The Colwells joined in happily. “Aye, you’re right, Mr. Herriot. He allus puts it on!” But again a tear stole down the lady’s cheek. “Eee, but it’s such a relief to know we’re not going to lose ’im.”
Then she quickly wiped her face with the back of her hand. “We must celebrate with a cup o’ tea. You’ve got time, Mr. Herriot?”
Brawton beckoned but I couldn’t say no. “Right, thank you very much, but it will have to be a quicky.”
The kettle was soon boiling and Mrs. Colwell used both arms to make a sort of clearing in the table-top jungle where she deposited the cups. As I sipped my tea and looked at the friendly people laughing and gazing with love at their dog, I knew that the gasman had been right again. They were canny folks.
My departure had a triumphant quality as they ushered me out with repeated thanks and wavings of arms.
I shouted back as I boarded my car, “Give me a ring in a couple of days and let me know how he’s going on. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
I had only just driven round the corner when I felt a prickling round my ankles. Maybe those new socks were irritating me—I began to push them down. But the strange tingling and itching began to spread to my calves and I pulled into the roadside and rolled up a trouser leg. My flesh was sprinkled with little black dots, but they were dots that hopped and jumped and bit, and they were working their way rapidly up my thighs. Oh my God, that gasman hadn’t been so daft!
I had to get home with all speed but I got behind a couple of farm tractors with wide loads and was unable to overtake. By the time I reached home, the invasion had reached my chest and back and the maddening itch was setting me afire, making me wriggle around in my seat.
Helen was changing in readiness for Brawton and she turned in surprise as I galloped into our bedroom.
“I have to get into the bath!” I shouted.
“Oh…had a dirty job?”
“No, I’ve got fleas!”
“What!”
“Fleas! Millions of them—they’re all over me!”
“But…but…how…?”
“I’ll tell you later. Please come and get my clothes and dump them in the washer. I’ll need a complete change.”
In the bathroom I undressed and submerged myself, plunging my head repeatedly under the water. Helen came in and looked with horror at my heap of clothes with the agile insects leaping against the white of the shirt.
“Oooo…yuk-yuk-yuk!” she gasped as she grimaced and lifted each article by one corner and disappeared to the wash.
I felt as if I could have stayed in that bath for ever. The relief was enormous as I lay there, freed from the torture of the itch, watching in disbelief as the dark tormentors floated on the surface of the water. I wasn’t going to take any chances. I emptied the bath and refilled it before having another long steep. I washed and scrubbed my hair again and again and when I finally climbed out and donned a completely new set of clothes I thanked heaven that my troubles were over. It was my first experience of such a thing and I hadn’t realised how shattering it could be. I had read often about the suffering of people in foreign prisons lying in flea-ridden mattresses but I had never fully comprehended it until now.
When we at last set off for Brawton it was difficult to recapture the carefree feeling that always settled on us on a Thursday. The bizarre events of the morning were still too fresh in our minds. However, as we left the hills and began to bowl along the great plain of York with the familiar Thursday scenes rolling past the car windows, we began gradually to relax. Soon we would be at lunch, out of reach of our pressures, then, this evening, the particular joy of the Halle Orchestra.
As a schoolboy in Glasgow I had actually met the legendary Barbirolli—it was before he was Sir John—and in rather odd circumstances. I was attending a special schools concert by the Scottish Orchestra in the St. Andrew’s Hall. I went to the toilet in the interval and became aware that a white-tie and tailed figure was standing in the next stall to me. I looked up and was amazed and delighted to see that it was the great man himself. It was a strange place to meet, but he asked me how I was enjoying the music, what I had liked best and about myself. He was indeed the gracious, kindly man who became such a beloved figure throughout the world.
Since my meeting I had followed his career through the years, from when he succeeded Toscanini as conductor of the New York Philharmonic, till now when he had been since 1942 in charge of the great Halle Orchestra. Over the years I had gone to his concerts whenever they were in reach and watched him shrinking in size. He had always been small but now he was tiny and frail—but totally inspiring on the rostrum.
I was sharing these thoughts with Helen as our half-day euphoria mounted, and we were within a mile of Brawton when I stiffened in my seat and fell silent.
After a minute or so my wife looked at me. “What’s wrong? You’ve gone very quiet.”
I shifted position carefully. “Oh, it’s probably nothing, but I have a daft feeling that I’ve still got some fleas on me.”
“What! You can’t have—not after a bath and a complete change! It’s impossible!”
“I know it’s impossible, but I tell you—I’ve got that same feeling.”
“Oh, it’s just the after-effects, Jim; remember you were bitten all over.”
“I know, I know,” I grunted, “but I’m pretty sure there’s some fresh activity going on.”
She took my hand and smiled encouragingly. “It’s all in your mind. Try to think of something else.”
I did my best, but I was still wriggling when I mounted the stairs to Brown’s café. The mingled cooking smells, the clatter of cutlery, the cheerful bustle and the welcoming smiles of the waitresses we knew so well had always sent my spirits soaring as though a great gong was signalling the beginning of our happy few hours, but today was different.
As we took our places and read through the good old-fashioned Yorkshire menu, which had always delighted me—roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, plaice and chips, steak and kidney pie, steamed jam sponge, spotted Dick and custard, my mind was churning and my smile was a fixed mask as I ordered.
Sipping my way through the delicious soup and toying with the meal, I was like a man in a bad dream as I tried to ignore the torture under my shirt. Around the half-way stage a couple threaded their way between the crowded tables and the man approached us.
“May we join you?” he asked politely. “There’s not a seat anywhere.”
“Of course,” I replied, digging up another smile. “By all means.”
As they sat down it was easy to label them. A farmer and his wife out for the day like ourselves. They were in their fifties, with scrubbed, weathered faces, and the man’s bright tie and smart tweed jacket sat uneasily upon him. He reached a huge hand for the menu and studied it with his wife.
“Aye, well,” he said, looking up at us. “That were a good rain last night.”
That settled it, I thought as we nodded agreement. I didn’t know them. Brawton was rather far for most of my farmers. They would probably be from Wharfedale.
My conjectures were cut short by Helen pressing her knee against mine. I turned to her and saw a look of horror on her face.
“There’s one on your collar,” she muttered, then, “Ooo, it’s jumped!”
It had indeed jumped, right onto the middle of the white table-cloth. As I watched helplessly another one hopped out, then another.
The farmer and his wife, who were clearly on the point of starting a friendly conversation, stared in amazement at the leaping objects. There was a terrible silence, then the man spoke again.
“?h, there’s a table by the window, Eva,” he said, rising to his feet. “That’s where we usually sit. You’ll excuse us, won’t you.”
After they had gone we raced through our meal. I don’t know how many more of the flitting creatures appeared on the table. I was too stunned to count, and looking back now I have only the terrifying memory of the first few. We abandoned all id
ea of our dessert and instead of a happy discussion of the relative merits of ginger pudding and apple pie we called for our bill and fled.
We couldn’t wait to see Jean and Gordon. The bathroom at home was our only goal and as I drove at top speed, images of the little terrors on that table-cloth rose again and again in my mind. How could it possibly have happened? How had that second wave of fleas escaped all my precautions? To this day I have no answer, I only know it was so.
Back home it was the same thing again. The total submersion in the bath. Helen’s fingertip bearing away my contaminated clothing and a complete change.
It was fortunate that I had reserved my “good suit” for the concert because my limited wardrobe was running low. When I finally stood freshly arrayed and ready to go, I turned despairingly to my wife. “Surely I’ll be all right this time.”
“Oh, you must be. There can’t possibly be any of those things left now.”
I shifted gloomily under my fresh shirt. “That’s what we thought before.”
We had to pick up the Miss Whitlings, Harriet and Felicity, and we found them, as usual, bursting with vitality and good humour. They were in their late forties, large, busty ladies, and though some people might have called them fat I had always considered them extremely comely and had been mystified that neither of them was married.
The journey back to Brawton passed quickly aided by the non-stop conversation and, for me, the blissful knowledge that at last nothing was eating me alive. In the concert hall our two friends stationed themselves on either side of me, which I took as a compliment. In fact, I was tightly squeezed between them because they both overflowed their seats to some extent.
As I drank in the familiar sounds of the concert hall, the orchestra tuning, the expectant buzz of conversation with my two attractive neighbours chattering on either side, it came to me that after my traumatic day, things had taken an upturn. Life was pretty good.
I joined in the wave of applause that greeted the slight figure of Barbirolli as he almost tiptoed across the platform. The people of Yorkshire loved him as much as anybody and the clapping went on and on. As he finally mounted the rostrum and raised his baton in the sudden hush, I settled back in happy anticipation.
It was just as the first majestic bars of Coriolanus sounded that I felt the prickle on my right shoulder-blade. Oh, my God, no, it couldn’t be. But the growing irritation was only too familiar. I tried to ignore it but after a minute I had to lean hard against the back of my seat to try to relieve the itch, and then as it spread across my back I had to execute the slightest of wriggles to transfer my weight the other way.
I realised then, to my horror, that in my squashed-in situation even the slightest movement was transmitted instantly to one or other of my neighbours. As the maddening tickle mounted, I wanted to scratch, throw myself about, fight the thing in every way, but that was unthinkable. I had to accept the frightening reality that for the next several hours I would have to sit still.
This involved a supreme effort of will on my part but I would have had to be some sort of yogi to succeed. I did my best to concentrate on the music, but was forced to settle for short periods of inaction then a careful shifting of position, sometimes to brace my back against the seat or move my clothes against my skin by side-to-side shufflings.
I was convinced that there was only one flea at work now. After my experiences I had become an authority on the species and I was positive that I could track his progress over my person. As Beethoven thundered around me I had the feverish idea that I might trap him in the act and squash him, and whenever I felt a fresh bite I tried to exert a fierce pressure against the hard wood and move slowly from side to side.
These manoeuvres inevitably involved encroachment on my partners’ territory. I had expected during the evening to get to know the nice sisters better, to find out more about their personalities, but in fact I learned much more about their anatomies than anything else. Rounded arms, well-fleshed ribs, yielding hips—all were contacted and repeatedly explored in my helpless squirmings, but like the well-bred ladies that they were neither of them showed any outward reactions to my incursions beyond an occasional clearing of the throat or sharp intake of breath. However, when I found my right knee deeply buried in the softness of Harriet’s thigh, there was a definite withdrawal of the limb, and when my left elbow inadvertently but relentlessly nudged aside a weighty bosom, I saw Felicity’s eyebrows climb up her forehead.
I would rather say no more about that unhappy evening except that the pattern did not change. The divine Elgar Violin Concerto that, more than any other musical work, has the power to transport me to a perfect world, was only a background noise to my private battle. It was the same with the beloved Brahms’s First Symphony. All I wanted was to get home.
At the interval and as we bade them goodnight at the end, there were a lot of fixed smiles and darting glances from the Miss Whitlings, and the old saying about wanting the ground to swallow me was never so true.
And when it was all over and Helen and I were sitting on the edge of our bed going over the night’s events I still felt terrible.
“My God, what a night!” I groaned, and as I dredged through my embarrassments with the sisters yet again, Helen managed to keep a straight face, but I could see that it was costing her dearly. Twitchings of the mouth, fierce frowns and an occasional sinking of her face in her hands betrayed her inner struggle.
At the end of my recital of woe I threw out my hands in despair. “And, do you know, Helen, I am convinced that all that agony I went through tonight was caused by a single flea. Think of that! Just one flea!”
My wife suddenly dropped her chin on her chest, thrust out her lips and made a creditable attempt to sink her voice down a few octaves to basso-profundo pitch.
“A flea!” she intoned in true Chaliapin fashion. “Ha-ha-ha-haaa, a flea!”
“Ah, yes, very funny,” I replied. “But Mussorgsky would never have put all the laughter in that song if he had suffered like me.”
Two days later Mr. Colwell telephoned. “Roopy’s grand!” he cried in delight. “Runnin’ round, good as new, but ’e has a bit of broken nail sort of hangin’ from his paw, and it’s catchin’ on things. I wish you’d come and cut it off.”
I didn’t answer for a few seconds, “You…you couldn’t take it off yourself…just a little snip with scissors?”
“Nay, nay, I’m no good at that sort of thing. I’d be right grateful if you’d drop in if you’re out this way.”
“Right…right, Mr. Colwell. I’ll see you later this morning.”
“Helen,” I cried as I left the house. “There’s another call—the Colwells.”
“What!” She looked round the kitchen door in alarm.
“Yes…afraid so, but I’m calling first to see young Jack Arnold along the road.”
“Farmer Arnold’s son?”
“Yes, that’s right. The lad who does all that bicycle racing.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to borrow his clips.”
Chapter 49
SISTER ROSE GENTLY LIFTED the trembling dog onto the table. He was a tiny cross-bred terrier and he looked at me with terrified eyes.
“Poor little beggar,” I said. “No wonder he’s frightened. This is the one that was found on the road in Helvington, isn’t it?”
Sister Rose nodded. “Yes, running about aimlessly, looking for his owners. You’ve seen it all before.”
I had indeed. The desperate search for the people he had loved and trusted who had dumped him and driven away. The dashing up, open-mouthed, to somebody who looked familiar, then turning away in bewilderment. To me it was an almost unbearable sight, evoking feelings of rage and pity that almost choked me.
“Never mind, old lad,” I said, stroking the shaggy head. “There are better days ahead.”
There were always better days ahead for the abandoned dogs at Sister Rose’s little animal sanctuary. It was amazing how soon her care and
affection reassured and transformed the helpless creatures, and through the open door of the treatment room I could see the wagging tails and hear the joyous barking of the dogs in the row of wire-fronted pens.
I was here to do the usual things. Check up on the health and condition of the new arrivals and give them their shots against distemper, hepatitis and leptospirosis, remove the stitches from the spay incisions (all bitches were spayed on arrival) and generally attend to any illness I might find.
“I see he’s holding up a hind leg,” I said.
“Yes, he doesn’t seem to be able to use that leg at all and I want you to have a look at it. I hope it’s just a temporary thing.”
I examined the foot and claws. Normal. And as I felt my way up the leg, I soon found the cause of the trouble.
I turned to Sister Rose. “He’s had a fractured femur and it’s never been set. The bone has formed a sort of callus but there’s no real healing.”
“So this little thing had a broken leg and his owners just didn’t bother about it?”
“That’s right.” I ran my hand over the little body, feeling the jutting backbone, the almost fleshless ribs. “He’s emaciated too, just about skin and bone. This is a neglected dog if ever I saw one.”
“And I’ll bet he’s never had any affection either,” she said softly. “Look how he trembles when we speak. He seems to be afraid of people.” She gave a long sigh. “Ah, well, we’ll do what we can. How about that leg?”
“I’ll have to X-ray it later today to see what can be done.” I gave him his inoculations and Sister Rose carried him out and placed him in a pen on his own. “By the way,” I said. “What have you called this one?”
She smiled. “I’ve called him Titch. Not a very elegant name, but he’s so little.”