by Emma
out into the country, away from suburbia. To me suburbia
had become a 'no man's land' where people just slept. The
houses in the daytime were deserted while everyone was
away at the city earning their living, busy with shops and
factories. The country too would be busy, but with animals
and birds, the sound of corn rustling in open fields. That was
where i wanted to live. Because of increasing rules and
regulations suburbia had become a place of emptiness, at
least to me. We'd been turned down to run our boarding
cattery in our suburban garden because businesses weren't
the thing where we lived, not that sort of business anyway.
There was a time - even i remember - when people kept
chickens in their back garden, but nowadays you're only
allowed to prune your roses. i felt a deep sadness for those
people who had to lock their doors in the morning and catch
the buses to the city. At least i could be free. Free to choose
when i wanted to do my work. It meant I could enjoy the
beautiful days and the scenery around me and get out to take
in every inch of the countryside, perhaps because i appreciate
it more than other people. i had time to stand in the fields
and watch the rabbits play and listen to the birds sing. I'm
one of the lucky ones.
i stared at the cottage nestled in the green fields. Yes, i
could easily settle here with my dogs around me. We both
wanted to run boarding kennels. i was very lucky to have
50
met Don, not only because he's such a nice person, but
because his ideas always coincide with mine. I've always
loved dogs and had a longing to run boarding kennels. i
d.on't know why, because it's all hard work and worry but i
have a need to look after dogs and I, for one, can't bear the
thought of going on holiday and leaving my dogs in kennels.
So i feel that it's up to me to run the sort of kennels and
cattery that people wouldn't mind leaving their pets in. Don,
who I'm sure had no intention of ever running any boarding
kennels, had come round to my way of thinking. Because of
his great love for our dogs he'd become more and more
interested in them. And he, too, was beginning to feel the
suffocation of house-upon-house, garden-upon-garden.
Don edged the car slowly up the drive to Rose Cottage.
'Look that's the paddock on the right!' he said. 'We could
build the kennels there, then we could make a car park at the
top, tarmac all this drive ... it would be a lot easier. What do
you think about setting poplars along that line, wouldn't
that look lovely?'
Don had got it all set out in his mind. We hadn't even
looked round the house yet. 'Oh, it would,' I agreed with
him. 'It would look perfect.'
Don pulled the car round the house, stopped, leaned over
the steering wheel and gazed into the distance. 'Look at that
view. Isn't it fantastic?'
I was getting out of the car, eager to look round the house.
'Come in, come in,' Mrs Adams welcomed us. 'I'm sorry it
isn't a very nice day. It looks much more beautiful in the
sunshine.'
We always seemed to look at houses when it was dull or
raining, but that didn't put us off this one and when i saw the
kitchen ... it was a positive housewife's dream - fitted units,
double sinks and large picture windows where i could
visualize myself looking over the fields while i washed up. i
could see cows standing across the other side of the garden
fence mooing gently. Their sound gave me a feeling of
tranquillity and timelessness. It wouldn't seem half as much
of a chore as it did at the moment, staring out to another
5i
brick wall. There was only one thing wrong with the house
as far as Don and i could see, and that was the indoor
swimming pool. We didn't want a swimming pool. It
seemed a waste to us of time, money and space. I'd got
ideas of turning that into an indoor cattery.
'Yes, we like it very much,' Don told Mrs Adams. 'All
we need now is the planning permission to have our
boarding kennels here.'
'Oh, I'm sure you won't have any trouble getting that.
After all, it's right out in the country. You can't be bothering
anyone, can you, with dogs here?'
I wasn't so sure, having been up against our local
council once before. Again, the planning forms poured in they'
re almost as bad as tax forms. We filled them in and
sent them back and dreamed. Dreamed of what it would
be like out in the country and of how we'd build the
kennels. Don spent most evenings drawing plans up.
'What do you think of this one?' he said. 'If we had
some standard rose trees along that row of kennels there
it'd look lovely. In fact, we could put some seats out. You
could sit there in the summer.'
i laughed. 'I won't have time to sit there in the summer
if all those kennels are full, will i?'
'Mm, no. Well i could sit there,' he said jokingly.
I knew he wouldn't have time. We're both the same,
Don and i. We think the same and we do the same and we
love working. i could imagine nothing more heavenly than
us both working together. But our dreams were shattered
when, a few weeks later, we had the reply from the Planning
Office. No, they wouldn't give us permission for
boarding kennels there, owing to various objections they
had received from people living around the area. One of
the objectors had put forward the idea that dogs could
escape and run riot round the country.
'I want to run boarding kennels,' i said to Don, 'not a
compound for killer dogs!'
'And then there was the traffic problem . the
council's letter went on. 'Residents are objecting to the
52
noise that the many cars coming up and down the road
would bring.'
That made me smile. 'Anybody would think they'd be
coming in bus loads and droves, boarding their dogs with
us.' If only we had a right of reply to these things, i could
have explained that probably most of our clients' pets would
have been collected and delivered. There would have been
hardly any traffic at all, and what there would have been we
were going to cater for by our own car park.
'Oh well,' i said to Don, throwing the letter in the waste
bin, 'back to the evening papers.' I found consolation in the
fact that at least i could take the dogs out and get my daily
dose of the countryside before returning to suburbia.
Buttons and Bracken would race around like motorbikes,
while Emma - when i took her with me -would sedately sniff
each blade of grass. There was a time, not so long ago, when
Emma could easily walk four miles over the fields and still
did not look as tired as Buttons or Bracken, but these days
she often didn't come with me. She decided that the best
place was at home asleep on the carpet. Of course she was
slowing down. I'd begun to notice it but i wouldn'
t accept
the fact. i pretended she just didn't feel like it today, would
rather stop in and she~d probably want to come tomorrow.
Emma slowed down to such an extent that i began to get
quite worried about her. Yes, she was sixteen, a very old
lady. Most dogs didn't make it to that age, but Emma was
dillerent. Emma would go on forever, i told myself. But i
had that nagging fear at the back of my mind that i could
never voice to anyone: Emma was slowing down too much
and too fast. She wasn't taking an interest in what was going
on around her. She didn't get up to make a fuss of anyone
that came in. Even her food was losing its appeal.
The crunch came one Saturday night. Don and i had been
watching a thriller film on television and it was about one
o'clock when i switched the set off and prepared to put the
dogs out into the garden for their last walk round. i went to
open the back door. 'Everyone out!'i called. They knew that
command. It was a nightly ritual and they'd all rush to the
53
i
back door to have their last smell of the night air before
settling down. Buttons and Bracken ran out into the garden
but there was no sign of Emma. i closed the back door and
went into the lounge. She was still fast asleep near the chair
where I'd been sitting. 'Come on, Emma. It's everybody
out time.' i gave her a stroke. She never made a noise or
attempted to get up. 'There's a good girl, come on.' i knelt
down on the carpet. 'What's the matter?'
After a while she tried to raise herself offthe floor, but she
couldn't seem to get on to her back legs. i helped her up
and she stalyeered about the lounge as if she was in a daze,
not knowing quite where she was or what she wanted. i
guided her slowly into the kitchen but the floor was too
much for her. It was slippery and she kept falling over.
Inwardly i wanted to run away from the situation, to run
screaming from the house, to pretend that it wasn't happening
and leave Don to deal with it, but i knew that it was
me that had to be there to help her. She didn't want to go
out. Instead, she went to the water bowl. She stood over it
as if gazing into its depths, trying to drink from it but
unable to. i looked at my watch. It was one-thirty in the
morning but it didn't matter. i had to ring the vet. Don was
standing at the kitchen door.
'Oh, poor girl. What's the matter with her?'
'I don't know. Will you come over here and watch her.
I'll go and ring the vet.'
'Her tummy looks strange,' Don commented as he went
towards her. 'Have you noticed? Look, it's like a balloon.'
i took one glance and then dashed for the phone. 'Come
on, hurry up and answer,' i urged, almost before I'd
finished dialling the number. It rang and rang. 'You've got
to be there,' i said. 'You're a vet, you've got to be there.' At
last a sleepy voice said hello. It sounded like a young girl to
me. 'Are you the vet?' i almost screamed.
'Yes, what is it?'
'You must come out. It's Emma. There's something
terribly wrong with her, you must come out.'
'Yes, all right, i will. What's the address?'
54
i gabbled it to heit~. 'I'll look out for you,' I said. 'I'll stand
at the bottom of the clrive.'
'Don't worry. i kriow where you live,' she said and put
down the phone.
'Are they coming?, Don called from the kitchen.
'Yes. i think i got lier out of bed.'
'Which vet was it?'
i went to a practiQC where there were about six vets. 'Don't
know. Didn't recogrlize her voice.'
'I hope she's gooct,' Don muttered.
So did i.
55
i
CHAPTERSEVEN
i T S E E M E D A N eternity as i stared out of the lounge window
into the empty darkness, watching for headlights, listening
for the sound of a car. Don had helped Emma back into the
lounge, where she'd flopped back down on to the carpet.
'Why doesn't she come?' i groaned.
'Shall i put the kettle on?' Don asked, always practical.
'I'm sure she'll want a drink and i bet you could do with a
cup of tea, couldn't you?'
'Yes, yes I could. Let me do it,' i said. i had to keep my
mind occupied. i filled the kettle slowly, meticulously put it
in the right place and plugged it in, emptied the teapot and
then decided to give it a wash for good measure.
'She's here!' Don shouted from the front door.
i flung the teapot on to the draining board and rushed
down the hall. 'Thank God', i said to myself. It's at times
like these when you begin to think of your vet as almost a
God. They are the people who really matter in the world - i
expect them to work miracles, to conjure up magic from their
little black bag. But, as i greeted my vet on the doorstep, my
heart began to sink. She seemed a young girl to me, probably
only twenty-three or twenty-four, long brown hair, very
slightly built. She didn't look as if she could lift a poodle on to
an examination table, let alone treat a Labrador. But,
nevertheless, i urged her to come in the hall.
'It's Emma,' I said. 'She's in the lounge. There's something
terribly wrong with her.'
'Let's have a look, shall we?' She was still dishevelled from
sleep. Obviously I'd dragged her out of bed. 'What's the
matter with her, what are the symptoms?'
'She couldn't get up on to her back legs and when she
managed to she fell over again. She made for the water bowl
56
but didn't drink anything, shejust stared blindly into it. And
look at her tummy - it's huge. Can you do something, what's
the matter with her?' i was sure this young slip of a girl
wouldn't be able to diagnose a cold. Why hadn't they sent
someone else, someone older, one of the other vets who had
treated Emma before?
'There's a good girl, Emma,' she said in a calm, sleepy
voice. She fondled her ears and stroked her head before
examining her tummy. She reached for a stethoscope out of
her bag. 'Mm, her heart's strong enough. That's one,good
thing.' After taking Emma's temperature and looking' into
her mouth, she sat back on the carpet. 'Well, it looks as if
there's a lot of gas in there. She's either eaten something
that's really upset her or there's a virus that's attacking her.'
'Can you do anything?' i pleaded. 'Will she be all right?'
'I'll give her an injection and see if that does the trick.' She
pulled out a syringe and a bottle from her black bag and
injected Emma. 'I'll wait a little while to see what happens.'
She closed her bag up and sat on the settee.
'Would you like a cup of tea?' Don asked. 'I've just made
one.'
'Yes, please.'
'I'm sorry, we don't know your name,' Don said.
'Gwen.'
'Well, Gwen, do you take sugar?'
'No, thank you. Nice and strong, it might wake me up a
bit.'
i was still a little unsure of Gwen's qual Ifications and
wondered if she was good enough to treat Emma, but i tried
to relax. 'I'm sorry for getting you out of bed,' i said, 'but it
was urgent.'
'Oh yes, don't worry about that. One of the hazards of our
profession.'
'Have you just qualified?' i asked. 'I ha,en't seen you
before.'
'Yes, I've not been here long. M,,, firstjob, actually.'
My heart began to sink again. 'Have you treated many
Labradors?'
57
Quite a few. How old is Emma now?'
'She's over sixteen,' i told her. 'An old lady really but I'm
sure she has plenty of life in heryet.'i said it toreassure myself
more than anyone else. Gwen sipped her tea and looked
anxiously across at Emma. Don tried to keep the conversation
going by asking her where she'd come from and did she like
what she'd seen of Nottingham. Emma gave a deep sigh and
stretched out on the carpet.
Gwen put her cup down and went over. 'Her tummy's
definitely going down. i certainly think that's working. I'll
wait a little longer and see how she is.'
Gwen was beginning to go up a little in my esteem. Perhaps
she wasn't so bad after all. Two or three cups of tea later and
Don seemed to know everything there was to know about
Gwen-where she'd been born, where she'd qualified and why
she'd become a vet. i heard most of the conversation secondhand
later from Don. i hadn't been listening, i sat watching
Emma and praying. Emma sighed again and i went over to
her and stroked her. She lifted her head and wagged her tail.
'Look, look! Her tail's wagging,' i cried with greatjoy. All
three of us sat there with silly grins on our faces.
'I'm sure she'll be all right now,' said Gwen, 'but it'll be
quite a time before she's herself again. This has obviously
been coming on for some time.'
'What about her back legs?'i said.'Will she be able to walk
again?'lt seemed as humiliating for a dog to be mentally alert
and bodily unable as, ofcourse, it is for human beings. But the
thought of Emma becoming an invalid for the rest of her life
struck a chord deep inside me. It took me back to my
blindness, my helplessness before i had Emma and although