The House in the Clouds

by Connelly, Victoria

  ‘Ellen! Are you okay? I came as fast as I could.’ She wrapped her sister in an embrace.

  ‘I don’t know what to do!’

  ‘About what?’ Abi could see that her sister’s face was red with tears.

  ‘This!’ Ellen led her into the kitchen and sitting there in the middle of the floor was a tiny blonde and black dog, its liquid eyes gazing up at them both.

  Abi’s instinct was to laugh, but she knew better than to do that.

  ‘Is this the problem?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, this is the problem!’

  ‘Who’s is it?’

  ‘It’s ours apparently! Bloody Douglas had the bright idea to get a dog for the girls.’

  ‘Where are the girls?’ Abi asked, suddenly realising she hadn’t seen them yet.

  ‘Upstairs doing their homework.’

  ‘And when did the dog arrive?’

  ‘Douglas brought it home with him last night on a flying visit. He had it in this box and the girls were beside themselves when they saw what was in it.’

  ‘Ellen,’ Abi said, as calmly as she could, ‘when you called me and asked me to come over right away, I thought Douglas was in hospital or something!’

  Ellen frowned at her. ‘What made you think that?’

  ‘Er – you were crying down the phone.’

  ‘I was desperate, Abi! I didn’t know what to do. This dog’s been terrorising me all day!’

  ‘Well, he looks as if he’s behaving himself now,’ Abi said, watching as the puppy curled up in a tiny basket in a corner of the kitchen.

  ‘But this is so typical of Douglas! He’s away all the time and the girls are too young to take care of it. He knows the work will all fall to me!’

  ‘It won’t be all work, though, will it?’ Abi asked. ‘It’ll be fun too, surely?’

  ‘You call puddles of pee and piles of poo fun? And it’s already eaten its way through my handbag. Look!’ Ellen said, grabbing hold of her bag from a nearby stool. ‘Ruined!’

  Abi chewed her lip. There was a tiny little bite mark on the strap, but it didn’t look too bad.

  ‘You’ll have to get it some toys. Puppies chew things.’ Then she thought of something. ‘You keep calling the puppy “it”. Hasn’t he got a name yet?’

  ‘I suppose,’ Ellen said. Was it Abi’s imagination or did her sister look embarrassed?

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘He’s such a funny looking creature.’

  ‘He’s a pug, isn’t he? He’s meant to look funny.’

  ‘Well, I took one look at him and said he was a pug ugly and Bethanne quickly said “Pugly”.’

  Abi laughed. ‘You’re calling him Pugly?’

  ‘Actually, I think it’s quite a good name!’

  It was then that Bethanne and Rosie appeared in the kitchen, immediately running across the room to play with Pugly on the floor.

  ‘Hi Aunt Abi!’ Bethanne said.

  ‘Hi girls.’

  Rosie looked around and smiled briefly, but Abi could see that she’d been supplanted in their affections by the dear little creature.

  ‘He’s so cute,’ Abi said, joining her nieces on the floor. ‘He’s barely bigger than my hand.’

  ‘He pees everywhere!’ Rosie informed her.

  ‘So I’ve heard!’

  ‘But it’s okay because he’s a baby,’ Bethanne said.

  ‘Where did he come from?’ Abi asked.

  ‘Douglas said a colleague of his posted a photo via social media. He couldn’t resist apparently.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘The girls hadn’t even been asking for a puppy!’

  ‘Oh, every kid should have a pet, though,’ Abi said. ‘Remember when we tried to lobby Aunt Claire for a rabbit?’

  Ellen groaned. ‘She wouldn’t even compromise with a hamster, would she?’

  ‘Exactly! And you don’t want to be remembered like that, do you? Well, Pugly is your chance to show your girls that pets are a wonderful addition to any family.’

  ‘I can’t help thinking Douglas is hiding something,’ Ellen said under her breath.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, he comes home with this puppy. Don’t you think that’s weird?’

  ‘How is it weird to want to spoil his daughters a little?’ Abi asked.

  ‘Because it’s like something somebody would do if they were trying to deflect attention from something else.’

  ‘Like what, Ellen? You’re not making any sense.’

  Ellen grabbed Abi by the arm and led her out of the room and away from her daughters.

  ‘Ellen, you’re scaring me now,’ Abi said when she saw tears sparkling in her sister’s eyes. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I think he’s having an affair.’

  ‘Douglas? No!’

  Ellen nodded. ‘Why else is he away so often?’

  ‘Because he’s working. You know that!’

  ‘He’s hardly ever here, Abi! He doesn’t want to be with his family.’

  ‘That’s nonsense! He adores you all! But you know his work’s important to him and you knew the commitment he made to his company so that you could buy this place. And that means long hours away from home.’ Abi looked closely at her sister. Surely she understood all this and was just getting herself worked up over nothing.

  ‘I miss him so much!’ Ellen cried.

  ‘I know you do,’ Abi said gently, ‘and I’m sure the dog is nothing more than a gesture of kindness. Douglas is a good man and an amazing father. I think it hurts him to be away from you all just as much as it hurts you, and maybe this is his way of trying to make up for that.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Yes. I really do.’

  They walked back into the kitchen together and Abi kneeled down on the floor again to fuss the puppy. For all the fun she was having watching her nieces’ reaction to their new pet, Abi could see that Ellen looked absolutely exhausted with it all.

  ‘Shall I take the girls out for a bit?’ she asked kindly.

  Ellen nodded, her face flooding with the relief of one being handed a lifeline.

  ‘Will you take Pugly too?’

  Abi was momentarily floored. ‘Has he had all his injections and everything?’

  ‘Yes. He was the cutest in the litter apparently and the owner kept him on as her own for a while, but then decided to sell him.’

  ‘He’s very easy to walk,’ Bethanne piped up. ‘But you can’t let him off the lead yet. He’s too little and silly. Like Rosie.’

  Rosie hit her sister, but the teasing was all in good fun.

  ‘And don’t walk him too far,’ Ellen said. ‘He gets tired very quickly.’

  ‘He likes being carried best of all,’ Rosie said and Abi couldn’t help wondering if that was a fact or if it was because the girls liked to carry him.

  ‘Okay then. Let’s see how far we get,’ Abi said. ‘Who’s got his lead?’

  Bethanne ran across the room to retrieve a pink lead. Of course it was pink, Abi reasoned. Only the best for Pugly and it did match his very fetching collar, she noted. For all Ellen’s complaints, she could see that this was going to be one very spoilt dog.

  They left the house and walked to the nearest park. The girls knew the way and set up a merry banter all about the exploits of Pugly.

  ‘He’s so naughty!’ Rosie said. ‘He’s even naughtier than me!’

  ‘You mean he eats too many sweets and doesn’t do his homework?’ Abi said.

  ‘Don’t be silly!’ Rosie cried. ‘Dogs don’t get homework!’

  ‘Well, perhaps they should,’ Abi said. ‘Perhaps you should start training him.’

  ‘I’m going to teach him to sit,’ Bethanne said.

  ‘That’s a very good idea.’

  ‘And not to eat things he shouldn’t,’ Bethanne added.

  ‘Because we have to help Mummy love him more,’ Rosie said and a little bit of Abi’s heart broke at that.

  ‘She’ll come round,’ she told Rosie.

 
; ‘She’s mad all the time,’ Bethanne said.

  ‘Oh, dear! Is everything okay?’ Abi asked, knowing that you could always trust a child to tell you the truth.

  ‘Mum and Dad have been fighting,’ Bethanne confessed.

  ‘Yeah – big fighting,’ Rosie added.

  ‘About Pugly?’ Abi asked.

  ‘Mostly. And some other stuff,’ Bethanne said.

  ‘What other stuff?’ Abi said as they walked around the pond in the park, Pugly receiving admiring glances from passers-by.

  ‘I just heard bits,’ Bethanne said, ‘but I kept hearing the name Rachelle. I think she’s a friend of Dad’s. Mum doesn’t like her.’

  ‘Has she been to the house?’

  ‘No. Dad works with her but Mum was shouting at Dad and saying that Rachelle had answered his phone when she’d rung.’

  Abi frowned. ‘And what did your dad say?’

  ‘That he was carrying a box or something and didn’t want to miss the call.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Dad’s away a lot,’ Bethanne went on. ‘Mum doesn’t like that.’

  ‘No, it’s hard when the person you love is away,’ Abi explained.

  ‘She’s been crying,’ Rosie said.

  ‘She always thinks we won’t notice,’ Bethanne said.

  ‘But her face gets all red and blotchy,’ Rosie added.

  ‘Mine goes like that too when I cry,’ Abi confessed.

  ‘I get sad when she’s sad,’ Rosie said and Abi put her arm around her.

  ‘I think that’s maybe why Daddy got you Pugly – to help you be happy when he’s away,’ Abi told her.

  ‘I love Pugly,’ Rosie said, ‘but he isn’t Daddy, is he?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Abi agreed, doing her best not to laugh at her niece’s sweetness. ‘But I think your daddy bought Pugly so you could cuddle him whenever you miss Daddy.’

  ‘I’d better cuddle him now then,’ Rosie said, scooping the puppy up from the ground and squashing her face into his wrinkled one.

  ‘Me too!’ Bethanne said, putting her arms around Rosie and pushing her face towards Pugly who looked delighted by all the attention.

  After putting Pugly down and playing on the swings for a few minutes, they slowly walked back home, Bethanne scooping Pugly up when he started to lag behind.

  ‘He’s tired,’ she explained.

  Abi was beginning to feel tired too. She usually did when she was worried. She couldn’t stop thinking about the scenes her nieces had witnessed. How heartbreaking it must have been for them to hear their parents arguing and to see their mother in tears. It was bad enough that Douglas was away so often, but to spend the little time he was at home fighting with Ellen must make for a rather sad household.

  Maybe there was something to Ellen’s anxiety over Douglas, Abi kept thinking, and maybe it was time that she had a talk with him about it.

  Chapter Twelve

  Abi had only fallen in love once in her life. But once had been enough. She’d managed to get through secondary school and art college without having a single long-lasting relationship. There had been a few casual boyfriends, a few dates that led nowhere in particular, but Abi really hadn’t minded. She’d gone to college with the revolutionary motive to study and work. Work had always been her passion and she hadn’t been one to sit in her student room mooning over the fact that she didn’t have a date that night. Not having a date gave her more time to sketch, dream and study. Now that was something she could get really excited about.

  After college, she’d dated a man called Billy for a few months. Billy was sweet and kind and, like Abi, was a dreamer. But he was a bit too much of a dreamer even for Abi to cope with. She remembered one day when they’d been walking around the National Gallery, taking in the enormous Constable’s and Monet’s, filling their eyes with colour and brilliance and Billy had talked and talked, and it had been so wonderful to listen to him, but there had come a point when Abi realised that she couldn’t listen anymore and that she could have been anyone standing there next to him. He really wasn’t aware of her at all.

  She often wondered what had happened to Billy. Was he still talking and dreaming? She hoped so. She hoped that enthusiasm hadn’t been dampened by the realities of the world and that he wasn’t wearing a navy suit and working in a cubicle somewhere.

  And then Abi had lost herself to work, slowly building her company. Was that why she hadn’t had a serious relationship? Well, she had, she told herself, just not one that had gone the distance.

  ‘You’re married to your work,’ Ellen had once told her.

  ‘No I’m not!’ Abi had retorted, genuinely shocked.

  ‘Yes, you are. Admit it – you’d rather be sat inside with your sketchbook than out on a date with a guy. Your work is your life.’

  Abi mulled over this once again now as she sketched outside, her pencil flying freely across the creamy surface of the page. Her work was her life. Yes, she had to admit that there was a smidgeon of truth in that. But life was work, wasn’t it? Her designs filled her with joy. Patterns made her feel passion and the endless possibilities of colour and form excited her more than anything else. Was it wrong to dedicate her life to such things? Especially now. After Dante.

  Dante.

  With a name like that, perhaps she should have realised he was an Italian tragedy just waiting to happen. Instead, she’d fallen for him hard. She’d always believed that she would be resoundingly practical when it came to matters of the heart, but it was all very well having theories about these things when one hadn’t actually experienced the true turmoil of falling in love. He’d walked into her shop one day and had fixed those soft brown eyes on hers and she’d felt pinned to the spot. She still remembered the first time she’d heard him speak with that Italian accent which was all soft circles and melody.

  ‘Your shop,’ he’d said, ‘is very beautiful.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Abi said.

  ‘And so are you.’

  Abi had felt herself blush. He didn’t waste any time, did he? She quickly busied herself with something as he moved around the shop, but she could feel his eyes upon her and she caught them as she glanced up every so often, wishing he’d leave, but hoping he’d stay.

  He’d admired many of her prints that day, asking if she was the designer.

  ‘You have a good eye,’ he told her when she said she was indeed the designer. ‘And you have very beautiful eyes.’

  The next thing she’d known, she was having coffee at a nearby shop with him. He told her he was teaching Renaissance art at University College, London, but how he missed his home on the Ligurian coast where his family of three sisters and four brothers lived.

  ‘I’m one of two,’ Abi told him.

  ‘You have missed life!’ he said.

  She’d laughed at the joy in his face as he went on to tell her about his family and she knew that a little bit of her had fallen in love with him right there and then, listening to his stories and telling him just a few of her own. Unlike Billy, he listened as well as talked and that was a new experience for Abi. She felt like he cared.

  Of course, he knew all the best Italian restaurants in London, guiding her to the ones with the freshest ingredients and the most authentic recipes. They ate out often, always chatting, always laughing. How wonderful it had been. Abi had felt like she was floating and that the feeling would last forever. But then something had happened that had changed everything. Something unexpected and unplanned.

  But not entirely unwanted, Abi thought to herself now. And that had been the problem.

  The harsh cry of a seagull who’d flown inland suddenly brought Abi back to the present and she found that her face was wet with tears before she even realised she’d been crying. How long had she been crying for? She quickly wiped her tears away and reached for a tissue in her pocket, glad of the privacy in this corner of the garden. Why had she let her mind wander into the past? She’d come out to sketch the flowers, but had then fal
len prey to memories. Perhaps it was because she was so concerned for Ellen and Douglas. Maybe thinking about their situation had reminded her of her own fateful relationship with Dante.

  Abi sighed, trying to let the past go as she took some deep, stilling breaths of downland air. She looked up at the happy faces of her sunflowers. You couldn’t feel sad when you looked at those and so she stared at each and every single one of them now, taking in their vibrant golden petals and the chocolate-brown centres. She got up to walk among them, thanking her lucky stars once again for the day she’d discovered Winfield and for the good fortune that Edward had chosen her to share it with. She had only guessed that she needed a place like this, but now she knew it for sure. This place was healing. It was a sanctuary away from the world. Of course that didn’t mean you could completely shut the world out or protect yourself from everything, but it felt like a safe place. A place where one could rest and be at peace and she needed that so much right now. More than she dared to admit to anyone.

  * * *

  Edward needed to find peace too. After a couple of stressful days dealing with issues from the builders, he needed a session in the river. His new medication, which only really took the edge off his pain, didn’t appear to be making him hallucinate and so he deemed it safe to have a swim. He shut his laptop, switched off his phone and grabbed his things together.

  It was a relief to get outside, away from the noise and dust of the building work. He crossed the driveway and that’s when he saw Abigail. She was getting something out of the boot of her car and Edward nodded politely, but didn’t stop moving.

  ‘Hi Edward,’ she said, a bright smile on her face.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘It’s a bit noisy today, isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Has it been disturbing you?’

  ‘A little.’

  She nodded. ‘Going somewhere nice?’

  He stopped by his car. ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s a very big bag,’ Abi said. ‘What’s inside?’

  He didn’t answer for a moment.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s none of my business.’

  ‘It’s a wetsuit and other bits and bobs.’