‘Why?’
‘Because … um, I’ve been ill,’ I fabricated quickly.
Holly considered this for a moment, looking at me doubtfully.
‘Is that why you’re not going to work? My mummy couldn’t go to work after she had the flu. Did you have the flu as well?’
‘Er … no. Something else,’ I said vaguely. ‘But I’ll be going to work very soon.’
She ran off downstairs. I breathed a sigh of relief, closed the bedroom door and got stuck into another doughnut. By the time I’d showered and dressed and gone downstairs myself, Lauren and Holly were just about to leave the house. But Lauren turned to me as she opened the front door and said, sympathetically:
‘You should have told me you’d been ill. I hope it wasn’t anything serious?’
‘Oh, no, not really,’ I said, trying to sound brave about it. ‘I’m on the mend now, anyway.’
‘Good. Well, take care, and don’t overdo it.’
Overdo what? I thought to myself as I made myself a cup of coffee and stared out at the snow. I wasn’t doing a damned thing. I felt guilty all over again now, especially for making up yet another lie. What was wrong with me? I couldn’t seem to stop myself – making things up was getting to be a habit with me.
At least I had somewhere to go that day. It was my appointment with Mary, to meet Scrap the Cairn terrier. Mary lived in Church Hill, yet another of the steep little lanes off Fore Street, between the church and the hardware shop. Her house was right at the top of the lane, which finished abruptly with a stile over a five-bar gate, and an ancient signpost indicating a footpath to Windy Tor. I had no idea what Windy Tor was, but the view across the snowy expanse of the moor from this high point was so fabulous that I felt sure Scrap and I would be following that footpath during the forthcoming couple of weeks.
‘The tors are outcrops of rock,’ Mary told me over coffee, while Scrap sniffed around my legs to make sure I wasn’t wearing slippers. ‘They’re all over Dartmoor. Windy Tor’s not a huge one but you’ll discover lots more if you go for walks around here. Take a map with you if you don’t want to get lost.’ She got up and handed me a map and a Dartmoor guidebook from her shelf. ‘Here, borrow these.’
‘Oh, thank you.’ I looked at the small print in the guidebook without much enthusiasm, but added out of politeness that it certainly would be a good idea for me to find my way around. ‘I’ll probably take him for walks along the river, too.’ I remembered the sandbags, and added, ‘Does it flood along there sometimes?’
‘The water meadows just out of town will flood occasionally, if we’ve had a lot of wet weather,’ she said. ‘But don’t worry, the Crickle hardly ever bursts its banks this far down. I can only remember it happening a couple of times. Now, 1963 – that was a terrible year. Houses almost completely underwater, that part of town completely cut off for weeks – nobody’s ever seen anything quite like it since, thank God.’
‘Yes, thank God,’ I agreed, thinking of the lovely houses along the riverbank. They looked like they’d been built a long while after 1963. I wondered how they’d ever got planning permission for building so close to the river. But at least it sounded like I’d be safe taking Scrap for walks along there, even if it rained!
I hadn’t had any personal experience of looking after dogs – we’d only had cats at home – but I liked all animals, and Scrap seemed a nice little thing. Mary seemed to think he liked me. He kept running out to his bed in the kitchen and bringing me things – a squeaky toy, a half-eaten chew stick, a blanket, a rubber bone. I stroked him and tickled him behind his ears and told him we were going to be friends, and he licked my hand with a surprising degree of enthusiasm. I promised Mary I’d be back the next morning to start my dog sitting, and left feeling quite warm and fuzzy and pleased with myself. And to complete my morning, I took another stroll down Moor View Lane. This time I found a spot on the opposite side of the road from Bilberry Cottage, where I could pretend to be looking at Mary’s Dartmoor guidebook while surreptitiously staring into the windows again. Nothing seemed to have changed; it still looked unoccupied, the dust sheets still in place. What if it was for rent, rather than for sale? Perhaps the landlord was in the process of doing it up. Would the money from dog walking and cat sitting cover the rent for a pretty little cottage like this? I didn’t need anyone to tell me the answer to that one!
It being a Friday, the part-time library would be open from midday so I walked back to the Town Square slowly and got there just as it opened. I didn’t hold out a lot of hope for a computer, but to my surprise the boy with the earring told me the one that had gone away was now back. I logged on, with the secret password on the slip of paper the boy passed me furtively across the desk, making me feel like a Russian spy, and went straight to the Rightmove website, followed by Zoopla and then the listings of several Devon letting agencies. But none of them had Bilberry Cottage on their books. I wasn’t sure why I felt so disappointed. It wasn’t as if I was likely to be in a position to buy, rent or even pay admission to anything other than my one room in Primrose Cottage any time this decade. So perhaps that was the end of my little fantasy. Instead I looked at a couple of job vacancy sites, before giving up and going to get some lunch.
Lauren made a nourishing chicken casserole for dinner that night.
‘Eat up,’ she said, smiling at me. ‘This’ll soon have you feeling well again.’
It was delicious, but my guilty conscience completely ruined it for me.
Next morning, I started out early for my first day with Scrap. Mary had given me full instructions on his care, and after giving him his breakfast I took him for our inaugural walk along the footpath to Windy Tor. I’d bought myself a good pair of walking boots from a little shop called ‘The Moor Outdoor Store’ – which, being on Fore Street, I thought was a masterpiece in rhyme and was only disappointed it wasn’t number four – and I couldn’t wait to try them out. My first hurdle, however, turned out to be the stile, namely getting over it while holding onto Scrap’s lead. I was too nervous about losing him, to let go of it or let him off the lead. But I soon discovered he was used to the stile, squeezing neatly underneath it and waiting for me to climb over and join him. Half an hour later, I was beginning to realise the tor was further than it looked on the map. It was also starting to snow again, and the lovely rolling expanse of Dartmoor countryside I’d been so entranced by, the previous day in the sunshine, now looked bleak and uninviting under a dark, threatening sky.
‘Come on, let’s go back,’ I said to Scrap. ‘We’ll try again tomorrow.’
By the time we got back to Mary’s house, it was snowing heavily, and we were both cold and wet. The legs of my jeans were soaked and my feet ached from the unaccustomed exercise. I took off my new boots, which were caked in thick red Devon mud, rubbed Scrap down and turned on the gas fire in the lounge for him to dry off, and before long he was asleep. Then I stripped off my wet jeans and anorak and hung them around the fire, put on a dressing gown of Mary’s I found behind her bedroom door – making a mental note to bring a change of clothes the next day – and sat down to eat the sandwich I’d brought with me. Before long, the warmth of the fire had me dozing in the armchair, and when there was a ring at the doorbell I nearly jumped out of my skin.
‘Hello,’ said the lady standing on the doorstep, staring at me suspiciously. ‘Who are you?’
‘Um, I’m Emma, the dog sitter,’ I said.
‘Oh.’ She looked me up and down, and I remembered about the dressing gown. ‘I got wet,’ I explained, ‘walking Scrap in the snow.’
‘OK. Well I’m sorry, but I live next door and I knew Mary was away, so when I noticed you walking up the path and you didn’t come back again, I thought I’d better check. Jackie Johnson,’ she introduced herself, holding out her hand. ‘I didn’t realise Mary used a dog sitter.’
‘It’s the first time I’ve worked for her.’
‘I see. You’re new around here, aren’t you?’
&nb
sp; ‘Yes. I’m Emma. I’m lodging over in Primrose Gardens.’
There, I’d managed to meet someone new without telling any outright lies. It could be done.
Jackie gave me a friendly smile and said she hoped I was settling down well in the town.
‘We’ve been in desperate need of a new pet sitter around here,’ she commented as she said goodbye.
I was beginning to realise it was hopeless to expect to live like a complete hermit here in Crickleford, where everyone seemed to be so involved in each other’s business. It was nice that they all looked out for each other, but I’d just have to keep being careful not to reveal myself to anyone.
‘I presume you’ve got a job now, Emma,’ Lauren said the next day as I set off again for my stint with Scrap.
‘Yes,’ I said brightly. ‘Thank goodness!’
‘A care home, is it?’
I hesitated. I didn’t want to admit I was just pet sitting. After all, the money was dire, and as for job security, I’d have been better off on the game. I didn’t want Lauren to chuck me out because she couldn’t imagine how I’d pay my rent.
‘Kind of,’ I said, slipping out of the door quickly.
It was Sunday. Carers worked at weekends. She’d assume that was what I was doing. It wasn’t exactly a lie, either – I was caring for a dog, wasn’t I? In a home? So it was, kind of, a care home, wasn’t it?
Scrap and I were becoming good friends already. That second day, he ran to meet me with his lead in his mouth, and by halfway through the week we’d finally made it to Windy Tor and back. I doubted whether it was the most exciting sight on Dartmoor, but I was pleased with myself, not to say knackered, at the end of the walk. Scrap and I both slept for the whole of the afternoon. Looking after dogs was a doddle, I decided. The secret was obviously just to tire them out completely, then give them a big meal and leave them to sleep it off.
In fact I’d already fallen in love with the little terrier and was enjoying myself immensely. Every now and then I remembered that I ought to be looking for a proper job. But what was the rush? It was only my second week in Crickleford, after all. I needed time to adapt, didn’t I? Time to recover from the trauma of having to leave the family home, to say nothing of the trauma that had brought me back there from America. A little spell of rest and relaxation and healthy walks with my new little doggy friend was surely just what the doctor ordered.
I was beginning to recognise people, too, on my twice-daily walks with Scrap. We didn’t always go to Windy Tor, of course. Sometimes we walked along the riverbank, sometimes along Moor View Lane to dawdle for a while outside Bilberry Cottage, and a couple of times we went up Castle Hill. And there were usually quite a lot of other dog walkers around. I’d noticed how friendly they seemed to be with each other, stopping to talk together about their dogs and the cold weather and the state of the footpaths, and to be honest I tried to avoid these cheery little gatherings. It was nice that everyone was so friendly, but after all, I’d come to Crickleford to hide away from people, not to chat to them.
But on our second time up on Castle Hill, I noticed someone I’d seen the previous day and had instantly had to look away from, for no other reason than there was something about him that reminded me of Shane. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it: yes, he was tall, slim and dark-skinned – Shane was mixed-race, with an African-American father and white British mother. But this guy’s colouring looked kind of Mediterranean. No, it was more about the way he loped along, with long strides, head held high and an air of confidence about him. For a moment that first time, I’d felt physically sick from the memories, and actually turned round and took Scrap in a different direction, away from the lookalike. But on this second occasion I almost walked straight into him and, to my discomfort, he gave me a wide grin and said ‘Good morning!’ I nodded and muttered something back, but he just stood there, deliberately, right in front of me, and said again, ‘Good morning!’
This was awkward.
‘Hello,’ I muttered, trying to manoeuvre Scrap around him. The stranger smiled, bent down and patted him. He must have been the only person walking on Castle Hill who didn’t have a dog with him.
‘Nice morning, isn’t it?’ he persisted.
‘Yes, it is.’ I glanced at him quickly. He was smiling, just a friendly smile. He didn’t look like Shane after all, close up, and to my relief he didn’t appear to be staring at me in a way that indicated he might know who I was. I risked a smile back. ‘Excuse me, then,’ I said. ‘But we’re in a bit of a hurry.’
‘To get to the top of the hill?’ he said, looking surprised.
‘Yes. I’m … timing the walk. For … fitness purposes.’
‘Oh, right. Very commendable.’ He smiled again and stepped aside to let me pass. ‘Well, good luck, then, with the timing. And the fitness.’
‘Thanks. Bye.’ I tugged at Scrap’s lead – he seemed reluctant to part from his new friend. ‘Come on, Scrap.’
We made our escape without me having to make up any more stories. But something about that guy’s smile had unsettled me. Why had he insisted on talking? Surely he didn’t recognise me?
That night I gazed at myself in the mirror for a long time, wondering about myself and what I’d become. Who was I? I used to be someone, I thought mournfully, someone who was recognised everywhere I went, someone who turned heads, who was photographed for the newspapers and asked for autographs. And now I was just a nobody, a stranger in a strange town, someone with DIY Cheeky Chestnut hair who made up stories about house fires, care homes, illnesses and fitness regimes.
But on the other hand, shouldn’t I be asking myself who, really, was that ‘somebody’ I used to be? If I’d only been ‘somebody’ because of Shane, then in actual fact, hadn’t I really been a nobody all along? It wasn’t the nicest thought. But perhaps, sadly, it was the most honest one I’d had for a long while.
CHAPTER FIVE
By the time my two weeks with Scrap were up, we were well into February and I felt as if I’d been living at Primrose Cottage forever. Holly seemed to have got used to me being around now, and by the time her parents were packing their bags for their winter sunshine holiday, I was able to help out by keeping the overexcited little girl occupied with a game.
‘Thank you, Emma,’ Lauren said gratefully when they’d finished the packing. She hesitated for a moment. ‘We’re going to be leaving early in the morning. Are you absolutely sure you’re OK to look after the cats for us?’
‘Of course! I’m looking forward to it.’
It was the truth. It was good to have an excuse to stay in the house as much as possible, safe from the curiosity and stares of people in the town.
‘I mean, I hope it’ll fit in OK with your new job,’ she said anxiously. ‘It’s not as if you have to be with Romeo and Juliet all the time. Just as long as you’re here to give them their meals, and a bit of a cuddle now and then.’
‘Don’t worry about that, Lauren, I’ll give them lots of cuddles, and my … um … hours are quite flexible so it’ll be fine.’
‘Oh good. Well, I’ve stocked up the freezer with some ready meals for you. I’m sure you won’t want to be rushing home from work to cook for yourself from scratch, will you, not after being on your feet all day looking after those elderly folk. I know how tiring that can be.’
‘Thanks, Lauren, I appreciate that,’ I said, my heart feeling heavy with shame. Since my two weeks of looking after Scrap, I’d done nothing with my time apart going to the library, when it deigned to open, to trawl the job vacancy websites. And my vision for the week Jon and Lauren were away actually involved far more lounging on sofas with warm cats on my lap watching rubbish on TV, than any kind of exhausting work. As for cooking from scratch – all that stuff was a complete mystery to me.
I waved them off early the next morning and sat straight back down with a cup of coffee, savouring the thought of a whole week indoors to myself. But within a couple of days, even with the pleasant companions
hip of two warm purring moggies, I was beginning to suffer from cabin fever. The cottage was probably half the size of my parents’ house in Loughton, which was itself only a fraction of the size of my apartment in New York. Shane’s apartment in New York, I corrected myself quickly. I knew I’d been spoilt. But lying around all day every day with nothing to do didn’t feel quite the same now that I knew it was a luxury I couldn’t afford.
On the third day, I gave in and went out to the library again. I’d finished with my books on dog care and anyway, looking after Scrap had been such a doddle that I didn’t feel like I needed any further study. So I took them back and found some books on wildlife instead.
‘You’re not from round these parts, are you?’ said the boy with the earring, who I’d noticed staring at me whenever I was in there. ‘You’re down from up-country.’
‘Maybe I am,’ I said defensively, starting to edge away from the desk with my new books.
‘Are you married?’ he asked casually.
I stared at him. Was that a requirement for borrowing books from the library these days?
‘No.’
‘Right. Got kids, though?’ he said.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘You’re taking books out of the kids’ section,’ he said, grinning.
‘Oh. Yes, they’re for my … um … little girl,’ I said, feeling flustered. ‘Holly.’
‘No husband, though?’ he persisted. ‘So do you fancy coming out for a drink with me Friday night, then?’
‘No!’ I said, horrified. ‘I mean, no, I can’t, I’m not single, I’ve got, um, a boyfriend, back in, um, London—’
‘You never said,’ he complained. His ears had gone red. ‘So, you’re kind of on your own anyway, sort of thing, while you’re down here.’ He eyed me speculatively. ‘Is he the jealous type, your boyfriend?’
I stared at him. ‘I’m not available to have a drink with you,’ I said firmly. ‘Thank you.’
I was glad to get out of there. It was one thing being propositioned by someone younger than myself, and God only knows I could have used a bit of a confidence-boost at this point – but this particular gawky teenager looked like he shouldn’t even be let out on his own. If I took him up on his offer, I’d probably have his mother turning up, berating me because he was underage.
The Pets at Primrose Cottage Page 4