Every Living Thing (13 page)

I saw the man at the Building Society and there was no trouble. They would grant me a mortgage. It was a house that would probably fetch around £50,000 to £60,000 at the present day, but in the early fifties, £2,000 was about right.

I was walking on air until the Wednesday when I rolled up with Helen to the Drovers’ for the auction. The room was full and as Helen and I took our seats a farmer client nudged me. “There’s old Seth Bootland,” he murmured. “He wants this house for his son who’s just got married. Reckon he’ll get it, too. He’s rollin’ in brass, but he’s a hard businessman.”

I looked over at the rich grain merchant. He was impressive with his high-coloured, beaky face and camel’s-hair coat, and his face wore an expression of grim confidence. I felt a qualm, then came a return of my steely resolve. I was going to buy that house.

The bidding started at £1,500 and went rapidly—more rapidly than I had expected—up to my top figure of £2,000. Bootland made it £2,100. He clearly was used to this sort of thing and just twitched a bored forefinger. I stabbed the air eagerly to put on another hundred—I was quite sure my mortgage could be stretched another little bit—but Bootland flicked the finger again and it was up to me.

Soon there were just the two of us. All other bidders had fallen out and I felt cruelly exposed. The bids were down to fifty now and as the price crept up and up towards £3,000 my heart began to pound and I could feel my palms sweating.

Helen was clutching my knee and with each new bid she whispered desperately, “No, Jim, no! We haven’t any money!” But I was seized by a kind of madness. The money meant nothing. All I could see was Helen in that trim little house looking out on her garden from that pretty kitchen. That vision wouldn’t go away and I ploughed on doggedly.

When the price got above £3,000 the audience in the packed room had begun to emit an excited “Ahh!” at each new bid. It had got down to raises of twenty-five pounds.

“Mr. Bootland bids three thousand two hundred and twenty-five.” My mouth was dry as the auctioneer gazed at me enquiringly.

Helen’s grip on my knee was like a vise. She was shaking it with her entreaties. “No, Jim, no!”

I raised my hand.

“And fifty. Thank you.” And then the glance at Boot-land. “And seventy-five.” The auctioneer’s and everybody’s eyes were on me. As in a dream I raised my hand.

“We have three thousand three hundred pounds.”

Bootland waggled his finger.

“And twenty-five.”

Once again, in the vibrating silence, all the eyes were on me. I felt utterly drained, parched, exhausted. I was trembling and only slightly aware of Helen punching my leg and almost sobbing. “Stop it! Please stop it!” I thought she was going to cry. I shook my head at the auctioneer and the thing was over.

There was an excited hum of conversation in the room, but I stayed slumped in my seat, only dimly aware of Bootland going up and talking to the auctioneer and of Helen sitting very still beside me. Finally, I rose and looked at her.

“Good heavens, Jim, you’re as white as a sheet!” she gasped.

I nodded wordlessly. I did feel extremely white. On the way out I received a savage glance from Mr. Bootland. Thanks to me, he had had to pay £1,325—around £30,000 at present-day prices—more than the house was probably worth and I wasn’t his favourite man.

But I didn’t care. All I felt was the sense of abject failure. My happy vision of Helen looking out of that window was shattered and I was right back where I started. I had accomplished nothing.

Outside in the market-place I stood for a moment, drawing in the cool air. I took Helen’s arm and was about to move on when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked down at the sweet face of Mrs. Dryden. She was smiling at me.

“Eee, Mr. Herriot, I’m right sorry you didn’t get the house, but you’ve done a lot for me—you’ll never know how much. I’ve got all that extra money to put by me, thanks to you. Believe me, it’ll make all the difference in the world. I can’t thank you enough.”

As she walked away, I looked at her thin, bent figure and her white hair. There was the wife of good old Bob Dryden and he would have been pleased. I had done something after all.

I
UNWOUND THE SPIRAL
Hudson’s instrument from the cow’s teat and drew forth a strong jet of milk.

“Eee, that’s wonderful, marvellous,” breathed Mr. Dowson reverently. “I don’t know ’ow you do it—you’ve saved me again. You’re a great man, Mr. Herriot.”

We were still doing a lot of these teat operations, because milking-machines had not come into general use and the farmers’ horny-handed pulling at the cows’ teats often resulted in damage to the lining and blockage. It wasn’t a particularly popular procedure with the vets, because there was an excellent chance of having your head kicked off as you crouched down there by the udder, but it was undeniably satisfying to bring a useless teat back to life. A lot of a cow’s value was lost when she became a “three-titted ’un.”

However, valuable though the operation was to a farmer, it was most unusual to receive profuse gratitude like Mr. Dowson’s. But it was always like that with him. He poured praise on me and though, over the years, I was sure that all my cases on his farm hadn’t been triumphs, that was how he pictured it. If anything had gone wrong in the past he would never admit it.

This was in direct contrast to most of our farmer clients. No matter how brilliant a feat of healing we pulled off we very rarely heard anything about it. Siegfried’s theory was that they didn’t like to mention our cures in case we put a bit extra on the bill, and he may have had a point because they never failed to inform us about our failures—“Hey, that beast you treated never did any good,” often embarrassingly shouted across a crowded market-place.

Be that as it may, Mr. Dowson’s attitude was always balm to my soul. He was gazing at me now as I put the instrument back in its bottle of spirit, his little brown face crinkled in a benevolent smile. He pulled off his cap and smoothed back the straggling white hair from his brow.

“Ah don’t know. There’s no end to your cleverness. I was just thinking of that cow of mine with magnesium deficiency. She was laid there like a dead thing—ah was sure she’d stopped breathin’—but you put a bottle into ’er vein, then you looked at your watch. ‘Mr. Dowson,’ you said, ‘this beast will get up on her legs in exactly twelve and a half minutes.’ ?

“I did?”

“Ah’m not jokin’ nor jestin’, that’s what you said, and you can believe me or believe me not, just the very second the hands on your watch got round to twelve and a half minutes that cow jumped up and walked away.”

“Good heavens! Did she really?”

“She did that, and I’ll tell you summat else, she’s never looked back since.”

“Well, that’s great.” I had the same feeling of bewilderment as I always felt at Mr. Dowson’s panegyrics. I could never remember the magical things I had done, but it was very pleasant all the same. Was I really that brilliant or did he make it all up? His habitual phrase of “believe me or believe me not” suggested that he may have had doubts about it himself, but that didn’t alter the fact that his eulogies were always delivered with the greatest certainty and emphasis.

Even the surroundings of his farm were idyllic, and as I walked to my car with a gentle breeze, full of the scents of summer, eddying around me, I looked back at the little farmhouse tucked into the green hillside that dipped down over rig and furrow to the river, sparkling in the sunshine.

As always, I drove away in a rosy glow with Mr. Dowson waving till I was out of sight.

I was back there again within a week to deal with a calving heifer. Mr. Dowson was worried because she was overdue, but the delivery was uneventful and I soon had a large bull calf snuffling and snorting among the straw in the byre.

“Well, that’s fine,” I said. “Sometimes these big calves are a bit late. It was a tight squeeze, but all’s well.”

“Aye, aye,” said the farmer. “There was no need to worry. I should’ve known. You told me more than a month ago that that heifer would be exackly five days late, and you were right as usual.”

“Did I really say that? I don’t see how I would know….”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, Mr. Herriot, them was your words. I ought to remember them.”

As we left the byre, Mr. Dowson stopped to pat a little Dales pony that was happily cropping the grass by the side of the house. “Remember this little feller? Remember that bad stoppage he had?”

“Ah, yes, of course I do. He looks fine now.”

“He does that, and by gaw ’e was ill! Thought ah was going to lose ’im. Right bunged up and groanin’ in pain he was. I’d given him all sorts o’ medicines to try to move ’is bowels but they did no good!—nothing came through ’im for two whole days. Then I got you in and I’ll never forget what you did.”

“What did I do?”

“Ah tell ye, it were like a miracle. You came in the morning and you gave him two injections and you said to me, ‘Mr. Dowson, his bowels will move at two o’clock this afternoon.’ ?

“I said that?”

“You did an’ all, and then you said, ‘At first he’ll pass exackly a handful, just like this.’ ? He cupped his hands to illustrate. “And right on two o’clock that’s what ’e did. No more, no less.”

“Gosh!”

“Aye, and then you said, ‘At half past two he’ll pass just enough to fill that small shovel.’ ? Mr. Dowson hurried busily over to the house and picked up a little shovel that stood by the coal-bunker. He held it out to me. “There’s the very thing. And right on the dot by my watch he passed just the amount you said. I measured it.”

“Never! Are you sure?”

“You can believe me or believe me not. Then you said, ‘At three o’clock he’ll have a good clear-out,’ and that’s just what happened. I was lookin’ at my watch when he cocked his tail and got rid of everything that was troubling ’im. And he’s been right as ninepence ever since.”

“Well, that’s wonderful, Mr. Dowson. I’m so pleased to hear it.” I shook my head to dispel the mists of fantasy that had begun to billow around me. I am a run-of-the-mill veterinary surgeon, hard-working and conscientious, but that’s all, and it knocks me out of my stride to be hailed as a genius, but as always, listening to Mr. Dowson was like soothing oil being poured on my oft-bruised ego. I had to admit I enjoyed it, and I didn’t demur when he went on.

“And while you’re ’ere, just have a look at this pig.” He took my arm and led me into an outbuilding. “There she is,” he said, leaning over a pen and pointing to a fine big sow stretched on the straw with a litter of piglets sucking busily at her teats. “That’s the one that had that nasty great swelling on her foot. Dead lame she was, and I was right worried about ’er. You gave her a jab and left me some salve to rub on the lump and next morning it was gone!”

“You mean…it vanished overnight? All of it?”

“Aye, that’s right, ah’m not jokin’ nor jestin’. It was gone!”

“Well…that’s quite amazing.”

“Not to me, it isn’t, Mr. Herriot. Everything you do for me turns out right. Ah don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Even through my confusion I found his faith touching. I hoped it would never be shattered.

I thought that moment had arrived when Mr. Dowson called me to his farm a few weeks later.

“What’s the trouble this time?” I asked.

The old man rubbed his chin. “Well, it’s a funny one, I tell you. It’s this calf.” He pointed to a sturdy young animal about a month old. “He won’t drink ’is milk properly. Look. I’ll show ye.” He tipped some milk into a big bucket and set it down in front of the little creature, but the calf, instead of drinking, put his head down and, with a fierce butt, sent the bucket flying, spilling the milk in all directions.

“Does he do this every time?”

“Aye, knocks it over every time. It’s a dang nuisance. Wastes me good milk, too.”

I examined the calf, then turned to the farmer. “He seems perfectly healthy to me.”

“Oh, aye, he is. Fit as a flea and full o’ life. It’s just this one thing wi’ the bucket. I thought you’d maybe be able to give ’im one of your magic injections to stop him doin’ it.”

“Well, really, Mr. Dowson,” I said, laughing. “This isn’t a medical problem, it’s psychological. He just doesn’t like buckets. I’m afraid I can’t do anything for you this time. Can’t you hold the bucket while he drinks?”

“Yes, that’s what I have to do, but even then ’e keeps bashin’ at it with his head.” He dug his hands into his pockets and gave me a crestfallen look. “Ah’m sure you could do something. You say it’s not a medical problem, but it’s an animal problem and everythin’ you’ve done for me wi’ animals has been successful. I wish you’d have a try. Go on, give ’im an injection.”

I looked at the old man’s doleful face. I had a feeling that if I walked off the farm without doing something, he would be truly upset. How could I please him without being an absolute charlatan? If I didn’t inject something it was going to break his heart, but what…what…? Mentally I searched the contents of my car boot and was beginning to despair when in my mind’s eye I saw the bottle of thiamine—vitamin B injection. We used it for a brain disease called cerebrocortical necrosis and, of course, the calf wasn’t suffering from that or anything like it, but at least it had to do with the head. Anyway, I stilled my conscience with the thought that I wouldn’t charge the old man anything.

I hurried to the car. “I’ll give him a shot of this,” I said and was rewarded by a radiant smile lighting up Mr. Dowson’s face. I injected a few c.c.’s with the knowledge that I wasn’t doing any harm. The injection would be useless, but it was serving its purpose. The old man was happy, and, really, when I thought about it, it would be no bad thing if, for once, my treatment was ineffective. My mantle of infallibility would be stripped from me and I wouldn’t be expected to do the impossible any more.

It was more than a month before I saw Mr. Dowson again. He was leaning over a rail at the cattle market and he waved and came over to me. I was intrigued at the prospect that for the first time ever he would have to report a failure. What words would he employ? He had never had to do it before. And I was pretty sure that he would hate telling me.