Must Be Love (13 page)

‘What a lovely little chap,’ Drew says. ‘He must have looked amazing when he was in his prime.’

‘Oh, he was,’ Eleanor says, apparently succumbing to Drew’s charm. ‘He’s been a wonderful pet. In fact, I’d go as far as to say he’s my best friend. Easy to talk to, never answers back …’ There are tears in her eyes. ‘Sometimes I think I love him more than my husband. Isn’t that an awful thing to say?’

‘Not at all.’ Drew grabs a box of tissues from the shelf and offers them to Eleanor with a flourish.

‘You’re so kind,’ she says, blowing her nose. ‘I’d rather see a vet than a doctor any day.’

Later, when I barge into the consulting room yet again to collect a dose of vaccine this time, assuming Drew’s finished his consults, I discover that he does indeed have a passion for birds, but not of the feathered variety.

Shannon’s rabbit is on the table. Shannon has a stethoscope in her ears and Drew is behind her, his arms encircling her as he holds the bell to the rabbit’s chest. Neither of them looks up.

‘It’s beating really fast,’ Shannon says. ‘I can’t count it.’

‘Now, if you compare it with mine.’ Drew unties his gown at the back of his neck and drops it over the monitor behind him. He lifts the front of his shirt to reveal the perfect six-pack.

I clear my throat. ‘Is this supposed to be a private consultation?’

Shannon almost jumps out of her skin, while Drew turns his gaze towards me and flashes me an easy smile.

‘Shannon’s never listened to a heart.’

‘It’s all right. Don’t let me stop you,’ I say, but I stay in the room as chaperone, shuffling boxes of vaccine in the fridge. I’m thankful Shannon’s taking an interest in the job, but I can’t say I approve of Drew’s teaching methods. They’re far too practical and hands-on.

‘What’s he like, then?’ Alex asks, when I call in to the Manor to see him later. He’s in the stable with Liberty, putting her to bed, which involves hanging up a fresh haynet, changing her rugs and giving her a couple of mints. ‘It’s all round Talyton that you’ve taken on some kind of sex-god.’

‘You are just like Frances,’ I say sternly. ‘You listen to too much gossip.’

‘Stewart says Lynsey can’t do enough for him – full English breakfast in the morning, a packed lunch with cake and a three-course dinner.’ He tips his head to one side. ‘Should I be worried?’

‘He isn’t my type.’ I lean over the door, smiling. ‘People seem to like him. I think he’s going to be good for Otter House, quite an asset, in fact …’ and my voice trails off as I find myself distracted by the sight of Alex’s assets, his wide shoulders, narrow hips and long thighs encased in skin-tight jodhpurs, as he rubs Liberty’s gleaming neck and murmurs sweet nothings into her ear.

‘I’ve come to a decision,’ he says suddenly. ‘I’m going to retire my lovely horse.’

‘Why?’ Before Liberty had colic surgery last year, Alex’s ambition was to continue training her up with a view to catching the eye of the selectors for the British showjumping team. I can’t believe he’s letting it go. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘She’s lost her edge,’ he says, his eyes shadowed with sadness.

‘It’s early days, isn’t it?’ I can’t remember much about equine practice, but it seems a bit soon to expect her to be back to form.

‘I don’t want to push her, and to be honest, I haven’t got the time to keep her fully fit at the moment. No, Liberty’s having a change of career. I’m going to put her to a jumping stallion instead.’

‘You mean, have a foal from her? Wow. How exciting.’ I falter. ‘It’ll be ages before you’ll be able to ride it, though.’

‘I know, but I can still hack Liberty out in the meantime – for fun,’ he says, and I realise where the conversation’s going and change the subject.

‘I had your father barking at me down the phone yesterday. That ancient Labrador of his raped Aurora’s poodle – allegedly.’

‘Old Hal? There’s life in the old dog yet, then.’ Alex walks over to me, his boots rustling through the straw. ‘You know that riding lesson we talked about?’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ It’s been on my mind since the idea was first mooted ages ago, and not in a good way.

‘I’m going to have to postpone it. I hope you’re not too disappointed, Maz.’

For a moment I wonder if he’s being sarcastic, if he’s seen through my pretence of being keen to learn to ride, if he realises I’m faking it.

Alex clicks his fingers in front of my face.

‘Earth to Maz. This is Earth to Maz.’

‘Er, what were we talking about?’ I stammer.

‘The riding lesson.’

‘Oh yes, what a shame.’

I do my best to look disappointed as he goes on, ‘Father’s sciatica’s playing him up. Mother’s had to keep booking in routine calls for me over the weekend.’ Alex pushes at his side of the stable door, but I won’t let him out.

‘Are you ever going to be able to take a break?’ I say, and then I worry I’m whining and I’ll put him off, but I can’t help feeling a tad annoyed sometimes that he can’t take more time out to be with me. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable. ‘When did you last have a holiday?’ I go on. ‘You haven’t had a break since I met you.’

‘It’s impossible at the moment.’ Alex smiles ruefully. ‘You’re lucky, you and Emma. If I so much as mention the words “locum” or “assistant” to my father, he has a fit.’

‘Sometimes you sound as if you’re just a little bit scared of him.’

‘I’m scared of what might happen to him if I left him to it – I reckon he’d peg out.’ Alex gives the door another push, but I continue to resist.

‘What about doing something else, something different?’

‘How can I?’ he says simply. ‘You know what it’s like. I’m a vet. It’s what I am, not what I do.’

‘You could set up elsewhere …’

‘What, and leave Talyton?’ Alex looks into my eyes, and I let the door open and he takes me in his arms, and whispers, ‘And you?’

Chapter Seven

A Bird in the Hand

‘Why doesn’t he close his eyes?’ Shannon sniffles into a tissue as she stares at the rat that lies in state on a purple cushion on the prep bench.

It’s Samuel Whiskers, one of my favourite patients, a sensitive and friendly hooded rat – more intelligent than some of my clients, and a lot more easy-going – his quivering whiskers now for ever still. Sadly, his owners didn’t go for chemo to treat his cancer – it was too expensive – and when he finally decided to give up, refusing to get out of his bed to eat breakfast this morning, they brought him to me, and I took the opportunity to show Shannon her first euthanasia. And now I wish I hadn’t, because his owners cried, I cried, and she can’t stop crying either.

‘What will happen to him now?’ she says, between sobs.

‘They’re going to take him home in the box they brought him in.’ We have got some flat-packed cardboard coffins somewhere, but I think they look a bit cheap and tacky. ‘They’re going to have some kind of ceremony at home.’

I wonder how Shannon will react when she sees her first dog or cat put down. I can remember the first one I saw with Jack Wilson at the Ark – it was the shock, the finality of it all, that affected me most. I remember drawing straws to shoot a horse when I was at vet school too, the elation at being the winner, the utter devastation when the horse fell and what I’d done hit home.

‘Is it all right to touch him?’ Shannon reaches out and strokes his head. ‘He’s still warm.’

‘He’ll go cold in a while.’

‘He looks like he’s asleep.’

‘He’s definitely dead,’ I say. ‘There’s no heartbeat, no reflexes.’

‘Have you ever had one wake up?’

‘That’s impossible.’ I should have thought that Shannon with all her black would have understood the concept of death. ‘Once you’re gone, you’re gone.’

‘They wouldn’t let me see my dad,’ she says quietly, making me feel really bad because I’d forgotten how she’d lost her father and how she’d tried to dig him up afterwards. ‘If I’d seen him like this, all peaceful, I think I would have coped better. I could have grieved for him properly.’ There’s a long silence, then, ‘Can I go and help Drew now?’

‘Doesn’t Izzy need you?’

‘Izzy seems to manage very well on her own,’ Shannon observes. ‘Drew lets me do stuff.’

I’m afraid to ask what kind of stuff she means, but she goes on, ‘He likes me to fix the stickers in the vaccination cards for him.’

Oh, why not? I think. It’s the middle of February and Drew’s been with us for over a week and if anyone can cheer her up, Drew can, and the next time I see her, she has a smile on her face and a glow to her cheeks, and I’m inclined to think that on the whole, Drew is a Good Thing …

… until a crowd starts gathering outside Otter House, along with a fire crew wanting to park their engine, a big one with a turntable ladder, in the car park. I join them, along with Emma and Frances, curious to find out why everyone is out in the icy sunshine, squinting up at the roof.

There’s a bird perched on the ridge right at the top, and it isn’t a common-or-garden starling.

‘Oh no,’ Emma mutters aside to me. ‘It’s the Captain.’

‘What’s he doing up there? I thought–’

‘Someone’s messed up.’ Emma looks around. ‘Where’s Drew?’

‘Just a minute.’ I touch her arm as one of the fire crew approaches us.

‘You’re the vets here, aren’t you?’ he says.

I suppose it’s obvious – I feel as if everyone’s pointing the finger in our direction.

‘We had a phone call from a concerned member of the public reporting a parrot in the tree in their garden. We got there as soon as we could, but it took fright and flew this way. We can get the ladder up to the roof here, but what can we do to stop it flying off again?’

‘If I’d done the wing clip, we wouldn’t be in this situation.’ Emma’s cheeks are pink. ‘This is sooo embarrassing.’

‘You weren’t to know,’ I say, trying to keep her calm.

I’m not sure I approve of wing clipping anyway – in my opinion, birds are supposed to fly and it doesn’t seem right to stop them. However, the Captain’s been having his wings clipped for years now and I’ve seen him in the shop on his perch or on Mr Victor’s shoulder, curling his neck round to take a peanut from between Mr Victor’s lips, and he doesn’t seem unhappy with his lot.

He seems supremely happy now, though, making the most of his freedom, wolf-whistling from the roof, stalking up and down, and folding and stretching his wings.

’Em, let’s do the inquest later. Our first priority is to get the Captain back in one piece.’

‘We’d better get hold of Mr Victor.’ Emma looks at me and I look at her, neither of us wanting to be the one to give him bad news. ‘We’ll go together.’

While the fire crew are setting up their ladder, Emma and I walk to the ironmonger’s side by side, like two terrified school kids on their way to the headmaster’s office. Unfortunately, Mr Victor has just noticed that his bird has flown.

‘I always leave the back door ajar for a little while of a morning,’ he says, his face scarlet with annoyance and worry, as he grabs an overcoat. ‘He likes a wander around the backyard.’

‘Can you bring some of his favourite food with you?’ Emma says, and Mr Victor heads out through the back of the shop, returning with a bag of fresh fruit and nuts.

When we arrive back at Otter House, he looks up and whistles, at which the Captain whistles back but stubbornly refuses to move from his new perch.

The crowd is growing larger. The traffic edges slowly around the fire engine. The fire crew decide the best way to get the Captain down is to send one of their members up in the bucket at the end of their ladder, with Mr Victor inside too to coax him down with some lychees, but Mr Victor claims he has a medical condition that precludes him from attempting heights of any kind. Emma puts Drew’s name forward, but Mr Victor won’t have Drew anywhere near his parrot ever again.

‘That boy hasn’t got a bloody clue,’ he says, and I can understand why he’s seething. I would be, if that was my parrot up there.

I look at Emma and realise she can’t possibly go up in the bucket in her condition, so it’s down – or rather, up – to me.

I have to have the right gear, a harness and helmet, and I take gauntlets, a couple of towels, a net and some of the Captain’s food with me, and then I’m up and away, suspended above Otter House with one of the fire crew, trying to persuade the Captain to accompany me back to ground level, without looking down.

‘Come on, then, little chap,’ I say softly.

The Captain turns his back and inches away along the ridge.

We move in closer, at which the Captain takes umbrage, becoming a bundle of feathered fury.

‘Fuck off! Fuck off!’ His little eyes flash with anger and he shows off his beak, which could have your finger off in a split second. I’m not sure there’s any point in being nice to him any longer.

‘Fuck off to you too,’ I growl back.

The Captain tips his head to one side.

‘Fuck off,’ he says, more politely this time.

I show him a lychee, holding it on the edge of the bucket.

‘If you want it, you’ll have to come and get it.’

He stretches his neck. I can see he’s tempted.

‘Fuck off,’ he says sweetly, and flies onto the edge of the bucket, where he takes the lychee ever so gently from between my fingers. While he’s distracted, I drop a towel over his head and grab him, tucking his wings against his body and keeping away from his marauding beak.

‘Gotcha.’

The crowd breaks into a round of applause as the fire crew lower the ladder, and I breathe a sigh of relief when my feet are back on firm ground. Shaking, I hand the Captain over to Mr Victor, and I’m still shaking when everyone begins to disperse, a few staying on for the cups of tea Frances is offering in return for donations to Talyton Animal Rescue. The fireman who came up in the bucket with me becomes the spokesman, the hero of the piece, talking to the roving reporter for the
Chronicle
, who’s turned up on a tip-off.

‘I can tell you,’ he says with a grin, ‘that the operation went without a flap.’

‘You’re not going to print that, are you, Ally?’ I cut in. I know the reporter for the
Chronicle
well – she’s one of our clients.