‘No sweat, mate,’ he said in a breezy cockney accent and lifted the lid to pull out coil after coil of snake.
My throat went into spasm. ‘Big, isn’t it?’ I croaked and backed away as the snake weaved across the table towards me, knocking the basket to one side.
‘Quite a size … 2.1 metres to be precise … though anacondas can grow much bigger.’ Mr Patel grasped a coil of gleaming snake, its dark green, black-spotted flanks twisting in his hands, dragging him on to the table. ‘He’s a strong lad,’ he added as he pulled at the snake, making the table and snake lurch forward while I lurched back. ‘Sid’s a bit frisky. Should have put him in the fridge before coming. It would have quietened him down.’ He jerked the snake’s head away from my coat pocket.
Sid flicked out his tongue before, with a smooth, gliding movement, he slithered over Mr Patel’s wrist and proceeded to advance up his arm, wrapping himself round and round as he inched up to his shoulder.
I didn’t have to ask what was wrong, it was all too obvious. Protruding from Sid’s mouth was a plug – an ordinary, white, 13-amp, three-pin plug.
‘How come?’ I asked, pointing a shaky finger.
‘Not sure, to be honest. But I think it was probably the rat I gave him last night. Guess some of the blood must have spilt on his heating pan.’
‘You mean …?’
‘’Fraid so, mate. He’s swallowed the pad. And I can’t pull the damned thing out. See?’ Mr Patel yanked at the plug, an inch of flex appeared, but no more. ‘Bugger, ain’t it?’
‘Stop!’ I said hastily. ‘You might rip his stomach open.’
‘Me thinks you might have to do that to get it out.’
‘Maybe,’ I murmured, desperately trying to decide what to do for the best. Anacondas and the like were well known for being able to devour whole pigs in one go. The heating pad would be a mere snack in comparison. ‘How long was the flex?’
Mr Patel scratched his turban. ‘Oh … must have been about a metre or so.’
‘And you say Sid’s about two metres plus? Uhm. Well, there’s an outside chance the pad could pass through.’
‘But with the plug on, surely not?’
‘No, no. I’ll snip that off,’ I said and reached for the nail scissors.
Beryl flew off her perch when Mr Patel re-entered reception with his creaking basket and it was left to me to book an appointment for a week’s time.
The situation hadn’t changed much when next I saw him except that the flex had now disappeared.
‘Well at least it must be moving through,’ I commented. But I wasn’t too happy. Sid was due for another of his weekly meals but so far had turned his nose up at the rat that had been offered him. ‘Let’s get an X-ray just to see what’s going on.’
‘More like what’s going through, eh?’ joked Mr Patel, sounding remarkably unperturbed by the whole incident as I ushered him into the waiting room.
‘Who’s going to help?’ My question echoed down an empty corridor. Somewhere I heard the clatter of feet and a door slam. There was a muffled cough behind the closed door of the office. Oh, so we were all playing hide-and-seek now, were we? Peek-a-boo … I’ve a snake for you.
There was the skid of tyres on the gravel, the roar of an engine dying. Sounded like Crystal had arrived back from visiting one of her special clients.
‘So what have you got there, Paul?’ she asked, sailing into reception and looking at the wicker basket I was about to drag down to the X-ray room. ‘Your washing?’
The basket hissed and rattled. I explained.
‘He sounds a bit lively to me,’ said Crystal. ‘Perhaps we ought to pop him in the fridge for a while. Get him cooled down a bit and then get him X-rayed. I’d be happy to help. Haven’t seen an anaconda in ages.’
Well, this was a first, having Crystal help me out. Go for it, Paul. Go for it. I did, clearing space in the fridge and squeezing the basket between the shelves before returning to the office to find Crystal talking to Beryl. She broke off her conversation as I entered.
‘Beryl tells me you’ve been seeing quite a few exotics lately,’ she said, smiling at me. Ah, that smile … those rosy lips … that cupid bow. So like a … a prolapsed rectum sprang to mind. Oh really, Paul, that’s disgusting.
‘You’ve had a skink with a prolapsed rectum,’ Crystal was saying.
‘Oh, yes,’ I said, taking a deep breath. Get a grip man.
‘And a tarantula.’
I nodded, looking across at Beryl who had turned a whiter shade of pale. Spiders, snakes and the like were definitely not her cup of tea. Talking of which …
‘Good idea,’ said Crystal when Beryl suggested making one. ‘I’d love a cup.’
The scream that emanated from the kitchen had both Crystal and I leaping from our seats. Oh my God – Beryl. Our thoughts were as one. Tea … milk … fridge … snake! Beryl staggered in, trembling like jelly, a hand covering the right side of her face.
‘Here, sit down,’ said Crystal, easing her into a chair.
‘It was such a shock,’ uttered Beryl, shaking her head. ‘I opened the fridge door and there it was. Coiled round the semi-skimmed. I just didn’t expect it.’
‘No, of course not,’ said Crystal. ‘You can blame me for that. It was my idea. So sorry.’ She put an arm round Beryl’s shoulder and patted it. ‘Can I get you anything? ‘
Beryl, the hand still covering half her face said, ‘I wouldn’t mind a cigarette.’ She looked up at Crystal with her good eye. ‘If that’s all right with you.’
I saw Crystal’s arm quickly retract from her shoulder. Wow. Beryl was pushing her luck a bit. There was a strictly ‘no smoking’ policy in the hospital and Beryl knew it. Guess she was just playing the sympathy card. It worked.
‘I’ll get your bag,’ said Crystal after a moment’s hesitation. ‘Up in reception, is it?’
‘Ah, that’s better,’ sighed Beryl once she’d lit up. She tilted her head back and a plume of smoke poured from each nostril. She might have felt better but she certainly didn’t look better. There was still fear etched in her face, a sort of wildness. For a moment, I couldn’t put my finger on it. There was no trembling; that had stopped. Her complexion had returned to its normal, pan-pasted colour. No, it was something about the eyes. Yes, that was it. The eyes – or, to be more precise, the whites of the eyes. Or to be even more precise, the white of her right eye. That was all one could see. A ball of white.
I remember Eric telling me over a drink at the Woolpack that, when unduly stressed, Beryl’s false eye was liable to drop out. Had the sight of the snake precipitated such a fallout? Was her glass eye at that moment rolling round the kitchen? Or worse still, had it fallen in the milk and was now rattling round the bottom of the carton?
Crystal had also noticed and was staring slack-jawed.
I leaned forward and studied Beryl’s face more intently, deciding that the eyeball was still in situ after all. Only it had swivelled back to front.
‘What are you gawping at?’ she snapped, jerking her head back. It was an action that caused the glass eye to rotate back into partial view. It gave Beryl a severe sharp-angled squint as if she was attempting to peer up her right nostril.
‘Err … nothing … nothing …’ I muttered, ‘just seeing if you were OK.’ I hadn’t the courage to look her in the eye – her good one – and tell her. She’d have to see for herself later.
‘OK then,’ said Crystal, looking at her watch, ‘let’s get cracking on that snake before appointments start.’
The anaconda was half out of the basket, draped across a couple of packs of dog food; but the coolness of the fridge had quickly brought it to a halt. Between us we hoiked out the coils of snake and arranged them in a heap on the X-ray table.
‘This is going to be a bit of guesswork,’ said Crystal, stretching Sid out and pushing an X-ray plate under him, sliding it up and down. ‘Any ideas, Paul?’
Hey. What was this? Crystal asking me? Snakes alive. This w
as a first. I put a hand on either side of the snake’s flanks, starting at the neck end, gradually working my way down, gently squeezing as I went. Two thirds of the way down I felt what I thought was some resistance. Could have been the heating pad. Whatever, it was a starting point for X-raying. It took three plates before the pad was eventually highlighted.
Crystal stood in front of the X-ray clipped to the viewing screen, finger and thumb under her chin. ‘So what do you think? Do you want to operate?’
Hey. She was at it again. Crystal Sharpe, veterinary surgeon par excellence, asking me for my views. Me – an assistant who had barely progressed from expressing anal glands, was now being asked to express his opinions. I was tempted to say, ‘Yes. Let’s operate.’ After all, it would have been fascinating to carry out surgery on a snake – especially one of this size. But I hesitated. Could that just be self-interest? What about the interests of Sid? It would be much better for him if we could avoid operating. ‘Liquid paraffin often works wonders,’ I found myself saying.
Crystal swung round and looked at me. Oh, those cornflower blue eyes again. That delicate scent which filled my nostrils. I recoiled – much as the anaconda was starting to do as he warmed up.
‘You reckon it’s worth a try then?’ she said. ‘Uhm … OK, fair enough. Now where are those nurses? Never around when you want them.’ She strode out into the corridor and called, ‘Mandy?’
There was a faint reply from the direction of the dispensary. ‘Coming.’
When Mandy appeared, Crystal ordered her to help carry the anaconda into the operating theatre. I was flabbergasted when she uttered a meek ‘Certainly’, and picked up a length of Sid without batting one of those long, dark eyelashes of hers. And to think she’d been so squeamish about the tree frog and skink. Moreover, she didn’t flinch when Crystal asked her to prise open the snake’s jaw while I was shown how to insert a stomach tube down Sid’s oesophagus and syringe in ten millilitres of liquid paraffin. Not a murmur, not a squeak out of her. I could happily have squeezed a coil of Sid round her neck.
A three-day wait followed. I felt the strain and I’m sure Sid did as well – especially when he passed the heating pad. Within 24 hours, his appetite had returned and a rat had been devoured. Mr Patel was over the moon.
‘And guess what, mate,’ he exclaimed, ‘I tried putting another plug on the heating pad … just on the off-chance.’
‘And …?’
‘It still works.’
Crystal was also pleased at the outcome. ‘You made the right decision not to operate. It would have been risky.’
I squirmed in Sid-like fashion. But when she went on to say there were a couple of interesting cases that had cropped up at the Wildlife Park and would I like to take a look at then with her some time, I almost tied myself in knots.
Beryl cawed with alarm and nearly toppled from her perch when I wrapped my arms round her, gave her a squeeze and told her the news. After all, it was she I had to thank for having pushed the exotics my way.
BIBLE BASHER
I‘m not sure when I was first asked the question, but I’ve a feeling it was soon after I’d started at Prospect House, back in June. Heavens … was that really only six months? Seems aeons ago. And the person who asked it was Mrs Paget. Ah, yes, dear Cynthia Paget – the lady with whom I had lodged. The lady who saw me struggling to cope with the rigours of veterinary practice and offered to help by allowing me extra time in her kitchen – not to mention extra freezer space. She’d asked me to have a look at Chico – that little chihuahua of hers – now dead, a casualty of a road accident. Back then, the only casualty was my heels. If I’d been an angel, the place where I’d have feared to tread most would have been in Mrs Paget’s hallway as I was constantly being nipped there by Chico.
Mrs Paget, in her loose-fitting, pink-quilted housecoat, suggested I examine Chico in her bedroom. ‘He’s much calmer on my bed. It’ll be easier to see what’s up,’ she explained, her housecoat slipping down a few inches. I wasn’t having any of it – well, certainly not from the likes of Mrs Paget. He – and not she – found himself being manhandled in the sitting room where overgrown nails were clipped and the only thing bared were the usual teeth.
‘Had I always wanted to do it?’ she asked as the last nail clawed its way across the carpet.
The question was also asked by Mandy, while I was deep inside a Great Dane bitch trying to locate her reproductive organs.
And the answer? Yes – I’d always wanted to be a vet. Well, at least since I was ten years old.
At that time we lived in Nigeria, my father an army officer. In our large, corrugated, red-roofed bungalow with its sprawling compound, I amassed a large menagerie of pets. No surprise that my favourite book was Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals. I, too, had my animals: a cat called Sooty; three tortoises; some rats; five ducks; several chickens; an African Grey parrot called Polly; a monkey – the species of which I never did find out; and, most treasured of all, Poucher – a Labrador-cross with the sweetest temperament you could ever have wished for.
I’ll never forget the time she went missing. For three days, we lived in fear that she’d been attacked by some wild animal and was lying out in the bush slowly dying. We searched high and low but found no sign of her. She eventually crawled home, her right leg nearly torn off at the thigh. The army doctor saved her, patiently stitching up the muscles, tendons and skin while I stood by and watched, riveted to the spot … fascinated. And, as I nursed her back to health, encouraged her to take her first meal, helped her to limp round the garden, saw in the dark brown eyes the trust she put in me, I knew I couldn’t possibly do anything else with my life other than take the path that beckoned – the path that led to becoming a vet.
Of course, I didn’t put it quite like that to Mrs Paget, otherwise I’d have had her falling at my feet, kissing them as Chico bit them.
But I had achieved my ambition.
So was this it? Rummaging around Cynthia Paget, clipping the nails of her vicious chihuahua? Yes, well … maybe I still had to reach my peak. And to judge from Mrs Paget’s heaving bosom, she clearly hoped I’d have a peek at hers.
One client who’d had ambitions to scale the same heights but had backed down at an early stage was Miss Millichip.
‘Always wanted to be a vet,’ she declared, ‘ever since I was a mere slip of a girl.’
I couldn’t picture Mildred Millichip as a mere slip of anything. But the Laws of Nature being what they are meant that she must have been young … once. Someone must have conceived her; someone must have allowed her into the world; someone must have gathered her up in their arms and loved her. I’m sure someone did. But it was hard to imagine who that someone might have been.
Could she ever have had shiny plaits or a glossy pony-tail, I wondered, gazing now at her wiry, grey straggle of hair like a discarded scouring pad, tied back with an elastic band and a couple of broken-toothed combs? And were those grey eyes ever innocent and trusting as they now stare back at me like two torpedoes ready to fire, echoed by the raft of grey on a protruding upper lip? No one could say she was pretty. Her looks caught your eye rather like a thorn snags your sock.
‘Only, the war intervened,’ she continued.
First or second? I thought.
‘Put a stop to everything. Career, the lot.’ She sliced a set of square-nailed fingers through the air. ‘All got the chop. But we had to do our duty. I was in the tank corps, you know.’
No surprise there. She was built like one.
‘And after the war … well … I landed up here.’
‘At least you’ve got your animals,’ I ventured to say.
Indeed, Miss Millichip had a whole battalion of them, putting my Nigerian menagerie to shame. She lived in a post-war bungalow she shared with a multitude of cats and odd stray dogs; but most of her time was spent in one or other of the many outbuildings which housed the main bulk of her brood.
It was through Beryl – who else? �
�� that I first met her earlier that summer. The receiver was waved at me when I arrived for work one Wednesday morning. Could I visit a Miss Millichip?
‘Ask her to come in.’
Beryl’s eye widened in horror and, hand clasped over the receiver, said in a loud whisper, ‘Not Mildred Millichip. She never comes in.’
I’d been told that practice policy was to encourage appointments rather than visits. So if that was the case … I snatched the phone from Beryl.
‘Mr Mitchell here. I gather you want a visit.’
‘Mr Mitchell … I don’t think I know you.’
‘I’m new here.’
‘Oh, in that case, put me on to Dr Sharpe.’
‘I’m afraid she’s not here.’
‘When will she be back?’
‘When she’s finished her match …’ would have been the truthful reply as it was Crystal’s tennis morning. ‘This afternoon. But she’s booked up with appointments,’ I said.
There was a loud tut. ‘And Mr Sharpe? I doubt if he’s booked up. He’ll have to do, I suppose …’ The tone was distinctly unenthusiastic.
Eric was at the dentist’s. I saw Beryl hold up her hands, rocking them from side to side in unison, while shaking her head and silently mouthing, ‘No! No! No!’ She looked like she was auditioning for Guys and Dolls. Clearly, I was in danger of rocking the boat if Eric and Miss Millichip were on board together. ‘He’s unavailable,’ I said. Beryl sat down with relief.
‘You’ll have to do then,’ said Miss Millichip, her voice sounding distinctly disappointed.
‘What’s the problem?’
‘The greyhounds’ got canker.’
‘Well, can’t you bring him in?’
There was a sharp intake of breath. ‘What do you think I am? Some sort of American bus service? It’s my greyhounds … all eight of them.’
Pets in a Pickle Page 21