All Things Bright and Beautiful (8 page)

“I like the sound of it,” Tristan said. “But of course you don’t want to get the idea you’re home and dry or anything like that. You know there are others in the field?”

“Hell, yes, I suppose I’m one of a crowd.”

“Not exactly, but Helen Alderson is really something. Not just a looker but…mm-mm, very nice. There’s a touch of class about that girl.”

“Oh I know, I know. There’s bound to be a mob of blokes after her. Like young Richard Edmundson—I hear he’s very well placed.”

“That’s right,” Tristan said “Old friends of the family, big farmers, rolling in brass. I understand old man Alderson fancies Richard strongly as a son-in-law.”

I dug my hands into my pockets. “Can’t blame him. A ragged arsed young vet isn’t much competition.”

“Well, don’t be gloomy, old lad, you’ve made a bit of progress, haven’t you?”

“In a way,” I said with a wry smile. “I’ve taken her out twice—to a dinner dance which wasn’t on and to a cinema showing the wrong film. A dead loss the first time and not much better the second. I just don’t seem to have any luck there—something goes wrong every time. Maybe this invitation is just a polite gesture—returning hospitality or something like that.”

“Nonsense!” Tristan laughed and patted me on the shoulder. This is the beginning of better things. You’ll see—nothing will go wrong this time.”

And on Sunday afternoon as I got out of the car to open the gate to Heston Grange it did seem as if all was right with the world. The rough track snaked down from the gate through the fields to Helen’s home slumbering in the sunshine by the curving river, and the grey-stoned old building was like a restful haven against the stark backcloth of the fells beyond.

I leaned on the gate for a moment, breathing in the sweet air. There had been a change during the last week; the harsh winds had dropped, everything had softened and greened and the warming land gave off its scents. On the lower slopes of the fell, in the shade of the pine woods, a pale mist of bluebells drifted among the dead bronze of the bracken and their fragrance came up to me on the breeze.

I drove down the track among the cows relishing the tender young grass after their long winter in the byres and as I knocked on the farmhouse door I felt a surge of optimism and well-being. Helen’s younger sister answered and it wasn’t until I walked into the big flagged kitchen that I experienced a qualm. Maybe it was because it was so like that first disastrous time I had called for Helen; Mr. Alderson was there by the fireside, deep in the Farmer and Stockbreeder as before, while above his head the cows in the vast oil painting still paddled in the lake of startling blue under the shattered peaks. On the whitewashed wall the clock still tick-tocked inexorably.

Helen’s father looked up over his spectacles just as he had done before. “Good afternoon, young man, come and sit down.” And as I dropped into the chair opposite to him he looked at me uncertainly for a few seconds. “It’s a better day,” he murmured, then his eyes were drawn back irresistibly to the pages on his knee. As he bent his head and started to read again I gained the strong impression that he hadn’t the slightest idea who I was.

It came back to me forcibly that there was a big difference in coming to a farm as a vet and visiting socially. I was often in farm kitchens on my rounds, washing my hands in the sink after kicking my boots off in the porch, chatting effortlessly to the farmer’s wife about the sick beast. But here I was in my good suit sitting stiffly across from a silent little man whose daughter I had come to court. It wasn’t the same at all.

I was relieved when Helen came in carrying a cake which she placed on the big table. This wasn’t easy as the table was already loaded; ham and egg pies rubbing shoulders with snowy scones, a pickled tongue cheek by jowl with a bowl of mixed salad, luscious looking custard tarts jockeying for position with sausage rolls, tomato sandwiches, fairy cakes. In a clearing near the centre a vast trifle reared its cream-topped head. It was a real Yorkshire tea.

Helen came over to me. “Hello, Jim, it’s nice to see you—you’re quite a stranger.” She smiled her slow, friendly smile.

“Hello, Helen. Yes, you know what lambing time’s like. I hope things will ease up a bit now.”

“Well I hope so too. Hard work’s all right up to a point but you need a break some time. Anyway, come and have some tea. Are you hungry?”

“I am now,” I said, gazing at the packed foodstuffs. Helen laughed. “Well come on, sit in. Dad, leave your precious Farmer and Stockbreeder and come over here. We were going to sit you in the dining room, Jim, but Dad won’t have his tea anywhere but in here, so that’s all about it.”

I took my place along with Helen, young Tommy and Mary her brother and sister, and Auntie Lucy, Mr. Alderson’s widowed sister who had recently come to live with the family. Mr. Alderson groaned his way over the flags, collapsed onto a high-backed wooden chair and began to saw phlegmatically at the tongue.

As I accepted my laden plate I can’t say I felt entirely at ease. In the course of my work I had eaten many meals in the homes of the hospitable Dalesmen and I had discovered that light chatter was not welcomed at table. The accepted thing, particularly among the more old-fashioned types, was to put the food away in silence and get back on the job, but maybe this was different. Sunday tea might be a more social occasion; I looked round the table, waiting for somebody to lead the way.

Helen spoke up. “Jim’s had a busy time among the sheep since we saw him last.”

“Oh yes?” Auntie Lucy put her head on one side and smiled. She was a little bird-like woman, very like her brother and the way she looked at me made me feel she was on my side.

The young people regarded me fixedly with twitching mouths. The only other time I had met them they had found me an object of some amusement and things didn’t seem to have changed. Mr. Alderson sprinkled some salt on a radish, conveyed it to his mouth and crunched it impassively.

“Did you have much twin lamb disease this time, Jim?” Helen asked, trying again.

“Quite a bit,” I replied brightly. “Haven’t had much luck with treatment though. I tried dosing the ewes with glucose this year and I think it did a bit of good.”

Mr. Alderson swallowed the last of his radish. “I think nowt to glucose,” he grunted. “I’ve had a go with it and I think nowt to it.”

“Really?” I said. “Well now that’s interesting. Yes…yes…quite.”

I buried myself in my salad for a spell before offering a further contribution.

“There’s been a lot of sudden deaths in the lambs,” I said. “Seems to be more Pulpy Kidney about.”

“Fancy that,” said Auntie Lucy, smiling encouragingly.

“Yes,” I went on, getting into my stride. “It’s a good job we’ve got a vaccine against it now.”

“Wonderful things, those vaccines,” Helen chipped in. “You’ll soon be able to prevent a lot of the sheep diseases that way.” The conversation was warming up.

Mr. Alderson finished his tongue and pushed his plate away. “I think nowt to the vaccines. And those sudden deaths you’re on about—they’re caused by wool ball on t’stomach. Nowt to do wi’ the kidneys.”

“Ah yes, wool ball eh? I see, wool ball.” I subsided and decided to concentrate on the food.

And it was worth concentrating on. As I worked my way through I was aware of a growing sense of wonder that Helen had probably baked the entire spread. It was when my teeth were sinking into a poem of a curd tart that I really began to appreciate the miracle that somebody of Helen’s radiant attractiveness should be capable of this.

I looked across at her. She was a big girl, nothing like her little wisp of a father. She must have taken after her mother. Mrs. Alderson had been dead for many years and I wondered if she had had that same wide, generous mouth that smiled so easily, those same warm blue eyes under the soft mass of black-brown hair.

A spluttering from Tommy and Mary showed that they had been appreciatively observing me gawping at their sister.

“That’s enough, you two,” Auntie Lucy reproved. “Anyway you can go now, we’re going to clear the table.”

Helen and she began to move the dishes to the scullery beyond the door while Mr. Alderson and I returned to our chairs by the fireside.

The little man ushered me to mine with a vague wave of the hand. “Here…take a seat, er…young man.”

A clattering issued from the kitchen as the washing-up began. We were alone.

Mr. Alderson’s hand strayed automatically towards his Farmer and Stockbreeders but he withdrew it after a single hunted glance in my direction and began to drum his fingers on the arm of the chair, whistling softly under his breath.

I groped desperately for an opening gambit but came up with nothing. The ticking of the clock boomed out into the silence. I was beginning to break out into a sweat when the little man cleared his throat

“Pigs were a good trade on Monday,” he vouchsafed.

“They were, eh? Well, that’s fine—jolly good.”

Mr. Alderson nodded, fixed his gaze somewhere above my left shoulder and started drumming his fingers again. Once more the heavy silence blanketed us and the clock continued to hammer out its message.

After several years Mr. Alderson stirred in his seat and gave a little cough. I looked at him eagerly.

“Store cattle were down, though,” he said.

“Ah, too bad, what a pity,” I babbled. “But that’s how it goes, I suppose, eh?”

Helen’s father shrugged and we settled down again. This time I knew it was hopeless. My mind was a void and my companion had the defeated look of a man who has shot his conversational bolt. I lay back and studied the hams and sides of bacon hanging from their hooks in the ceiling, then I worked my way along the row of plates on the big oak dresser to a gaudy calendar from a cattle cake firm which dangled from a nail on the wall. I took a chance then and stole a glance at Mr. Alderson out of the corner of my eye and my toes curled as I saw he had chosen that precise moment to have a sideways peep at me. We both looked away hurriedly.

By shifting round in my seat and craning my neck I was able to get a view of the other side of the kitchen where there was an old-fashioned roll top desk surmounted by a wartime picture of Mr. Anderson looking very stern in the uniform of the Yorkshire Yeomanry, and I was proceeding along the wall from there when Helen opened the door and came quickly into the room.

“Dad,” she said, a little breathlessly. “Stan’s here. He says one of the cows is down with staggers.”

Her father jumped up in obvious relief. I think he was delighted he had a sick cow and I, too, felt like a released prisoner as I hurried out with him.

Stan, one of the cowmen, was waiting in the yard.

“She’s at t’op of t’field, boss,” he said. “I just spotted ’er when I went to get them in for milkin’.”

Mr. Alderson looked at me questioningly and I nodded at him as I opened the car door.

“I’ve got the stuff with me,” I said. “We’d better drive straight up.”

The three of us piled in and I set course to where I could see the stretched-out form of a cow near the wall in the top corner. My bottles and instruments rattled and clattered as we bumped over the rig and furrow.

This was something every vet gets used to in early summer; the urgent call to milk cows which have collapsed suddenly a week or two after being turned out to grass. The farmers called it grass staggers and as its scientific name of hypomagesaemia implied it was associated with lowered magnesium level in the blood. An alarming and highly fatal condition but fortunately curable by injection of magnesium in most cases.

Despite the seriousness of the occasion I couldn’t repress a twinge of satisfaction. It had got me out of the house and it gave me a chance to prove myself by doing something useful. Helen’s father and I hadn’t established anything like a rapport as yet, but maybe when I gave his unconscious cow my magic injection and it leaped to its feet and walked away he might look at me in a different light. And it often happened that way; some of the cures were really dramatic

“She’s still alive, any road,” Stan said as we roared over the grass. “I saw her legs move then.”

He was right, but as I pulled up and jumped from the car I felt a tingle of apprehension. Those legs were moving too much.

This was the kind that often died; the convulsive type. The animal, prone on her side, was pedalling frantically at the air with all four feet, her head stretched backwards, eyes staring, foam bubbling from her mouth. As I hurriedly unscrewed the cap from the bottle of magnesium lactate she stopped and went into a long, shuddering spasm, legs stiffly extended, eyes screwed tightly shut; then she relaxed and lay inert for a frightening few seconds before recommencing the wild thrashing with her legs.

My mouth had gone dry. This was a bad one. The strain on the heart during these spasms was enormous and each one could be her last.

I crouched by her side, my needle poised over the milk vein. My usual practice was to inject straight into the blood stream to achieve the quickest possible effect, but in this case I hesitated. Any interference with the heart’s action could kill this cow; best to play safe—I reached over and pushed the needle under the skin of the neck.

As the fluid ran in, bulging the subcutaneous tissues and starting a widening swelling under the roan-coloured hide, the cow went into another spasm. For an agonising few seconds she lay there, the quivering limbs reaching desperately out at nothing, the eyes disappearing deep down under tight-twisted lids. Helplessly I watched her, my heart thudding, and this time as she came out of the rigor and started to move again it wasn’t with the purposeful peddling of before; it was an aimless laboured pawing and as even this grew weaker her eyes slowly opened and gazed outwards with a vacant stare.

I bent and touched the cornea with my finger, there was no response.

The farmer and cowman looked at me in silence as the animal gave a final jerk then lay still.

“I’m afraid she’s dead, Mr. Alderson,” I said.

The farmer nodded and his eyes moved slowly over the still form, over the graceful limbs, the fine dark roan flanks, the big, turgid udder that would give no more milk.