All Creatures Great and Small (59 page)

I ran my hand distractedly through my hair. My head was beginning to swim. “You make it all sound so easy.”

“But it IS easy!” Siegfried shot upright in his chair. “Go out and ask that girl without further delay and get her into church before the month is out!” He wagged a finger at me. “Learn to grasp the nettle of life, James. Throw off your hesitant ways and remember”—he clenched his fist and struck an attitude—“there is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood …”

“O.K., O.K.,” I said, rising wearily from my chair, “that’s enough, I get the message. I’m going to bed now.”

I don’t suppose I am the first person to have had his life fundamentally influenced by one of Siegfried’s chance outbursts. I thought his opinions ridiculous at the time but he planted a seed which germinated and flowered almost overnight. There is no doubt he is responsible for the fact that I was the father of a grown-up family while I was still a young man, because when I brought the subject up with Helen she said yes, she’d like to marry me and we set our eyes on an early date. She seemed surprised at first—maybe she had the same opinion of me as Siegfried and expected it would take me a few years to get off the ground.

Anyway, before I had time to think much more about it everything was neatly settled and I found I had made a magical transition from jeering at the whole idea to making plans for furnishing our prospective bedsitter at Skeldale House.

It was a blissful time with only one cloud on the horizon; but that cloud bulked large and forbidding. As I walked hand in hand with Helen, my thoughts in the air, she kept bringing me back to earth with an appealing look.

“You know, Jim, you’ll really have to speak to Dad. It’s time he knew.”

SIXTY-SIX

I
HAD BEEN WARNED
long before I qualified that country practice was a dirty, stinking job. I had accepted the fact and adjusted myself to it but there were times when this side of my life obtruded itself and became almost insupportable. Like now, when even after a long hot bath I still smelt.

As I hoisted myself from the steaming water I sniffed at my arm and there it was; the malodorous memory of that horrible cleansing at Tommy Dearlove’s striking triumphantly through all the soap and antiseptic, almost as fresh and pungent as it had been at four o’clock this afternoon. Nothing but time would remove it.

But something in me rebelled at the idea of crawling into bed in this state and I looked with something like desperation along the row of bottles on the bathroom shelf. I stopped at Mrs. Hall’s bath salts, shining violent pink in their big glass jar. This was something I’d never tried before and I tipped a small handful into the water round my feet. For a moment my head swam as the rising steam was suddenly charged with an aggressive sweetness then on an impulse I shook most of the jar’s contents into the bath and lowered myself once more under the surface.

For a long time I lay there smiling to myself in triumph as the oily liquid lapped around me. Not even Tommy Dearlove’s cleansing could survive this treatment.

The whole process had a stupefying effect on me and I was half asleep even as I sank back on the pillow. There followed a few moments of blissful floating before a delicious slumber claimed me. And when the bedside phone boomed in my ear the sense of injustice and personal affront was even stronger than usual. Blinking sleepily at the clock which said 1:15 a.m. I lifted the receiver and mumbled into it, but I was jerked suddenly wide awake when I recognised Mr. Alderson’s voice. Candy was calving and something was wrong. Would I come right away?

There has always been a “this is where I came in” feeling about a night call. And as my lights swept the cobbles of the deserted market place it was there again, a sense of returning to fundamentals, of really being me. The silent houses, the tight-drawn curtains, the long, empty street giving way to the stone walls of the country road flipping endlessly past on either side. At these times I was usually in a state of suspended animation, just sufficiently awake to steer the car in the right direction, but tonight I was fully alert, my mind ticking over anxiously.

Because Candy was something special. She was the house cow, a pretty little Jersey and Mr. Alderson’s particular pet. She was the sole member of her breed in the herd but whereas the milk from the shorthorns went into the churns to be collected by the big dairy, Candy’s rich yellow offering found its way on to the family porridge every morning or appeared heaped up on trifles and fruit pies or was made into butter, a golden creamy butter to make you dream.

But apart from all that, Mr. Alderson just liked the animal. He usually stopped opposite her on his way down the byre and began to hum to himself and gave her tall head a brief scratch as he passed. And I couldn’t blame him because I sometimes wish all cows were Jerseys: small, gentle, doe-eyed creatures you could push around without any trouble; with padded corners and fragile limbs. Even if they kicked you it was like a love tap compared with the clump from a craggy Friesian.

I just hoped it would be something simple with Candy, because my stock wasn’t high with Mr. Alderson and I had a nervous conviction that he wouldn’t react favourably if I started to make a ham-fisted job of calving his little favourite. I shrugged away my fears; obstetrics in the Jersey was usually easy.

Helen’s father was an efficient farmer. As I pulled up in the yard I could see into the lighted loose box where two buckets of water were steaming in readiness for me. A towel was draped over the half door and Stan and Bert, the two long-serving cowmen, were standing alongside their boss. Candy was lying comfortably in deep straw. She wasn’t straining and there was nothing visible at the vulva but the cow had a preoccupied, inward look as though all was not well with her.

I closed the door behind me. “Have you had a feel inside her, Mr. Alderson?”

“Aye, I’ve had me hand in and there’s nowt there.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Not a thing. She’d been on for a few hours and not showing so I popped me hand in and there’s no head, no legs, nowt. And not much room, either. That’s when I rang you.”

This sounded very strange. I hung my jacket on a nail and began thoughtfully to unbutton my shirt. It was when I was pulling it over my head that I noticed Mr. Alderson’s nose wrinkling. The farm men, too, began to sniff and look at each other wonderingly. Mrs. Hall’s bath salts, imprisoned under my clothing, had burst from their bondage in a sickly wave, filling the enclosed space with their strident message. Hurriedly I began to wash my arms in the hope that the alien odour might pass away but it seemed to get worse, welling from my warm skin, competing incongruously with the honest smells of cow, hay and straw. Nobody said anything. These men weren’t the type to make the ribald remark which would have enabled me to laugh the thing off. There was no ambiguity about this scent; it was voluptuously feminine and Bert and Stan stared at me open-mouthed. Mr. Alderson, his mouth turned down at the corners, his nostrils still twitching, kept his eyes fixed on the far wall.

Cringing inwardly I knelt behind the cow and in a moment my embarrassment was forgotten. The vagina was empty; a smooth passage narrowing rapidly to a small, ridged opening just wide enough to admit my hand. Beyond I could feel the feet and head of a calf. My spirits plummeted. Torsion of the uterus. There was going to be no easy victory for me here.

I sat back on my heels and turned to the farmer. “She’s got a twisted calf bed. There’s a live calf in there all right but there’s no way out for it—I can barely get my hand through.”

“Aye, I thought it was something peculiar.” Mr. Alderson rubbed his chin and looked at me doubtfully. “What can we do about it, then?”

“We’ll have to try to correct the twist by rolling the cow over while I keep hold of the calf. It’s a good job there’s plenty of us here.”

“And that’ll put everything right, will it?”

I swallowed. I didn’t like these jobs. Sometimes rolling worked and sometimes it didn’t and in those days we hadn’t quite got round to performing caesareans on cows. If I was unsuccessful I had the prospect of telling Mr. Alderson to send Candy to the butcher. I banished the thought quickly.

“It’ll put everything right,” I said. It had to. I stationed Bert at the front legs, Stan at the hind and had the farmer holding the cow’s head on the floor. Then I stretched myself on the hard concrete, pushed in a hand and grasped the calf’s foot.

“Now roll her,” I gasped, and the men pulled the legs round in a clockwise direction. I held fiercely to the little foot as the cow flopped on to her other side. Nothing seemed to be happening inside.

“Push her on to her chest,” I panted.

Stan and Bert expertly tucked the legs under the cow and rolled her on to her brisket and as she settled there I gave a yell of pain.

“Get her back, quick! We’re going the wrong way!” The smooth band of tissue had tightened on my wrist in a numbing grip of frightening power. For a moment I had the panicky impression that I’d never get out of there again.

But the men worked like lightning. Within seconds Candy was stretched out on her original side, the pressure was off my arm and we were back where we started.

I gritted my teeth and took a fresh grip on the calf’s foot. “O.K., try her the other way.”

This time the roll was anti-clockwise and we went through 180 degrees without anything happening. I only just kept my grasp on the foot—the resistance this time was tremendous. Taking a breather for a few seconds I lay face down while the sweat sprang out on my back, sending out fresh exotic vapours from the bath salts.

“Right. One more go!” I cried and the men hauled the cow further over.

And oh it was beautiful to feel everything magically unravelling and my arm lying free in a wide uterus with all the room in the world and the calf already beginning to slide towards me.

Candy summed up the situation immediately and for the first time gave a determined heaving strain. Sensing victory just round the corner she followed up with another prolonged effort which popped the calf wet and wriggling into my arms.

“By gum, it was quick at t’finish,” Mr. Alderson murmured wonderingly. He seized a wisp of hay and began to dry off the little creature.

Thankfully I soaped my arms in one of the buckets. After every delivery there is a feeling of relief but in this case it was overwhelming. It no longer mattered that the loose box smelt like a ladies’ hairdressing salon, I just felt good. I said good night to Bert and Stan as they returned to their beds, giving a final incredulous sniff as they passed me. Mr. Alderson was pottering about, having a word with Candy, then starting again on the calf which he had already rubbed down several times. He seemed fascinated by it. And I couldn’t blame him because it was like something out of Disney; a pale gold fawn, unbelievably tiny with large dark limpid eyes and an expression of trusting innocence. It was a heifer, too.

The farmer lifted it as if it were a whippet dog and laid it by its mother’s head. Candy nosed the little animal over, rumbling happily in her throat, then she began to lick it. I watched Mr. Alderson. He was standing, hands clasped behind him, rocking backwards and forwards on his heels, obviously enchanted by the scene. Any time now, I thought. And I was right; the toneless humming broke out, even louder than usual, like a joyful paean.

I stiffened in my Wellingtons. There would never be a better time. After a nervous cough I spoke up firmly.

“Mr. Alderson,” I said and he half turned his head. “I would like to marry your daughter.”

The humming was switched off abruptly and he turned slowly till he was facing me. He didn’t speak but his eyes searched my face unhappily. Then he bent stiffly, picked up the buckets one by one, tipped out the water and made for the door.

“You’d better come in the house,” he said.

The farmhouse kitchen looked lost and forsaken with the family abed. I sat in a high-backed wooden chair by the side of the empty hearth while Mr. Alderson put away his buckets, hung up the towel and washed his hands methodically at the sink, then he pottered through to the parlour and I heard him bumping and clinking about in the sideboard. When he reappeared he bore a tray in front of him on which a bottle of whisky and two glasses rattled gently. The tray lent the simple procedure an air of formality which was accentuated by the heavy cut crystal of the glasses and the virgin, unopened state of the bottle.

Mr. Alderson set the tray down on the kitchen table which he dragged nearer to us before settling in the chair at the other side of the fireplace. Nobody said, anything. I waited in the lengthening silence while he peered at the cap of the bottle like a man who had never seen one before then unscrewed it with slow apprehension as though he feared it might blow up in his face.

Finally he poured out two measures with the utmost gravity and precision, ducking his head frequently to compare the levels in the two glasses, and with a last touch of ceremony proffered the laden tray.

I took my drink and waited expectantly.

Mr. Alderson looked into the lifeless fireplace for a minute or two then he directed his gaze upwards at the oil painting of the paddling cows which hung above the mantelpiece. He pursed his lips as though about to whistle but appeared to change his mind and without salutation took a gulp of his whisky which sent him into a paroxysm of coughing from which it took him some time to recover. When his breathing had returned to normal he sat up straight and fixed me with two streaming eyes. He cleared his throat and I felt a certain tension.

“Aye well,” he said, “it’s grand hay weather.”

I agreed with him and he looked round the kitchen with the interested stare of a total stranger. Having completed his inspection he took another copious swallow from his glass, grimaced, closed his eyes, shook his head violently a few times, then leaned forward.

“Mind you,” he said, “a night’s rain would do a lot o’ good.”

I gave my opinion that it undoubtedly would and the silence fell again. It lasted even longer this time and my host kept drinking his whisky as though he was getting used to it. And I could see that it was having a relaxing effect; the strained lines on his face were beginning to smooth out and his eyes were losing their hunted look.