It's a Vet's Life

by Woodman Cathy

  Sophia raises one fist and shakes it. ‘Damn you, Fox-Gifford! If only the silly old man could have brought himself to tell me face to face. He never confided in me. Still, thank you, Maz. It’s a small comfort to me.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ I say.

  ‘It’s the way he was brought up. His mother –’ Sophia manages a smile – ‘well, Maz, you think you’re going to have trouble with the mother-in-law. Mine was the one from hell, and his father was a tartar. And then Old Fox-Gifford had years of public school education to teach him how to behave like an Englishman with a stiff upper lip.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I don’t know what to say.

  ‘I’m glad you’ve taken a stand over George’s schooling, Maz. Don’t let Alexander change your mind. A mother always knows best.’

  I’m surprised at her stance. I don’t think she would have given me that opinion while her husband was alive.

  Sophia glances towards the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘The dogs.’

  ‘Sophia, I’ll do it. I’ll let the dogs out.’ I haul Hal up by the collar from where he’s been lying in front of the fire, making the most of the meagre warmth from the smoking logs of damp apple-wood, and take the dogs outside, half expecting to meet Old Fox-Gifford, gun in hand, in the corridor to the kitchen.

  *

  Two weeks after Old Fox-Gifford’s passing, and immediately following the inquest into his death, we bury him in the churchyard on a wet October day. Apparently, there was no room in the family crypt, and, in spite of his sense of tradition, he left instructions that he wished to be interred outdoors because he didn’t want his grandchildren to suffer nightmares as he had when, as a small boy, his father had forced him to visit his dead grandfather underground. Sophia showed me part of the letter he’d left for her.

  ‘This had a profound effect on me,’ it read. ‘From those days forth, I discovered that, although I could control everything else, I could not exorcise the skeletons of my forebears from my mind. You cannot shoot a ghost, once raised.’

  Talyton’s church is like a cathedral in miniature, built from local sandstone. The bells in the tower are tolling. The gargoyles’ mouths are pouring rainwater, creating dark stains down the stonework, and the churchyard is bordered by deep-green yews, adding to the sombre atmosphere.

  The coffin arrives in a carriage drawn by a pair of black horses with plumes on their heads. Sophia waits with me and Fifi Green, as the bearers – Alex, Stewart, Chris, Guy, and two distant uncles of Alex’s who don’t appear tall enough or strong enough to share the weight – remove the coffin that’s made from oak with brass attachments.

  The horses paw the ground, their iron shoes sparking against the metalled road outside the church. Sophia stands proud, cool and pale, dressed in black with her ghastly, moth-eaten fox fur around her neck.

  ‘I thought he would be the death of me,’ she mutters. ‘I thought he was indestructible.’

  Fifi holds Sophia’s arm. ‘He lives on in your lovely son. How is Alexander?’

  ‘You can ask him yourself, not that you’ll get a satisfactory answer. He says he’s bearing up, that life goes on, but I can’t tell how he’s really feeling. Like his father before him, he keeps it to himself – unless he’s angry. You soon know about that, don’t you, Maz?’ Sophia turns to me. ‘Where are the children?’

  ‘They’re inside the church. Lynsey thought they’d get cold.’ There was some debate about whether or not the children should attend the funeral, but, in the end, we let them decide for themselves. Well, Lucie and Seb did, although I suspect their decision had something to do with them having to have a couple of days off school. George didn’t have any say in the matter.

  ‘You will walk with me,’ Sophia says.

  ‘Of course,’ I say. Fifi walks one side. I walk the other, and we follow Old Fox-Gifford’s coffin slowly into the church, where the organist is playing Mendelssohn’s ‘Wedding March’ at speed. I notice how the vicar crosses the aisle to have a word. By the time we’re halfway to the altar, the organist has swapped to a more appropriate fugue by Bach.

  The church is packed. I cannot sit beside Sophia and Alex in the Fox-Gifford family pew because there isn’t room. I end up with Lynsey and Emma, and the children. While we wait for the service to begin, Emma whispers to me.

  ‘How is Alex? Maz, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but you need to.’

  ‘He’s well, he’s still carrying on as if nothing’s happened. It’s weird.’

  ‘He’s a strong character.’

  ‘I think it’s a weakness being so tough.’

  ‘It’s just the way he deals with things,’ Emma suggests.

  ‘I don’t know if he is dealing with it, because he won’t talk to me. When I ask, he clams up. It’s so difficult. I want to be there for him, but all the time he’s pushing me away. I think I must be doing something wrong …’

  ‘It must have hit him hard, losing his father like that. They spent a lot of time together.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m not sure you could describe them as having been close. They didn’t have an easy relationship.’

  ‘Alex probably feels guilty.’

  ‘What for?’

  Emma shrugs. ‘I don’t know. When Mum died, I went through a lot of guilt. I kept thinking, could I have saved her if I’d noticed sooner that she was ill? Alex must question whether he should have recognised his father’s depression and at least tried to prevent him doing what he did?’

  ‘You’re saying all this as if he cares. Em, Alex is going around almost as if there’s nothing wrong. He isn’t cheerful. He’s very cold.’ Shivering, I pull my coat tight around me. ‘He’ll talk to his horse.’

  ‘Maz, he must be very depressed,’ Emma says.

  ‘To be honest, Em, it’s shown me a different side of him. I know it hasn’t been very long, but the way he is, is making me question whether I want to marry him at all.’ I rub the corner of my eye, pretending there is a hair in it.

  ‘You could make him an appointment with Ben.’

  ‘He wouldn’t go. Alex would perceive it as a sign of weakness.’

  Emma changes the subject. ‘Did you hear the organist’s mistake?’

  ‘He’s drunk, I expect,’ I say. ‘Apparently, you have to watch him, otherwise he’s off to the Dog and Duck for a swift pint. I’m going to organise someone to keep an eye on the morning of the wedding.’

  ‘How long is it now? Just under eight weeks?’ Emma smiles. ‘I should know. The twins are due three weeks after that.’

  I smile back.

  ‘Once this is over,’ says Emma, ‘and we’ve said our farewells to Old Fox-Gifford, you and Alex will be able to move on. It shouldn’t be as hard as you think. After the dispatching, we have a matching and double hatching to look forward to.’

  The organist changes tune, announcing the beginning of the service, and we fall silent, apart from George who chatters to his toy tractor, running it up and down the side of the pew. Alex pays tribute to his father, and we sing the hymn ‘All Creatures Great and Small’.

  ‘Aren’t you going to have this one at the wedding?’ Emma whispers.

  ‘We were. I’m not sure now …’ I wonder if it will remind us too much of Old Fox-Gifford’s funeral.

  After the service, I stand at the grave under an umbrella with George strapped into his buggy, so he can’t go and investigate the hole, or play in the mound of wet earth at the side. As we wait for Old Fox-Gifford’s coffin, surrounded by Alex’s family, friends and clients, my umbrella becomes snagged on someone else’s.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, turning to find Fifi Green with Frances. I unsnag the brollies, and they carry on with their not-so-hushed conversation.

  ‘Talyton will never be the same again.’ Fifi wears a black hat, jacket and pleated skirt with heels. ‘He was a one-off.’

  ‘Indeed,’ says Frances, who’s dressed almost exactly the same. ‘He was a singular man.’

  Fifi dabs her eyes with a h
andkerchief.

  ‘I was very fond of him. He was a great ally when those dreadful people wanted to develop the land by the Green.’

  ‘I remember,’ sighs Frances.

  ‘And he was a wonderful judge at the show. He never stood for any nonsense, yet he was charming with it.’

  ‘You’re wearing your rose-coloured spectacles. He was a difficult man. Not that I like to speak ill of the dead.’ Frances raises a gloved hand. ‘I worked for him for years, so you see, I probably know him better than you do, Fifi.’ Do I detect a note of triumph in Frances’s voice? I smile to myself.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ says Fifi. ‘There was a time when Old Fox-Gifford and I were very close.’

  ‘I’m surprised you should mention that,’ says Frances. ‘I don’t understand when you have a lovely husband of your own. You have that little goldmine of a business –’ Fifi and her husband own the local garden centre where they sell everything from solar-powered, light-up gnomes to Christmas decorations – ‘yet you risked it all for a fling with—’

  I’m aware of Sophia watching the pair of them across the grave, an odd expression on her face. I clear my throat.

  ‘Ladies,’ I say, aside to the pair of witches. ‘Not now.’

  Fifi and Frances are not easily silenced. They lower their voices and change the subject.

  ‘The next time we’re met together here, Maz, it will be for a happier occasion,’ says Frances.

  ‘I hope so,’ I say quietly, unsure that anyone else, Alex included, will be in the mood for a wedding.

  ‘Old Fox-Gifford would be furious. There was nothing he enjoyed more than a free lunch,’ Fifi says.

  ‘And a good knees-up,’ says Frances, apparently determined not to be outdone.

  ‘He offered to pay for the cake and champagne at the wedding reception,’ I say. ‘He could be generous when he wanted to be.’

  Sophia holds the wake at the Manor. She has brought in a team of caterers, led by Elsa from the Barnscote Hotel. Shannon is doing some waitressing to earn some extra cash. Clive runs the free bar, and Jennie supplies cake.

  ‘He left instructions for a good send-orf,’ I overhear Sophia telling Fifi in the drawing room. Skye, the Shetland pony, is bumping his muzzle against the long window, asking to be let in. The dogs, for once, are locked out in the lobby at the back of the house – Old Fox-Gifford would never have allowed it, and I have to confess that I’m not entirely happy that Hal is among them. He’s looking pretty wobbly on his back legs now, and I don’t think he’s going to last much longer. He’d be better off in his usual place in front of the fire. ‘That was one burden he didn’t leave me to bear,’ Sophia continues.

  ‘You’ve done very well, Sophia,’ Fifi says. ‘It’s just what he would have wanted.’

  ‘Which you would know, better than anyone else,’ Sophia says acidly. ‘Fifi, you can stay for the wake – I don’t want to make a scene – but from now on, you are not welcome here in my house.’

  I have never seen Fifi Green lost for words before. Her glass of Buck’s Fizz drops to the floor, her face blanches and her lips form a painted O. Several people, including Shannon, go running in to help her. I go in to rescue Sophia. She’s had one shock too many, if she really didn’t know about Fifi’s dalliance or affair, or whatever it was, with Old Fox-Gifford.

  ‘Thank you, Maz,’ she says stiffly, when I hand her a brandy. ‘You have been a brick.’

  I believe that’s a compliment. A brick though?

  I look around for Alex. He appears to be coping with the attention, everyone slapping him on the back and telling him he’s great for handling his father’s death as his father did with his father before him. Yet for me, at home, it’s a different story.

  Much later, the children are asleep – you see, miracles do happen – and I find Alex outside in the semi-darkness, leaning over Liberty’s stable door, watching her and her foal. I join him, hugging my chest, because in spite of wearing a coat and hat, I’m freezing.

  ‘Alex, aren’t you coming inside?’

  ‘When I’m ready.’ He keeps his face turned away from me.

  ‘I know you’re hurting,’ I begin.

  ‘How can you know how I’m feeling?’ he says snappily. ‘You haven’t just lost your father.’

  ‘You forget. I lost mine too, a long time ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Yes, I was devastated, and angry with him for walking out on us, and leaving us in limbo.’ I pause to take a breath past the constriction in my throat. ‘Alex, you are allowed to grieve for him. If you don’t, I can’t see how you’ll be able to move on.’

  Alex doesn’t respond.

  ‘It was such a shock.’

  ‘Stop saying that, Maz. You’re like a broken record. On and on and on …’

  ‘You’re bound to be angry.’ I’m floundering.

  ‘Yes, with people around here, telling me what to do, what to think, what to feel.’

  I feel as if I’ve been slapped. I’m your fiancée, I want to say, but the words won’t come.

  ‘I’ve been prepared for years,’ Alex says. ‘I thought he was gone when the bull got him. I’ve done all the grieving stuff. I have no intention of going through it again.’

  He’s in denial, I think, and being bloody-minded, just the same as his father.

  ‘Alex, let’s go inside …’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘At the wake today, people were asking about the wedding,’ I begin, ‘only it seems that if we go ahead, it might look insensitive to your father’s memory. We could postpone it, but Christmas was the only date we could settle on.’

  ‘Maz, I can’t think about weddings now.’

  ‘You mean, you’d prefer to postpone it?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ Alex runs his hands through his hair. ‘I wish you wouldn’t reinterpret everything I say, because you never get it right. I said I can’t think about something so –’ Alex appears to be searching for the right word – ‘trivial.’

  ‘Trivial?’ My blood could hardly run any colder, but it does. ‘Are you saying our marriage is trivial?’

  ‘There you go again.’ Alex kicks the bottom of the stable door. ‘I mean that it isn’t that important compared with Father topping himself, stopping Mother having a nervous breakdown – especially with that woman, Fifi’s, revelation today – and keeping the business going.’

  ‘Alex!’

  He starts to walk away, stopping after a couple of steps where the shadows start to swallow him up. ‘I’ve had a long and difficult day. I’ve had enough of being nice to people, and more than enough of wedding talk, because they all bloody well asked me too.’

  ‘All right. We’ll postpone it,’ I say. ‘Let’s take our time. There’s no hurry.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking about postponing it …’ Alex’s eyes glint in the darkness, but I don’t think he’s crying. ‘I think we should cancel.’

  ‘Cancel?’

  ‘Yes, let’s forget it.’

  ‘Run that past me again.’ I need to be sure.

  ‘Cancel it, Maz. Call the whole thing off.’

  I can feel the tears rolling hot down my cheeks.

  ‘I mean it. I’ll pay any outstanding deposits.’

  I don’t care about the money. ‘Alex, just answer me one thing,’ I say. His words are like clamps on my heart, squeezing it until it cannot beat any more. ‘Do you still … love me?’

  Alex walks away across the yard in the direction of his car. Too much pressure. I shouldn’t have asked. I gaze up at the stars, blurry specks in the navy sky, thinking of the engagement ring locked away because I haven’t been wearing it recently. I should have had it on my finger so I could take it off and make some dramatic gesture to show Alex that I really don’t care, which would be a lie, of course. I care about Alex and our future more than anything else in the world, George excepted. The wedding that I’ve looked forward to, that I’ve spent months planning for, is off. I hear
the sound of Alex’s car driving away, and I’m devastated.

  I try to hold it together. I have to – for George’s sake. It isn’t his fault. He didn’t choose his parents. It would be all too easy for me to hide myself away in the Barn, call Emma and tell her I’m not coming in to work, but I don’t. It’s more important than ever that our business thrives because, whatever Alex decides to contribute, I want to be able to support myself and my son. I have my pride, and that’s what’s going to make it doubly difficult for me to face up to people like Elsa at the Barnscote, and the vicar, to tell them the wedding is off. Having given George his breakfast, I detach the wedding planner from the fridge, throw the fridge magnet – the one Emma gave me in the shape of a horseshoe for luck – in the bin, and start ripping the pages into tiny pieces.

  ‘I wan’,’ George says, holding out his hand. ‘I wan’!’

  ‘There you are, darling. You help Mummy.’ I give him a sheet, and watch him tearing at it with his teeth and spitting the soggy bits out. He thinks it’s hilarious, and I can’t help smiling as he giggles his way through the task, destroying what remains of the dreaded list. I wash his face and pick the paper off his T-shirt so he’s tidy when I drop him at nursery on the way to Otter House. When I get there I grab a mug of tea with Emma.

  ‘It was an impressive funeral,’ Emma says, rinsing out the mugs in the staffroom before we head off for the morning ward round together. It’s the day after Old Fox-Gifford’s send-off – and Alex’s brush-off, except it was more than that. I bite my lip. It might as well be the end of the world.

  ‘Rather appropriate I think for a man who was larger than life. Everyone’s talking about it,’ Emma goes on.

  ‘I’m sure,’ I say. ‘I wish it hadn’t happened like this though. I shouldn’t feel guilty, but I do.’

  ‘You did the right thing, reporting him. Old Fox-Gifford should have given up driving and retired ages ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry though. His work was what kept him going. It gave him a purpose. People looked up to him, and he had that great camaraderie with his farming clients. He felt needed, I suppose.’ And that’s partly why I feel so devastated – because Alex appears to have decided that he doesn’t need me in his life any more. That’s what he’s saying, isn’t it, that there’s no point in him marrying me because he’s realised that he can’t see a future for us as a family; him, me and George.