by Natalie Cox
“He was a little grudging at first, but I reminded him of his statutory responsibilities as an employer.”
Crap! He’ll make me redundant in a flash. The thought of my mother ringing Carl and making imperious demands suddenly makes my head throb even more. On top of that, since last June there have been whisperings in the corridors about a restructuring. I need to get back to work as soon as possible; otherwise I’ll be out of a job before you can say layoff.
“And the consultant said no LCD screens for at least a week.”
“I’m sure she was just being overcautious, Mum.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Concussions can be very serious. It’s absolutely imperative that you rest and recover.” My mother has always thrived on calamity and at the moment she sounds utterly exhilarated. I sigh, knowing it’s useless to protest.
“Fine. I’ll go to Devon for a few days. But only until my flat is sorted.” Which will be as soon as possible, as far as I’m concerned.
“The fresh air will do you good, Charlotte. And the animals will be positively therapeutic.”
Crap. I’d completely forgotten about the dogs. My cousin Jez runs an upmarket kennel that is billed as a sort of luxury pet hotel. It’s called Cozy Canine Cottages and instead of cages or pens, the dogs are kept in individual “suites.” There are clubhouse suites, executive suites, and a penthouse suite that’s bigger than my entire flat. Each suite has a miniature bed (complete with duvet and pillows) and a window overlooking the paddock. There’s even a pool for hydrotherapy, and a chauffeur service to collect and deliver the dogs to and from their homes. My mother is perfectly aware that I’m not a dog person (a euphemism for “failed human,” in her view), so this last comment from her seems almost spiteful. And while I’ve always liked my cousin Jez (and admired her entrepreneurial spirit, even though it means toadying to the rich), the thought of spending Christmas at Cozy Canine Cottages surrounded by a bunch of yappy, overfed terriers, rather than at home on my sofa cuddled up with my extensive DVD collection, makes me want to weep.
After my mother rings off, I lie in bed contemplating how quickly my life has unraveled. Not two weeks ago I was happily ensconced in a relationship (albeit with an unfaithful man), employed in a reasonably well-paid IT job (with a loathsome boss), and living in an affordable (if barely habitable) flat. Now I’m temporarily homeless, single, and quite likely to be sacked. How had all this happened so quickly? And what did I do to deserve it? I’m not a religious person, but I’ve always subscribed to a vaguely Buddhist way of looking at things, which is effectively summed up by the what-goes-around-comes-around school of thought. Have I unwittingly brought all this adversity on myself? I rack my memory, considering my actions over the past few months. OK, I behaved a little peevishly in the staff meeting last week, when Carl announced that everyone might have to share desks in the future, owing to cuts in overheads. I merely pointed out that seniority should entitle me at least to my own drawer space, whereupon the ever-annoying Carl responded that seniority meant leading by example. And I hadn’t exactly been kindhearted to the vagrant who’d accosted me outside Tesco’s the other night. But he’d stepped out of the shadows and frightened me witless, and I don’t think that sort of approach should be rewarded, should it? Though . . . the old man had seemed harmless enough. Perhaps if I went back to the shop, he’d still be there? Or was it too late to make amends? Was karma even retroactive?
Now Lionel’s words from the night he confessed drift back to me. “Sometimes you can be so glib, Charlie. I honestly thought you might not even care,” he’d said. I did care, but possibly not for the right reasons. I woke up the morning after he left expecting to feel heartsick, but what I felt instead was something closer to heartburn. Indeed, I felt scorched: angry with love, angry with Lionel, and most of all angry with myself, for allowing my life to be yanked out from under me. At the end of the day, I, too, had been untruthful—in a way. I’d gone through the motions of leading a happy life, but hadn’t truly lived it.
Suddenly the nurse appears, drawing back the bed curtain. “Rise and shine,” she says briskly. “You’ve got a visitor.” She steps aside and I see Jez lurking behind her wearing a faded green Barbour jacket and a flat wool cap, the sort that Welsh sheep farmers favor. Her dark brown hair is bunched in thick wodges on either side of her head, and her heavy eyebrows are arched upward, almost disappearing under her hat.
Jez nods to the nurse as the latter departs, then steps forward to my bedside. “Ouch,” she says sympathetically, looking me over.
I give a small, sheepish wave. “Thanks for coming. You really didn’t have to.” In fact, it’s a relief to see her, and I am suddenly hugely grateful that she has driven all this way.
Jez smiles. “I thought your mum was exaggerating. But I gotta say you look like shit.”
“Great to see you, too.”
“Couldn’t you have . . . rolled out of the way or something?”
“I’ll make sure I practice for next time.”
Jez looks over her shoulder, then drops her voice. “What’s that awful smell?”
“Blood, maybe? Death? It’s a hospital.”
Jez shakes her head, wrinkling her nose. “It’s more like disinfectant.”
“I’ll ask them not to clean.”
“Don’t bother. I’m not planning to hang around. Are you finished?”
“I think they have a few more humiliating things to do to me.”
Jez frowns slightly. “The thing is . . . I’m in kind of a rush.”
“Oh.”
“Can you walk?”
“How far?”
“I’m double-parked just outside.”
“In Chelsea? Are you mad? You’ll get towed!”
“Not if you hurry.”
* * *
Miraculously, when we emerge blinking into the daylight a few minutes later, Jez’s battered Land Rover is still sitting right where she left it. As I struggle into the front passenger seat, Jez grabs a disabled parking permit off the dashboard and leaps inside. “Who’s that for?” I ask.
“Margot.”
“Who’s Margot?”
“An aging Weimaraner who sometimes stays with me.”
“You have a disabled parking permit for a dog?”
“She’s got hip dysplasia. It can be very serious.”
“But she’s not in the car.”
“She could have been,” says Jez defensively.
Jez drives the massive Land Rover like it’s a tanker, barreling through amber lights at junctions and blaring the horn at seemingly random intervals. All around us I notice drivers and pedestrians veering out of the way like panicked rabbits. I briefly think about asking if we can swing by my flat to pick up some things, but then I remember that my bedroom is virtually a bombsite, and my clothes are unlikely to be wearable—that is, if I have any clothes left. Owing to a very thoughtful fireman, I have my coat, my phone, and my purse with me, and that’s about it, apart from what I was wearing at the time of the explosion.
In the end, we had had to sneak out of the ER without being properly discharged, as Jez had been really fidgety. “What if I need more treatment?” I protest as I climb into the car.
“The vet’s due in the morning. He can give you a once-over,” says Jez.
“Great. I’ll be given drugs intended for canines.”
“Actually, he’s a bovine specialist.”
“‘Bovine’ as in . . . ?”
“Cows.”
“Perfect.”
“Strongest painkillers on the market,” says Jez with a grin. “And that’s speaking from experience.”
* * *
Once on the motorway, Jez turns on the radio and I close my eyes. It had been a long night. Apart from the belligerent drunk in the cubicle across from me, there was a crying toddler somewhere off to the left and a confu
sed elderly woman just beside me who kept drawing back the curtain and asking for water. “I’m sorry, do I look like a nurse?” I had finally replied, holding up my bandaged arm.
The old woman blinked several times, then nodded.
“Actually, I work in computers,” I said. The old woman continued to stare at me beseechingly. “It’s not usually regarded as one of the caring professions,” I muttered, craning my neck around the ward to see if I could find a nurse. But the staff had all vanished mysteriously and for once the ward was oddly quiet. Finally, I rolled off my bed and limped across to a sink in the far corner, filling a plastic beaker I found in a cupboard. I returned and placed the beaker gingerly in the old woman’s hands, prying her swollen knuckles apart, and she stared down at the beaker as if she had no clue what it was for.
“It’s water,” I explained. “You asked for it.”
The old woman regarded the beaker for a moment, then handed it back to me, and for the briefest instant I considered tipping it over her. Then I set it down on the table and crawled back to my own bed, closing the curtain firmly behind me.
Now I doze off to the sound of Gardener’s Question Time on Radio 4, dreaming of cubicles and snarling drunks and aging, watery eyes, which are somehow all mixed up with giant slugs and blighted potato plants. Sometime later I wake and see that the Land Rover is bumping up the Cozy Canine driveway. I sit up slowly, rubbing my face, and Jez smiles over at me.
“I was just beginning to wonder if you were comatose.”
“Thanks for your concern.”
“How you feeling?”
Truthfully? I think I should probably be in hospital. But compassion isn’t Jez’s strong suit. “I’ve been better,” I say.
“Come on,” she says, pulling up beside the house and turning the car off. “What you need is breakfast. I’ll make you the house special.”
The house special turns out to be two fried eggs atop a bed of whatever leftovers are lurking in the fridge, which in this case is chili con carne. While Jez sets about reheating the chili and frying the eggs, I waft around her farmhouse kitchen. It’s just the right side of messy, with a sagging dark blue sofa; a heavily ringed wooden table surrounded by mismatched chairs; a wall of old cookbooks with fraying covers, and a massive pinboard layered with photos, old notices, dog show certificates, Christmas cards, and old party invitations. The stove is an ancient dark green Rayburn, which Jez loads up with coal from a tarnished copper bucket as soon as we come in, and within a few minutes the room feels surprisingly snug. While the eggs fry, Jez heats milk and makes lethally strong coffee in a French press. When I sink back into the sofa with a steaming-hot mug, I decide that maybe my mum was right. A few days in the country might be exactly what I need right now.
Then I hear the patter of tiny claws on linoleum. Ah. Just when things were starting to look up, I think wistfully. A fat, coffee-colored beagle waddles into the room, pausing to greet Jez at the stove.
“Hey. I wondered where you were,” says Jez, leaning down to pat the dog’s head fondly. “What happened to the usual meet ’n’ greet?” The beagle ambles over to sniff at my shoes, then stares up at me. I’m no expert, but I could swear this one is frowning at me.
“That’s Peggy. I’m afraid you’re in her spot,” says Jez.
“Sorry, Peggy.” Out of politeness I reach down to give the beagle a perfunctory pat on the head, a gesture it seems to only barely tolerate. In fact, the dog almost seems to recoil from my touch. “Except I’m not really sorry, am I?” I whisper loudly. “Since sofas are for humans.”
Jez laughs. “Don’t worry. Peggy’s the only house dog. And she’s too fat to get up there now, anyway.”
“Guess you don’t believe in doggy diets.”
“She’s up the duff,” explains Jez. “Her litter’s due in January.”
“Oh. Wow. Sorry, Peggy, I hadn’t realized. I guess congratulations are in order.”
“Actually, she got out by accident. I’m not even sure who she mated with.”
I look down at the beagle, who is collapsed heavily on one side and is now licking her pendulous teats. “Bit of a slutty pup then, are we, Peg?”
“The vet reckons the litter’s massive. I’ll be lucky to find homes for them all,” says Jez. “And they won’t be pedigree, so I’ll practically have to give them away. You don’t want a mutt, do you? Or three?”
“No, thanks. Though, in principle, I’m all for mixed marriages.”
“Who said anything about marriage?” says Jez with a grin. “This was a quick shag behind the woodshed.” She places two heaping plates of food on the table and I haul myself off the sofa and sit down, eyeing the concoction in front of me. Jez has slopped salsa, grated cheese, sour cream, and what looks like paprika onto the eggs and chili and the result looks like a Jackson Pollock painting.
“Um . . . what exactly do you call this?” I ask tentatively, picking up my fork.
“Cozy Canine Huevos,” says Jez, already digging in. “And if you don’t eat it, Peggy will.”
chapter
3
I sleep the rest of the day, rising only briefly in the evening for a bowl of carrot soup and a hot bath before dragging myself back to the overstuffed bed in Jez’s guest room. When I eventually wake the next morning, I feel as if my body has been run through the tough-stain cycle on the washing machine: clean but pummeled. I lie in bed, sunlight flickering through the faded yellow curtains, and road test each of my appendages. My ribs are tender, but my limbs and digits all appear to be in good working order, and the thundering headache that was with me most of yesterday seems to have mercifully abated. Perhaps I really am lucky, after all.
I rise and gingerly pull on my tracksuit bottoms and flannel shirt, deciding that a change of clothes will be necessary before much longer. I wonder where the nearest H&M is? Hours away, if memory serves me right. Jez lives on the outskirts of Cross Bottomley, a small village on the edge of Dartmoor. The nearest town is Plymouth, some forty minutes’ drive away, and I know that Jez rarely makes the journey if she can help it, preferring to make do with whatever she can source locally. Cross Bottomley is the sort of place where the village’s only newsagent doubles as the post office, launderette, and barber shop. The village also boasts a church, a pub, a small but reasonably well-stocked food shop, and a hardware store. Aside from that, there isn’t much to recommend it apart from the scenery, which is often described as “rugged” in brochures, but on a bad-weather day it’s just the wrong side of desolate.
When I get downstairs, I find Peggy sacked out on the kitchen sofa, her bloated teats drooping over the edge. Too fat my arse, I think, making a mental note to get up earlier so I can bag the sofa first from now on. Apart from the beagle, the kitchen is deserted, though there’s fresh coffee in the French press and I can hear voices out in the yard. I pour myself a mug, eat a slice of buttered toast, then decide to ring Sian to let her know I’m still alive. She picks up almost instantly.
“Where are you?” she demands. “I must have rung you fifty times last night! Owen refused to poop just to spite me. I practically had to give him an enema in the end.” I glance at my missed calls and see that there are a few dozen from her. Sian is a single mum with an adorable three-year-old son. Owen is cuteness incarnate, but he can also be the spawn of the devil when he wants to be. She loves him to distraction, but sometimes they’re like the odd couple; my chief role as his only godparent is to talk her down during such moments.
“Sorry,” I say. When I tell her about the gas explosion, she’s incredulous.
“Good grief. I thought gas explosions were an urban myth.”
“Um . . . definitely not. I have the bruises to prove it.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t a terrorist attack? London has been on stage 4 alert for like . . . years.” Sian has an overactive imagination, possibly stoked by playing the Lion King for literally hou
rs on end, long past the stage when I would find crawling around on the floor impersonating Mufasa crushingly dull.
“It wasn’t a terrorist attack. Why would anyone want to attack Nunhead anyway? No one’s ever even heard of it,” I say.
“Fair point. I guess even ISIS can’t object to nuns,” she admits. “Still, it’s a shame. We could have launched your social media campaign off the back of it.”
“But I don’t want a social media campaign.”
“It could get you a rich boyfriend. Maybe even a Calvin Klein model.”
“I don’t want a rich boyfriend. Or a Calvin Klein model,” I tell her.
“Are you mad? Why not?” Sian has basically given up on finding a partner for herself, at least in the short-term; in truth, although she complains about raising Owen on her own, I don’t think she’s prepared to share his childhood with anyone. But she still has high hopes for me. When we both became addicted to Love Island last summer, she immediately applied for the next season—using my details but lowering my age by five years. Her application was rejected with the speed of light. Apparently, even a much younger me is not sufficiently attractive, thin, or vacuous enough to lounge around a pool surrounded by muscular hairdressers from Essex.
“OK, maybe a rich boyfriend would be fine,” I concede. “But not if I have to share my life with a hundred thousand followers on Instagram.”
“Fine. You’d be crap at it anyway. And false eyelashes would look like spider’s legs on you,” she concedes.
“Thanks. I’ll remember that.”
“So how long are you planning to stay there?”
“Hopefully only a few days. Until my flat is habitable again. I’m sure that my landlord is arguing with the insurance company as we speak.”
“So that’ll be like . . . a few years.”
“God, no. I hope not.”
“Does your cousin know you hate dogs?”