Tales From Prospect House

A beloved pet was soon to travel over the rainbow . . .

WITH April Fool’s Day approaching, I recalled one client who saw the world as a place to have a laugh – Reverend Sidney Jolie.

He was a travelling rector, based in Westcott, who spread the gospel round the churches of West Sussex and beyond while imbuing his preaching with humour.

He’d recently paid a visit to St Mary’s, across the way from Willow Wren in Ashton.

“Come and listen to him,” James Matthews, our local vicar and neighbour, urged. “Apparently his services can be very entertaining.”

It was. Dressed in an outsized dog collar, red boots and a large red nose, Reverend Sidney proceeded down the aisle mounted on a unicycle. Several times during his sermon he stopped to blow bubbles above the pulpit.

“God’s promises,” he declared. “Now let us pray.”

It was his little cairn terrier that brought him to Prospect House, a dark brindle by the name of Toto.

“After Dorothy’s dog in ‘The Wizard Of Oz’,” I heard him explain to Beryl as she took his particulars. “I adore that film. Do you?”

There was no reply. Perhaps the sight of him in his full clown regalia, with white painted face and vermilion nose and cheeks, was giving her lots to think about without conjuring up Munchkins skipping along a yellow brick road.

When he entered my consulting room in red boots and cuddling Toto, he was humming “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”.

I remarked on the Sunday service and how much Lucy and I had enjoyed it.

“Thank you. Most kind.” He gave a little bow. “I like to instil a bit of fun. It helps to spread the message. And Lord knows, we do need to have our spirits lifted whenever possible.

“Talking of which,” he continued, “my precious Toto seems lacking in spirits at the moment.”

He kissed the dog on her nose and she responded with a lick on his lips.

With Toto on the table, I did a general health check while asking some questions. “How’s her appetite?” “A bit picky with her food. She usually wolfs it down.” “Any sickness?”

The reverend shook his head.

I took the cairn’s temperature. Normal.

“I have noticed the occasional cough,” the reverend told me. “Especially after she’s been for a walk. I thought perhaps it was her pulling on her lead too much.”

I listened to Toto’s chest with my stethoscope and checked her heart at the same time. Then I gently palpated her abdomen.

All the while she patiently stood on the table and let me do it without a murmur. Only when I was pressing her mid-abdominal area and felt a lump did she let out a little squeak.

The clinical examination completed, I turned to Reverend Sidney.

“I think we should have Toto in and get her tummy X-rayed. There’s something there that’s a bit of a worry. We’ll get some blood tests done at the same time.”

I’m sure Sidney’s face blanched under all that white paint. His quavering voice said it all.

“She will be all right? She’s my life.”

My worst fears were confirmed when X-rays taken of Toto showed a large white mass in her abdomen, and petechia in her liver and lungs. Cancer. And it had spread to other organs.

The prognosis was poor. Reverend Sidney listened while I told him the bad news, his hand constantly ruffling Toto’s neck.

“How long have we got left?” he whispered, hugging her to his chest.

That was always going to be a difficult question.

“I wouldn’t want her to suffer,” Reverend Sidney murmured.

Ten days later the decision was made.

“The time has come,” the reverend said with a deep breath. “Can I stay with her?”

“Of course,” I replied. As I slipped the injection into the little cairn’s vein, her black button eyes sank down, and with a final sigh, she passed away in Reverend Sidney’s arms.

“Goodbye, my precious,” he murmured as his lips quivered and tears coursed down his cheeks.

On my drive home across the Downs that evening, the sky was grey-lilac and filled with rain clouds. A heavy April shower swept ahead of me.

The setting sun caught the cloud burst. As it did, a rainbow suddenly shimmered across the sky, arching over the pewter clouds in a blaze of colour.

It was a sign. Toto was happy in heaven.

Somewhere over that rainbow.

The End.