Pets in Prospect - Malcolm D. Welshman [91]
One client who’d had ambitions to scale the same heights but had backed down at an early stage was Miss Millichip.
‘Always wanted to be a vet,’ she declared, ‘ever since I was a mere slip of a girl.’
I couldn’t picture Mildred Millichip as a mere slip of anything. But the Laws of Nature being what they are meant that she must have been young … once. Someone must have conceived her; someone must have allowed her into the world; someone must have gathered her up in their arms and loved her. I’m sure someone did. But it was hard to imagine who that someone might have been.
Could she ever have had shiny plaits or a glossy pony-tail, I wondered, gazing now at her wiry, grey straggle of hair like a discarded scouring pad, tied back with an elastic band and a couple of broken-toothed combs? And were those grey eyes ever innocent and trusting as they now stare back at me like two torpedoes ready to fire, echoed by the raft of grey on a protruding upper lip? No one could say she was pretty. Her looks caught your eye rather like a thorn snags your sock.
‘Only, the war intervened,’ she continued.
First or second? I thought.
‘Put a stop to everything. Career, the lot.’ She sliced a set of square-nailed fingers through the air. ‘All got the chop. But we had to do our duty. I was in the tank corps, you know.’
No surprise there. She was built like one.
‘And after the war … well … I landed up here.’
‘At least you’ve got your animals,’ I ventured to say.
Indeed, Miss Millichip had a whole battalion of them, putting my Nigerian menagerie to shame. She lived in a post-war bungalow she shared with a multitude of cats and odd stray dogs; but most of her time was spent in one or other of the many outbuildings which housed the main bulk of her brood.
It was through Beryl – who else? – that I first met her earlier that summer. The receiver was waved at me when I arrived for work one Wednesday morning. Could I visit a Miss Millichip?
‘Ask her to come in.’
Beryl’s eye widened in horror and, hand clasped over the receiver, said in a loud whisper, ‘Not Mildred Millichip. She never comes in.’
I’d been told that practice policy was to encourage appointments rather than visits. So if that was the case … I snatched the phone from Beryl.
‘Mr Mitchell here. I gather you want a visit.’
‘Mr Mitchell … I don’t think I know you.’
‘I’m new here.’
‘Oh, in that case, put me on to Dr Sharpe.’
‘I’m afraid she’s not here.’
‘When will she be back?’
‘When she’s finished her match …’ would have been the truthful reply as it was Crystal’s tennis morning. ‘This afternoon. But she’s booked up with appointments,’ I said.
There was a loud tut. ‘And Mr Sharpe? I doubt if he’s booked up. He’ll have to do, I suppose …’ The tone was distinctly unenthusiastic.
Eric was at the dentist’s. I saw Beryl hold up her hands, rocking them from side to side in unison, while shaking her head and silently mouthing, ‘No! No! No!’ She looked like she was auditioning for Guys and Dolls. Clearly, I was in danger of rocking the boat if Eric and Miss Millichip were on board together. ‘He’s unavailable,’ I said. Beryl sat down with relief.
‘You’ll have to do then,’ said Miss Millichip, her voice sounding distinctly disappointed.
‘What’s the problem?’
‘The greyhounds’ got canker.’
‘Well, can’t you bring him in?’
There was a sharp intake of breath. ‘What do you think I am? Some sort of American bus service? It’s my greyhounds … all eight of them.’
That set the tone for a track record of visits. Whenever she phoned demanding one, I’d be trapped into making it. You could bet on it every time.
On that visit, as on subsequent ones, I had problems finding her in the maze of sheds, lean-tos and outhouses that encircled her bungalow. I never discovered her in the house actually sitting, putting her feet up. Her feet were always firmly entrenched in green gumboots,