It's a Vet's Life: (3 page)

‘Nothing.’ Old Fox-Gifford snatches it from me and
stuffs
it into his trouser pocket without looking at it. ‘I’m in no trouble whatsoever, never have been and never will be.’

‘Maz isn’t implying that you are,’ Sophia says, defending me.

‘I was joking,’ I say, surprised by his reaction.

‘Not funny,’ he snorts.

Hal, the old black Lab, the one I operated on a couple of summers ago when Old Fox-Gifford shot him in the leg by mistake while cleaning his gun, sticks his nose into my crotch.

‘Go away,’ I tell him. He’s blind and completely deaf, perfectly good excuses for not taking any notice of me, I suppose. ‘Go on. Push off.’

‘Leave the poor old dog alone.’ Old Fox-Gifford smiles as he goes on, ‘It’s one of the few pleasures he has left,’ but he prods him with the end of his stick anyway, and Hal limps away, lame on all four legs now. In fact, I can’t believe how he’s gone on this long. Like Old Fox-Gifford who’s in his seventies, he’s pretty well indestructible.

Back outside, we stand admiring the new arrival and it reminds me how we all admired George in very much the same way. George wants to run off around the yard, but I’m nervous to let him go with all those dogs wandering about, and he doesn’t want to stand around while we talk horses.

‘Let me take George,’ Sophia says, holding out her hand. ‘Come to Humpy.’ The children call her Humpy. I’d prefer George to call her Granny to save him from future embarrassment, but she refuses to countenance it. ‘Here, my preciousss …’

George takes her hand willingly and accompanies her around the yard, where he shows her the wheels on
Alex’s
car, patting them, and returning with streaky, black cheeks. I am grateful to Sophia though. Without her, I wouldn’t be able to work as many hours as I do. My mother lives too far away to do any babysitting. She has been to visit a couple of times, but her home, her life, is in London, not here. I too used to consider myself a Londoner – I grew up on a council estate there, a world away from Talyton St George.

We did have a nanny – she lasted all of two weeks. She seemed perfect, but Sophia expressed disapproval from the start. According to her, I should have chosen a plain girl so as not to lead Alex into temptation; utterly ridiculous, I hasten to add, and not the reason she left. It was more about the Barn being too small for us all, and the nanny being more like Peyton Flanders in
The Hand that Rocks the Cradle
than the magical Nanny McPhee. I had assumed that being a qualified nanny meant she knew more about looking after a baby than I did, but I was wrong.

‘I’d better get on,’ Sophia says, as the horse in the stable next to Liberty’s starts banging against the door.

‘The dogs want their grub too,’ Old Fox-Gifford observes.

Smiling at the way that the animals take precedence in the Fox-Gifford household, I reach for George’s hot, sticky hand, ready to take him indoors, just as a mobile rings. Old Fox-Gifford struggles, with his stick hooked over one arm, to get at the phone in his pocket. It could be one of the originals, a black brick of a thing that he holds to his ear.

‘Fire away. I say, fire away.’ He stares at the phone and stabs randomly at a few buttons. ‘What’s wrong with this bloody thing?’

‘I’ve told you, you need a new one,’ Alex says, and
I
can only look on, amused at the contrast between the way Alex and his father run their practice, compared with me and Emma, as Old Fox-Gifford barks rather abruptly at the person at the other end of his mobile.

‘What’s up?’ Alex asks when Old Fox-Gifford peers at the mobile to work out how to switch it off. I’m sure he needs glasses, but he’d never wear them.

‘It’s Jim over at Sandy Down.’

‘What does he want this time?’ Sophia raises one thin eyebrow. ‘You were there only this morning, weren’t you?’

‘I checked on a couple of calves. He wants me to have another look so he can sleep soundly in his bed tonight.’ Old Fox-Gifford smiles. ‘I told him to have a warm bath and a whisky – that’ll help him sleep. Stupid bugger.’

Sophia glares at him. Not in front of George.

‘I’ll go,’ Alex says.

‘What for?’ Old Fox-Gifford growls back, his tone immediately defensive.

‘To save you going out again.’ Alex glances down at his father’s feet. I hadn’t noticed before, but he’s wearing slippers, grey moccasins. ‘You look as if you’ve signed off for the day,’ he adds, making light of it.

‘I dashed out when your mother told me about the foal. No, Alexander. I’ll go.’

‘Aren’t you going to change out of your slippers first?’

‘I keep a pair of boots in the car.’

‘We can go together,’ Alex suggests.

‘I can manage. I’m not –’ he opens his mouth to utter a curse, but apparently aware of Sophia’s expression, thinks better of it – ‘dead yet.’

‘I wasn’t—’ Alex begins, but Old Fox-Gifford cuts him off.

‘In my day, I didn’t have a regular day orf each week to be with my family.’

‘Indeed. You were never here when Alexander was a baby,’ Sophia says, but he chooses to ignore her.

‘You can’t do without me, Alexander, so I’ll thank you to stop patronising me and let me get on with my work. Jim’s my client. He’s asked for me, so it won’t be much good you turning up there instead, will it?’ With that, Old Fox-Gifford turns and shuffles off to his dented old Range Rover, climbs in still in his slippers, turns the engine, then with a roar and scrunch of gravel, reverses out onto the drive at speed. He accelerates forwards, leaving behind a trail of oily smoke.

Later, when George is upstairs asleep in his cot in the nursery, Alex and I are sitting together on the sofa. The old ginger tabby lying perched on the arm of the sofa at my feet, stretches out one paw and digs his claws into the leather. I give him a half-hearted ‘look’, but he takes no notice. It’s too late to salvage the remains of the sofa anyway, and I suppose I should offer to buy a replacement – Ginge is my cat, the furniture belongs to Alex.

‘Alex, tell me, why did you offer to go out for your father? It’s your weekend off. Time for us.’ I reach out and stroke his knee. ‘I’m not nagging, I’m worried about you. You’ll run yourself ragged.’

‘Maz, please, don’t fuss.’ Alex massages the nape of my neck, undoing the knots of tension that have twisted and tightened there during the past week. ‘You know what it’s like.’ He smiles ruefully. ‘It’s a vet’s life.’

‘I don’t know what it’s like though. We run our practices in different ways. We have support staff. We have another vet, for goodness’ sake.’

‘But that’s expensive, as you’ve said. And you lose a certain amount of control.’

‘It isn’t about control, Alex. It’s about teamwork. At Otter House, we’re a team.’ A great team, I think, my chest tightening with affection and pride.

‘Clients choose Talyton Manor because they know they’ll get the personal touch. They can be sure they’ll see either me or my father.’

‘How can you function though, if you’re permanently knackered because you’re always on call?’

‘I keep you happy though?’ Alex whispers, letting his arm slide around my shoulders and holding me tight.

‘Yes, you do …’ I turn and kiss him on the lips. He makes me very happy, but we’re like tightrope walkers, constantly straining to keep our balance. Keeping home and work commitments in equilibrium was difficult enough, but having accidentally thrown a child into the mix, Alex and I have made life more complicated than it might have been.

‘It’ll get easier, Maz.’ Alex gives me an extra squeeze and I find myself melting into his embrace. ‘You know, you’ll make someone a fantastic wife someday.’ His voice is warm and teasing. ‘If you ever get around to getting married,’ he adds with more edge.

‘Is that a hint that I should be getting on with the arrangements?’

‘That would be good.’

‘We haven’t set a date.’

Alex proposed after George was born, after the floods, and we decided to get married as soon as
possible
. It didn’t happen though – life took over. Alex was working all hours, I was tied up with George and returning to work, and then there was the fiasco with the nanny, and – there’s no excuse really – we just didn’t get round to it. ‘What about next summer?’ I go on, thinking that that will give me plenty of time to organise a wedding.

‘I reckon we should get married at Christmas,’ Alex says.

‘This Christmas?’ I glance at the ring on my finger. It’s antique gold set with a sapphire and two diamonds. Alex bought it for me when we had a couple of days in London, visiting my mother with George.

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s only, what, six months away?’ I pause. ‘It isn’t the best time, is it? Most people – like our guests – are pretty busy in the run-up to Christmas.’

‘Well, it’s no use waiting for a good time because there never will be one. We’re always busy.’ Alex nuzzles my hair. ‘Maz, I love you …’

‘Love you too …’ I murmur, my heart lurching with a yearning desire. We don’t tell each other we love each other anywhere nearly enough. ‘How about next spring?’

‘It’s the lambing season, not good for me,’ Alex points out. ‘And any time in the summer, you’re busy.’

He’s right. What with people wanting last-minute vaccinations before they put their pets into boarding kennels so they can go away and the extra appointments taken up by holidaymakers travelling with their animals, summer is the busiest time of the year for Otter House.

‘So, December it is,’ Alex says. ‘How about the third
Saturday
of the month? I’ve checked the date in the diary. It would mean we could have Christmas with the three children and go on honeymoon after that. Any more objections?’

‘It’ll be pretty cold …’ I say lightly, because I cannot believe that we’ve set a date at last. I didn’t think, until just before Alex proposed, that I was the marrying kind, but my pulse thrills at the idea of being Mrs Fox-Gifford …

‘You can borrow one of Mother’s fur coats.’ Alex is joking. He knows I’d never wear natural fur, on principle. ‘Go on, Maz. It would make it extra special.’

‘Christmassy, you mean,’ I say, smiling.

‘Well, yes. We can have candles, holly, carols … snow.’

‘Snow?’ I give Alex a nudge in the ribs. ‘Does it ever snow in Talyton?’

‘Talyton isn’t exactly renowned for its white Christmases. In fact, I can’t remember a single one.’ Alex grins ruefully, pulling me so close I can hardly breathe. ‘So, Maz, I’m sorry if it feels as if I’m neglecting you and George, and with Father not being as young and fit as he was, I can’t do much about my working hours, but one thing I promise you –’ he presses his lips to mine – ‘we’ll be married by Christmas.’

Before George

BG, BEFORE GEORGE
, everything was so … orderly. As it is, I feel as if I’m always rushing about like a headless chicken. Fastening my tunic, one of those fun ones with cartoon animals printed on a lilac background, I abandon a half-finished mug of black coffee in the staffroom at Otter House, and head for the consulting room where I switch the computer on and load the waiting list. I was hoping – I glance up at the poster of a flea, and correct myself – itching to catch Emma to tell her my news, but it’ll have to wait. She hasn’t turned up yet.

According to Frances, our receptionist, she’s stuck in traffic which has to be a euphemism meaning she’s overslept. There isn’t any traffic in Talyton at this time on a Monday morning, unless it’s the school holidays when there can be queues of cars and coaches carrying holidaymakers to the coast at any time of day, causing gridlock through the narrow one-way streets.

I notice that I’m still wearing my engagement ring. I slip it off and slide it onto my necklace, a discreet gold
chain
that I bought for the purpose. Knowing how good I am at losing stethoscopes, I worry about something as small as the ring.

I call the first client of the day in from Reception to join me. It’s Clive, who runs the Talymill Inn down by the river with his wife Edie. He’s in his late fifties, but is looking older. He places a plastic box on the rubber-topped table, as if it’s a box of eggs, opens the front and calls for the cat inside.

‘Cassandra, out you come. Cassandra … Cassie, love …’ His voice, that still bears a hint of an East London accent, rises unnaturally high, but no amount of sweet-talking will persuade Cassie to venture out. Clive picks up the carrier and gently tips it to slide the cat out, but she remains resolutely lodged inside. He tries another tack, taking a small tub of cat treats out of his pocket and shaking it, but there’s no response. Cassie isn’t stupid.

‘That’s the difference between dogs and cats,’ I observe. ‘You can tell a dog what to do, but you have to ask a cat.’ Clive has always had dogs before: ex-police dog, Robbie, and a rescue called Petra whom Alex and I had to put down a couple of summers ago when she turned on Edie for no obvious reason. ‘Shall I get her out for you?’ I continue, amused, but Clive is dismantling the carrier.

He lifts the upper section off, exposing the cat who sits on a purple cushion, cowed and wary. As Clive’s big hands reach down to make a grab for her, she takes a leap to the edge of the table, but it’s too late. Clive sweeps her up and hugs her to his chest.