Every Living Thing Read online

  As expected, he had already diagnosed the illness. Mr. Stott knew everything. “She’s just got a touch o’ slow fever.” This was the local name for acetonaemia, a metabolic disease easily cured. “There’s that sweet smell about ’er and she’s losin’ flesh.”

  “Ah, yes, Mr. Stott, it sounds like it. I’ll just check her over.” Still chuckling, Calum drew a few squirts from the udder, smelt the breath, took the temperature. All the time he kept murmuring, “How funny, what a good joke,” then he began to whistle cheerfully. It was when he had his stethoscope on the stomach that the whistling slowed down and then stopped. He began to listen intently, grave-faced, moving from the left side of the cow to the right, then back again.

  Finally he straightened up. “Can you get me a spoon from the house, please.”

  The grin faded from the farmer’s face. “A spoon? What the ’ell for? Is there summat wrong?”

  “Oh, it’s probably nothing. I don’t want to worry you. Just get me the spoon.”

  When the farmer returned, Calum recommenced his listening at the left side of the cow, only this time he kept tapping the lower ribs with the spoon.

  “My God, it’s there!” he exclaimed.

  “What’s there?” gasped the farmer. “What are you talkin’ about?”

  “The tinkle.”

  “The tinkle?”

  “Yes, Mr. Stott, it’s the tinkling sound you hear in displacement of the abomasum.”

  “Displacement…what the ’ell’s that?”

  “It is a condition where the fourth stomach or abomasum slips round from the right side to the left. I’m awfully sorry, but it’s a very serious ailment.”

  “But how about the sweet smell?”

  “Well, yes, you do get that acetonaemia smell with a displacement. It’s very easy to confuse the two things.”

  “What’s goin’ to happen, then?”

  Calum sighed. “She’ll have to undergo a very large operation. It requires two vets—one to open up the left side of the cow, the other to open the right. I’m afraid it’s a very big job.”

  “And it’ll cost a lot of money, too, ah reckon!”

  “Afraid so.”

  The farmer took off his cap and began to churn his hair about. Then he swung round at me, slumped on my bale. “Is all this I’m hearin’ right? About this tinkle?”

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you, Mr. Stott, but it is,” I replied. “That tinkling noise is classical. We get quite a lot of these cases now.”

  He rounded on Calum again. “Bloody ’ell! And will she be all right after the operation?”

  The young man shrugged. “Can’t guarantee anything, I’m sorry to say. But most of them do quite well.”

  “Most of ’em…And what if she doesn’t have the operation?”

  “She’ll waste away and die. You can see she’s losing flesh now. I’m really very sorry.”

  The farmer stared, open-mouthed and wordless, at the young man.

  “I know how you feel, Mr. Stott,” Calum said. “A lot of farmers hate the idea of the big operation. It’s a gory, messy business. You could send her in for slaughter if you like.”

  “Send her in…? She’s a bloody good cow!”

  “All right, then, let’s go ahead with the job. Mr. Herriot is quite ill and unfit to do anything, but I’ll telephone Mr. Farnon to come out with the equipment.”

  The farmer, totally shattered, dropped down on my bale and his head sank on his chest. As he sat there, staring at the ground, Calum’s face broke into a grin that almost reached his ears.

  “It’s okay, Mr. Stott. I’m only kidding.”

  “What?” The farmer gaped up at him uncomprehendingly.

  “Only kidding. Just a little joke. Ha-ha! She’s only got acetonaemia. I’ll get some steroid from the car. A couple of shots and she’ll be fine.”

  As Mr. Stott rose slowly from the bale, Calum wagged a finger at him.

  “I know you like a joke. Ha-ha-ha-ha! As you say, there’s nowt like a good laugh!”

  Chapter 46

  AS A CAT LOVER, it irked me that my own cats couldn’t stand the sight of me. Ginny and Olly were part of the family now. We were devoted to them and whenever we had a day out the first thing Helen did on our return was to open the back-door and feed them. The cats knew this very well and were either sitting on the flat top of the wall, waiting for her, or ready to trot down from the log shed that was their home.

  We had been to Brawton on our half-day and they were there as usual as Helen put out a dish of food and a bowl of milk for them on the wall.

  “Olly, Ginny,” she murmured as she stroked the furry coats. The days had long gone when they refused to let her touch them. Now they rubbed against her hand in delight, arching and purring, and, when they were eating, she ran her hand repeatedly along their backs. They were such gentle little animals, their wildness expressed only in fear, and now, with her, that fear had gone. My children and some from the village had won their confidence, too, and were allowed to give them a careful caress, but they drew the line at Herriot.

  Like now, for instance. I quietly followed Helen out and moved towards the wall and immediately they left the food and retreated to a safe distance, where they stood, still arching their backs, but, as ever, out of reach. They regarded me without hostility but as I held out a hand they moved farther away.

  “Look at the little beggars!” I said. “They still won’t have anything to do with me.”

  It was frustrating, for throughout my years in veterinary practice, cats had always intrigued me and I had found that this helped me in my dealings with them. I felt I could handle them easier than most people because I liked them and they sensed it. I rather prided myself on my cat technique, a sort of feline bedside manner, and was in no doubt that I had an empathy with the entire species and that they all liked me. In fact, if the truth were told, I fancied myself as a cats’ pin-up. Not so, ironically, with these two—the ones to whom I had become so deeply attached.

  It was a bit hard, I thought, because I had doctored them and probably saved their lives when they had cat ’flu. Did they remember that, I wondered, but if they did, it still didn’t give me the right to lay a finger on them. And indeed, what they certainly did seem to remember was that it was I who had netted them and shoved them into a cage when I had neutered them. I had the feeling that whenever they saw me it was that net and cage that were uppermost in their minds.

  I could only hope that time would bring an understanding between us, but as it turned out, fate was to conspire against me for a long time still. Above all, there was the business of Olly’s coat. Unlike his sister, he was a longhaired cat and as such was subject to constant tangling and knotting of his fur. With an ordinary domesticated feline I would have combed him out as soon as trouble arose but when I couldn’t even get near him I was helpless. We had had him about two years when Helen called me to the kitchen.

  “Just look at him!” she said. “He’s a dreadful sight!”

  I peered through the window. Olly was indeed a bit of a scarecrow with his matted fur and dangling knots in cruel contrast with his sleek and beautiful little sister.

  “I know, I know. But what can I do? But wait a minute, there’s a couple of horrible big lumps hanging below his neck. Take these scissors and have a go at them—a couple of quick snips and they’ll be off.”

  Helen gave me an anguished look. “Oh, we’ve tried this before. I’m not a vet and anyway, he won’t let me do that. He’ll let me pet him, but this is something else.”

  “I know that, but have a go. There’s nothing to it, really.” I pushed a pair of curved scissors into her hand and began to shout instructions through the window. “Right now, get your fingers behind that big dangling mass. Fine, fine! Now up with your scissors and—”

  But at the first gleam of steel, Olly was off and away up the hill. Helen turned to me in despair. “It’s no good, Jim, it’s hopeless—he’ll never let me cut even one lump off an