Mr Entwhistle sensed what I was thinking and in a muted voice said, ‘I think Ben’s time has come.’ He began to sob.
‘Well, we could try some stronger anti-inflammatories and see if there’s any response over 24 hours.’ I didn’t sound convincing and Mr Entwhistle wasn’t convinced.
‘What would you do if he was your dog?’ he said.
‘Well …’ I hesitated.
‘I don’t like to see Ben suffering like this,’ interrupted Mr Entwhistle, choking as he said it.
‘No. I agree.’
There was nothing more to be said. An understanding had been reached. A decision made. Mr Entwhistle asked if he could stay with Ben, and when Mandy came in to help hoist Ben onto the consulting table where his front leg was shaved and the vein raised, he buried his face in Ben’s neck. I inserted the needle and swiftly injected the lethal dose of barbiturate. As Ben’s trusting, brown eyes slid away from me and sunk down, a solitary tear coursed down Mr Entwhistle’s cheek and, with a quiver of his lower lip, he whispered in Ben’s ear, ‘Bye, bye, my old mate. Bye, bye.’
I, too, had a lump in my throat, being witness to the end of a long and loyal relationship. Even Mandy, the queen bee of Prospect House and never one to show her emotions, had eyes glistening with tears. As for Beryl … well, she just threw her arms round Mr Entwhistle, and the two of them stood hugging each other in the middle of reception, not a word spoken.
Two days later, I saw Beryl opening a card which had been left for her in reception. A St Valentine’s Day card to accompany the bouquet of red roses she now had displayed next to her computer.
‘I wonder who it’s from,’ she said, giving me a sly wink.
As if I didn’t know.
BYRE GONE DAYS
Did Lucy get a St Valentine’s Day card from me? No, I’m afraid she didn’t.
I felt a bit mean for not getting her one. I’m normally a bit of a romantic at heart, so a box of chocolates or a bunch of flowers wouldn’t have gone amiss. Or at least a card as a token of my affection. But that was the trouble – the affection, or rather the lack of it, which now seemed to be the case most of the time. Lucy was so terribly moody; and each day I woke up wondering whether it was going to be another of ‘those days’, one of monosyllabic replies to my questions, accompanied by a long face which seemed to get longer as the day wore on until I felt her jaw would end up scraping along the ground. Her mood affected me and I began to feel a little resentful at having to put up with it all. So, no Valentine’s card. Tough titties.
‘Don’t think that was a good idea,’ said Beryl, having just returned from her morning puff at the back door and now spooning three sugars into her black coffee. She’d shown me the card she’d received from Mr Entwhistle – a very romantic, red-edged affair, with red bows and red roses encased in a red, velvet heart. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I thought it rather over the top, especially as, inside, he’d glued a snapshot of himself centred on another velvet heart, like he was some sort of heart-throb. Yuck!
I could imagine the reaction I’d have had from Lucy if I had done the same. But then I didn’t consider myself a heart-throb. OK, I liked to think I wasn’t too bad looking. I did have rather a sharp nose – ‘aquiline’, my Mum would say, while she caressed her own prominent snout (thanks, Mum) – and I did have one slightly protruding front tooth. And yes, I suppose my ears were rather on the large size – ‘You take after Prince Charles,’ my Dad always said (thanks, Dad) – so I always made sure my hair overlapped them. But at least I had hair, a good head of it, which I usually kept cropped short, although I sported a fringe as I had an unusually high forehead – a sign of intelligence, Mum was always quick to say (thanks again, Mum). Currently, my brown hair had blond highlights to match the gold stud in each earlobe. I thought this gave me a touch of the David Beckhams. Lucy had been less than sympathetic when I returned from the hairdresser’s with my new style. ‘David Beckham?’ she’d snorted. ‘The nearest you get to him is dribbling in bed.’ (Thanks, Lucy, love you too.) I think she was referring to my habit of snoring on my side, with my mouth wide open and saliva seeping out onto the pillow. Not the nicest of habits when trying to score.
‘I guess things between you and Lucy are still a bit …’ Beryl was saying, trailing off, unable to find the right words. I could have supplied plenty: ‘iffy’ … ‘difficult’ … ‘off and on’? Definitely more off than on.
Even Eric had noticed. He’d come bouncing into the office earlier on, ruddy cheeked, bald head glowing, muffled in a winter jacket and bright orange scarf, complaining how cold it was outside while Beryl shuffled past, her hands pulling the sleeves of her black cardigan across her chest, saying it wasn’t much better indoors.
‘Full of the joys of spring, I see,’ he said to her receding back as she climbed the steps to reception. ‘Mind you, you’re not much better,’ he went on, looking at me. ‘Talk about winter blues. You seem really down in the dumps these days. So does Lucy.’ He held up his hands. ‘Not that I want to interfere, but for the sake of the practice … you know, we do need to get on with each other. Control our emotions, even if we feel like throttling someone.’
‘Eric.’ Beryl’s voice rang out. ‘I hope you’re not going to be too long.’
He raised his eyebrows and pointed a finger towards reception. ‘Good example up there,’ he continued in a whisper. ‘It can be quite difficult at times, but you learn to cope.’ He gave a nervous grin.
‘Eric! I’ve booked you several visits this morning.’
‘So if there are any issues you’d like to talk over …’
‘Eric!’
‘We could have a jar over at the Woolpack one lunchtime.’
‘ERIC!’
‘Coming, Beryl.’ With a final grimace at me, Eric sprang away.
It was kind of Eric to lend a sympathetic ear. But that was him all over. He might have given the impression of being a bumbling, rather inept sort of chap, and, indeed, he did nothing to play down that image, always flapping round the place in a white coat that was several sizes too big for him. He was also usually tieless, and the brown cords he invariably wore were creased and slightly shiny at the knees. It was as if he was making a statement – take me or leave me. A lot of clients left him, preferring the clipped, professional image of his wife, always smartly turned out, even when it was an emergency in the middle of the night.
‘Crystal keeps a set of clothes specifically for those times,’ he once confided in me, his tongue a little loosened from the couple of pints consumed over at the Woolpack that lunchtime.
Those liquid lunches, although not excessive, were strongly disapproved of by Beryl. It wasn’t the drinking as such – she wasn’t averse to the occasional port and lemon; and, in fact, the bottle I’d bought for last year’s ‘What Were You Wearing When the Ship Went Down?’ party went down very well with Beryl. At the end of the evening, she was seen weaving round Willow Wren, with a glass containing at least eight slices of lemon from constant replenishments, proclaiming herself free for a Jolly Roger. No – it was more the beery fumes exhaled by Eric on his return, coupled with an even more ruddy complexion than normal, so that cheeks, nose and bald head glowed a bright amber, like one of those roadside beacons warning you of impending danger.
The danger in this case was the watching eye and waspish tongue of Beryl, who would pounce as soon as Eric breezed into reception. There’d be an exaggerated sniff, a fan of the scarlet talons in front of the face, and a direct reference to Eric’s slightly inebriated state in the form of a withering comment, usually a standard one, along the lines of, ‘God, Eric, you could anaesthetise a Great Dane in one breath.’ Although the breed and size of dog could vary according to the intensity of Beryl’s outrage at the time.
Eric took to stuffing a couple of peppermints in his mouth before confronting Beryl should he have been over at the pub. Of course, it didn’t fool her. The trouble was, whenever I thought I might have a touch of halitosis – p
ossibly through having had one of Bert’s garlic bread baguettes – and had been sucking a mint myself, I, too, became the target of one of Beryl’s eye-drilling scans. Most unnerving.
I could hear the dialogue up in reception between Eric and Beryl getting louder and more heated by the minute; intrigued, I tiptoed up the stairs to lean in at the door behind Beryl. Eric was facing her, the other side of the counter, looking at the visits book while Beryl was tapping the computer screen with one of her scarlet nails. If Eric had been red on arrival, he was now slowly turning puce.
‘I can’t see how I can fit all of these in,’ he exclaimed, his hand slamming down on the page that listed the visits Beryl had set up for him that morning.
‘Well, if you’d got cracking sooner,’ replied Beryl, ‘I’m sure it wouldn’t have been a problem.’
Eric was peering at the list. ‘You’ve got me down to visit Miss Millichip’s sows.’
‘9.30 … yes.’
‘To do what? It doesn’t say here.’
‘The usual.’
‘Which is?’ Eric’s voice was getting more exasperated by the second.
‘They need their trotters trimming. You do it routinely every six months.’
‘But you’ve got me booked over at the Stockwells at the same time. I can’t possibly be in two places at once, can I?’ Beads of sweat had broken out on Eric’s forehead as he visibly tried to control himself. ‘Can I?’ he repeated, in a controlled snarl.
‘Don’t you use that tone of voice with me,’ snapped Beryl. I could see the wings of her coal-black hair springing up, all of a quiver.
‘Well, you shouldn’t have double-booked.’ Spittle had appeared at the corners of Eric’s mouth.
‘I can’t help it if the Stockwells called in requesting a visit as soon as possible. You’ll just have to do the Millichip trimming later on.’
‘Beryl,’ seethed Eric, ‘it’s not for you to tell me what to do.’ His hands were gripping the edges of the counter, his knuckles white, and he was swaying backwards and forwards, his eyes wild, glaring at her.
Now what had he just been telling me about how important it was for everyone to get on? Hee-hee … count to ten, Eric. Self-control.
‘So how are we all this morning?’ The words were clipped, clearly enunciated in a mid-shires accent, and were uttered by Crystal Sharpe as she swept into reception from the car park and swirled to a halt next to her husband. ‘Sorting out the visits, are we?’ she said, smiling sweetly round at everyone, her Cupid’s lips parting to show an even row of glossy, white teeth. ‘No problems, I hope.’ She gave Eric the full-on, penetrating stare of her steel-blue eyes before switching her attention to the visits book. She ran a well-manicured, unvarnished nail along the top of the page and, within seconds, had sorted out the morning’s workload, without a murmur of protest from anyone.
Eric was to trim the trotters, she would see the few clients booked in for me and I would visit the Stockwells and see to the calving. I would? I gulped. Of course I would. I would do anything for Crystal. Besides, as she said, I’d been to the Stockwells before when they had that cow stuck in the quarry and they’d been impressed by how helpful I’d been then. So I was to hurry along and see what I could do to help them this time. ‘I take it you’ve no problem with that, Paul?’ she had said.
Bewitched, bewildered and rather bedazzled, I shook my head and obediently trotted out to my car, checking I had all the necessary calving ropes, gown and instruments ready to get to grips with a potentially difficult calving. And, more importantly, as I drove out of the car park, I realised I needed to get in the right frame of mind to tackle the Stockwells.
Madge and Rosie Stockwell were twin sisters, originating from Yorkshire, who had moved down to Sussex over 30 years earlier to take on Hawkshill Farm, secreted away in the side of the Downs between Ashton and Chawcombe; and here they’d remained ever since, in what could only be described as a time capsule. Little had been done to keep pace with modern advances in farming, and they had ticked along with a motley collection of sheep, the flock now reduced in size, as was the herd of Jerseys which now numbered only 12. I had been called out last summer to attend to Myrtle, one of their Jerseys, who had gone down with milk fever. Boy, that had been an experience; their slow, unperturbed way of going about things had driven me nuts, especially as we’d had an emergency on our hands, but as they’d said on my arrival, ‘Doesn’t pay to be in a hurry. Now’t gained if vet breaks leg …’ while they watched me rush across their yard and almost do precisely that when I slipped in a cow pat.
Once on the dual carriageway, I headed north over the Downs and dropped down into Ashton where the practice house, Willow Wren, was situated. Taking the road west towards Chawcombe, it was a mile or so before the narrow lane on the left wound back up the northern slopes of the Downs and took me to Hawkshill Farm. Although it had been many months since my last visit, I still remembered the Stockwells’ instructions regarding the gate: ‘Second one on the right and make sure to close it after you.’ The gate was still there in much the same condition as before. Bleached oak, five bars reduced to four, and that fourth one just as loose, although an attempt had been made to prevent it from dropping out of its bracket by some strands of orange bailer twine tied round it and secured to the upright. It was all rather rickety and, as I prised open the latch, the gate dropped on its hinges and I had to lift it and drag it back across the gravel track.
The farm, tucked down in a hollow, was obscured by a thick veil of mist this morning, so I wasn’t able to see the details that I’d found so attractive on my previous visit: the undulating pitch of the clay-tiled roof; the flint walls set in courses of red brick; the tiny lattice windows painted white; the oak-panelled front door, weathered grey. And all of this complemented by the landscape beyond – a patchwork of fields, hedgerows and the spire of Chawcombe church in the distance.
But not today. Today, the background was a blur of grey as banks of low cloud rolled down and obscured everything in droplets of icy mist. Last time, as I drove down the winding track and into the brick-paved yard at the side of the house, I’d been struck by the lack of TV aerial, satellite dish or white PVC conservatory to mar the sense of the farm being locked in a time capsule. So fanciful was the impression of rustic charm due to the oak tithe barn with its exposed beams, linking the knapped flint stables to the house, that I’d half expected a Hardyesque figure to emerge to greet me – Tess, Bathsheba, or Susan Henchard perhaps – certainly not the gnome-like creature that had shuffled into view – Madge Stockwell.
Today was no exception, save that two, rather than one, gnome-like figures emerged through the mist in the yard like phantom goblins from The Lord of the Rings rather than Julie Christie lookalikes from Far from the Madding Crowd. Madge and Rosie Stockwell – identical twins, dressed identically in brown tweed trousers, stuffed into black wellies and, I suspected, identical green, army-style pullovers, although this time it had to be a guess as their upper halves were obscured by brown, rubber capes, buttoned tightly at the neck, stretching down to calf level, with side vents for their arms which were currently tucked inside. The overall impression was of two over-inflated buoys, an impression given more credence by the fact that they were standing in a yard ankle-deep in water.
As I got out of the car, the two sisters splashed towards me.
Never knowing who was Madge and who was Rosie, each having a tomato soup complexion, hooked nose and mousy, pudding basin-styled hair, I addressed them as one. ‘Morning, ladies. See you’ve had quite a bit of rain here.’ I pointed at the flooded yard.
Both sisters shook their heads simultaneously. ‘It’s not rain,’ said one caped figure.
‘Vet thinks it is,’ said the other.
‘But it’s not, Madge.’
‘I know it’s not. It’s the leak in that outside tap,’ replied Madge.
‘It’s an outside tap that’s leaking,’ explained the sister who I’d now worked out was Rosie.
&nb
sp; ‘It needs to be fixed,’ said Madge. ‘We’ll get round to it in time.’
‘We will, Madge. In time,’ said Rosie, nodding her head slowly.
I felt a nervous tic start to throb in my temple at the mention of time. I was being reminded of how time meant nothing to the Stockwells. As Beryl had warned me before my first meeting, it was no use hurrying them as they lived in a world of their own. Everything had to be done at their pace.
But, like the time I’d rushed out to treat their Jersey with milk fever, time was still precious; and this time there was a calving cow requiring attention. I assumed she was going to be in the tithe barn and said as much to the sisters as I opened the boot of my car and started to collect up my calving equipment.
‘Vet thinks Deidre’s in barn,’ said Madge, turning to Rosie.
‘But she’s not,’ said Rosie, shaking her head, dislodging a drop of water from the end of her nose.
‘I know she’s not. She’s out in Fox Meadow.’
‘That’s right, Madge. Fox Meadow. Deidre’s out in Fox Meadow,’ went on Rosie, looking at me.
‘That’s where you’ll find her,’ explained Madge, also staring at me.
‘Fox Meadow,’ said Rosie in case I required extra confirmation.
The tic in my temple was now throbbing at full throttle. ‘Look, ladies,’ I said quickly and a little too curtly, ‘we haven’t got all day. Your Deidre needs looking at as soon as possible. Just take me to Fox Meadow, OK?’
‘Rush. Rush. Always in a rush,’ murmured the Stockwells in unison.
Pets on Parade (Prospect House 2) Page 4