Trust Me, I'm a Vet (27 page)

A few days later, Mr Brown drops by with Pippin.

‘I haven’t made an appointment,’ he says.

‘That’s all right.’ I’ve plenty of time on my hands – I did have seven clients booked in, but five have cancelled.

‘I don’t need one, as such. A word would do.’

I show Mr Brown and Pippin through to the consulting room where Mr Brown pats the table as if he expects the dog to jump the equivalent of the pole vault without a pole. I pick Pippin up, kiss him on his topknot and stand him on the table myself.

‘He’s no better, Maz,’ Mr Brown says mournfully.

‘That’s because we haven’t put him on any treatment yet,’ I say brightly. ‘I’ve had the results from the sample we sent off, and they’re all perfectly normal, so I suggest we put him on a course of anti-inflammatory medication.’

‘We’ve done all that before. Alex diagnosed inflammation without going to the trouble of taking samples. Do you know how long I had to wait in the rain the other morning for Pippin to spend his twopenny?’

I’m not omnipotent. I have no control over the weather. As for Pippin’s bowels, I suggest a third opinion. ‘Mr Brown,’ I say, ‘I’ve done all I can here. I suggest I refer Pippin to a specialist at one of the vet schools.’

‘Dear Pippin doesn’t travel well. The motion . . .’ Oh no, not more motions. I sigh inwardly as Mr Brown goes on, ‘The motion of my vehicle, any vehicle, makes him bring up froth the colour and consistency of a partially beaten egg.’ Mr Brown stops to clear his throat. ‘Maz, I’ve been reading a book about homeopathy.’

‘I’m not sure . . .’ I begin. Not sure? I’m having a beige moment. Of course I’m sure. ‘I don’t believe in homeopathy. I haven’t seen any evidence to persuade me that it works.’

‘There has to be some truth in it,’ Mr Brown says. ‘The library wouldn’t stock books that aren’t true, would they? It wouldn’t be allowed.’

‘That seems a little naive, if you ask me.’

‘I’m not asking you,’ Mr Brown says, ever so politely. ‘I’m telling you. For your information . . .’ He takes a piece of paper out of his pocket, slips a pair of glasses on and reads it aloud, every word. It’s a list of homeopathic remedies from pulsatilla to sulphur. ‘I shall purchase these from the pharmacy on the way home and start Pippin on them at dinner time, as long as you think they’ll do no harm.’

I shrug my shoulders. ‘They’ll certainly do no harm.’ I give up. He’s given up on me. He’s going to ignore my opinion and buy them anyway.

‘Thank you, Maz. You’ve been most helpful.’ He slips his glasses off again, and I breathe a sigh of relief that the ‘word’ he wanted with me is coming to an end. My relief is short-lived.

‘There is something else,’ he begins.

‘Go on,’ I cut in.

‘I’ve found a lump on Pippin’s neck.’ He fumbles through the dog’s abundant coat. ‘I tried to pull it off because I thought it was a tick. Ah, here it is. I marked the hair with a touch of my wife’s nail polish so I could find it again.’

I take a look. ‘It’s a wart, Mr Brown, nothing to worry about. I can remove it surgically, if it bothers Pippin at all.’

‘I don’t want to worry you with it, Maz. My wife and I have discussed it at some length and we don’t like the idea of Pippin having surgery.’ He looks around the room and shudders as if imagining Cadbury’s ghost. ‘We don’t want to risk his life.’

He doesn’t trust me any more, does he? He’s lost faith.

‘I’ll phone Mrs Wall – she’ll wish it away for us,’ he goes on. ‘I assume you’ll be leaving us when your colleague returns?’

‘Yes.’ If not before, I muse, feeling sad that even Mr Brown, whom I quite liked in spite of his long-windedness, seems to want to see the back of me soon as possible. I watch him leave with Pippin at his side, thinking that there’s nothing for me to stay for. For some reason a vision of Alex, scratched and weary, and holding Tripod in his arms, comes into my mind and refuses to budge.

The sooner I can leave Talyton St George and return to civilisation, the better. I’ll be able to regain my sanity, and console myself with the thought that I won’t have sold myself cheap. I shan’t be responsible for another notch on Alex Fox-Gifford’s bedpost. I shall be eligible for beatification: Saint Maz, the Unintentionally Virtuous.

Later I buy sandwiches, a Diet Coke and a packet of custard creams in the Co-op, where I run into Gloria Brambles, struggling to put on a pair of fingerless gloves before she packs packets of frozen fish into a bicycle pannier.

‘How’s Ginge?’ I ask. ‘He must be due to see me again very soon.’

‘Ah, I’ve put off bringing him because he hates the basket.’ I suspect it has more to do with what happened to Cadbury, I think, as she continues, ‘He seems so much better and I’ve got plenty of tablets left – the ones I collected after you rang me with the results of the blood tests.’

‘Are you sure you’re giving him the right dose?’ I say, pretty certain that the course of tablets should have finished by now.

‘Quite sure,’ she says abruptly, and I back off, worried that she might just prod me with the end of her stick, which is laid across the belt beside the till. ‘I’ve had cats for more years than you’ve had hot breakfasts, young woman.’ She smiles and her eyes turn to slits and her teeth slide forwards, reminding me of Albert Steptoe. ‘I’ve heard a rumour you’ve had to give Frances the push.’

I don’t comment. I’m worried about Ginge, and if Gloria won’t bring him to me, I’ll have to go to her.

On the way back to Otter House, I pick up a paper in the newsagents and join a queue of people trying to buy their way out of their ordinary lives with a pound on the lottery. Sarah, the woman behind the counter, blanks me. As I walk away, head down and feeling cut to the quick, I overhear one of the customers chatting with her husband.

‘Serves them right for being greedy . . . milked Talyton’s pet owners dry . . . outrageous . . . only a puppy, he was . . .’

Clutching my hessian shopping bag – Talyton St George is a plastic-bag-free zone – to my chest, I rush back to the practice. I look up at the scaffolding on the front of Otter House on which two of DJ’s team are standing. (When DJ said he had a team of workers I assumed he meant eleven men at least, but it’s more like a fencing team: three max, including DJ, and only one ever works at a time.) Anyway, one wolf-whistles in my direction, and the other raises his National Pet Smile Week mug.

I don’t wave back. I’m not in the mood for anything, even a little light-hearted flirting. It isn’t just that Otter House Vets is on the verge of bankruptcy. No one trusts me with their pets. The town is against me. Izzy says we are mud in dog-walking circles. Old Fox-Gifford writes about professional negligence in purely hypothetical terms in his column in the
Vet News
.

What can I do? What difference will a couple of puppy parties make?

Sighing, I push the door open and enter Reception, where Izzy is on the phone. She looks up, covering the mouthpiece with her hand.

‘It’s Edie,’ she says. ‘Clive’s digging the hole.’

My heart sinks even further. That can mean only one thing. ‘Tell her we’ll head over now.’

‘What about the phones?’ Izzy says rather sharply. ‘I can’t be in two places at once.’

‘We’ll have to put them through to my mobile,’ I say, collecting my stethoscope and visit case. ‘Let’s go.’

‘You have checked you’ve got enough of the blue juice?’ Izzy says. ‘Emma always makes sure she has enough of everything before she leaves, so she doesn’t have to dash back. It doesn’t do to end up with a patient that’s only half dead.’

Sighing inwardly, I open up the visit case. I was right. Izzy doesn’t trust me. She tolerates me because I’m Emma’s friend. It makes for an increasingly strained working relationship, one which I couldn’t put up with for ever.

I drive Izzy to the Talymill Inn, a little surprised that Edie and Clive didn’t call Talyton Manor Vets instead. I can’t believe they haven’t heard about Blueboy, even if they haven’t caught up with what happened to Cadbury yet, which must mean they still trust me to do my best for Robbie. It isn’t fair that I’m being ostracised by the pet owners of Talyton St George. I’m experienced, caring and I put my patients first. I’m a good vet, and I’m going to make sure I prove to everyone that I don’t deserve to be treated like this.

As I drive alongside the river, I glance at Izzy. Her eyes are fixed straight ahead. Every so often recently I’ve noticed a small smile playing on her lips. Not only that, she’s started using mascara – not scary black, but a soft touch of blue.

‘How’s Chris?’ I ask gently.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You and him? Are you . . .? You must be. You aren’t going round to the farm just to visit Freddie, are you?’

‘He’s really nice,’ she says.

‘Nice?’

She touches her throat, her skin scarlet. ‘More than nice . . .’

I drive on. The sun is high in the sky on a perfect summer’s day. Lucky Izzy, I think.

‘Oh, I forgot to mention that Alex Fox-Gifford called in to ask for a couple of sets of notes,’ Izzy says. ‘I didn’t think there’d be any need to worry about clearing it with you.’

‘He didn’t, er’ – my throat seems to have gone dry – ‘ask to speak to me at all?’

‘No, although he did ask after Frances,’ Izzy says matter-of-factly, and I wonder if he’s avoiding me.

‘Have you heard from Frances at all?’ I say.

‘I ran into her in the Co-op the other day. She’s looking for another job, but there isn’t much out there.’ Izzy pauses. ‘She says she misses us.’

‘But she does have lots of friends in the WI and the Church,’ I say hopefully, as I turn in to the car park at the Talymill Inn. I hate to think of Frances struggling on alone. ‘I suppose she’s got more time to spend with her granddaughter too.’

‘I guess so,’ Izzy says, unfastening her seatbelt, ‘but I don’t think it’s the same.’

When we get out of the car, I can hear the ominous ring of a shovel against hard ground, reminding me of why we are here. Edie shows us through to the private garden behind the pub.

‘Clive, love,’ Edie calls across the lawn to where Clive stands in the shade of a tree, stripped to the waist and with his back to us. ‘Maz is here.’

He tips a shovelful of earth onto the pile beside him, throws down the shovel and slowly turns to face us. Robbie, I notice, lies beside him.

We walk over, joining them beside a hole about three feet deep and one dog long. Robbie barks, lifts himself onto his front legs then tries to haul himself up, but his back end slides along behind him. Panting with the effort, he collapses again. All he can do is raise his head and look up at Clive as if to say, ‘Do something’, then, worse still, he looks at me as if he knows something’s up, as if he knows what’s coming . . .

I always tell my clients that they’ll know when it’s time. They might deliberate for days or weeks. They might make a decision, then waver, but there comes a time when they are certain. ‘It’s time for him to go, Maz,’ they say, ‘it’s time to cross the rainbow bridge,’ or, ‘I’d like you to do the necessary, to put him to sleep, to put him out of his misery.’ Sometimes they don’t say anything at all.

Clive faces me, his hands clasped together, shoulders sagging and beads of sweat trickling down his forehead.

‘Are you sure?’ I ask quietly.

‘His front end’s still working, but his back end’s useless. He’s lost his dignity, lying in his own mess. I can’t bear to see him struggle any more.’ Clive turns to Edie.

‘Come on, love.’ Edie touches her husband’s shoulder. ‘You’ve made the decision – let’s not keep Maz any longer . . .’

‘Take as long as you need,’ I say. Whatever else has happened, I want this, more than anything, to be right.

A sob escapes Clive’s lips. ‘I’m not sure I can go through with it.’

‘You don’t have to stay . . .’

Clive stumbles to his knees, hugs Robbie’s ears to his head and buries his face in his fur. ‘I’ll stay,’ he mutters. ‘I owe you that, son.’

Izzy and I join Clive and his dog on the ground. Izzy hands me a swab and syringe from the visit case and, without speaking, she raises the vein in Robbie’s front leg.

Murmuring his name, I slip the tip of the needle into the vein and pull back gently, bringing blood swirling into the syringe. We’re in. I press the plunger and Robbie gives out one last sigh before his breathing stops and his eyes go blank.

‘He’s gone,’ I say quietly, removing the needle at the same time as Izzy covers the injection site with cotton wool and sticky tape. Clive lays Robbie’s head across his knees and removes his collar. His hands glisten in the shaft of sunlight that glances through the trees. A drift of rose petals falls across the lawn. One catches in Robbie’s coat. A lump catches in my throat.

There’s a long pause. A breeze rustles through the trees, the river laps at the timbers of a small landing stage at the end of the lawn and a bee hovers above a clump of wild strawberry flowers. Robbie’s struggle is over.

Izzy offers Edie a tissue, then takes one for herself and wipes her eyes. As for me, I swallow hard and blink a few times, while I pretend to refit the shield onto the needle. I stand up and rejoin Edie. Clive keeps his head bowed over Robbie’s muzzle.

I look from Robbie to the hole and back.