Getting Vetted

By Tanya MacFarlane

New Zealand vet Samantha accepts a job in small town Southland after graduation. She wants to be thrown in the deep end and experience all life has to offer before heading overseas. Could life be any better? She has her career, her friends and her fiancé. His only vice is the drinking. And the annoying best mate always along for the ride.
Samantha travels with friends through South East Asia before setting up to work in the UK. With the arrival of foot and mouth disease, the collapse of the twin towers, and a floundering relationship, life feels very uncertain.
One reckless night kicks off a series of events that throw her out of her comfort zone. Grappling with her values and beliefs, she sets off on a journey of self-discovery. As America hunts for Saddam Hussein, she travels through the Middle East and discovers what really matters.
Based on a true story, Getting Vetted is about relationships, spirituality and travel. Sometimes to grow up you need to let go of deeply-held beliefs and let go of childhood attachments to find your authentic self.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tanya MacFarlane
• Release date: Jan 20, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224577989

Tanya MacFarlane

Tanya MacFarlane lives in New Zealand with her husband and children. She continues to work as a veterinarian.

Book preview

It is good to have an end to journey toward;

but it is the journey that matters, in the end.

Ernest Hemingway

1.    Te Kau, New Zealand | 1997

The chance to live somewhere different had seemed like a great idea at the job interview. An exciting adventure! The experience of a lifetime! A chance to explore the tramping tracks and mountains in the south of New Zealand, the advertisement had read. But now I am down here in the deep south, and my car is packed with all my belongings, I am seriously regretting this decision to start my first job so far away from my home in Auckland.

As I drive up the main street of Te Kau on a Sunday afternoon, the road is deserted, and I expect to see tumbleweeds blowing down the street like in a Western movie. There is one main street, with a wide raised pedestrian strip in the centre of the road, one pub, a Four Square supermarket, a hairdresser and a volunteer fire brigade. Some shop windows have For Rent signs hanging lopsidedly in the dirty windows. I was told at the interview that Te Kau, with a current population of only five hundred people, is an up-and-coming dairy metropolis in the heart of southland. Farms that used to run sheep and cattle are being converted into deer and dairy farms, and this is why the local vet clinic need another vet. However, it feels more like a town would after the apocalypse: abandoned, empty and on the brink of collapse.

I am about to become the only female vet in this farming town full of men. I’m about to take the cows, sheep, deer, horses, and local farmers on by the horns, antlers, ears, and balls. Down here the farmers probably don’t even realise that women can become vets.

I pull over and turn off the engine, trying to decipher the hand-drawn map Donald, my new boss, faxed to me last week. There is absolute silence, broken by a cow mooing in the distance and the sound of a door banging as it is blown by the wind. It appears I am on one of the two roads in the town that run parallel to each other. The house I’m looking for should be straight ahead a couple of hundred metres, and on the left. Donald has organised accommodation for me with a local guy called Mike. Mike has a dog named Rufus and a spare room that is cheap to rent. That’s all I know about the new house I am set to occupy. What will he look like, my new flatmate? Will he be funny? Serious? Pimply? Tall? A country bumpkin? Or a smart-arse? Donald has assured me that Mike and his family are friendly and down to earth, and that they will treat me like one of the family. He says it will be a great way to get to know the locals, and that fitting into the community is important in such a small town.

Leaning back in the driver’s seat, I turn on the radio and listen to the end of the song. Tracy Chapman is singing about getting in a fast car and just driving away to escape her small-town life. I’m tempted. Instead, I take a deep breath, push gently on the accelerator, and creep my car stealthily down the road. I pass old wooden villas, some well-kept and recently painted, others rundown with flaking paint and old cars slowly rusting in the driveways, but all with verandas out the front. An elderly couple look up from weeding their garden and wave at me as I pass, as though I am expected, so I lift my hand in recognition and smile. Kids playing in their front yard with the family dog, a Jack Russell terrier, also wave enthusiastically as I pass by. I am sure one yells something like ‘new vet’, which makes me wonder if the whole town knows I am coming. Through a gap in the hedge ahead, I see a young guy sitting on a lawn mower, concentrating intensely on steering straight across the flat quarter-acre lawn, wearing a cowboy hat, black shorts, a blue singlet advertising the local beer, Speights, and leather Blundstone boots that are brown and worn. As I pull into the driveway, he rounds the corner of the yard and faces me. Mike? We stare at each other. Is he nervous about having a twenty-three-year-old woman move in with him? I get the feeling he’s never worried about anything in his life! He swings his leg over the lawnmower seat to dismount then walks in long confident strides toward the car. I wind down the window with my heart pounding nervously in my chest.

‘Hi. I’m Mike Atkinson,’ I shake his outstretched hand through the open window, ‘and you must be Samantha?’

‘Yep, the new vet, Samantha Denton, but just call me Sam.’

‘Geez mate, that’s a load of shit in your car.’

His speech is slow and his accent drawly with the ‘r’ in car rolling as though he is speaking Spanish. This variation of the New Zealand accent is normal for people who grow up in Southland according to Donald. The back seat of my car is indeed piled high with boxes, laundry baskets, and odds and ends that I know I won’t need. I smile apologetically and he grins.

‘I’ll give you a hand to unload. I’ve cleaned the spare room for you. I hope you like it. It won’t be as fancy as what you’re used to though, coming from Auckland and all.’

‘You didn’t see where I was living at university in Palmerston North last year,’ I give a small, nervous laugh. ‘That house was a complete dump. It was condemned by the city council the year we moved out.’

As we unpack, the setting sun turns the sky a magnificent pink as the last rays of the day catch the tips of the high cloud. By the time the car is empty, we're laughing and joking like old buddies. Mike is twenty-seven, with black hair, brown eyes, freckles over his cheeks and a wide smile.

‘I was about to head over to Mum and Dad’s for a barbeque. They said to invite you if you turned up in time. They got a spa pool last year, so we can have a dip if you like.’

‘That sounds great! My back is stiff after the drive down from Christchurch where I stayed with my boyfriend Tim last night. Could I just use the phone first to call him and say I’ve arrived?’

‘Yep sure, mate, go ahead. No need to rush here in Te Kau.’

Tim is a classmate and together we decided to get jobs in the south of New Zealand to be near each other, and not have to conquer the drama of a long-term relationship. We both love the outdoors and thought it would be a good opportunity to learn to snowboard in Queenstown in winter. Before Tim kissed me on the dance floor three years ago, I used to laugh with my flatmates, Lisa and Belinda, that we could smell the testosterone oozing from his pores when he walked into the pub. We nicknamed him ‘Alpha’ as he was so obviously the alpha male of his mates. But as his and my relationship deepened, all three of us saw what a genuinely nice bloke he was. Sure, he loves to be the life of the party, and is always organising barbeques and ‘drink a crate of beer’ days at his flat, but there is another side of him that loves nature, that is soft, genuine, and lovable. He is super intelligent and although he never seems to study, he manages to do well in exams. His wiry red hair is always messy and sits awkwardly above his pale freckled face, with the skin around his blue eyes crinkled because he smiles so much. He is stocky and muscular, the perfect physique for a large animal veterinarian.

I am short and skinny. My friends describe me as ‘natural-looking’ because I hardly ever wear makeup. I have olive skin, hazel eyes and thick, straight, brown hair that parts in the middle which most of the time I just wear in a low ponytail. I live most of my life in jeans and a T-shirt and I would rather play soccer or touch rugby with the boys than netball with the girls. My sister used to call me a tomboy. But it’s not that I don’t like dresses, it’s just that I don’t often go places where I could wear one. When I was a young teenager, I sometimes used to wish I could just be seen as a human and not a girl, as I got sick of all the girls giggling, wearing makeup, and just wanting to look pretty. It was as though impressing the boys was the most important aspect in their lives. I wore trousers at high school instead of a skirt, which caused a bit of a problem initially, but then a big bunch of my friends followed suit, so the headmaster had to accept it. Trousers are much easier to cycle in than a skirt so I reckon every uniform should be unisex. I grew out of that phase when I got my first boyfriend in sixth form though, and by the time I got to university I plucked my eyebrows and tinted my eyelashes like the other girls. But that is as far as I go with makeup, and I am still a tomboy at heart. Tim says I am fit and athletic, and he finds me ‘sexy-as’. I think stomping around farms in gumboots and overalls is the closest a person can get to a gender-neutral job, so being a veterinarian is a good fit for me.

‘Did you get hold of your boyfriend then?’ Mike asks as I open the car door and plonk myself into the passenger seat of his truck. He starts the engine and Rufus, his black and white collie, leaps into the tray of the Ute and peers at me through the rear window, wagging his tail happily and barking in excitement.

‘Yep. His name’s Tim. He says he’ll come down next weekend. He’s also a vet and will be working in Heihei.’

‘Excellent,’ he grins. ‘That’s only a couple of hours drive from here. I’m going water-skiing with some of my mates next weekend. You guys should come.’

‘I’m not that good. My friends tell me I look like an orangutan on rollerblades, but Tim’s been single skiing for years. He’ll love it.’

Tim is from Christchurch, has three older brothers, and is one of the few people I know who is openly religious. For him, going to church is normal and all his mates from school went to his youth group. Apparently being a Christian in Christchurch is cool. This was not the case in Auckland or in my family. My dad advised me, ‘Stay clear of religious people, Sammy, they’re all a bit weird.’ My great act of rebellion while I was at university was to sneak off to church. Sometimes, in first year, I’d escape hostel life to go and sit by myself in the back row of a church. The denomination wasn’t important to me. It was the peaceful, contemplative atmosphere I craved. I would listen to the sermon and think about my mum who died when I was three years old. I never told anyone I was going to church because I didn’t think my friends would understand. Massey University is not known for being a spiritual campus. It is famous for beer consumption, moleskin trousers, Aertex tops, Swanndri Bushshirts, ‘Bushfires’, ‘Swampies’ and rugby.

––––––––

As soon as the ute stops, Rufus leaps off the tray and bounds up to the front door of the house, leaping and jumping in excitement. Mike's mother, a short, voluptuous woman with bobbed blonde hair, opens the front door with a beaming smile when she hears the ruckus outside.’

‘You must be Samantha.’ She hugs me to her ample bosom as though I am a long-lost relative. ‘I’m Mike’s mum, you can call me Rosie.’

His father shakes my hand with a firm grip and ushers me out the back to the picnic table.

‘I’m Brian, his dad. But just call me Baz, like everyone else in town does.’

Baz sizzles steaks on the barbeque and Rosie brings out cans of Speights and a salad, as I tell Mike about the drive down, starting from when I left Auckland.

‘Never been up to Auckland,’ he chuckles. ‘Too crowded for a country boy like me.’

Later that evening, I sit on a rocking chair on the veranda of my new home, sipping a cup of hot tea while Mike showers. I can see more stars twinkling here than I ever did in Auckland. Sounds of the countryside surround me: lambs baa, cows moo and cattle dogs bark endlessly at nothing.

‘’Night Sam,’ Mike calls as he walks down the hallway to his room.

‘Good night, Mike,’ I respond, as I return indoors and place my cup on the kitchen sink and walk down the hall to open my bedroom door.

The floor of my new bedroom has recently been carpeted with bland cream shag. The wallpaper is old and pretty, decorated with tiny red and blue roses. There’s a double bed in the centre of the wall on the left side, with bedside tables on either side and a full-length mirror leaning against the wall at the foot of the bed. A window with a white wooden frame is opposite the door with a view straight to the bathroom window of the house next door. All the boxes and baskets that we unloaded from my car, sit in the corner, waiting to be unpacked. The room is clean, but has a hollow, empty feeling to it. I need to get curtains and some pictures on the walls to rub some Sam spirit into those tiny roses.

I lie on the bed and stare up at the ceiling. I am nervous about starting work tomorrow and I don’t know how I will ever fit in to such a small community after growing up in the city. I miss Tim already. Sure, he will only be two hours’ drive away, but it won’t be like it was at varsity anymore. Our lives as carefree students are behind us now, and as this realization sinks in, I crawl under the duvet and cover my mouth, muffling my tears so Mike can’t hear me cry.

2.  Te Kau, New Zealand | 1997

The Southland Veterinary Centre is just down the road and I decide to walk to work so I will be able to drive my new work vehicle home this evening. My mind wanders as I walk briskly in the crisp fresh air, and I remember back to when I first met Donald at my interview three months earlier.

‘I don’t want to know what you know about veterinary science,’ he had said at the interview after shaking my hand and signalling for me to sit in the armchair opposite him. ‘I want to know about you.’

But what he really wanted, was for me to know about him. He was from England, having immigrated to New Zealand five years before. Throughout the interview, he entertained me with stories involving cows, sheep, and traditional English farmers while I listened, smiled, and nodded along enthusiastically.

‘How you relate to your colleagues and the public is very important in the veterinary profession, Samantha, and it’s obvious to me you are a motivated and well-liked student,’ he stated, as my interview came to an end. ‘In my experience, good grades don’t make a good vet. Give it ten years and the students who get A’s will be working for the students who get C’s.’

‘What happens to the students who get B’s?’ I wondered where I would fit into the formula.

‘They end up leaving the profession.’

‘Ah,’ I grinned. ‘So, seeing as you are the boss of your practice, I'm assuming you got C’s at university then?’

He threw his head back and roared with laughter, then stood up to shake my hand indicating the end of the interview.

‘I, Samantha, am the exception to the rule.’

I shook his hand firmly.

‘I thought you might be.’

I could still hear him chuckling to himself as I closed the door behind me.

The next day I was offered the job. Dan, Tim’s best friend, accused me of flirting with Donald because he could see no other reason why they would offer it to me over him. In the five years we’ve all been vet students together, I’ve never been able to work Dan out. He tolerates me but does not like me; a suspicion that increased exponentially since Tim and I started dating in third year. Like me, Dan is from Auckland, but I always get the feeling he looks down on me because I just went to the local public high school while he went to posh King’s College. Dan has Italian ancestry and terrible eyesight. He used to wear thick glasses in lecture theatres just so he could see the board in second year. In final year he finally got contact lenses, which I must admit did improve his appearance no end, and my flatmate Lisa even commented that he was good looking which made me cringe. He played soccer for the Massey University first team. I only watched him play once with Tim, and I must admit he had some serious skill. One goal he scored was one on one with the keeper and he feigned left and right and dribbled around him with such ease in was like poetry in motion. Apparently, he used to want to be a professional footballer and play in Italy, but somewhere along the way that dream fell through for him. Maybe that’s why he always seems to have a chip on his shoulder and comes across as upset at the world.  He never dates anyone seriously, engaging instead in a string of flings that never last more than a few months. I assumed he was an only child, but last year Tim mentioned that he’d had a younger sister who died in a boating accident when he was fourteen. He said Dan doesn’t like to talk about it, which I can understand, as I don’t like talking about my mother who died from a melanoma, an aggressive form of skin cancer, years ago.

I can’t even remember her. Dad remarried seven years later, and I love my stepmother as if she were my real mum. Even so, I keep a photo on my bookshelf of Mum with me as a baby, holding me high in the air and smiling. Some nights I look at it and I long to be able to hug her and tell her about my life. Maybe Dan feels the same way about his sister. But we don’t chat about personal topics because we’re never alone together; Tim is always there and when Tim is there, we drink beer, hassle each other, and talk nonsense.

Drinking beer with mates is how we all relax and cope with the stress of university and exams. I think it is something that is fine to do as students, but my dad and step mum never get drunk and as a result I hate seeing drunk adults. Drunk students are funny. Drunk adults need to grow up. They are embarrassing and look pathetic to me when they slur their words and stumble like idiots.

My wandering mind is brought back to reality as the vet clinic approaches and my heart rate increases. It is a huge brick building with two large display windows. One is filled with large containers of drench for sheep and cattle and signs with information about parasite resistance, while the other displays different flea treatments for cats and dogs. Taking a deep breath, I push the door open and enter a spacious room with shelves lined with boxes of vaccinations, stomach tubes, gumboots, gloves, drenching guns, drenches, selenium and magnesium supplements, and other essentials for working on a farm with animals. In one corner there is a small selection of rancid smelling dried pigs’ ears for dogs to chew on, along with a small selection of collars and leads.

‘Hello. Can I help you?’ A woman in her forties, with black hair cut in a short style, looks up from her computer. She wears jeans and a green houndstooth Aertex polo shirt with the clinic name over the left pocket. Her lips are pressed together and large wooden circular earrings dangle from her earlobes. She appears annoyed that I have disrupted her.

‘Yes. Hello, I’m the new vet. Samantha Denton. Sam.’

She stands up and takes in my appearance: faded 501 jeans, a brown T-shirt with orange sleeves and hair tied back in a ponytail. My jewellery consists of two small, silver studs in my ears and a greenstone fishhook hanging on a black cord around my neck. Her face breaks into a beautiful smile as she transforms before my eyes.

‘Nice to meet you, Sam. I’m Bridget, the receptionist. Donald’s out the back with Nigel and Patrick; they’re waiting for you. Just head through the door, there,’ she points, ‘and through the storage room to the office.’

‘Thank you.’ I’m trembling with nerves and take in a deep breath.

‘Don’t be nervous love, Nigel and Pat are really looking forward to finally meeting you. The whole team is.’

The storage room has shelves on either side, lined with small cubby holes. Each one is stocked with a different type of medicine, labelled alphabetically with small white stickers. Streptomycin, Tetracycline, Bomacillin LA, Dexadresson, Ketofen, Calcitad, vaccinations, tubes for dry cow treatments, mastitis tubes, bandages, types of lubricants and gloves that extend right up to the shoulder. All the drugs I learnt about at university are here, in the real world, just as the lecturers said they would be. It is exactly what I expected, yet I feel so nervous I want to vomit. Walking slowly forward, I knock tentatively on the office door.

‘Sam. Come in,’ calls Donald from the other side. ‘No need to hang around the door like a scared puppy. I’ve told Nigel and Pat all about you, and they are looking forward to finally meeting you.’

Patrick is the youngest of the three, with wavy black hair to his shoulders. He speaks with a melodious Irish accent.

‘Samantha,’ he says, and shakes my hand firmly. He is short and I can almost look him straight in the eye. ‘A pleasure to meet you, lass.’

‘Likewise.’

Nigel is the only vet and business partner who is a Kiwi. He is the one who started the vet practice fifteen years ago, and he’s the oldest of the trio. He has grey bushy hair, a