Джеймс Хэрриот - All Things Wise and Wonderful

It was my habit at that time in my life to mount the stairs two or three at a time but on this occasion I trailed upwards like an old man, slightly breathless, throat tight, eyes prickling.

I cursed myself for a sentimental fool but as I reached our door I found a flash of consolation. Helen had taken it remarkably well. She had nursed that cat and grown deeply attached to him, and I’d have thought an unforeseen calamity like this would have upset her terribly. But no, she had behaved calmly and rationally. You never knew with women, but I was thankful.

It was up to me to do as well. I adjusted my features into the semblance of a cheerful smile and marched into the room.

Helen had pulled a chair close to the table and was slumped face down against the wood. One arm cradled her head while the other was stretched in front of her as her body shook with an utterly abandoned weeping.

I had never seen her like this and I was appalled. I tried to say something comforting but nothing stemmed the flow of racking sobs.

Feeling helpless and inadequate I could only sit close to her and stroke the back of her head. Maybe I could have said something if I hadn’t felt just about as bad myself.

You get over these things in time. After all, we told ourselves, it wasn’t as though Oscar had died or got lost again—he had gone to a good family who would look after him. In fact he had really gone home.

And of course, we still had our much-loved Sam, although he didn’t help in the early stages by sniffing disconsolately where Oscar’s bed used to lie then collapsing on the rug with a long lugubrious sigh.

There was one other thing, too. I had a little notion forming in my mind, an idea which I would spring on Helen when the time was right. It was about a month after that shattering night and we were coming out of the cinema at Brawton at the end of our half day. I looked at my watch.

“Only eight o’clock,” I said. “How about going to see Oscar?”

Helen looked at me in surprise. “You mean—drive on to Wederly?”

“Yes, it’s only about five miles.”

A smile crept slowly across her face. “That would be lovely. But do you think they would mind?”

“The Gibbons? No, I’m sure they wouldn’t. Let’s go.”

Wederly was a big village and the ploughman’s cottage was at the far end a few yards beyond the methodist chapel. I pushed open the garden gate and we walked down the path.

A busy-looking little woman answered my knock. She was drying her hands on a striped towel.

“Mrs. Gibbons?” I said.

“Aye, that’s me.”

“I’m James Herriot—and this is my wife.”

Her eyes widened uncomprehendingly. Clearly the name meant nothing to her.

“We had your cat for a while,” I added.

Suddenly she grinned and waved her towel at us. “Oh aye, ah remember now. Sep told me about you. Come in, come in!”

The big kitchen-living room was a tableau of life with six children and thirty shillings a week. Battered furniture, rows of much-mended washing on a pulley, black cooking range and a general air of chaos.

Sep got up from his place by the fire, put down his newspaper, took off a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles and shook hands.

He waved Helen to a sagging armchair. “Well, it’s right nice to see you. Ah’ve often spoke of ye to t’missis.”

His wife hung up her towel. “Yes, and I’m glad to meet ye both. I’ll get same tea in a minnit.”

She laughed and dragged a bucket of muddy water into a corner. “I’ve been washin’ football jerseys. Them lads just handed them to me tonight—as if I haven’t enough to do.”

As she ran the water into the kettle I peeped surreptitiously around me and I noticed Helen doing the same. But we searched in vain. There was no sign of a cat. Surely he couldn’t have run away again? With a growing feeling of dismay I realised that my little scheme could backfire devastatingly.

It wasn’t until the tea had been made and poured that I dared to raise the subject.

“How—” I asked diffidently. “How is—er—Tiger?”

“Oh, he’s grand,” the little woman replied briskly. she glanced up at the clock on the mantelpiece. “He should be back any time now, then you’ll be able to see ’im.”

As she spoke, Sep raised a finger. “Ah think ah can hear ’im now.”

He walked over and opened the door and our Oscar strode in with all his old grace and majesty. He took one look at Helen and leaped on to her lap. With a cry of delight she put down her cup and stroked the beautiful fur as the cat arched himself against her hand and the familiar purr echoed round the room.

“He knows me,” she murmured. “He knows me.”

Sep nodded and smiled. “He does that. You were good to ’im. He’ll never forget ye, and we won’t either, will we, mother?”

“No, we wont, Mrs. Herriot,” his wife said as she applied butter to a slice of gingerbread. “That was a kind thing ye did for us and I ’ope you’ll come and see us all whenever you’re near.”

“Well, thank you,” I said. “We’d love to—we’re often in Brawton.”

I went over and tickled Oscar’s chin, then I turned again to Mrs. Gibbons. “By the way, it’s after nine o’clock. Where has he been till now?”

She poised her butter knife and looked into space.

“Let’s see, now,” she said. “It’s Thursday, isn’t it? Ah yes, it’s ’is night for the Yoga class.”

CHAPTER 48

I KNEW IT WAS the end of the chapter when I slammed the carriage door behind me and squeezed into a seat between a fat WAAF and a sleeping corporal.

I suppose I was an entirely typical discharged serviceman. They had taken away my blue uniform and fitted me with a “demob suit,” a ghastly garment of stiff brown serge with purple stripes which made me look like an old-time gangster, but they had allowed me to retain my RAF shirt and tie and the shiny boots which were like old friends.

My few belongings, including Black’s Veterinary Dictionary, lay in the rack above in a small cardboard suitcase of a type very popular among the lower ranks of the services. They were all I possessed and I could have done with a coat because it was cold in the train and a long journey stretched between Eastchurch and Darrowby.

It took an age to chug and jolt as far as London then there was a lengthy wait before I boarded the train for the north. It was about midnight when we set off, and for seven hours I sat there in the freezing darkness, feet numb, teeth chattering.

The last lap was by bus and it was the same rattling little vehicle that had carried me to my first job those years ago. The driver was the same too, and the time between seemed to melt away as the fells began to rise again from the blue distance in the early light and I saw the familiar farmhouses, the walls creeping up the grassy slopes, the fringe of trees by the river’s edge.

It was mid morning when we rumbled into the market place and I read “Darrowby Co-operative Society” above the shop on the far side. The sun was high, warming the tiles of the fretted line of roofs with their swelling green background of hills. I got out and the bus went on its way, leaving me standing by my case.

And it was just the same as before. The sweet air, the silence and the cobbled square deserted except for the old men sitting around the clock tower. One of them looked up at me.

“Now then, Mr. Herriot,” he said quietly as though he had seen me only yesterday.

Before me Trengate curved away till it disappeared round the grocer’s shop on the corner. Most of the quiet street with the church at its foot was beyond my view and it was a long time since I had been down there, but with my eyes closed I could see Skeldale House with the ivy climbing over the old brick walls to the little rooms under the eaves.