Her Closest Friend (ARC)

by Clare Boyd

  ‘Let’s just focus on finding Harley, okay? He was wearing his collar, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Of course.’

  We walked straight onto Rosemary’s property. Behind the tall gate sat her sprawling, flat-roofed bungalow and empty swimming pool. The rooms looked dark behind the windows, but her car was there. As we approached, I could hear a radio playing from inside the door. I knocked.

  ‘Hello, Naomi!’ Rosemary said, leaning on her aluminium walking stick. A quick smile flickered and disappeared. I imagined it was too much effort for her to hold it for long through the constant pain of her rheumatoid arthritis, which had already twisted two of her fingers the wrong way.

  ‘Hello, Rosemary,’ I replied, concerned that her knuckles looked particularly swollen, wanting to ask her how she was, knowing I didn’t have time, this afternoon, to focus on what she needed.

  ‘Oh, the Tupperware!’ she said, turning away from us. My heart slipped down my chest, disappointed that Harley was not here.

  ‘Please don’t worry about that. I’ll pick it up when I pop round next. Actually, we’re here about Harley. He’s gone missing and I wondered if you’d seen him.’

  The soft skin around her eyes drooped lower at the edges. ‘No. I haven’t. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘I’m sure he’ll turn up or someone will call us any minute. You’re the first door we’ve tried.’

  ‘I would come and help if I could.’

  I smiled and touched the back of her hand. ‘I know you would. I’ll let you know when he’s back.’

  As we turned away, she added, ‘Have you tried any of the Twitter forums? Haslemere Rants is a good one. When my friend’s cat went missing, they posted it online and she turned up at someone’s house.’

  ‘Brilliant idea. I hadn’t thought of that.’

  Before we were at the next house, I had posted a message on Haslemere Rants about a missing black cockapoo.

  Throughout our visits to the remaining neighbours’ houses, I checked the forum feed every few minutes.

  Sophie became quieter and quieter as the day progressed.

  ‘It’s almost pick-up time,’ Sophie said.

  ‘And it’ll be dark after that,’ I added, trying not to betray the quiver of fury in my voice.

  ‘Adam can pick up Dylan. If you want me to pick up your girls while you keep looking, I can do that.’

  ‘No, it’s okay. I’d prefer to explain the situation to them myself.’

  ‘Then again, Adam probably won’t answer the phone if he sees it’s me calling.’

  I couldn’t believe she was bringing her problems into the situation.

  ‘Don’t worry, you go home, Sophie. You’ve got a lot on your plate. We’ve done all we can for now. I’ll go out later with the torch. I’m sure he’ll turn up,’ I repeated, for fiftieth time that day. The phrase had a hollow ring to it.

  ‘I don’t want to leave you, not until he’s back.’

  ‘Honestly, please. I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything.’

  The corners of her lips turned down. ‘I know why you don’t want me here.’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t want you here, Sophie…’ I began, amazed that she could turn this around, ‘I just… it’s just not helping anything, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m sorry I’m no help.’

  Her morose expression, her simpering voice was sending off small firecrackers of irritation in my head.

  ‘Sophie. That’s not what…’ I stopped. I would be a fool to expend one more second trying to make her feel better. ‘I’ll call you as soon as he turns up.’

  She offered a weak hug. ‘I understand.’

  When I closed the door behind her, I screamed at the closed door and stuck two fingers up at it, at her. ‘It’s not always about you, you nutter!’ I hollered, my voice ringing through the empty house.

  I had half an hour before I had to leave for the school run. I would have one last look on the heath.

  Wrapped up warm, I was about to step out into the garden again, when I noticed that the wall was bare where Adam’s family portrait of us had been. Glass from the frame was sprayed underneath the kitchen table and the photograph itself was damaged. I spotted a tea light candleholder in the mess. Perhaps the girls had been fooling around or fighting before school. Charlie hadn’t mentioned it. Neither Charlie nor I had ever liked this photograph. We had hung it for Sophie’s sake. I decided to sweep it up later and I charged out, my mind immediately refocused on Harley.

  On the way down to the gate, I rang Charlie to tell him what had happened.

  ‘Do you want me to come home now?’

  ‘No. Don’t worry. Maybe when you get back you could go out to look for him while I put the girls to bed tonight.’

  ‘Of course. Don’t worry. He’s probably found a warm hearth and some dog biscuits and he’ll be home soon.’

  ‘Love you,’ I said, hanging up.

  Charlie’s words kept me motivated as I called out into the distance. ‘Harley! Harley, come home to us, Harley! Please come home!’

  The heathland did not offer him up, nor did any of the lanes around our house.

  As I opened our garden gate to return home, I received a call from an unknown number.

  ‘Hello, is this Mrs Wilson?’ The man had a nasal, instantly unlikeable voice.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This is Gordon Lott, from Wesley Farm. I have in my possession a small black dog with a name tag stating your contact name and number on it.’

  ‘Oh my god,’ I gasped, clinging to the gate to steady myself, resting my forehead on the damp wood. ‘Thank god.’

  ‘Well, you won’t be thanking our good Lord for long. You are, of course, at liberty to come and collect your dog, but I’m afraid it is within my rights to make a complaint about your animal to the local authorities, who could take measures to put him down for attacking my livestock in a closed field.’

  My stomach rolled. ‘No! They wouldn’t do that! You can’t do that!’

  ‘I’m afraid I can, Mrs Wilson.’ He sounded officious, like he was parodying a police officer in a crime drama.

  ‘But he would never have attacked a sheep! He’s as soft as anything!’

  ‘I have an eye witness saying that he was chasing my livestock in a closed field.’

  ‘I can’t understand why that happened,’ I replied, more quietly, biting my lip. ‘I want to come and collect him right now. Are you at the farm?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’

  * * *

  The stench of manure came in waves, carried on the wind from across the fields and in through the window of the farmer’s kitchen. A menagerie of animals covered the surfaces and moved around my feet, from fish to hamsters to rabbits, but there was no sign of Harley.

  Tap, tap, tapping on the kitchen table as I waited for Gordon’s wife – who was surprisingly neat and blonde – to fetch him from somewhere else in the house, I saw an incoming call from Sophie, who would have received my text informing her that Harley was safe.

  I did not pick up.

  Gordon appeared. He was a wiry, willowy man, who had to duck his head when he stepped in through the low kitchen door.

  ‘I’m so, so sorry about this,’ I said, holding out my hand.

  I was prepared to grovel on my knees in the manure to beg him not to report Harley to the authorities.

  Jangling a large bulge of keys in his pocket with one hand, he shook my hand slowly with the other. In spite of my judgement of him over the phone, I noticed that he had kind eyes. I wondered if he was the sort of man you could appeal to.

  ‘I’ll take you to him,’ he said, before leading me into a courtyard through a rusty cattle gate. All the while, he preached to me about the dangers of untrained dogs. I agreed obsequiously as I navigated my way through the various clods of mud and hay in my clean trainers.

  ‘And it was a closed field with clear signage about livestoc
k,’ he continued on accusingly.

  ‘Might the gate have been left open by someone, by mistake?’ I asked, pretending not to be accusing him back.

  ‘From what I’ve found out, I understand that the gate was opened by a woman with blonde hair in running clothes, and that the dog was left to run loose. Luckily for me, my electrician was fixing the live fencing at the bottom of the field and apprehended your dog, preventing further harm, but it was within my rights to take a shotgun.’

  Shocked, I asked him to repeat what he had said, which he did, word for word. Still unable to believe it, I said, ‘You’re saying the electrician saw Soph… saw the blonde woman actually opening the gate?’ My foot swerved away from a large brown pat.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so,’ he said patiently, leading me into a large barn. I heard a bark that I recognised instantly. There, secured in a pigpen, was Harley.

  When he saw me he leapt so high he almost cleared the gate to get to me. If dogs could smile, he was smiling from ear to ear, in line with mine.

  As Gordon opened the gate, Harley charged at me, hitting his nose into my shins and wagging his tail so fast it looked like it might come off. I picked him up and let him mess me up with stinking manure and hay, and I kissed his face again and again.

  ‘He’s not such a bad little dog,’ Gordon said gruffly.

  But I caught a smile on his lips, and my heart lifted.

  ‘Have you called the council already?’ I asked, unable to look him in the eye. I clipped Harley’s lead on, holding my breath for his answer.

  ‘Look. If you promise to keep him on a lead around my sheep, I won’t take any further action. But you know I had every right to shoot him on the spot.’

  Losing all sense of decorum, I hugged Gordon the farmer, who stood stiffly in response to the inappropriate gesture.

  ‘Thank you for keeping him safe!’ I cried, and then more soberly, ‘Thank you.’

  Gordon nodded and simply walked away, which I assumed was his standard goodbye.

  On the way home, Sophie called again.

  As it rang out, I turned to Harley, who was sitting on the front seat with his nose poking out of the window. ‘Let’s give Sophie a wide berth from now on. Don’t you think?’

  He turned to me and I imagined him nodding. It seemed he knew more than all of us put together.

  I laughed at him, overjoyed that he had been returned to me.

  At some point, I might be ready to hear Sophie’s excuses about why she let Harley through a gate into a field of sheep, but I was not ready yet, and wondered if I ever would be.

  Chapter Eight

  Sophie scanned all the faces of the post-school-run mothers supping on their flat whites and nibbling on date energy balls or chickpea rye toast. Most Fridays, Naomi’s bright blonde curls would be added to the mix. The noise of their babbling beat at her eardrums as she turned to leave.

  ‘Sophie?’

  For a second, she wondered if she could pretend she had not heard the voice, and she reached for the door handle. A hand tapped her shoulder. Swinging round, Sophie took a minute to recognise the woman.

  ‘Oh, hi Meg,’ Sophie said warily.

  ‘The wine-tasting last week was fun,’ Meg said.

  ‘Naomi told me off for being rude.’

  ‘Nooo,’ Meg laughed, ruffling her fingers through her pixie haircut.

  Without make-up, she looked even younger and prettier, with her shiny skin and long neck. It was hard to believe that she was a surgeon. Poised to be rude again, Sophie decided it would be more constructive to plunder her for information about Naomi’s whereabouts.

  ‘You’re just being polite. I’m mortified about my behaviour. But I’m going through a bit of a rough time, if I’m honest.’

  Meg cocked her head to the side. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ Sophie said, unravelling a tight twist of hair from her finger, adding, ‘Actually, I was looking for Naomi. Have you seen her?’

  ‘Funnily enough, that’s exactly why I stopped you. She wasn’t at Pilates yesterday and I was worried she was unwell.’

  A flutter of relief lightened Sophie’s mood. Perhaps Naomi was ill. Perhaps that was why her house was quiet and her car was in the drive. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t responded to her texts.

  ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of her, too.’

  ‘Well, I’m embarrassed now. I haven’t actually called her to find out, but when I saw you here, it reminded me that I hadn’t seen her about.’

  ‘Oh.’ A small crease formed between Sophie’s invisible eyebrows.

  ‘Now I’ve worried you! I’m sure she’s fine. But she never misses Pilates.’

  ‘I was thinking of joining that class. You and Naomi take the class on Thursdays at… what time, again?’

  ‘Yes, Thursdays. Seven o’clock. Sign up! It’s great fun.’

  ‘Seven in the morning?’

  Meg grinned. ‘I know. Horribly early, but it’s the only class I can catch before work.’

  Sophie hit back at what she perceived was Meg’s smugness. ‘That slot’s difficult for single mums.’

  Meg fumbled around for the right response. ‘Are you… Sorry, I didn’t realise that you had… Is that recent?’

  ‘I’d better go. Good to see you, Meg,’ Sophie said, and she left the café.

  Rattled by Meg, Sophie charged away, feeling even more determined to find Naomi but desperate to avoid bumping into anyone else.

  On the way home, she stopped off at the less salubrious café on the other side of town, just in case Naomi was there. Then she checked the two lay-bys where she might have parked her car for a dog walk; then stormed up and down the aisles at Tesco and Waitrose, where she took the opportunity to buy some Stolichnaya for Deda; then she drove by Naomi’s house again, stopping in the lane to run in and ring the doorbell. If she was ill, she might need some soup or some company. The door did not open.

  Each disappointment added to Sophie’s increasingly fraught mood. The palm of her right hand began to itch. Was Meg right to be worried? Had something more serious happened? Were Diana and Izzy okay?

  At home, safely parked up in her driveway, Sophie stared out of the car window at her small shack in the woods: at the mishmash of wellies, at the log pile, at the row of cacti inside the window. To her left, she looked at Deda’s cottage. Ivy roots were eating away at the stucco frontage, leaving cracks and holes. The waxy leaves crowded the window panes. If Deda was reading, he would be straining his eyes. She nipped over to check on him.

  There was a dank and dusty smell inside.

  ‘Deda? Are you here?’

  ‘In here,’ he said, as though he could be anywhere else.

  ‘I’ve bought more Stolichnaya.’

  In the kitchen, she wiped down the surfaces, poured the glasses and arranged the tray, remembering that she had made a batch of ten meat pasties, which she took out of the fridge and put on a plate.

  She kissed his forehead and sat down.

  ‘Hello, child,’ he said.

  ‘Za vashe zdarovje,’ Sophie said, knocking back a finger of vodka.

  ‘To your health,’ he repeated in English.

  When he refused to toast her in Russian, it usually meant he was in poor spirits. She saw that his nose was purplish and his cheeks grey. She felt his cheek. It was cold. ‘You feeling okay?’

  He replaced his book on the arm of his chair and bent his arms back and forth at her. ‘You know, my joints ache.’

  ‘Do you want me to call the doctor?’

  ‘If I feel pain, it means I’m alive. This is good,’ he replied, shrugging.

  Sophie did up his middle button, where he had missed it.

  ‘You must take care of yourself.’

  ‘Stop worrying about me. You worry about yourself. I see your cheeks are a little flushed.’

  ‘I’ve been searching all morning for Naomi. I’ve looked everywhere but I can’t find her.’

  The loose sk
in of his eyelids lifted and tremored. ‘Is the Giulia clean?’

  ‘Yes.’ She confirmed this, but she had not checked on it.

  ‘Have you telephoned her?’

  ‘I have. Many times. And I’ve knocked on her door.’

  ‘Now, you mustn’t fuss over her. She’ll only get awkward.’

  ‘I’m worried she’s ill. The house looks empty, but her car is in the drive.’

  ‘Let her come to you.’

  Sophie moved closer to her grandfather and spoke in a low whisper. ‘What if she’s hiding from me?’

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘Because she’s sick of me. Because she hates me.’

  ‘Why would she hate you?’

  ‘I had a dream last night that I was a giant monkey flicking the little humans away like flies on my skin. I felt good about it. I loved how I felt.’

  ‘But now?’

  ‘I feel very hateful, like one of the little humans in my dream.’ She slumped and knelt at his feet, resting her head on his lap. He smelt decrepit and comforting.

  ‘What will make you feel better?’

  Sophie poured two more fingers of vodka. ‘This?’ she laughed.

  ‘That will help.’

  ‘Can she really be angry still about that stupid dog?’

  ‘Some people love their dogs more than humans.’

  ‘She seems to love Harley more than she loves me.’

  ‘You know what my advice is?’ he said, raising his thick eyebrows at her. ‘A problem shared is a problem halved.’

  ‘I was going to tell her, and then things got back to normal between us and so I thought, why stir things up?’

  Sophie found the hole in the ribbed velvet arm and poked her finger deep into the stuffing, pulling out a wisp of synthetic fibre. She couldn’t believe there was any left after all these years. As a child, she used to suck her thumb and pull the fibre out and rub it under her nose while she listened to her grandfather read storybooks.

  She stroked it over her top lip and was consoled by the sensory memory.

  ‘You tell her and all your angst will go,’ he soothed.

  As Sophie retreated to her old bedroom, her grandfather called out after her, ‘Remember, Sophia, hold her close! I won’t be here forever!’