All Things Bright and Beautiful Read online

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes indeed, my boy.” He thumped my shoulder then became very serious. “Of course I realise that I have an advantage right at the start—I have been blessed with a naturally even temperament while you are blown about in all directions by every little wind of circumstance. But I do think that this is something you could cultivate, so work at it, James, work at it. All this fretting and fuming is bad for you—your whole life would change if you could just acquire my own tranquil outlook.”

  I swallowed hard. “Well thank you, Siegfried,” I said. “I’ll try.”

  Walt Barnett was a bit of a mystery man in Darrowby. He wasn’t a farmer, he was a scrap merchant, a haulier, a dealer in everything from linoleum to second hand cars, and there was only one thing the local people could say for certain about him—he had brass, lots of brass. They said everything he touched turned to money.

  He had bought a decaying mansion a few miles outside the town where he lived with a downtrodden little wife and where he kept a floating population of livestock; a few bullocks, some pigs and always a horse or two. He employed all the vets in the district in turn, probably because he didn’t think much of any of us; a feeling which, I may say, was mutual. He never seemed to do any physical work and could be seen most days of the week shambling around the streets of Darrowby, hands in pockets, cigarette dangling, his brown trilby on the back of his head, his huge body threatening to burst through that shiny navy suit.

  After my meeting with him we had a busy few days and it was on the following Thursday that the phone rang in the surgery. Siegfried lifted it and immediately his expression changed. From across the floor I could clearly hear the loud hectoring tones coming through the receiver and as my colleague listened a slow flush spread over his cheeks and his mouth hardened. Several times he tried to put in a word but the torrent of sound from the far end was unceasing. Finally he raised his voice and broke in but instantly there was a click and he found himself speaking to a dead line.

  Siegfried crashed the receiver into its rest and swung round. “That was Barnett—playing hell because we haven’t rung him.” He stood staring at me for a few moments, his face dark with anger.

  “The bloody bastard!” he shouted. “Who the hell does he think he is? Abusing me like that, then hanging up on me when I try to speak!”

  For a moment he was silent then he turned to me. “I’ll tell you this, James, he wouldn’t have spoken to me like that if he’d been in this room with me.” He came over to me and held out his hands, fingers crooked menacingly. “I’d have wrung his bloody neck, big as he is! I would have, I tell you, I’d have strangled the bugger!”

  “But Siegfried,” I said. “What about your system?”

  “System? What system?”

  “Well, you know the trick you have when people are unpleasant—you put something on the bill, don’t you?”

  Siegfried let his hands fall to his sides and stared at me for some time, his chest rising and falling with his emotion. Then he patted me on the shoulder and turned away towards the window where he stood looking out at the quiet street.

  When he turned back to me he looked grim but calmer. “By God, James, you’re right. That’s the answer. I’ll cut Barnett’s horse for him but I’ll charge him a tenner.”

  I laughed heartily. In those days the average charge for castrating a horse was a pound, or if you wanted to be more professional, a guinea.

  “What are you laughing at?” my colleague enquired sourly.

  “Well…at your joke. I mean, ten pounds…ha-ha-ha!”

  “I’m not joking, I’m going to charge him a tenner.”

  “Oh come on, Siegfried, you can’t do that.”

  “You just watch me,” he said. “I’m going to sort that bugger.”

  Two mornings later I was going through the familiar motions of preparing for a castration; boiling up the emasculator and laying it on the enamel tray along with the scalpel, the roll of cotton wool, the artery forceps, the tincture of iodine, the suture materials, the tetanus antitoxin and syringes. For the last five minutes Siegfried had been shouting at me to hurry.

  “What the hell are you doing through there, James? Don’t forget to put in an extra bottle of chloroform. And bring the sidelines in case he doesn’t go down. Where have you hidden those spare scalpel blades, James?”

  The sunshine streamed across the laden tray, filtering through the green tangle of the wistaria which fell untidily across the surgery window. Reminding me that it was May and that there was nowhere a May morning came with such golden magic as to the long garden at Skeldale House; the high brick walls with their crumbling mortar and ancient stone copings enfolding the sunlight in a warm clasp and spilling it over the untrimmed lawns, the banks of lupins and bluebells, the masses of fruit blossom. And right at the top the rooks cawing in the highest branches of the elms.

  Siegfried, chloroform muzzle looped over one shoulder, made a final check of the items on the tray then we set off. In less than half an hour we were driving through the lodge gates of the old mansion then along a mossy avenue which wandered among pine and birch trees up to the house which looked out from its wooded background over the rolling miles of fell and moor.

  Nobody could have asked for a more perfect place for the operation; a high-walled paddock deep in lush grass. The two-year-old, a magnificent chestnut, was led in by two characters who struck me as typical henchmen for Mr. Barnett. I don’t know where he had dug them up but you didn’t see faces like that among the citizens of Darrowby. One was a brown goblin who, as he conversed with his companion, repeatedly jerked his head and winked one eye as though they were sharing some disreputable secret. The other had a head covered with ginger stubble surmounting a countenance of a bright scrofulous red which looked as though a piece would fall off if you touched it; and deep in the livid flesh two tiny eyes darted.

  The two of them regarded us unsmilingly and the dark one spat luxuriously as we approached.

  “It’s a nice morning,” I said.

  Ginger just stared at me while Winker nodded knowingly and closed one eye as if I had uttered some craftiness which appealed to him.

  The vast hunched figure of Mr. Barnett hovered in the background, cigarette drooping, the bright sunshine striking brilliant shafts of light from the tight sheen of the navy suit.

  I couldn’t help comparing the aspect of the trio of humans with the natural beauty and dignity of the horse. The big chestnut tossed his head then stood looking calmly across the paddock, the large fine eyes alight with intelligence, the noble lines of the face and neck blending gently into the grace and power of the body. Observations I had heard about the higher and lower animals floated about in my mind.

  Siegfried walked around the horse, patting him and talking to him, his eyes shining with the delight of the fanatic.

  “He’s a grand sort, Mr. Barnett,” he said.

  The big man glowered at him. “Aye well, don’t spoil ’im, that’s all. I’ve paid a lot o’ money for that ’oss.”

  Siegfried gave him a thoughtful look then turned to me.

  “Well, let’s get on. We’ll drop him over there on that long grass. Are you ready, James?”

  I was ready, but I’d be a lot more at ease if Siegfried would just leave me alone. In horse work I was the anaesthetist and my colleague was the surgeon. And he was good; quick, deft, successful. I had no quarrel with the arrangement; he could get on with his job and let me do mine. But there was the rub; he would keep butting into my territory and I found it wearing.

  Anaesthesia in the large animals has a dual purpose; it abolishes pain and acts as a means of restraint. It is obvious that you can’t do much with these potentially dangerous creatures unless they are controlled.

  That was my job. I had to produce a sleeping patient ready for the knife and very often I thought it was the most difficult part. Until the animal was properly under I always felt a certain tension and Siegfried didn’t help in this respect