Pets in a Pickle

by Malcolm D Welshman

  I assumed Charles was the vicar of St Augustine’s, a man whom I had yet to meet.

  ‘Anyway,’ continued Reverend James, ‘this is just to say I hope it all goes well for you. Bless you. Oh … and the wife baked this cake this morning.’ He handed me the sponge while his upper lip did its customary curl up over his teeth as he beamed.

  What a nice gesture. I was a glutton for homemade cakes and was just about to thank him when he added, ‘It’s just a little extra for the cake stall at the fête. Susan always likes to make a contribution. Has done so for the past two years. Not that she expects to win gold three years in a row, but it’s all in a good cause. And I do hope you don’t run into too many difficulties in your judging. You know what people are like with their pets. These shows can turn into a bit of a bun fight. And I’m not talking cakes here.’ He looked serious for a moment and patted my arm. ‘But I’m sure you’ll pull through. My thoughts will be with you.’ He gave me another reassuring pat.

  Goodness. What was all this in aid of? He made it sound as if I was being sent off to the Crusades in the Holy Land rather than off to a pet show in the next village. It did nothing for my nerves.

  Nor did the congested lanes in and around Chawcombe. It seemed like the whole of West Sussex was descending on the place. And there was me thinking there’d be just a few dedicated church supporters sprinkled on the vicarage lawn.

  Instead, I was forced to park nearly a mile from the church, join the throng of people streaming down the lane and queue for over five minutes at the vicarage gate where a makeshift ticket office in the form of a kitchen table and two washing up bowls had been positioned.

  ‘That’ll be two pounds, mate,’ declared the man at the gate, proffering me a ticket and a programme, his other hand outstretched, palm up.

  ‘I’m … e r… judging,’ I said.

  ‘Cakes?’ He pointed to the sponge under my arm.

  ‘Er … no. Pets.’

  ‘Really?’ A broad grin split his weather-beaten face. His bulbous nose wobbled and a little black bristle on the end of it jumped up and down. ‘You’ll have your work cut out then.’

  Despite the sun burning down on my head, the heat failed to melt the ice pack that suddenly clamped my heart. Just what was I letting myself in for?

  ‘It’s at the far end of the garden,’ he continued. ‘You’ll see a path leading down into a copse. There’s a sign – “Pets’ Corner” – you can’t miss it. You’ll pass the cake stall on the way. But you’ll have to be quick with that.’ He nodded at the cake under my arm. ‘Entries are just about to close.’

  I started elbowing my way through the slowly moving throng, peering over shoulders wondering where the cake stand was. I passed a jumble stall where a swirling mass of ladies were tunnelling through the piles of clothes like ferrets in a rabbit warren. Every so often an article of possible interest was exposed with a squeal of delight, dragged out, examined and then tossed back in again with a shake of the head. Skirts, blouses and the odd shoe or two winged through the air. A buttonless military-style blouson clipped my ear and landed on my shoulder only to be snatched away by a whiskery woman who barked, ‘Leave off … that’s mine.’

  I pushed forward, squeezing through the crowd, careful to keep a protective arm across the vicar’s cake tucked under my elbow. Heaven help me if something happened to that. And in the next blur of seconds, it did. There was a whining, a panting, the smell of hot doggy breath and suddenly I was clutching at nothing. The cake had slipped from my grasp, snatched from behind me and, as I swung round, was now in the jaws of a Dalmatian, jam oozing from his jowls.

  ‘Oh, Henry … really! You wicked dog,’ admonished a woman in broad-belted, low-slung jeans who came striding up behind him to yank at his equally broad-belted leather collar, an action which made the dog hack which, in turn, caused the sponge-turned-trifle to be spewed on to the grass where its fate was well and truly sealed by a passing sole which ground it into the grass. ‘I’m so … so sorry,’ she continued to say. ‘But Henry’s a glutton for cake.’ Henry slobbered and pulled at his collar, looking up at me as if expecting another titbit. A slice of Madeira maybe? Date and walnut?

  I muttered something along the lines of ‘Not to worry’, although inwardly squealing with anguish. If God worked in mysterious ways then he now had me completely baffled. This was turning into more of a chimp’s tea party than a vicar’s and I still had the judging to do. I stepped out of the jam – the human one spread round the jumble stall – and headed across a paved terrace at the back of the vicarage. French windows were wide open. A sign stuck to a pane of glass informed people of the teas available inside with a list of cakes on offer. Good job Henry the Dalmatian couldn’t read.

  A hot and flustered group of youngsters had assembled at one end of the terrace, settled themselves on chairs and were busy picking or blowing their noses in between doing the same to a variety of musical instruments. As I scooted off in my continuing search for the “Pets’ Corner”, the band turned from noses to musical scores and struck up a long, drawn out ‘Colonel Bogie’.

  I eventually found the copse at the end of a well-tended kitchen garden, the path through the middle of which was bounded by rows of runner beans forming wigwams of green down each side; to the left along a mellow brick wall ran a lean-to greenhouse, with panes of mirrored silver reflecting the blistering heat.

  A page torn from an exercise book and nailed to a tree trunk proclaimed ‘Pets’ Corner’ in red ink with an arrow pointing down into the glade. Stepping from the blinding light into the gloom of the copse was like stumbling into pitch darkness. Until my eyes adjusted, I couldn’t see where I was going and blindly slipped and slid down a path still tacky and wet from the thunderstorms earlier in the week. I staggered to a halt in the middle of the glade blinking like a batty barn owl. Slowly, I became conscious of pairs of eyes – row upon row of them – encircling me.

  To every tree was tied a dog. Several overweight black Labradors sat, bow-legged, bellies hanging down, tongues lolling out, chains of saliva dangling from their jowls. A white poodle, the red bow in its top-knot askew over one eye, was rapidly turning brown as it scrabbled in the mud grizzling for its owner. An Irish Setter was trying to mount a Dachshund while a Boxer had tied itself in knots round a clump of holly in an attempt to take a chunk out of a growling Jack Russell.

  A girl of about 14 with long, mousy hair tied back in two bunches, picked her way over.

  ‘Have you a pet?’ she asked.

  I recognised her voice as the one belonging to the girl on the phone. ‘I’m Mr Mitchell.’

  The girl’s face remained blank.

  ‘The vet … you asked me to judge the pets.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Right. Well …’ The girl spread her hands and looked round the glade at all the canine eyes now staring at us with intense interest.

  I stared back with far less enthusiasm. ‘So where are the owners?’

  ‘I thought it best if they left their dogs tied up.’ The girl gave an apologetic smile. ‘It was getting so crowded and churned up down here.’

  The gloom of the glade seeped into me, not helped by the mud which clung tenaciously to my shoes. Oh well, I thought, I’ve landed myself in this so might as well get on with it. Get some of the animals looked at before their owners return. I pulled a small notebook from my pocket and began to make notes. By my sixth identical-looking black, fat, middle-aged Labrador I was getting confused. There must have been some fertile Chawcombe bitch churning out such puppies like peas from a pod.

  I turned to the poodle which now resembled a brown rat, bow adrift, paws so caked in mud that she had difficulty in lifting them. But she had no problem in lifting her lip as I bent down to examine her – an action which had her immediately struck off my list of possible finalists.

  I approached the Boxer. He strained forward on his leash, wagged the stump of his tail furiously, blustering and spraying saliva like a leaking hosepipe.

  ‘Well,
boy, you seem pleased to see me,’ I exclaimed, ruffling his ears as his rump continued to thump from side to side against my legs. Yes, you could be a finalist, I decided, and was marking him down when I felt my left trouser leg go warm and soggy. I wheeled round to find the Boxer’s leg cocked against mine, a jet of urine still squirting out.

  ‘Why, you dirty bugger,’ I exclaimed, jumping out of range. One less for the list.

  By now people were beginning to trail back in, the trail taken becoming more and more treacherous as more people came down it. A slippery slope that was crying out for an accident to occur. But it took the arrival of several more entries – two rabbits, a goldfish, some furry things in cages – before it happened. A short, buxom lady suddenly filled the entrance to the glade, her rounded bulk silhouetted against the sky. I could just make out the box she was holding in her arms. It was covered in a raised layer of chicken-wire from which peered a row of ginger kittens – three in all, each emitting a chorus of plaintive miaows. Dragging his heels behind her was a boy of about five; and it was his heels that brought both her and his downfall. He slipped on the slope, caught his foot in a tree root and grabbed at his mother’s T-shirt to stop himself falling. She was jerked back, her legs jerked forward and both she and the boy landed on their backs and skidded down the slope. The box sailed into the air, the mesh springing off to the right, the kittens springing out to the left.

  The effect was like a dam bursting. The glade erupted in a swell of howls, barks, hisses and spits interspersed with a torrent of swear words as more owners poured in to cascade down the path and flood the glade, awash now with dogs leaping and twisting on their leads, a sea of canines tying themselves and their owners in knots.

  Mortified, I shrank back against a tree, my hands clawing at the trunk behind me as if it were a life-raft. Could this really be happening? When I heard the band strike up ‘Bare Necessities’ from the film The Jungle Book I began to wonder whether Mowgli would suddenly appear in the glade with Baloo the bear waltzing down behind him wanting to be judged ‘Best Pet’. Nonsense. It was my imagination running wild, not the glade. Though that gorilla of a man shambling across the clearing did look like King Louie. And that hissing sounded more Kaa the cobra, than cat.

  When things eventually settled down, the kittens recaptured, my notepad retrieved from the mud and wiped down by the girl, I had no option but to get on with the judging.

  ‘Phoebe wouldn’t hurt a fly,’ remonstrated the platinum-permed owner of the white-brown poodle. She, like her pet, had a red bow in her hair and matching white-trousered legs muddied up to the calves. Phoebe confirmed her position at the bottom of my list by baring her rotten teeth at me as I edged past.

  ‘Fine example of her breed, don’t you think?’ boomed the gorilla-owner of the Red Setter. Now I’d seen this King Louie before. Not in The Jungle Book but somewhere in Westcott. Now, just where was it? Ah, yes, of course … the dental practice. I’d gone there last week to register. He was the gorilla (dentist) who’d swung over the chair to check my teeth and found a cracked filling. He’d put in a temporary one while making a template for a ceramic replacement. I was due back next week. ‘Lucas’ was his name. And, yes, I’m sure he recognised me.

  ‘So what do you say?’ he asked, his piggy yellow eyes staring hard at me before he pulled the dog over and ordered her to sit. This she did without a murmur.

  I lifted her muzzle and drew back the lips on one side to inspect her teeth. The back molars were encrusted with tartar.

  ‘Like you, she needs a bit of dental work,’ Lucas confessed. ‘But I guess we both know the drill.’ He gave a couple of earthy grunts which could have been construed as a chuckle. I was far from amused. He, of all people, being a dentist, should have known better than to allow such a build-up of tartar. Another pet to be struck off my list.

  Lucas suddenly thrust his face in mine. ‘You’re due to come back next week, aren’t you?’

  ‘Er … yes,’ I replied, letting the Setter’s lip drop.

  ‘I’ve got to drill out that temporary filling, if I remember correctly.’

  ‘So I believe.’

  ‘Yessss … quite a deep cavity you’ve got there.’ There was a menacing glint in the piggy eyes. ‘Could be painful … very painful, in fact.’

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Intimidation? A veiled threat? It was enough to set one’s teeth on edge – especially in my case where a replacement filling was required. I quickly reinstated the dog. Well, she was very obedient.

  A little girl rammed a hamster cage in my stomach. ‘He’s called Ermintrude … “Erm” for short.’

  I was still mentally writhing in a dentist’s chair, not concentrating. ‘Gertrude .… that’s a nice name.’

  ‘No, silly – Ermintrude.’

  I peered through the bars. All I could see was a mound of shredded paper. ‘So how long have you had Gert … er … Ermintrude?’

  ‘Bought him this morning.’

  This wasn’t exactly the child-pet rapport I was seeking and decided to move on.

  A gravelly voice grated in my ear. ‘’Ere, you haven’t examined him yet. Rules are rules. You need to give him the once-over.’ The voice belonged to yet another portly woman whom I took to be the little girl’s mother. I was also quick to note the fact that the Bastille proportions of the woman belonged to Jane Bradshaw, the Sister at the Health Centre in Westcott. No mistaking that bulk. No liana in any jungle – even one conjured up by Kipling – could support such a massive frame as hers. This Jane swung round on me and glared. Me being no Tarzan capitulated at once, stuck my finger in the cage and had it bitten for my trouble. I swore and pulled my hand out.

  ‘Needled you, did he?’ said Mrs Bradshaw.

  ‘Sharp little fellow,’ I said, nursing my punctured finger. Another pet deleted from my list.

  ‘Couldn’t do better myself,’ she said. ‘In fact, I could do far worse.’ She fixed me with steel-grey eyes. ‘Far worse. Just remember that when you next need to come in for a tetanus jab.’ She emphasised ‘jab’ and viciously poked my arm with a finger. This was a plain Jane plainly speaking. No beating about the bush … or jungle. The hamster rapidly reappeared on my list.

  The girl with the bunches tapped me on the shoulder and asked how things were going.

  ‘Thought you said it was only children’s pets,’ I hissed, feeling decidedly Kaa-like. Decidedly viperous.

  ‘It was supposed to have been, but the printers made a mistake. The “children’s” bit got left out of the programme. Still, it means we’ve had lots more entries,’ she added brightly. ‘And it’s good for the church funds.’ She held up a jangling money-box.

  ‘What’s your name?’ shrilled a voice slicing through the air. ‘My name’s Cedric!’

  Oh, no. Surely not! I turned, first catching sight of the metallic cage being carried by a youth, and then the white head of Miss McEwan bobbing behind. With a nimbleness that belied her age, she zigzagged down the path and skirted the worse of the muddy patches before drawing level with me, her face lighting up the gloom with a beaming smile.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Mitchell,’ she twittered. ‘A little bird told me you were going to be judging the show.’

  Cedric, no doubt, I thought glumly as the mynah sprang up and down his perch and gave me a ‘Well, here I am … Aren’t I a pretty boy?’ look.

  I glanced at my watch. It was way past 3.00pm. ‘Well, actually,’ I said, ‘the entries closed at three. We’ve now started the judging.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ interjected the girl rattling the money-box under Miss McEwan’s nose. ‘That’ll be 50 pence, please.’

  ‘Oh, Lady Luck’s with me today,’ cried Miss McEwan, diving a hand into her bag. ‘And I’m sure Mr Mitchell will think the same.’

  She ordered the youth with the cage to move forward and then waved at Cedric. ‘He’s all yours,’ said she.

  ‘Bugger off,’ said the bird.

  ‘Now, Ce
dric … naughty, naughty. Mr Mitchell doesn’t want to hear that sort of language. He wants to hear how well I look after you. All those visits to the surgery … they cost me a pretty penny.’

  ‘Pretty penny,’ trilled Cedric giving me a beady look.

  Miss McEwan craned her neck ’til her own beady eyes were level with my lapels. ‘But I don’t mind spending out if it warrants it. But you’ll be the best judge of that, won’t you, Mr Mitchell?’ she added, her voice dropping several decibels to sound distinctly threatening.

  ‘Watch it,’ intoned Cedric gravely.

  Oh no, I groaned inwardly. Not more intimidation. And this time from a mynah Mafia. I’d have my eyes pecked out by crows next if I didn’t watch it. I could just see it … well, actually, I wouldn’t if the crows got their way. As it was, I only needed the local baker to threaten to slice my up wholemeal, the grocer to give me a cauliflower ear and the butcher to make mincemeat of me and I could be driven out of Chawcombe – back to Ashton – five miles as the crows fly – providing they didn’t get me first.

  Keep calm, I thought. Don’t be swayed. I made encouraging noises to Miss McEwan, saying how high the standard of entries were, such a variety of interesting pets, and how, of course, Cedric was extra special, no doubt worthy of being a winner. At that point, Cedric blew a loud raspberry. Mmm. Seems he wasn’t such a dumb bird after all. I excused myself and turned back to the lines of pets still waiting to be judged.

  By the time I’d looked at the ginger kittens, four budgerigars, two more hamsters and my eighth black Labrador, I was completely befuddled – my mind swimming in circles like the goldfish in the bowl I was now peering into.

  ‘You’ve already looked at him,’ said his spotty owner.

  Finally, when I’d almost given up, my attention was caught by a small boy in grey flannels, some way apart from the main stream of people, patiently standing at the edge of the glade, a slim Labrador – black, of course – quietly sitting by his side. I picked my way over several intertwined leads to reach him.