Country Wives (28 page)

By the light of his torch, Dan found an old chair out in the yard and used it to climb on to look in. The stone walls of which his stall was made had withstood Sunny Boy’s panic, as was only to be expected, but the gate had two bars snapped, and he was making inroads on the remaining ones. He was thrashing about uncontrollably, ramming his massive shoulders into the walls, thudding his head against his manger, rubbing it frantically against any available hard surface as though … that was it! It was as though he had an almighty pressure in his head and he couldn’t bear it.

The answer was to wait until he was exhausted and then go in and give him the lethal shot. He could hear the house phone ringing. “Phil, your phone’s ringing.”

He heard Phil clump round to the house. Dan got down off the chair and waited. Phil came out. “Blossom. He’s going into surgery as soon as.”

“That sounds as if there’s hope.”

“It does. Blossom’s beside herself. Well, now he’s not dead there’s no need to …”

Dan overrode this bright idea saying, “I can’t go in as he is. Let’s barricade the outside door in case he gets out of the stall…”

“Let me look.” Phil borrowed Dan’s torch and climbed up
to peer through the window. “Bloody hell.” He stood on tiptoe. “Bloody hell! He’s torn himself and no mistake. There’s blood.”

“I know.”

“You can’t leave him like that.”

“I can.”

“He’ll need stitches.”

“Tomorrow. I’ll see to the cows and then I’m going home and coming back first thing in the morning to see to Sunny Boy.”

“To stitch him, you mean?”

“No, I don’t mean that.”

Between them they got Phil’s tractor and drove it up against the cow barn door so he couldn’t possibly escape. Dan went back to the cowshed and began examining the cows, completely ignoring Phil. It took him an hour to attend to them and then he packed his bag and got ready to leave.

Phil had gone into the house in an attempt to shut the noise of Sunny Boy’s frenzy out of his head. Dan opened the door and shouted, “Phil, I’m going. I’ll be back first thing.”

“You’re not putting him down. I tell yer, yer not.”

“Goodnight,” Dan answered firmly.

COLIN
went with him the following morning, and they were at the farm by a quarter to eight. They parked their vehicles on the cart track, put on their protective clothing and, with a sharp warning from Dan about the slurry pit, they trudged across the yard to the house. To Dan’s relief there was an uncanny silence about the farm. The tractor was still parked at the cow barn door, and there was no sign of life.

“What the blazes! It doesn’t change, does it.” Colin gazed round first at the house and then the farm buildings and the filthy yard. “Years since I’ve been here. I’d forgotten.”

Dan rattled the door knocker again. He thought he heard
voices inside the house, but no one came. “I’m going to have a look.”

Colin followed him and watched while he climbed on the old chair. Dan peered in and saw Sunny Boy standing up, leaning heavily against a wall of his stall as though he wouldn’t be able to stand if he didn’t have its support.

“Take a look.”

Colin climbed on the chair and looked in. “Gone quiet at least. But he looks odd. Almost comatose. Not asleep. More like he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Dazed, kind of. Doesn’t seem like BSE to me, which it could have been, I suppose. No, the symptoms are not right.”

“Just what I thought. Perhaps my theory about it being a brain tumor is right.”

“God, he’s a magnificent beast, isn’t he? Such a shame to see him like this, Dan.”

“Somehow we’ve got to persuade Phil to have him put down. He’s too dangerous.”

“I agree. He should never have kept him. What’s wrong with artificial insemination?”

“He’s proud of him.”

“That’s a load of sentimental tosh and you know it. The man’s a farmer not an emotional do-gooder.”

“I know that, but he loves him and you can see why.”

They heard the house door slam shut and footsteps coming across the yard. Colin got down from the chair. It was Phil, his eyes looking as though they hadn’t closed for a week.

“Morning, Phil. You remember Colin? Any news of Hamish?”

“Hanging by a thread. Blossom got home an hour ago. Crushed ribs, you see, and they’ve penetrated …” He wiped his eyes with an old rag.

“Well, at least he’s holding on, that’s something. I’m so
sorry about him. Well, Phil, I’ve brought Colin to give a second opinion. We both agree Sunny Boy is very, very ill, otherwise he would never have acted like he did. We both think his unpredictable behavior is due possibly to a brain tumor. There’s absolutely nothing we can do about that. At the moment he looks as though he doesn’t even know what he’s doing.”

Colin added, “The decision is yours.”

“But we both feel…”

Colin interrupted with, “How about it, Phil? Hamish is more important than any animal to you, isn’t he? Eh? Much more important, especially to Blossom, who’s such a loving woman, as you well know. Even if Hamish recovers, you can’t expect her to want to live here and see that magnificent animal still about.”

Phil shook his head.

Colin continued, “He looks to be in such pain that it’s almost cruel to leave him alive.”

Dan said, “No vet likes putting an animal down, but we do know when it needs to be done for the animal’s sake, and this is one of those moments, Phil.”

“I hear what you say. I’ll just have two minutes with him, and then …”

Dan couldn’t believe he was hearing right. “Is that wise? He may not recognize you.”

“Wise or not, he’s not going without his closest friend saying goodbye.”

He climbed in the tractor and backed it away from the door.

Colin and Dan stood in the doorway on red alert—quite still, watching. The gate hadn’t been totally destroyed, and Phil climbed over the two still intact bottom bars and approached the bull quietly. Sunny Boy, occasionally shaking his head from side to side, was still leaning against the wall, dazed, his eyes clouded and lifeless. Phil spoke gently, holding out his hand
with a few tidbits in it, but Sunny Boy never even recognized that his dearest friend was standing by him.

“Watch him, Phil. Watch him,” Dan warned quietly.

By now Dan was almost in tears. It seemed so incredibly sad that at the last, Phil couldn’t have the gratification of saying a proper goodbye to the pride of his life. Dan recalled his last goodbye to Rose, how he’d wondered that his brain could still send signals to his body when his heart had burst with such deep sorrow.

Ignoring the danger, Phil reached out to stroke Sunny Boy’s dark-red flank, then he grew brave and stroked his huge forehead. Only the sound of Phil’s quiet murmurs and the blowing of the breath of half a ton of bull broke the silence.

Phil backed away from him, stepped over the broken gate, and as he passed Colin and Dan said painfully, “I ’ave to say he’s been getting unreliable for a while. Like that time he trampled on Scott. We thought it was the pain of his leg, but I think perhaps it was more than that. I’ve warned Hamish once or twice to be careful. It’s come to something when I have to back away from ’im. Never had cause to do that in all his life. Get it done. It isn’t ’im, not anymore.” He stalked into the house and left Dan and Colin to do their job.

When Dan got back to the practice, Miriam asked him up to the flat for breakfast. “I know you’ve a list of calls, but come; I’ve put the kettle on. It’s the least I can do.”

She settled him at the kitchen table with a pot of coffee, cereals and croissants, a block of golden butter, and a dish of homemade marmalade and another of raspberry jam.

As he sat at the table, Dan rubbed his hands. “This looks wonderful. Thank you.”

His thanks were so gloriously genuine that Miram placed a heartfelt kiss on his cheek. “You deserve it. It must have been harrowing at Phil Parsons’s. How is he?”

“He went straight off to the hospital with Blossom. He’s shattered. The hunt agreed to come for poor old Sunny Boy, and I didn’t want him to see that. Neither did Blossom, so she persuaded him she was too tired to drive safely. They’re an odd couple, on the surface so totally unsuited, yet…”

“Look at Bunty and Sergeant Bird …”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t have said that. Don’t tell anyone, but they’re getting married on Saturday. She doesn’t want anyone to know.”

Dan’s eyebrows shot up with surprise. “Now there is a very odd couple. I’d no idea.”

“Poor Sergeant Bird. His mother died three or four years ago, and he’s been desolate ever since. Needed a good woman, you know. Well, now he’s got one.”

Dan put aside his empty cereal bowl and began on the croissants.

Miriam clasped her hands round the mug of coffee she’d poured herself from Dan’s pot, noticed how gratefully he was devouring his breakfast and said daringly, “You need someone to look after you too.”

This was greeted by total silence. Dan put down his knife and picked up his cup, but didn’t drink from it. “Do you have a twin?”

“No.”

“Then I am destined to walk the path of life alone.” He had somber vibrations in his voice when he said this, and Miriam had to laugh.

“Honestly, Dan, you are a flirt.”

“I’m nothing of the kind. I’m speaking the truth. Mungo is a very lucky man.”

“I’m lucky too.”

“Yes. I can see that. There’s much to be admired in Mungo.”

“I’m so glad you’re joining us. Oh! Perhaps I’ve jumped the gun there too. Sorry. My big mouth.”

“If I didn’t know you better, I’d think your gaffes today were deliberate.”

“I’m so sorry. I seem to be off my guard this morning.” Miriam felt extremely uncomfortable. She didn’t really know what was the matter with her; she was usually the soul of discretion, and here she was with all her barriers down.

Dan finished his second croissant, drained his cup but didn’t offer to leave.

“More coffee?”

“No, thanks. What was worse for Phil was Sunny Boy not recognizing him when he went in to say his goodbyes.”

“I can imagine.”

“That was the most awful bit.” Dan stared at the plants on the windowsill. “Final goodbyes are never easy, are they.”

“No.”

“Damn stupid for a vet to be talking like this, but that great beast was like his own flesh and blood. I just hope to God Hamish survives.”

“So do I.” Tears brimmed in Miriam’s eyes.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t think.”

“That’s all right. Just me being a bit soft in the head.”

“Must go before I get maudlin.”

They sat a while in companionable silence.

Head down so as not to catch his eye, Miriam dared to say, “One day, Dan, perhaps you’ll be able to talk to me about her.” When she finished speaking she looked him full in the face.

Dan’s eyes registered shock momentarily, then he smiled. “Thanks for the breakfast. Much appreciated. Work to do.” He paused for a moment with his hand on the kitchen doorknob, indecisive, lost in thought, then said, “Rose her name was … is.”

O
f course Kate could have told her that, but the matter had never come up. Kate was far too absorbed anyway in her work and in sorting out the problem of her mother. She’d rung Kate exactly a week to the day from the appalling evening they’d had together in the Italian restaurant. Kate hadn’t expected her to be so prompt, but she was, so maybe she did mean it when she said she wanted things to work out between them. They made arrangements for Kate to go for tea the following Saturday. Kate asked rather hesitantly if Mia could go with her if she wanted, and after a moment her mother had agreed.

But persuading Mia to go was altogether another matter.

“But I want you to go; I want you to see what it’s like there. Please, for me.”

“What good will it do? I don’t want a relationship with her. You do. I don’t. She’s nothing to me. Because of her, your father could never love anyone again. She’d stolen him from me before your dad and I even met each other.”

Kate was appalled about the thinking behind Mia’s declaration,
but she still wanted her there on Saturday. “But I want you to come.”

“Why?”

Kate didn’t really know why, but she said, “Because I want you to help me decide.”

“Decide what?”

“I don’t know.”

“In that case, I won’t go. Perhaps later when you know her better.”

“I don’t know if I want to know her better; that’s the trouble.”

“Only you can decide that.”

“Please, Mia.”

“No. I can’t offer you what she can offer you. I can’t provide you with pots of money, which she can, or the clothes and a better style of living and the holidays—none of that. All I’ve got to give is love and a roof over your head. Right? So off you go by yourself to make your own decisions. I won’t stand in your way, and I don’t want to hear any more about it.” Mia got up and left the kitchen, came back in an instant, put her head round the door and added, “What’s more, I don’t fit in with her kind, not at all.”

Kate had never known Mia to be so adamant, so irate; it made matters even worse and reaching a decision even more remote. Mia had changed toward her since her dad had died. But truth to tell, it wasn’t so much since then; it was since her mother had turned up so unexpectedly.

Putting herself in Mia’s position, it dawned on Kate that Mia felt threatened. Of course, that was it. Tessa had such tempting options to offer: money, a lovely home, position. And what had Mia to offer? Nothing except love, as she’d said, and a roof over her head. As if she, Kate, could leave Mia! She couldn’t. That was what Mia needed to know.

Kate leaped to her feet and went to look for her. She found her in her bedroom, sitting on the bed. “Mia!”

Mia looked up at her, miserable and tearful. “I shouldn’t have snapped, sorry.”

“Yes, you should, because I’ve never made myself clear. You’re my real mother, not Tessa. I’m not going to leave unless you prefer me to.”

Mia shook her head disbelievingly.

Kate pressed on, “It’s all terribly tempting—her money and such, the holidays, the support while I’m at college—but she doesn’t love
me;
she loves the idea of a grown-up daughter who is old enough not to make babysitting a problem, someone she can mold into a likeness of herself. She wants me to be slim. I ask you, as if I shall ever be slim. Some chance! She fancies me well dressed. Smart. Up to the minute. A daughter to show off. Well, she’s not getting that from me.”