The Village Vet

by Cathy Woodman

  ‘Of course,’ I say, tickling Teddy’s chin.

  ‘Izzy’s tied up in theatre with an emergency and our other nurse is off today. Are you happy to hang on to him while I take the blood?’

  ‘As long as I can wrap him in a towel. He’s prone to hissy fits.’

  ‘I’ve noticed,’ Maz says wryly. She shows me a scar on her forearm. ‘He did that the last time he was in to have that abscess drained. I should have been more careful. He isn’t a bad cat though.’

  ‘You’ll be trying to tell me he does it because he’s misunderstood next. No excuses, Teddy.’ I go on to wrap him particularly carefully, pinning him down on the consulting room table, while leaving one front leg free for Maz to access for the blood sample. As if intent on proving us both wrong, Teddy doesn’t put a paw out of place.

  ‘I’ll let you know the results as soon as I get them.’

  ‘Thanks, Maz.’

  I take Tia and Teddy back to the Sanctuary, wondering if we’ll ever manage to rehome any of the rescues. It hadn’t occurred to me before that it wouldn’t be anything but straightforward. However, the animals arrive with the problems that turned them into unwanted pets in the first place: Buster’s aggression towards other dogs, Tia’s age-related conditions, and potentially for Teddy an incurable infection that could shorten his life.

  I lift him out of the van and return him to the cattery where he jumps up onto his shelf as if there’s nothing wrong with him, and, instead of hiding under his bed, he sits there, blinking at me. I bite my lip. I can’t advertise him until we know the outcome of the blood tests, but I need to take steps to advertise the others.

  ‘How about “single black male”?’ I say, writing notes on the back of an envelope while Libby and I take a break in the office with coffee and biscuits, and a kitten, later on. Libby is hand-rearing a feral that a member of the public handed in the other day. She’s about four weeks old, tortoiseshell and white, cute but fairly wild and highly infectious to our other cats because she has a nasty bout of cat flu, hence the reason for keeping her isolated in a cage in the bungalow. It’s debatable whether I should have agreed to take her in at all – she’s going to cost a fortune in vet’s bills and probably end up back out in the wild, but the other option was … well, you can probably guess, and I couldn’t contemplate that.

  When Libby cleans the kitten’s eyes and nose, she mewls and wriggles in protest.

  ‘Ouch! You’re a feisty little thing,’ Libby says, glancing at the scratches on her hand. ‘I’m sorry, Tessa, what were you saying?’

  ‘I was wondering if I could start the ad with “single black male”?’

  ‘Can you say that?’ Libby asks.

  ‘It’s a true statement,’ I point out.

  ‘Okay, go on.’ Libby pops the kitten back into its basket. ‘I’ve had no experience of Lonely Hearts columns or internet dating, I’m afraid, so I’m not much help.’

  ‘Hey, hang on a moment,’ I chide. ‘I haven’t either, and I don’t intend to.’

  ‘Maybe I should give it a go,’ Libby says mournfully. ‘My friends are in serious relationships and getting engaged, one is pregnant, and I feel as if I’m being left behind. There aren’t many eligible bachelors left in Talyton St George.’

  There’s Nathan, I think, but I wouldn’t suggest him as potential boyfriend material to my worst enemy.

  ‘What about Kevin, the policeman?’ I say to Libby. ‘I don’t know if he’s attached or not, but he seems okay.’

  ‘For a man in uniform, I don’t find him a particularly arresting sight,’ she says with a grin. ‘No, we used to go to school with him, if you remember.’

  ‘I don’t,’ I say, racking my brain.

  ‘You see, he wasn’t that memorable then.’

  ‘Libby, you have plenty of time. Don’t rush it.’ I pause. ‘Now, where was I?’

  ‘You were composing an ad for Buster, our special needs dog.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I say protectively. ‘He’s amazing: loyal, sensitive. I’ll put that in. How about “single black male, good-looking and affectionate, gsoh, seeks one-on-one forever relationship with lady (preferably), no children, no pets”? Should I add an age group?’

  ‘Does age matter?’

  ‘A more mature lady might not be able to keep Buster under control out walking on the lead.’

  ‘That will depend on her build as much as her age,’ Libby says, laughing. ‘Are you going to add that this lady needs to be in possession of a fuller figure? Tessa, I think you need to make it less specific.’

  ‘What about Tia?’ I go on. ‘How do I make her sound really appealing? “Overweight, elderly female with her own teeth (just seven remaining), looking for that special someone …”’

  ‘I think you have to emphasise what she’s been through to gain the sympathy vote, so people can’t resist offering her a home for her twilight years.’

  ‘It’s sad, isn’t it? No one ever picks Tia out when they come to look for a dog, because she’s always the one cowering at the back of the kennel. She hates it in there.’

  ‘Which is why you’re always taking her over to the bungalow with Buster,’ Libby points out, her expression one of amusement. ‘You should take them both on, Tessa.’

  ‘I can’t have one dog, let alone two. It isn’t a good time for me. I haven’t got the money to pay for food and vet’s bills at the moment. I’m going to be paying my debts for a very long time, years at this rate, probably decades.’ I change the subject. ‘So, do you want me to put an ad in the Chronicle for you too? They might have a preferential rate, a three-for-two deal.’

  ‘No way, Tessa.’ Libby pretends to look appalled.

  ‘So are you looking for love, or not?’

  ‘I’m not looking as such.’ She blushes. ‘I was hoping love would come to me.’

  ‘You mean, as a special delivery?’

  ‘I might do.’

  ‘You could do a lot worse than Ash,’ I say, thinking of Nathan.

  ‘What about Dolly?’ Libby changes the subject quickly. ‘Do you know what’s happening to her, officially, I mean?’

  ‘There’s some dispute between Jack and Mr Maddocks, who’s appealing against the seizure.’

  ‘How can that be right?’ Libby’s eyes grow moist and her lip trembles. ‘How can you rescue her and then throw her back into a situation where anybody with enough money can take her?’

  ‘It isn’t my decision, Libby. The court has to decide whether she was legally seized, or if Jack has enough evidence to take Mr Maddocks to court for breaking the Animal Welfare Act.’

  Jack didn’t follow protocol, which is partly my fault, I think with a twinge of guilt. If I hadn’t made my feelings about the pony so clear, perhaps he would have taken the time to get the paperwork right.

  ‘I won’t let her go to auction,’ Libby says in a hollow voice. ‘There’s no way.’

  ‘We might not have a choice.’ Suddenly, I feel weary because Libby’s right. Selling Dolly would be a travesty. It goes against everything we do at the Sanctuary. We can’t let it happen, but what can we do? ‘I will do my utmost to prevent her being sold on,’ I continue, ‘but she can’t stay here for ever. There’ll be other ponies.’

  ‘Dolly’s special,’ Libby says.

  ‘All our rescues are special,’ I counter. ‘You know the best thing you can do is to keep working with her so she learns to trust humans again. That will give her the best chance of finding a good home.’ I’ve had mixed feelings about Dolly throughout her time with us, but I’d love to see her happily settled, not just for her sake, but for Libby’s too.

  I put the ads that Libby and I have composed in the Lonely Hearts section in the Chronicle, and Ally writes a piece with Buster and Tia’s photos in there too.

  Buster is doing well. He hasn’t growled at anyone since the incident with Libby. All he wants now is somebody to love him, and I do everything I can to give him a chance. I keep the details on his kenne
l updated, and when I show visitors around the kennels I always stop and spend time beside him, talking about his virtues: how he loves to walk in the copse (on the lead, because he refuses to come to call); how he adores sleeping on your feet on the bed at night, something that will be of great benefit on cold winter nights (some visitors like this, whereas some don’t); how he can pick out the word ‘biscuit’ in ordinary conversation (and drools on the carpet in response); and how he picks up his bowl when he wants feeding. I try to convey the right blend of canine intelligence and cuteness to appeal to as many people as possible, but he gets no offers. Neither does Tia.

  It’s a Monday morning in early July. I didn’t use to like Mondays when I was in practice. Either I was exhausted from working with the duty vet or I’d been out clubbing with Katie over the weekend, and inevitably Monday was our busiest day as clients had waited to bring their pets during the working week rather than disturb the vet, or in some cases to avoid paying the out-of-hours fees, which they didn’t understand were not related to the time of their emergency appointment but were on a sliding scale, depending on how much they annoyed the vet. Actually, there was only one vet who was particularly irritated by clients ringing to demand to see him just when he was about to eat, his bad temper inversely proportional to the level of sugar in his blood.

  It’s different here at the Sanctuary. I’m on my own, which is great, except for when I get that sense that someone is watching me. It’s become a regular occurrence every third or fourth night, and I’m grateful for Buster’s presence. The other thing I love about being here is that I’m the boss. There is no one telling me what to do and when to do it, except – I smile to myself – the baby birds. They are still pretty demanding, tweeting all the time, a bit like Katie, who has discovered the joys of Twitter, following hundreds of celebrities as though she knows them personally. I wish I had the time, but if I did, I wouldn’t waste it.

  It’s a warm, sunny day, so I find some outdoor tasks that need doing: I empty and scrub Dolly’s trough clean of algae and snails and refill it with fresh water, leaving the hose to run while I hammer a couple of nails into the fence by the gate where Dolly has pushed through to nibble the longer grass on the other side. When I turn back to the trough, Dolly has picked up the end of the hose between her teeth and is nodding her head up and down, spraying water everywhere.

  ‘Dolly!’ Laughing, I walk across to take the hose back. She drops it and flicks her heels up at me. ‘You are a strange pony,’ I say lightly, noting the shine on her coat, the flesh that’s covering her ribs and pelvis, and the size of her belly. ‘When will you realise that we’re on your side?’

  My mobile rings as I stick the end of the hose back in the trough. It’s Maz, asking if we can take in a stray cat. I tell her that Jack will collect it from the surgery tomorrow and update her on Teddy, who turned out to be harbouring the feline immunodeficiency virus in his body, which explains why he’s prone to other infections. It also makes him more difficult to rehome, as he has to go as a single indoor cat. Wendy texts immediately after I’ve finished speaking with Maz, saying she’ll be over to do the baby bird rounds at lunchtime and walk the dogs, and at the same time a car turns up with another animal needing a home.

  The woman who brings it introduces herself as Yvonne, and she works with Libby at the Co-op. I show her through to reception, where she teases apart the torn tissue in the bottom of a washing-up bowl to reveal the tiniest baby bird with a yellow beak, fluffy down, and stubby wing and tail feathers with stripes that are just beginning to show.

  Although my head is saying, Oh no, not another one, my heart is melting.

  ‘It’s a house martin,’ Yvonne explains, saving me the potential embarrassment of having to take a guess. ‘The parents built a nest high in the eaves of the house. I came home with the shopping to find the nest on the patio and this little creature lying dead, or so I thought. He was cold and wet, but when I picked him up, he moved. I thought he was going to die anyway and I thought about asking my son to, you know, help him along, but I couldn’t do it, so I put him in a box on the boiler and within half an hour he was cheeping for food.

  ‘My son went on the internet to find out what to feed him, my daughter picked up mealworms and cat food from the pet shop on her way home from the stables, and we took turns feeding him every one to two hours during the day from about six in the morning until nine at night. I hope we did the right thing.’

  ‘It looks like you’ve done a great job. I wouldn’t normally have expected one this young to survive such trauma. It’s going to be a while before he’s strong enough to fly.’ I pick him up to check him over, at which his head bobs up on the end of his scrawny neck, his beak open wide.

  ‘That’s why I’ve brought him to you,’ Yvonne goes on. ‘He’s constantly hungry. I thought he was cute at first, but he’s taken over my life. When I went to work after on Friday, I took him with me because I was worried he’d starve. My boss gave me an ultimatum, and that’s when I realised I couldn’t be his foster mum any longer.’

  ‘I know exactly where you’re coming from,’ I say, with a rueful smile. ‘We have several babies here already: a couple of blue tits that are ready for release, blackbirds, sparrows and a robin, so he won’t be on his own. No sooner have we finished feeding them, they want feeding again.’

  Yvonne smiles back. ‘I hope you have plenty of help.’

  ‘We’re always looking for volunteers,’ I say hopefully.

  ‘It isn’t for me. I like to do my bit for the Brownies – I’m Tawny Owl for the local pack.’

  It was worth a try, I think, as I pop the bird back into the bowl where it crawls back beneath the tissue. So far, everyone I’ve asked has turned me down.

  ‘There’s plenty of it because I didn’t want him to hurt himself on the journey,’ Yvonne says.

  I fill in what I can of an admissions form and ask her to sign the house martin over.

  ‘You can write his name in the box. He’s called Vlad, after Keschko, the fighter. We called him that because he won’t give up, although there was a moment when I wished he would,’ she adds with good humour. ‘I’ve driven twenty miles to bring him here, that’s a forty-mile round trip, I’ve been feeding the’ – she swears lightly – ‘thing for four days and I’ve been under his spell the whole time. He’s the first thing I think about when I wake, and the last when I go to sleep … If I go to sleep,’ she amends. ‘I’ve been worrying about him all night, wondering if he’ll still be alive in the morning. I thought having a baby was bad enough, but having a chick is so much more time-consuming, don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t know – I’ve no experience of babies.’ I feel a pang of regret at being a single woman with no immediate prospect of a steady boyfriend, let alone a baby, when Yvonne goes on to thank me and asks if she can keep in touch to see if Vlad makes it. I give her a card with a note of the bird’s admission code.

  During my morning walk with Buster, I call Katie for a chat. She has five minutes between facials.

  ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance you could come over for an hour or so tonight to give me a hand. It’s just that as soon as I’ve done one round of baby bird feeding, they’re ready for the next meal. Please, Katie. I’ll pick up a pizza and a bottle of wine from the Co-op.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m out tonight,’ she says. ‘Before you ask, it isn’t a date. I’m meeting a friend for a drink.’

  ‘Anyone I know?’

  ‘One of the girls from the salon; she’s been having a tough time with the boss. He’s harassing her and I’ve told her she doesn’t have to put up with it. She wants to talk through her options.’

  ‘Oh, okay.’ I smile to myself. ‘You’re becoming quite the Good Samaritan.’

  ‘I could come over for a couple of hours this afternoon, if that’s any use to you. It’s my half-day.’

  ‘That would be great, thanks. I’ve got to pop out for some more dog food sometime, but I’ll make sure I’
m back before three.’

  I feed all the baby birds and go out in the van with a shopping list: cat food and litter, dog food, mealworms, diet food for Tia, more disinfectant – Talyton Animal Rescue should have shares in that – and pony nuts and a net of carrots for Dolly. I pick up everything we need in Overdown Farmers before I start driving back through town and down onto the bridge over the river, where I catch sight of a man in waders, thigh-deep in the water below, his blond hair gleaming in the sun. It’s Jack.

  On impulse, I turn left onto the gravel just past the end of the bridge, stopping the van beside the Land Rover that Jack’s parked there. I jump out and cross the Green, stopping on the riverbank. Jack is standing with his back to me, stripped to a navy vest, bracing himself against the power of the river, a swan hook in one hand, his other hand guiding a swan towards the reeds at the edge. The swan, an adult, is clearly sick, paddling weakly against the current with its head held low over its back a couple of metres beyond him and just out of reach, while a couple of dog walkers watch from the new bridge, the footbridge a little way downstream.

  Jack wades into deeper water, following the swan. It begins to drift back slowly towards him, at which he reaches out with the hook. Although it appears defeated, the swan has plenty of fight left in it. It stretches its neck and flaps its wings, sending up glittering splashes as it struggles away, settling back on the water, tantalisingly out of reach once more.

  Jack waits before making a second attempt and a third. On the fourth, he manages with a practised swing of the hook to catch the swan’s neck when it tries to fly up again, hissing with annoyance and fear. This time, Jack draws the swan in close until he can reach over and use his hands to catch its neck, then grasp it across its body to restrain its wings, before lifting it from the water and tucking it under his arm to bring it safely across to the bank to the applause of the dog walkers.