Chapter 5 #2
‘Thank you so much for ringing us and staying until we could reach you. We can take it from here. Maeve at the sanctuary has your number, so she’ll ring with any update. Once again, you’ve been so kind.’
The couple nodded and reluctantly moved away.
Alex was already kneeling on the ground in front of the open sack.
‘Can you prepare the box first and get four silver blankets out? Plus get the bottles ready.’
Vicky worked quickly, expanding the box and putting the teats on the milk while Alex felt around inside the sack.
She held in a gasp as he pulled out the first kitten, a tiny black scrap that was mewling like crazy, but recovered herself in time to hand Alex a blanket and watch as he wrapped the animal with infinite care and placed it in the box.
‘This one’s fine, just hungry. Let’s check the state of the others before we feed them.’
The second kitten, white with grey splodges, was also making plenty of noise. Once it was wrapped in another silver blanket for warmth, with its cute little head poking out, Vicky was somehow convinced it was a girl.
The sack was ominously quiet after the first two had been extricated. Alex reached in again and brought out the last two at once, one in each hand, a handsome grey kitten and another black one, this one a much smaller and weaker version of its sibling.
Both kittens lay there in his large, capable hands, unmoving.
Vicky forced herself to speak.
‘Are they…’
‘Touch and go. Can you do CPR?’
‘On humans, yes.’
‘It’s the same principle. Here, try. It’ll be too late if I take on both.’
Alex handed her the larger, grey kitten, while he rubbed the chest of the tiniest one, giving it the gentlest of jabs to the heart.
The sight of the lifeless kitten in her hands made Vicky freeze for a moment. Surely her big fingers pressing down would be too much for a cat this size to cope with.
‘Just take it slowly. Pulse the chest with a regular beat.’
His voice was the softest she’d ever heard it.
She pressed down where she thought the cat’s heart was, keeping her movements at regular intervals.
‘Come on, little one, you can do it. Just for me, please. Keep going. Hang on in there.’
It was the voice she used on human patients. It helped her focus, and it didn’t matter if he thought she was mad.
After what seemed ages, but was probably only a few seconds, the kitten she was holding suddenly drew breath.
‘It’s alive!’
Alex glanced over and raised his little finger while still working on the tiniest kitten. Vicky didn’t need to be told to feed the grey kitten first, although they were all starving. Wrapped in its silver blanket, the cat sucked on the tiny teat for all it was worth.
A brief look at Alex told her he was struggling. The seconds ticked by as the life of the tiniest kitten ebbed away. The man looked like he was in pain too.
Alex redoubled his efforts and pushed down over and over again. It was patently now or never. The feeble cry that rose into the air made them both cheer. His smile was like the sun coming out. She’d not witnessed it before, but it definitely existed.
She passed him a prepared bottle, and the kitten in his hands latched onto the teat. There was still plenty of work ahead. They couldn’t relax just yet.
Vicky placed the grey kitten she’d fed, in its blanket, in the box and picked up the white and grey cat, which was still howling away. She left the biggest, the black sibling, for Alex to feed once he was satisfied its tiny brother or sister had drunk enough to survive.
They worked side by side, without having to discuss what to do next. Once all four had been fed and were patently still breathing. Alex looked up at last.
‘That was a close call. Well done.’
The phone rang in his pocket before she could say anything.
Alex said nai, the Greek for yes, several times before he ended the call.
‘OK, good news. Maeve’s located a friendly farmer with a quad bike who can take me back to the sanctuary with the box. These kittens need some intensive care. I’ll take them to my practice overnight to give them the best chance of survival.’
Vicky nodded and crossed her fingers on both hands. Her voice seemed to have deserted her.
‘The bad news is, there’s only room for one on the bike, plus my bag, and the kittens. Are you OK with taking the rucksack back on your own?’
At least he’d asked. Obviously, she didn’t have any option. It had been seriously impressive the way he’d saved those kittens. She was hardly going to complain.
The noise of an engine in the distance told her the farmer was almost with them. She’d be sad to see the kittens go, minutes after they’d helped to breathe life into their little bodies, but they needed veterinary care.
A sweating Alex stood up with the box of kittens in his arms, looking for a moment like the dream poster for an animal rescue organisation. The megawatt smile had vanished, but he was looking at her in a way that could only be described as friendly.
‘Tell you what, if you can do it before this guy gets here, you can name them. But you’d better be quick.’
She wasn’t going to turn that offer down.
‘OK, the big black one’s Barney McGrew, the white and grey one’s Cuthbert, the pure grey is Dibble and the little black one Grub.’
The look had changed again, from friendly to completely baffled.
‘They’re some of the Trumpton firemen!’
His face was still blank.
‘It’s a British children’s TV show from way back.’
‘OK. It obviously didn’t make it as far as Greece. Tell me again quickly.’
Vicky repeated the names twice and explained which kitten was which seconds before the farmer drew up on the quad bike and killed the engine.
Once the two men had sped off in a cloud of fumes, Alex holding the cats tight to his chest, a curious flat feeling descended on her.
It was the comedown after the adrenaline of the rescue.
A feeling she was all too familiar with from her days working in intensive care.
If she thought she’d left lifesaving drama well behind her when she retired, she was mistaken.
She’d found it again in spades on a tiny Greek island.
Vicky carefully packed up the supplies, heaved the rucksack onto her back and stopped for a moment to give the house a proper once-over.
The stained and cracked brickwork framed gaping holes where windows had been, and triumphal arches led nowhere.
This was no typical Cycladic cube-shaped house.
It was an enormous old mansion built around a central paved area, which had once contained a large fountain, now full of brackish rainwater.
To one side was the remains of what looked like a private family chapel, the delicate struts between the windows still standing, with a couple even retaining tiny sections of stained glass they didn’t want to let go of.
A faded mural was etched into the plaster on the back wall of the chapel.
If Alex had played there as a child, it sounded like it had been abandoned for well over forty years.
The whole place had an air of melancholy, although strangely it didn’t feel menacing.
What had happened here for the whole place to be so forgotten?
It had obviously once been a loved family home.
She must ask Maeve what she knew. A shiver ran through her at the thought of the past being erased so easily.
Giving the ruins one last backward glance, Vicky climbed over the barbed wire and into the sun on the other side, desperate to dump the gear at the medical centre.
Without stopping to say hi to Maeve, Vicky put everything back in its right place and marched down to the beach.
Wearing a bikini rather than underwear beneath her work clothes had become second nature now after only a few days.
She’d lost any self-consciousness about her own body.
Stripping off and going for a swim after lunch was her new favourite thing, something she’d have thought impossible only a few weeks ago.
Stepping out of her clothes, Vicky strode past the shallows and moved into a fast front crawl, the crisp slice of her arms cutting through the water with assured strokes.
Sometimes she worried that she only did things she was good at and wasn’t brave enough to put herself out there and attempt the unknown, although coming to Greece was a start no one could argue with, not even her tough-on-her conscience.
Ian had constantly criticised her for playing it safe in all areas of their life, including the bedroom, which had preyed on her mind over the years.
Not that he’d ever understood that most of the reason for her love of security and routine was him and his unpredictable behaviour.
But she wasn’t going to let him pollute her mind, today of all days.
This had been a really positive day. She’d helped to save the lives of some defenceless animals and worked together alongside Alex without thinking he was a total arse. And it would get even better when she told Suzie she’d found the perfect place for her to practise.