Death in Practice

by Hazel Holt

  Chapter Two

  * * *

  Actually, when I took Foss back to have his dressing changed, I had to see Malcolm Hardy. Diana was out on an emergency, Ben was up-country somewhere with a sick cow and Keith was already booked up. The waiting room was quite full (“Sorry we’re running late – it’s this emergency”) and as always I was amused to see how the animals reacted to this unnatural situation. A large, ferocious-looking Alsatian was cowering under his master’s chair trembling and uttering little whining noises. He was being regarded with some scorn by a smug little toy poodle who sat on her mistress’ knee well above the hoi polloi on the floor below. One cat was complaining loudly at the indignity of being confined in a small basket, while another had turned its back on the whole proceedings and had gone resolutely to sleep.

  Foss, sitting bolt upright in his cage surveyed the scene with his usual interest and smirked complacently when one of the other cat owners commented favourably on his beauty and behaviour.

  The door of one of the consulting rooms opened and a middle-aged woman carrying a Shi-tsu came out. I heard a man’s voice behind her saying, “She’ll be perfectly all right now. Just continue with the lotion and bring her in for me to see next week…”

  The woman turned and made some sort of farewell remark and came into the waiting room to make her new appointment. I heard her at the desk saying to Alison, “Such a charming man, I feel he really understands animals!”

  Alison gave a grim little smile and busied herself with the computer.

  When my turn came I was quite eager to see this phenomenon. Malcolm Hardy, tall and good-looking with dark curly hair and very blue eyes, advanced towards me with hand outstretched. That, somehow, put me off him for a start. He took Foss out of his cage saying, “He really should be wearing a protective collar – did no one give you one?”

  “He wouldn’t keep it on,” I said stiffly. “Anyway, he hasn’t chewed his bandages or anything. He’s really been very good.”

  He didn’t say anything but gave me a superior smile which quickly disappeared when he took off the dressing and Foss gave a low growl, something I’d never heard him do before.

  “Perhaps you’d better hold him,” he said as Foss struggled (something he never did with Simon) “while I look at this leg.”

  I held Foss, stroking him to keep him calm while Malcolm Hardy put on another dressing and gave him an injection. Then he quickly bundled Foss back into his cage and slammed the door shut, almost (as I said to Rosemary) as if he was a dangerous wild animal.

  “There,” he said, “now he’ll be all right. Just you make sure he wears that collar!” He gave me what I imagine he thought was a boyish smile. “And bring him back to see me in another three days.”

  He held out his hand again. I reluctantly shook it and made my escape.

  I went over to the desk to make the appointment. “Three days time,” I said to Alison. “With Diana please, and, if she’s not free, with Keith.”

  “Not with Mr Hardy?” Alison asked.

  “Not with Mr Hardy,” I said firmly.

  “Never with Mr Hardy!” I said to Rosemary when I reported back to her on my visit. “You know how good Foss has always been at the vet’s. I remember Simon saying he could never listen to Foss’s heart properly with his stethoscope because he was always purring so loudly! He’s never growled at anyone before. I’m sure that wretched man hurt him when he took off the dressing.”

  “So you didn’t care for Malcolm Hardy,” Rosemary said smiling.

  “Sorry, was I going on? No, but really, I’m sure you’ll agree when you see him. That smug and superior manner – what I can only call smarmy. I suppose it goes down with some people – well I know it does – but not our sort of person at all.”

  “Oh dear, what a shame. And Simon was so marvellous.”

  We were both silent for a moment considering our loss.

  “You can tell the rest of the staff can’t stand him either,” I said. “Oh well, we’ll just have to see Diana or Keith in future, but it won’t be the same.”

  * * *

  I came across another disagreeable aspect of Malcolm Hardy’s character a few days later. I was in the pet shop buying a new collar for Foss (he loses them at the rate of one a month) when I saw Ella Wilson. Ella is notable in Taviscombe for taking in stray cats and dogs. She is most persuasive and usually manages to find homes for them, but the old and injured ones whom nobody wants she keeps and looks after with love and devotion. When I last enquired she had fourteen cats and two dogs living with her in the small house on the outskirts of the town. We all rally round with tins of cat food and bags of cat litter, but I know that looking after them all, and the strays she takes in temporarily, stretches her very limited resources to the utmost.

  “Hello Ella,” I said. “I haven’t seen you in ages. How are you?”

  She shook her head but didn’t reply for a moment and I noticed that she looked very drawn and weary.

  “Oh Sheila,” she burst out. “I’m so worried.”

  “Why? What’s the matter?”

  “You know how wonderful Simon and the others were about looking after my cats and never charging – well, now this new man’s come they say they can’t do that any more.”

  “No!”

  “I saw this man – Malcolm Hardy is his name – and he was really unpleasant. Said they weren’t a charity – well, I know that of course, but… well…”

  “And Diana?” I asked, “what about her?”

  “She was very upset, but she said there was nothing she could do about it. Apparently he has the say about what happens there now. Honestly, Sheila, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Poor little Mitsi has a tumour – Simon said it’s benign but it needs to be operated on. I’ll have to find the money somehow but, as you know, I only have my small pension…” Her voice trailed away again.

  “Oh Ella, I’m so sorry. Look, let me pay for Mitsi.”

  “Oh no, I couldn’t let you do that! No, I’ll manage this time, but it’s the future I’m so frightened of.”

  “I suppose it’s only what we should have expected,” I said to Rosemary later that day,” but poor Ella, she’s at her wits’ end.”

  “She does such marvellous work –” She broke off and then said excitedly, “I tell you what – let’s get up a sort of subscription list to raise money for her. There must be heaps of people she’s helped in some way or other. We could get them to make annual donations or something.”

  “Brilliant! Let me know what you want me to do. And we’ll certainly let everyone know why we’re doing this and how vile Malcolm Hardy is being!”

  “Right, then, let’s make a list and draft an appeal and you can do copies on your computer.”

  I looked a little doubtful and Rosemary laughed. “Oh go on! I’m sure you can manage that. Anyway, Michael and Thea will help you.”

  The response was very good and soon we had the promise of quite a substantial sum.

  I told Diana about the scheme when I took Foss in for his final visit.

  “What a good idea,” she said. “Put me down for £25.” She hesitated for a moment and then said, “Look, I’m really sorry about Ella. You know that if it was up to me we’d have continued the old arrangement.”

  “Yes I’m sure…”

  “It’s just that everything’s different now.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I understand, and the £25 will be very welcome.”

  She smiled gratefully. “Now then, I’ll just give this young man a final shot of antibiotic and then I don’t think we need to see him again. He’s really healed very well, but do try and stop him chasing rabbits quite so enthusiastically!”

  Michael and Thea were very helpful about the support scheme for Ella, as Rosemary had predicted.

  “But please, Ma,” Michael said, “for goodness sake don’t go around saying these things about Malcolm Hardy or he’ll be able to sue you for defamation.”

  “I’m onl
y saying what’s happened. He really has behaved abominably!”

  “But not in any way illegally. And, after all, not everyone shares your obsession with animals. Some people would say it was only good business practice.”

  “Oh, very well then. Anyway, we’ve got a splendid lot of promises.”

  “We really need to set up a proper fund,” Thea said, “and make it all official and then people can pay annually by standing order. Michael, could you get the papers drawn up tomorrow?”

  She was interrupted by a loud wailing.

  “Oh dear,” Thea said, “I did hope she’d settled. She’s usually so good about going down in the evening.”

  “Shall I go and see to her?” I asked.

  “Oh would you? Then I can get on with supper.”

  I went into the nursery and found my granddaughter wide awake and demanding attention. I picked her up gingerly. After 30 years one forgets just how fragile a really young baby seems. As I patted her back gently she became quiet and I was pleased to find that some actions still came automatically, even after all that time. I walked up and down the room humming quietly to her, as I used to do to Michael, and gradually she fell asleep and I was able to put her into her cot, where she lay on her back with her tiny starfish hands flung up onto the pillow on either side of her face. I stood for a moment looking down at her and thinking how lucky I was and wishing, with a tinge of sadness, that Peter could have seen his granddaughter and that my mother could have known that her great-granddaughter had been named Alice after her.

  A few days later I was just coming out of the post office when I ran into Anthea.

  “Oh Sheila, I’m so glad to have caught you. Have you got a minute?”

  Fearful of being chivvied into another meeting of some kind, I began to formulate some sort of excuse but Anthea swept it aside.

  “Come and have a coffee in the Buttery. I can come back here later.”

  With our coffees (“No, nothing else for me, I never eat between meals”) in front of us I waited for Anthea to begin. However, unusually for her, she didn’t plunge straight in but seemed to hesitate. After a moment she said, “I’m really worried about Kathy.”

  “Why? What’s the matter?”

  “I can’t make it out. She’s obviously upset about something and she won’t tell me what it is.”

  “Is it work?” I asked. “That new man, Malcolm Hardy, seems pretty disagreeable. Has he been unpleasant to her?”

  “Well, she doesn’t seem to like him – none of them do – but I don’t think he’s been picking on her particularly. Mind you, now he’s brought this new girl in there’s been even more ill feeling.”

  “New girl?”

  “Yes, Julie Barnes – do you remember her mother, Cynthia Barnes? She used to be Cynthia Burton, married that farmer out at Winsford. Anyway, everyone thinks she’s this Malcolm Hardy’s girlfriend so you can imagine they all hate her.”

  “Good heavens! And you think all this is why Kathy is so unhappy?”

  “Oh no, I’m sure there’s more to it than that.”

  “What does Jim think?”

  “Oh,” Anthea said impatiently, “you know men, they never see anything. He just thinks I’m making a fuss about nothing. No, I wondered whether you could have a word with her.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, she likes you – she was telling me how nice it was to see you the other day.”

  “It was just at the surgery…” I began.

  “And you’re both silly about animals,” Anthea went on. “I’m sure she’d talk to you.”

  “Honestly Anthea, I really don’t think…”

  “I did think of asking Jean to have a word, but they’ve never been close and Jean is so busy nowadays, what with her job and Philip and the boys. You know how full young people’s lives are these days!”

  Widows, I reflected, are always thought to have empty lives and should therefore be grateful to be given any tasks that other people do not wish to perform in order to fill them.

  “I really don’t think I can just ask her what the matter is right out of the blue like that,” I protested.

  “Oh, you’ll think of something,” Anthea said airily. “You’re awfully good at getting people to talk to you. Look how marvellous you were with poor Margaret Payne when her husband left her. She wouldn’t talk to a soul until you had a word with her and then it all came pouring out!”

  “But that was completely different,” I complained to Rosemary the next day. “I’ve known Margaret since we were at school together, she’s my generation. But although I’ve known Kathy since she was a child I don’t really know her. Not enough to ask her personal questions like that.”

  “Anthea is the limit,” Rosemary said, “the way she simply tanks over people. Still, if I was Kathy and I had a problem I’d be more inclined to talk to you than to Anthea.”

  “Still, I can hardly go and knock on her door and say, ‘Your mother’s worried about you’, now can I?”

  “I expect you’ll bump into her, you know what it’s like in Taviscombe, you’re always running into people.”

  And, in fact, I did bump into Kathy a few days later – well it was a bit more calculated than that. I was walking Tris along by the sea when I saw a solitary figure sitting in one of the shelters just past the harbour. As I got closer I saw that it was Kathy. She was obviously lost in thought and didn’t notice me approach, in fact she looked very much as if she wanted to be alone, but I thought it was too good an opportunity to miss and called out to her.

  “Hello Kathy, isn’t it a lovely day?”

  She looked up startled.

  “Oh, Mrs Malory, how are you?”

  “Fine, though Tris and I have been for quite a long walk and we both need a little rest. Do you mind if we join you?”

  “No, of course not.” She bent and patted Tris, who rolled over to have his stomach rubbed.

  “You’re so good with animals!” I said impulsively. “You must find your job very rewarding.”

  “Oh yes – that is I love working with the animals…”

  “But not the people?”

  “No, most of them are very nice, it’s just – well, it’s all a bit different now.”

  “You mean Malcolm Hardy?” I suggested.

  She nodded.

  “And this Julie Barnes? Is she Malcolm’s girlfriend?”

  “We think so,” Kathy said, “though I don’t think they live together or anything.”

  “But?”

  “But it’s uncomfortable having her around – we all feel she’s sort of spying on us, reporting what we do and say back to him.”

  “It sounds very unpleasant.”

  “It is! It used to be such a happy practice, but everything’s horrible now.” She spoke vehemently and I was startled by this show of feeling in Kathy, who has always seemed to me to be an equable kind of girl.

  “Do the others feel the same?”

  “Diana’s very upset about it all – Malcolm’s taken over all the big decisions and really runs the whole thing, so you can imagine how she must feel. And Keith’s run off his feet – Malcolm gives him all the difficult, tiresome things to do and then keeps on at him saying that he’s not pulling his weight.”

  “And Ben?”

  “He’s sacked Ben.”

  “I’m so sorry. What will he do? There isn’t another practice in the district – will he have to move away?”

  “He can’t – well, it wouldn’t be easy for him. His wife’s ill, you see, in a nursing home here.”

  “I didn’t know that. How dreadful for him. And what about you?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you and Alison and Susie.”

  “Oh Susie’s gone – she said she wouldn’t stand for being spoken to the way he did. That’s when he brought in Julie.”

  “And how does he speak to you?”

  “He’s – well, he’s not very nice. He’s often quite rude and disagreeable and he doesn’t al
low us to do half the interesting things Simon and Diana let us do, helping with operations and so on. He says we’re not trained to do them, but that’s not true, we’re both qualified veterinary assistants.”

  “It all sounds perfectly awful,” I said. “Do you feel like leaving too, like Susie?”

  She hesitated for a moment and then said, “Well, to tell you the truth I have been thinking of it. But, as you say there’s no other practice around here – even if there was a vacancy.”

  “And you haven’t thought of moving away?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’d hate to leave Taviscombe.”

  “You might go to Taunton,” I suggested. “A lot of your friends in the opera group live around there, don’t they?”

  “Yes, but they’re not really my friends – I mean, I know them quite well of course, from singing with them, but well… No, I’ll just have to stay here for the moment and hope that things get better.”

  “What’s happened to Susie, where did she go?”

  “She’s got a boyfriend who lives near Weymouth – she’s going to work at a practice down there.”

  “Lucky Susie.”

  “Yes.”

  We were both silent for a while until Tris gave a little bark at a passing seagull. I gathered up my courage and said, “Kathy, is everything all right? I mean, I know it’s difficult at work, but you seem very down. Is there something else?”

  She stared out to sea and didn’t answer for a while, then she burst out, “No – everything’s awful! Perhaps I should get right away and start afresh, but I really don’t think I can!” She was crying now. “It’s all hopeless and I don’t know what to do!”

  “Kathy I’m sorry, please don’t cry! Can you tell me what it’s all about?”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m sorry but I can’t – there’s someone else involved.”

  “Is it a man?”

  She nodded and, taking out a tissue, began to wipe her eyes. “I’m sorry Mrs Malory, I didn’t mean to burden you with my troubles.”