Ever by My Side (21 page)

Dad nodded, as if he wanted to let me know he was listening.

“I felt like I had found a key I didn’t even realize I had been looking for. I have no idea if I’m going to be able to use it. I don’t know whether it will unlock any doors. All I
do
know is having found it, I should probably pick it up, try it out, and see what opens up.”

Dad stopped nodding, made to speak but hesitated, and I sensed he was racing ahead, pausing as he took this information to its logical conclusion.

“So, if I’m not mistaken, this means you’re not really interested in general veterinary work, period?”

I knew he was already way ahead, but I said, “That’s right. I’m just not sure it’s right for me.”

I could almost see my father’s brain joining the dots.

“So, no interest in working with farm animals? Or horses for that matter?”

What he really meant was, this is my last appeal for rural veterinary practice in the Yorkshire Dales.

“It’s not that I don’t have any interest. I do. But I think I would be happier and, hopefully, do better focusing on a small, single, specific area of veterinary medicine and for me, that area would be surgery.”

“Does this mean you’ll be leaving us for America,
permanently
?”

“No,” I said, “I don’t see why it should. We’ve got exactly the same kinds of specialized equipment as they do across the pond. And besides, we’re supposed to be the ‘nation of animal lovers’ and not them and that should mean plenty of call for a vet with good surgical skills on this side of the Atlantic.”

My father came to an abrupt halt, paused, and called the dogs.

“Time to turn around,” he said, already heading back.

Bess was on it, quickly turning fifty yards back into fifty yards ahead. Whiskey, on the other hand, required several calls before he emerged from a hedgerow, blowing by us, treating us to the sight of a brown stain along the fur of his back and the fleeting aroma of something feral and decomposed.

“Looks like the ‘lion-hearted fellow’ is going to need a bath when he gets home,” I said, hoping to get a rise, but Dad didn’t seem to hear me and we walked in silence for a while. I imagined he was probably letting what I had shared sink in, and at the same time, I worried that he was thinking I saw myself as too good for general practice. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Humility had been high on his list of priorities to instill in his children.
“Always hide your light under a bushel,” he would say, but this was different. Ambition is not the same as conceit.

We reached the point where we needed to put Whiskey and Bess back on their leashes, but before my father called for them, he turned squarely to face me, reached out, and squeezed my upper arms.

“I want you to know that if you’re happy, then your mother and I are happy. Whatever that is. Wherever that takes you.” I saw the familiar intensity in his eyes, fiery, trapped somewhere between anger and tears, and he gave me an extra squeeze with his hands, as if to underscore the sentiment. “You understand.”

“Yes,” I said, lasting as long as I could without crying myself.

We set off and this time when I offered to take Bess’s leash he gave it up. She let me walk her for a while, but I could tell she was restless, the balance seemed off for her, and within a hundred yards my father had taken her back, her stride instantly happier, her demeanor less confused.

“You know this doesn’t mean I don’t like the Dales.”

“Of course,” he said. “What’s not to like? What’s not to love? It was just that … having you up here, working, while I was in my retirement, well, it was only ever a pipe dream. No harm in dreaming, eh?”

“No, of course not. And who knows how things will turn out.”

At this my father refused to meet my eye, perhaps because he knew better.

“But part of me feels as though I’ve let you down.”

“Don’t. Please,” said Dad. “Not on my account.” He paused, and then added, “So long as the pups always get to the front of the queue if they need a veterinary consult from yours truly.”

“Sure,” I said. “If Whiskey will ever let me.”

It was his turn to smile, and I remember feeling good, pleased to have broached the subject and cleared the air about my imagined role in that whole Herriot fantasy. I had sought and obtained his
approval for the direction I wanted my career to take, a path at odds with his own dreams. It would be decades before I came to appreciate how selfless my father, like so many good parents, had been that day. He knew there was nothing he could do or say, that argument and condemnation would surely lead to isolation. So he chose the tough option—the sacrifice of unconditional support.

“So,” I said, “when are you thinking of moving up to the Dales permanently?”

“Couple more years,” said Dad. “I’m going to have to be careful though. These two will probably have to be on leash walks for the rest of their days.”

I considered this aspect of Herriot country, spectacular walks and hikes, and all of it through potentially hostile farmland. There were cows everywhere and they were sparse by comparison to the number of sheep. Bess would lose it if she ever got off her leash. And then Dad would lose her. How frustrating, I thought, to be tethered, in all that wonderful open space, because you’ve never learned how to ignore livestock. Or rather, never been taught.

“Did Nigel enjoy the trip?”

By this time we were back in the first field, our last field of the walk, Bess’s cow field, though once again there were no cows in sight.

“Yeah, he had a great time.”

My friend Nigel and I had taken many trips together during our summer vacations when I wasn’t immersed in matters veterinary. Most of Europe, Pakistan, China, Hong Kong, and Thailand had been checked off and therefore it seemed only natural to fly west. Nigel had joined me after my formal training program was complete, and the two of us had been up and down the East Coast, driven across the Midwest, and up and down the West Coast, all in a hectic three-week tour.

“But he doesn’t think I’m much cop as a vet.”

I couldn’t hide my smile.

“Why’s that?”

This was my cue to narrate a story from our road trip, when we drove a dilapidated Ford Tempo (a vehicle now extinct) from Washington, D.C., to Phoenix, Arizona. Late in the day we had crossed the mighty Mississippi in St. Louis, taken a peek at the Arch, and were looking for a place to sleep somewhere on the border between Missouri and Kansas. We were both exhausted, our concentration and nerves shot from driving on the wrong side of the road, constantly buffeted by the biggest trucks we had ever seen, and so we pulled over at some kind of campsite just off Highway 70.

“You sure about this?”

“Not really,” said Nigel, sharing my trepidation as we stopped outside a single-story wooden building that looked remarkably similar to the Bates Motel in
Psycho
.

“I don’t see anywhere to pitch a tent.”

“Maybe it’s out back,” said Nigel as the two of us headed toward a porch lit by hanging lanterns. It was a ridiculously hot and sticky night and as we rang the bell, moths the size of crows flew kamikaze missions all around.

“You lookin’ for somewhere to camp?”

The question came from a compact, wizened old woman with thick braided gray hair coursing down her back.

“Help yourself,” she said, looking the two of us up and down in the manner of someone inspecting a cut of beef for Sunday dinner. Then she smiled a cruel yellow smile that stayed in place for an unnaturally long period of time. She didn’t ask us to register. She didn’t ask for any money. She just thumbed over her shoulder and added, “Go wherever y’like,” which we took to mean “I’m gonna kill you anyway, but I likes me a challenge!”

We thanked her and backed off, trying to match her smile as we
did, and drove around the back of the building, the old Tempo’s headlights playing across a totally deserted campground. Save for the occasional tumbleweed blowing around there appeared to be no one else but us. There were, however, rows of empty campsites demarcated by small trees as far as we could see.

“You want to stay?” I asked.

“Not really,” said Nigel. “But in spite of Norman Bates’s mum I think it’s too late to find something better.”

I agreed and so we pitched our tent, trying to laugh off our paranoia.

Nigel was already cocooned inside in his sleeping bag and I was zipping up the tent when I thought I saw something moving between the trees.

“D’you see that?”

“No,” said Nigel, working his apathy into the single syllable.

I watched and waited but nothing moved.

“What?” asked Nigel, clearly unable to put the element of unease to rest.

“I don’t know. I thought I saw something moving, a shadow of something.”

“What kind of something?”

“Something big.”

“You mean grizzly-bear big, mountain-lion big, or gray-haired-lady-deranged-killer-who-doesn’t-ask-for-money-because-she-knows-she’s-going-to-get-it-anyway big?”

“Could have been any or all of the above.”

“Perfect,” he said. “How are we ever going to sleep out here?”

I didn’t bother answering, I was too busy listening.

This time we both heard the unmistakable snap of a twig.

“Seriously,” I whispered, “they have all kinds of dangerous stuff out here. And I’m talking a whole lot bigger than badgers and foxes. Rabid too!”

“Seriously,” said Nigel, “why are you whispering?”

And with that something feral, focused, and determined lunged at the bottom of the tent, the weight of the creature pressing on the canvas walls.

What followed was not the response of experienced mountain men, or men, period, for that matter. There was much kicking and inappropriately high-pitched screaming, as our sleeping-bag-encased feet beat back hungry teeth and raking claws. Soon we were both sitting up, catching our breath.

“I’m pretty sure I made some sort of contact,” said Nigel.

“With what?”

“How should I know? You’re the animal doctor.”

We waited, fighting to control the noise of our own breathing so we could hear what was going on outside.

“You think it’s gone?” said Nigel.

“Oh yeah,” I said, “I’m sure it’s completely satiated by its encounter!”

“Well I’m not lying here waiting to be devoured,” said Nigel. “I vote we sleep in the car.”

He would get no argument from me and so, after a period of lengthy surveillance for the creature of the night or the crazy lady from reception, we both made a mad dash back to the security of the Tempo.

Needless to say, the following morning, the two of us emerged from our cramped sanctuary as cranky, stiff, red-eyed monsters.

In the light of day I recognized our attacker, moving slowly toward us, a subtle limp in her front leg from where my best friend’s big toe had landed a cushioned blow.

“I think this might be our rabid mountain lion,” I said, bending down to pet a small gray-haired kitten.

She was incredibly friendly and obviously hungry, and after I checked her over to make sure there was nothing swollen or broken in her front leg, we offered her some food.

“Some vet you are,” said Nigel. “For all the dogs you’ve had, it might be time to get a cat.”

I couldn’t argue the point as I squatted down to have my picture taken stroking this delightful, yet abominable creature. Little did I know that I would first see this photograph on my wedding day, in a poster-sized version. The accompanying story was presented as part of Nigel’s best man’s speech, evidence of my fear of cats (though this humiliation was nothing compared to the photograph of me sporting a perm—to this day I swear the hairdresser promised me her product would simply provide my flat hair with a little bit more body)!

“Ah, son, not to worry,” said my father when I finished the story. “Easy mistake, especially for someone who’s grown up around dogs and not cats.”

Of course I wasn’t worried, just a little embarrassed, but what struck me was the way my father jumped to my defense, eager to provide a valid excuse. Amazing, I thought, how that parental “papa bear” or “mama bear” instinct to protect never goes away.

“Why haven’t we ever had a cat?” I asked, as Dad and I left the footpath behind and headed down a gravel trail, over a brook, and back to the world of asphalt and concrete that led to our house.

Dad looked at me as though I had come up with a novel idea.

“We had cats when I was a kid,” he said, adding, “lots of them.” Then he took a moment to sift through these memories until he found the answer. “For me, it always comes back to not being able to know what they’re thinking. You look into a dog’s eyes and they let you know what’s on their minds by their expression. With cats, there’s not much written on their face.”

“Maybe not,” I said, “but there’s usually a great deal written in their body. Besides, I think the element of mystery and independence is part of their appeal.”

Dad’s shrug told me he couldn’t argue the point, but at the same time, he didn’t necessarily agree.

There was more to my story, but I like to think he and I just ran out of time, our final walk across those memorable fields at an end, our cue for the conversation to conclude. Looking back, though, I think it was more that I chose not to let him in on the last part of my story, because it was, after all, more of a feeling than an actual event.

Nigel and I had only a few days left before we returned to England. We were driving down Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles on the way to the beach to “catch a few rays” and “play a little Frisbee” (by the end of the trip we were trying a little too hard to be hip to the local jargon and it never felt right coming from us). We had ditched the Ford Tempo and suitably upgraded to a friend’s Jeep convertible, so, as you can imagine, we were feeling pretty good.

“Why is it,” said Nigel, “when you watch a movie, and it’s filmed somewhere on the East Coast, the ocean is always on the right of the screen, but in California, the ocean is always on the left. Why is that?”

I thought about it, tried to summon up an appropriate waterfront scene in
Jagged Edge
or
Fatal Attraction
, and couldn’t, but reckoned he was probably right.