The Pets at Primrose Cottage

by Sheila Norton

  ‘But you’re happy here, now? Really? You don’t miss anything about your life in America?’

  ‘I love it here, honestly.’ I lay back and smiled to myself in the dark. ‘It’s the complete opposite of that life. I’ve got nothing of my own now, except my work, but it’s made me realise what matters. There’s only one thing I miss from New York: Albert.’

  ‘Your cat? Oh, Emma, I forgot about Albert. What happened to him? Has Shane kept him?’

  ‘No. It took me ages to get an answer from either him or Leo – his agent – and when Leo finally replied, it was to threaten me with legal action if I tried to contact Shane again. I only wanted to know about Albert! I don’t care if I never speak to Shane again, obviously. And all he told me was that Albert’s gone to a good home. It had better be.’

  ‘Can’t you find out who’s got him?’

  ‘I don’t know how.’ I fell silent for a moment, then added quietly, ‘Well, there’s only one way I can think of. One person I could ask. But I’ve resisted it, so far.’

  ‘Her?’

  ‘Yes. Her. The bitch.’ I snorted.

  ‘You don’t think she’s got Albert?’

  ‘No. She doesn’t like animals. Or children. Or anyone who isn’t as blonde, beautiful and rich as her, of course. But she’ll probably know where Albert’s gone. If I can only bear to lower myself to contact her.’

  ‘Poor you,’ Kate sympathised, reaching out for my hand in the dark. ‘What a mess.’

  ‘Well, I should have been like you, shouldn’t I. Worked harder, got my exams, gone to college …’ I said. Suddenly I felt like crying. ‘Made Mum and Dad proud,’ I added in a little voice.

  ‘Emma,’ she said gently, ‘you’ve got to stop blaming yourself for everything. Mum and Dad love you, you know. When you have kids yourself one day, you’ll realise what I understand now: you never stop loving your children, no matter what. Even when they empty a cup of milk all over your new rug,’ she added, ‘like Rose did last week.’

  I gave a short little laugh, but didn’t say anything. She squeezed my hand again and we fell asleep like that, like we used to when we shared our bedroom at home, hands stretched out across the gap between our beds. We always needed at least our fingertips touching, or we couldn’t sleep.

  In the morning, I held onto her for so long on the doorstep that she eventually had to gently disengage herself from my arms.

  ‘I’ve got to go, honey. The kids—’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. Sorry you had to come and check me out.’ I smiled. ‘But I’m glad too. Will you come again? Bring Tim and the children? I’d love to see them. There are B&Bs in the town – you could stay for a week. Please say you will?’

  ‘I’d like that. I’ll talk to Tim about it, I promise. Perhaps later on in the summer. Bye, sis. Be good. Behave yourself with Sugar!’

  I was glad she’d made me laugh before she drove off, otherwise I’d almost certainly have been crying.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  May drifted into a showery June, and the animals I was being asked to look after suddenly became as varied as the weather.

  ‘I’ve got some fish next week,’ I told Lauren when I was checking my Primrose Pets appointments diary one evening.

  ‘Fish?’ Lauren queried. ‘What, in a tank?’

  ‘No, Koi carp, in a pond. And a hamster in a couple of weeks’ time. And later on in the summer I’ve got a booking for a budgie.’

  ‘Well, it makes a change from dogs and cats, doesn’t it,’ she said. ‘I presume you know how to look after all these different creatures?’

  ‘Most people give me loads of instructions. The fish can’t really be difficult, though, can they? I mean, they just swim around in their pond. I just have to feed them. I can’t exactly take them out for walks, or sit and cuddle them.’

  ‘Not that you’d want to! Yuck! Slimy!’

  She pulled a face, and we giggled together, and I felt a bit better for a few minutes. But it didn’t last.

  I’d felt lonely since Kate had left. I couldn’t help it – despite Lauren and I having become quite close now, nobody was quite like my twin sister, and although we’d spent so long apart, now that we’d been together again briefly I found myself missing her more than ever. I was throwing myself into my work with the animals in an effort to stop myself from brooding.

  I’d already met the Koi carp before I turned up on my first day. The man who owned them, Gary, seemed keen to show them off.

  ‘They’re worth a lot of money, you know,’ he told me proudly as I watched them swimming around the big pond in his garden. I wasn’t surprised to hear that. Some of them were as big as a small cat. They came up to the surface, mouths open greedily, as he threw in handfuls of food to show me how much to feed them.

  ‘Is that all I have to do?’ I asked. It seemed a bit like money for old rope, but I didn’t like to say that, of course.

  ‘Well, you can talk to them if you like,’ he said – and when I looked up at him in surprise, he laughed and I realised he was joking. ‘Just make sure the level of the water doesn’t go down. It’s not likely to, unless the weather turns hot,’ he said, and showed me how to top it up if necessary. ‘Otherwise, that’s it. But if you have any worries, call my mate – he used to keep Koi himself and he’s a bit of an expert, so he’ll be able to sort you out. I’ll leave his number next to the fish food.’

  I did wonder why he didn’t ask his mate to look after the fish while he was away – I’d have thought he was better qualified. But perhaps he was too busy. That first day, after I’d fed the fish and spent ten minutes watching them swimming up and down the pond, I wandered around the garden, went back to the pond and spent another ten minutes watching them, looked at my watch, and wondered if it was really fair to charge him for half an hour’s work: there was no way I could stretch it to any longer. Too late, I realised I could easily have done this job at the same time as another one. I’d know for next time, but now I’d blocked the whole week out of my diary, just to stand here gazing at a dozen big fish in a pond.

  The next day, to pass the time, I invented names for all the fish. The big spotty one was Dot, the smaller, spotty one, Freckles. The one with stripes on his back was Tiger. The fat orange one was Tango, and the littlest one, Tiddler. Then I started to get confused because there were several that looked the same. Which one did I just call Nemo? Which was Bubbles? And did it really matter, as they obviously didn’t respond to their names? Anyway, Gary might have named them something else.

  The third and fourth days passed much the same way. I was getting so bored of watching them swimming around, I did actually start talking to them. And then, on the fifth day, I looked into the pond – and Freckles was floating on the top, looking rather too much like the previous night’s dinner.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I whispered. ‘You’re dead, aren’t you? What did I do wrong? And what the hell do I do now?’

  I raced back into the utility room where Gary kept the fish food, and found the piece of paper where he’d written his mate’s phone number. It was the first time I’d looked at it. And as soon as I did, my heart sank. How likely was it that there might be another Rob Montgomery in Crickleford? Not very likely at all, it turned out, when I called the number next to his name.

  ‘I’ll come straight round,’ he said when I explained about the dead fish. ‘I didn’t realise Gary had left you in charge,’ he added as if it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard of. Perhaps it was.

  He was there within minutes, and marched straight out to the pond.

  ‘Pass me that net,’ he said, and promptly lifted out the poor dead fish and inspected it closely. ‘Doesn’t appear to be diseased,’ he muttered. He looked back at the pond. ‘There’s another one there looking a bit unhappy – see?’

  He was right. Nemo was tilting to one side a bit and lying on the surface with his mouth open.

  ‘Has Gary changed the water recently?’ he asked.

  I spread
my hands. ‘How would I know? You’re supposed to be the expert. I didn’t know you had fish, by the way,’ I added.

  ‘I haven’t, any more. One member of the family being obsessed with animals is more than enough,’ he said sourly. ‘Look, I think the problem is that this water needs changing. I’ll test it, but my betting is that it’s become too acidic. If you leave it like this, they’ll all die.’

  ‘What!’ I gasped. ‘But they’re really expensive, aren’t they! And I have no idea how to change the water. Gary never said anything about that.’

  ‘I’ll show you,’ he said with a sigh. ‘We’ll change twenty per cent of the water today, another twenty per cent tomorrow, and so on, OK?’

  ‘And then Gary will be back,’ I said, with heartfelt relief. ‘I hope he doesn’t think it was my fault Freckles died.’

  ‘Freckles?’ Rob said, with a lift of an eyebrow in my direction.

  ‘Yes. Well, I was bored, so I gave them all names. The one who looks a bit poorly is Nemo. The other spotty one there is Dot, and—’

  ‘I get the picture,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Well, let’s give Freckles a decent burial, first, then I’ll show you where the outlet pipe is. OK?’

  It was strange: I’d been so wary of him whenever I was looking after Sugar for Vanya, but there in Gary’s garden, he seemed different: he was helpful, nice, almost charming. It wasn’t until we’d finished topping up the pond again and I was thanking him for his help, that he started to show his other side again.

  ‘You’re welcome, sweetheart,’ he said, putting an arm around my shoulders. ‘Anything for my wife’s favourite little cat sitter, eh? And what do I get in return?’ he added in a horrible smarmy tone.

  ‘I’ve said thank you.’ I tried to shake off his arm, but he pulled me closer.

  ‘A little kiss, at least, surely? To show we’re still friends? Even though you dropped me in it with Vanya about the bloody cat getting out of her run.’

  ‘I didn’t drop you in it,’ I retorted. ‘It was your fault! I wasn’t going to take the blame.’

  ‘Fair enough. And I won’t let you take the blame for Freckles when Gary asks me what happened here today. Unless you’re mean to me, of course.’ His arm moved to encircle my waist and he gave me a little squeeze.

  ‘Get off!’ I pushed him away, angry now. ‘Nothing about this has been my fault and you know that. You said Gary obviously forgot to change the water before he left.’

  ‘So you don’t even want a little kiss and cuddle? We could go indoors – there’s nobody here to disturb us. We’ll just have a little sit down on the sofa …’

  ‘No! I don’t want anything like that. I thought I’d made that quite clear,’ I said, conscious of sounding like a maiden aunt at a vicarage tea party. The truth was, of course, that I was struggling to control my own conflicting feelings. It had been a long time since I’d felt a man’s arms around me like this, his hot breath in my ear, the excitement of being wanted – and I was lonely. But there was no way I was giving in. ‘Please leave me alone,’ I added more firmly, ‘or I’ll have to tell Vanya.’

  He laughed, but finally let go of me. ‘She wouldn’t be surprised.’

  ‘Maybe not, but that’s between you and her. She’s my client, and you’re her husband, so you must be mad to think I’d be tempted—’

  ‘Oh, but you are, aren’t you,’ he replied softly, with a very gentle touch of his finger on my cheek, making me shiver. ‘But if you’d rather play with pussy cats and puppies, that’s your loss. Pity though,’ he added with a last lingering look at me before he turned to go, waving goodbye without a backward glance.

  I took a deep breath and turned back to the pond:

  ‘Men!’ I said. ‘Is it any easier, being a fish?’ I asked Tiger as he swam up to the surface to blow bubbles at me. ‘Do you have problems with the ladies … or the men … which are you, anyway, I wonder?’

  Then I burst out laughing at myself. Rob was right, I was better off playing with pets than getting involved with a man, especially a married one who was completely off limits. But talking to a fish about its love life? That was slightly weird, even for me.

  I managed the water changing business myself, the next couple of days, which at least kept me busy, and when Gary came back he was full of apologies.

  ‘I meant to do it before I went away. I just got so busy … I’m so sorry to have given you a problem.’

  ‘No worries. Rob was … very helpful. But I’m really sorry Freckles – I mean, the spotty fish – didn’t make it. At least Nemo – um, the other one – recovered.’

  He smiled at me. ‘You gave them names too? I called him Smartie – the one that died. And that one there is Stripey.’

  ‘Tiger,’ I said.

  ‘Right. The big orange one? I call him Mango.’

  ‘Oh. Close. Tango.’

  He nodded, looking pleased. ‘That little one – Titch.’

  ‘Tiddler.’

  We laughed together. Who’d have thought it? I’d ended up quite liking those fish. What next? Tortoises? Owls? Stick insects? Primrose Pets was nothing if not versatile, I told myself with satisfaction as I made my way home.

  I decided, that Sunday, to have a walk past Bilberry Cottage again. I wanted to cheer myself up and try to recapture my delight about living in Crickleford. The uneasy feeling I’d had since I’d imagined seeing Shane there had dissipated over the weeks, and now I just felt silly for taking too much notice of the hallucination, or whatever it was, that I’d had while I’d been feeling ill.

  It had been raining all morning, but as I turned into Moor View Lane, the rain suddenly stopped and there was a break in the clouds. In the sunshine, the wet leaves on the trees gleamed, the flowers in the front gardens and the daisies and buttercups on the grass verges sparkled, and everything looked pretty and bright again. Feeling more cheerful, I hurried round the bend and stopped outside my favourite cottage, sighing with contentment. I knew it was strange to feel such a connection to a house that didn’t belong to me and never could. But it just looked, somehow, perfect – so exactly what I imagined for myself. Perhaps it was a good thing I was never likely to go inside, I thought, as I stared at the two apple trees in the overgrown little garden and the stepping-stone path up to the blue front door. It might be absolutely awful – gloomy and dark with horrible wallpaper hanging off damp walls, chipped and stained bathroom fittings and an ancient unworkable cooker in a kitchen where every surface was impregnated with decades of grease. But try as I might, I couldn’t talk myself out of my infatuation with the place.

  I was so engrossed in my daydream that when I first glimpsed a movement in the front room of the cottage, I didn’t even react. I blinked, and the movement became a figure, and for a minute I thought I was experiencing déjà vu.

  ‘Shane?’ I muttered to myself, my heart beginning to race. But this time, I wasn’t ill, I wasn’t feeling dizzy and feverish and about to faint in a heap. I looked a little closer, watched as the figure turned around, and gasped with surprise. It wasn’t Shane, of course. It was Matt.

  I didn’t wait to see whether he’d noticed me loitering outside. I bolted back down the lane, annoyed with myself for doing so, but at the same time annoyed with Matt – for being there, in my special cottage, for looking so similar to Shane from behind that he’d scared the life out of me and … and this was the thing, I realised as I slowed down and walked back over Crickle Bridge with my heart rate finally calming down: I was annoyed with him for not telling me the truth! When I’d asked him why I’d seen him outside Bilberry Cottage before, taking photos, he’d seemed really awkward, and just made some excuse about liking the place. And hadn’t I thought it was a coincidence that he just happened to turn up there on the day I collapsed outside? What was he doing there? Was he moonlighting as a decorator, or maybe doing the place up for a friend? Why lie about it?

  I slowed down a little more. It had started to rain again, and I put up the hood of my jacket and sighed
to myself. Who was I to talk about telling lies? I’d told everybody here, including Matt, a pack of them. I’d refused to tell him anything true about myself whatsoever – no wonder he’d given up on me. Perhaps it wasn’t just because I wouldn’t let him write a story about me that he seemed to have gone off me. Maybe he’d have liked to know more about me, and I didn’t suppose it was much fun hanging around with someone who was a complete mystery, never revealing anything more personal about themselves than the colour of their hair. Come to think of it, even that was fake!

  If only there was somebody I felt close enough to, somebody I could trust implicitly here in Crickleford, so that I could be myself with them and tell them the truth. But even Lauren would probably throw me out if she found out. Why would she want someone with such a whiff of scandal about them lodging in her lovely home, with her lovely family? Why would anyone! It was no good. I’d just have to carry on keeping my secrets to myself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I tossed and turned in bed that night, wondering about Matt. Did he see me lurking outside Bilberry Cottage? Why hadn’t he told me he was doing DIY or whatever, there? And more to the point, was I ever going to swallow my pride and ask him if we could be friends again? I missed his easy company, missed his smile and his teasing and his hugs. All through the following week, I looked out for him around the town, stared fixedly at the Chronicle offices when I walked past them, willing him to suddenly appear out of the door and give me a wave. If I saw him now, I decided, I’d try to make up with him. I’d apologise for refusing him his story, try to give him some sort of explanation – or should I say excuse – even if it meant telling more lies. But it was as if he’d gone into hiding.