Monsieur le Vet

by Sylvain Balteau

  I run my hand over my chin, wonder if I should have shaved. Do I really look like an unshaven soldier from the trenches of the Great War?

  There’s a lump in my throat.

  ‘And you, Monsieur, why are you here?’

  Masculine psychology

  Conversation between two vets

  ‘So, what did you invoice for?’

  ‘Well, nothing. I mean, just the vaginal smear to check for sperm, so as not to do an artificial insemination for no reason.’

  ‘And there weren’t any?’

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘And you saw her yesterday?’

  ‘Yes, for the smear, she was just coming into the oestrus phase. Hence the AI today if it didn’t work.’

  ‘Yeah, OK, so just the smear on top since it follows on from yesterday, but still, we spent a while there all the same.’

  ‘Well yeah, but I can hardly bill for that!’

  ‘The computer doesn’t have a heading for “masturbation”.’

  ‘Well no, you moron.’

  ‘Yeah, well I mean, we must have spent, what, half an hour there, the two of us?’

  ‘Well, yeah.’

  ‘For nothing.’

  ‘Well … I suppose we didn’t get anything.’

  ‘We barely managed to produce a hard-on.’

  ‘Yeah, it was annoying.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Especially as she was up for it.’

  ‘That was obvious. But it’s no reason not to invoice.’

  ‘Well, I felt like a complete wally. So I didn’t see how I could charge them for that.’

  ‘Well, I dunno, we spent ten minutes explaining to them how to create the best conditions to encourage him to cover her naturally. You could have charged something on that basis.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah, that’s not silly.’

  ‘But still, not invoicing is plain daft. Makes it look like we’re no good at masturbation, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Do you think she’ll see it like that?’

  ‘Nah, I shouldn’t think so, she’s not twisted like us, and anyway she trusts us.’

  ‘For masturbation?’

  ‘Oh stop being such a pillock.’

  ‘Yeah but all the same, the owner of the male said that if he wasn’t going to cover her, what was the point of him keeping his balls? Snip, snip.’

  ‘Oh no, it’s all my fault!’

  ‘Now you’re the one who’s being a pillock.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah …’

  Against her will

  The silence is suffocating. There are three of us in the half-darkness of the X-ray room.

  There’s the man. I don’t know how he fits into the family exactly. He’s leaning against the wall, his hands clasped behind his back, looking up at the ceiling mostly. Now and again he shakes his head, as if in denial, but he opted out of the discussion about half an hour ago.

  ‘It’s up to Francette. It’s her dog.’

  Then there’s Madame Rodriguez. Francette. She’s in her seventies, with severe glasses, the skin around them etched with hard lines. A tiny, bird-like woman, lips tightly pursed. There’s a violence in that mouth, those lines. Could it be anger? Possibly.

  And then there’s me. Tall, hollow-cheeked, unshaven, in my white coat and dubious footwear. Lost in the middle of the room, I talk to the dog rather than Madame Rodriguez. I find it difficult to look at people when I know we don’t agree.

  And of course there’s Duchesse. She’s the reason we’re here, a sort of miniature pinscher. Orange-coloured, almost brown under the yellow ceiling light. She’s lying on her right side. Her breathing is fast, too fast and too shallow. She’s dying.

  The room is in shadow. A dimmer lamp on its lowest setting, a negatoscope light box, its glow blotted out by an X-ray. I’ve just put down the ultrasound probe, the diagnosis is easy. Or at least it is today; a couple of days ago I missed it completely. Duchesse was getting better with the treatment I’d prescribed, she’d started eating again. Then this morning, around six o’clock, she started to whine, and her condition began to deteriorate. Now it’s only just ten o’clock, and she’s dying. I know why, I know what has to be done. But standing between Duchesse and me is Madame Rodriguez.

  I’ve just given my diagnosis. And my prognosis, broadly. It’s very serious, but she also has a serious chance of pulling through. She’s no youngster, but at the same time she’s only ten. For a pinscher that’s not old. But if she’s going to live I need to operate, now.

  And Madame Rodriguez has just asked me to put her down.

  The man is leaning against the wall, looking up at the ceiling. He shakes his head. He picks up his mobile and leaves the room.

  I’m stunned. I’m not thinking, I can’t any more. I give in. I leave her there, alone with Duchesse. I’ve turned up the lamp, but the room’s still gloomy. I pass one of the nurses, she clocks my expression and says nothing. My mouth must be tightly pursed too. I fetch the euthanasia drugs from the little locked cabinet. My colleague glances at me in alarm.

  ‘You’re going to put her down?’

  ‘She doesn’t want me to treat her. “Too expensive.” I’ve told her there’s an organisation that can help with the cost, and we can spread the payment over six months. She won’t have it.’

  ‘Oh.’

  At this point I notice the man outside in the car park. He’s pacing up and down, waving his left arm about while his right hand clamps his mobile to his ear.

  Letting out a sigh, I take a green line from the drawer, and I go back to Duchesse.

  ‘Right. I’m not going to charge you, but I want to do a blood test to see if her kidneys are still working.’

  She says nothing. I talk softly to Duchesse, as much to break the silence as to reassure her, even though she’s deaf. You treat a dog differently when you speak to it as you work. She doesn’t feel the needle, I go off with my millilitre of blood. Three minutes of drumming my fingers on the top of the analyser. Three minutes of clenching my teeth, realising I’m clenching my teeth, unclenching them, reclenching them.

  Creatinine level below 0.50 mg/dL.

  Absolutely nothing wrong with her kidneys. A bonus point for her prognosis. I go back to the X-ray room, uncertain. In the passageway, Monsieur grabs me by the arm.

  ‘Does she really stand a chance, doctor?’

  ‘I’ve told you, and I stand by what I said: her chances are at least one in three. Maybe higher. I can’t say any better than that. Her kidneys are good, the procedure to follow is clear. But it has to be done quickly.’

  ‘One in three, hmm? Well. She’s got money you know. There’s no shortage of that.’

  *

  I go back into the X-ray room. There’s still the sound of Duchesse’s breathing, so shallow and rapid. She should be on a drip by now. The man is on my heels, mobile in hand.

  ‘Francette, I’ve had your daughter on the phone, she says Duchesse must have the operation. She says your husband can pay for it.’

  ‘Oh yes, Jean-Paul can pay all right, that’s easy enough. But she’s in pain, and she’s going to die.’

  Her voice is harsh, cold.

  I intervene, squatting beside the table to apply a tourniquet, twisting my body to be in line with Duchesse’s paw.

  ‘Right. I’m inserting the catheter. She’ll need it whatever we decide. If we do nothing she’ll die. If I operate I’m not certain I can save her, but she stands a chance. One in three, maybe more. She’s not suffering from kidney failure.’

  ‘But she’s ten! She’s old!’

  ‘Madame Rodriguez, a pinscher can live to fifteen, sixteen, even older. She’s not old. In human years she’d be in her sixties. Seventy at most. Doctors in hospitals don’t let their patients die because they’re seventy.’

  ‘They can’t save them all either!’

  ‘No, they can’t save them all.’

  She can only be about seventy, this woman. Perhaps a little younger.

  ‘You said
it was very serious!’

  ‘And I stand by what I said. But we can operate, she could recover without any ill effects, and she could live for another five years. If doctors gave up on treating people with serious illnesses when they still had a third of their lives ahead of them, they wouldn’t have much of a workload left.’

  Be convincing, speak calmly, smile but not too much, don’t patronise. Her life depends on you striking the right note. Be persuasive, not confrontational.

  ‘I have a suggestion to make. I operate, straight away. There are risks, because she’s very ill, but she won’t get better with drugs and we’ve run out of time. I can give her an anaesthetic: I’ve got all the right equipment, the same as hospitals use, and the anaesthetic gases. There’s nothing about the anaesthetic that causes me particular concern. I open her up to see what’s going on inside. If it looks bad we stop, I give her the euthanasia drugs while she’s asleep, she won’t feel a thing, she won’t be in pain. For her it will be the same as if I’d put her down without operating, and it won’t cost you very much. But if it looks like it could work, I carry on with the operation. Not for the sake of it, but to give her a chance. OK?’

  Her mouth is pursed, her fingers clenched on her handbag.

  The ‘chauffeur’, the man who didn’t want to get involved, gets back in the driving seat:

  ‘Francette, Pauline’s on the phone again. Your daughter. She says the op should go ahead. We should give her a chance. A one-in-three chance is good.’

  ‘Pauline, Pauline, yes, yes, it’s all very well for her to say, but the dog’s in pain and she’s going to die, so she has to be put down. That’s the way it is, and I’ll get another one.’

  The voice on the phone is thin and reedy. I can hear it, we can all hear it, in the silence that is barely disturbed by Duchesse’s breathing. The man holds the mobile up, a metre from me, a metre from Madame Rodriguez. The voice comes from a long way off.

  ‘MOTHER! Let the vet do the operation! It’s Duchesse! FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!’

  Silence. Duchesse’s breathing. Without looking at either of them, I pick her up and carry her to the operating theatre. On the way I turn round:

  ‘I’m going to operate straight away. In half an hour or less I’ll know how bad it is. Wait in the waiting room for half an hour, OK?’

  *

  It’s half an hour later. The peritonitis was acute, the uterus had ruptured only this morning, probably around six o’clock, when Madame Rodriguez heard Duchesse whining and she vomited. I’ve used over two litres of sodium chlo-ride to clean out every nook and cranny of the peritoneum and I’ve inserted a drain. When I started, her rectal temperature was only 35 degrees. She was in a coma, and the operation took over an hour. Ovariohysterectomy, partial resection of the mesentery, flush, flush, flush. Despite all our precautions, by the end of surgery her rectal temperature had fallen to 32 degrees.

  She took twelve hours to come round from the anaesthetic. For 48 hours she was in a complete daze, with neurological problems that made me fear the worst. Then she managed to stand up. Then she started to eat.

  Five days later she went home.

  Duchesse is well. She could equally well have died.

  In this case the end doesn’t justify the means. Not at all.

  Except …

  Freezer

  Early days

  I’m three. Four, maybe. I’ve just had a litter of pups, but they’ve gone. Where are they?

  No idea.

  For the last three days I’ve been roaming around a hamlet in south-west France, stealing rubbish from dustbins. People look at me, sometimes they talk to me. I sleep in a lean-to that belongs to one of them. It’s a bit cold, but life’s good, isn’t it?

  Today, one of the humans who lives here came up to me again, talking to me nicely and offering me some little dog biscuits. I don’t understand much of what he says, but he looks tired, he drags his feet and he’s bent over, which makes me feel safe. I can see he likes it when I go up to him quietly, head down, tail wagging.

  ‘So my beauty, no tattoo, eh? We’ll ask the vet if you’ve got a chip.’

  A car. A long way. Or maybe not? I dunno, no one knows, no one will ever know. It doesn’t worry me in any case, I’m used to it. Abandoned? So what?

  I like this house: it’s warm, and there are lots of people and interesting smells. And they like it when I wag my tail and put my head down. The food’s second to none. The tall man strokes me as he moves me around, so OK, I show him my legs and my ears. He runs a strange machine over me. Three times. Then he shakes his head:

  ‘No, no microchip. No tattoo either. She’s just had a litter, she’s three or four years old, well cared for. It’s strange.’

  He squats down beside me.

  ‘The problem, Monsieur, is … eh, pretty girl? You’ve got an ugly mug, poor thing. She’s an Amstaff, an American Staffordshire terrier, a pit bull type. I’m afraid she fits all the criteria for a “dangerous dog”. Plus she’s got no identification, she hasn’t been spayed, in fact she hasn’t got much going for her. I’ll have to call the mayor.’

  I’ve spotted a young woman on the other side of the room and I reckon she’ll make a proper fuss of me. It’s odd, they’re all very kind, but they all look a bit bothered. No worries, I’ll just lay it on a bit and they’ll all adore me.

  There you are, the tall one in the white coat is on the phone, talking about me:

  ‘Grey and white, around 40 centimetres tall at the shoulder, a nice plump, well-fed Amstaff. Yes, she’s been roaming around a hamlet in your area for three days. Yes, it’s a female, just had pups, no identification.’

  No identification, but still a bit of a looker, with my close-cropped coat, my ash-blonde colouring, my brown eyes, my great lolloping tongue and the way I’m always up for a bit of fun and games. A three-year-old kid, really. Pretty, with an ugly mug. I must remember that, it’ll look good on my pedigree.

  ‘We’ll keep her for a few days for you before she’s sent to the pound, in case her owner turns up. But I doubt if he will: she’s illegal and he knows it. Anyway, I’ll keep you in the picture. She seems pretty good-natured, so there shouldn’t be any problem.

  ‘Yes, legally you can ask for her to be put down at any time.

  ‘Yes, I realise you don’t kill a dog just like that, but I’m informing you, and you are responsible for her after all …’

  His voice trails off, the tall one in the white coat. They all look at me from the top of legs that go on for ever, hands on hips or arms folded.

  ‘Well now, what are we going to do with you?’

  Wag that tail.

  Paradise

  No, seriously, it’s true: every morning they feed me, then someone takes me out for a walk. Little by little they’re starting to trust me, and when there’s no one around they let me off the lead in a big field. It’s more practical, in any case. Then they tie my lead to a cupboard near the office, with a blanket – if there’s no blanket I bark like crazy, I’m not going to be messed around, am I? – and I spend the day snoring, snuffling, eating, drinking, having a fuss made of me.

  The good life.

  You have to work at it, though: sometimes these humans can be pretty dim. Sometimes they leave me alone for a couple of minutes or more, or they don’t make a fuss of me, or they ignore me even! Whenever they do that I kick up an almighty fuss, whining and whimpering – not just ordinary barking, more a kind of squeaky, rasping noise that’s brilliant at getting a reaction, and fast. Then they shout all sorts of things at me, give me lots of attention and stop ignoring me. Bliss.

  ‘Oh for pity’s sake will you just shut UP!’

  ‘Someone put a muzzle on it! Goddammit!’

  ‘Doesn’t she ever stop?’

  ‘You’re a lovely girl, a pretty girl, but you’ve got an ugly mug and you’re a pain in the bum, aren’t you?’

  ‘Behave, or we’ll put you in the freezer!’

  When they all come running,
red in the face, shouting at me and shaking me a bit, I go into my routine: wag the tail, look blissfully happy. It comes naturally.

  ‘Oh god, she’s so dumb, and she’s so lovable, but whatever are we going to do with her?’

  The young woman goes away on a fortnight’s holiday. Just before she leaves she puts a note on my cage:

  ‘She’s so adorable, look after her, find her a good home, see you in a fortnight.’

  Sweet of her, don’t you think? The guys in white coats loved it when they found it on the Monday morning. They looked even more nonplussed than usual. It set them talking. Which meant they were five minutes late with my breakfast. Not good.

  Not good at all.

  So I went into my whining act.

  ‘Aaaargggh, no, stop it! If you don’t behave we’ll put you in the freezer!’

  But I got my breakfast and my walk, and they made a fuss of me.

  Freezer

  ‘I called the Society for the Protection of Animals. They don’t want her. They say they won’t be allowed to rehome her because of her “dangerous dog” status, so either she’ll moulder away in their kennels or they’ll have to put her down. Yeah, the mayor agrees that we can keep her for the moment, we’ll try to find her a good home.’

  They’ve even given me a name. I like it, it’s punchy, it sounds good, and I bet there aren’t any other dogs called ‘Freezer’.

  I watch as a lot of people come and go. Some of them come to see me, but most of them just happen to be here with their own dogs – I’m not allowed to play with them – and start talking about me with the guys in white coats.

  ‘She’s a sweet dog, has she been abandoned?’

  Did he say sweet? Wag tail, head down, make a fuss of him. They love it, fuss guaranteed.

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘What breed is she?’

  ‘What would you say?’

  ‘I dunno, um, a boxer?’

  ‘No, no way, boxers are completely different. She’s more like an Amstaff, a pit bull.’

  ‘A pit bull? But she’s not dangerous!’

  No, course not. Adorable, clingy, whiny, tiresome, boisterous, but not dangerous. And pretty!