The Dog Share

by Fiona Gibson

  Determined to rescue the rest of the day, I pack up lunch for Arthur and me and, feeling like quite the Famous Five adventurer, virtually haul him out of the house. ‘You’re walking too fast, Dad.’ He glares at me.

  ‘Oh, sorry. I didn’t realise.’

  He shoots me a sideways look as we fall into step. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine!’ I say brightly.

  We fall into silence for a few minutes. Then: ‘D’you think you’ll get back together?’

  ‘What, me and Meg?’ As if I’ve barely given the issue much thought. ‘I don’t think so, to be honest.’ I picture her Kilner jars of petal tea and granola sitting on my kitchen worktop and wonder if she’ll want them back.

  We’ve reached the shore now. Silver Beach is probably one of my favourite places in the entire world, but right now I can’t see a single spot on it where I’d like to sit. Although the day is sunny and bright, it’s also windy; the perfect conditions for our sandwiches to acquire a fine coating of sand. But, hey, we’re on holiday, and picnics are cheering, holidayish things!

  ‘Where d’you wanna sit?’ Arthur asks, eyes narrowed.

  ‘Erm, how about down there on the rocks?’

  ‘Yeah, all right.’ He is trying to be kind, I realise. He’s fully aware why I insisted on coming down here, after yesterday when we did little more than mooch around town, where I bought him a stack of comics that were too young for him, and then tried to further raise his spirits by insisting we went into the church for a ‘look around’. Because that’s what a ten-year-old kid wants to look at on his holiday, isn’t it? A dusty organ and some stained glass. After that thrilling diversion we went back to Dad’s and watched a western (my father’s favourite genre – in fact, the only kind of film he’ll tolerate). It might as well have been a Blue Peter expedition for all the attention I was paying to it.

  Arthur and I perch on the damp rocks and I pass him a ham sandwich. It’s made from Dad’s favoured white bread, from a waxed packet, and budget meat, at the opposite end of the ham spectrum from the air-dried charcuterie on Meg’s Mum’s grazing table. A seagull swoops down, as if about to snatch mine, but swerves away at the last moment, squawking in what could possibly be derision.

  As we sit and munch stoically, pretending this is far preferable to eating in relative comfort at Dad’s kitchen table, I try to figure out what we could do after this – and tomorrow and the day after that. At least on Saturday we’ll be celebrating Arthur’s birthday so that should perk things up. The parcel Meg left for him is a rigid, neatly gift-wrapped box. I wonder if it’ll be weird for him to open it now she’s gone.

  ‘Dad?’ Arthur wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘Yeah?’

  He frowns at me, his eyes radiating concern. ‘Did Meg dump you?’

  ‘It wasn’t really like that,’ I reply.

  ‘What was it like then?’

  I fix my gaze on the horizon and shrug. ‘We just weren’t really right together, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh.’ Then: ‘Did you consciously uncouple?’

  I splutter and, despite everything, I laugh. ‘Where did you hear that phrase?’

  He shrugs. ‘I dunno. I’ve just heard it. So, was it a shock, then?’

  ‘Erm …’ I look at my son, who’s fixing me with a steady gaze that’s tinged with something like sympathy now. ‘Oh, you know. Kind of, I s’pose.’ As if, at not quite eleven years old, he knows anything about being left.

  ‘Yeah,’ he murmurs, nodding sagely, and something shifts uneasily in my gut. Of course, his mother dumped him. At least, it could be interpreted as that. Occasionally, when an opportunity seems to present itself, I broach the subject with him. I don’t want him to think he can’t talk about her, that she’s a taboo subject. But he never seems to want to. And when she is mentioned, he changes the subject quickly – or rushes off, making out there’s something urgent he needs to do.

  ‘But it’s happened,’ I add, ‘and I’m okay, honestly. So I don’t want you worrying about anything because we’re fine, aren’t we?’

  He nods and raises a smile. I slide an arm around his shoulders and he leans into me. ‘Yeah, we are, Dad. We’re fine.’

  I clear my throat. ‘But I’m sorry it’s gone a bit weird. This holiday, I mean.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he says.

  We sit for a moment, with him resting his head against me in a way that he hasn’t done since he was really little. I don’t want to move, even if the heavens open and it starts bucketing down. It looks unlikely right now, as the sky is still a pale, clear blue, but they say you can experience four seasons in one day here, and they’re not wrong; you can be sunbathing one minute and battered by hailstones the next.

  ‘Dad, look!’ Arthur jerks away from me and points down the beach.

  ‘What is it?’ I follow his gaze, assuming for one mad moment that Meg’s come back. She’s sorry, she made a terrible mistake and she loves me madly! My panic at this tells me something, I realise: that the last thing I’d want is for her to appear right now and try to make everything okay. Because it wasn’t okay, not really. Sure, we had fun, but a lot of the time I was conscious of being judged – for letting Arthur have a phone and Coco Pops, and for fixing my pupils’ instruments without pay.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be doing that in your teaching time?’ she’d asked. There was never time in my teaching time, I’d explained. ‘I just think kids should take better care of their instruments, that’s all,’ she’d added with a disapproving frown.

  Well, that was life, I’d tried to explain. No one damaged a violin deliberately. Accidents happened and who could blame a dog for mistaking a bow for a plain old stick? What I’d really wanted to say was that my pupils didn’t have the kind of privileged upbringing she’d enjoyed, with private tutors for a raft of activities and holidays to the South of France. Many of them wear shabby or outgrown school uniforms – if they even have uniforms – and have no holidays at all.

  Jesus. A whole year, Meg and I were together, because I fancied her and she was nice to my son without being overly nice, and I enjoyed being with someone, and having another adult to talk to, and do stuff with, after years of rattling about by myself.

  I’m still peering into the distance, wondering what’s caught Arthur’s attention. He’s hurried off now, clutching his Caramel Wafer, towards the sea. ‘Dad!’ he calls back. ‘It’s that dog again! Look!’

  I scan the shore, then spot the small brown terrier-type with a flash of white on its chest. Although it’s running freely I can see now that there’s a woman strolling along, still some way off, holding a lead. She has dark bobbed hair and is wearing one of those yellow fishermen’s jackets that are actually nothing to do with fishing at all.

  ‘Are you sure?’ I call after him.

  ‘I think so, yeah …’ Arthur stops as the woman approaches and greets the dog. ‘Is he yours?’ he asks.

  ‘He’s a friend’s actually,’ she replies, ‘but I walk him for her. We kind of share him—’

  ‘Was he a stray?’ my son cuts in.

  ‘Arthur,’ I say, speeding up to join them, ‘I don’t think this is the same one. The other one was thinner—’

  ‘Actually, yes, he was a stray,’ the woman says, pushing her windblown hair from her face.

  ‘I thought I saw him on the ferry as well,’ Arthur adds.

  The woman smiles warmly. ‘You probably did. My friend brought him back here on Sunday, but she found him here, on the island. We think he must’ve been abandoned but we don’t really know what his story was. So she decided to keep him—’

  ‘See, Dad?’ Arthur turns to face me, a note of triumph in his voice. ‘We could’ve done that. We could’ve kept him and now he’d be ours.’

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Suzy

  I’m not putting off writing that letter to Harry. However, after yesterday’s distillery visit my head was crammed with yet more baffling terms, and
all I was good for was going through my notes, then lying down with a cup of tea and Scout curled up at my side.

  I’d met Vicki, our environmental consultant. Slim and athletic – I’d guessed her at late thirties – she’d seemed surprised that I knew so little about minerals, precipitation and geological formations. ‘Our water,’ she’d said with a note of admonishment, as if I’d handed in sloppy homework, ‘is Sgadansay whisky.’ Then she’d proceeded to tell me in extreme detail about our unique water source – a fast-flowing stream from up in the mountains – then up on her computer screen had appeared cross-sectional diagrams of the land structure and so much information about porosity, peat deposits and ‘sphagnum’ (a kind of moss, I learned) that my head had started to reel. By the time she’d finished I’d filled an entire pad with scribbled notes and rudimentary sketches.

  I was immensely grateful to Vicki for being willing to spend so much time with me, and relieved that my change of tactic seemed to have worked. Instead of lurking apologetically, as if almost guilty for being on the premises, I’d forced myself to be bolder and to fire questions – heaps of questions, as Paul had on that distillery tour. Then I’d gone to pick up Scout from Cara as usual (already, our routine feels so natural), and she told me about the red-haired boy she’d met on the beach: ‘He loved Scout! And he was convinced he’d seen him before, a few weeks ago, on the beach …’

  ‘When he was running about lost?’ I asked incredulously.

  ‘Yes! But he’d run off before he and his dad could take him anywhere safe. Oh, he was so sweet with him, Suzy. He was throwing sticks for him and knew all these facts about dogs. His dad said he was desperate for one of his own.’ I’d smiled at that. He sounded just like Frieda.

  And now, on this cool, grey-skied Thursday morning, I’m installed at the desk by the window in my hotel room, trying to wrestle my thoughts to the matter in hand. Just write the letter, I tell myself. All I need to do is lay out the situation now and why I need Harry to come back. Don’t sweat the small stuff!

  But how to be apologetic, humble and gently persuasive (without grovelling or begging) whilst retaining a respectful tone? Should I try to sound authoritative or admit that I’ve been a blundering fool? It’s tougher than any obituary I’ve ever written. It’s harder, even, than those thank-you letters Mum insisted I wrote after every Christmas and birthday. My kids might moan that I was a stickler for them, but at least I left them to get on with the job without sticking my oar in.

  My mother didn’t. She’d insist on checking what I’d put before it was deemed suitable for sending: ‘You can’t just say, “Dear Aunty Lynne, thank you for the lovely belt. I really liked it. Love, Suzy.”’ No, I had to go into copious detail: it was a beautiful plaited suede belt, and would go perfectly with my favourite jeans and I couldn’t wait to wear it to the disco with my lemon top. And then I’d have to ask about how her Christmas had been, or where she was going on holiday; my letters were so long and convoluted they should have been divided into chapters, and almost made me resent the actual plaited belt. It’s a wonder I ever wanted to become a writer after that.

  I start to type, agonising over my opening sentence, which I never do with my work. Within minutes I seem to have reached a dead end. I get up and make a cup of tea and pace about, then read bits of it out to Scout as if he might be able to offer helpful suggestions. He just blinks at me, looking nonplussed. I hunch over my laptop and rework it until even commonplace words like ‘grateful’ and ‘expertise’ look like meaningless clusters of random letters. Oh, I know what I really want to say: Dear Harry! I’m so bloody sorry! Please, please come back! But that won’t do.

  Finally, it’s finished At least, I’ve done my best. In the absence of a printer I copy it out neatly, in my very best handwriting, just as I did with those thank-you letters in order to garner Mum’s praise. I fold the sheet of A4 crisply and slide it into an envelope. As we leave the hotel I remind Scout that he won’t be going to Cara’s today; she’s spending the whole day screen printing, and we’re giving her some space.

  She said she’s feeling all fired up and that just being around Scout has helped her enormously. I’d never have imagined that a woman who seems so cheery and friendly, who’d upped sticks to a remote Hebridean island, and with whom I ate a fish supper just hours after we’d met, could be lonely. But it shows that there’s often much more to a person than is apparent when you first meet them.

  Maybe Harry will be willing to meet me and talk things over, at least? After all, I don’t even know the man. But I do know that news travels fast on the island, and that by now he’ll know that Paul’s no longer involved. Perhaps he’s been sitting patiently all this time, waiting for me to get in touch.

  I stop and double-check the map on my phone. Harry’s street is a fifteen-minute walk away. Cutting away from the town centre, I follow the map to a terrace of almost impossibly pretty cottages. Each house is painted a different colour: lemon, lilac, cream, pale orange and pink. And the end one is a beautiful sun-faded blue: Harry’s house.

  I pluck the letter from my bag and study the envelope. Mr H. Vance, I wrote neatly on the front, as if the respectful formality might sway him. I cross the road, with Scout trotting along at my side, and approach the cottage furtively, checking left and right. People are just going about their business: neighbours chatting, a young mum trying to coax her toddler into his buggy, a teenage couple walking arm in arm. A loud woman with violently bleached hair announces to her friend how pretty the street is and takes a few pictures with her phone.

  ‘Stunning, isn’t it?’ She turns to me.

  ‘It’s lovely, yes.’ Off they march, still discussing how quaint everything is and wouldn’t it be amazing to see what those cottages were like inside? ‘D’you think,’ she bellows, ‘anyone would mind if we knocked and asked if we could have a quick peek?’

  ‘These are people’s homes, Brenda! Don’t be daft.’

  ‘Yeah, but they’re so cute!’

  I inhale deeply, trying to affect a casual manner as if I am just standing here for no apparent reason in front of Harry’s house. Then I speed-walk to his front door, push the envelope through his letterbox and hurry away.

  Chapter Thirty

  Of course, Paul wasn’t all bad. He had some lovely qualities – otherwise we wouldn’t have stayed together for eight years. He was kind and funny (and also handsome, the bastard) and great at throwing together delicious dinners from the odds and sods in the fridge. And he’d always been a trouper with Frieda and Isaac, brushing off their hormonal moods with a lightness I’d never been able to emulate. They might have eye-rolled in response to his harebrained schemes, but there’d been a mutual fondness too.

  He’d been their friend, and even mopped up their vomit, for goodness’ sake – caused by stomach bugs and, in Isaac’s case, by drinking that home-made nettle beer. And my God, he gave great gifts! I don’t mean expensive as he was always pretty broke (apart from when he ‘invested’ in all that Lycra cycling gear; amazingly, he’d been able to find the money for that). Anyway, I’d never expected or wanted anything extravagant. But while friends of mine moaned about low-effort presents (gift tokens, dull knitwear or plain old cash), Paul always managed to squirrel out something thoughtful and special. And although I don’t think I miss him as a partner, occasionally I’m hit with something like a sharp punch to the gut.

  We’re not together anymore, I realise, like it’s only just happened. As if I’ve woken up to find him gone. The man who dutifully drove my children to and from sports fixtures and parties, and with whom I had date nights at home, the way the magazines say you should when the kids are still young and you can’t get a babysitter. When you make an effort to cook something special, light candles and wear your nicest clothes, and pretend you’re in a restaurant.

  It happens now – the punch thing – as Scout and I leave Harry’s street and make our way to the beach. We descend the worn stone steps to the sand and I unclip his lead,
his signal to run off. The day has brightened already, the bleary grey sky lightening to pastel blue.

  Nuggets of sea-glass gleam amongst the pebbles and shells. A wave has washed over them, making everything look varnished. I pick up a piece of amber glass, smooth as a sugared almond. One birthday, Paul asked a friend of his to make me a bracelet of semi-precious stones. My favourite colours – blues, greens and amber – were linked together on a fine silver chain. It was beautiful. I haven’t worn it since he left.

  Spotting a gnarly piece of driftwood, I try to shake off such thoughts by throwing it as hard as I can. Scout runs for it, grabbing it in his jaws and dancing in the shallow waves as if delighted by his own cleverness.

  ‘Dad, look! That’s that dog again!’

  At the sound of a child’s voice I turn to see a boy with a shock of reddish hair in the distance. His father shoves his hands into his jacket pockets as his son runs towards us. ‘Scout!’ the child yells. Scout hurtles towards him as if they are long-lost friends. They greet each other in a delighted tumble and I can see now that the man is smiling expectantly as he approaches.

  ‘They know each other?’ I say with a grin.

  ‘Yeah.’ The man nods. ‘We met Scout yesterday, but he was with your friend—’

  ‘Oh yes, Cara was looking after him. She told me she’d met you. And I heard you’d met Scout a few a weeks ago …’ In all the excitement Scout has dropped his stick and is crouching, waiting for his new friend to throw it.

  ‘Yeah, we think so.’ The man nods. ‘I felt pretty guilty, actually. Letting him run off like that …’

  ‘Well, it ended happily.’ I glance at Scout and smile. ‘And look – he’s fine and healthy.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that,’ he says. He has an attractive face with kind, deep-brown eyes and short dark hair flecked with a little grey. The soft island accent is faintly detectable.