Danny

He had interesting eyes, those blue eyes that have a fleck of a hazel in them – eyes that hid a lot, I thought. He was about twenty-five or -six, tall and lean. He smoked too many cigarettes.

We weren’t ever formally introduced, and our first encounter came late one afternoon as a group of us students stood agonising over the prognosis of a fat, foundered grey gelding.

The x-rays and clinical signs showed only mild laminitis, but the pony had had multiple visits to the clinic in the last couple of years, and I think that the owners were starting to despair that they could achieve a cure.

Danny loped along in his red setter gait and stood viewing the grey pony in distrust. We continued to discuss the case, and our conversation began to take a conservative turn.  Surely one more try, one more treatment regime, one more attempt at encouraging diet and exercise….. Danny resisted interrupting for perhaps 30 seconds, but by then he couldn’t contain himself.

“Rubbish!”  he said. “The thing’s a disaster!”

Our jaws dropped and I began to tell him our reasons for wishing to proceed cautiously. I had barely started when he turned to face me and interrupted.

“See that smoke up there?”

He was pointing to a murky grey column coming from the clinic’s incinerator.

“I want that to be grey smoke! “

 And before I could answer he was sauntering away.

Of course the pony suffered no such fate, and I’m told that he is happily grazing a reduced amount of feed in a hilly paddock to this day.

Our first proper assignment with Danny was a visit to a cow with a prolapsed uterus. Dave Donnan and I had been assigned for the day to be his assistants and having very little obstetric experience we were excited. We played fisty cuffs outside the car while we were waiting for him to appear.

“Are you kids just here for the ride or are you gonna give me a hand?” we heard from the doorway, and there was Danny, laden with bottles of lubricant and other bags and boxes of unknown origin. Dave scooted over to help but Danny waved aside all offers of assistance and awkwardly managed to unlock the boot with one hand. We both looked at the ground and wished that we’d been more attentive.

“Well, let’s go” he said, finally slamming the door.

We piled into the vehicle feeling a little bit deflated. Was he seriously cranky? It seemed bad. But as I sat in the front seat I felt an irresistible urge to smile.  I stole a glance in his direction and saw a twitch in the corner of his mouth. Suddenly he laughed out loud to a pretty silly joke on the radio and I found that I was joining him.

Danny drove like he did everything else — with a sort of irritated efficiency, as if the world should have arranged itself better before he arrived. Dave tried to ask a careful question about the cow’s condition, but Danny just grunted, “She’s got her insides outside. What else do you need to know?”

Dave and I exchanged glances.  We were horrified but also a bit thrilled to think that we were going to be able to help this poor cow.

When we arrived, the stocky was pacing by the gate, akubra slightly askew, badly scuffed blundstones. “She’s down again,” he said. “I tried covering her up but—”

“Yeah, and that’ll fix it,” Danny muttered. But he smiled and introduced us as “his team”  and we felt a bit proud.

The cow was lying on her side in the straw, sides heaving, with what looked like a monstrous, glistening red balloon trailing behind her. I thought maybe I was going to spew. Dave whispered, “Is it supposed to look like that?”

“Not if you ask her,” Danny said.

He thrust the bag at me. “You — hold this. Don’t drop it. If you do, I’ll leave you here to explain to the client why his cow died because you can’t use your hands.”

I clutched the bag as though it were the crown jewels.

Then, with sleeves rolled to the elbow and a splash of lubricant that went everywhere but where I thought it should, Danny set to work. He didn’t bother to explain what he was doing, just barked the occasional order. “Towel. More lube. Not that much — are you trying to drown her?”

Dave scampered around like a guilty terrier, and I hovered, terrified that whatever I handed him would be the wrong thing.

And yet — within half an hour the impossible seemed to have happened. The terrible red balloon was gone, the cow was standing again, chewing as if nothing in the world had occurred.

The stocky grabbed Danny’s hand with both of his own. “Mate, you’ve worked a miracle!”

Danny lit a cigarette. “Yeah, well. Tell her not to do it again. Makes things easier for all of us.”

We piled back into the car in silence, buzzing with a mixture of awe and relief. Finally, unable to help myself, I started to laugh.

Danny shot me a sideways look, smoke curling around his face. “What’s funny?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly.

But of course it was everything.