Love is a Four-Legged Word: The romantic comedy about canines, conception and fresh starts

by Michele Gorman

  If this was how Margaret’s days usually went, then Scarlett could see why she seemed so frazzled. ‘I’m sure we can work around the caterer,’ Scarlett said when Margaret had snapped the leash to Biscuit’s collar. ‘We’ll start training outside today anyway, since the weather is good. We’re going to make you leader of the pack.’

  ‘Me? Leader?’ Margaret laughed. ‘Someone please tell my son that.’

  Yes, precisely, thought Scarlett. ‘I’m not sure how well the techniques work on teenagers, but you can try it and see how you get on,’ she joked.

  ‘I like that idea!’ said Margaret. ‘Though good luck to you, Mrs Fothergill. I haven’t been leader of anything since I… well, hardly ever, really. I’m more of a follower.’ When she baah-d, Biscuit tipped her head sideways, surprised that Margaret could speak in sheep. ‘Though I did join the WI last year. Arthur thought it would be a good way to make some friends. He wants me to join the committee, but I’d rather not. All that attention.’ She made a face.

  ‘And was he right, about the friends?’ She wondered if there might be a radical WI her mum might consider joining in Reading. Someplace that made cakes and political statements. Julia spent too much time alone. She saw Scarlett, of course, but she needed some more friends her own age.

  ‘Of course, they’re a lovely bunch of women!’ Margaret said. ‘We meet every month at a local café and there are the talks and pub quizzes, too. Though I’m rubbish at trivia, the wine is always good.’

  Scarlett liked thinking of Margaret drinking wine with her friends. She’d been feeling sorry for her after seeing her son’s behaviour. All she needed, really, was a bit of shoring up so she could stick up for herself. Everyone would probably fall in line pretty quickly if she did.

  No, she scolded herself, must not get too involved. She had a terrible habit of doing that with clients. She just couldn’t keep her nose out of other people’s business.

  It was an occupational hazard when one spent week after week with someone in their home, helping them change something as fundamental as their relationship with their pet, who was part of the family anyway.

  ‘We want to get Biscuit to see you as her leader,’ she said, getting them back to the session, ‘so that she pays attention to you. She needs to learn that she’ll get what she wants only after you get what you want. Right now it’s all about her.’

  ‘Story of my bloomin’ life!’

  She started Margaret out walking Biscuit up and down the length of the long garden. Every time the dog pulled at the end of her lead, she got Margaret to stop abruptly and wait for her to come back to where she was standing.

  Or that was how it was meant to go.

  But Biscuit had her human perfectly trained and wasn’t happy with these new rules. Margaret only just managed to keep the dog’s lunges under control. If looks could kill, Biscuit would have put her six feet under.

  When Margaret stopped, Biscuit stopped. But she didn’t walk back. Instead, she stayed stubbornly at the end of the lead, waiting for Margaret to move forward again. The seconds, then minutes wore on.

  Scarlett had seen some stubborn dogs in her time. She once trained a beagle whose owners made the mistake of letting him into their bed as a puppy. Two years later they were still sleeping with a furry, snoring pillow between them. They’d even tried abandoning their bed for the guest room, but the beagle followed wherever they slept. And if they dared to close the door against him he just howled till they realised their mistake.

  Held hostage by the furry little terrorist, they finally contacted Scarlett and eventually they got their bed back.

  If Barry the beagle could learn to sleep on his own, then Biscuit could learn to listen to Margaret.

  ‘You’re doing well,’ she called down the garden to Margaret, who waved over her shoulder with her free hand.

  ‘If you say so, Mrs Fothergill!’

  ‘Stand your ground. We’ll wait all session if we need to. Eventually she’ll give in.’

  Sure enough, Biscuit finally walked back to see why Margaret wasn’t obeying.

  ‘Good, now walk with her again and stop as soon as she pulls on the lead. Be sure not to pull her. You’re not punishing her, you’re just not letting her get her way.’

  They got a little further this time before Biscuit lunged for something in one of the borders. Margaret stopped her short. ‘Great. See? She’s come back a bit quicker.’

  Margaret was gobsmacked every time her dog minded, which just showed how rarely that happened. Again, Scarlett got the feeling it wasn’t only her dog who refused to listen.

  When the doorbell rang, Biscuit’s head whipped round toward the house. Then her body whipped round too, and she started tearing back up the garden.

  Margaret ran behind her, trying to keep up. ‘Oh, that’s the caterer. I’ll just get it. Won’t be a minute.’

  ‘But Margaret, you’re supposed to be walking Biscuit, not the other way around…’ The dog dragged her human through the bi-fold doors and back into the kitchen.

  Baby steps, Scarlett thought as she followed them.

  It was really quite a big garden. By the time she got back to the kitchen she could hear a woman’s slow, measured voice booming in the hall. ‘I’m sorry, Margaret,’ she said, sounding anything but sorry. ‘It won’t work with my colour scheme. You’ve got plenty of time to get people in.’

  Scarlett crept closer to the doorway between the kitchen and the hall. She didn’t want to butt in, but that was only because she didn’t want them to stop talking. Call it research, she told herself. She was learning more about Biscuit’s home life.

  When she peered round the corner she could see them standing in the hall by the front door. Margaret was bent over double, trying to catch her breath. ‘Blimey, I’m unfit,’ she wheezed. ‘Your decorating will be beautiful, Octavia, but we don’t really have the budget to repaint. It was only done two years ago. Couldn’t we put up cloth or something in the right colour to make it blend?’

  The woman, Octavia, had a severe fringe and bob that were so black and smooth they shimmered blue. Her lips were a deep red that contrasted with her pale skin, but she was no delicate beauty. Her broad chin jutted out, making her seem belligerent. Or maybe her words were doing that.

  ‘Against white walls? No, that won’t work,’ she said. ‘Margaret, I don’t see why you want to bother with the Thousand and One Nights theme in the rest of the house if you’re not going to do it in the entrance where everyone will get their first impression.’

  ‘But I don’t want Thousand and One Nights in the rest of the house,’ Margaret murmured. ‘That was your idea.’

  ‘Have you or have you not asked me to be your party planner? Do you expect me to just turn up and sling some food? Because if that’s the case, then I don’t see how we’re meant to work together. Maybe I’d better just leave you to do whatever you want. You could get some quiche or something from M&S.’

  Where did she get off sneering at M&S like that? Scarlett loved their quiches.

  ‘No, Octavia! I’m ever so grateful for your help. I’m so sorry if I gave the impression I wasn’t. Of course I want you to do the party, and your theme will be wonderful. I guess I can see if I can find the money to get the painters in.’

  Biscuit, who’d been sniffing Octavia’s designer boots, suddenly noticed Scarlett lurking in the kitchen.

  Of course she looked like she was listening, but nobody could admit it without seeming impolite.

  ‘Octavia, I’ve just got our dog trainer here, so may I please leave you to get on with things?’

  She sounded like a child asking permission to use the loo. Worse, she sounded like she’d wee in her pants rather than cause a fuss if the answer was no.

  The sooner she learned to be leader of her pack, the better.

  Over the rest of the session Margaret told Scarlett about the party she was planning. ‘It’s for my birthday, you see.’ She laughed. ‘The big five-oh. I can hardly believe it. I
didn’t even want a party, but my family is insisting on it.’

  ‘It is a big occasion, so that’s nice, right?’ Scarlett asked. Though she wouldn’t want one for herself. Gemma was the limelight hog in the family.

  ‘Oh, it is, Mrs Fothergill, you’re right! I just wish Octavia wasn’t the one catering. She’s a bit scary, don’t you think?’

  ‘Then why don’t you find someone else?’ She and Gemma had contacted some caterers for Dad and Felicia’s wedding anniversary party. It was a few years ago, but she probably still had their numbers around somewhere.

  ‘I can’t do that, I’m afraid. She’s Arthur’s boss. Well, his boss’s wife. What would he say if we didn’t use her company for the party, especially now that we’ve agreed? They’ll both be here on the night. We couldn’t use anyone else.’

  ‘I suppose it would be awkward but, Margaret, if she’s suggesting things that you don’t want to do?’

  ‘Well, Arthur does want it to be a certain way, and Octavia’s suggestions will be lovely. It has to be perfect, with Arthur inviting his work contacts and all.’

  That didn’t sound like much fun for Margaret.

  As Margaret walked with Biscuit, she talked about her husband. He sounded like a complete tool.

  ‘I fell in love with him the first time we met,’ Margaret said. ‘Biscuit, please stop pulling!’

  ‘Remember not to talk to her, Margaret. Just stop like we’ve practised. You were saying about Arthur?’

  Margaret hesitated. When she went on, Scarlett understood the reason for her pause.

  It was because she couldn’t quite figure out what had happened in the years between giddy love and daily drudgery.

  She had once had it all, she said. It had seemed like it anyway. She got to go to uni, which was more than her parents did. She enjoyed school and was good enough at it to get into Oxford. She did have a little wobble in her first year when she partied too much, but she was what educators liked to call Well-Rounded. They had high hopes for her future.

  She supposed she must have had them, too.

  She couldn’t believe her luck when she met Arthur in her second year. Here was this handsome, smart, cocksure man who could have had his pick of anyone, and he chose to spend time with her. At first she wondered if it was a joke at her expense. That kind of man wasn’t attracted to her. Every time he talked to her she half expected his friends to burst in on them, hysterical at the idea that she’d believed him.

  But months passed and he kept asking her out. Even better, he couldn’t seem to do enough for her. He knew what she needed even before she did. She didn’t have to lift a finger.

  So she could hardly complain now that the family didn’t expect her to be able to do anything for herself.

  As Scarlett listened, she could see that Margaret didn’t seem to have a bad opinion of herself as much as no opinion at all. She was the neutral beige jumper or the safe option on the menu. Sometimes she was so far in the background, she said, that she was like one of those people without fingerprints. If nobody saw her, how could she know for sure that she existed?

  But with Arthur, she had existed. ‘I could hardly breathe when I first laid eyes on him… Arthur says that’s because my dress was too tight.’

  She laughed over Arthur’s joke, but Scarlett didn’t find it so funny. ‘He was the whole package,’ she continued, allowing herself a little smile. ‘I thought I’d won the lottery.’

  ‘What about him?’ Scarlett asked. ‘How did he feel?’

  ‘Well, I suppose he felt all right. He married me, after all.’

  Margaret’s words gave Scarlett a little stab of guilt. She’d once had a Margaret of her own.

  Goodhearted, patient Stuart – who’d loved her and wanted them to live together – had been as steady as an ocean liner. Nearly unsinkable. Maybe a little slow to manoeuvre, but, well, all right. Just like Arthur thought Margaret was. And like Arthur, that gave Scarlett all the power in the relationship.

  With hindsight it was obvious she shouldn’t have stayed with Stuart for as long as she did. But he’d seen long-term potential in Scarlett almost as soon as they’d started dating. Why wouldn’t she be flattered when no one else had ever spotted it before? She, Scarlett Fothergill, slightly scatty recent graduate with two families, an aging dog and a bigger overdraft than she liked to admit, was girlfriend material. In that way, she supposed, she had a bit of Margaret in her, too.

  She and Stuart seemed to be on an unstoppable train. A nice, safe, stick-to-the-speed-limit train that was passing smoothly through this-is-what-grown-ups-do stations. Until she met Rufus in Australia and the whole thing derailed.

  It wasn’t that Rufus was better than Stuart. It was that they were evenly matched. They were nuts about each other. Finally, and for the first time in Scarlett’s life, no one held the upper hand in the relationship. Neither was frightened that the other wasn’t as in love. Neither felt pressure or guilt about being the object of a devotion they couldn’t return as fully. And it was, she realised as Margaret talked, probably as rare as it was wonderful.

  By the end of their session Biscuit was finally sitting quietly by Margaret’s side. ‘Wonders will never cease,’ she said. ‘You must be a good influence on her, Mrs Fothergill.’

  Scarlett was just about to point out that technically, Margaret should have told Biscuit where to sit rather than the other way around. As it was, the dog was still in charge. But no, look how pleased Margaret was. Let the poor woman have that.

  Scarlett watched her nervously answer her husband’s call to report on the gourmet dinner she’d make later. Beef Wellington with potatoes dauphinoise. Of course she’d washed his jeans, she said, glancing at the pile of denim on the worktop. As she talked about how tricky it was to get the potatoes sliced correctly, she took a bottle of Febreze from the cabinet and squirted the jeans.

  Scarlett was willing to bet her freezer was full of dinner, too. Clearly Margaret wasn’t holding the lead in any part of her life.

  Lately Scarlett knew exactly how it felt not to have control over your own life. She’d always liked the idea that Fate had a hand in the good things that happened to her, but it wasn’t such a comfortable feeling when it kept her from getting what she wanted. She was starting to think that, actually, Fate was a pretty mean bugger.

  Chapter 10

  ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,’ Scarlett told Fate via her bathroom ceiling the next day. ‘I’m sure you’re not really a mean son of a bitch. You’re probably very nice, in fact, in general circumstances. Kind, even. And accommodating, especially to someone who you might have treated a bit unfairly lately.’

  At least she hoped that was true.

  Taking a deep breath, she peed on the stick.

  ‘If you’re listening, I’ve got a proposition for you.’

  Fate didn’t answer. The only sound in the house was the knocking of the old cast-iron radiator in the hallway. When they first moved in they woke in the night to what sounded like a panicked neighbour at their door. The system needed flushing, her mother had told her. But given that everything in the house had to be coaxed just to work, Scarlett was afraid to upset the delicate balance. Knocking was better than freezing.

  A beardy white muzzle appeared through the inch-wide crack under the bathroom door – wonky doors were another charming feature of the house – as Ginger tried to sniff out what was going on in there. Scarlett knew it was Ginger rather than Fred. He always left the manual labour to his sister. He’d be right beside her, though, awaiting her report.

  A minute passed.

  ‘I promise I’ll… I’ll sort out my overdraft,’ she told the ceiling. ‘At least half of it. And really eat five portions of fruit and veg a day like I’ve told Gemma I’ve been doing. And I won’t ask for anything else,’ she told Fate, ‘for at least a year.’

  But then she thought again. She probably could use Fate’s help sooner, if possible. Especially if things went to plan.

  She
checked her phone. Two minutes.

  ‘Or six months anyway,’ she murmured. ‘No requests for a solid six months. And I’ll clear my whole overdraft.’ How many times had she had this conversation with her bathroom ceiling? Too many. She couldn’t remember why she used to think bargaining like this was a bit of fun. Probably because she used to have confidence in the test result. It’s easy to be glib when you think you know the answer.

  Ginger began to whine. The dogs hated a closed door. They were sure that’s when their favourite foods landed all over the floor and the unlimited tummy scratches went on offer.

  Two minutes and thirty seconds. She was sick of the whole process, to be honest. Sick and scared.

  Three minutes.

  She picked up the stick.

  Not Pregnant.

  Thanks for nothing, Fate.

  It had been monumentally exciting to go officially from avoiding babies to trying for one. Finally, she got to wave goodbye to that oh-shite fear that her period would be late. Together she and Rufus imagined a child with spun-sugar hair and the perfect combination of both their features. Their little golden clone. They couldn’t wait.

  So they chucked away the birth control and shagged with gay abandon.

  Scarlett could practically feel her eggs fertilising in the middle of her cycle. ‘Do you think there’s a baby in there?’ she’d whisper to Rufus as they lay together holding hands in their bed.

  ‘I think so,’ he’d say.

  Scarlett always knew she wanted children. She and Gemma played two mummies even after Felicia explained that those probably weren’t sisters in the diversity books they read. Thinking back, she knew that a big part of steady Stuart’s appeal came down to the fact that he offered the whole family package.

  But then she’d met Rufus, who loved children too, and he was way more shaggable. Win-win.