All Creatures Great and Small (11 page)

It was always a bit tricky refusing these invitations without causing offence, but I pointed out that my own meal would be ready when I got back and it would be hard on Mrs. Hall if it were wasted.

They were quick to appreciate this argument and settled down round the scrubbed kitchen table. Mrs. Bellerby served a large, round Yorkshire pudding to each of them and poured a pool of gravy into it from a quart-size enamel jug. I had had a hard morning and the delicious scent that rose from the gravy as it ran over the golden slabs was a sweet torture. But I consoled myself with the thought that the fact of my sitting there would make them hurry.

The pudding was consumed in leisurely silence, then Bob, an amiable, thick-set youth in his twenties, pushed out his empty plate. He did not say anything, but his mother planked down another pudding on the plate and plied the gravy jug again. His parents and sister watched him benevolently as he methodically demolished the thick, doughy mass.

Next, a tremendous roast appeared from the oven and Mr. Bellerby hacked and sawed at it till they all had a heap of thick slices on their plates. Then mountains of mashed potatoes were served from something that looked like a washing-up bowl. Chopped turnip followed and the family went into action again.

There was no sign of haste. They ate calmly and quietly without any small talk. Bob had an extra helping of mashed potatoes.

The Bellerbys were relaxed and happy, but I couldn’t say the same about myself. Hunger was tearing fiercely at me and the minutes on my watch were ticking away relentlessly.

There was a decent interval before Mrs. Bellerby went over to the old fire oven in the corner, opened the door and pulled forth a great flat baking tin of steaming apple pie. She then proceeded to carve off about a square foot for each of them and deluged it with something like a pint of custard from another towering enamel jug.

The family set to as though they were just beginning the meal and once more a busy silence fell on the group. Bob cleared his plate in effortless style and pushed it wordlessly into the middle of the table. His mother was ready with another great rectangle of pie and another copious libation of custard.

It was going to be a close thing, I thought, but this surely must be the end. They would realise time was getting short and start to change. But, to my consternation, Mrs. Bellerby moved slowly over to the fire and put the kettle on, while her husband and Bob pushed their chairs back and stretched out their legs. They both wore corduroy breeches with the lacing undone and on their feet were enormous hobnailed boots. Bob, after a search through his pockets, brought out a battered packet of cigarettes and lay back in a happy coma as his mother put a cup of tea in front of him. Mr. Bellerby produced a clasp knife and began to cut up some plug tobacco for his pipe.

As they rearranged themselves round the table and began to slowly sip the hot tea, I found I had started to exhibit all the classical symptoms of tension. Pounding pulse, tightly clenched jaws and the beginnings of a headache.

After a second cup of tea, there were signs of activity. Mr. Bellerby rose with a groan, scratched his shirt front and stretched luxuriously. “Well, young man, we’ll just have a bit of a wash and get changed. Bob’ll stay and talk to you—he’s not coming with us.”

There was a lot of splashing and spluttering in the big stone sink at the far end of the kitchen as they made their ablutions, then they disappeared upstairs. I was greatly relieved to find that it didn’t take them long to change. Mr. Bellerby was down very soon, transformed in appearance by a stiff and shiny suit of navy blue serge with a faint greenish tinge. His wife and daughter followed soon in a blaze of flowered cotton.

“Ah well, now here we are. All ready, eh?” There was a note of hysteria in my heartiness. “Right, then, off we go. After you, ladies.”

But Ruth did not move. She was pulling on a pair of white gloves and looking at her brother sprawled in his chair. “You know, Bob, you’re nowt but a disgrace!” she burst out. “Here we are going off to hear this lovely music and you’re lying there in your muck, not caring. You’ve no interest in culture at all. You care no more about bettering yourself than one of them bullocks out there.”

Bob stirred uneasily under this sudden attack, but there was more to come.

Ruth stamped her foot. “Really, it makes my blood boil to look at you. And I know we won’t be right out of t’door before you’re asleep. Aye, snoring there all afternoon like a pig.” She swung round to Mrs. Bellerby. “Mother! I’ve made up my mind. I’m not going to leave him snoring here. He’s got to come with us!”

I felt the sweat start out on my brow. I began to babble. “But don’t you think, perhaps … might be just a little late … starts at two o’clock … my lunch …”

But my words were utterly lost. Ruth had the bit properly between her teeth. “Get up out of there, Bob! Get up this minute and get dressed!” She shut her mouth tightly and thrust out her lower jaw.

She was too much for Bob. Although an impressive eater, he didn’t seem to have much mind of his own. He mumbled sulkily and shuffled over to the sink. He took off his shirt and they all sat down and watched as he lathered his torso with a large block of White Windsor and sluiced his head and neck by working the pump handle by the side of the sink.

The family regarded him happily, pleased that he was coming with them and content in the knowledge that it would be good for him. Ruth watched his splashings with the light of love in her eyes. She kept looking over at me as if to say “Isn’t this grand?”

For my part, I was only just stopping myself from tearing out my hair in great handfuls. A compulsion to leap up and pace the floor, to scream at the top of my voice showed that I was nearing the end of my tether. I fought this feeling by closing my eyes and I must have kept them closed for a long time because, when I opened them, Bob was standing by my side in a suit exactly like his father’s.

I could never remember much about that ride to Darrowby. I had only a vague recollection of the car hurtling down the stony track at forty miles an hour. Of myself staring straight ahead with protruding eyes and the family, tightly packed but cheerful, thoroughly enjoying the ride.

Even the imperturbable Mrs. Hall was a little tight lipped as I shot into the house at ten to two and out again at two after bolting her good food.

I was late for the
Messiah.
The music had started as I crept into the church and I ran a gauntlet of disapproving stares. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the Bellerbys sitting very upright, all in a row. It seemed to me that they looked disapproving, too.

ELEVEN

I
LOOKED AGAIN AT
the slip of paper where I had written my visits. “Dean, 3, Thompson’s Yard. Old dog ill.”

There were a lot of these “yards” in Darrowby. They were, in fact, tiny streets, like pictures from a Dickens novel. Some of them opened off the market place and many more were scattered behind the main thoroughfares in the old part of the town. From the outside you could see only an archway and it was always a surprise to me to go down a narrow passage and come suddenly upon the uneven rows of little houses with no two alike, looking into each other’s windows across eight feet of cobbles.

In front of some of the houses a strip of garden had been dug out and marigolds and nasturtiums straggled over the rough stones; but at the far end the houses were in a tumbledown condition and some were abandoned with their windows boarded up.

Number three was down at this end and looked as though it wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer.

The flakes of paint quivered on the rotten wood of the door as I knocked; above, the outer wall bulged dangerously on either side of a long crack in the masonry.

A small, white-haired man answered. His face, pinched and lined, was enlivened by a pair of cheerful eyes; he wore a much-darned woollen cardigan, patched trousers and slippers.

“I’ve come to see your dog,” I said, and the old man smiled.

“Oh, I’m glad you’ve come, sir,” he said. “I’m getting a bit worried about the old chap. Come inside, please.”

He led me into the tiny living-room. “I’m alone now, sir. Lost my missus over a year ago. She used to think the world of the old dog.”

The grim evidence of poverty was everywhere. In the worn out lino, the fireless hearth, the dank, musty smell of the place. The wallpaper hung away from the damp patches and on the table the old man’s solitary dinner was laid; a fragment of bacon, a few fried potatoes and a cup of tea. This was life on the old age pension.

In the corner, on a blanket, lay my patient, a cross-bred labrador; He must have been a big, powerful dog in his time, but the signs of age showed in the white hairs round his muzzle and the pale opacity in the depth of his eyes. He lay quietly and looked at me without hostility.

“Getting on a bit, isn’t he, Mr. Dean?”

“Aye he is that. Nearly fourteen, but he’s been like a pup galloping about until these last few weeks. Wonderful dog for his age, is old Bob and he’s never offered to bite anybody in his life. Children can do anything with him. He’s my only friend now—I hope you’ll soon be able to put him right.”

“Is he off his food, Mr. Dean?”

“Yes, clean off, and that’s a strange thing because, by gum, he could eat. He always sat by me and put his head on my knee at meal times, but he hasn’t been doing it lately.”

I looked at the dog with growing uneasiness. The abdomen was grossly distended and I could read the tell-tale symptoms of pain; the catch in the respirations, the retracted commissures of the lips, the anxious, preoccupied expression in the eyes.

When his master spoke, the tail thumped twice on the blankets and a momentary interest showed in the white old eyes; but it quickly disappeared and the blank, inward look returned.

I passed my hand carefully over the dog’s abdomen. Ascites was pronounced and the dropsical fluid had gathered till the pressure was intense. “Come on, old chap,” I said, “let’s see if we can roll you over.” The dog made no resistance as I eased him slowly on to his other side, but, just as the movement was completed, he whimpered and looked round. The cause of the trouble was now only too easy to find.

I palpated gently. Through the thin muscle of the flank I could feel a hard, corrugated mass; certainly a splenic or hepatic carcinoma, enormous and completely inoperable. I stroked the old dog’s head as I tried to collect my thoughts. This wasn’t going to be easy.

“Is he going to be ill for long?” the old man asked, and again came the thump, thump of the tail at the sound of the loved voice.

“It’s miserable when Bob isn’t following me round the house when I’m doing my little jobs.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Dean, but I’m afraid this is something very serious. You see this large swelling. It is caused by an internal growth.”

“You mean … cancer?” the little man said faintly.

“I’m afraid so, and it has progressed too far for anything to be done. I wish there was something I could do to help him, but there isn’t.”

The old man looked bewildered and his lips trembled. “Then he’s going to die?”

I swallowed hard. “We really can’t just leave him to die, can we? He’s in some distress now, but it will soon be an awful lot worse. Don’t you think it would be kindest to put him to sleep? After all, he’s had a good, long innings.” I always aimed at a brisk, matter-of-fact approach, but the old clichés had an empty ring.

The old man was silent, then he said, “Just a minute,” and slowly and painfully knelt down by the side of the dog. He did not speak, but ran his hand again and again over the grey old muzzle and the ears, while the tail thump, thump, thumped on the floor.

He knelt there a long time while I stood in the cheerless room, my eyes taking in the faded pictures on the walls, the frayed, grimy curtains, the broken-springed armchair.

At length the old man struggled to his feet and gulped once or twice. Without looking at me, he said huskily, “All right, will you do it now?”

I filled the syringe and said the things I always said. “You needn’t worry, this is absolutely painless. Just an overdose of an anaesthetic. It is really an easy way out for the old fellow.”

The dog did not move as the needle was inserted, and, as the barbiturate began to flow into the vein, the anxious expression left his face and the muscles began to relax. By the time the injection was finished, the breathing had stopped.

“Is that it?” the old man whispered.

“Yes, that’s it,” I said. “He is out of his pain now.”

The old man stood motionless except for the clasping and unclasping of his hands. When he turned to face me his eyes were bright. “That’s right, we couldn’t let him suffer, and I’m grateful for what you’ve done. And now, what do I owe you for your services, sir?”

“Oh, that’s all right, Mr. Dean,” I said quickly. “It’s nothing—nothing at all. I was passing right by here—it was no trouble.”

The old man was astonished. “But you can’t do that for nothing.”

“Now please say no more about it, Mr. Dean. As I told you, I was passing right by your door.” I said goodbye and went out of the house, through the passage and into the street. In the bustle of people and the bright sunshine, I could still see only the stark, little room, the old man and his dead dog.

As I walked towards my car, I heard a shout behind me. The old man was shuffling excitedly towards me in his slippers. His cheeks were streaked and wet, but he was smiling. In his hand he held a small, brown object.

“You’ve been very kind, sir. I’ve got something for you.” He held out the object and I looked at it. It was tattered but just recognisable as a precious relic of a bygone celebration.

“Go on, it’s for you,” said the old man. “Have a cigar.”

TWELVE

I
T WAS UNFORTUNATE THAT
Siegfried ever had the idea of delegating the book-keeping to his brother, because Skeldale House had been passing through a period of peace and I found it soothing.

For nearly a fortnight there had been hardly a raised voice or an angry word except for one unpleasant interlude when Siegfried had come in and found his brother cycling along the passage. Tristan found all the rage and shouting quite incomprehensible—he had been given the job of setting the table and it was a long way from kitchen to dining-room; it seemed the most natural thing in the world to bring his bike in.