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THE prospective partner in question was sitting in the flat on the sofa which had once been Miriam’s and Mungo’s, brooding. Partly wishing he were a fly on the wall in Colin’s house and thereby knew what was going on, and partly cogitating about his life outside the practice.

  To be frank, he hadn’t got one. It was this blessed yearning for Rose which was hampering everything he did. He wouldn’t for the world not have known her, but the fallout from their relationship was coloring his life to such a degree that it was hardly worth living. Then he remembered how happy she always was, how totally wholesome and scrumptious she was in bed, giving every inch of herself to loving him, with nothing held back, and how she’d taught him to do the very same. Dan thought about how unspoiled she had remained, despite the wealth and political power of her stepfather. He’d given her everything money could offer, and yet she’d remained so very sweet.

  Unconsciously his hand reached out to touch her as though she were there with him on the sofa. He could almost smell her perfume, feel the swirl of her hair as she turned toward him: that long, ash-blond hair he so loved. She wore it plaited and pleated and under control when she went out, but when they were alone she’d have it hanging loose, scented and squeaky clean.

  She’d inherited her coloring from her mother. The domineering old bitch had protected her only chick with a viciousness which had to be witnessed to be believed. How Rose had ever managed to survive her dominance and become such a sweet, loving person he would never know. By all the rules Rose should have been mean-minded, devious, greedy and shallow, but she was none of those things, and he’d loved her with a passion that he knew would last to the end of his days. He couldn’t cast her off.

  He pulled her photograph out of his wallet, remembering the day he took it, the shimmering heat outside, the chill of the air-conditioned house, the almost frozen precision of the furnishings and decoration: the untouchable, sterile chairs, the stark barrenness of the dining hall, which killed one’s appetite stone dead. All of it mirrored the destructive, strangling characteristics of her mother.

  Whom could he find to replace his beloved Rose? He knew the answer before he formed the question: no one.

  His phone rang and he snatched it up from under the cushion beside him like a drowning man grasping a lifeline. It was Phil Parsons babbling incomprehensibly something about Sunny Boy and Hamish, and could he come?

  Glad of a diversion, Dan leaped to his feet and roared off in the Land Rover to Applegate Farm. Phil was standing, hopping anxiously from one foot to the other, in the farm gateway. “He’s gone mad. Completely mad! He needs a jab.”

  Despite Phil’s anxiety, Dan took time to put on his boots and some protective clothing. “Come on, hurry up!” As they strode together across the pitch-black yard an ambulance chugged heavily up the lane and parked behind Dan’s vehicle.

  “God, Phil! What’s happened? An ambulance?”

  Phil shouted to the ambulance men, “This way. This way.” He waved his arm in a wide, sweeping gesture. “This way!” Dan switched on his torch to light the way through the gloom for the crew.

  “Hurry up!” shouted Phil. “He’s in a terrible mess.” He led the way into the cow barn. Being winter, the so-called dairy cows were housed inside, and they were panicking. Lying to one side in the deep straw was Hamish, with Blossom kneeling beside him holding a bloodied towel to his chest. “Here he is. Please, save him! He’s only a boy.”

  “Can we have more light?”

  Phil hurtled about, lighting a couple of Calor gas lamps and hanging them from convenient nails in the beams. “Hurry up! The lad’s dying.”

  As Dan’s eyes became accustomed to the light he saw that several of the cows were gashed here and there as though they had been attacked. Streaks of blood had run down their flesh and were beginning to dry. In the ghastly silence which followed, the crew started work on Hamish. Then Dan could hear savage crashing and banging coming from Sunny Boy’s stall.

  Before he could question Phil about it, Blossom flung herself onto Dan, weeping and wailing. He put a protective arm round her shoulders and muttered comfort to her, though he’d no idea if his words were of any use because the ambulance crew were working with a kind of desperate energy which boded ill. His veterinary training made him able to turn his attention to the cows and he was pleased to find that none of them was in urgent need. A stitch here and there would suffice. It was the sound of Sunny Boy’s frantic distress which really panicked him.

  “Right. Let’s get him to hospital. We’ve done what we can here.”

  Blossom screamed, “Hamish! My baby!” She left Dan and hurled herself toward Hamish, reeling back in shock when she saw the oxygen mask and the unconscious Hamish with his deathly white face and the ambulance man padding his chest in an attempt to stem the flow of blood. As they carried him out, she staggered after him into the cold night, wearing only a tiny cropped short-sleeved sweater and a skirt which just covered her bottom. “I’m coming! I’m coming, Hamish!” Her long, black-stockinged legs seemed to vanish from beneath her as she wobbled across the dark yard, so only the Day-Glo skirt and sweater appeared to be stumbling along behind the stretcher.

  Phil stood in the barn, rigid with distress. Dan couldn’t think of a word to utter. What was there to say? “They’ll pull him round.” “He’s in the best place.” “If anyone can save him, they will.” Or the classic, useless, “Try not to worry.” All this against a background of the noise coming from Sunny Boy’s stall.

  Dan cleared his throat. “We’ll leave the cows here to settle a bit and then I’ll inspect them and stitch any that need it. First, it’s Sunny Boy. What the hell happened, Phil?”

  It was only when he faced him that Dan realized Phil’s balaclava below his eyes was soaked with tears. Silent, painful tears he couldn’t control. As usual, only one eye matched up with the slits in the balaclava and Phil, with his one-eyed stare, said, “He went berserk.”

  “I see. What set him off?”

  “Don’t know. It just happened. Been all right with Hamish ever since the day he came. He went to give him his tidbits before he shut him up for the night while I checked the cows, and wham! Sunny Boy went for him. He’d got careless, had Hamish, bit too casual yer know, not brought up with animals he wasn’t … isn’t … and he’d gone in his stall and left the gate open. First I knew, Hamish was running in here with that damn great beggar after ’im, wild with temper, and before I knew it, he’d got Hamish cornered, got ’im down and stamped on ’im. The cows all took fright and he went for them, but they’re more hurt by crashing into the walls and that than ’im.”

  Phil paused for breath. He gave a great shuddering sob and stood head bowed. The cows had stopped milling about, and all they could hear was Sunny Boy trashing his barn. “If Hamish … dies … Blossom ’ull never forgive me. God ’elp me.” Phil took out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes. “She loves him like a son. And so do I.” His shoulders heaved in sorrow.

  “About Sunny Boy…”

  Phil warned him. “Don’t say it…”

  In a low voice so as not to provoke him more than he could avoid, Dan said, “I have to say it. I’d be irresponsible if I didn’t.”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “I shall. There must be something terribly wrong with him for this to happen. Like a brain tumor or BSE, whatever, he can’t be trusted ever again.”

  Phil’s chin was almost touching his chest.

  “In fact, hard though it is for me to say this, I don’t know if I want to be responsible for his health when he’s so unpredictable.”

  Phil shook his head despairingly.

  “That boy’s life is hanging by a thread because of Sunny Boy’s unpredictability.”

  Truculently Phil growled, “He should have shut the gate.”

  “If he had shut the gate, then Hamish would more than likely have been dead. Mangled dead. I’m serious, Phil. You’ve a big decision to make here.”

  “You wouldn’t be saying tha
t if it was someone you loved like I love Sunny Boy. You’re a hard man. You don’t understand pain, you don’t.” He thumped his chest with his clenched fist. “It’s right here.”

  “I understand the pain all right, believe me.” Privately Dan was thinking I’ve got to persuade him to have Sunny Boy put down, but who the hell but me is there to do it? They both listened and each thought the crashing about seemed to be getting worse. Dan said, “Well?”

  “You asking me for a decision right now?”

  Dan nodded. “How did you get him back in his stall?”

  “I didn’t, he went himself. He did a couple of turns round the yard, then went in his stall; and I rushed and banged the gate shut, like as if he knew where he would feel safe.”

  “You were very brave. He could have turned on you.”

  “On me? Naw. Not me.”

  “I won’t challenge you to prove that, just in case, but it seems to me he’s gone totally irrational. Somehow I’m pretty sure it isn’t BSE; the behaviour pattern isn’t right. These cows are calming down now. Before I stitch them up, I’m going to climb up on something and have a look through that nicely cleaned window in Sunny Boy’s barn and see what he’s up to.”

  By the light of his torch, Dan found an old chair out in the yard and used it to climb on to look in. The stone walls of which his stall was made had withstood Sunny Boy’s panic, as was only to be expected, but the gate had two bars snapped, and he was making inroads on the remaining ones. He was thrashing about uncontrollably, ramming his massive shoulders into the walls, thudding his head against his manger, rubbing it frantically against any available hard surface as though … that was it! It was as though he had an almighty pressure in his head and he couldn’t bear it.

  The answer was to wait until he was exhausted and then go in and give him the lethal shot. He could hear the house phone ringing. “Phil, your phone’s ringing.”

  He heard Phil clump round to the house. Dan got down off the chair and waited. Phil came out. “Blossom. He’s going into surgery as soon as.”

  “That sounds as if there’s hope.”

  “It does. Blossom’s beside herself. Well, now he’s not dead there’s no need to …”

  Dan overrode this bright idea saying, “I can’t go in as he is. Let’s barricade the outside door in case he gets out of the stall…”

  “Let me look.” Phil borrowed Dan’s torch and climbed up to peer through the window. “Bloody hell.” He stood on tiptoe. “Bloody hell! He’s torn himself and no mistake. There’s blood.”

  “I know.”

  “You can’t leave him like that.”

  “I can.”

  “He’ll need stitches.”

  “Tomorrow. I’ll see to the cows and then I’m going home and coming back first thing in the morning to see to Sunny Boy.”

  “To stitch him, you mean?”

  “No, I don’t mean that.”

  Between them they got Phil’s tractor and drove it up against the cow barn door so he couldn’t possibly escape. Dan went back to the cowshed and began examining the cows, completely ignoring Phil. It took him an hour to attend to them and then he packed his bag and got ready to leave.

  Phil had gone into the house in an attempt to shut the noise of Sunny Boy’s frenzy out of his head. Dan opened the door and shouted, “Phil, I’m going. I’ll be back first thing.”

  “You’re not putting him down. I tell yer, yer not.”

  “Goodnight,” Dan answered firmly.

  COLIN went with him the following morning, and they were at the farm by a quarter to eight. They parked their vehicles on the cart track, put on their protective clothing and, with a sharp warning from Dan about the slurry pit, they trudged across the yard to the house. To Dan’s relief there was an uncanny silence about the farm. The tractor was still parked at the cow barn door, and there was no sign of life.

  “What the blazes! It doesn’t change, does it.” Colin gazed round first at the house and then the farm buildings and the filthy yard. “Years since I’ve been here. I’d forgotten.”

  Dan rattled the door knocker again. He thought he heard voices inside the house, but no one came. “I’m going to have a look.”

  Colin followed him and watched while he climbed on the old chair. Dan peered in and saw Sunny Boy standing up, leaning heavily against a wall of his stall as though he wouldn’t be able to stand if he didn’t have its support.

  “Take a look.”

  Colin climbed on the chair and looked in. “Gone quiet at least. But he looks odd. Almost comatose. Not asleep. More like he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Dazed, kind of. Doesn’t seem like BSE to me, which it could have been, I suppose. No, the symptoms are not right.”

  “Just what I thought. Perhaps my theory about it being a brain tumor is right.”

  “God, he’s a magnificent beast, isn’t he? Such a shame to see him like this, Dan.”

  “Somehow we’ve got to persuade Phil to have him put down. He’s too dangerous.”

  “I agree. He should never have kept him. What’s wrong with artificial insemination?”

  “He’s proud of him.”

  “That’s a load of sentimental tosh and you know it. The man’s a farmer not an emotional do-gooder.”

  “I know that, but he loves him and you can see why.”

  They heard the house door slam shut and footsteps coming across the yard. Colin got down from the chair. It was Phil, his eyes looking as though they hadn’t closed for a week.

  “Morning, Phil. You remember Colin? Any news of Hamish?”

  “Hanging by a thread. Blossom got home an hour ago. Crushed ribs, you see, and they’ve penetrated …” He wiped his eyes with an old rag.

  “Well, at least he’s holding on, that’s something. I’m so sorry about him. Well, Phil, I’ve brought Colin to give a second opinion. We both agree Sunny Boy is very, very ill, otherwise he would never have acted like he did. We both think his unpredictable behavior is due possibly to a brain tumor. There’s absolutely nothing we can do about that. At the moment he looks as though he doesn’t even know what he’s doing.”

  Colin added, “The decision is yours.”

  “But we both feel…”

  Colin interrupted with, “How about it, Phil? Hamish is more important than any animal to you, isn’t he? Eh? Much more important, especially to Blossom, who’s such a loving woman, as you well know. Even if Hamish recovers, you can’t expect her to want to live here and see that magnificent animal still about.”

  Phil shook his head.

  Colin continued, “He looks to be in such pain that it’s almost cruel to leave him alive.”

  Dan said, “No vet likes putting an animal down, but we do know when it needs to be done for the animal’s sake, and this is one of those moments, Phil.”

  “I hear what you say. I’ll just have two minutes with him, and then …”

  Dan couldn’t believe he was hearing right. “Is that wise? He may not recognize you.”

  “Wise or not, he’s not going without his closest friend saying goodbye.”

  He climbed in the tractor and backed it away from the door.

  Colin and Dan stood in the doorway on red alert—quite still, watching. The gate hadn’t been totally destroyed, and Phil climbed over the two still intact bottom bars and approached the bull quietly. Sunny Boy, occasionally shaking his head from side to side, was still leaning against the wall, dazed, his eyes clouded and lifeless. Phil spoke gently, holding out his hand with a few tidbits in it, but Sunny Boy never even recognized that his dearest friend was standing by him.

  “Watch him, Phil. Watch him,” Dan warned quietly.

  By now Dan was almost in tears. It seemed so incredibly sad that at the last, Phil couldn’t have the gratification of saying a proper goodbye to the pride of his life. Dan recalled his last goodbye to Rose, how he’d wondered that his brain could still send signals to his body when his heart had burst with such deep sorrow.

  Ignoring
the danger, Phil reached out to stroke Sunny Boy’s dark-red flank, then he grew brave and stroked his huge forehead. Only the sound of Phil’s quiet murmurs and the blowing of the breath of half a ton of bull broke the silence.

  Phil backed away from him, stepped over the broken gate, and as he passed Colin and Dan said painfully, “I ’ave to say he’s been getting unreliable for a while. Like that time he trampled on Scott. We thought it was the pain of his leg, but I think perhaps it was more than that. I’ve warned Hamish once or twice to be careful. It’s come to something when I have to back away from ’im. Never had cause to do that in all his life. Get it done. It isn’t ’im, not anymore.” He stalked into the house and left Dan and Colin to do their job.

  When Dan got back to the practice, Miriam asked him up to the flat for breakfast. “I know you’ve a list of calls, but come; I’ve put the kettle on. It’s the least I can do.”

  She settled him at the kitchen table with a pot of coffee, cereals and croissants, a block of golden butter, and a dish of homemade marmalade and another of raspberry jam.

  As he sat at the table, Dan rubbed his hands. “This looks wonderful. Thank you.”

  His thanks were so gloriously genuine that Miram placed a heartfelt kiss on his cheek. “You deserve it. It must have been harrowing at Phil Parsons’s. How is he?”

  “He went straight off to the hospital with Blossom. He’s shattered. The hunt agreed to come for poor old Sunny Boy, and I didn’t want him to see that. Neither did Blossom, so she persuaded him she was too tired to drive safely. They’re an odd couple, on the surface so totally unsuited, yet…”

  “Look at Bunty and Sergeant Bird …”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t have said that. Don’t tell anyone, but they’re getting married on Saturday. She doesn’t want anyone to know.”

  Dan’s eyebrows shot up with surprise. “Now there is a very odd couple. I’d no idea.”

  “Poor Sergeant Bird. His mother died three or four years ago, and he’s been desolate ever since. Needed a good woman, you know. Well, now he’s got one.”

  Dan put aside his empty cereal bowl and began on the croissants.