Part 21 (2/2)
”Duck! Who's cooking it?”
”I am. It will be plucked and roasted by my own fair hand.”
My head began to swim a little. I knew he kept ducks at the bottom of the garden-an activity Siegfried regarded with a jaundiced eye as being part of a ”menagerie”-but all this, coming from a man who had no interest in food and, in fact, seemed to eat only on rare occasions, was difficult to take in. But I was sure he was trying to be kind.
”Well, Calum...it's very good of you...what time do you want me?”
”Eight o'clock on the dot.”
At the appointed time I climbed the stair to the flat and received an effusive welcome. Calum sat me down with a drink and as he went through to the kitchen I looked round the little sitting room. It was exactly as when he walked in that first day. Other occupants had added or altered things according to their taste but Calum had not the slightest interest in carpets, curtains or furniture. The table was bare except for two sets of knives and forks and salt and pepper.
He was soon back again, banging down a plate for each of us, then a delicious aroma drifted in from the kitchen as he opened the oven door.
”Here we are, Jim!” he cried triumphantly as he carried in a roasting tin containing two ducks. He speared one bird with a fork and clumped it on my plate, then took the other for himself.
I was waiting for the vegetables and other tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, but Calum dropped into his chair and waved a fork at me. ”Wade in, Jim, I do hope you'll enjoy it.”
I looked down at my plate. Well, this was dinner with Calum. A duck apiece with no adornment. He was eating busily and I started on my bird, but I was slowed down by the fact that my colleague had left quite a lot of feathers on and I had to pick my way gingerly among the quills and crisped-up plumage.
Nothing seemed to deter Calum, however, and he ate rapidly, then sat back with a sigh of deep contentment. I was surprised at his speed, then it occurred to me that he probably hadn't bothered to take any nourishment for the last twenty-four hours or so.
We didn't have dessert or coffee or anything of the sort and it wasn't long before he was ushering me out.
Around ten o'clock Helen came back from her meeting. ”Well, how was your day with Calum?” she asked as she took off her coat.
I rubbed my knee. Somehow it wasn't an easy question to answer. ”I enjoyed it. It was fun...exciting ...quite fascinating...” I was casting around for the word...”It was different!”
She laughed. ”You've just about described Calum.”
”That's it,” I said, laughing too. ”It was a Calum day.”
Chapter 31.
”THAT WAS OLD WILLIAM Hawley,” Siegfried said as he put down the phone. ”Sounded a bit agitated. One of his calves is laid out unconscious, thinks it may be dying, and he hasn't many of them, poor old lad. We'll have to get there quick.”
I looked up from the day-book. ”But we've got to take those tumours off Colonel Foulter's horse at ten o'clock this morning.”
”Yes, I know, but we can drop in at Hawley's place on the way. It's in the same direction.”
It was a familiar situation as we drove off together. Siegfried eagerly antic.i.p.ating one of his equine operations, myself, his anaesthetist, by his side and our enamel tray with all the freshly sterilised instruments rattling behind us in the back. It was a fine morning, which was good, because the open fields were our operating table.
After three miles we struck off down a narrow side road and soon we could see the Hawley farmhouse, not much bigger than the grey stone barns that dotted the wide green miles of the fell above. To me, those barns, squat and st.u.r.dy, and the pattern the endless stone walls traced on the high pastures were at the very heart of the Dales scene. As I looked from the car, I thought as I always did that there was nowhere else in the world quite like this.
The farmer, white hair straggling from under a tattered cap, watched anxiously as Siegfried bent over the prostrate calf in a pen in the corner of the cow house.
”What do ye make of it, Mr. Farnon?” he asked. ”I've never seen owt like it.”
The appeal in his eyes was mingled with a deep faith. Siegfried was his hero, a wonder worker, the man who had brought off miracle cures for years, before I had even come to Darrowby. William Hawley was one of a breed of simple, unsophisticated farmers who still survived in the fifties but who have long since melted away under the glare of science and education.
Siegfried spoke gravely. ”Very strange indeed. No scour, no pneumonia, yet the little thing's flat out like this.”
Carefully and methodically he went over the little body with his stethoscope, auscultating heart, lungs and abdomen. He took the temperature, opened the mouth and peered at the tongue and throat, examined the eyes and ran his hand over the roan hairs of the coat. Then slowly he straightened up. His face was expressionless as he looked down at the motionless form.
Suddenly he turned to the old man.
”William,” he said. ”Would you be so kind as to fetch me a piece of string?”
”Eh?”
”A piece of string, please.”
”String?”
”Yes, about this length.” Siegfried spread his arms wide. ”And quickly, please.”
”Right, right... I'll get ye some. Now where can I lay me hands on a bit that length?” Fl.u.s.tered, he turned to me. ”Can ye come and give me a hand, Mr. Herriot?”
”Certainly.” I followed him as he hurried from the cow house. Outside he clutched at my arm. It was clear he had only asked me to come with him to enlighten him.
”What does 'e want a piece of string for?” he asked in baffled antic.i.p.ation.
I shrugged. ”I really have no idea, Mr. Hawley.”
He nodded gleefully as though that was only what he expected. An ordinary vet couldn't possibly know what was in the mind of Mr. Farnon, a man of legendary skill who was known to employ many strange things in the practice of his art-puffs of purple smoke to cure lame horses, making holes in jugular veins and drawing off buckets of blood to cure laminitis. Old William had heard all the stories and he was in no doubt that if anybody could restore his animal to health by means of a piece of string, it would be Mr. Farnon.
But the maddening thing was that as we trotted round the buildings he couldn't find such a thing.
”Dang it,” he said. ”There's allus a coil of binder twine hangin' there, but it isn't there now! And I'm allus trippin' ower bits o' string all ower t'place, but not today. What'll he think of a farmer wi' no string?”
In a growing panic he rushed around and he was almost in tears when he saw a piece lying across a heap of sacks. ”How about this, Mr. Herriot? Is it t'right length?”
”Just about right, I'd say.”
He grabbed it and ran as fast as his elderly limbs would carry him back to Siegfried.
”Here y'are, Mr. Farnon,” he panted. ”Ah'm not too late, am I? He's still alive?”
”Oh, yes, yes.” Siegfried took the string and held it dangling for a moment as he measured the length with his eye. Then, as we watched, wide-eyed, he quickly tied it round his waist.
”Thank you so much, William,” he murmured. ”That's much better. I couldn't work with that d.a.m.ned coat flapping open as I bent over. I lost a couple of b.u.t.tons yesterday. Cow got her horn underneath them and tore them off-it's always happening to me.”
”But...but...” The old man's face was a picture of woe. ”The string...ah thought ye'd...Ye can't do anything for my calf, then?”
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