SHORT STORY

Fosse & Sons

How a name can bring back your worst memories

It all started a few months ago when I started using a new vet, Monsieur Fosse, whose dour personality matched his name perfectly. The translation of Fosse from French to English being grave or pit.

A fat-faced man of around sixty-seven with short legs and a high-rounded chest, who spoke as though his mouth was always filled with cake. A throaty, garbled French accent that produced a thick cloud of missing vowels and slurred consonants.

No one liked him, but what option did people have. The only other vet in the village had recently died, and the next nearest one was 30 km away.

So there I was in his surgery with my cat Thompson, who wasn’t really ill. He’d just fallen out of a walnut tree chasing a pigeon. He’d often fall, but normally he’d land on his feet. On this occasion though, he’d mistimed things and landed on his back. And even though he could still walk, he was in pain.

Monsieur Fosse squeezed his back, grunted a few times, and handed me a brown bottle of tablets.

‘Twice a day,’ he ordered. ‘Mix in the cat’s food,’ he said, pointing at Thompson like he was an electrical appliance. ‘Come back if it persists.’

He then handed me a bill for €80.

When I got home that evening, after buying some sachets of cat food — he normally just had biscuits — I crushed up the tablet and mixed it in his dinner. When Thompson saw the bowl, he gobbled the food down. The entire bowl was licked clean.

The next morning, forgetting about his tablet and sachets, I threw some biscuits in his bowl as I made my breakfast. He wasn’t interested, simply sniffed at them, walked away and out through the cat flap.

‘Fussy sod,’ I exclaimed and so squeezed out another sachet of the vomit-inducing cat food that smelt like dog shit into his bowl. Remembering to crush a tablet into it.

By lunchtime, the bowl was licked clean again, and I cursed myself for buying the stuff. Not only did it stink, but it was three times the price, and now Thompson wouldn’t eat anything else. I vowed to give him it as long as the tablets lasted, then go back to biscuits. If he didn’t like them. Tough. He’d have to starve.

After a week, the tablets were finished and Thompson had made a full recovery. It was Monday morning and I had to go to Carcassonne an hour away, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to get him back into his routine.

I filled his bowl with biscuits and quickly dashed out of the door before he could complain. I wouldn’t be back until seven that evening, so he’d have to eat the biscuits or get his own dinner.

The traffic was terrible on the way back and I didn’t get in until half-eight, only to find Thompson lying on the sofa shivering and looking distinctly ill.

‘What is it, Thompson?’ I purred at him, stroking his fur which was damp and matted.

He just bleated out a low-pitched meow and looked at me through glassy eyes. He looked terrible. Like he had a hangover.

I quickly got up and retrieved my phone from my bag and scrolled down to Fosse’s number. I was nervous. It was nearly nine o’clock on a Monday. I didn’t even know if he took night calls. But who else was there in this damn village?

My finger hovered above the call button and I looked across at Thompson. His glazed eyes flashed at me. I called Monsieur Fosse.

‘Allo.’ He sounded as though he had half a pot of coq-au-vin in his mouth.

‘I’m so sorry to bother you,’ I started explaining. ‘But it’s Thompson, he’s very sick, and you said…’

‘Yes yes yes,’ he cut me short. ‘What’s the matter?’

I explained his symptoms and he told me to come in tomorrow at nine o’clock.

‘Tomorrow!’ I cried. ‘He could be dead.’

‘I’m sorry, but there’s nothing much I can do. I’m in the middle of my dinner.’ And hung up.

I was furious. ‘I’m in the middle of my dinner,’ I kept repeating while Thompson lay there eyeballing me with his milky eyes. I eventually sat down and covered Thompson with a blanket, resigned to the fact that there was not much I could do except keep him warm and watch over him.

We both eventually fell asleep and didn’t wake up until 8.30 a.m. Noticing the time, I grabbed Thompson, who was still alive, pushed him into his cage and drove to the surgery, arriving at nine o’clock on the dot.

Monsieur Fosse greeted me with his customary un-enthusiasm before plonking Thompson down on the examination table like he was a stuffed toy.

‘There seems to be nothing wrong with him,’ he declared after a minute, before reaching up to the medicine shelf. I saw Thompson’s eyes follow the vet’s hand as he grabbed a bottle of pills.

‘It’s probably just stress from the injury,’ he continued. ‘Give him these again. Two a day in his food,’ the vet finished, tearing off a bill from his pad for €100.

I looked at it in disbelief. ‘A hundred. But it was eighty last time.’

He smiled. The first smile I’d ever seen him crack. ‘€20 for the night call,’ he stated, picking up my cat and lowering him into the cage.

When I arrived home, I vowed never to use Fosse again. I couldn’t believe the bare-faced bastard’s greed. My pet insurance would pick up the tab, but I still felt robbed.

I gave Thompson his course of tablets, but after they were finished, he once again fell ill. Wailing on the sofa like a child deprived of milk.

So the next day I drove 30 km to the next town to see Madame Leibus. An attractive, joyful woman, and the complete opposite of Doctor Death.

‘He seems physically fine,’ she said. ‘Although he does seem stressed as he keeps arching his back. Have you changed his food recently?’

I told her that I’d started using the sachets so I could mix in tablets, but now he simply refused to eat the biscuits.

She didn’t seem that bothered. ‘I’m sure he’ll get better,’ she said as she handed me the bill — this was getting expensive!

But he didn’t. He got worse. Just lay on the sofa with big vacant eyes that looked at me longingly. He ate his sachets, which I’d stupidly started buying again, so it wasn’t as if he was off his food. He just seemed fed up and had no interest in anything.

After two weeks, and after two more trips to see Madame Leibus, who once again couldn’t find anything wrong, I took him back to see Fosse. Anything to help my depressed cat.

The old vet looked even more worn out than before. His eyes sagged in his sockets like they were two marbles shoved into a big lump of moist dough. His hair was heavily greased and slapped over his head like a piece of brown seaweed splattered over a rock. His breath was vile, a mixture of garlic, claret and foie gras, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

When I entered his surgery, he sighed but asked how Thompson was. He remembered his name which surprised me.

‘I’ll get to the point,’ I started, not wishing to be polite. ‘I went and saw Madame Leibus.’ I paused trying to gauge some reaction, but there was none. ‘She couldn’t find anything wrong.’

Fosse was nodding and started feeling the cat. Thompson was perfectly relaxed, almost enjoying it. ‘And how long has this been going on?’

‘Since the time I brought him in with his bruised back. You gave me some pills, and he was fine when he took them. But now he’s just depressed.’

Fosse was nodding again. ‘I think there was some stress to the nervous system after his fall. Delayed symptoms, same as in humans.’

I nodded warily.

‘So what I’m going to do is,’ he said reaching for the shelf. Thompson’s eyes followed his hand. ‘Put him on the tablets again to calm him down,’ he finished bringing down an extra large bottle off the shelf.

‘See, he’s looking better already,’ Fosse commented, looking at the cat. Then handed me a bill smiling.

‘Thank you,’ I said sarcastically, expecting the worst.

‘I’ve only charged you for the tablets,’ he offered.

It was still €50 for a plastic bottle of tablets, but it was still better than €80. Maybe Monsieur Fosse wasn’t that bad after all. Either that or he was desperate for business, and was worried that I’d seen Madame Leibus.

Of course, as soon as I got back home from the vet, Thompson was fine. I gave him a sachet of food with a tablet crushed up in it and sat down to relax.

And then it dawned on me. It made perfect sense. Nobody could find anything the matter with him and yet as soon as he’d had his tablets and food, he was absolutely fine.

‘Thompson!’ I shouted out of the window. ‘You double-crossing, lying, junkie of a cat. There’s nothing wrong with you, is there?’

He stopped halfway across the lawn with a young pigeon in his chops and looked at me.

‘You bastard,’ I shouted at him and watched him scurry off into a bush to eat his prey.

I sat down and pondered the situation, wondering if this had ever happened before. A cat addicted to drugs. A cat feigning illness in an attempt to get drugs. Pretending to be ill and keeping it up for weeks to get his fill of whatever Fosse had prescribed.

Which got me thinking even deeper. What if Fosse was part of this? Was he prescribing strong drugs to cats and dogs for his own financial gain. A special cocktail to keep them coming back. An animal drug dealer. The only one in the town, who the animals relied on to get their hit.

The next morning, I drove down to confront Fosse. When I got there at nine o’clock, his surgery was empty. Only a receptionist, who I hadn’t seen before, thumbing through a home improvement magazine.

‘Is he free?’ I asked.

‘Who?’

‘Monsieur Fosse, who else?’

The receptionist looked perturbed by my tone. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but there’s no one here by that name. Are you sure you’ve got the right address?’

‘Of course I’ve got the right address,’ I declared. ‘I’ve been here many times, it’s Thompson.’ I shook the cage I was holding to indicate I’d brought a cat. ‘See!’

The receptionist looked more worried now than angry.

‘Check your files,’ I said. ‘Thompson, beige Tonkinese. Check the bills, there’s plenty I assure you.’

She smiled gently. ‘Can I take your name, sir?’

I gave it to her and she typed the information into her computer. ‘Ah yes, I see. I see right here, and Thompson,’ she said slowly.

I felt relieved, for a minute I thought the world had been rewired and had missed me out in the process. ‘So,’ I said. ‘Is Fosse in? I need to see him.’

The receptionist seemed to bite her lip. ‘You see, sir. As I said, there’s no one here called Fosse.’

‘Are you crazy!’ I almost exploded. ‘How long have you been here?’

The receptionist frowned. ‘There’s nobody here called Fosse, I can assure you, sir.’

‘So who did I see, only last week?’

The receptionist glanced back at her screen. ‘Madame Leibus.’

I saw white light rip through my head. ‘Madame Leibus! Don’t be stupid!’ I cried. ‘Madame Leibus lives in the next town — 30 km away!’

Then the surgery door opened, a woman stepped out and everything went black.

I awoke looking at an old and thin face. Not unattractive, but lined, the skin as dry as parchment. The woman was looking directly at me, I could see her green eyes catch the light from outside.

The room smelt of disinfectant. Like a recently cleaned bathroom. But the smell was more industrial, more medicinal.

‘Where am I?’ I asked.

‘In the surgery, you fainted.’

‘Are you, Madame Leibus?’ I asked.

She smiled. ‘Yes.’

‘You look older than before.’

She nodded acceptingly. ‘I guess we all are.’

I didn’t know what she meant by that, but smiled all the same.

‘How’s Thompson?’ I asked, ‘and where’s that fool Fosse? The receptionist said she’d never heard of him. Is she new?’

Madame Leibus nodded gently, her hand touching mine. ‘You’d better rest. You hit your head when you fell. I can take you home if you like.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘But we’d better not forget Thompson.’ I raised my head a few centimetres up from the bed to look for him.

‘Relax,’ said Madame Leibus. ‘I’ve given you some painkillers, just wait a while then we can go.’

‘That’s what Fosse was giving Thompson,’ I said, raising my head further despite the pain. ‘Thompson,’ I called out. ‘Thompson!’

I sat up.

‘Please,’ said Madame Leibus urgently. ‘You need to rest.’

Then I saw the empty cage in the corner and saw the same cage being held by my daughter as she crossed the road with my wife. I heard a screech and a bang. Screams, then silence. I saw a truck door swing open, and a driver get out and run to the spot where they lay. I wanted to run as well but I couldn’t. All I could do was gaze at an inscription on the side of the removal truck: Fosse & Sons.

Tears streamed down my face. Madame Leibus handed me a tissue and held my arm tightly.

‘Do you remember now?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’ Then paused. ‘It’s not the first time I’ve come here, is it?’

‘No,’ she said gently. ‘But it’s OK, I’m used to it now.’

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