she’s got an infection,’ I said. ‘Feline cystitis seems to be an inflammatory reaction – you know how some people get eczema when they’re stressed? Cats get inflamed bladders.’

  ‘She’s not under any stress.’

  ‘All sorts of things can set it off,’ I continued doggedly. ‘A new pet in the house is the most common one – have you got a new kitten or anything like that?’

  ‘I’ve got two new queens,’ said Fenella. ‘One’s a sister to Florence, my little seal-point. Marvellous bloodline. Lovely long, tapering faces – their mother was best in show at Central Districts last year, you know.’

  ‘Wow,’ I murmured.

  ‘And she should have won in Napier, but the judging there was appalling. I laid a formal complaint.’

  Of course she did. ‘Well, I expect that’ll be why Fiona’s cystitis has flared up,’ I said. ‘There are other reasons for blood in the urine, but that’s the most common one. So either we can do blood and urine tests now, or we can start her on pain relief and a special cystitis diet, and if it all settles down we’ll know we’re on the right track.’

  ‘And if it doesn’t settle down?’

  ‘That’s when we’d do the tests, to rule out things like diabetes. But ninety percent of the time we don’t need to.’

  ‘Alright,’ said Fenella. ‘We’ll try that.’

  ‘The only thing that’s going to be a hassle for you is making sure that she only eats the special food,’ I said.

  ‘That’s fine. I can feed her separately.’

  ‘And she’s not allowed to eat anything else, so you can’t leave normal cat biscuits out between meals.’

  ‘But my cats are snackers,’ she said. ‘They come and go as they please, and help themselves. Animals shouldn’t be forced to work in with human routines.’

  ‘Perhaps you could leave biscuits out for the others during the day, and shut this little girl in your room with a litter tray. That way she would get a bit of time out from the others, too.’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ said Fenella. ‘She would be beside herself with loneliness.’

  ‘Cats do tend to be solitary animals,’ I said.

  ‘Not my cats.’

  ‘Well, the others can eat the special cystitis biscuits, if you like. It’s just quite an expensive diet for animals that don’t need it.’

  ‘I’m not made of money, you know.’

  I took a deep breath and turned to get a box of cat pain-relief drops from the cupboard behind me. ‘How about giving it a try for a week? I expect she’d be quite happy to have a little bit of time on her own. Now, you’ve had these drops before, haven’t you?’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ said Fenella sulkily. ‘And I want the paste, not the tablets.’

  ‘She doesn’t need antibiotics,’ I said.

  ‘But you just said she’s got a bladder infection.’

  Yep, I thought, definitely a sign.

  33

  ON MY WAY ALONG DAD AND EM’S HALL THAT EVENING I met Caitlin coming the other way, naked and with a towel wrapped around her head. ‘Hi, Helen,’ she said. ‘Can you help me make fudge?’

  ‘Sure. If your mum says it’s okay.’

  ‘Mum!’ she roared, and I felt the baby jerk in alarm. ‘Can I make fudge with Helen?’

  ‘Is Helen here?’ Em shouted back from upstairs.

  ‘Yes!’ I called.

  ‘Come here!’

  ‘Me or Helen?’ Caitlin yelled.

  ‘Helen!’

  I headed stairwards, and Caitlin turned and came too. ‘Where were you going?’ I asked, curious.

  ‘To get my sneakers out of the car,’ she said. ‘But I can do it later.’

  ‘I hear your piano piece yesterday went really well.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said complacently. ‘Mum’s in the bathroom.’

  Em was seated on the edge of the bath in knickers, singlet and latex gloves, rubbing fake tan into her legs. ‘Well?’ she asked, looking up and smiling at me.

  I smiled back. ‘It’s all good.’

  ‘Details, sweetie! Come on!’

  ‘He came back, and he loves me, and we’re going to move in together and do this properly.’

  Em squealed, raised both arms in celebration and fell backwards into the empty bath. ‘I’m okay!’ she called.

  Caitlin and I rushed forward to help her up. ‘Don’t touch my hands!’ she ordered. ‘You’ll be covered in fake tan.’ We took a forearm each and pulled her up to sit. ‘Sweetie, that’s fabulous news.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, laughing.

  ‘Helen, is Mark going to come and live at your new house?’ Caitlin asked.

  ‘No, I’m going to go and live at his house.’

  ‘Are you going to get married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Let’s not run before we walk, my darling,’ Em said briskly, stripping off her gloves and getting to her feet. ‘All in due course.’

  ‘You’re supposed to get married before you have a baby,’ said Caitlin. ‘Now can we make fudge?’

  ‘Caitlin, it’s nearly tea time,’ said her mother. ‘We’re not making fudge right now.’

  ‘Mum! If we don’t make it before Bel gets home she’ll want to help, and she’ll make a really big mess.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But Mu-um . . .’

  ‘No, Caitlin!’ said Em as a door slammed downstairs.

  ‘Mum!’ Bel shouted. ‘Caitlin! I got a sticker at dancing!’

  ‘That’s wonderful, sweetie!’ Em called. ‘Caitlin, how about you go and put some clothes on?’

  ‘I have to go and see Bel’s sticker first,’ Caitlin said, stalking from the bathroom with a hand clapped to the towel on her head.

  ‘Horrible child,’ said Em. ‘Why don’t you go and tell your father the good news while I make myself decent?’

  I followed Caitlin downstairs into the kitchen, where Dad was filling the kettle. Bel, in stripy leggings and a purple T-shirt with a good inch of tummy showing between the two, solemnly extended the back of her hand.

  ‘Cool,’ said Caitlin.

  ‘I know,’ said Bel. She threw her arms around her sister and the two of them performed a celebratory caper, during which the towel on Caitlin’s head slithered to the floor. ‘Look, Helen!’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ I said, duly admiring the sticker. It read Dancing Queen! and was both pink and sparkly. ‘What did you do to get it?’

  ‘I was a tree, with wind in my branches.’

  ‘Wow. Can you show me?’

  Bel looked at me pityingly. ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘I need the music. Daddy, I’m starving to death.’

  ‘Would you like a piece of cheese?’ he asked. Dentists don’t really approve of eating between meals, but if you must snack at least let it be dairy. Or bread. But never raisins – the very thought almost prostrates them with horror.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘I’m starving too,’ Caitlin said.

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’ Dad asked, getting a block of cheese out of the fridge.

  She shook her head. ‘Just hungry.’

  ‘Poor little waif,’ said Dad, and she giggled. He cut two slices of cheese and handed them out. ‘Now vamoose. Go and get dressed.’

  ‘Take your towel!’ I called after them, but Caitlin, who can detect the rustle of a crisp packet at a hundred metres, continued serenely up the stairs.

  ‘So,’ said Dad, �
��I hear it’s all back on.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Very good.’ He cut a third slice of cheese, speared it on the end of his knife and held it out to me.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘How was work?’

  ‘Oh, about the usual. Nothing too startling. You?’

  ‘Well, I did get felt up by Kelvin Pryor. That was pretty startling.’

  An expression of mild surprise crossed Dad’s face. ‘Wouldn’t have thought he had it in him,’ he said.

  ‘A proper father would roar round there and beat him to a pulp,’ I remarked.

  ‘Did he frighten you?’

  ‘No,’ I said, nibbling my cheese. ‘It was just all a bit unpleasant.’

  ‘I’m sure it was. You know, he’s coming in next week for a root canal. It’s funny how sometimes the local doesn’t work as well as you’d expect.’

  ‘I love you, Dad,’ I said. ‘Hey, would it be okay with you and Em if I came and stayed for a couple of weeks from this weekend?’

  ‘I expect so. Why?’

  ‘I’m going to finish work on the thirteenth of May and go and live with Mark, so it seems a bit pointless to move into a new place for two weeks.’

  ‘Go and live with him permanently?’ he asked.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Are you sure you’ve thought this out? That’s a fairly drastic step, considering that last week it was all over.’

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  ‘You’ve got nobody in Auckland except him,’ said Dad. ‘And he’s not there half the time.’

  ‘I can always come and annoy you if I get lonely.’

  ‘And babies change everything. They’re incredibly demanding little things.’

  ‘I know,’ I said again. I didn’t – I had all but left home by the time Caitlin was born – but I had been imagining the worst for some months now. ‘Dad, I’m scared out of my tiny mind. But – but if it all turns to custard, at least I’ll know we gave it a really good try.’

  My father took off his glasses and began to polish them on the hem of his shirt, which was disheartening.

  ‘I love him a lot,’ I offered.

  ‘Yes,’ he said heavily. ‘I know.’

  Em came downstairs, swathed from throat to ankle in a very glamorous pink satin dressing gown that cried out for a pair of pink feathered mules. ‘Have you told him?’ she asked, pulling the sash tight around her waist.