The Unkindest Cut (2 page)

Problems seemed to be solving themselves, but one of the largest obstacles was the subject of alcohol. Their chance of buying champagne for such a crowd of people was, at best, nil. However, Jane was a lady of many talents. She could shoot as well as most men, ride a horse or a bicycle, speak tolerable French and, if the situation justified it, swear. She did a lot of swearing around that time.

None of her other talents was required at the moment; but, almost forgotten, was a knack of making excellent wines including in particular an elderflower champagne that was often voted at least as good as the genuine article. Newton Lauder was favoured in that the countryside suited the elder tree,
Sambucus nigra,
which spread and formed whole areas of woodland behind the hospital. The snag was that there would be no elderflowers until almost the longest day. Roland had had it in mind to marry just before the end of the tax year, thus obtaining tax relief for the whole of the year just past, but simple calculation proved that neither of them would be liable for much, if any, tax for the current year. So June the twentieth became fixed, which gave them a few months to solve the other associated problems.

The entire project would have become impossible and the couple might have been forced to return to the simpler format that they had first envisaged, except that there was a ready-made source of facilities almost on their doorstep.

Mrs Ilwand's father, Sir Peter Hay, a wealthy benefactor of the whole area, had been much concerned about the lack of facilities to lead the up-and-coming generation away from mischief and into what he called ‘creative adventure'. With the changes to modern agriculture favouring larger units, small farms were being joined with neighbours and some groups of farm buildings were becoming redundant. Sir Peter had founded Kempfield in what had been the farm of that name and had bequeathed the buildings to the community. The activities that had germinated there had been dictated by a combination of the demand, exemplified by the desires of the young and not so young of the town and environs, and the availability of an experienced professional to give a lead in each subject.

The late Luke Grant, great-grandfather to Jane and her sister Violet, was always known to the girls as GG for short, and in the reasonless way that such things happen, he had become generally known by that abbreviation. GG had been an early and enthusiastic supporter of Kempfield and on his death Jane had taken over his seat on the management committee and the leadership both of the photographic section and of several projects devoted to the care and training of animals.

Once the seed was sown, Kempfield had continued to grow. A building contractor, Lance Kemnay, had discovered that theft and vandalism on his building sites had almost vanished now that the young could find something better to do with their time and so he had become an enthusiastic supporter, always willing to help out with gifts of materials or help with labour. This bread that he cast on the waters returned manifold because in the process of preparing and extending Kempfield and other buildings that fell to them many youngsters discovered in themselves a knack for some aspect of the building industry and the contractor had found that he had a source of keen, talented and well-behaved apprentices. This in turn appeased the local union representatives who might otherwise have damned the whole project.

Thus, Jane, and Roland with her, had access to a pool of friendly and energetic help with premises to use. While they waited for the elder trees to blossom they had plenty to occupy them. Contrary to male misconceptions, weddings do not organize themselves. They still had their livings to earn. And while elder buds prepared to pop into blossom they had to gather up all the other materials.

Premises entailed much work but little difficulty. By good luck a house on Moorfoot Reservoir was purchased by a family who had no particular use for the boathouse but whose eldest son was desperate to refurbish his vintage Norton motorcycle. There was a section at Kempfield, headed by a retired panel beater, devoted to vehicle restoration; the section devoted to building and sailing racing dinghies moved out to Moorfoot and volunteers began a major clean out of the former boatbuilding workshop.

After the elderflowers, when they ripened, the rest of the materials were readily obtainable. The tools were a different matter. Winemaking kits were on the market by the dozen but not on the scale required. Approaches to the British wine industry were discouraging; evidently, competition was not to be welcomed. A local dairy had recently converted from churns to tanks and would be delighted to lend them stainless steel churns with tight-fitting lids and clamps, but tanks … no.

It was not in Jane's nature to admit defeat. Approach enough people and one of them will have what you want; that at least was her philosophy.

B
efore buying the small but established veterinary practice, Jane had made many friends by treating, in her kitchen, sick animals beloved by the townsfolk. However, now she had set her face against perpetuating the sharing of her kitchen with such informal veterinary practice. Most clients were accustomed to bringing ill or injured animals to Mr Hicks's clinic and, reluctant though she was to saddle herself with a rent which, though modest by today's standards, would be quite a burden on her stretched finances, Jane could not be confident that her purchase of the goodwill and the client list would necessarily compel the clientele to transfer their loyalty. As part of the deal for taking over the vet's practice on that individual's retirement, therefore, she had taken over his rented surgery in the town square.

Habits, once formed, by their nature tend to persist. Most of the former clients had continued to visit the same address and contact the same phone number and, of those, most seemed delighted to escape her grumpy and abrasive predecessor. It seemed that many of these were in the habit of settling their bills in cash and Jane was pleasantly surprised to find that the reported fee income on which, in accordance with custom, the purchase price had been based, had been depressed for tax reasons – a practice that she was pleased to continue. This seemed to be generally understood. The philosophy of tax evasion had been brought to a fine art by the thrifty Scots.

The surgery, so called, was still in its original form, with a shop where clients might wait and where simple treatments were given, and then a small back room, now with floor and walls tiled, where veterinary surgery could be performed up to a certain level, anything very major being referred to a larger practice in Coldstream or to Edinburgh. On one or two occasions when action had been urgently required, Jane had performed quite major operations in the back room, fortunately with satisfactory results.

A long seat occupied the back wall of the outer room and clients in general rarely had any objection to their animal receiving minor treatment in full view of anyone waiting there for attention and instead enjoyed a sociable exchange of gossip and a discussion of their pets' symptoms, treatment and progress. But the town was growing and Jane accepted that larger premises would soon be necessary; however, for the moment this would suffice very well.

On a day in May, a month or so before the wedding day, Mr Calder, one of the proprietors of the local gun and fishing tackle shop, had called in for a prescription for his Labrador. Keith Calder was a man now well into his sixties. His black hair was thinning and silvered, his face was becoming lined and his step was losing its spring, but he had retained his attractiveness and Jane felt a quite pleasurable loosening of the knees whenever their eyes met. He, being a writer on gun dog subjects among his other interests, was one of the clients who would be claiming his expenditure before tax and she was careful to accept his credit card and to give him a receipt.

He was in no hurry to leave and her next client was still trying to fit a large car into a small parking space in the Square. He leaned on the counter. ‘I've seen you with a young Labrador,' he said. It was as much a question as a statement.

Jane nodded. ‘Sheba,' she said. ‘Her paternal grandfather was your Briesland Echo.'

‘She should be all right then. Echo's strain has been sound. Do you work her? You seemed to be training her as a worker the other day. I've seen you with a dummy launcher.'

‘She's young enough yet,' Jane said. ‘I'd like to give her some work in the not too distant future.'

‘We're looking for another picker-up. I'll phone you.'

Jane felt a glow of pleasure. Anyone with two legs capable of independent movement can be a beater but to be invited to ‘pick up' on a shoot, and presumably even to be paid a pittance for it, equates with acceptance as a competent dog trainer with a trustworthy dog.

‘That would be great, but the family may make it impossible for another year.' She patted her midriff. She was showing very little but Keith would have been aware of her pregnancy through Deborah, his daughter and Jane's friend.

Keith snorted in answer which could have meant anything from derision at a good picker-upper going to waste or congratulations on her news. Knowing Keith it was probably the former, Jane acknowledged, but she didn't mind and was still grateful for the old man's offer and was keen to take him up on it as soon as the situation allowed.

As Keith left, another patient arrived, this one dripping a little blood on the PVC tiles. Dog and owner were taken into the back room and Jane got to work. After stitching a wound in the leg of Stella – or possibly Stellar, nobody was quite sure – she found that the previous first patient in line had still not yet arrived, its owner having dented somebody else's car in the car park and got into an argument about insurance. Jane could see figures gesticulating out in the Square, no doubt trying to work out who was to blame with neither party admitting to an apology. Meanwhile, back in the surgery, Jane was chatting to Lance Kemnay, the owner of the ridgeback Stella whose leg she'd just stitched up. Lance was the local helpful contractor and patron of Kempfield. He was a burly man with a blue chin, full lips and a surprisingly deep voice. He had begun his working life as a joiner but his wife had had a win with a premium bond. Instead of blowing it on a world cruise they had set him up as a building contractor, and in the ensuing dozen or so years he had won and carried out successive building contracts of escalating value without putting a foot wrong and without making any extravagant claims for extras. Developers were clamouring for his services.

Jane and Lance had settled down for a chat over a cup of machine tea, Lance seated in the one bentwood chair reserved for the client at the head of the queue while Jane leaned on the counter. That day there was no queue. Lance had no grounds to claim Stella's costs before tax so he paid cash. He had been playing hooky from business, he explained, decoying pigeon on his cousin's farm until Stella had gashed herself on broken glass. He was usually well dressed but that day he was wearing tweed breeks and an old sweater.

‘How go the preparations for the Feeding of the Five Thousand?' he asked.

She knew that the question was a polite formality but it was at the front of her mind so she told him anyway. ‘Pray God it doesn't turn out to be that many but it seems to be heading in that direction. We've been promised most of the consumables,' she said, ‘by which I mean food, and a small working party of mothers is turning the raw materials into a buffet with the help and supervision of the chef at the hotel. Mrs Ilwand is lending me a gorgeous wedding dress. The meal will have to be a stand-up buffet. Drink is the remaining problem. Everything else seems to be providing itself but the booze is different and I haven't dared to count the number of people who're expecting invitations. I've been advised to tell people to bring their own or else to give them one glass of sherry and then leave them to pay for their own, but you can't
do
that. So we timed it to catch the elderflower season and I'm going to make a superginormous batch of my elderflower champagne. And if anybody turns up their nose at that—'

‘They won't,' Lance said, laughing. Jane's elderflower champagne was famous and much respected throughout the district.

‘Well, if they do,
then
they can bloody well fetch their own from the off-licence.' Jane went on to recount the lengths that they were going to in order to brew the required quantity of wine.

When she mentioned her need of a stainless steel tank, Lance sat up suddenly. ‘I have just what you want,' he said. ‘You probably saw that the extension to the athletic centre in Edinburgh was cancelled. I had already put some materials on order. Most of them I managed to absorb into other work but there was a tank that was intended for the boiler room – something to do with sterilization of swimming pool water with the use of ozone – that nobody wanted. I got paid for it anyway but I was left with it on my hands. I didn't know whether to send it to the dump or cut it up for bits and pieces.'

‘Don't do either of those, one of them could be the answer to a maiden's prayer. Not that I could claim to be a maiden,' Jane said, stroking her stomach where she was convinced that the bump was becoming noticeable at her waist, although to the untrained eye it looked as taut as ever.

Lance laughed. ‘I damn nearly said that I see what you mean, but I just managed to stop myself in time and actually I can't really notice a thing! Anyway, congratulations. That's great news for you and Roland. Now,' Lance continued, this time in a more serious tone, but with a smile on his lips, ‘getting back to the business at hand, regarding the tank, I'll send Mrs Stiggs over in the morning. She'll take you over there.'

‘Thank you – and regarding the matter at hand,' Jane replied, being equally businesslike and with her own smile playing round her mouth, ‘I do know my way to your warehouse.'

‘Not this one you don't. It used to be a church hall until I built them the newer and better one. So this is a different place and it's much easier if I just send Mrs Stiggs over to take you there tomorrow instead of having to give you complicated directions, which you'll then lose and will phone me up in a panic totally lost, no doubt. No, this is much the easiest solution all round. And, out of the goodness of my heart and because I want to be rid of the tank, I'll even transport it for you. That pickup that they use for Kempfield would hardly look at it.'