SERIES Tales From Prospect House by Malcolm Welshman

Temperatures are rising at a life-drawing class . . .

THE stick of charcoal in my hand snapped in two as my client stepped forward, slipped the fur coat off her shoulders and stood there naked as the day she was born.

The ravages of sixty or so years since that birth were clearly etched in the contours of her body.

Contours that the lifedrawing class were to put to paper in the form of quick charcoal sketches.

As I set to work, I was thankful I hadn’t been holding a thermometer at the time in readiness to take the temperature of Mrs Mundy’s Siamese, Sophia.

With her owner in the nude, it would have soared before ever reaching the tail end of the cat, the mercury way off the scale.

I blamed Beryl for that situation. Our receptionist had suggested I joined the art group.

“Do something different. It will do you good.” She gave me one of her laserlike looks which did me no good at all. Nor did the art class. Not after seeing Mrs Mundy.

Crystal had observed me flapping round the hospital, flipping through the case notes of in-patients, a bundle of agitation. She’d called me aside with the curve of a delicate finger.

“Try to pace yourself, Paul. Don’t let things get under your skin.”

I gazed into those wonderful blue eyes of hers, observed the delicate earlobes, the copper curls and cast my mind back two years, to my first months at Prospect House. A time when this senior partner was my Julie Andrews.

For her, I could have leapt across the highest peaks. Now, the best I could have managed was to stumble over a mole hill.

Eric, her husband, the other partner in the practice, also noticed my stressed-out state.

In contrast to me, he always seemed to be in a buoyant frame of mind. With his squat, rotund body he reminded me of a rubber ball. One full of bounce.

“Exercise, Paul. That’s the name of the game,” he declared.

He’d recently taken up cycling, wobbling into work on a bike.

The first morning, he’d sprung up the steps of Prospect House and into reception encased in the full regalia. A cycle hat with reflectors was rammed on his bald head. A yellow Lycra top and black Lycra leggings were hugging his portly frame.

“What d’you think, Beryl?” Our receptionist’s good eye shot up and down him in a blaze of distaste. It spoke volumes. Unwilling to be saddled with similar scrutiny, I decided biking was not for me.

A suggestion from Mandy, the senior nurse, came via Lucy, the junior one.

As Lucy was now my fiancée, it was less embarrassing for her to put the suggestion to me.

“Mandy wonders if you should try some mindfulness meditation. It might help reduce your stress levels.”

Ah, yes. Mindfulness. Very much in vogue at present. A way to release my inner bliss; to unlock the engine that runs my life.

“Well, if it makes your engine less cranky, then it can’t be a bad thing,” Lucy added unsympathetically.

I tried a few sessions of sitting on the floor of Willow Wren, the practice cottage, with legs semi-crossed, palms up, resting on my knees, with a mantra of “Oms” going through my brain. It did nothing other than give me a bad back.

It was Mrs Mundy and Sophia that finally helped to reduce my stress levels. After having drawn the contours of her body, I saw her in a different light whenever she appeared in my consulting room.

For a few weeks that was often. Sophia had developed diabetes and required stabilisation with insulin injections. So there were many appointments.

Each time, Mrs Mundy was always calm and collected. She never seemed stressed about Sophia’s prognosis and ongoing treatment.

I eventually plucked up courage to ask her how she coped so well.

“My dear chap,” she said, “it’s all because of you.”

She ran a hand down her Siamese.

“You’ve brought life and vitality back to Sophia in a way that no-one without a true vocation could do. I’ve had every confidence in you. And Sophia is the living proof.” She gave me a radiant smile.

Her comments rang in my ears as she left, and continued to ring whenever my stress levels rose.

They were welcome words I could draw on for comfort. Words that would trace the contours of my life as a vet – without the need for a dropped fur coat.

More next week.