by Rosie Blake
She didn’t have a reason. Well, not one she could say to him. The reason, of course, was ‘he is my dog, Liam, because you slept with someone with very triangular pubic hair and I didn’t and I was going to marry you and I loved you and wanted to have your children and trusted you and you were a complete pig and so I am keeping the dog because I know it hurts you. I can’t think of another way to hurt you without involving your dog so Marmite it is.’ But she couldn’t say any of that so she just went with, ‘Because I need him.’
Marmite came and rested a paw on her leg, as if he had heard her. It made her jolt and she looked at him. His brown wide eyes were staring up at her. Maybe she did need him. Then he jumped up and stole the biscuit from her hand.
‘Marmite, don’t…’
‘Are you talking to him? Can I talk to him?’
She felt a brief flicker of guilt. He sounded desperate; it was sort of sad. She almost gave in, almost encouraged him. Then she thought of everything he had done, every promise he had made her, and her voice was frosty as she replied, ‘No, and stop calling me about him.’
‘I will if you give him back. I want my dog back.’
‘I won’t give him back. And he is not your dog.’
‘Fine. Well, Eve, I will have to seek legal advice.’
‘You do that,’ she said in a rushed, high-pitched voice, trying hard not to instantly panic. Legal advice? That sounded serious. She swallowed. ‘I was… I was going to seek legal advice too… Liam,’ she tacked on as if it made it more true.
Was she? Yes, she could totally seek legal advice.
‘Fine,’ he said, his familiar voice snapping down the phone at her.
Eve’s instinct was to soothe, to stop arguing, to see what they could do. That was what she had always done when they had argued; she hated raised voices, she hated them falling out. She had often backed down; she had often apologised first. She gripped the phone tighter in her hand as a new feeling washed over her.
‘Anyway, legal advice won’t help you because I’m going away,’ she announced triumphantly, her voice sounding around the living room and making Marmite cock his head to one side.
‘What do you mean “away”? You can’t steal my dog…’
‘You can’t steal something that already belongs to you,’ Eve said, voice rising again.
‘You can’t take him away. Where is “away” anyway?’
‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ she said in what she hoped was her best Mysterious Voice. She didn’t have a bloody clue, but she was damned if she was going to admit this now. She was enjoying the note of panic in his voice, the curiousity. Yes, ex-fiancé, little me, going away, just getting on a plane and travelling to who knows where because I am free now, whoop, free without you.
‘This is outrageous.’ Liam was spluttering now. She couldn’t remember ever making him splutter before. He’d once spluttered after a mouthful of her first-ever attempt at ‘Thai Curry’ (the instructions should have been clearer – who the hell knows the difference between tsp and tbsp anyway?) but she’d never made him splutter in anger. This was new; this was different. She bit back the apology, forced herself not to cave in. ‘You can’t do that,’ he said.
And, as if she were looking at herself from a long distance away, she said, in the most confident voice she could muster, ‘Watch me.’ And then she pressed her finger down on the ‘End Call’ button with a decisive huff.
She stared at the phone for a long moment and thought of all the times they had argued. She could practically count them on two hands. They had once rowed in the car on the way to his parents’ house. Liam was a useless passenger, withholding vital information (e.g. turn left) long after the information was required (after the left turn). Then they’d had a fall-out because he always filled the bin with too much rubbish and then pressed it down until it all started to smell and the bag split. Then they rowed over the bread. Eve would leave the bread bag open and it used to really annoy him; he liked to use those plastic things that the bread comes with, twist the bag through it to keep the bread fresh. Yes, they’d got to the point where they’d shouted a bit at times. Silly things: she’d tripped over his shoes in the hall once and had gone back into the living room and thrown them at his head. He’d once yelled when she’d got so drunk she’d invited a country-and- western wedding band back to their hotel room for a line-dancing lesson.
Not much, though, nothing that had lingered, nothing that meant they had marched around the house slamming doors and hurling insults, nothing that had made her sleep badly or wake angry. They had always been over silly things, nothing to really worry about. She blinked back tears. How had it come to this? How were they arguing in this way?
And what did she mean ‘away’? Where was she going? She couldn’t very well take Marmite ski-ing. He loved a walk but she wasn’t sure they let dogs on pistes and things. She couldn’t leave him here and didn’t you have to get passports for your pets now? Special jabs? She couldn’t just fly off somewhere for Christmas. She had responsibilities. She was a mother, nay, a SINGLE PARENT. She had to make plans with her Dog Child.
Marmite rested his head on the sofa next to her, looking up at her dolefully. She knew he probably wanted another biscuit but she let him stay there, one hand reaching out to rest on his head and scratch behind his ears. She wouldn’t seek legal advice, she wouldn’t have the first idea how to seek legal advice. Then, as Marmite nestled closer, she realised she didn’t want to give him back; it wasn’t fair, he had been their dog, not his dog. She had taken some persuading, but she had always been the one to walk him. She had allowed him to sleep in their bedroom; she had taken him to the vet’s after he had eaten an entire chocolate Easter egg and nearly poisoned himself.
Marmite looked up at her again and she gave him a watery smile, nestling her head down onto his so that his rank dog breath wafted over her.
‘There’s a good boy. Do you miss him? I’m sorry. I miss him too.’ She wiped a tear away. ‘Just don’t bloody tell him.’
She knew she had to get away, but more than that she had to do something with the time off. December was only two weeks away and she needed a plan. She was off work on the 1st December and it was fast approaching. She didn’t want to be sitting around at home; she needed to keep busy and stop herself being ‘a tedious Misery Guts’ (Mum).
This was confirmed a night later whilst squashed round a low circular table with her family in a sweaty pub in East London, staring at a man with a mouth organ who was mostly made up of facial hair, on a tiny square of raised stage. They were waiting for Gavin to appear at an Open Mic Night. Harriet had left Poppy with a baby-sitter and was drinking G&Ts as if they had just announced a drought, and swaying in time to the bearded man’s tune, her mum was sitting straight-backed holding her white wine spritzer up like a shield and her dad was looking happily at his ale and well at home as an old rocker in a creased leather jacket that he had apparently salvaged from the attic. He’d decided to couple it with raspberry cords and pea-green Converse trainers. Mum had made him walk ten feet ahead of her once out of the car.
Gavin was apparently about to appear with Beard.
Eve leant across the table. ‘How long has he been playing?’ she asked, still wondering whether this was an enormous wind-up. To her knowledge, Gavin was an accountant who, fine, owned a lot more Take That albums than was normal for a thirty-seven-year-old man, but who couldn’t play an instrument himself.
Harriet shrugged and smiled and drank more gin, and her dad spilled his ale trying to shout an answer back.
‘Mum?’
‘Um, a while, I think,’ her mum said.
‘Very precise.’
This was the first time they had ventured out to watch him and when Gavin appeared on stage, his head glistening in the spotlight, Eve suddenly wished Liam were here so she could grip his hand. How long would it be before she would stop automatically thinking of him? It was strange being with her family without him at her side.
Gavin stood in a small spotlight as the Beard played a note on the mouth organ, the crowd quietening as Gavin gazed around the room. Then he started to play, a gentle folk song, and he and the Beard sang in a lilting harmony.
They were pretty good and Eve felt herself relax as she listened. Five minutes later, when Harriet was leaning her head on her hand and looking glassy, it stopped. Dad, who had been nodding along to a non-existent beat, started clapping and we all followed in kind. Gavin took a bashful bow.
‘Lovely,’ Mum announced.
‘Ace-ssh,’ slurred Harriet confidently.
Dad was still clapping.
‘Well, that was pretty good,’ Eve said.
‘Good man, good man.’ Dad nodded, talking to no one.
‘He has a talent,’ Mum said, and Eve wondered whether the look she gave her afterwards had been pointed.
Did Eve have a talent? She was hopeless at sports, was convinced that her coordination had been fundamentally damaged in some way after being hit on the head by a netball aged eight. She wasn’t any good at domestic tasks, couldn’t sew or knit, was useless in the kitchen, burnt anything she touched and was quick to panic.
She certainly loved to draw and doodle, was constantly filling blank notebooks with cartoons of mischievous squirrels, beady-eyed toads and lithe deer. She loved nothing better than breathing in the scent of a new, blank notebook, spending hours selecting the right one, a hardback (always) with an illustration or inspirational quote on the front. She created characters that frolicked through her imagination together.
Drawing cartoons wasn’t exactly something a proper adult should do, she supposed, and over the years she had started to hide the notebooks away, in shameful piles, in boxes in the attic, amongst old photographs. She and Liam had been too busy going to drinks parties or friends’ BBQs or watching box sets, and somehow she had neglected this part of her life. She felt a flicker of excitement as she thought of the time she had stretching ahead of her, a chance for her to fill a new notebook with sketches. Daisy had been right; she did want to do something with it.
Gavin came over then and they crowded round to congratulate him. He bent to kiss Harriet who seemed with it enough to give him a hug. ‘Youoo wash exchellent.’
‘You were excellent,’ Eve translated.
Gavin laughed. ‘Thanks for coming,’ he said, sitting and accepting a beer from the Beard, who came over to clap him on the back.
‘Good job,’ Gavin said, half-rising out of his chair to shake his hand.
The Beard nodded and melted back into the crowd.
‘Well,’ Eve said, ‘he seems nice.’
‘Ha, ha, he is actually,’ Gavin said, raising his glass.
‘Are you going to do another gig together?’
‘Not until the New Year, he’s pretty busy over Christmas, touring in Santa Claus: The Musical.’
‘Ahhhh,’ Eve said, ‘that explains the resplendent beard.’
The mention of Christmas had obviously been too much for Mum who had swivelled her whole body round to face them both. ‘What’s that about Christmas?’
‘Oh, nothing much,’ Gavin said.
‘Nothing,’ Eve said, knowing this wouldn’t be enough.
‘Well, I assume you were just making plans. Because we will all be at home for Christmas, won’t we, Eve. We’ll all be there.’
‘I thought Eve wasn’t coming,’ Gavin said slowly, trying to provide some support as Harriet was currently slumped in her chair being no help.
‘Of course she is coming,’ Mum said, rolling her eyes.
Dad looked across at her and then at Mum. ‘Eve is free to do what she wants to do,’ he said, taking a decisive sip of ale.
Harriet looked up to contribute. ‘Of courshe we’ll misch her but okays by schme if she schan’t.’
‘Er thanks, Harriet,’ Eve said, assuming the sentence was trying to help.
‘Notsch at all yoursch my sishter.’
‘Um, very good.’
Mum didn’t let the interruption distract her, returning to the attack immediately. ‘It is very immature of you, Eve, to dig your heels in like this when you don’t have anywhere else to be.’
Eve found herself raising her voice. ‘Actually,’ she announced, with a lot more confidence than she felt, ‘I do have somewhere else to be. I’m going to be working on a project.’
Project? Are you, Eve?
‘What project, love?’ asked her dad in this really sweet way that made Eve feel a lot worse for making something up than her mum glowering at her.
‘Yes, what project?’ her mum asked.
Gavin turned to look at her too, smiling automatically.
‘I don’t want to say,’ Eve said, knowing she was sticking out her bottom lip and being petulant even without her mum pointing it out.
It was lucky really that the argument was diverted by Harriet, who chose that moment to fall off her stool.
She’d said it now. She couldn’t go back on it. They had all looked really excited for her and her ‘mystery project’. Why did she have to lie? Why couldn’t she just be quiet, or tell them she didn’t want to spend another Christmas doing the same things with them while they all thought back to last Christmas and the celebratory Buck’s Fizz in the morning, Dad’s impromptu speech after lunch, toasting Liam, Mum taking photos of them standing awkwardly under the mistletoe in their matching jumpers as she shouted ‘kiss each other, don’t be shy’ repeatedly, Scarlet pretending to gag just to the side while Harriet sat, cradling Poppy, a half-smile at Eve on her face, clearly happy to see her sister so content.
She logged onto the internet, tapping a range of ideas into Google. She wanted to do something creative, use her time wisely and take her mind off everything. She wanted to learn a skill or develop a side to her she didn’t know she had. Like Gavin and his guitar playing.
‘Become a Bee-Keeper’, ‘Make a Coracle’ (note: find out what a coracle is). ‘Produce Your Own Smoked Salmon – How to cold-smoke salmon’, ‘Basket Weaving – the basics’. There were so many things she could do and she felt a buzz as she moved from website to website. She didn’t want to make baskets or keep bees, and a coracle was an old boat but she didn’t live near water. She imagined a month of cold-smoking a salmon classes would start to get repetitive. Still, she knew she was on the right track; the idea of learning a new skill, creating something, definitely appealed. She could totally throw herself into it and turn the Christmas period into a real positive.
A website promising the finest artist breaks in Royal Berkshire popped up and a small photo of a crumbling mansion caught her eye: ‘Pottery classes in a stately home on the banks of the River Thames’. They were running a ‘Festive Special’ – a daily lesson for the month of December (excluding weekends). The chance to learn this skill over the Christmas period. Perfect for beginners.
Pottery, Eve pondered. She had never done any pottery before, aside from painting a coaster in a painting café in London on a hen do. She had certainly never touched clay or learnt how to make it into a different shape on a wheel. She felt herself getting excited about the prospect. She was arty, she could draw, so maybe she could make pots and things. She imagined bowls in beautiful coloured glazes, vases with intricate designs.
Also, Liam had taken so many things out of her kitchen, she could replenish stocks, make her own set of dinner plates. She imagined her friends’ faces as she nonchalantly pulled out a stack of plates she had made from scratch. ‘What, these? Oh… it’s nothing, I’m a potter.’ Is ‘potter’ a word? She made a mental note to look that up before she described herself as one. She didn’t want to be drummed out of the club before she’d even started.
She found herself filling in her details on the ‘Enquiry Form’, pressing ‘Send’. The more she thought about it, the more she knew it was what she needed. A chance to meet new people, to develop a new skill, to live in a different place. For a few moments she had forgotten the original reason she wanted to get away and wa
s simply gripped by a desire to do something entirely for herself.
She would need somewhere to stay if she went on it, but it turned out Royal Berkshire wasn’t a cheap place. Having a palace in your county certainly hikes up prices. The local B&Bs were lovely but her heart sank as she did the maths. She simply couldn’t afford to stay around there. She needed some local knowledge.
She searched the internet for an estate agent in the area and was surprised to see her own company had a small branch in the village, Pangbourne. She dialled the number, feeling more and more sure that this was fate and she was bound to find something.
A nasally voice answered, a man who sounded as if he needed to blow his nose. Eve explained what she was looking for, something near the postcode, something relatively affordable, a little cottage perhaps? She knew her voice was laced with expectation.
She heard shuffling and tapping and realised she had clenched her teeth as she waited for him to reply, her fist tight on the phone.
‘We haven’t got a cottage, no…’
Eve’s heart sank, her shoulders slumped, her hopes fading fast. The little stone cottage with an apple tree in the garden, a bright wisteria climbing its walls, crumbled before her.
‘We’ve got a room in a house in Purley? Lady tenant wanted, not bothered by smoking.’
‘Oh, I’m not a…’
‘No pets though…’
‘I have a dog, you see…’
He wasn’t really listening, just reeling the facts off, and Eve tapped her teeth and waited. She wasn’t keen to share anyway, was hoping to remove herself from it all, and having a room-mate who could be any shade of mad didn’t make her feel soothed, and she didn’t have time to visit them all and vet them.
‘Well then, if not that, we’ve got a lot of things in Tilehurst, or central Reading obviously…’ The voice sounded bored, as if he were reading from a sheet, which Eve supposed he was.
‘No, I’m going on a course in a house that overlooks the river just a short walk from the centre of the village,’ she parroted from memory. ‘And I don’t have a car, you see,’ she said, in her most polite voice. ‘Are you sure there isn’t anything suitable?’