The Village Vet Read online

  I don’t know and I don’t care. I shake him off and keep running on through the churchyard past the dark yew trees and graves and out through the gates onto the street, where I head down the hill until a paralysing attack of cramp forces me to stop with my back to the wall at the end of the iron railings. I take a few gulping breaths of oxygen, filling my aching lungs and clearing my head. What have I done?

  ‘Tessa! Wait for me.’ Nathan comes jogging up. Standing in front of me with his head tipped to one side, his face contorts like one of the gargoyles on the church. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Nathan,’ I keep repeating.

  ‘You’re crying.’ Nathan’s voice softens. ‘Oh, come here, my darling.’ He holds his arms out to hold me, but I shrink back until I’m squashed against the wall and he’s treading on the front of the dress. ‘You’re all hyped up and emoshe. Why don’t you take a few minutes then we’ll go back inside? The vicar says he’ll give us five.’ His tone grows whiny and wheedling. ‘All you have to do is say “I do”, and it’ll be over—’

  ‘It’s “I will”,’ I interrupt. ‘How many times do I have to tell you?’ But he isn’t listening to me.

  ‘My darling, all I want is to make your dreams come true. Come back inside,’ he coaxes. ‘Let’s get that ring on your finger, so I can call you my wife. Think about it. In less than twenty-four hours we’ll be on a plane heading far away from here for sunshine, sea and’ – there’s the briefest hesitation, but it’s long enough – ‘sand.’

  ‘And sex. You were going to say sex.’ I push him away, one shoe in each hand.

  ‘What is it with you? I’ve bought you a house and a car, for goodness’ sake, and the ring cost an arm and a leg. What more can you possibly want?’

  ‘They’re material things, and I’m very grateful, but I’m talking about being happy.’

  ‘You were happy enough when I gave you the keys to the car.’

  ‘I know, but a car doesn’t last for ever.’

  ‘It’ll last a long time if you’d only look after it properly,’ Nathan says, reminding me how he hates me leaving it outside the house, not parked in the garage.

  ‘Oh, this isn’t about cars,’ I say, exasperated. ‘It’s about you taking the mickey out of everything: me, my great-aunt, all this joking about my expectations …’ I hesitate, gazing into his eyes. ‘Except it isn’t a joke, is it?’

  ‘Of course it is,’ he says, but I can tell from the way he keeps glancing away from me that he’s lying. It shouldn’t come as a shock – he’s often economical with the truth – but even so I can’t quite believe that at the moment when you would have thought he would be baring his soul to try to win me back, he’s still lying. It’s as if I’ve been rudely awoken from a cliff-top sleep-walk to find myself on the edge of a precipice with Nathan’s hand in the small of my back, about to usher me over.

  ‘I’m not going back,’ I say determinedly. ‘I’ll never be Mrs Cooper.’

  Nathan raises his eyebrows, his expression suddenly dark as if a cloud has crossed the sun.

  ‘I said I’m not going back, and I mean it, Nathan. I am not going to marry you.’ I try to justify my decision so he can make some sense of it. ‘It isn’t just about you. It’s me.’

  ‘Tessa, this is stupid. You’ve been planning this day for months. You kept telling me, your friends, your family, the butcher, the baker – everyone – how you couldn’t wait to get married.’

  ‘It’s difficult to explain, but I got swept up by the romance of it all. In the rush to make the arrangements, choosing the dresses and flowers, I kind of forgot what was important.’ I pause, aware of the heave of Nathan’s chest and the perspiration leaking from his forehead. ‘I love you, but I don’t love you enough—’

  ‘Are you doing this out of some kind of petty spite because I won’t say all that soft stuff, those three little words “I love you”?’ Nathan says.

  ‘I made a mistake, and I’m sorry,’ I go on, without answering his question.

  ‘You mean it then?’

  ‘Yes.’ I nod and Nathan’s face crumples as if my message has finally sunk in. My sadness at what I’m doing to him knows no bounds.

  ‘Let’s have an April wedding, you said. You’ve made a right April Fool of me. You’ve stitched me up good and proper. You might as well have just killed me,’ he sobs, stamping a small circle on the pavement. ‘You’re a cold, cruel bitch.’

  ‘Nathan,’ I cry. ‘You’ll thank me in the end. You’ll find someone else.’ If you haven’t already, I want to add.

  Nathan straightens his shoulders and wipes his eyes with his sleeve.

  ‘How could you dump me at the altar, and in front of everyone?’

  ‘I didn’t intend to humiliate you.’ I wish I could turn the clock back. I had doubts but I didn’t have the courage to express them until it was almost too late, and I bitterly regret it.

  Nathan changes tack.

  ‘This change of heart is all down to that prat, Jack Miller, isn’t it? Did you know he was back? Did you put him up to this?’

  ‘No, no, no,’ I keep repeating as Nathan continues, ‘What exactly is he to you?’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ I say. ‘Not now. You know we went out together for a while years ago. I told you, so why are you asking? We were sixteen, seventeen, then Jack went off to college and it was over.’

  ‘Are you sure about that, Tessa? Katie seems to think you’ve been a bit more than friends since then. Come on, Tessa. Admit it. It’s common knowledge.’

  ‘We were friends,’ I confirm angrily, ‘until I met you, in fact.’ Nathan is desperate, trying to rationalise my decision, perhaps as much for the benefit of the crowd of onlookers that have assembled in the road to watch, as himself. He is the wronged man and I am the scarlet woman.

  ‘You’ve been seeing him behind my back.’

  ‘How can I have done? He’s been out of the country for the past few months.’ As I’ve said, the last time I saw Jack was when Nathan and I celebrated our engagement, after which he disappeared without sending so much as a text or a postcard.

  ‘Don’t act the innocent with me.’ I notice how Nathan glances towards the crowd when he delivers this line.

  ‘If you think I would do that, then you have a very low opinion of me.’ I realise this is something I should have voiced before, Nathan’s lack of respect for me as his fiancée.

  ‘The right one though,’ Nathan says, raising his voice so he could be heard from the Dog and Duck at one end of town to Lacey’s Fine Wines at the other. ‘You’re a slag!’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Katie says, stepping in with Mike, the best man.

  ‘Too right,’ says my dad, joining them. ‘You leave my daughter alone.’

  ‘What makes you think I’d touch her now?’ Nathan spits with anger. ‘She’d have made a slutty wife anyway.’

  ‘How dare you?’ Distraught, I hitch up my dress and train and walk away, stubbing my toes on the pavement. My dad trots along beside me.

  ‘Let’s get a lift back in the Roller, Tessa.’

  ‘I want to walk,’ I say snappily. ‘Leave me alone, Dad. I need to be on my own.’

  ‘I can go and get the car from home, if you’d prefer to be anonymous.’

  ‘It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it? I’ve jilted my groom at the altar and been told I’m a slag in front of my friends, family’ – my voice rises to a scream – ‘the whole town!’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Dad is struggling to keep up. I know he’s trying to help, but I can’t bear being alone with him because I can foresee the expression on his face, the abject disappointment that I have let him down.

  ‘I don’t know and I don’t care.’ Not stopping to pick up the shoe that I let fall from my fingers, I speed up, tearing along the street, past the terraced houses with their ridiculously small doors, past the police station and the pub, towards the river. The pavement peters out and I continue to follow the road,
passing cars and caravans that are crawling in an almost stationary queue on the way to the coast, because it’s changeover day at the campsites by the sea.

  A couple of children shout and wave from a motorhome, ‘Mummy, mummy, look at the lady in the princess dress!’

  ‘It’s the Runaway Bride!’ yells a man from the car in front.

  ‘The church is that way, my lover,’ calls a man who’s walking his dog. ‘Hey, are you all right?’

  I ignore him. I have this crazy idea of running all the way to the beach and throwing myself into the waves, to be swept into oblivion, the epitome of the tragic romantic heroine, but, as I cross the footbridge and jog along the riverbank, I realise that my feet are hurting and it’s still a very long way to the sea.

  I stumble to a stop and look around me at the rolling green hills, the hazels covered with catkins, and the ancient oak trees in their spring attire. I turn my attention to the River Taly that snakes through the valley, its waters swirling with red Devon clay. There’s a piebald horse tethered on the grass on the opposite side, and from somewhere along the bank below my feet, a duck squawks in alarm, drawing me towards it. I look over the edge. At the bottom where the steep slope joins the water, a duck is caught up in a plastic bag among the reeds, something that really shouldn’t happen any more because the shops in Talyton St George no longer supply plastic bags for your shopping.

  Inwardly ranting at litter louts, I make my way down the bank, sliding down on my bottom and sending the duck flapping a little way onto the water with the plastic attached to its wing. I take one step then two into the river, the bottom of which disappears suddenly beneath my feet, sending me headlong into the water. Gasping and plunging about, I grab for the duck, which makes one last squawk and flies off, leaving the plastic bag behind and me cursing circumstance, just as my dad’s face appears over the top of the bank, his face filled with panic.

  ‘Tessa, stop! Stay right where you are.’ His feet appear over the edge of the bank, and along with an avalanche of mud and gravel, he comes sliding down to join me, stopping just at the water’s edge, holding out his arms. ‘Let’s get you out of there.’

  ‘Dad, I don’t need rescuing.’ I try to rearrange my dripping headdress and veil while the dress floats in a circle around me, making me feel like a giant jellyfish.

  ‘Let me be the judge of that.’ Dad’s hands are shaking. ‘I hate to think what would have happened if I hadn’t turned up.’

  ‘What do you mean? I came down the bank to save a duck that was tangled in some rubbish.’

  ‘Where’s the duck now?’ Dad says pointedly.

  ‘It flew away.’

  ‘Sure.’ Dad shrugs. ‘There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Tessa. This will all have to come out eventually, so you can begin to deal with it.’

  ‘Dad, I helped a duck,’ I say, when it dawns on me that we are talking at cross purposes.

  ‘I’ll call the surgery – Dr Mackie will be able to prescribe you some pills and arrange some counselling. You need to talk to someone,’ Dad continues.

  ‘I wasn’t trying to kill myself!’ I exclaim.

  ‘You weren’t?’

  ‘Of course I wasn’t.’ I start to shiver with cold. ‘This hasn’t been the best day of my life, but I have no intention of it being my last.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that.’ Dad smiles with relief. ‘Come on, love. Let’s go home.’

  I wade back through the water, dragging the weight of the dress up the bank and along the path, hanging on to my dad’s arm.

  ‘I don’t want to see anyone,’ I say anxiously, but it’s too late to worry about that because within five minutes, two dog walkers – the butcher’s wife with her Great Dane and my parents’ next-door neighbour with their spaniel – and a cyclist have given me strange looks, understandably since I’m walking along in a soaking wet wedding dress and no shoes.

  ‘You can hold your head high. You’ve done nothing wrong.’

  I smile wryly. I never could do any wrong in my father’s eyes.

  ‘What about Mum? I’m not sure I’m ready to face her, or the aunts and uncles. I feel so bad about dragging them all this way for nothing.’

  ‘Don’t worry about them. They’ll get their free lunch.’ Dad pats the back of my hand. ‘We couldn’t cancel the reception at the last minute so your mother and that sister of hers made the executive decision to go ahead with it to give everyone the chance to catch up.’

  My parents’ home, Kingshead House, is just off Market Square, and combines the advantages of living in the country with those of living in a small town. It used to be a pub and sometimes I fancy that the living room still smells of smoke and ale. I hesitate outside the front door beneath the overhanging porch, which is adorned with wisteria and fluted columns that stick out into the street, creating one of Talyton’s glorious bottlenecks where traffic is both two-way and single-file. The sight of the spearmint-green render on the front of the building makes me feel slightly nauseous.

  This isn’t how it was supposed to be, I muse with a deep pang of regret. I was going to spend tonight at the Barnscote with Nathan in the honeymoon suite, and tomorrow I was flying out to the Maldives. I’ve been to the south of France, Tenerife and Portugal, but I can’t imagine that I’ll ever have the chance to go to the Maldives again.

  ‘In we go, Tessa,’ Dad says, opening the door.

  After a hot shower, a sleep and a few more tears, I curl up on the sofa in the living room, wrapped in my dressing gown and sipping at a glass of warm whisky and lemon. The room is clean and tidy, but not modern. There are various paintings and sculptures by my mother in the room, and framed newspaper clippings and photos of my father as Widow Twanky and one of Cinderella’s ugly sisters, with headlines such as ‘He’s Done It A-Dame’ and ‘Talyton’s Leading Lady’.

  Dad turns up with the house phone.

  ‘It’s Katie for you,’ he says.

  I shake my head, but he hands it over anyway.

  ‘Tessa, where have you been? I’ve left hundreds of messages on your mobile,’ Katie says.

  ‘I’m not sure where I left it,’ I mumble. Actually, I know exactly where it is: switched off on the windowsill in the shower room. Since checking my mobile after the wedding, I’ve discovered that Jack left hundreds of text and voicemail messages the night before, and he’s been trying to get hold of me ever since.

  ‘Oh, never mind that now. How are you? Do you want me to come over? I can probably leave Nathan in Mike’s capable hands – Nathan’s had rather a lot of champagne.’

  ‘He went to the reception? I can’t believe he did that.’

  ‘He wanted to be with his family and friends. Which is completely understandable,’ Katie adds, as if challenging me to contradict her, ‘and as the food and drink had already been paid for—’

  ‘He thought he’d celebrate his narrow escape,’ I finish for her, recalling the slag and slutty-wife comments.

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly. He’s gutted. This was supposed to be his wedding night. He looks terrible.’ She hesitates. ‘I should have been looking after you, but you ran off and Nathan was in such a state. Well, I couldn’t leave him, could I?’

  I don’t see why not, but I don’t say anything.

  ‘Katie, don’t worry about coming over now. I’ve got my dad with me, and you’ve had a long day.’

  ‘If you’re absolutely sure.’

  ‘Sure,’ I confirm.

  ‘All right, we’ll go out for a drink sometime soon. How about tomorrow?’

  ‘I can’t face going out. I’ll feel like everyone’s looking at me.’

  ‘We could stay in, drink some wine …’

  ‘I’ve got no money,’ I say, recalling that I paid for the reception on my credit card because Nathan’s replacement card had got lost in the post, or so he claimed at the time.

  ‘I’ll bring a bottle.’

  I can sense that Katie isn’t going to take no for an answer, so I thank her and say she can drop
round any time. My parents won’t mind – they’ll probably be out anyway, knowing their insatiable appetite for social situations: parties, bridge nights, meetings of the Amateur Dramatics Group, who, even though it’s April, will soon start writing and rehearsing the next Christmas panto.

  Dad returns from the kitchen, bumbling in with eggs on toast and a tea towel over his arm, just like a waiter in a cheap seaside hotel.

  ‘Oh no, thank you, I couldn’t eat a thing,’ I say when he offers it to me.

  ‘Would you prefer a boiled egg with soldiers?’

  ‘Dad, I’m sorry I’m not hungry.’

  ‘You need to keep your strength up. It might seem impossible now, but one day we’re going to look back on today and have a good laugh.’

  ‘I don’t see how,’ I groan, but I do take the plate, balance it on my lap and pick up the knife and fork, while my father plumps up the chintz cushions and plonks himself down beside me, the sofa creaking under his weight. ‘Is this going to be one of your little talks?’

  ‘It’s always good to talk,’ Dad says brightly. ‘You go first.’

  ‘You didn’t approve of him, did you?’ I say eventually.

  ‘Nathan? No, I can’t pretend that I did. You used to be so sensible, but he turned your head. Oh, I’m not surprised. He could be charming. Look at how he seduced your mother – not in the physical sense,’ he adds quickly, eyes twinkling.

  I recall Nathan taking me and my parents out to lunch at a rather exclusive fish restaurant on the coast. He won my mother over then and upset my dad by announcing our engagement without asking him for my hand in marriage first. I remember how the conversation went.

  ‘I didn’t ask you because you would have said no,’ Nathan said. There was a brief pause, during which you could have heard an oyster sliding down someone’s throat. ‘Steve, I understand because your daughter is a unique and special lady, and I am not worthy of her.’ Nathan lifted my hand to show off the ring. He kissed my mother on both cheeks, and shook my dad’s hand.

  ‘Have you set the date?’ asked my mother.

  ‘As soon as possible,’ said Nathan. ‘I don’t want to risk her changing her mind.’