Tea and Dog Biscuits (25 page)

Mr Thomas led his dog off to his little car.

After he had driven off I stayed for a few minutes to take pleasure in the scene. Dorothy reappeared, Bo trotting happily by her side.

‘Argh! Don't let that ferocious dog off!' I called out.

Dorothy unclipped his lead and Bo ran up the drive and across the green to me. He circled me twice with excitement and then sat at my feet without being asked to do so.

‘You're unlucky,' I said. ‘I know what you want but I haven't got any cheese on me.'

Dorothy clipped Bo's lead back on. ‘That was a good one, Barrie,' she said.

‘What?'

‘Millie and Mr Thomas. I think that's going to be a good result for Millie and a good result for him.'

‘Yeah,' I said. ‘Didn't we do well?'

‘We're getting on with it now, aren't we?' Dorothy said.

‘That was the thirteenth we've found a home for,' I said.

‘Oh.'

‘You don't believe all that superstitious stuff about thirteen, do you?' I said.

‘No.'

She turned to go, then paused.

‘Barrie… do you remember when we homed Digby, the boy out of the breakers' yard, I said I thought it was time we had a celebration, that we should do something to celebrate having started the rescue.'

Where was this leading? ‘I think I do vaguely remember something like that.'

‘You said that when we had rehomed ten we would do something. Well, we've homed thirteen!'

‘Bo's waiting for his walk,' I said.

‘As it's Saturday, could we afford a Chinese takeaway?'

‘No. This week we have had a bill from the vet's, a bill from the boarding kennels – and the size of the phone bill! I could have bought a new car with that. But we'll have one anyway.'

She turned and skipped away.

‘We'll have to find you something nice to eat tonight, Bo,' she said to him, ‘as we're going to be having a Chinese!'

I was longer collecting the Chinese takeaway than I had said I would be. I'd forgotten it was Saturday night and there would be a queue. And of course there was no Chinese takeaway in Wilberry. It was six miles there and six miles back for a chow mein. And I'd been late going to get it. Larry, the brown Lab cross had been sick in his pen for some reason and I'd had to clear that up. I would also have to clear up sweet and sour sauce when I got home: I'd gone round the roundabout too fast and the takeaway bag had tipped over, leaking sticky, bright red sauce onto the beige car carpet.

Nearly ten o'clock – poor Dorothy would be starving.

She wasn't in the kitchen and I carried the goodies into the living room. She was lying on the floor, her hands on her stomach.

‘Have you passed out with hunger?' I asked.

‘Oh, my Barrie,' she said. ‘I'm in such pain.'

I dumped the takeaway down and went to her. ‘Where?'

‘Tummy.'

She screwed up her eyes and started to take gulps of air. She cried out suddenly and loudly. So loudly it made me jump.

‘Oh. Oh. Oh.'

I was frightened. And I felt helpless.

‘What can I do, sweetheart?' I said.

She shook her head, unable to speak.

‘I'll ring the doctor.'

She nodded.

I grabbed the phone, dropped it, picked it up again and dialled, forcing myself to dial slowly so as not to get the wrong number.

The woman at the out-of-hours service asked questions that I could tell were to decide whether a house visit was really necessary.

‘My wife isn't the sort of person to complain or make a fuss and she's lying on the floor in too much pain to get up.'

The doctor would come.

First of all I watched from the window, pulling back the curtain. Then I opened the front door and waited. Then I went and stood out on the pavement in case they couldn't find the house number.

There are lots of doctors at our practice and it was a relief to see the call taken by Dr Marshall, who remembered Dorothy and called her by her first name. She knew about Dorothy's operation. She felt Dorothy here and here and here, asked some questions, wanted Dorothy moved to the settee, gave me a kindly smile.

‘I think as a precaution we should get her admitted,' she said, picking up her phone to make the call.

Hospital? I felt as if I would cry, but couldn't in front of her.

I listened to the phone call, growing more tense as I gained the impression the hospital was reluctant to take my wife. This would happen on a Saturday night when all the drunks and yobs fill casualty.

The patient is prostrate with very severe abdominal pain,' I overheard. She went quickly through Dorothy's recent history.

The ambulance is on its way.'

We put blankets around her to keep her warm. How long would the ambulance be?

When it arrived, kindly paramedics stretchered her out into the back of the ambulance. I felt my heart thud in my chest when they put the blue light on.

They clamped a mask on her face in the ambulance. What was it? Was it oxygen? Was it gas? I didn't want to ask the paramedic, I didn't want to distract him.

I returned home hours later to see our celebration Chinese takeaway unopened on the table.

I was hoping to get past the nurses' station at the entrance to the ward without being noticed. The two nurses had their backs to me, conferring. I thought I'd made it. Then, eyes fixed on the two nurses, I nearly walked into a third.

‘Oops, sorry!' I said.

‘Hello, Mr Hawkins,' she said. ‘There's a policeman been looking for your wife.'

A policeman? A flicker of anxiety. Then I guessed: Charlie.

‘He's with her now,' said nurse number three and she gave me one of her big smiles I remembered from the last time Dorothy was in hospital. I remembered also she had told me her son wanted to study law and become a barrister and that she hoped he would so he could look after her in her old age.

I asked about her son. ‘He's applying to Cambridge.' She raised her eyebrows to indicate her surprise.

‘He'll end up a High Court Judge,' I said. She gave me that big smile again and then bustled away.

Dorothy and Charlie were sitting on the bed, chatting. Dorothy looked up as she heard me coming.

‘Hello, my Barrie! It's not visiting time yet and I've already got two visitors.'

‘Well, they're not going to stop Charlie, are they?' I said.

Charlie stood up and held his arm out. We shook hands. It was the first time we'd shaken hands since the day we had met – perhaps it was a gesture of solidarity as much as a greeting.

‘You two will want to talk, so I won't hang about,' said Charlie.

‘Charlie's only been here a few minutes,' said Dorothy.

‘I've got Ivor the Terrible in the van,' Charlie said, ‘And he ain't had his walk yet. And he ain't had a chance to chase anybody today either.' He put a brown paper bag on Dorothy's bedside cabinet. ‘Nearly forgot – I brought you some grapes.'

My eyes met Dorothy's. ‘Stay and share them with me,' she said to Charlie.

Just then a nurse appeared with some equipment. ‘Time to check your blood pressure, Dorothy,' she said.

As we weren't supposed to be there I thought Charlie and I ought to disappear for a couple of minutes. Out of Dorothy's hearing Charlie said, ‘She looks bright enough, doesn't she?' I took this to be his way of prompting me into telling him how she was.

‘It frightened the life out of me, Charlie,' I said.

‘Course it did.'

‘But it's not like before. She was in hospital for over two months last year.'

Charlie pursed his lips.

‘And she's coming out tomorrow. It's all to do with the op she had – apparently it's something that can happen. Something gets stuck together. Anyway, they're sure they've dealt with the problem.'

Charlie patted me on the arm. ‘Well that's good.' There was a moment's pause, then he said, ‘I envy you two.'

The nurse had finished taking Dorothy's blood pressure.

‘You'll give me a shout if you want help, walking dogs, or anything?'

‘Thanks, Charlie. But at this moment we're dogless. While Dorothy's been in here I've homed Lottie and Larry and Bo.'

‘That'll help her feel better. Three in one week – you're getting good at it.'

In truth, I'd been lucky. Mr and Mrs Burton, with whom we had homed our first orphan, Monty, had decided they would like a second dog so now Monty had a playmate, Lottie, our Lurcher cross, to help him run off all that energy. And their newly married son, Paul, who we knew from when the family lived in our village, adopted our brown Lab cross, Larry.

‘That Bo – you know what he was like when he came in – would you believe I homed him in Fosfen village shop?' I said. ‘And there is nothing he loves more than meeting all the customers – so they can admire him and make a fuss of him.'

Charlie put a hand on my shoulder. ‘You've done well.' Then he paused. ‘Let's just hope one of the customers ain't that fella that pushed him under the bus.' Another pause. ‘Only joking. I'll just go and say cheerio to Dorothy.'

‘I'm off then,' he said to her. He took her hand, gave her a peck on the cheek and said, ‘You get better. There's all them doggies out there waiting for you to rescue them.' He gave me a wave and strode off.

Dorothy watched him go. I sat down on the bed beside her. ‘Has he never married?' she asked.

I shook my head. ‘The topic's never come up.'

‘He's a lovely man.'

‘His dog thinks so,' I said. ‘Although I don't suppose the yobs agree.'

Dorothy's bed was at the far end of the ward and the next three beds along were all empty, so it wasn't too noisy for us to talk.

‘Dorothy, what Charlie said about getting better so you can—'

‘—rescue doggies. It always makes me smile when he says “doggies”. He even calls the police dogs “doggies”.'

‘Yes. Dorothy, you don't need me to tell you what tomorrow is, do you?'

She gave a little wriggle. ‘We've two anniversaries tomorrow,' she said. ‘One's my wedding anniversary and the other one is—'

‘It's that other one I want to talk to you about,' I said.

‘What's there to talk about?'

‘Whether we're going on with it. It's not just the bills…' ‘We've coped with the dogs we've had so far,' said Dorothy in an encouraging tone of voice. ‘You have, you mean.'

‘Well. you're a much better dog handler than you were a year ago.'

That made me laugh. ‘Very tactful,' I said.

She sighed. ‘But some of the people we deal with.' Her voice trailed off.

‘It's the people I've been thinking about,' I said.

‘Like that chap who chucked his dog out of the car. And after you'd given him a lead and a collar and told him about the training classes and—'

‘Yeah… he fooled me completely. But Roxy's OK now. Dorothy, it's something else I've been thinking about.'

I went on to tell her about the caretaker and what he had said at the end of the talk I gave to the Ladies' Circle. It would come back into my head repeatedly: ‘If you've got all this time to give to doing things for animals, why don't you spend your time doing things for people instead? They're more important than animals.' I had never told Dorothy what he'd said.

Her face flushed with anger.

The nurse with the big smile appeared holding a little plastic pot which she rattled.

‘I've got a right assortment here for you to take, Dorothy,' she said.

Dorothy managed to smile. I watched as she took tablet after tablet with the nurse making some notes.

‘Has your boy actually had his interview yet for Cambridge?' I asked the nurse.

‘Tuesday,' she said and crossed her fingers.

‘Wish him luck from me,' I said.

‘Thank you,' she said. And I got another one of those big smiles.

When she'd gone Dorothy said, ‘Hospital isn't the place to be discussing this, my Barrie… but I think you should remind yourself of somebody else who went into hospital…'

She took hold of my hand. ‘Next time what that man said comes into your thoughts then you remind yourself of Sarah Phipps. Instead of his “Why don't you do things for people?” spoiling your day, remember what she said instead.'

My wife had managed to still me. There we were in that gigantic hospital with all that turmoil around us, all that activity, all those people, but in our little bit of space at the far end of the ward for several moments all was quiet. And I could hear in my thoughts the voice of Sarah Phipps. She had such courage and selfless concern: ‘I'm not afraid to die, Mr Hawkins. I'm just afraid of what will happen to my dog when I do.'

Dorothy took hold of my other hand as well and gave them both a gentle squeeze. ‘And I bet you that man is one of those types who doesn't do anything to help either animals or people.'