Chapter Eleven
As I open the low gate to Maggie’s pocket-sized front garden, a middle-aged woman wearing a red tinsel headband walks through the front door and steps onto the path.
‘Goodbye, dear Maggie!’
‘No need to raise your foghorn, Audrey!’ Maggie, elderly and tall, shouts back. ‘I’m not as deaf as you think!’
‘I refuse to be offended.’ The woman adjusts the numerous bags on her arm. ‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive them.’
‘You’re in the way, Audrey!’
When the woman looks up and sees me, I step off the path so she can get past. ‘Don’t mind Maggie,’ she says. ‘The poor dear has had a terrible week.’
‘I’m here to see Rocket.’
The woman crosses herself. ‘As I said to Maggie, he’ll be with the cows and sheep and donkeys in the—’
‘A cat doesn’t belong in a manger!’ Maggie shouts out.
The woman forces a smile as she holds out her hand. ‘You must be the new veterinarian. I’m Audrey, one of the community liaison volunteers at the council.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Audrey! Stop chewing the vet’s ear off and let her in the door!’
After giving me a wide-eyed look, Audrey turns to face Maggie. ‘Now, now, dear. We mustn’t use the Lord’s name in vain, must we?’
‘Given all he went through, he wouldn’t give a shit.’
Smiling uncertainly, I walk around Audrey. ‘Hello, Miss Bates. I’m Amelie.’
‘If you’re Amelie, I’m Maggie.’ She waves me in. ‘I thought I’d never get rid of that woman.’
Audrey, an expression of disappointment and forbearance on her face, is looking over her shoulder as I hurriedly close the door. The grandfather clock at the end of the hallway strikes six.
‘Sorry to get here so late.’
‘It was good of the McLeod lad to send you, and even better of you to come.’
As she leads me through a door to a tidy sitting room and kitchen, Maggie tells me Rocket has a scratch on the back of his neck.
‘He must have been attacked by that British Shorthair cat down the road. Bloody British Bulldog, if you ask me. Otherwise, Rocket would never have run onto the road like that.’
‘Cameron said he’d been hit by a car.’
‘To give credit where it’s due, the driver who hit him had the decency to stop. Poor little Rocket, yowling like a banshee, he was. I ran across the road to get him and almost got wiped out myself.’
Rocket, mostly ginger with four white paws, is lying on his side. When I kneel next to him, he lifts his head warily.
‘Aren’t you a handsome boy?’
‘One of the local lads was good enough to drive me to the animal hospital in Denman yesterday afternoon, and he got a mate to drive me back last night. The vet was nice enough, but he wanted to do test after test after test.’ Her voice wavers.
‘I’m on the pension, but I also had savings and was happy to use them. ’
‘What tests were done?’
‘The X-ray I could see the sense in, but blood tests? What’s that all about for a broken leg?’
‘If the surgery went ahead, they’d be helpful.’
‘How can I afford surgery when they charged eight hundred and twenty-two dollars for the X-ray and blood tests? I only had a thousand in the bank.’
I rub under Rocket’s chin. ‘I understand.’
‘Do you?’ She points an accusing finger. ‘Really?’
‘I wasn’t always a vet.’ There must be something in my voice, because Maggie lowers her finger.
‘I’m no friend of Rachael’s, but she said you used to live at old Farley’s place.’
‘Did she also tell you my parents owed her money, and I had crossed eyes?’
Maggie’s fingers twist in her lap. ‘That Rachael’s not only a gossip but a bitch.’
‘When we lived at Mr Farley’s, I found a horse I named Atticus.
I looked after him as best I could, but one day he got colic.
I wanted to call the vet, I begged my parents to do that, but we didn’t have the money.
I knew Atticus shouldn’t lie down and roll so I walked him around.
’ When I blink, Maggie puts a hand on my arm.
‘It’s a terrible thing, colic.’
‘It was my fault because I’d fed him food that was supposed to go to the chickens.’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘There wasn’t much grass in the paddock. He was hungry.’
‘Did he live?’
‘Thankfully, yes.’
‘You understand.’ She nods a few times. ‘I shouldn’t have said what I did.’
‘I’m not judging you for whatever happens today, Maggie.’ Rocket is purring, a rumble under my palm. ‘Tell me what the other vet said.’
‘He said I had two options. Surgery to pin his leg in place or amputation.’ Maggie gets tissues out of her pocket and wipes her nose.
‘It was cheaper to amputate. Can you believe that? But it was still too expensive for me. When I told him that, he sent me to the woman at the desk. She was friendly, young like you she was, and she said the vets would make him comfortable. I didn’t know what she meant at first.’
‘Euthanise him.’
‘That’s why I brought him back. If he’s going to die, it should be here with me. He was an unwanted kitten, six weeks old, when he first came here. The finest cat I’ve ever had.’
‘Do you have the X-ray? And can I examine him?’
‘I don’t want him put through more pain than he’s had already.’
‘I’ll give him an injection to help with that.’
‘I can’t pay you now. It’ll have to be February. Maybe March. I had to pay those boys for their petrol, and I had to pay the vet before they let me take Rocket away. There’s my nest egg gone.’
‘We can work something out.’
‘Neither lender nor borrower be, is what my mother always said. How much will I owe you?’
‘Twenty dollars for the analgesic, the painkiller. That will cover it.’
‘What about your labour?’
‘I’m not too busy and happy to have the work. If you put in a good word for me with other locals, we’re square.’
‘You’re being charitable, I see that, but at least you haven’t banged on about do unto others as they do unto you and babies in mangers.’ ‘I’m not big on Christmas myself.’ I clear my throat. ‘I’m doing this for Rocket.’
‘It’s always just me and Rocket for Christmas. That’s all we need.’ She blows her nose again. ‘Give him the shot for the pain, then. Let’s get this over with.’
I hold the X-rays up to the light. The fracture is at the top of Rocket’s back leg. It’s displaced, which is why pinning the leg would be the optimal result, yet …
‘Do you know Rocket’s weight?’
‘Four kilos, they said.’ Maggie sits on the end of the sofa. ‘He’s a big strong boy, my Rocket.’ Even wary and in pain, Rocket is a good-natured cat, purring as I continue to stroke under his chin, and giving me a wide-eyed look of acceptance as I lift his skin to give him the analgesic.
‘We have to limit his movement until this wears off. I don’t want him doing more damage. Can you reach him from the sofa? Keep him calm while I check his temperature and see how he’s doing generally. Your cat has a lovely temperament.’
Maggie’s hands are shaking. ‘I brought him home to get him away from the bleach smell and those awful white walls. When you do what you have to do, he won’t feel anything, will he? I don’t want him to be frightened, not now he’s at home.’
‘He won’t be in pain, and he won’t be afraid. I promise.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He won’t be scared because you’re here. And he won’t be in pain because I’m here. I know about pain.’
‘You’re too pretty to know about pain.’
‘When I lived here as a child, I thought I was ugly.’
‘Codswallop.’ Rocket is purring like a drain. ‘How old were you?’
‘I was six when my family moved here and twelve when we left. I had some wonderful teachers, and Dr McLeod looked after me, but in other ways it was hard.’
‘Was it because of your eyes? Did the other kids tease you?’
‘I hid my face with my hair. I looked down a lot. I stayed away from the other kids. I was embarrassed and ashamed.’
Her grip on my arm is firm. ‘You would’ve been pretty underneath.’
‘Animals don’t judge on appearance, that’s why I like them.’
‘I reckon Rocket likes you.’
I hold up the X-ray again. ‘The break is high on his leg, and see the shadowing? It’s displaced there.’
‘That’s why it’s bad.’
‘Yes, but the displacement is relatively minor and there’s a chance that, with the right treatment, the break could heal naturally.’
‘Without an operation? Why didn’t the other vets tell me that?’
‘Best practice is pinning Rocket’s leg. Letting it heal on its own could have side effects. He’ll be more likely to get arthritis in his leg.’
‘Who doesn’t get arthritis when they’re old? You tell me that.’
‘He might not be as agile as he was.’
‘He’s inside with me every night, and I’ll give that neighbour of mine a piece of my mind, tell her to lock her bully cat up when Rocket goes out in the mornings.’
‘He might have a limp.’
‘Better to have a limp than be dead.’
I stroke Rocket’s ginger stripes. ‘I agree.’
‘It would’ve broken my heart to let him go to someone else, but I called the animal shelter to see if they could take him on. They said with a broken leg, they’d have to put him to sleep.’
‘They wouldn’t have the resources to care for him in the way that you can.
He’ll need to be kept in a confined space for around eight weeks.
We’d start him off in a small cage, just his bed and a litter box.
If he’s improving, we get him into a larger cage, but he doesn’t come out of that cage until his leg has healed and he’s strong. Do you think you could manage that?’
‘He won’t be in too much pain?’
‘If he needs pain relief, I’ll give it to him, but if the leg is healing as it should, that wouldn’t be for long.
You know him, Maggie, you’ll know how he’s doing.
If he’s eating and purring, we’ll let time do the healing.
To an extent, it’s good that he’s guided by pain.
If his leg is uncomfortable, he’ll want to stay off it. ’
‘He’d be out of the cage by the end of February?’
‘He should be.’
‘You’re not going to put him to sleep.’ Maggie rests her hand, mottled and wrinkled with age, on Rocket’s side. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘There are no guarantees.’
‘You’ve given me a chance to spend Christmas with Rocket. That’s more than I could ever have wished for.’