Pets on Parade (Prospect House 2) (20 page)

I listened, my heart sinking the more I heard about her plan. ‘Honestly, Luce, I really think that’s taking things too far.’

‘Nonsense,’ she retorted, visibly hardening while I found myself going in the opposite direction, passion killed. ‘There’s nothing lost by doing it.’

Only my self-respect and professional dignity, I thought miserably.

But Lucy being Lucy, I felt obliged to go along with her; so the following day found me down in Westcott town centre during my lunch break, standing nervously in ‘Let’s Party’, the fancy-dress shop tucked away down a side street, waiting to collect the magician’s outfit – black cape with red satin lining and secret pockets, magic wand and top hat – that Lucy had phoned up about and which had been put by for me to collect.

‘What are you going to conjure up then?’ joked the assistant, as she popped the items in a large carrier bag.

You might well ask, I thought, giving her a wan smile and a non-committal reply.

Once back at Prospect House, I sneaked down into the office thankful that no one was around to see me, and secreted the carrier bag behind an armchair. But, as if by magic, the office suddenly filled up. First Beryl, up from her lunchtime fag by the back door.

‘Oh, you’re back,’ she said, staring suspiciously round the room. ‘Lucy asked me to book an appointment for that magician chappie this afternoon. He’s coming in at 4.00pm, just after your tea break.’ She looked at me quizzically. ‘What’s this all about then?’

‘Er … nothing really. Just something I wanted to discuss with Mr Grimaldi, that’s all.’

Next, in bounced Eric, clapping his hands together. ‘Hear we’re in for a bit of a treat this afternoon, Paul,’ he said heartily.

‘What treat?’ queried Beryl, turning to him.

‘Overheard Mandy quizzing Lucy about the rabbit she’s brought back. Bugsie, I think. Seems there’s going to be a bit of a show this afternoon. So where’s the outfit then?’ Eric raised a questioning eyebrow at me.

‘Outfit?’ queried Beryl, swinging round on me.

‘What’s this about an outfit?’ another voice asked. It was Crystal – she’d just marched in.

Oh Gawd. I now had the three of them gawping at me. Keeping things under wraps in this place was impossible; so I dragged out the carrier bag and explained what I intended to do. Crystal and Eric looked at one another and shook their heads in disbelief while Beryl’s features rapidly set in their bashed-with-a-brick-owl mode. ‘You’re barmy,’ she muttered over her hunched shoulder as she slithered, slug-like, back up to reception.

I guessed I probably did have a screw loose; but I blamed it all on Lucy’s determination to give it a whirl. And a whirl I did give, feeling an absolute prat, as I flounced round the consulting room wearing the cloak. I stopped short of donning the top hat – it was too small in any case – and had the satisfaction, at least, of seeing Mr Grimaldi mesmerised by my appalling attempt to magic Bugsie from the cloak’s deep inner pocket.

Bugsie was quite unperturbed as I fished him out. It was me who struggled to keep my balance and, more importantly, my composure; I could feel myself going red with embarrassment as I finally managed to lever Bugsie onto the consulting table, where he sat, his nose twitching, making no attempt to hop away.

Mr Grimaldi magicked a red silk hanky from his sleeve and dabbed at the tears running down his cheeks – this time tears of laughter. ‘Oh my dear boy,’ he cried, ‘you’re utterly useless.’

Thanks a bunch, mate, I thought crossly. I’m only trying to do my best.

Which is what Mr Grimaldi reiterated, saying I had tried to do my best – there was a stifled snigger at that point – which sort of ruined his sentiment. But he controlled himself, and said he genuinely appreciated the effort I’d made to convince him that Bugsie might be suitable. And, indeed, he could see the little chap seemed remarkably unfazed by everything that had gone on. So, yes, he was quite happy to give him a go, and he promised to return with Bugsie after the show, on Friday evening, if that suited.

So it was with some trepidation that, on Friday, I hung on after evening surgery had finished, wondering, as I waited, how the show had gone.

At ten past six, in breezed Mr Grimaldi, still in his full party regalia, very much in the pink – literally. Pink satin cape … pink top hat … shiny pink shirt and baggy pink trousers. He looked like a stick of candy floss with a ’tache. He was holding out in front of him what appeared to be an empty cage, his other hand clutching the middle of a large pink and white cane; he trotted purposefully into the consulting room and placed the cage on the table, stepping back to twirl his cane.

‘Mr Mitchell,’ he announced triumphantly, ‘your Bugsie was a real star turn. Did everything required of him.’ He put his free hand to his mouth and blew a kiss in the air. ‘An absolute poppet. Oh yes, indeed-e-oh.’

‘But where is he?’ I queried, staring at the empty cage.

Mr Grimaldi slipped a hand in his right trouser pocket and pulled out a long, green silk, which, having put down his wand, he unfurled to reveal a square, the centre of which depicted a white rabbit with the words ‘The End’ beneath it in red letters.

For one horrible moment I thought it meant Bugsie was no longer with us, that somehow he’d departed from this world, done a Madam Mountjoy and been embodied in some other being. I watched intently as Mr Grimaldi lifted the silk square – held at its upper two corners by finger and thumb – over the cage and allowed it to float gently down and cover it. He picked up his pink wand and flashed it one … two … three times over the cage and then tapped the top. ‘Bugsie!’ he proclaimed with as much dramatic resonation his tremulous voice could muster; and whipped the silk away with one hand to reveal the rabbit sitting quietly in the cage.

I was gobsmacked, lost for words, but eventually managed to croak, ‘How on earth did you do that?’

‘Sheer magic, my dear chap … sheer magic.’ Mr Grimaldi leaned over the cage and kissed the top of it. ‘Now, don’t tell on me, will you, sweetie-pie. Let’s keep it a little secret between you and me.’ I wondered who he was referring to – me or Bugsie. Thankfully, it was the rabbit, as he went on, ‘And as you’ve been so good, here’s a little treat for you.’ There was a flash and whirl of the silk, and suddenly in his hand there was a large, well-scrubbed carrot. The magician placed it on the table with a little giggle. ‘Who can tell what I’ve got up my sleeve,’ he continued, stepping back to look at me and smirk. He paused and then added, ‘Or down my trousers. You could be in for a big surprise there.’ He turned his head slightly and gave an exaggerated wink. Oh, so very Kenneth Williams.

‘Very impressive,’ I said, still wondering how on earth he’d managed to transfer Bugsie into the cage with such deft sleight of hand.

‘You haven’t seen anything yet,’ said Mr Grimaldi, his voice so full of innuendo I wondered whether I should terminate the discussion there and then, before anything else got exposed. But it was just my filthy mind working overtime as Mr Grimaldi went on, ‘I understand your girlfriend put you up to this – and that Bugsie’s her rabbit?’ I nodded ruefully.

‘Then I think she deserves this.’ There was another flourish of the silk draped over his right wrist, and his left hand appeared from under it holding a bouquet of red roses which he held out with a little bow; but he snatched them away as I reached to take them. ‘Sorry,’ he apologised, ‘they’re actually my trick silk ones. But I do have some real roses in the car which I insist you give to your girlfriend with my warmest wishes.’

I assured him I would do just that. I was also able to tell him Tzarina was making good progress, responding well to her antibiotic therapy, and that with any luck he could have her home on Monday.

‘Well, there you go,’ Mr Grimaldi declared, with a squeal of delight. ‘You’ve been able to work your own magic. I don’t know how to thank you.’

‘Don’t worry, Mr Grimaldi. That’s what we’re here for,’ I said, while at the same time thinking he could try conjuring up something for me; not a rabbit out of a hat, something more to my taste. But I thought better of suggesting it when the magician stretched across the table and patted my hand, saying, with an exaggerated wink, ‘I’ll come up with something for
you
later.’ And then he added, ‘My name’s Peter, by the way.’

A
t least, now, Bugsie had made his mark; and, as a result, he was able to join the ranks of the animals at Willow Wren with much higher esteem than might otherwise have been the case.

But, for me, the favourite of the bunch, far outranking Queenie and co. or Gertie, had to be dear old Nelson. That lopsided grin of his, first noticed when I tickled him on Mildred Millichip’s kitchen table, had endeared him to me then, and continued to do so throughout those first six months or so at Willow Wren.

More often than not, his daily constitutional consisted of a toddle round Ashton’s recreation ground; but there were days when he seemed eager to explore further afield and so, if time permitted – off-duty weekends, and those weekdays when evening appointments finished early – I started to take him across the nearby meadows, a stile leading to which was only 100 metres or so to the west of the cottage. The footpath took you along the southern boundary of Ashton Manor, a large, timber-framed farmhouse which now – according to the Spencers, who used to live next door, and who kept Lucy and me fully informed before their move to Gloucestershire – was owned by a couple, the husband having made his money in fish paste. The interior had been gutted in much the same manner as the shoals of fish that would have passed through the husband’s factory.

You could see little of the house from the fields as a dense thicket of now very overgrown leylandii prevented anyone from gawping into the garden; and I would have needed more than a pile of bricks to enable me to peer over – not that I would have wanted to pry – besides, when I tried prising back some of the lower branches, I discovered a second rank of conifers blocked my view into the grounds.

The footpath meandered over to the far corner of the meadow where a metal field gate gave access to a farm track bounded by hawthorn hedges. The heatwave of that first summer had covered the track with hard-baked ruts of clay that zig-zagged down into a lightly wooded area of oak and ash; the dappled shade created a welcome relief from the burning heat of those August days.

Nelson loved that wood. Along its edge were thickets of brambles, intertwined with pink tresses of dog roses; and in the autumn, the brambles were laden with large crops of blackberries, ripening on those secluded banks, to produce heavy, succulent fruits that were savoured on the grassy slopes below them, picked and passed between lips as Lucy and I lay there, our purple tongues exploring each other’s mouths while Nelson sat waiting for the odd berry to be chucked his way. He didn’t get many.

Besides watching our grassy tumblings, there were other distractions for Nelson. Under the canopy of the trees, the ground was carpeted in bluebells, which, when we first discovered the wood in August, consisted of spent flower stalks and yellowing spikes of leaves, semi-collapsed from the drought, but through which it was easy to pick out many narrow paths worn down to the bare earth. Nelson would speed down these tracks, his rudder tail swishing from side to side as he picked up the scent of whatever animal had passed along them. Apart from roe deer and badgers, I suspected rabbits were the number-one users. They could often be seen out during the day, grazing at the edges of the meadow, only to retreat rapidly into the wood, their scuts up in alarm, exposing their white under-fur as Nelson set off in hot pursuit of them. His excited squeals would erupt from the brambles, accompanied by much crashing around in the undergrowth.

Only once did he ever succeed in catching one, and, on that occasion, he emerged with it triumphantly clamped in his jaws, the rabbit half dead, its limbs twitching. Lucy pinned him down while I attempted to prise his mouth open. He was a stubborn little dog with powerful jaws, so it was a real struggle to get him to let go; but, eventually, with many entreaties of ‘Give it here …’ he did release his grip and I was left holding his trophy – no Peter Rabbit lookalike but a mangy specimen with bulging, pus-covered eyes, suffering from myxomatosis. I quickly put it out of its misery.

During those outings, I imagined how the wood would look come the following spring with its carpet of blue, and relished the thought of being able to walk through it, hand in hand with Lucy, Nelson trotting at our side.

How wrong I was. Not that the wood failed to live up to my expectations that April – it did. My parents had a reproduction of a Vernon Coles painting in the hall of their bungalow down in Bournemouth. It had been on that wall for all the years I lived there before going to university – some seven of them. I felt I’d grown up with it. It was a classic woodland scene – a glade of beech trees, their buds having just unfurled into a mantle of soft greens; while beneath, the glade was a sea of bluebells with just the hint of a track to draw the eye in. It was a bog-standard painting, but skilfully executed to ensure it was easy on the eye.

The one jarring note was the unflattering frame in which it was mounted – a surround of white-painted wood. I could have held that frame up in the wood where Lucy, Nelson and I walked and the view through it would almost have been identical – the tracery of fresh green; the bluebells merging into a blur of blue; and the emptiness. The emptiness in my heart, that is, for I walked there these days accompanied only by Nelson; Lucy, although invited on several occasions, declined to come with me, excuses being offered or, more often, just a cursory ‘No thanks’, as if the notion of walking hand in hand with her partner through a magical, woodland glade was an abhorrence to her. So I started to venture out alone with Nelson. At least he appreciated my company, and I his.

They say having a pet helps to reduce stress; studies in which people have been monitored while they are stroking pets have shown that it helps to reduce blood pressure. That, of course, may rather depend on the sort of pet being stroked – somehow I don’t think stroking a spitting cat or attempting to tickle a snarling Doberman under the chin would be conducive to anything other than your heart rate going through the roof. And as for talking to your pet, well, that’s fine. Although discussing your prostate problems with a stick insect might be seen as taking things a bit too far, and you could run the risk of being dragged off to the funny farm.