The Village Vet

by Cathy Woodman

  ‘It’s fine. Actually, I feel a bit guilty that I didn’t even suspect the pony was pregnant. I should have checked when I first came out to see her, considering her history. Call this my contribution to the Sanctuary. I’m sure there’s never enough money.’

  ‘Or enough space,’ I add ruefully. ‘I’m really grateful. We’re struggling.’

  ‘It doesn’t help that you have another mouth to feed,’ Alex says.

  The foal is soon on his, or her, feet, drinking from the mare. If I was concerned that Dolly might treat her baby in the same way she treats some of us, I was wrong. She adores it.

  ‘She’s very proud,’ says Libby. ‘What shall we call her? Him?’

  ‘It’s a colt,’ Alex says. ‘I had a quick look. He looks quite comical with that patch across his eye.’

  ‘You aren’t going to let yourself get too attached the foal as well as Dolly, are you?’ I say lightly to Libby once Alex has left for home and Jack has gone to feed and clean out the cats in the cattery.

  ‘I’ll try not to, but this is fate, I reckon,’ Libby goes on, busily texting on her mobile at the same time. ‘Dolly will have to stay for a while longer, won’t she? She can’t travel anywhere with a young foal at foot.’

  ‘She’ll be here for the winter now,’ I confirm. ‘Who are you texting?’

  ‘Ash, to let him know our news,’ she says. ‘This is the best thing ever.’

  ‘So you’re still together, you and Ash?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she says, smiling.

  ‘Make sure you keep me posted,’ I tease. ‘I can hear wedding bells.’

  Libby ignores that comment, and I notice her hand is twitching. When she sees me looking at it, she folds her arms, hugging the affected one to her chest in an attempt to keep it still.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I ask quietly, and then when she doesn’t answer me for a second time, I go on, ‘You have told Ash about your epilepsy, haven’t you? I don’t mean to nag, but—’

  ‘I haven’t and I’m not going to.’ Libby’s eyes flash with annoyance. Her mood has changed. ‘You’re as bad as my brother. Have I taken my medication? How am I feeling? Have I told everyone? I can change my status on Facebook and take out an ad in the Chronicle: Libby Miller suffers from epilepsy. Well, I don’t. On a worldwide scale, my suffering is nothing. I can manage my condition. Give me some credit.’

  ‘I understand that,’ I say, as she continues, ‘I’ll tell Ash when it feels right. If I tell him now, I’ll scare him off because he’ll think I’m really into him, which I am …’

  ‘Libby, he should know. It isn’t fair.’

  ‘Yeah, so we’ll spend our time together with him watching and waiting for me to start twitching and frothing at the mouth. How cool does that look?’

  ‘He needs to know the rules, like how long he can leave it before he calls an ambulance. Libby, how would you feel if it was the other way round?’

  ‘I’d be petrified that he was going to die on me,’ she says after a long pause for thought. Her lip wobbles and I’m afraid she’s going to break down and cry.

  ‘Exactly,’ I say, putting my arm around her shoulders. ‘Think about it.’

  ‘I have, and I’ve made my decision to keep it from him for now. I’m prepared to take the risk. It’s my life, my choice. And don’t you dare say anything to either of them, Ash or Jack.’ She changes the subject back to Dolly’s baby. ‘How do we start handling the foal?’

  ‘Carefully, I should say. Dolly strikes me as being the possessive type – she’s bound to want to protect her baby. We’ll have to take it slowly, one step at a time.’

  How I wish Jack and I had taken it slowly, one step at a time. We should have gone out on a few dates and built up to the first kiss, not jumped into bed with each other at the first opportunity. He would have had time to get to know me even better than he already does, and realised exactly what he had to lose by dumping me for the cougar.

  ‘Are you okay, Tessa?’ Libby asks as we continue to watch the foal, which staggers shakily around to Dolly’s head end and stands there so that she can nuzzle fondly at his face. ‘Only you seem rather quiet tonight … What’s up?’ Libby goes on sternly when I don’t respond. ‘Are you still recovering from the ball?’

  ‘That was weeks ago, and I didn’t have a hangover, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘You were one of the few who didn’t have a drink or two.’ Libby hesitates. ‘So what is it? Didn’t we raise any money?’

  ‘No, we counted it all up and we made several thousand pounds.’

  ‘You must be exhausted,’ she says, probing.

  ‘I’m not tired. Not really.’

  ‘Is it Jack?’ She takes my silence as affirmation. ‘It is Jack. I don’t know if it will make any difference, Tessa, but you should probably know that Karen’s moved out and gone to stay with friends.’

  ‘It makes no difference to me,’ I say quietly. It’s too late. I still have feelings for Jack, and I could so easily give in and go back to him if he asked me to, but it wouldn’t be right. There’s nothing to stop him letting me down again as soon as someone else catches his eye, and I’m not prepared to put myself through that kind of heartache again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Nine Lives

  LIBBY AND ASH drop in regularly to visit Dolly and the foal, which they’ve named Apache. I leave them at the paddock gate with their supply of carrots late one afternoon and return indoors to have a shower after what’s been a very long but rewarding day, playing fetch with the kennelled dogs and experimenting with a variety of toys with the cats. I smile to myself because that makes it sound as if I’ve spent all day playing games, when I’ve done all the feeding and cleaning out too. Working with animals is not a glamorous occupation.

  I’m just letting Tia out in the back garden for a couple of minutes, when I hear Ash shouting urgently.

  ‘Stay there,’ I tell Tia. Checking the time on my watch on the way, I make a run for it back to the paddock, following the sound of Ash’s voice.

  ‘Libby’s having a fit,’ he screams from beside her, where she’s lying on the grass at the base of the fence, her eyes wide open yet unseeing, her face red, saliva on her lips and her limbs thrashing about.

  ‘Keep calm,’ I say, looking to make sure she isn’t going to hit her head on the gatepost, and checking the time again. ‘Ash, talk to her, let her know you’re here.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we call an ambulance?’ he says, his complexion as pale as Dolly’s white blaze.

  ‘Not yet,’ I say as calmly as I can; I’ve never seen a human being have a seizure before. ‘Trust me, Ash. I’ve done the risk assessment and she’s okay for three minutes.’

  ‘It must be at least that now,’ he stammers.

  ‘I timed it from almost when you started yelling.’ I try to focus him on doing something so that he doesn’t panic, although underneath I’m beginning to fear that we’re getting close to the mark. ‘Talk to her, Ash. Come on, that’s your job.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Anything, what you had for breakfast will do.’ I begin to relax a little, noticing how Libby’s body is growing limp and the twitches less frequent, and how her eyes settle on Ash’s face, her brow furrowed as if she’s trying to remember who he is. ‘She’s coming round,’ I go on with a sigh of relief.

  ‘Hi, Libs, guess what I had for breakfast?’ Ash begins, before reeling off a whole list of foods: ‘Cold pizza, curry, cornflakes, baked beans, eggs, a cereal bar, apple pie.’ I raise one eyebrow when he glances up at me. ‘I didn’t have all of them today.’

  ‘Ash,’ Libby moans, groping for his hand. He links his fingers through hers and raises her hand to his lips.

  ‘Thank goodness for that,’ he breathes as she tries to sit up.

  ‘Stay there,’ I tell her. ‘She’ll be confused at first. Make her stay there, Ash. I’m going to get something for her to sit on and a glass of water. Do you want anything?’


  ‘A double vodka, I reckon,’ he says, with a small smile. ‘No, don’t worry about me.’

  I deliberately take my time to collect up a glass of water and one of the deckchairs, giving Libby and Ash an opportunity to talk, while getting ready to console either of them if they should fall out.

  As I approach, I hesitate, peering around the corner of the kennel block and catching sight of them sitting side by side, leaning against the fence with their legs outstretched. My heart sinks.

  ‘You can’t dump me because of this!’ Ash shouts. ‘It should be me dumping you for keeping secrets.’

  ‘I can’t let you dump me,’ Libby argues. ‘I’d never live it down. If you were a real man, you’d let me dump you.’

  ‘But I’ve got grounds. You should have told me in advance so I knew what to expect. Libby, I’ve never been so scared.’ Ash’s tone softens. ‘I thought you were dying. Why didn’t you say anything before?’

  ‘Because I thought …’ Libby hesitates. ‘I knew it would put you off. We’re supposed to be dating, getting to know each other and having fun. You don’t want to waste your time with me, watching and waiting and worrying about when I’ll have the next fit.’ She bursts into tears. Ash puts his arms around her. ‘You know I could die.’

  ‘Well, you haven’t done yet,’ he says, scrabbling around in his shorts pocket and pulling out a scrappy tissue, which he presses into her hand.

  ‘There is always a risk …’ she sobs aloud.

  ‘Well, you’ve coped with it. I’m sure I can live with it too.’ Ash pauses. ‘Libby, I love you. If you think we’re going to split up over this, you’re wrong.’

  I step out from my hiding place, feeling guilty for listening in on a private conversation, but relieved that they’re talking. I walk across and hand Libby the water. I’m not sure she has need of the deckchair now.

  ‘There you go,’ I say lightly. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘I’ve got a bit of a headache, that’s all,’ Libby says. ‘I think it’s Ash who’s feeling worse,’ she adds, turning to him with a small smile on her lips, and I feel a stab of envy at their closeness and the way they mirror each other’s movements. Even though they haven’t been together for very long, they look like a couple of childhood sweethearts, and yet again it takes me back to Jack, and how we could have been like Libby and Ash if the course of love had run a little smoother for us.

  I leave them together and return to collect Tia from the back garden where she has taken me seriously for once, still sitting exactly where I placed her in the middle of the lawn, a bee buzzing close to her face, tormenting her because she can’t hear or see it, only detecting it when it makes a brief landing on top of her nose or behind her ear.

  ‘Come on,’ I tell her, touching her collar to let her know I’m here, and she struggles up and follows me indoors where I shower and retreat to make dinner, Ash and Libby dropping by to say goodnight before they leave.

  Sometimes I think I’m going mad being here alone in the bungalow in the evenings, apart from Tia. I blame it on the pressure of running the Sanctuary and my mounting debts, because although the money is coming through from the charity’s funds at last and I no longer have to shell out for cat and dog food, my salary doesn’t even cover the interest payments. It’s the first time too, when I look back over the past few months, that I’ve had time to reflect on the wedding and the anguish of losing my home. What’s more, my dad came round a couple of days after I spoke to Great-Auntie Marion to tell me she’d died in her sleep. I didn’t know her well, but I’m sorry.

  It hasn’t been all bad though, I tell myself, trying to stay positive. In fact, there have been some real highs as well as lows; the nature of animal rescue, I suppose.

  The sound of a car outside makes me jump, but has no effect on Tia, who lies sprawled across the kitchen floor at my feet, licking and biting at her claws, an annoying habit of hers. I continue to feel edgy, more so now that Buster has gone, which reminds me with a pang of anxiety that he’s still missing, either wandering the countryside, or lying injured or worse under some hedge.

  It’s gone seven and I’m not expecting anyone. Abandoning the stir-fry I’m cooking and leaving the lights off on the way, I look out through the office window to find Katie’s car outside.

  ‘What on earth does she want?’ I grumble to Tia. I have nothing to say to her, and if she’s come here for sympathy because Nathan’s dumped her for someone else, as I expected he would all along, she’s wrong.

  She’s broken the code, and it might sound like a squabble in the playground, but she went too far this time. Our friendship is irretrievable. I’ve moved on.

  I’m so relieved though that it isn’t a stranger, someone following me or watching me, that I answer the door.

  ‘Yes?’ I say, coming face to face with the woman who slept with my fiancé, looking pale yet defiant beneath her make-up.

  ‘I have a surprise for you, Tessa,’ Katie says.

  ‘Haven’t you given me enough of those already?’

  ‘This is a nice one. I think you’ll be pleased.’

  ‘Is that Nathan with you?’ I look towards the car. The engine’s running and there’s a shadowy figure in the driver’s seat.

  ‘It’s all right. I told him to wait for me. I’m not staying.’ She undoes the top button of her coat, a short lime-green mac, and refastens it once more, flashing the ring on her left hand.

  ‘So that’s it?’ I say, annoyed now. ‘You’ve come to gloat.’ I start to shut the door on her, but she stops me.

  ‘It isn’t like that. I’ve brought you a dog. The one on the posters. You must have seen them – they’re all over Talyton. I recognised him straight away: Buster, the black dog, who used to live here at the Sanctuary.’

  ‘You mean, you’ve found him?’ I say, light dawning at last. ‘Where is he? Is he hurt?’

  ‘Hey, calm down, Tessa. You seem more excited about the dog than you ever were about any man. He’s fine.’

  ‘How did you get near him?’

  ‘Nathan and I were walking to the pub when we came across him on the Green. He was chasing a squirrel. The squirrel went up a tree, and the dog went straight into it. While he was looking a bit stunned – like Nathan after he’s had a few too many – we managed to catch him.’

  ‘Oh, never mind Nathan, where’s Buster?’ I can’t wait to see him again.

  ‘Have you got a lead we can use?’ Katie asks. ‘We used Nathan’s tie and a piece of string.’

  I grab a rope lead from under the counter in the office and join Katie outside, where she’s opening the side door of the car.

  ‘No!’ I shout, but it’s too late. Buster – because there’s no doubting that it’s him – comes flying out of the car, and just when I think he’s going to disappear across the car park and into the night, he skids to a stop, just like a cartoon Scooby Doo, turns and bounds towards me, squeaking with joy. He leaps up, wagging his tail and landing his paws on my midriff, almost knocking me off my feet. ‘Buster! I didn’t think I was going to see you again. Where have you been?’ I say, half chiding him, half laughing with relief.

  ‘I don’t think he’s going to tell you,’ Katie says as I slip the lead over his neck.

  I give Buster a massive hug before thanking Katie for bringing him back to the Sanctuary. Dolly has safely delivered a foal and Buster has returned in one piece. Perhaps life is looking up again.

  ‘There’s no need to thank me,’ Katie says. ‘I knew you were fond of him.’

  ‘I was fond of Nathan once,’ I say quietly.

  Katie looks me in the eye. ‘You weren’t fond enough though, if you’re honest.’

  The smell of petrol fumes is beginning to get right up my nose. ‘Who are you to talk to me about being honest when it was you who—?’

  ‘Let’s not go there,’ Katie interrupts. She reties the belt on her mac, pulling it tight around her waist. ‘Look, I hope the dog’s all right – and you too.’

&n
bsp; She looks exhausted, dark rings around her eyes and her face gaunt.

  ‘How about you?’ I say, relenting.

  ‘I’m well.’ She pauses as if wondering whether or not to leave it at that, but a small smile touches her lips, and she continues, ‘I’m pregnant.’

  I take a moment to respond. ‘Was it planned?’

  Katie shakes her head. ‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to cope with two kids: Nathan and a newborn.’

  ‘You’ll survive,’ I say. ‘You always do. Congratulations, by the way.’

  Nathan sounds the horn, making Katie start.

  ‘I’d better go,’ she says, and I watch her return to the car before closing the door once more, bringing Buster inside with me. I let him off the lead and he goes mad, tearing around the bungalow, barking and sniffing and squealing. He runs up and down the hall and then into the front room, launching himself onto the end of the sofa where he sits, panting, as if to say, I’m back. I’m home.

  Tia, who’s been sleeping on the other end of the sofa, wakes and hauls herself up. Blinking, she stares blindly around the room before uttering a short, sharp, questioning bark. Buster responds by sliding towards her on his belly, leaning up to lick Tia’s nose and mouth, giving her an enthusiastic greeting. She whines and licks him back and, within five minutes, they’re lying alongside each other as if Buster’s never been away.

  ‘Hey, budge up. Make room for a small one,’ I say, wanting to sit with them, but they refuse to move, so I try another tack. ‘Buster, you must be starving. Do you want your dinner?’

  At the word ‘dinner’ he jumps down, pushes past me and heads for the kitchen with Tia not far behind, rejuvenated by the return of her companion. Buster wolfs down his food before padding back to see me.

  ‘You’re like a boomerang kid. What am I going to do with you?’ I ask him, over the moon to have him back, but already worrying about what is going to happen to him next. I decide against disturbing Jack with news of Buster’s return until the morning. Instead, I take Buster outside to accompany me on my late-night tour around the Sanctuary, smiling when I glance down at his shadow at my heels. It’s just like old times.