Джеймс Хэрриот: Every Living Thing

Only my long training that the customer is always right stopped me from barking back. Instead I forced a smile.

“Mrs. Sidlow,” I said, “I assure you that I’m anything but rich. In fact, if you could see my bank balance you would see what I mean.”

“You’re tellin’ me you haven’t much money?”

“That’s right.”

She waved towards the Austin and gave me another searing glare. “So this fancy car’s just a lot o’ show on nowt!”

I had no answer. She had me both ways—either I was a fat cat or a stuck-up poseur.

As I drove away up the rising road I looked back at the farm with its substantial house and wide sprawl of buildings. There were five hundred lush acres down there, lying in the low country at the foot of the dale. The Sidlows were big, prosperous farmers with none of the worries of the hill men who struggled to exist on the bleak smallholdings higher up, and it was difficult to understand why my imagined affluence should be such an affront to them.

It occurred to me, too, that this latest attack had come at a time when my finances were at their lowest ebb. As I changed gear I caught a glimpse of pink flesh through the knee of my old corduroys. Oh, hell, these trousers had just about had it as indeed had a lot of my clothes, but the needs of two growing children came a long way before my own. Not that there was any point in going round my work looking like a male fashion plate—I had one of the roughest, dirtiest jobs in the world and could only aim at reasonable respectability—and I always had the comforting knowledge that I did have one “good suit,” which had lasted for many years simply because it was hardly ever worn.

But it was indeed strange that I should be perpetually hard up. Siegfried and I had built up a good, successful practice. I worked nearly all the time, seven days a week, in the evenings and often during the night, and it was hard work, too—rolling about on cobbled floors fighting with tough calvings to the point of exhaustion, getting kicked, crushed, trodden on and sprayed with muck. Often, I spent days with every muscle in my body aching. But I still had only a niggling and immovable overdraft of £1,000 to show for it all.

Of course, most of my time was spent driving a car. You didn’t get paid for that, and maybe it was the reason for my situation. Yet the driving, the work and the whole rich life was spent out in the open in this glorious countryside. I really loved it all and it was only when I was accused of being a kind of agricultural con man that the contradiction came home to me.

As the road climbed higher I began to see the church tower and roofs of Darrowby and, at last, on the edge of the town, the gates of Mrs. Pumphrey’s beautiful home lay beckoning. I looked at my watch—twelve noon. Long practice had enabled me to time my visits here just before lunch when I could escape the rigours of country practice and wallow for a little while in the hospitality of the elderly widow who had brightened my life for so long.

As my tyres crunched on the gravel of the drive I smiled as Tricki Woo appeared at the window to greet me. He was old now, but he could still get up there to his vantage point and his Pekingese face was split as always by a panting grin of welcome.

Mounting the steps in the twin pillars of the doorway, I could see that he had left the window and I heard his joyous barking in the hall. Ruth, the long-serving maid, answered my ring, beaming with pleasure as Tricki flung himself at my knees.

“Eee, he’s glad to see you, Mr. ’erriot,” she said, and, laying a hand on my arm, “We all are!”

She ushered me into the gracious drawing room, where Mrs. Pumphrey was sitting in an armchair by the fire. She raised her white head from her book and cried out in delight, “Ah, Mr. Herriot. How very, very nice! And Tricki, isn’t it wonderful to have Uncle Herriot visiting again!”

She waved me to the armchair opposite. “I have been expecting you for Tricki’s check-up, but before you examine him you must sit down and warm yourself. It is so terribly cold. Ruth, my dear, will you bring Mr. Herriot a glass of sherry. You will say yes, won’t you, Mr. Herriot?”

I murmured my thanks. I always said yes to the very special sherry, which came in enormous glasses and was deeply heartening at all times but on cold days in particular. I sank into the cushions and stretched my legs towards the flames that leaped in the fireplace, and as I took my first sip and Ruth deposited a plate of tiny biscuits by my side while the little dog climbed onto my knee, the last of the hostile Sidlow vibes slipped gently away from me.

“Tricki has been awfully well since your last visit, Mr. Herriot,” Mrs. Pumphrey said. “I know he is always going to be a little stiff with his arthritis but he does get around so well, and his little heart cough is no worse. And best of all,” she clasped her hands together and her eyes widened, “he hasn’t gone flop-bott at all. Not once! So perhaps you won’t have to squeeze the poor darling.”

“Oh, no, I won’t. Certainly not. I only do that if he really needs it.” I had been squeezing Tricki Woo’s bottom for many years because of his anal gland trouble so graphically named by his mistress and the little animal had never resented it. I stroked his head as Mrs. Pumphrey went on.

“There is something very interesting I must tell you. As you know, Tricki has always been deeply knowledgeable about horse-racing, a wonderful judge of form, and wins nearly all his bets. Well, now,” she raised a finger and spoke in a confidential murmur, “just recently he has become very interested in greyhound-racing!”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, indeed, he has begun to discuss the meetings at the Middlesbrough greyhound track and instructed me to place bets for him and, you know, he has won quite a lot of money already!”

“Gosh!”

“Yes, only this morning Crowther, my chauffeur, collected twelve pounds from the bookmaker after last evening’s races.”

“Well, well, how wonderful.” My heart bled for Honest Joe Prendergast, the local turf accountant, who must be suffering after losing money on horse-racing to a dog for years and then having to pay out on the greyhounds, too. “Quite remarkable.”

“Isn’t it, isn’t it!” Mrs. Pumphrey gave me a radiant smile, then she became serious. “But I do wonder, Mr. Herriot, just what is responsible for this new interest. What is your opinion?”

I shook my head gravely. “Difficult to say. Very difficult.”

“However, I have a theory,” she said. “Do you think perhaps that as he grows older he is more drawn to animals of his own species and prefers to bet on doggy runners like greyhounds?”

“Could be….could be…”

“And, after all, you would think with this affinity it would give him more insight and a better chance of winning.”

“Well, yes, that’s right. That’s another point.”

Tricki, well aware that we were talking about him, waved his fine tail and looked up at me with his wide grin and lolling tongue.

I settled deeper in the cushions as the sherry began to send warm tendrils through my system. This was a happily familiar situation, listening to Mrs. Pumphrey’s recitals of Tricki Woo’s activities. She was a kind, highly intelligent and cultivated lady, admired by all and a benefactress to innumerable charities. She sat on committees and her opinion was sought on many important matters, but where her dog was concerned her conversation never touched on weighty topics, but was filled with strange and wondrous things.

She leaned forward in her chair. “There is something else I would like to talk to you about, Mr. Herriot. You know that a Chinese restaurant has set up in Darrowby?”