Every Living Thing Read Online Free PDF

eyes crackling with fury, spat out the words and as I looked at her, taking in the lank black hair framing the haggard face with its pointed chin, I thought, not for the first time, how very much she resembled a witch. It was easy to imagine her throwing a leg over a broomstick and zooming off for a quick flip across the moon.
    “All t’country’s talkin’ about you and your big bills,” she continued. “I don’t know how you get away with it, it’s daylight robbery—robbin’ the poor farmers and then you come out here bold as brass in your flash car.”
    That was what had started it. Since my old vehicle was dropping to bits I had lashed out on a second-hand Austin 10. It had done twenty thousand miles but had been well maintained and looked like new with its black bodywork shining in the sun, and the very sight of it had sparked off Mrs. Sidlow.
    The purchase of a new car was invariably greeted with a bit of leg-pulling by most of the farmers. “Job must be payin’ well,” they would say with a grin. But it was all friendly, with never a hint of the venom that seemed to be part of the Sidlow ménage.
    The Sidlows hated vets. Not just me, but all of them, and that was quite a few because they had tried every practice for miles around and found them all wanting. The trouble was that Mr. Sidlow himself was quite simply the only man in the district who knew anything about doctoring sick animals—his wife and all his grown-up family knew this as an article of faith and whenever illness struck any of his cattle, it was natural that Father took over. It was only when he had exhausted his supply of secret remedies that the vet was called in. I personally had seen only dying animals on that farm and had been unable to bring them back to life, so the Sidlows were invariably confirmed in their opinion of me and all my profession.
    Today I had been viewing with the old feeling of hopelessness an emaciated little beast huddled in a dark corner of the fold yard taking its last few breaths after a week of pneumonia while the family stood around breathing hostility, shooting the usual side glances at me from their glowering faces. I had been trailing wearily back to my car on the way out when Mrs. Sidlow had spotted me from the kitchen window and catapulted into the yard.
    “Aye, it’s awright for you,” she went on. “We ’ave to work hard to make a livin’ on this spot and then such as you come and take our money away from us without doin’ anythin’ for it. Ah know what it is, your idea is to get rich quick!”
    Only my long training that the customer is always right stopped me from barking back. Instead I forced a smile.
    “Mrs. Sidlow,” I said, “I assure you that I’m anything but rich. In fact, if you could see my bank balance you would see what I mean.”
    “You’re tellin’ me you haven’t much money?”
    “That’s right.”
    She waved towards the Austin and gave me another searing glare. “So this fancy car’s just a lot o’ show on nowt!”
    I had no answer. She had me both ways—either I was a fat cat or a stuck-up poseur.
    As I drove away up the rising road I looked back at the farm with its substantial house and wide sprawl of buildings. There were five hundred lush acres down there, lying in the low country at the foot of the dale. The Sidlows were big, prosperous farmers with none of the worries of the hill men who struggled to exist on the bleak smallholdings higher up, and it was difficult to understand why my imagined affluence should be such an affront to them.
    It occurred to me, too, that this latest attack had come at a time when my finances were at their lowest ebb. As I changed gear I caught a glimpse of pink flesh through the knee of my old corduroys. Oh, hell, these trousers had just about had it as indeed had a lot of my clothes, but the needs of two growing children came a long way before my own. Not that there was any point in going round my work looking like a male fashion