Country Lovers

by Rebecca Shaw

  “Sorry, came as quickly as I could.”

  “Come on, then. Come on. It’s Star. Right off color, he is. I’m worried sick.”

  As Dan pulled on his boots he asked how the pygmy goats were doing.

  “Grand. When you’ve seen to Star you can ’ave a look at ’em. Hamish is doing a grand job with ’em, and Blossom’s right taken with ’em too. Come on, before it’s too late.”

  “What are the symptoms?”

  “You tell me; that’s what I pay you for.”

  Dan held up a placatory hand, went through the farm gate, and headed for the barn where Sunny Boy the bull had always been. He felt quite a pang that it wouldn’t be him he’d be attending.

  Star, the new occupant of the first-class barn at Applegate Farm, was looking uncomfortable. Dan approached with caution, gently making Star aware of his presence and noticing with approval that his head was tethered firmly, both sides, to the two-foot thick wall.

  Phil muttered, “He’s tethered, not taking any more chances. It breaks my heart to see him like that, but after Sunny Boy gored Hamish…well, I can’t take the risk.”

  “How is Hamish?”

  Mystifyingly Phil replied, “You’ll see after.”

  By this time, Dan was in Star’s stall using his hands to feel him all over. “When did this start?”

  “He looked a bit uncomfortable last night, Hamish said, not himself you know, but nothing specific. This morning he’s worse and hasn’t eaten a bite. Not even his favorite snack.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A bag of chips.”

  Dan had to laugh. “A bag of chips! Honestly, Phil, I can’t believe it.”

  Phil chuckled. “It’s his favorite, honest. Loves ’em. Do nearly anything for a bag. Has t’be plain—doesn’t like them artificial flavors.”

  Dan shook his head in disbelief. “You’ve not been giving him anything else strange, have you?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Well, I’ve taken his temperature and he has got a slight one, which shows things are not quite right. I’ll stand here for a bit and watch him. There, look, did you see him look down his flank? There’s something causing him pain.” Dan placed his fist on Star’s left flank and stayed silent.

  Phil whispered, “Are you doing a bit of faith healing or something? Laying on of hands, like?”

  Dan didn’t answer, but concentrated hard. Then he said, “Watch!” and Star glanced down his flank again as though anxious. “I think he might have something lodged in his rumen because every time it contracts, it’s making him wince. Got a piece of planking? About five or six feet long?”

  Phil, thinking Dan must have taken leave of his senses, disappeared and came back a few minutes later with the required piece of wood. “Will this do?”

  “Excellent! Now you stand the other side of him and pass the wood through, and you hold your end and I’ll hold mine and when I say lift, lift as hard as you can up against his body.”

  “Here! Just a minute, what are we doing?”

  “We’ll put pressure on his body right where it counts, and if it causes him pain, which we’ll know by his reaction, then I shall know my diagnosis is correct.”

  “Oh! Right!” Still convinced Dan had entirely lost the plot, Phil waited for the signal.

  Dan bellowed, “Lift!” and the two of them heaved the plank of wood up against his body and Star grunted, loudly.

  “Just what I thought. Once more to make sure.”

  “Well, I’d grunt if someone was heaving a plank up against my insides.”

  “Now!” Poor Star grunted again, and lifted a back leg.

  “We’re right. He’s got a piece of wire or some other solid object jammed at the point of his rumen, and he feels it when the rumen begins to contract from that end, and we make him feel it when we push the plank up against him.”

  Full of hope Phil asked, “Maybe it would pass through him with a pint of castor oil? Do you think?”

  “No, absolutely not. We’ve got to get it out.”

  In a feeble voice Phil asked, “You mean, putting your arm up his arse?”

  “No, cutting him and pulling it out through his side. It’s the only way.”

  Phil clung to the top of the stall gate. “Hell’s bells. No, you can’t mean it.”

  “I do. If I’m going to save him.”

  “Think of the risk.”

  “Think of the risk if I don’t.”

  “Knock him out for a few minutes, you mean?”

  “No, an injection to numb the whole area and do it while he’s standing here.”

  “Oh, God! Will you need ’elp?”

  “An extra pair of hands would be helpful, yes.”

  “I’ll get Blossom; she’s better at this kind of thing than me.” A distraught Phil shuffled off to the house, feet dragging as though taking his last steps on his way to hell.

  Blossom appeared in the doorway of the barn, wearing a spanking blue-and-white striped butcher’s apron over her skimpy clothes, vivid pink rubber gloves on her hands, and her peroxided hair wrapped tightly in a tea towel that had seen better days.

  “I’ve come. Phil’s sitting by the fire, stroking the cat and praying.” Her glossy ruby lips broke into a conspiratorial smile. “No nerve for this kind of thing. Where do we start?”

  “Are you sure? It’s not pleasant and I’ve no idea what I shall find when I get in there. He’s certainly got a temperature, which will mean a lot of infection and possibly a smell when we get inside.”

  “Women are tougher than we look. The main thing is to get Star better. He can’t go on as he is. So…” She held out her pink rubber hands and they were as steady as a rock. “See…”

  “Right then, we’ll begin. I shan’t say please or thank you or will you; I shall give commands and you’ll have to act on them. First, I need a bucket of hot water and some soap to clean myself off now, and again halfway through the operation.”

  “Right. I’ll get that straightaway.”

  Blossom survived the initial opening up of Star’s flank, and really admired Dan’s stitching technique when he sewed a pocket of Star’s rumen to his skin to keep the sack in place and enjoyed watching as Dan made an incision into the rumen, but it was when he put his arm deep down inside, right up to his armpit and was obviously searching about for the foreign body that Blossom came over faint. She clutched hold of the sty wall, swallowed hard, took some deep breaths and was sufficiently in charge of herself to be able to appreciate Dan’s shout of triumph as he brought out a huge, crooked, rusty nail, which he examined and then placed carefully on the windowsill of the barn.

  “Oh, my God! Was that what it was? This nail?”

  “In a very painful place. Don’t pick it up; I need you to stay clean. I’m stitching next.”

  “No wonder he had a stomachache.”

  Blossom pulled herself together and helped Dan disinfect himself, passed him the appropriate needles for stitching up, and didn’t really relax until Dan was giving Star a pat of approval.

  Dan couldn’t have had better help if he’d sent for Bunty to assist him. “Thank you, Mrs. Parsons. You’ve done very well. Quite remarkable. I wonder, have you trained as a nurse?”

  Blossom gave him a wry smile. “I know it’s hard to believe but I have. However, I got caught in a patient’s bed one night, Sister found me and went berserk, and I was dismissed. Served me right; it wasn’t the first time. But there we are.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I loved it while I was there, but…you can’t have everything, can you? I’ll go tell Phil, if he hasn’t passed out by now. Thank you, Dan, for what you’ve done. Marvelous.” Her ruby-red lips broke into a wicked smile, she twinkled her fingers at him, and left.

  Before he left, Dan went to find Phil to ask for a look at Callum Tattersall’s pygmy goats. He found him leaning on the gate of a small field. A brand-new shed had been put in to act as a night shelter, and there, busily supervising Hamish tidying it up, were the goat
s, Sybil with her kid at her side.

  Phil nodded toward Hamish and shouted, “Put your shoulder to it; it’ll be dark before you’ve done.”

  Hamish looked up, grinned, and shouted back, “Come and give us a hand, then!”

  Dan’s eyebrows shot up with delighted surprise.

  Phil nudged Dan and said quietly, “Surprised? I bet you are. I told you he’d speak before long, didn’t I? Well, it was these here goats that did it, believe it or not.” Phil kept his voice low and told Dan the whole story. “We came to collect ’em that day, you know, when poor old Callum snuffed it…anyway, we knew, Blossom and me, that Hamish was getting close to talking, but he couldn’t quite make it. We could see, you know, he was on the brink. Well, he was delighted with the goats and especially the little kid; she was only about two weeks old, wasn’t she? Well, that night he went out to make sure they was asleep and comfortable like, it being their first night and he was gone for ages. Blossom said I should go out and check up on him. So I did.”

  Phil paused for a moment, unable to carry on speaking. He dug in his pocket and brought out some tidbits for the goats, clicked his tongue at them, and they came running across to him.

  “There you are. That’s it. All gone. So there he was, sitting in the night shelter on the floor in the straw, rocking back and forth with the little kid fast asleep on his lap, holding her like you would a baby, talking away like I don’t know what. All like baby talk, you know. I was amazed. Couldn’t believe it. All of a sudden he realized I was there, and he looked up and smiled and said, “Isn’t she beautiful, Phil?” Just as if he’d never been dumb. I just said, “She is that.” Then we locked up and went in. I don’t mind telling you I was gobsmacked. Soon as we got in, Blossom asked him if he wanted hot chocolate or Horlicks before he went to bed, thinking he’d point to the jar like he always did, but he said, “Horlicks.” Well, she was that overcome she burst into tears. Since then he’s talked, almost nonstop. So you see it was something about that little kid that must have gone right to the very heart of him and kind of healed him up inside.”

  “Has he been able to tell you why he couldn’t talk, what it was that clammed him up?”

  “No. But we were talking the very next day about another kid being due soon, you know, and how we were looking forward to it, and Hamish said out of the blue, “He killed the baby, right there, in front of me.” And he wept, such terrible grief, like I’ve never heard before. Broke Blossom’s heart it did, and mine, I can tell you. So what that means I can’t bear to think, but I reckon it’ll all come out in the wash one day. Some kids have rotten lives, don’t they? Rotten.”

  “Poor chap. But he’s happy here, Phil, you must be doing a good job.”

  “It’s Blossom mainly.” Phil straightened himself up and said, “Thanks for Star; sorry I couldn’t help. By the way, I’ve given Bernard Wilson a hand to make new runs for his dogs, and I’ve more or less promised I’ll buy one of the young ones off him for Blossom—it’ll be one less for him to feed. But don’t tell her; it’s a surprise for her birthday.”

  RHODRI phoned Dan on his mobile later that day and asked him if he had time to go see Bernard Wilson and his dogs. “I’d promised to call today but I’ve had a road accident come in, and I can’t leave till I’ve finished operating and it’s a major op, so I don’t know how long I shall be.”

  “So long as it’s all right with you?”

  There was a short hesitation and then Rhodri answered, “Yes, of course it is.”

  “Right, I’ll go; leave it with me. Good luck with the op.”

  “Thanks, it’s tricky. Crushed ribs. Do or die job.”

  “Good luck, then.”

  Dan called at Badger’s Lot and as he pulled into the farmyard, he was greeted by the sound of barking, and an ancient vacuum cleaner grinding away in the farmhouse. He couldn’t see Bernard outside, so he rattled the back door of the farmhouse.

  The noise of the vacuum stopped and the door was opened by a large woman who looked like a female version of Bernard, except she hadn’t got a three-day growth of beard. Instead she had a smooth, fat, rosy country face, with frank, no-nonsense eyes and unfortunately for her, Bernard’s bruiser of a nose. “Yes?”

  Dan took off his cap. “Good afternoon, I’m Dan Brown, veterinary surgeon, calling to see Bernard’s dogs.”

  “I’m Hannah, Bernard’s sister. He’s gone to the feed place, back soon. Feel free to go look. I’ve shut them all in the stables ’cause Bernard’s cleaning the runs when he gets back. I’ll get on if you don’t mind.”

  Dan thanked her and went to see the dogs. As he turned to cross the yard, he noticed a rat trap standing under the kitchen window with two vast rats in it. Hannah’s voice boomed out from the door, “And he’s those two to kill when he gets back. The mucky devils that they are.”

  “Right!”

  The runs had been well constructed; they were large and afforded the dogs plenty of room for exercise. He opened the double doors of one run, closed them safely behind him, and opened the top half of the stable door for a view of the dogs. There was a light switch by the door post, and Dan switched it on. Today he was greeted by noisy young dogs, not quite as healthy as he would have liked, but a vast improvement on how they’d looked a week ago.

  They were rolling and tumbling about, wrestling energetically with each other. One came to the door scrabbling to reach him; Dan bent down to stroke his head. “Now then, young man, you look better than you did. Bernard been taking care of you, has he?”

  Before he got an answer to his question, Bernard’s old truck rumbled into the yard loaded with feed bags. Bernard climbed out and came across to speak to him. “Afternoon, Dan.”

  “Afternoon, Bernard. Just happened to be going past.” He nodded his head toward the open stable door. “You’ve done a good job. They’re looking better.”

  Bernard came into the run and hitched his bulk onto the stable door in the space left by Dan. “By hell! That Blossom Parsons has got something to answer for. She rang my sister, she did; they knew each other when they were nurses together. Told her I needed ’elp.” He jerked his head in the direction of the house. “The blasted woman’s come, and she’s turned my house upside down. Says she intends living here. ‘We’re both lonely’ she says.”

  Dan studied what Bernard had said and then replied, “She looks to me as if she’ll take care of you all right. Meals and such, and you have to admit the house was…worse than a pigsty.”

  Bernard looked at him. “Yer nothing if not outspoken, you. Upset all my arrangements, she has.”

  “But I bet you’ve nice clean sheets on the bed and the kitchen’s spotless. You’ve a lot to be thankful for, Bernard.”

  “Ummph. Depends how you look at life. Says she wants to put a shower in, so I says if you pay for it you can, thinking she’d back off, but did she? Like hell, she did. Right, she says, I will when I’ve got this place cleaned up to my satisfaction. I’ll get a plumber in.” Bernard shook his head in disbelief.

  Dan decided to change the subject. “These dogs are beginning to look better. I’ll just have a look at the others, and then I’ll be off.”

  “I even have to take my boots off before I go in the kitchen. Says she wants a porch building over the back door so there’s room for my boots and farm clothes undercover.” He grunted and groaned at the prospect, but Dan could tell, though Bernard wouldn’t ever admit to it, that he was quite liking being looked after.

  Hannah’s foghorn voice boomed out from the back door. “There’s these two to see to.” She was pointing at the rat trap. “Hurry up. And then there’s the dogs’ runs to clear up. When you’ve done that, there’ll be a nice bite of fruitcake and a cup of tea ready. I’m gasping. How about you, Dan?”

  Dan shook his head and refused on the grounds of pressure of time.

  Hannah had to have the last word. “And there’ll just be time for you to walk the young dogs before dark, Bernard. I’ve got some lengths of rope
ready, so be sharp about it.”

  “Wouldn’t mind, but she’s poured all my beer down the sink. Not a drop, she says, till I’ve done all the jobs that need doing. Poured it down the sink! How can a man function without his beer, I ask you?”

  Dan surveyed Bernard’s well-rounded stomach and said, “Before long you’ll be as thin as a whippet!”

  Bernard snorted his disapproval, let himself out of the dog run, and headed for the rat trap. Dan beat a hasty retreat. If there was one thing he loathed, it was rats. He shuddered, put the Land Rover in first, and headed off toward Porter’s Fold, the last of his calls for that day, chuckling to himself about Hannah’s clean sweep of Bernard’s house. She was just what the man needed, was Hannah. He had a good farm with acres of good land; all it required was diligent application, and it could become quite a gold mine.

  When Dan had finished his last call, he went back to the practice to check in. The waiting room was half full and Kate was behind the desk talking to a client. They both broke off when he approached.

  “Hi, Dan! Finished? There’re no more calls. Joy says go home if you like. Zoe and Colin have already finished. Slack day today.”

  “OK. Will do.”

  The client took her credit card from the counter, saying, “See you Monday, Kate, half past nine. ’Bye.”

  “I shan’t be here Monday. This is my last day. I’m off to college next week.”

  “No! Really. You got in then?”

  Kate gave the client one of her winning smiles. “I did.”

  “Will you come back here when you’ve qualified?”

  “I honestly don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see. They might not want me.” She gave a bubbly laugh and the client laughed too.

  “It would be lovely if you could. Good luck, then.”

  “Thanks! Be seeing you.”

  Dan said good afternoon to the client and then asked Kate if Rhodri was still about.