Pets in Prospect - Malcolm D. Welshman [12]
‘I can’t thank you enough,’ she gushed as Lucy and I levered Cedric’s cage into the back of her Mini. ‘Dr Sharpe’s done such a marvellous job. Please pass on my thanks.’
Lucy’s eyes widened with astonishment. ‘But …’
‘I certainly will,’ I interjected, quickly pulling the blanket over Cedric and closing the car door. I turned to Lucy and shook my head.
Miss McEwan squeezed herself in behind the steering wheel, her head just coming level with it, her tartan cape spilling over the edges of the seat. She wound the window down. ‘Now you did say to come back in a week’s time?’
‘A week … yes. Unless Cedric starts pecking at the wound.’
‘Most grateful … most grateful,’ she murmured, switching the engine on.
I leaned down, placing my hand on the window edge. ‘Before you go, there’s one question I’m dying to ask, if you don’t mind.’
Miss McEwan looked up at me. ‘Well?’
‘I was just wondering whether you knew anyone called Dick?’
Two high spots of red instantly appeared on Miss McEwan’s cheeks and her lips rapidly pursed. She revved the car and crashed into gear. I leapt back as the car lurched forward, gravel spitting from under the tyres. As it squealed out of the drive and disappeared, loud wolf-whistles rang out from the back seat.
I gave Lucy a wink as we ran giggling up the steps and into reception. We were instantly sobered by Beryl giving us the eye. Just the one – her good one.
FORTUNE FAVOURS THE BRAVE
It was one morning towards the end of my second week when Beryl asked the question. I’d been scanning my diary, checking for any visits she might have booked in.
‘Are you superstitious?’ she enquired.
I thought for a moment. No, I didn’t really think so. I’d skirt round a ladder but only if someone was up it with a pot of paint. But that was just common sense. And the sight of three magpies – or was it four? – I didn’t see as an omen of doom. Merely successful breeding on the part of the magpies.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Oh, just wondered.’ Beryl rubbed a wart on her chin. ‘It’s just that I’ve booked you a visit later this morning. It’s a black cat. Just thought … maybe … you know … seeing it could bring you some luck.’
I was instantly suspicious. Luck? Did I need luck? Did she know something I didn’t? I knew she was friendly with Mrs Paget. Perhaps the two of them had been having a chin-wag. Comparing notes. Sizing me up. Maybe Mrs Paget had told her of my run-ins with Chico and all those disturbed nights on duty.
‘I can sympathise with the poor lad,’ I could hear her say, ‘keeps me awake just thinking about him.’
Yes, well, Mrs Paget, keep those thoughts to yourself.
Mind you, she had a point. I did have a lot of night duties – a whole string of them. I’d barely stepped over the threshold of Prospect House when the roster was sorted out with what seemed like unseemly haste. I had assumed it would be shared between the three vets – like one in three. Not a bit of it. It transpired that Crystal and Eric expected me to do alternate nights. I explained this to Mrs Paget whose mascara-laden lashes whipped up and down in a frenzy when I said her nights might be disrupted.
‘I don’t mind a bit,’ she said, stubbing out her cigarette and drawing the lapels of her housecoat across her bosom. ‘It’s all for a good cause … saving our little furry friends. In fact, I wish there was more I could do to help.’
She was to mull over this for a few days as I later found out.
There had been ground rules when I first began lodging with her. My bedsit was the converted lounge at the front of the house. I could use the kitchen from 1.00–2.00pm at lunchtimes, 5.00–7.00pm in the evenings, including weekends. Mornings were just half-an-hour from 7.30am. ‘Otherwise you might bump into me in a state of undress,’ she said.
I was unclear as to who would be the one undressed but, fearing it could be her – naked but for her fluffy pink housecoat – I stuck to the rules rigidly.