I was in the mood for a bit of a chinwag but Eleanor, waving the decapitated mouse at me, said, ‘I’d rather get rid of this first, if you don’t mind.’
I watched as she resolutely continued with her rodent disposal strategy, her tall, angular figure clad that afternoon in all the classic colours one would choose for such treks into the wilderness … even though it was only a patch of overgrown garden: spotless, green corduroy trousers; matching green waistcoat over a light-green linen, short-sleeved shirt; and soft, green rubber wellies, complete with buckles at their tops. The only accessories that clashed with her country image were the pristine yellow gloves – and, of course, the headless mouse.
Once the carcass had been disposed of by burial beneath a holly bush, Eleanor negotiated the circular slabs set round the edge of the pond; she did it with arms stretched out, gloves held up in front of her, and studied each stone circle before placing a boot precisely in its centre. She dithered a moment when the stones stopped at the edge of the lawn and then, having decided the dry turf was unlikely to foul her wellingtons, she crossed over to continue her chat with me.
‘I do wish Tammy would stop bringing in these offerings,’ she said, with a little shudder, waving her now slightly soiled trowel in the air. ‘Such a beastly habit.’
But, as with all habits, it was to be repeated. And only a few days later.
Lucy and I had just got home from Prospect House, having been on the early rota so that we finished at 5.00pm, which meant we had a few hours before it got dark to unwind; on such occasions we would often have a mug of tea on our little patio and soak in a bit of late afternoon sunshine. That day was no exception. There were a few straggling, pink roses still in flower over the kitchen door and, lying on my lounger, eyes half closed, I could hear the drone of several bees as they dragged themselves from bloom to bloom. From beyond the front of Willow Wren came the noisy cawing of the rooks returning to their nests in the beeches adjacent to Reverend James’ garden; but their cacophony was sufficiently muted by the intervening cottage walls so as not to be intrusive. The same couldn’t be said for the Reverend – he was driven to distraction by the daily onslaught, which he often blamed for his disjointed sermons, having been disturbed in the writing of them by the rooks. I’d often seen him from our front window, pacing up and down the rectory garden, with his notes in hand, waving them at the nests above him. Perhaps seeking divine intervention? But I guessed not. Unlike St Francis of Assisi, whose compassion for animals had elevated him to being their patron saint, James did not emulate this, judging by his incessant fist waving and the stream of invectives that poured out from his garden.
Feeling exhausted after another strenuous day at the surgery, with the sun still sufficiently warm on my face to lull me into semi-slumber, I began to nod off, vaguely aware that Lucy, on the lounger next to me, had also fallen asleep – there was soft, sibilant snoring coming from her direction.
Then came the scream … a high-pitched, wavering scream.
‘Bloody hell! What on earth was that?’ I exclaimed, jolted from my reverie with such a start that I found myself sitting bolt upright, staring wildly round me.
Lucy’s eyes fluttered open. ‘What?’ she said, yawning.
‘That scream. Didn’t you hear it?’ Further explanation was unnecessary, as from the other side of the fence adjacent to our kitchen came the distraught voice of Eleanor Venables.
‘Why, you horrible little cat. How disgusting!’
‘Uh-oh … something’s up,’ I whispered to Lucy, giving her a lopsided grin. They say curiosity kills the cat, but I was prepared to take that risk and leapt from my lounger and sprang onto the pile of bricks I’d stacked next to the kitchen in case I ever needed to peep over the fence. Well, you never know when you might have to look in on a neighbour. Like now.
‘Why, Eleanor, whatever’s the matter?’ I exclaimed, heaving into sight to look down at her, my eyes like organ stops, gagging to find out what was going on.
Although Eleanor had sounded distressed, the sight of me ogling her ensured her customary composure was rapidly restored. She was standing just inside the kitchen door and pointed to the step. ‘It’s Tammy again. Just look.’ On the step were the mangled remains of the back end of an animal; grey fur, two legs, and a bloody trail of guts spilling from the severed abdominal cavity.
‘What is it?’ asked Eleanor, putting a hand to her mouth.
‘Looks like a rabbit to me.’
From my side of the fence, there was a gasp from Lucy. ‘It’s not our Bugsie is it?’
‘No, no,’ I said, turning round to reassure her. Our rabbit had distinctive black-and-white markings, whereas the half of rabbit lying at Eleanor’s feet was plain grey … apart from the splashes of red.
I did the gallant thing and went round to shovel up the mortal remains and then, later, having dissected out the bones, gave them to Nelson for his tea. Waste not, want not. And certainly Nelson appreciated them. He licked his bowl clean, pushing it noisily round the tiled floor of the kitchen, and then waddled into the sitting room, wagging his stumpy tail, and gave a loud burp.
He wouldn’t have cared for the next trophy Tammy brought in.
I was first alerted by the frantic ringing of our front-door bell. Well, not so much a ringing, since water had got into the workings and it now sounded more like a frog being garrotted. Whatever, summoned by the persistent croak, croak, croak, I found a very agitated Eleanor Venables standing on the iron grille in front of our door, her brown brogues lifting alternately as if she were marching on the spot – thereby tapping out a metallic, rhythmic beat from the grille beneath them. Add to this Eleanor’s strident tones, and one could sense a military campaign in the making. And I guessed, correctly, that I was going to be the advance guard.
‘Oh, Paul, thank goodness you’re in,’ she said, her hands clutching the lapels of her jacket, several strands of her normally well-coiffured hair blowing across her face. ‘You just won’t believe what Tammy’s brought in now.’ Eleanor stopped shifting on the spot and shivered. ‘It’s all too much. You’ll have to get it out for me.’
‘Sorry, I don’t quite understand.’
‘It’s wriggled into my drawers. You’ll have to get it out for me.’
For a brief moment I thought something had become lodged in her underwear, hence the agitation and marching on the spot, but I quickly dismissed that as a product of my overactive and puerile imagination. Nevertheless, I felt myself blush at the thought. Eleanor, perceptive as always, even in her current predicament, was quick to read my thoughts as she went on to state quite sharply, ‘I meant “under” not “in” my drawers, Paul. My chest of drawers.’
‘Sorry, sorry,’ I murmured. ‘For a moment I thought …’
‘Yes, yes,’ interrupted Eleanor, dismissively, while colouring a little. ‘But, whatever, I’d appreciate your help in getting it out for me.’
The ‘it’ in question turned out to be a young grass snake which Eleanor had spotted Tammy carrying upstairs, its front and back ends thrashing about from both sides of the cat’s mouth. Eleanor had chased after the cat in time to see her drop it on one of her slippers, from whence the snake rapidly slithered under her furniture.
‘Can you see it?’ she queried, as I lay stretched out on her carpet, peering into the darkness under her drawers.
‘No. Can’t see a thing. Maybe it’s crawled elsewhere.’ It was a statement which prompted Eleanor to leap onto her bed with a ‘Oh my God …’ and a ‘… you must find it for me.’
There were several likely bolt-holes in Eleanor’s bedroom. The dressing table – a nice Edwardian piece with inlaid wood round its edge and a fluted, oval mirror – could be dismissed as it had fine, tapered legs supporting it well clear of the floor. The matching wardrobe, with glass infill doors, was another matter. A snake could have easily slithered behind it in the gap I could see between the wardrobe and the skirting board. Then, there was the bed. A rather splendid, heavy, wid
e structure with a high headboard carved with wreaths of flowers, echoed by the base with similar ornate carvings; and between them a rich, quilted cover – a patchwork of golds and reds – complemented by four large, tapestry cushions. A snake could have got lost in all of that, although, while I knew that grass snakes can climb, I didn’t think this youngster would have done so; and besides, if I’d suggested that as a possibility, Eleanor would have hit the roof – well, the ceiling at least, there not being much headroom between that and her bed. No, better to leave her cowering among her cushions and explore the more obvious area under the bed. And that’s where I found the snake, coiled up next to the socket for her bedside lamp. Imagine her reaching down to turn off her light and touching the snake. What a shock that would have been. Especially if it had wriggled and thrashed the way it did when I grabbed it.
Having pulled it out, I got to my feet and reassured Eleanor that I’d release the snake well away from her cottage.
‘You might not have to,’ said Eleanor, climbing down off her bed to cautiously look at the snake from a safe distance. ‘Looks dead to me.’
The young snake had indeed gone limp in my hand, and its head had twisted round and its jaws had dropped open. I knew that feigning death was a defensive mechanism in grass snakes to deter would-be predators and explained this to Eleanor.
‘So the snake’s still alive?’ she said, her chin clicking furiously up and down.
‘Yes.’
Eleanor leapt back on the bed.
I suggested putting the grass snake down in her patch of wild garden, next to her pond, as they liked damp areas, but she was adamant that, if I did, she’d never, ever venture down there again. So I found myself traipsing round the side of Willow Wren and down the footpath alongside our back wall, to an area just beyond the end of the garden which was boggy with a few clumps of reeds and a row of three huge willow trees, all that remained of the village pond that had once been there. The snake continued to lie limply in my hand, but I was now aware of the other defensive mechanism used by grass snakes – the secretion of a foul-smelling liquid. The snake had squirted the fluid out before trying its death act, and it had oozed over my fingers so they now reeked like fish fingers that had been putrefying in the sun for several days. Boy, did they pong.
Having curled the inert snake up under some reeds, I returned to Willow Wren and was immediately ejected by Lucy as being unbearably offensive due to my rancid hands. I then spent the next five minutes or so scrubbing my fingers and nails under the outside tap with the soap and scrubbing brush Lucy had flung out of the window.
A few months later, I was to be deemed ‘offensive’ by her again, although then it was not due to whiffy fingers – more, as she saw it, to my malodorous mood. Hmm …. she could talk! But that was the trouble – she didn’t. She kept things bottled up. I felt sure it was only going to be a matter of time before all those pent-up emotions would explode. But when?
It was early March, that time when spring is beginning to show itself. The crocuses were out, the daffodils were beginning to nod their yellow heads and there was a stirring of nature, birds more strident in their singing, bustling through the hedgerows, nest building. Tammy, too, had become more alert, as if, after a temporary hibernation, she’d awoken to sally forth and claim her first trophy of the fledgling year.
Eleanor Venables brought it round in a shoebox. ‘What do you think it is?’ she asked as I lifted the lid and gently pulled back the tissues Eleanor had placed over it. She’d mentioned on the phone, before coming round, that Tammy had brought in a bird which was in a state of shock and would I please have a look at it. So I was expecting a stressed blue tit, robin, maybe a wren, but certainly not what the removal of the tissues revealed.
‘Good Lord,’ I exclaimed, carefully lifting out the bird. There was no mistaking the grey plumage, the distinctive yellow crest and yellow cheeks with their splash of orange on either side. ‘It’s a cockatiel.’
‘How on earth could Tammy have got hold of that?’ queried Eleanor.
I shrugged. ‘Escaped pet, maybe?’ Either that or Tammy had stalked into someone’s house and pounced; but that seemed highly unlikely. ‘Whatever, the bird’s pretty shocked.’ I carefully stretched out each wing to check if either was broken. They were fine. I ran a finger up through the bird’s feathers, both on its back and underneath. No signs of puncture wounds from Tammy’s teeth. In fact, the cockatiel seemed remarkably unscathed; but it was breathing rapidly, its beak wide open, and was staring, unblinking.
‘Best thing is to keep it in this box, in a warm place, and give it a chance to recover,’ I said, replacing the bird and putting the lid back on. ‘Let’s see how it is in a couple of hours.’
I didn’t need to be told by Eleanor that the cockatiel had recovered. It was all too clear from the screeching that suddenly started up later that day and which the partition wall did nothing to muffle. And over the next few days, it started to become a source of irritation to both Lucy and me. It wasn’t so bad in the evenings when we got home from work as it was getting dark by then, and we assumed the cockatiel had settled down to sleep for the night since it was quiet next door. But with dawn breaking earlier as the days progressed, our wake-up call from the bird’s wretched screeching slipped back each morning.
‘For Pete’s sake, tell her to keep the bird covered up,’ Lucy moaned one morning as the cockatiel’s shrill squawk drilled through the wall at 5.45am and woke us both up.
But even with an old curtain draped over the cage I’d lent Eleanor from the hospital, it made no difference. I guess the cockatiel heard the birds outside begin to twitter and thought he’d contribute in his own Aussie way. No problem had he been in the Outback. He could have shrieked to his heart’s content. But next door in Ashton was a different kettle of fish.
And talking of fish, I was reminded of the fishy fingers I’d had to endure last September when I rescued Eleanor Venables from the coils of that young grass snake. Although I didn’t begrudge having done it and wasn’t expecting any favours in return, I did feel a bit niggled that she wasn’t now being a little more sympathetic to our grievances over the cockatiel’s screeching. Besides, I thought all the squawking would be irritating for her, too. Not a bit of it, as she explained when I went round to confront her over the matter.
‘What’s a little chirrup here and there,’ she said, ‘when it’s meant Tammy’s stopped bringing home all those poor little creatures?’
It seemed the cockatiel had become a distraction for Tammy.
‘She’s forever stalking under Wilfred’s cage,’ admitted Eleanor. ‘So I do have to be a bit careful. But better that than having snakes and the like in the house.’
Wilfred, eh? Hmm. It seemed Eleanor was becoming quite attached to the bird. I dug my ex-fishy fingers into my palms and tried another tack, reminding her that maybe this ‘Wilfred’ was someone’s pet and that he was being missed. That was a mistake.
I got a severe look of reprimand from Eleanor; her grey-flecked eyes narrowed, a furrow appeared between them, as her jaw momentarily clamped shut only to flick open and for her to say curtly, ‘I did put a card in the corner stores. But there’s been no response.’ Slapped wrist, Paul.
So it looked as if Lucy and I would have to put up with Wilfred’s vocals, they being in stark contrast to ours – ours being negligible; Lucy and I were still in non-communicative mode. We resorted to using the spare earplugs left over from the days when we had our own noisy cockatoo – Liza – whom eventually, driven to distraction by her shrieks and squawks, we managed to re-home. Ironically, it was with Eleanor Venables’ son, the rector of St Augustine’s over in Chawcombe – he and his wife were potty about parrots and had four of their own before Liza’s arrival. Sad to say, though, I only used the earplugs at night to ensure I wasn’t woken up too early. The feeling I got when I pushed them into my ear canals – one of disconnecting from the world – was a feeling that I was reluctant to part with in the mornings when
I had to unplug myself and reconnect with the real world and the sharing of it with Lucy. I think she felt the same, although we didn’t have the time, or – more likely – didn’t have the inclination, to discuss it and work through our problems. But had I had Madam Mountjoy’s ability to see into the future and realise what was going to happen only weeks away, then I might have felt differently.
In the event, I could have discarded those earplugs regardless of what was going to happen between me and Lucy, since one Sunday morning there was silence from next door. Not one squawk. Not the slightest chirrup. For a moment, I thought maybe I’d dislodged a lump of wax in my ear, leaving it smeared across my eardrum and causing temporary deafness; but no, I could hear Lucy slamming about downstairs in the kitchen all too clearly.
I finished shaving and went down.
‘Quiet next door, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘Wonder if anything’s happened to Wilfred.’
I got a sullen look and a shrug for my efforts. ‘There’s some breakfast in the bottom oven,’ said Lucy. ‘I’m going out to feed the animals.’
After a rather charred couple of rashers of bacon and a slice of toast and marmalade, washed down with my standard mug of green tea, I nipped out to get the Sunday papers from down the road at the corner stores and returned to find Eleanor Venables standing at the little gate that led into our back garden, discussing something with Lucy. The way Eleanor was leaning over the gate, her hands gripping the ironwork, her jaw working up and down furiously, I sensed we had another crisis to deal with.
‘Ah, Paul, just the man,’ she said, turning from Lucy as I approached, papers tucked under one arm. ‘It’s Wilfred. He’s gone missing.’
My immediate reaction was to shout ‘Yippee’ and punch the air with my free arm, thinking perhaps we’d no longer have to put up with the cockatoo’s screeching; but realising that would appear unseemly in a supposedly kind and caring vet, plus the sight of Eleanor’s moon face etched with distress – not to mention Lucy’s glare – I decided a more sympathetic approach was required. So I masked any elation by putting on a face which I hoped showed sufficient concern and said in a voice which I hoped echoed that concern, ‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that …’ a statement which had Lucy narrowing her eyes and pursing her lips contemptuously.
Pets on Parade (Prospect House 2) Page 7