Pets in Prospect - Malcolm D. Welshman [36]
As the summer slipped by, Lucy grew more and more concerned about Gertie’s future. She tried hard to convince me that it would be better to opt for a turkey at Christmas. ‘You do realise geese are very greasy,’ she said. ‘All that fat’s not good for the digestion.’
‘Lemon juice will soon fix that,’ I said, not appreciating the depth of Lucy’s feelings. Whoops.
Her eyes blazed, and there was an angry swish of her ponytail. Oh dear; I’d obviously said the wrong thing. ‘You can cook the damn bird yourself then,’ she said, storming out of the kitchen while I discreetly closed the cordon bleu cookery book that I’d had open at ‘Roast Goose à la Perigord’.
Matters weren’t helped when one of the Stockwell sisters phoned up with a recipe for prune and apple stuffing that I had requested. Unfortunately, Lucy took the call; and though she was polite enough to listen, all she scribbled on the telephone pad were a series of heavily inked-in daggers.
But I wasn’t deterred. And Lucy began to realise that nothing was going to stop Gertie heading straight for the oven.
Mid-September, it was Mandy’s twentieth birthday. She was going to head down to her parents in Dorset for the weekend but, on the Friday, there was a little after-work celebration at Prospect House. Eric donated three bottles of wine and Beryl made a few sausage rolls and bought in some ready-made pizza slices. Crystal proposed a toast and we all drank to Mandy’s health while she stood there, her face flushed with embarrassment. Having taken a few sips of wine, Crystal made her excuses and dragged Eric away just as he was about to refill his glass. There was an audible sigh of relief as we then set to and finished off the bottles between us.
It was gone 10.00pm by the time Lucy and I got back to Willow Wren. There were a couple of honks from the bottom of the garden as I fumbled with my keys in the dark, trying to sort out the front-door lock. When we finally managed to let ourselves in, we promptly tripped over Nelson, snoring in blissful deafness on the hall rug.
It had been a hectic day at the hospital, so Lucy was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. But I lay awake for what seemed like hours, tossing and turning. When I finally dozed off, I dreamed I was being chased round and round the kitchen by an irate goose with a knife and fork in each wing.
It was Gertie’s honking that woke me up, the cackling rising to a crescendo as I opened my eyes.
‘What the hell… ?’ I spluttered, trying to shake off my drowsiness as I fumbled for my dressing gown. Slinging it over my shoulders, I pounded down the stairs, convinced that Foxie had Gertie by the throat.
An open back door greeted me, a pane of glass broken, the sound of footsteps running away. Too late, Nelson cottoned on to the fact that we’d had burglars and began to bark at a bowl of fruit.
‘Just think,’ said Lucy brightly the following morning, ‘if it hadn’t been for Gertie, heaven knows what they might have stolen.’
Though we hadn’t much of value, I was a movie buff and did treasure my DVD collection. With that in mind, I had to admit that Gertie had saved our skins; so the least we could do was save hers. So, yes, I now agreed with Lucy – it would be turkey for Christmas.
Gertie’s future seemed even more secure when a couple of weeks later I was given two turkey poults to fatten up. Lucy found them quite endearing creatures. As they grew, so did her fondness for them.
‘Besides,’ she said, ‘they’re proving great company for Gertie.’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ she added as we watched the trio strut happily round the lawn, ‘perhaps we should just have boiled ham with all the trimmings for Christmas lunch.’
Fine, I thought, unless some client decided to give us a pig to fatten up. And if that became a pet, as