Every Living Thing (4 page)

I went over and peeped past the curtain into the shop. Geoff was there, doing his job like an automaton. Haggard, unsmiling, silently handing out the sweets. When he did speak it was in a listless monotone and I realised with a sense of shock that his voice had lost all its old timbre. Mrs. Hatfield was right. He was a different man. And, I thought, if he stayed different what would happen to his clientele? So far they had remained faithful, but I had a feeling they would soon start to drift away.

It was a week before the picture began to change for the better. I entered the sitting room, but Alfred wasn’t there.

Mrs. Hatfield jumped up from her chair. “He’s a lot better, Mr. Herriot,” she said eagerly. “Eating well and seemed to want to go into t’shop. He’s in there with Geoff now.”

Again I took a surreptitious look past the curtain. Alfred was back in his place, skinny but sitting upright. But his master didn’t look any better.

I turned back into the room. “Well, I won’t need to come any more, Mrs. Hatfield. Your cat is well on the way to recovery. He should soon be as good as new.” I was quite confident about this, but I wasn’t so sure about Geoff.

Soon afterwards, the rush of spring lambing and post-lambing troubles overwhelmed me as it did every year, and I had little time to think about my other cases. It must have been three weeks before I visited the sweet shop to buy some chocolates for Helen. The place was packed and as I pushed my way inside all my fears were rushing back and I looked anxiously at man and cat.

Alfred, massive and dignified again, sat like a king at the far end of the counter. Geoff was leaning on the counter, with both hands, gazing closely into a lady’s face. “As I understand you, Mrs. Hird, you are looking for something in the nature of a softer sweetmeat.” The rich voice reverberated round the little shop. “Could you perhaps mean a Turkish delight?”

“Nay, Mr. Hatfield, it wasn’t that…”

His head fell on his chest and he studied the polished boards of the counter with fierce concentration. Then he looked up and pushed his face nearer to the lady’s. “A pastille, possibly…?”

“Nay…nay.”

“A truffle? A soft caramel? A peppermint cream?”

“No, nowt like that.”

He straightened up. This was a tough one. He folded his arms across his chest and as he stared into space and took the long inhalation I remembered so well, I could see that he was a big man again, his shoulders spreading wide, his face ruddy and well-fleshed.

Nothing having evolved from his cogitations, his jaw jutted and he turned his face upwards, seeking further inspiration from the ceiling. Alfred, I noticed, looked upwards, too.

There was a tense silence as Geoff held his pose, then a smile crept slowly over his noble features. He raised a finger. “Madam,” he said, “I do fancy I have it. Whitish, you said…sometimes pink…rather squashy…May I suggest to you…marshmallow?”

Mrs. Hird thumped the counter. “Aye, that’s it, Mr. Hatfield. I just couldn’t think of t’name.”

“Ha-ha, I thought so,” boomed the proprietor, his organ tones rolling to the roof. He laughed, the ladies laughed, and I was positive that Alfred laughed, too.

All was well again. Everybody in the shop was happy— Geoff, Alfred, the ladies and, not least, James Herriot.

“Y
OU CALL YOURSELF A
vet, but you’re nowt but a robber!”

Mrs. Sidlow, her fierce little dark eyes crackling with fury, spat out the words and as I looked at her, taking in the lank black hair framing the haggard face with its pointed chin, I thought, not for the first time, how very much she resembled a witch. It was easy to imagine her throwing a leg over a broomstick and zooming off for a quick flip across the moon.

“All t’country’s talkin’ about you and your big bills,” she continued. “I don’t know how you get away with it, it’s daylight robbery—robbin’ the poor farmers and then you come out here bold as brass in your flash car.”

That was what had started it. Since my old vehicle was dropping to bits I had lashed out on a second-hand Austin 10. It had done twenty thousand miles but had been well maintained and looked like new with its black bodywork shining in the sun, and the very sight of it had sparked off Mrs. Sidlow.

The purchase of a new car was invariably greeted with a bit of leg-pulling by most of the farmers. “Job must be payin’ well,” they would say with a grin. But it was all friendly, with never a hint of the venom that seemed to be part of the Sidlow ménage.

The Sidlows hated vets. Not just me, but all of them, and that was quite a few because they had tried every practice for miles around and found them all wanting. The trouble was that Mr. Sidlow himself was quite simply the only man in the district who knew anything about doctoring sick animals—his wife and all his grown-up family knew this as an article of faith and whenever illness struck any of his cattle, it was natural that Father took over. It was only when he had exhausted his supply of secret remedies that the vet was called in. I personally had seen only dying animals on that farm and had been unable to bring them back to life, so the Sidlows were invariably confirmed in their opinion of me and all my profession.

Today I had been viewing with the old feeling of hopelessness an emaciated little beast huddled in a dark corner of the fold yard taking its last few breaths after a week of pneumonia while the family stood around breathing hostility, shooting the usual side glances at me from their glowering faces. I had been trailing wearily back to my car on the way out when Mrs. Sidlow had spotted me from the kitchen window and catapulted into the yard.

“Aye, it’s awright for you,” she went on. “We ’ave to work hard to make a livin’ on this spot and then such as you come and take our money away from us without doin’ anythin’ for it. Ah know what it is, your idea is to get rich quick!”

Only my long training that the customer is always right stopped me from barking back. Instead I forced a smile.

“Mrs. Sidlow,” I said, “I assure you that I’m anything but rich. In fact, if you could see my bank balance you would see what I mean.”

“You’re tellin’ me you haven’t much money?”

“That’s right.”

She waved towards the Austin and gave me another searing glare. “So this fancy car’s just a lot o’ show on nowt!”

I had no answer. She had me both ways—either I was a fat cat or a stuck-up poseur.

As I drove away up the rising road I looked back at the farm with its substantial house and wide sprawl of buildings. There were five hundred lush acres down there, lying in the low country at the foot of the dale. The Sidlows were big, prosperous farmers with none of the worries of the hill men who struggled to exist on the bleak smallholdings higher up, and it was difficult to understand why my imagined affluence should be such an affront to them.

It occurred to me, too, that this latest attack had come at a time when my finances were at their lowest ebb. As I changed gear I caught a glimpse of pink flesh through the knee of my old corduroys. Oh, hell, these trousers had just about had it as indeed had a lot of my clothes, but the needs of two growing children came a long way before my own. Not that there was any point in going round my work looking like a male fashion plate—I had one of the roughest, dirtiest jobs in the world and could only aim at reasonable respectability—and I always had the comforting knowledge that I did have one “good suit,” which had lasted for many years simply because it was hardly ever worn.

But it was indeed strange that I should be perpetually hard up. Siegfried and I had built up a good, successful practice. I worked nearly all the time, seven days a week, in the evenings and often during the night, and it was hard work, too—rolling about on cobbled floors fighting with tough calvings to the point of exhaustion, getting kicked, crushed, trodden on and sprayed with muck. Often, I spent days with every muscle in my body aching. But I still had only a niggling and immovable overdraft of £1,000 to show for it all.

Of course, most of my time was spent driving a car. You didn’t get paid for that, and maybe it was the reason for my situation. Yet the driving, the work and the whole rich life was spent out in the open in this glorious countryside. I really loved it all and it was only when I was accused of being a kind of agricultural con man that the contradiction came home to me.

As the road climbed higher I began to see the church tower and roofs of Darrowby and, at last, on the edge of the town, the gates of Mrs. Pumphrey’s beautiful home lay beckoning. I looked at my watch—twelve noon. Long practice had enabled me to time my visits here just before lunch when I could escape the rigours of country practice and wallow for a little while in the hospitality of the elderly widow who had brightened my life for so long.

As my tyres crunched on the gravel of the drive I smiled as Tricki Woo appeared at the window to greet me. He was old now, but he could still get up there to his vantage point and his Pekingese face was split as always by a panting grin of welcome.

Mounting the steps in the twin pillars of the doorway, I could see that he had left the window and I heard his joyous barking in the hall. Ruth, the long-serving maid, answered my ring, beaming with pleasure as Tricki flung himself at my knees.

“Eee, he’s glad to see you, Mr. ’erriot,” she said, and, laying a hand on my arm, “We all are!”

She ushered me into the gracious drawing room, where Mrs. Pumphrey was sitting in an armchair by the fire. She raised her white head from her book and cried out in delight, “Ah, Mr. Herriot. How very, very nice! And Tricki, isn’t it wonderful to have Uncle Herriot visiting again!”

She waved me to the armchair opposite. “I have been expecting you for Tricki’s check-up, but before you examine him you must sit down and warm yourself. It is so terribly cold. Ruth, my dear, will you bring Mr. Herriot a glass of sherry. You will say yes, won’t you, Mr. Herriot?”

I murmured my thanks. I always said yes to the very special sherry, which came in enormous glasses and was deeply heartening at all times but on cold days in particular. I sank into the cushions and stretched my legs towards the flames that leaped in the fireplace, and as I took my first sip and Ruth deposited a plate of tiny biscuits by my side while the little dog climbed onto my knee, the last of the hostile Sidlow vibes slipped gently away from me.

“Tricki has been awfully well since your last visit, Mr. Herriot,” Mrs. Pumphrey said. “I know he is always going to be a little stiff with his arthritis but he does get around so well, and his little heart cough is no worse. And best of all,” she clasped her hands together and her eyes widened, “he hasn’t gone flop-bott at all. Not once! So perhaps you won’t have to squeeze the poor darling.”

“Oh, no, I won’t. Certainly not. I only do that if he really needs it.” I had been squeezing Tricki Woo’s bottom for many years because of his anal gland trouble so graphically named by his mistress and the little animal had never resented it. I stroked his head as Mrs. Pumphrey went on.

“There is something very interesting I must tell you. As you know, Tricki has always been deeply knowledgeable about horse-racing, a wonderful judge of form, and wins nearly all his bets. Well, now,” she raised a finger and spoke in a confidential murmur, “just recently he has become very interested in greyhound-racing!”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, indeed, he has begun to discuss the meetings at the Middlesbrough greyhound track and instructed me to place bets for him and, you know, he has won quite a lot of money already!”

“Gosh!”

“Yes, only this morning Crowther, my chauffeur, collected twelve pounds from the bookmaker after last evening’s races.”

“Well, well, how wonderful.” My heart bled for Honest Joe Prendergast, the local turf accountant, who must be suffering after losing money on horse-racing to a dog for years and then having to pay out on the greyhounds, too. “Quite remarkable.”

“Isn’t it, isn’t it!” Mrs. Pumphrey gave me a radiant smile, then she became serious. “But I do wonder, Mr. Herriot, just what is responsible for this new interest. What is your opinion?”

I shook my head gravely. “Difficult to say. Very difficult.”

“However, I have a theory,” she said. “Do you think perhaps that as he grows older he is more drawn to animals of his own species and prefers to bet on doggy runners like greyhounds?”

“Could be….could be…”

“And, after all, you would think with this affinity it would give him more insight and a better chance of winning.”

“Well, yes, that’s right. That’s another point.”

Tricki, well aware that we were talking about him, waved his fine tail and looked up at me with his wide grin and lolling tongue.

I settled deeper in the cushions as the sherry began to send warm tendrils through my system. This was a happily familiar situation, listening to Mrs. Pumphrey’s recitals of Tricki Woo’s activities. She was a kind, highly intelligent and cultivated lady, admired by all and a benefactress to innumerable charities. She sat on committees and her opinion was sought on many important matters, but where her dog was concerned her conversation never touched on weighty topics, but was filled with strange and wondrous things.

She leaned forward in her chair. “There is something else I would like to talk to you about, Mr. Herriot. You know that a Chinese restaurant has set up in Darrowby?”

“Yes, very nice, too.”

She laughed. “But who would have thought it? A Chinese restaurant in a little place like Darrowby—it’s amazing!”

“Very unexpected, I agree. But this last year or two they have been popping up all over Britain.”

“Yes, but what I want to discuss with you is that this has affected Tricki.”

“What!”

“Yes, he has been most upset over the whole business.”

“How on earth…?”

“Well, Mr. Herriot…” She frowned and gazed at me, solemn-faced. “I told you many years ago and you have always known that Tricki is descended from a long line of Chinese emperors.”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

“Well, I think I can explain the whole problem if I start at the beginning.”

I took a long swallow at my sherry with the pleasant sensation that I was floating away in a dream world. “Please do.”