I get the impression that Frances treats Emma with more respect than I can ever expect. I’m the outsider, the newbie, whereas Emma’s lived in Talyton almost all her life, apart from a few years in Cambridge and then in Southampton when Ben did his GP training.
‘Let me introduce you to the rest of the team – not Nigel though because he only comes in once or twice a week.’ Emma touches her hand to her mouth and giggles. ‘I’m twittering on, aren’t I?’
‘Like a baby bird,’ comes a voice from the far side of the room. A woman dressed in navy scrubs like Emma brings a white wire basket over to the bench. Her skin is pale and freckled and her short auburn hair is run through with silver threads. She looks like she’s in her late twenties, but Emma’s already told me she’s forty-two.
‘You’ve met Izzy before, haven’t you?’ says Emma.
It was at the party Emma held when she first opened the practice over three years ago. I recall Izzy getting quietly sozzled on Pimms and lemonade, claiming afterwards that she hadn’t realised it was alcoholic, which is probably why she seems a little shy now, greeting me with a nervous hello.
‘What do you want to get on with next?’ she asks Emma.
‘I was going to take Maz to the staffroom for a coffee before I finish off here.’
‘Don’t let me interrupt what you’re doing,’ I say hurriedly. I glance around at the surgical instruments piled up beside the sink and the soiled drapes heaped up in a bucket on the draining board. I expect Izzy’s impatient to make a start on the clearing up.
‘There’s only the castration left,’ Izzy says, pointing towards a basket which I notice on closer inspection contains a black feline, more kitten than cat, sitting on a blanket surrounded by toys. ‘Meet Fang.’
‘It’ll only take a few minutes,’ Emma says, looking at me apologetically.
‘Why don’t I help you, then Izzy can get on?’ I lift Fang out of the basket and onto the table. He makes to spring off, but I keep him there, hugged to my chest. I catch a whiff of perfume, something floral, in his coat. Emma injects him with a pre-med before he has a chance to notice.
‘Where do you want him?’ I ask, looking at the rows of gleaming stainless steel cages against the far wall, designed to house anything from a guinea pig to a Great Dane. ‘High rise, or ground floor?’
Izzy picks up a newspaper and lines an empty one, adding a Vetbed on top for warmth, saying, ‘Emma, being vertically challenged, prefers me to stick them in the middle.’
I shut Fang inside it. He arches his back and yowls at his reflection, then backs off, his tail in the air.
‘You wuss.’ I coax him to turn around so that I can scratch him behind the ear through the bars to reassure him. It must be pretty scary for a young cat to be locked in a cage, surrounded by the smell of dogs and disinfectant, especially when he starts losing control of his faculties as the pre-med takes effect.
‘Fang’s owner says he’s been straying away from home,’ Izzy says. ‘She’s hoping this’ll reduce his urge to roam the countryside.’
‘I can think of other cases where castration would come in useful,’ I say, unable to disguise my bitterness as I recall the way Mike wandered back to his ex-wife’s bed. ‘Preferably without an anaesthetic,’ I add, fetching a dozy Fang from his cage.
‘You scrub, I’ll pluck,’ Emma says, once Fang’s lying asleep on the operating table, and I watch her tearing the hair from his balls, wishing there was such a thing as voodoo. She cleans the op-site, gives it a squirt of surgical spirit and opens a foil packet, holding it out to me so I can tweak the blade out, keeping it sterile.
‘Are we ready now, Hacker Harwood?’ Emma adds, using my nickname from vet school.
The procedure’s almost bloodless this time, unlike Emma’s epic battle to save Robbie’s life, which reminds me to ask her how he’s doing.
‘I took his stitches out a couple of days ago. He’s looking great, considering his age and what he’s been through. Clive’s over the moon. Although he did have a little dig about the bill – how did he put it, Izzy?’ Emma shouts in Izzy’s direction.
‘Something about it costing him an arm and a leg for a spleen, but he was joking,’ Izzy calls out, smiling as she dips her head through the hatch between theatre and the prep area where she’s washing up. Once we’re finished, Izzy offers to keep an eye on Fang so Emma can give me the rundown on the computer and the phones.
Fortunately the systems at Otter House are pretty similar to the ones at Crossways so it doesn’t take long, and Emma provides me with a printout of useful notes and numbers.
‘I’m going to put some Post-it notes up before I go home tonight to remind you where everything is,’ she says, ‘and I’ll leave you Ben’s mobile number and his parents’ number in case of emergency. Now, you will remember to feed and walk Miff?’
‘Of course.’
Miff is Emma’s Border terrier, a scruffy-looking little brown dog with a broad, otter-shaped head and a lively expression. Emma’s family has always had terriers and Miff is the latest in a long line.
‘Have you got wellies?’
I shake my head. I haven’t had a pair since vet school.
‘You’ll need wellies.’ Emma frowns. ‘I know, I’ll run you up to the garden centre,’ and, in spite of my protestations that I wouldn’t be seen dead in wellies, I find myself schlepping up and down the aisles of the local garden centre in a pair of bright yellow ones, trying them for size.
‘You can’t be serious,’ I say, looking at Emma.
‘They aren’t supposed to be a fashion accessory, Maz. They’re entirely practical.’
Unconvinced, I pay for them at the checkout, where a middle-aged woman wearing a tabard over the top of a chintzy blouse chats with Emma and takes an age to serve me.
‘I hear congratulations are in order,’ the woman says, gazing at the slight curve of Emma’s belly. ‘When’s the baby due?’
‘There is no baby, Margaret. You heard wrong,’ Emma says, her voice sounding small and sad. ‘Who told you anyway? I bet it was Cheryl.’
‘Oh no, it was Fifi.’ The woman pauses, a flush spreading across her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry. My mistake. It’s just that she was so sure . . .’ She changes the subject. ‘Dollar – she’s my dog, a little Westie – she won’t see any vet except Alex Fox-Gifford. She’s very sensitive, you see.’
‘That and Margaret fancies Alex,’ Emma whispers to me as Margaret rustles about looking for a bag for my purchase.
‘You know, you can’t fool me, Em,’ I say later, while she shows me round the flat above the practice, Miff hot on my heels. Realising I’m not carrying any biscuits, Miff trots away and settles herself on the sofa.
‘Well?’ I add, when Emma deliberately doesn’t respond.
‘Off, Miff,’ Emma says, ‘get off.’ Miff ignores her. ‘A typical vet’s dog,’ Emma chuckles. ‘I’ve never had the time or the energy to train her properly.’ She pours two small glasses of wine from the bottle beside the bowl of fruit – Emma’s thought of everything, as usual. She hands one to me and takes the other for herself. ‘Here’s to you, Maz,’ she says. ‘I can’t thank you enough for agreeing to look after Otter House. I hope it’ll be an enjoyable experience.’
‘Thank you,’ I say, ‘and here’s to your holiday. I hope you and Ben have a fantastic time.’ I take a sip of the wine and return to the subject that I’ve been trying to broach and Emma has neatly managed to avoid. ‘That stuff with Margaret today? I got the impression you were upset.’
‘Wouldn’t you be?’ Emma says defensively.
I think for a moment. ‘A little perhaps, but it’s only gossip, and it wasn’t exactly malicious. Water off a duck’s back, no?’
Emma shakes her head, her eyes downcast, staring at her fingers clasped round the stem of her wine glass.
‘I should have told you before.’ She takes a gulping breath, then turns her gaze to me, her dark eyes shimmering. ‘Ben and I – we don’t seem to be able to have children. I can�
�t get pregnant. I wanted to tell you, but Ben didn’t want me to say anything.’
I can understand that. ‘It’s a man thing, I imagine, not wanting to have aspersions cast on your virility.’
‘It isn’t that.’ Emma frowns, perhaps a little hurt on Ben’s behalf, and I feel bad for thinking meanly of him. What do I know about it? I’ve never wanted children myself. How can I have any idea how it feels?
‘It’s just so stressful,’ Emma goes on. ‘Ever since we got married we’ve had everyone going on and on about when we’d hear the patter of tiny feet. And now everyone in Talyton’s congratulating me on something that never was and probably never will be.’ A tear rolls down her cheek. ‘I’m glad I’m going away. I can’t wait to get away from it all.’
I’m trying to think of a way to tell her how sorry I am when she continues, ‘We’re going to see someone when we get back to talk about investigations and options for treatment, IVF, that sort of thing.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but there are no guarantees, are there?’ she counters. ‘You know, the hardest thing to accept is that you have no control over it. You take the Pill for years, and then you stop and discover you aren’t in charge of your fertility at all.’
She doesn’t have to say any more. I can see that her failure to fall pregnant is completely devastating. I watch her walk to the window and look out on the street below. She takes a swig of wine, then turns back towards me with her ‘vet-in-charge-of-her-destiny’ face on once more, and she doesn’t let her guard down again until she’s about to leave at the end of the day to rush through her last-minute packing, before driving to the airport with Ben.
‘This is it then,’ she says, hesitating in Reception. She grabs a tissue from the box Frances keeps handy on the desk, and blows her nose, and I’m afraid she’s going to cry again, but she regains her composure and attempts a smile. ‘I know I said I couldn’t wait to get away . . .’ She gazes around the waiting area. ‘It’s more difficult than I thought. In fact, I almost wish I was staying.’
I know what she means. I wish she was staying too. It would have been fun to work together.
‘Don’t let the Fox-Giffords give you any hassle, Maz,’ Emma says.
‘Are they really that bad?’ I ask anxiously.
‘You’ll be fine,’ she says, ‘as long as you keep your head down.’
Reassured, I watch her go, and lock the door behind her. I give her a wave through the window as she reverses her car out of the car park and drives off along the road. Miff whines at my feet, wanting to follow.
‘I’m sorry, Miff,’ I say, squatting down beside her and stroking her head, moving my fingertips from front to back, feeling for the contours of her skull, checking for lumps and bumps. Force of habit. ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to put up with me for the next six months.’ She doesn’t wag her tail. In fact, she looks like I feel, all hangdog and upset because Emma has gone. I’m wondering what I’m going to have to put up with too, what challenges Emma’s patients and the residents of Talyton St George are going to throw at me.
And then I have to laugh at myself for being so silly. Emma wouldn’t have asked me to look after Otter House if she didn’t think I could cope.
Chapter Three
Perishable Goods
It’s my first day in charge. I should be logging on to the computer in the consulting room at Otter House, but instead I find myself down by the river looking for Miff. It’s such a beautiful morning, I thought she’d like a quick walk, but she’s slipped her collar and done a runner. I followed her into some bushes that I discovered too late were obscuring a ditch, into which I half slid, half fell, ending up thigh-deep in the stinking gloop at the bottom, in the shadow of some Triffid-like nettles and explosions of hawthorn blossom. Fat lot of good my new wellies are now.
‘Miff!’ I yell. ‘Miff!’ I try the softly-softly approach. ‘Biscuit.’ Unsnagging a curl of barbed wire from my jeans, I listen out for her above the whisper of traffic on the bridge over the river on the far side of the meadow. Nothing.
I don’t think she likes me.
I press on through the mud, the like of which you never see in those glossy photos in Country Living. (Perhaps they airbrush it all out.) Hanging on to a tree root, I scramble out of the trench and crawl through the prickly undergrowth on the other side to emerge on all fours on a track, where I’m confronted by an enormous horse bearing down on me at speed. I don’t know what it is – a pigeon flapping out of the bushes or my sudden appearance out of nowhere – but without warning, the horse puts the brakes on and spins away, throwing its rider up its neck.
‘Whoa there! Steady . . .’ The rider slips back into the saddle, pulls the horse up and turns it round to face me. The horse, a bright chestnut mare, tries to rear away again, fighting at the bit. The rider – he, for he is most definitely male – stares at me, his mouth taut and eyes stormy beneath the peak of his hat. ‘Get up!’ he growls.
‘Me?’ My cheeks grow hot with embarrassment.
‘I can’t see anyone else about, can you?’
Reluctantly, because not only did he almost kill me, but he hasn’t said please, I stand up. ‘Is that better?’
‘Now she can see you’re vaguely human, not some creature out of Shrek.’
The mare takes a couple of paces towards me. I notice how the rider flexes and relaxes his fingers on the reins, playing with the bit in her mouth. I also notice that the sleeves of his polo shirt are rolled up, revealing a pair of lightly tanned forearms, and his jodhpurs are so tight across his muscular thighs that it’s positively indecent. He’s absolutely gorgeous, and doesn’t he know it.
His gaze settles briefly on my mud-caked legs and his lips curve into a fleeting smile. ‘What happened to you?’
‘I’m looking for a dog.’ I feebly gesture at Miff’s collar and lead, which hang redundant round my neck.
‘What kind?’
‘A Border terrier.’ In fact, I can hear the frantic yelping of a dog after rabbits, moving in our direction. ‘That’s her, I think.’
‘Border terrorist might be a more accurate description from the sound of it.’
Suddenly, the yelping stops and a small brown dog comes trotting out from the brambles beside us. The mare flares her nostrils and champs her jaws, spattering her sleek chest with foam.
‘Make sure you keep it under control in future.’
‘She isn’t mine,’ I say as Miff creeps up to me, her tail between her legs.
‘Whatever.’ The mare paws the ground with her foot, scraping out a deep gouge in the track. ‘And I’d advise you to check a map next time you decide to go pond-dipping, or bog-snorkelling, or whatever it is you’re up to. This isn’t a public right of way.’
‘Oh? I’m s-s-sorry,’ I stammer. His air of confidence – no, superiority – makes me feel awkward and at a disadvantage.
‘You’re trespassing,’ he goes on. ‘The footpath runs alongside the river, across the other side of the field from here. This is the old railway line.’
‘I didn’t realise . . .’
‘Ignorance is no excuse,’ the rider goes on.
Emboldened and infuriated by his rudeness, I argue back. I wouldn’t normally in this kind of situation, but Miff’s hackles are up, and so are mine.
‘Look, I’ve got the dog back on the lead and I’ve apologised. There’s no need to be so unpleasant – you don’t own this place.’
‘Actually, I believe that I do.’ The rider turns the mare side on and delivers his parting sally. ‘I hope I never see you here again. If my father had caught you, he’d have had you shot – you and the dog.’ He digs his heels into the mare’s sides and gallops away, sending up showers of clinker and dust, and flashes of steel.
I scold Miff gently as I clip her collar – a psychedelic canvas affair which I grabbed off the rack in Reception on my way out – securely back round her neck.
‘There was no need for you to get me
into trouble. I’m more than capable of doing that all by myself.’
Miff waves her tail just once, her brown eyes downcast.
‘Oh, cheer up. I’m not cross with you.’ I’m annoyed with myself for letting that arrogant, testosterone-fuelled – I swear under my breath – get to me. Who is he? The local squire? I try to dismiss him, but he isn’t the kind of man who’s easily dismissed. I was already on edge, wondering what exactly I’ve let myself in for, but now . . . I feel as if I could be back in London, having been subjected to a road rage attack on my way to work.
Country life. Country people. Emma made it all sound so romantic, I think, as Miff and I scurry back along the riverbank and across the footbridge which arches over the rust-coloured waters of the River Taly.
Crossing the green on the way to the town, we pass two men removing the ribbons from the maypole which stands in the middle.
‘Mornin’, my lover,’ one calls out.
I wave back, smiling at his odd, uniquely West Country turn of phrase, then turn right into town, past the end wall of the Duck and Dragon where someone’s sprayed ‘Grockles, Per-lease Go Home’ politely in red paint. (The pub is one of three left in Talyton – apparently, the town used to support eleven.) When I arrive back outside Otter House, I hesitate for a moment.
Taking a deep breath, I finally burst into Reception, only to have my enthusiasm halted by the commanding sight of Frances’s raised palm as she uses the other hand to lift the phone.
‘Talyton Manor Vets – I mean the other ones. How can I help you?’ She listens for a few moments then, ‘Oh, Gloria . . . yes, indeed. Old Mr Fox-Gifford would prescribe exactly that – a few days on a light diet, boiled chicken and rice, and he’ll be as right as ninepins.’
I wait, itching for her to finish. How does it look to a client if your receptionist keeps dropping the name of the competition into the conversation?
Frances puts the phone down and greets me with a brief smile.
‘Frances, I know you mean well,’ I begin tactfully, ‘but I’d prefer you not to give out advice.’
Trust Me, I'm a Vet: The Otter House Vets Series Page 3