James Herriot (27 page)

We were almost cheek to cheek as he breathed the words into my ear. “Ah know who’s to blame for this.”

“Really? Who is that?”

He made another swift check to ensure that nobody had sprung up through the ground then I felt his hot breath again. “It’s me landlord.”

“How do you mean?”

“Won’t do anything for me.” He brought his face round and looked at me wide-eyed before taking up his old position by my ear. “Been goin’ to drain this field for years but done nowt.”

I moved back. “Ah well, I can’t help that, Mr. Wentworth. In any case there’s other things you can do. You can kill the snails with copper sulphate—I’ll tell you about that later—but in the meantime I want to dose your bullock.”

I had some hexachlorethane with me in the car and I mixed it in a bottle of water and administered it to the animal. Despite his bulk he offered no resistance as I held his lower jaw and poured the medicine down his throat.

“He’s very weak, isn’t he?” I said.

The farmer gave me a haggard look. “He is that. I doubt he’s a goner.”

“Oh don’t give up hope, Mr. Wentworth. I know he looks terrible but if it is fluke then the treatment will do a lot for him. Let me know how he goes on.”

It was about a month later, on a market day, and I was strolling among the stalls which packed the cobbles. In front of the entrance to the Drovers’ Arms the usual press of farmers stood chatting among themselves, talking business with cattle dealers and corn merchants, while the shouts of the stallholders sounded over everything.

I was particularly fascinated by the man in charge of the sweet stall. He held up a paper bag and stuffed into it handfuls of assorted sweetmeats while he kept up a non-stop brazen-voiced commentary.

“Lovely peppermint drops! Delicious liquorice allsorts! How about some sugar candies! A couple o’ bars o’ chocolate! Let’s ’ave some butterscotch an’ all! Chuck in a beautiful slab o’ Turkish Delight!” Then holding the bulging bag aloft in triumph “ ’ere! ’ere! Who’ll give me a tanner for the lot?”

Amazing, I thought as I moved on. How did he do it? I was passing the door of the Drovers’ when a familiar voice hailed me.

“HEY! MR. HERRIOT!” There was no mistaking Len Hampson. He hove in front of me, red-faced and cheerful. “REMEMBER THAT PIG YE DOCTORED FOR ME?” He had clearly consumed a few market-day beers and his voice was louder than ever.

The packed mass of farmers pricked up their ears. There is nothing so intriguing as the ailments of another farmer’s livestock.

“Yes, of course, Mr. Hampson,” I replied.

“WELL ’E NEVER DID NO GOOD!” bawled Len.

I could see the farmers’ faces lighting up. It is more interesting still when things go wrong.

“Really? Well I’m sorry.”

“NAW ’E DIDN’T. AH’VE NEVER SEEN A PIG GO DOWN AS FAST!”

“Is that so?”

“AYE, FLESH JUST MELTED OFF ’IM!”

“Oh, what a pity. But if you recall I rather expected …”

“WENT DOWN TO SKIN AND BONE ‘E DID!” The great bellow rolled over the market place, drowning the puny cries of the stallholders. In fact the man with the sweets had suspended operations and was listening with as much interest as the others.

I looked around me uneasily. “Well, Mr. Hampson, I did warn you at the time …”

“LIKE A WALKIN’ SKELETON ’E WERE! NEVER SEEN SUCH A OBJECK!”

I realised Len wasn’t in the least complaining. He was just telling me, but for all that I wished he would stop.

“Well, thank you for letting me know,” I said. “Now I really must be off …”

“AH DON’T KNOW WHAT THEM POWDERS WERE YOU GAVE ’IM.”

I cleared my throat. “Actually they were …”

“THEY DID ’IM NO BLOODY GOOD ANY ROAD!”

“I see. Well as I say, I have to run …”

“AH GOT MALLOCK TO KNOCK ’IM ON T’HEAD LAST WEEK.”

“Oh dear …”

“FINISHED UP AS DOG MEAT, POOR BUGGER!”

“Quite … quite …”

“WELL, GOOD DAY TO YE, MR. HERRIOT.” He turned and walked away, leaving a quivering silence behind him.

With an uncomfortable feeling that I was the centre of attention. I was about to retreat hastily when I felt a gentle hand on my arm. I turned and saw Elijah Wentworth.

“Mr. Herriot,” he whispered. “About that bullock.”

I stared at him, struck by the coincidence. The farmers stared, too, but expectantly.

“Yes, Mr. Wentworth?”

“Well now, I’ll tell you.” He came very near and breathed into my ear. “It was like a miracle. He began to pick up straight away after you treated him.”

I stepped back. “Oh marvellous! But speak up, will you, I can’t quite hear you.” I looked around hopefully.

He came after me again and put his chin on my shoulder. “Yes, I don’t know what you gave ’im but it was wonderful stuff. I could hardly believe it. Every day I looked at ’im he had put on a bit more.”

“Great! But do speak a little louder,” I said eagerly.

“He’s as fat as butter now.” The almost inaudible murmur wafted on my cheek. “Ah’m sure he’ll get top grade at the auction mart.”

I backed away again. “Yes … yes … what was that you said?”

“I was sure he was dyin’, Mr. Herriot, but you saved him by your skill,” he said, but every word was pianissimo, sighed against my face.

The farmers had heard nothing and, their interest evaporating, they began to talk among themselves. Then as the man with the sweets started to fill his bags and shout again Mr. Wentworth moved in and confided softly and secretly into my private ear.

“That was the most brilliant and marvellous cure I ’ave ever seen.”

I
T MUST BE UNUSUAL
to feel senile in one’s twenties, but it was happening to me. There were a few men of my own age among my RAF friends but for the most part I was surrounded by eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds.

It seemed that the selection boards thought this the optimum age for training pilots, navigators and air gunners and I often wondered how we elderly gentlemen had managed to creep in.

These boys used to pull my leg. The fact that I was not merely married but a father put me in the dotage class, and the saddest part was that I really did feel old in their company. They were all having the most marvellous time; chasing the local girls, drinking, going to dances and parties, carried along on the frothy insouciance which a war engenders. And I often thought that if it had all happened a few years earlier I would have been doing the same.

But it was no good now. Most of me was still back in Darrowby. During the day there was enough pressure to keep my mind occupied; in the evenings when I was off the leash all I wanted to do were the simple things I had done with Helen; the long games of bezique by the fireside in our bed-sitter, tense battles on the push-ha’penny board; we even used to throw rings at hooks on a board on the wall. Kids’ games after a hard slog round the practice, but even now as I look down the years I know I have never found a better way of living.

It was when we were lying in bed one night that Helen brought up the subject of Granville Bennett.

“Jim,” she murmured sleepily. “Mr. Bennett ’phoned again today. And his wife rang last week. They keep asking us to have a meal with them.”

“Yes … yes …” I didn’t want to talk about anything at that moment. This was always a good time. The dying flames sent lights and shadows dancing across the ceiling. Oscar Rabin’s band was playing
Deep Purple
on the bedside radio Ewan Ross gave us for a wedding present and I had just pulled oft an unexpected victory at push-ha’penny. Helen was a dab hand at that game, urging the coins expertly up the board with the ball of her thumb, her lips pushed forward in a pout of concentration. Of course she had a lifetime of experience behind her while I was just learning, and it was inevitable that I seldom won. But I had done it tonight and I felt good.

My wife nudged me with her knee. “Jim, I can’t understand you. You never seem to do anything about it. And yet you say you like him.”

“Oh, I do, he’s a grand chap, one of the best.” Everybody liked Granville, but at the same time there were many strong men who dived down alleys at the sight of him. I didn’t like to tell Helen that every time I came into contact with him I got my wings singed. I fully realised that he meant well, that the whole thing was a natural extension of his extreme generosity. But it didn’t help.

“And you said his wife was very nice, too.”

“Zoe? Oh yes, she’s lovely.” And she was, too, but thanks to her husband she had never seen me in any other role than a drunken hulk. My toes curled under the blankets. Zoe was beautiful, kind and intelligent—just the kind of woman you wanted to observe you staggering and hiccuping all over the place. In the darkness I could feel the hot blush of shame on my cheeks.

“Well then,” Helen continued, with the persistence that is part of even the sweetest women. “Why don’t we accept their invitation? I’d rather like to meet them—and it’s a bit embarrassing when they keep ’phoning.”

I turned on my side. “Okay, we’ll go one of these days, I promise.”

But if it hadn’t been for the little papilloma on Sam’s lip I don’t think we would ever have got there. I noticed the thing—a growth smaller than a pea—near the left commissure when I was giving our beagle an illicit chocolate biscuit. It was a typical benign tumour and on anybody else’s dog I should have administered a quick local and whipped it off in a minute. But since it was Sam I turned pale and ’phoned Granville.

I have always been as soppy as any old lady over my pets and I suspect many of my colleagues are the same. I listened apprehensively to the buzz-buzz at the far end, then the big voice came on the line.

“Bennett here.”

“Hello, Granville, it’s …”

“Jim!” The boom of delight was flattering. “Where have you been hiding yourself, laddie?”

He didn’t know how near he was to the truth. I told him about Sam.

“Doesn’t sound much, old son, but I’ll have a look at him with pleasure. Tell you what. We’ve been trying to get you over here for a meal—why not bring the little chap with you?”

“Well …” A whole evening in Granville’s hands—it was a daunting prospect.

“Now don’t mess about Jim. You know, there’s a wonderful Indian restaurant in Newcastle. Zoe and I would love to take you both out there. It’s about time we met your wife, isn’t it?”

“Yes … of course it is. Indian restaurant eh?”

“Yes, laddie. Superb curries—mild, medium or blast your bloody head off. Onion bhajis, bhuna lamb, gorgeous nan bread.”

My mind was working fast. “Sounds marvellous, Granville.” It did seem fairly secure. He was most dangerous on his own territory and it would take forty-five minutes’ driving each way to Newcastle. Then maybe an hour and a half in the restaurant. I should be reasonably safe for most of the evening. There was just the bit at his house before we left—that was the only worry.

It was uncanny how he seemed to read my thoughts. “Before we leave, Jim, we’ll have a little session in my garden.”

“Your garden?” It sounded strange in November.

“That’s right old lad.”

Ah well, maybe he was proud of his late chrysanthemums, and I couldn’t see myself coming to much harm there. “Well, fine, Granville. Maybe Wednesday night?”

“Lovely, lovely, lovely—can’t wait to meet Helen.”

Wednesday was one of those bright frosty late autumn days which turn misty in the afternoon and by six o’clock the countryside was blanketed by one of the thickest fogs I had ever seen in Yorkshire.

Creeping along in our little car, my nose almost on the windscreen, I muttered against the glass.

“God’s truth, Helen, we’ll never get to Newcastle tonight! I know Granville’s some driver but you can’t see ten yards out there.”

Almost at walking pace we covered the twenty miles to the Bennett residence and it was with a feeling of relief that I saw the brightly lit doorway rising out of the mirk.

Granville, as vast and impressive as ever, was there in the hall with arms outspread. Bashfulness had never been one of his problems and he folded my wife in a bear-like embrace.

“Helen, my pet,” he said and kissed her fondly and lingeringly. He stopped to take a breath, regarded her for a moment with deep appreciation then kissed her again.

I shook hands decorously with Zoe and the two girls were introduced. They made quite a picture standing there. An attractive woman is a gift from heaven and it was a rare bonus to see two of them in close proximity. Helen very dark and blue-eyed, Zoe brown-haired with eyes of greyish-green, but both of them warm and smiling.

Zoe had her usual effect on me. That old feeling was welling up; the desire to look my best, in fact better than my best. I cast a furtive glance at the hall mirror. Immaculately suited, clean shirted, freshly shaven, I was sure I projected the desired image of the clean-limbed young veterinary surgeon, the newly married man of high principles and impeccable behaviour.

I breathed a silent prayer of thanks that at last she was seeing me stone cold sober and normal. Tonight I would expunge all her squalid memories of me from her mind.

“Zoe, my sweet,” carolled Granville. “Take Helen into the garden while I see Jim’s dog.”

I blinked. The garden in this fog. I just didn’t get it, but I was too anxious about Sam to give the thing much thought. I opened the car door and the beagle trotted into the house.

My colleague greeted him with delight “Come inside, my little man.” Then he hollered at the top of his voice.

“Phoebles! Victoria! Yoo-hoo! Come and meet cousin Sam!”

The obese Staffordshire bull terrier waddled in, closely followed by the Yorkie, who bared her teeth in an ingratiating smile at all present.

After the dogs had met and exchanged pleasantries Granville lifted Sam into his arms.

“Is that what you mean, Jim? Is that what you’re worried about?”

I nodded dumbly.

“Good God, I could take a deep breath and blow the damn thing off!” He looked at me incredulously and smiled. “Jim, old lad, why are you so daft about your dog?”

“Why do you call Phoebe Phoebles?” I countered swiftly.

“Oh well …” He cleared his throat “I’ll get my equipment. Hang on a minute.”