The Village Vet (35 page)

‘I felt a whole lot happier when you had him living with you,’ Dad says.

So did I, I think, but I don’t admit it. ‘You can make sure I get inside safely if that makes you feel better.’

My father escorts me to the front door and checks that there is no one inside and that the door is securely shut before he leaves in the taxi. I turn the TV on to make some noise and give Tia a hug without putting my face too close to hers, because in spite of all the bathing and treatment, she still smells of dog and ear drops, an improvement, I suppose, on her perfume before.

‘It looks as if it’s just you and me, old lady,’ I tell her, and she wags her tail and squeaks with delight, just when I thought that nothing could ever again bring a smile to my lips.

Chapter Sixteen

Old Dog New Tricks

I RECEIVED A
text from Jack the day after the ball asking how I was, but I ignored it and I’ve been managing to keep my distance from him in the two weeks since, interacting only to deal with the rescues at the Sanctuary. The messages from Buster, or purporting to be from Buster, which I’ve been receiving and responding to since he went off to his new home have almost completely fizzled out. From receiving pictures on my mobile at least twice a day – of Buster enjoying breakfast, Buster playing ball, Buster having his paws washed, and Buster sitting, rather morosely showing the whites of his eyes, in his new bed, rather than on the sofa – I get the odd text message saying he’s doing fine, and then nothing, until Mrs Nelson calls me one afternoon to say that Buster has gone missing. I dismiss her theory that he’s been stolen from their back garden. It’s far more likely that he’s done a runner, but why when he’s apparently so happy and settled with his new owners?

‘You have called the police, the animal welfare
officer
, the dog warden and the local vets to see if any of them have picked Buster up, haven’t you? When did you notice he was gone?’

‘Last night,’ Mrs Nelson says, and my heart clenches in distress and anger.

‘So you’ve left him wandering for almost twenty-four hours? He could be anywhere by now.’

‘I’m sorry, my husband said not to make a fuss. Buster would come back for his food.’ Mrs Nelson’s voice breaks and my anger starts to disperse as I realise that she’s just as upset as I am, if not more so.

‘Where have you been looking for him?’ I ask, my mind racing through the options for retrieving him.

‘I had a drive around before and after work,’ she says, before abruptly falling silent.

‘You said you didn’t work.’

‘Well, I don’t. Not much, anyway. I got the job after you made the home visit.’

She’s lying, I think, feeling terribly let down on Buster’s behalf. I wish I’d trusted my instincts and turned the Nelsons down when they started making excuses to delay picking him up from the Sanctuary. ‘If he was my dog, I would be out there searching for him until I found him. I couldn’t rest.’

‘I’m afraid I have a confession to make,’ Mrs Nelson says. ‘He’ – I assume from the way she says it, with ironic deference, that she’s referring to her husband again – ‘told me not to let on, but you’re going to have to know that Buster just hasn’t settled, and goodness knows, I’ve tried. He isn’t my kind of dog.’

And she isn’t his kind of person, I think with a flash of insight as she says, ‘Buster is destructive in the house. Whenever I come back from work – I mean, shopping – I find something, my Louboutins, a
mattress
or a leather couch, ripped to pieces. It’s soul-destroying to walk back into the house and find it wrecked.’ I make to interrupt, but she continues, ‘I’ve spoken to a dog behaviourist, who says he has separation anxiety, a psychological problem that could be cured if we wanted to spend the time and money on it … but we can’t do it, I’m sorry. If he destroys anything else, my husband will destroy him.’

‘Why didn’t you let me know this before?’ I say, aghast. Poor Buster – he must be so confused.

‘I was too embarrassed to say anything. I felt as though we were letting you down – you seemed so fond of the dog.’

I am fond of him, I think, tears pricking my eyes. Buster, where are you?

‘Thank goodness we never had kids. Buster and I have different aspirations and values – I prize my kitchen units while Buster doesn’t. He’s scratched those too. It’s going to cost us a fortune to repair the damage he’s caused.’ I hear Mrs Nelson begin to sob down the phone. ‘The house can be patched up, but I’m not sure I can say the same for our marriage. It’s brought us to the brink of divorce.’

I get the message. ‘So you won’t want to have Buster back?’

‘Absolutely not. I’m sorry, but his running away only confirms to me that he doesn’t want to be here with us, and in a way, although I’m worried about him, it’s a relief. I never want to see him again.’

Mrs Nelson appears to feel the same about Buster as I do about Jack, but I have no choice but to enlist Jack’s help to search for the dog. He knows the area well and he has plenty of contacts. I put my faith in him. If anyone
can
find Buster, Jack can, and I call him straight away.

‘I’m sorry, Tess,’ he says when he comes to collect me in his Land Rover an hour later.

‘It’s one of those things,’ I say dismissively, not wanting Jack’s sympathy. When I explain that the Nelsons don’t want Buster back, Jack is more forgiving of their behaviour than I am, suggesting that adopting a dog is like dating someone, moving in with them and making a commitment before finding out that you’re not compatible.

‘Where do you want to look first?’ he asks.

‘He used to hang out on the Green.’

‘I had a quick look there on the way up, and I’ve asked a couple of the local dog walkers to keep an eye out for him, although they’re all rather nervous, considering his previous form. I thought we’d go back there and have a look along the old railway line and the fields by the river. Alex Fox-Gifford has some sheep down there, so the sooner we get Buster back the better. We don’t want him being accused of worrying the ewes, do we?’

‘Or getting shot for it, you mean.’

‘Alex wouldn’t shoot a dog,’ Jack points out. ‘It wouldn’t do his reputation any good, would it?’

‘Oh, I can’t bear this. What if he’s been hit by another car? He could be lying injured, or …’ I can’t say it. Jack reaches across and rests his hand briefly over mine, a gesture of comfort and reassurance that makes my heart kick with regret and a fleeting desire for everything to be back as it was before Karen came back into Jack’s life and turned mine upside down.

‘We’ll find him, Tess, even if we have to stay out all night. I promise.’

‘You should more be careful about making promises you can’t keep,’ I say flatly when there’s been no sign of Buster and Jack drops me at the Sanctuary a little after midnight, and then I realise I sound mean: he’s spent hours out searching with me, the other volunteers that he rallied to help having gone home long ago. ‘I’m sorry. I’m tired, that’s all.’

‘I’ll see you safely indoors,’ he says quietly, the darkness casting shadows across his handsome face, the sight of him tearing at my heartstrings. ‘I heard about what happened the other week. You should have told me. You should have called me at the time.’

‘Jack, nothing happened. Looking back, I wonder if it was all in my imagination.’ I try to make light of it. ‘I’m not scared. I can look after myself.’ I keep repeating those words inside my head, hoping that eventually I’ll come to believe them.

‘I’ll come with you to the door,’ he insists.

‘Really, it’s fine. I have Tia,’ I say, at which I recall that I used to have two dogs waiting for me, and Buster is still missing, and already my hopes for his safe return are beginning to fade. Stifling a sob, I jump out of the Land Rover. ‘Thanks,’ I wail as I run to the front door, fumbling for my key and trying to insert it into the lock.

‘Tess, let me do it,’ Jack says from behind me. ‘Here …’ He wrests the key from my fingers and unlocks the door, touching the small of my back as he guides me inside and switches on the light. Tia is snoozing, outstretched on the floor. ‘She’ll never make a guard dog,’ he observes.

‘You’re right. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,’ I say, moving as far away from Jack as I can without completely disappearing into a different room.

‘I’m sorry about Buster,’ he says awkwardly, ‘but we will find him. I know we will.’ He makes to step towards me, holding out his arms, but I shake my head. My emotions are all over the place: I’m aching with worry for the lost dog, and still angry at myself for letting the Nelsons mislead me. What’s more, I’m longing for a hug, but it wouldn’t be right.

‘I’d better go,’ Jack says, after a pause. ‘I must get back. I’ll see you soon, Tess.’

As it turns out, we see very little of each other for the next few days, which is a relief to me. I take Tia down to the river and walk her around the Green every morning and evening; she’s lost weight and is much fitter than when she first arrived at the Sanctuary. Even though I’m nervous after the incident in the copse, I stroll with her there regularly too, in case Buster should be making his way back to the rescue centre, but there’s no sign of him, although sometimes I think I see his silhouette in the bushes along the edge of the path or disappearing into the shadows of the dense stand of conifers. I call and whistle, but he never comes.

Towards the end of the week, I’m still looking for him. At lunchtime, I return to the copse with Tia for a short walk, Tia dragging along behind me.

‘Come on, old girl. Hurry up.’ The sky is darkening and I can hear the patter of the first spots of rain on the leaves of the silver birches and brambles along the path. Tia refuses to budge though, whining and keeping her nose stuck in the grass beside a fallen log. It isn’t like her to make a fuss about anything, and her behaviour makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. There’s something wrong, a presence watching me from inside the bushes.

Apprehensive now, I go back to hustle her along, but as I bend over to take her by the collar, I hear a rustle and catch sight of the glint of a pair of tiny eyes and the silhouette of a pointed nose deep within the undergrowth. It takes me a moment to work out that Tia’s found a puppy.

‘Hey there,’ I say gently, reaching through the thorny brambles to extricate it from where it appears to have become trapped, and bringing it out into the light, where I discover that it is, in fact, a fox cub, less than four weeks old, its reddish-brown fur like a jacket of fuzzy felt. Lost or abandoned, it’s cold and weak and all it wants to do is curl up and close its eyes. It has given up the fight, and I can see that I’m going to have to do the fighting for it.

‘Well spotted, Tia, but I don’t know how you did it,’ I tell Talyton’s new search-and-rescue dog (I’m being ironic) as I tuck the cub inside my top to warm it up and carry it back to the bungalow. ‘You’re definitive proof of the existence of a sixth sense … because the other five certainly aren’t working properly,’ I add as Tia bumps into the gatepost on the way out of the copse.

I send her back into the house without wiping her feet – probably a mistake because she’s pretty muddy – before I jump into the van, still in my wellington boots. I turn the key in the ignition, and nothing happens. I try again, but the battery is flat. I glance across at the fox cub, wrapped in a towel in a cardboard box in the passenger footwell. Now we both need help.

I call my aunt, but she isn’t answering her phone. I call my dad – he and Mum are away visiting friends – and I can’t ask Katie for a life now that we’re not speaking, which leaves me one last chance of rescue.
Jack
and I have been avoiding each other, and I don’t want to ask him, but what can I do? I don’t want to spend money on a call-out fee, and the cub needs to see a vet with some urgency if she’s going to have any chance at all. (I’ve checked and it is a girl.) I make up my mind, and within twenty minutes Jack is driving me and the fox cub in his Land Rover to Otter House.

‘Thanks for this,’ I say grudgingly.

‘You know me. I’m always happy to help,’ he says, keeping his eyes fixed on the road ahead. ‘How are you, Tess?’

‘I’m fine, thanks,’ I say, and then, after a long pause, ‘How about you?’

‘Not so bad.’

‘And Karen?’

‘She’s okay, I think.’

I puzzle over this for a while, failing to come up with an explanation for his response. Jack only thinks she’s okay, I muse, which is odd when he lives with her.

‘She’s got a lot on her plate, dealing with the divorce. Her husband’s being a sh—’ Jack stops abruptly, as if he’s revealed too much.

I feel sick with envy. I don’t want to know. How can I possibly match her maturity and experience?

‘Is there any news on Buster?’ Jack says, changing the subject.

‘Nothing at all,’ I respond.

‘Any more disturbances at the Sanctuary?’

‘No.’

‘How’s the cub?’

I lift the corner of the towel and peer into the box on my lap.
Keep upright
, it reads on the side.

‘About the same,’ I respond.

Our conversation is stilted, as if we’re unable to find
anything
to say to each other, and I’m relieved when we reach Otter House.