After a job he always asked us in to sample Mrs. Pratt's baking. In fact
on cold days he used to keep a thermos of hot coffee ready for our
arrival and he had an endearing habit of sloshing rum freely into each
cup before pouring in the coffee.
"You can't put a man like that in court," Siegfried said. "But we've got
to find some way of parting him from his brass." He looked ruminatively
at the ceiling for a few moments then thumped a fist into his palm.
"I think I've got it, James! You know it's quite possible it just never
occurs to Dennis to pay a bill. So I'm going to pitch him into an
environment where it will really be brought home to him. The accounts
have just gone out and I'll arrange to meet him in here at two o'clock
next market day. I'll say I want to discuss his mastitis problem. He'll
be right in the middle of all the other farmers paying their bills and
I'll deliberately leave him with them for half an hour or so. I'm sure
it will give him the notion."
I couldn't help feeling dubious. I had known Siegfried long enough to
realise that some of his ideas were brilliant and others barmy; and he
had so many ~ideas and they came in such a constant torrent that I often
had difficulty in deciding which was which. Clearly in this case he was
working on the same lines as a doctor who turns on a water tap full
force to induce a pent up patient to urinate into a bottle.
The scheme may have merit - it was possible that the flutter of cheque
books the chink of coins, the rustle of notes might tap the long-buried
well of debt in Dennis and bring it gushing from him in a mighty flood;
but I doubted it.
My doubts must have shown on my face because Siegfried laughed and
thumped me on the shoulder. "Don't look so worried - we can only try.
And it'll work. Just you wait."
After lunch on market day I was looking out of the window when l saw
Dennis heading our way. The street was busy with the market bustle but
he was easy to pick out. Chin in air, beaming around him happily, every
springing step taking him high on tiptoe he was a distinctive figure. I
let him in at the front door and he strutted past me along the passage,
the back of his natty sports Jacket Lying in a neat fold over his
protruding buttocks.
Siegfried seated him strategically by Miss Harbottle's elbow, giving him
an Unimpeded view of the desk. Then he excused himself, saying he had a
dog to attend to in the operating room. I stayed behind to answer the
clients' queries and to watch developments. I hadn't long to wait; the
farmers began to come in, a steady stream of them, clutching their
cheque books. Some of them stood patiently by the desk, others sat in
the chairs along the walls waiting their turn It was a typical
bill-paying day with the usual quota of moans. The most common
expression was that Mr. Farnon had been 'ower heavy wi' t'pen' and many
of them wanted a 'bit knockin' off. Miss Harbottle used her discretion
in these matters and if the animal had died or the bill did seem unduly
large she would make some reduction.
There was one man who didn't get away with it. He had truculently
demanded a 'bit of luck' on an account and Miss Harbottle fixed him with
a cold eye.
"Mr. Brewiss," she said. "This account has been owing for over a year.
You should really be paying us interest. I can only allow discount when
a bill is paid promptly. It's too bad of you to let it run on for this
length of time."
Dennis, sitting bolt upright, his hands resting on his knees, obviously
agreed with every word. He pursed his lips in disapproval as he looked
at the farmer and turned towards me with a positively scandalised
expression.
Among the complaints was an occasional bouquet. A stooping old man who
had received one of the polite letters was full of apologies. "I'm sorry
I've missed paying for a few months. The vets allus come out straight
away when I send for them so I reckon it's not fair for me to keep them
waiting for their money."
I could see that Dennis concurred entirely with this sentiment. He
nodded vigorously and smiled benevolently at the old man.
Another farmer, a hard-looking character, was walking out without his
receipt when Miss Harbottle called him back. "You'd better take this
with you or we might ask you to pay again," she said with a heavy
attempt at roguishness.
The man paused with his hand on the door knob. "I'll tell you summat,
missis, you're bloody lucky to get it once - you'd never get it twice."
Dennis was right in the thick of it all. Watching closely as the farmers
slapped their cheque books on the desk for Miss Harbottle to write (they
never wrote their own cheques) then signed them slowly and
painstakingly. He looked with open fascination at the neat bundles of
notes being tucked away in the desk drawer and I kept making little
provocative remarks like "It's nice to see the money coming in. We can't
carry on without that, can we."
The queue began to thin out and sometimes we were left alone in the
room. On these occasions we conversed about many things - the weather,
Dennis's stock, the political situation. Finally, Siegfried came in and
I left to do a round.
When I got back, Siegfried was at his evening meal. I was eager to hear
how his scheme had worked out but he was strangely reticent. At length I
could wait no longer.
"Well, how did it go?" I asked.
Siegfried speared a piece of steak with his fork and applied some
mustard. "How did what go."
"Well - Dennis. How did you make out with him."
"Oh, fine. We went into his mastitis problem very thoroughly. I'm going
out there on Tuesday morning to infuse every infected quarter in the
herd with acriflavine solution. It's a new treatment - they say it's
very good."
"But you know what I mean. Did he show any sign of paying his bill."
Siegfried chewed impassively for a few moments and swallowed. "No,
never; a sign." He put down his knife and fork and a haggard look spread
over his face.
"It didn't work, did it."
"Oh well, never mind. As you said, we could only try." I hesitated.
"There's something else, Siegfried. I'm afraid you're going to be
annoyed with me. I know you've told me never to dish out stuff- to
people who don't pay, but he talked me into letting him have a couple of
bottles of fever drink. I don't know what came over me."
"He did, did he?" Siegfried stared into space for a second then gave a
wintry smile. "Well, you can forget about that. He got six tins of
stomach powder out of me."
Chapter Twenty-five.
There was one client who would not have been invited to the debtor."
cocktail party. He was Mr. Horace Dumbleby, the butcher of Aldgrove. As
an inveterate non-payer he fulfilled the main qualification for the
function but he was singularly lacking in charm.
His butcher shop in the main street of picturesque Aldgrove village was
busy and prosperous but most of his trade was done in the neighbouring
/> smaller villages and among the scattered farmhouses of the district.
Usually the butcher's wife and married daughter looked after the shop
while Mr. Dumbleby himself did the rounds. I often saw his blue van
standing with the back doors open and a farmer's wife waiting while he
cut the meat, his big, shapeless body hunched over the slab. Sometimes
he would look up and I would catch a momentary glimpse of a huge,
bloodhound face and melancholy eyes.
Mr. Dumbleby was a farmer himself in a small way. He sold milk from six
cows which he kept in a tidy little byre behind his shop and he fattened
a few bullocks and pork pigs which later appeared as sausages, pies,
roasting cuts and chops in his front window. In fact Mr. Dumbleby seemed
to be very nicely fixed and it was said he owned property all over the
place. But Siegfried had only infrequent glimpses of his money.
All the slow payers had one thing in common - they would not tolerate
slowness from the vets. When they were in trouble they demanded
immediate action. "Will you come at once?', "How long will you be?',
"You won't keep me waiting, will you?', "I want you to come out here
straight away'. It used to alarm me to see the veins swelling on
Siegfried's forehead, the knuckles whitening as he gripped the phone.
After one such session with Mr. Dumbleby at ten o'clock on a Sunday
night he had flown into a rage and unleashed the full fury of the PNS
system on him. It had no loosening effect on the butcher's purse strings
but it did wound his feelings deeply. He obviously considered himself a
wronged man. From that time on, whenever I saw him with his van out in
the country he would turn slowly and direct a blank stare at me till I
was out of sight. And strangely, I seemed to see him more and more often
the thing became unnerving.
And there was something worse. Tristan and I used to frequent the little
Aldgrove pub where the bar was cosy and the beer measured up to
Tristan's stringent standards. I had never taken much notice of Mr.
Dumbleby before although he always occupied the same corner, but now,
every time I looked up, the great sad eyes were trained on me in
disapproval. I tried to forget about him and listen to Tristan relating
his stories from the backs of envelopes but all the time I could feel
that gaze upon me. My laughter would trail away and I would have to look
round. Then the excellent bitter would be as vinegar in my mouth.
In an attempt to escape, I took to visiting the snug instead of the bar
and Tristan, showing true nobility of soul, came with me into an
environment which was alien to him; where there was a carpet on the
floor, people sitting around at little shiny tables drinking gin and
hardly a pint in sight. But even this sacrifice was in vain because Mr.
Dumbleby changed his position in the bar so that he could look into the
snug through the communicating hatch. The odd hours I was able to spend
there took on a macabre quality. I was like a man trying desperately to
forget. But quaff the beer as I might, laugh, talk, even sing, half of
me was waiting in a state of acute apprehension for the moment when I
knew I would have to look round. And when I did, the great sombre face
looked even more forbidding framed by the wooden surround of the hatch.
The hanging jowls, the terraced chins, the huge, brooding eyes - all
were dreadfully magnified by their isolation in that little hole in the
wall.
It was no good, I had to stop going to the place. This was very sad
because Tristan used to wax Lyrical about a certain unique, delicate
nuttiness which he could discern in the draught bitter. But it had lost
its joy for me; I just couldn't take any more of Mr. Dumbleby.
In fact I did my best to forget all about the gentleman, but he was
brought back forcibly into my mind when I heard his voice on the phone
at 3 a.m. one morning. It was nearly always the same thing when the
bedside phone exploded in your ear in the small hours - a calving.
Mr. Dumbleby's call was no exception but he was more peremptory than
might have been expected. There was no question about apologising about
ringing at such an hour as most farmers would do. I said I would come
immediately but that wasn't good enough - he wanted to know exactly in
minutes how long I would be. In a sleepy attempt at sarcasm I started to
recite a programme of so many minutes to get up and dressed, so many to
go downstairs and get the car out etc. but I fear it was lost on him.
When I drove into the sleeping village a light was showing in the window
of the butcher's shop. Mr. Dumbleby almost trotted out into the street
and paced up and down, muttering, as I fished out my ropes and
instruments from the boot. Very impatient, I thought, for a man who
hadn't paid his vet bill for over a year.
We had to go through the shop to get to the byre in the rear. My patient
was a big, fat white cow whirb ~."
Now and tb~ ' Well ~ ~ ~ O _ ,_~ ;~ ci ~ ~ O "Oh, fine: ~ r~ ~O ~ ~ bc
o" there on Tues~= ~ ~ .= :, 3 acriflavine soluti~ a i - _o ~ ~ ~ ~ a
"But you know w~ ~ ou ~O ~ ~ ~ ~
Siegfried chewed imp~- ~ ~
~ ~i ~ "It didn't work, did it?" =, ,. ~O,: :;
"Oh well, never mind. As yout' 3 =-3 something else, Siegfried. I'm
afri.~,.C~ ~ know you've told me never to dish ou~ a talked me into
letting him have a couple ~^ what came over me."
particularly perturbed by her situation. r of feet a few inches from her
vulva. vet's first indication of how tough the hg out of a tiny heifer
have always ise feet were big enough but not out sufficiently roomy. I
wondered what i . "There's a head there but I can't an hour." hsidered
vaguely cissy to wear a be a lot worse. So many of the primitive and
draughty but this provided a very adequate central the usual
smoke-blackened oil r made my first exploration and i ey belonged to
different calves.
~legs you've been pulling - a way has both his legs back:
along his sides. I'll have to push him back out of the way and get the
other one first."
This was going to be a pretty tight squeeze. Normally I like a twin
calving because the calves are usually so small, but these seemed to be
quite big. I put my hand against the little muzzle in the passage, poked
a finger into the mouth and was rewarded by a jerk and flip of the
tongue; he was alive, anyway.
I began to push him steadily back into the uterus, wondering at the same
time what the little creature was making of it all. He had almost
entered the world - his nostrils had been a couple of inches from the
outside air - and now he was being returned to the starting post.
The cow didn't think much of the idea either because she started a
series of straining heaves with the object of frustrating me. She did a
pretty fair job, too since a cow is a lot stronger than a man, but I
kept my arm rigid against the calf and though each heave forced me back
I maintained a steady pressure till I had pushed him to the brim of the
pelvis.
I turned to Mr. Dumbleby and gasped: "I've got this head out of the way.
Get hold of those feet and pull the other calf out."
The butcher stepped forward ponderously and each of his big, meaty hands
engulfed a foot. Then he closed his eyes and with many facial
contortions and noises of painful effort he began to go through the
motions of tugging. The calf didn't move an inch and my spirits drooped.
Mr. Dumbleby was a grunter. (This expression had its origin in an
occasion when Siegfried and a farmer had a foot apiece at a calving and
the farmer was making pitiful sounds without exerting himself in the
slightest. Siegfried had turned to him and said: "Look, let's come to an
arrangement - you do the pulling and I'll do the grunting.')
It was clear I was going to get no help from the big butcher and decided
to have one go by myself. I might be lucky. I let go the muzzle and made
a quick grab for those hind feet, but the cow was too quick for me. I
had just got a slippery grasp when she made a single expulsive effort
and pushed calf number two into the passage again. I was back where I
started.
Once more I put my hand against the wet little muzzle and began the
painful process of repulsion. And as I fought against the big cow's
straining I was reminded that it was 4 a.m. when none of us feels very
strong. By the time I had worked the head back to the pelvic inlet I was
feeling the beginning of that deadly creeping weakness and it seemed as
though somebody had removed most of the bones from my arm.
This time I took a few seconds to get my breath back before I made my
dive for the feet, but it was no good. The cow beat me easily with a
beautifully timed contraction Again that intruding head was jammed tight
in the passage.
I had had enough. And it occurred to me that the little creature inside
must also be getting a little tired of this back and forth business. I
shivered my way through the cold, empty shop out into the silent street
and collected the local anaesthetic from the car. Eight cc's into the
epidural space and the cow, its uterus completely numbed, lost all
interest in the proceedings. In fact she pulled a little hay from her
rack and began to chew absently.
From then on it was like working inside a mail bag; whatever I pushed
stayed put instead of surging back at me. The only snag was that once I
had got everything straight there were no uterine contractions to help
me. It was a case f pulling. Leaning back on a hind leg and with Mr.
Dumbleby panting in agony on the other, the posterior presentation was
soon delivered. He had ~inhaled a fair amount of placental fluid but I
held him upside down till he had Cughed it up. When I laid him on the
byre floor he shook his head vigorously and tried to sit up Then I had
to go in after my old friend the second calf. He was Lying well inside
now, apparently sulking. When I finally brought him snuffling and
kicking into the light ~ " mind. will you."
I couldn't have blamed him if he had said "Make up your Towelling my
chest I looked with the sharp stab of pleasure I always felt at the two
wet little animals wriggling on the floor as Mr. Dumbleby rubbed them
down with a handful of straw.
"Big 'uns for twins," the butcher muttered.
Even this modest expression of approval surprised me and it seemed I
might as well push things along a bit.
"Yes, they're two grand calves. Twins are often dead when they're mixed
up like that - good job we got them out alive." I paused a moment. "You
know, those two must be worth a fair bit."
Mr. Dumbleby didn't answer and I couldn't tell whether the shaft had
gone home.
I got dressed, gathered up my gear and followed him out of the byre and
into the silent shop past the rows of beef cuts hanging from hooks, the