Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 29

‘There, there, baby,’ she was saying. ‘Calm down.’
Lucas was spitting fury and trying to wriggle out of her arms to get back to Neil and finish what he’d started.
‘I can’t believe you let that bird in here,’ said Selina in an accusing tone.
‘What are you talking about? You told me you had the gentlest fricking cat on earth,’ said Polly, her voice tight with panic as she collapsed next to Neil. ‘And why the hell is HE…’
But any thought of Dubose left her mind immediately as she knelt next to the little puffin. Neil was bleeding; his thick black feathers were torn. She could feel his heart beating incredibly quickly through his chest.
‘God,’ she said. ‘I have to get to Patrick. Sssh. Sssh.’
She took off her cardigan and wrapped it carefully around the little bird, who was whimpering; a horrible noise. Then she got up slowly from the floor. Selina was attempting to hold a still maniacal Lucas in her arms, Dubose standing silently beside her. Polly was forever glad later that she was too upset to speak, because anything she would have said she would never have been able to take back. She simply pushed past them both and ran down the stairs with Neil in her arms.
‘Hey,’ said Jayden, coming out to polish the door handles as she shot past. ‘What’s up?’
But Polly was running faster than she’d ever run in her life, straight along Beach Street, past the fishermen, who hailed her too, Archie standing up when he saw the look on her face, and past Muriel’s shop. This early in the morning, before the causeway opened and the day trippers arrived, Mount Polbearne was quiet and sleepy, and it was extremely unusual to see someone run.
Patrick was in early checking out a dog for worms – not exactly a difficult diagnosis, he had concluded, from the way the animal had dragged itself into the surgery on its bum. He’d need to disinfect the entire area again later. It was tricky being a single-handed practice sometimes.
His door was flung open with surprising violence, banging against the far wall. Old Mr Arnold jumped in alarm. Mifty saw his chance and wriggled his bum on the table again.
‘Stop it, Mifty,’ said Patrick, looking up. He froze when he saw Polly’s face.
‘What is it?’ he said, but he hardly had to ask. ‘Is it Neil?’
Polly nodded, trembling and wordless, offering the bloodstained cardigan. Neil’s breaths were shallow and his eyes were closed.
‘Oh my,’ said Patrick. He turned to the old man.
‘Can I just move Mifty for now?’ he said. ‘I’ll fix his prescription later.’
‘Is that that little bird from the bakery?’ said Mr Arnold. ‘Oh dearie me now.’
Patrick hastily scrubbed down the table and washed his hands.
‘Put him here,’ he said.
Polly couldn’t bear to place him down; she was numb with shock. Patrick had to move forward and gently prise Neil out of her stiff hands.
The little bird looked tiny on the large table. There was a long rip in his side, and his head was nodding in and out.
‘Oh dear me, dear me,’ Mr Arnold was still muttering in the corner.
Polly found her voice, although it came out as a high-pitched squeak.
‘Fix him,’ she managed. ‘Fix him, please. Fix him now.’
Patrick rubbed the top of his bald head.
‘That’s fine. I’ll need you to hold him.’
He took down a book from the shelf.
‘Why are you reading?’ said Polly, her face completely white. ‘Don’t read now. Fix him.’ She went to pick Neil up again.
‘Hush,’ said Patrick, quite sternly. ‘Don’t touch him, please. I’m double-checking the dosage. I don’t anaesthetise birds very often; I don’t want to get it wrong. If you wouldn’t mind standing to one side for now, that will be quite the best way to help Neil.’
Polly swallowed, her hands gripping the chair in front of her – the nearest thing she could find – so hard her knuckles went white.
‘It’s very dangerous to anaesthetise a bird,’ he went on. ‘Especially when they’re in shock. If it wasn’t Neil, I would say let him go.’
Polly swallowed hard.
‘Has he eaten in the last two hours? Well that’s a stupid question. Of course he has.’
Patrick rummaged about in a drawer and took out a large plastic-wrapped contraption that looked like a toilet plunger.
‘We usually use these on very large dogs,’ he said, glancing at Neil nervously. ‘That beak of his gets in the way a little. Okay.’
He attached the tube that ran from the gas mask to a canister marked Isoflurane in Oxygen, and very carefully attached the mask over Neil’s head. The little bird panicked at first, then, as Polly went forward and rubbed his neck, gradually relaxed and closed his eyes.
‘Fine,’ said Patrick. ‘Stand back, please.’
He looked at her.
‘Was it a cat?’
She nodded.
‘Those damned things,’ Patrick muttered to himself. ‘They’re a bloody hazard. I did warn you.’
His face was serious as he bent down to take a closer look at Neil’s injuries. Polly stood back.
‘Is there anyone you’d like me to call, love?’ said Mr Arnold. Polly immediately wanted Huckle’s arms around her, but she couldn’t speak, not yet. She shook her head numbly. No. She couldn’t bear it; couldn’t speak to anyone until she knew. Neil had been knocked out by the anaesthetic, but all Polly could think was that he looked like he was dead.
Mr Arnold (and Mifty, squirming frantically) stayed by Polly’s side throughout the operation, the old man’s hand gentle on her shoulder. Patrick donned a pair of huge magnifying glasses that made his eyes look very strange, and bent to his work.
He plucked away all the feathers over the main site of the wound and gently swabbed away the blood. There seemed an awful lot of it for such a tiny creature. There were three great raked tears through Neil’s stomach; one per claw, sharp as needles, which had slit through him like a knife through butter. Polly couldn’t look and turned away.
Patrick felt around deftly.
‘I think you’ve been lucky,’ he said. ‘It seems to have missed the vital organs.’
Polly looked up, her eyes full of hope, but Patrick’s face was still grave.
‘I can stitch him, Polly, and put him on antibiotics… but with this kind of thing, it’s not the injury, it’s the shock. The anaesthetic and the shock…’