Читать книгу Pets on Parade - Malcolm Welshman - Страница 12

I’d first bumped into Lucy last June, on the day I went for an interview at Prospect House – ‘bumped’ in the literal sense of the word.

I’d breezed in that day, surprisingly undaunted by the prospect of the interview, although I was aware that one of the Principals of the practice, Dr Crystal Sharpe, had quite a reputation in the veterinary world as a leading figure in hospital management – in fact, she had been instrumental in turning Prospect House into the country’s first small animal hospital some 26 years earlier; and I already knew from papers she’d had published in the Veterinary Record that she had a keen interest in orthopaedics and was on several high-profile committees dealing with issues of animal welfare.

Bounding through the front door, I almost tripped over the young nurse. She was behind it, stooped over a mop, wiping the floor.

‘Whoops, sorry,’ I exclaimed, careering to one side, narrowly missing her. I was aware of hazel eyes, blonde wispy hair, a lock of which had fallen loose across her forehead, and an elfin-like, freckled face which was to jump about in my imagination during the weeks to come.

It was the Richardsons’ foaling that brought us together – difficult, fussy clients of Crystal’s. Lucy had helped out that night, as unflappable and efficient as she was with the Stockwells. After the foaling, we’d driven back over the Downs as dawn had broken, the eastern sky a ribbon of pink. I’d stopped to look across undulating fields slowly being brushed with yellow by the rising sun and, on the coast, the sea had begun to sparkle like a necklace of diamonds being gradually drawn from its black velvet box. We’d sat in companionable silence, absorbing the view until I reached over and tentatively laid my hand on hers. It wasn’t retracted. How different this latest encounter at the Stockwells had been – a blanket of fog … a cold, depressing outlook … the slamming of a gate about to fall apart. It didn’t bode well.

Yet, in the previous six months, we’d got along fine. There had been ups and downs, but nothing that couldn’t be sorted. And during that time, we were very lucky to have the practice cottage, Willow Wren – over the Downs at Ashton – at our disposal. It was the end of a terrace of three 19th-century labourers’ cottages – the other two now converted into one – and had been built by the village pond with its fringe of willows, hence the name. The pond disappeared in the 1970s to be replaced by bland, lookalike, three-bedroom properties which now surrounded the cottage to the east and south, although an original high, flint wall granted a degree of privacy for its long, narrow back garden.

At the front of the property was a tiny square of lawn which you could look out onto from the lounge and the bedroom above it; beyond, through a coppice of spindly silver birches and three towering beech trees, in which there was a large rookery, you could just make out St Mary’s Church, the incumbent of which, Reverend James, was to become a colourful character in our lives.

The cottage itself was whitewashed with a red-tiled roof sloping down to a more recently added kitchen. The two ground-floor rooms had been knocked into one, the original oak beams of the ceilings, still with their chamfered edges, exposed, and the large fireplace, concealed for years behind 1950s and then 1970s-styled fire surrounds, had been uncovered and restored with a new honey-coloured oak bressumer and a facing of old bricks. The kitchen door led onto a small, south-facing patio, a great suntrap sheltered by the wooden panels of next door’s fence. Here we were to enjoy many alfresco meals, but also some moody ones, as our relationship bucked and swayed.

There was a small, raised brick edging to the patio, beyond which a narrow lawn stretched down parallel to the wall, the border between the two a mass of cottage garden-style bulbs, shrubs and plants. It was a delight to get on the Internet and track down the names of the different species and I anticipated the arrival of spring when some of the shrubs would burst into bloom. Little did I realise that, when that time came, my anguished thoughts would be elsewhere, pushing the yellow of forsythia, the sweet smelling pink of daphnia and the striking red of japonica to the furthest recesses of my mind.

What delighted Lucy the most when she first moved in with me – apart from the limitless sex on offer – was the discovery of a row of small aviaries running down the length of the flint wall, partially buried beneath a jungle of rambling roses and brambles.

‘What a find!’ she exclaimed enthusiastically. ‘It’s just what I want …’ a phrase I heard on several occasions in our bedroom, as well.

Within days, she’d trained in the roses and hacked back the brambles; she then set to on restoring the flights, converting them into accommodation for her collection of budgerigars, one rabbit and two guinea pigs.

To this small menagerie was later added Gertie, our Embden goose, given to me to fatten up for Christmas, but becoming a pet when she alerted us to an impending burglary.

Then there were three cats, headed by Queenie, a longhaired, white-and-grey Persian, who reigned over the others, hence her title; and an elderly, sweet-natured, but deaf, Jack Russell called Nelson – the black patch over his left eye accounting for his name, despite Lord Nelson having been blinded in his right eye. His previous owner, an elderly lady who had gone into a residential home, obviously hadn’t been that strong on her history. Perhaps she would have been safer calling him Patch.

Lucy and I had been in Willow Wren just over two months, delighting in its garden and delighting in each other, when Joan and Doug Spencer, our neighbours next door in Mill Cottage, informed us they were selling up.

‘We want to be nearer our daughter over in Gloucestershire,’ Joan explained. ‘And what with the two grandchildren growing up so fast, we felt it best to make the move now.’

‘Wonder who we’ll get as new neighbours?’ pondered Lucy, peeping out of the front window as the ‘For Sale’ board went up next door.

The Spencers had kept themselves very much to themselves and were extremely tolerant of all that went on in our cottage, especially as the partition wall was thin and none too soundproof … as I discovered one weekend when I was attempting to do a patch-up job in the bathroom. The timber-framed dividing wall had plaster infill, layered on laths of wood, and one small section of plaster just above floor level had dropped out. I was on hands and knees, prising out the loose edges, when a strip of exposed wood splintered, and plaster on the Spencers’ side fell away, leaving a gaping hole.

‘Bloody hell,’ I muttered. I’m not sure what it is about peepholes but the very name conjures up an eye voyeuristically peering through, spying on whoever might be on the other side. And I confess I was guilty of being one of those Peeping Toms. I was squinting through the hole just as Joan came into her bathroom, pulled down her knickers and squatted on the loo, inches away from my face. Whoops.

Doug was very understanding about my botched attempt at DIY. ‘That’s the problem with old houses,’ he said cheerfully, as he set to and repaired their damaged side of the partition wall with me watching – from his side not mine. ‘You never know what you’re going to find.’

I agreed wholeheartedly, as I tried to banish the image of his wife with her knickers round her ankles.

It was only a matter of a week or so before their cottage was sold and a speedy completion meant the Spencers moved out in late August.

‘I think you’ll like the new owner,’ said Joan, coming round to say her goodbyes, as the removals van shunted its way out of the hard standing adjacent to their cottage and, with much grating of gears, pushed down through the tunnel of silver birch trees and out past Willow Wren. ‘She’s a widow whose son lives over in Chawcombe. He’s the vicar of St Augustine’s.’

‘Oh, you mean Charles Venables,’ I exclaimed.

‘You know him?’

I did. Well, sort of. Only last month, I’d been coerced into judging the pets at St Augustine’s annual church fête – a last-minute replacement for their usual vet who had gone suspiciously AWOL. I could see why he had done so, once the judging got under way. It was a chaotic, shambolic affair and, in the end, suffering from the plethora of demanding, threatening owners and the seemingly endless number of fat, slobbering black Labradors that were presented to me, I decided the winner would be a lad with a well-behaved Labrador, not realising I’d chosen the Reverend Charles’ own dog. All very embarrassing.

Once the Spencers had departed, we awaited, with interest, the arrival of Mrs Venables. Not that we were being nosey, mind you. Just a little curious. I wouldn’t want anyone to think we suffered from what I call ‘net curtain twitch’. But Lucy and I were both standing to one side of the upstairs bedroom window – the best vantage point – mugs of coffee in our hands, when the removals men arrived and started unloading the lady’s belongings from the back of their van, which they’d conveniently reversed up really close, enabling us to peer straight down into it. Excellent.

‘Hey, look,’ exclaimed Lucy, using a finger to move the curtain slightly back to get a better view, ‘she’s got a piano.’ It was a small upright, nothing grand. ‘Wonder if she plays?’

‘No doubt we’ll hear if she does,’ I replied, thinking of the lack of sound-proofing.

‘That’s a nice dining table. Looks Victorian,’ she said, as the removals men manoeuvred an elegant, oval table with pedestal legs down the ramp. ‘And that chaise. Very classy,’ she added. ‘Although I don’t like the red brocade. Bit old-fashioned. Still, she’s certainly got some tasteful pieces.’

‘Honestly, Lucy,’ I said, pulling her away from the window. ‘Don’t be so nosey.’ But I couldn’t resist one last look and spotted a removals man carrying in a large aspidistra in an ornate, green-and-purple china pot. Nice.

When, the next day, Mrs Venables came round to introduce herself, she was very much as I’d expected a lady who owned a piano and an aspidistra to be. Mind you, we’d already sussed her, watching her the day before, trotting in and out to the removals van, giving orders in a crisp, no-nonsense tone of voice, very much in control – not that we could actually hear what she was saying, try as we might – the outer walls of the cottage were solid and over a foot deep, and we thought it a little too obvious to open the window. We weren’t that nosey. Besides, later, we could always put our ears to the partition wall.

‘Hello, I’m your new neighbour,’ she said when I opened the front door. ‘Eleanor Venables. Thought I’d pop round to make myself known.’ She held out her hand and we exchanged a very firm handshake. I judged Eleanor to be in her early sixties. She had a round moon face, a little wrinkled round the eyes, echoed by a deep line running down from each corner of her mouth, which had the effect of divorcing her chin from the rest of her features and gave the impression of a ventriloquist’s dummy being manipulated from behind – the chin jolted up and down when she spoke. The impression was maintained by brown eyes, flecked with grey, which swivelled past my shoulder as she took in the contents of our tiny hallway and then zeroed in to fix on me. But this lady was no dummy. You could tell from the cut of the heather tweed jacket and skirt she was wearing and the finely embroidered white blouse that Eleanor had taste. And the thick sweep of platinum-grey hair, tied back in a perfect chignon, gave her a slightly imperial image, which, coupled with the fragrance of lily of the valley – a perfume my mother adored – made for an attractive if slightly formidable lady – one who I envisaged could make an ideal president of the local Women’s Institute, and run it with charm and decorum while ensuring everything got done exactly the way she wanted.

Her way, at that precise moment, was to be asked in, and, having introduced myself, I felt obliged to invite her to step inside. ‘I’m afraid it’s a bit of a mess,’ I apologised as Eleanor surged past me and swept into our living room.

‘But charming all the same,’ she replied. ‘I do so like your fireplace. I have a similar one, although mine has the original brickwork.’ She walked over to the fireplace and ran her hand down the brick veneer. ‘That could always be taken off I suppose.’ She reached up and patted the oak bressumer. ‘Mine’s original. But at least this one’s in keeping.’

I felt the tic in my temple begin to start up. Ever so slightly, but there nevertheless.

‘Still,’ she said, turning to me, ‘we must feel privileged to live in something that’s part of our national heritage. Don’t you think?’ She arched her grey eyebrows imperiously.

I couldn’t argue with that; and didn’t dare.

The sound of the back door opening was a welcome distraction. Lucy’s voice called out from the kitchen. ‘Paul, Bugsie’s got the bloody squits again. I told you we should have cut down on his greens.’

‘Er, Lucy,’ I shouted, ‘our new neighbour’s just popped round to see us.’ I smiled weakly at Eleanor.

‘Oh shit, sorry.’ It was Lucy again. ‘Just get my boots off. Won’t be a sec.’

Eleanor’s chin worked up and down. ‘So tell me, Paul, how long have you and, er – Lucy, is it? – lived here?’

‘Just on three months,’ interrupted Lucy, emerging from the kitchen in stockinged feet. ‘Hello, I’m Lucy.’

Eleanor stretched out her hand.

‘Better not,’ said Lucy, ‘just been mucking out Bugsie’s hutch.’

Eleanor’s hand was rapidly withdrawn.

‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’

‘Er, maybe another time. When you’re not so busy.’

And not so dirty, I’m sure she was thinking.

‘Oh, we’re always busy, aren’t we, Paul?’ said Lucy, pushing a strand of hair from her eye. ‘That’s the way it is when you have animals.’ As if on cue, Nelson snuffled through from where he’d been snoozing in the kitchen and stopped a metre or so from Eleanor.

The terrier looked up at her with rheumy eyes and emitted a high-pitched woof.

Startled, Eleanor took a step back.

‘Don’t worry,’ I reassured. ‘Nelson’s perfectly harmless. A real softie. But he’s getting on and is a bit deaf.’ I bent down and tickled Nelson’s ears. He gave another little woof vaguely in the direction of Eleanor and then, having decided he’d done his duty by alerting us to the presence of a stranger in the cottage, he ambled back to his box in the kitchen.

‘Have you any pets?’ I asked her, thinking that she wasn’t really the type to have a pet; besides, I hadn’t seen any sign of one yesterday. So I was surprised when she told us that, yes, she did have a pet – a tortoiseshell cat called Tammy. As she mentioned the cat’s name, her face lit up.

‘She is very independent,’ Eleanor said. ‘But then aren’t all cats?’ She uttered a tinkling laugh.

Uhmm … I could foresee problems arising when Queenie and co. met the new cat on their territory.

‘You can say that again,’ said Lucy, heartily. ‘My Queenie can be an absolute bugger.’

Eleanor’s face dropped. Her chin snapped up and down. ‘Well, I’m sure we’ll all get along,’ she said, a little hesitantly, her confidence ebbing slightly. ‘Meanwhile, I mustn’t keep you. I’ve got lots to do as you can imagine.’

‘Do you need anything,’ asked Lucy, wiping her hands down the sides of her jeans. ‘Milk, sugar?’

Eleanor shook her head firmly. ‘Oh no, dear. I brought everything with me. I always like to be well prepared.’

I’m sure you do, Eleanor, I thought. I’m sure you do. But it turned out she wasn’t prepared for what occurred in the ensuing months.