Sheila Norton
* * *
The Lonely Hearts Dog Walkers
CONTENTS
PART 1: DOG DAYS CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
PART 2: PAWS OFF OUR PARK CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
PART 3: HEAD OVER TAILS CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
PART 4: HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
EPILOGUE: LONELY HEARTS NO MORE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sheila Norton lives near Chelmsford in Essex with her husband, and worked for most of her life as a medical secretary, before retiring early to concentrate on her writing. Sheila is the award-winning writer of numerous women’s fiction novels and over 100 short stories, published in women’s magazines.
She has three married daughters, six little grandchildren, and over the years has enjoyed the companionship of three cats and two dogs. She derived lots of inspiration for her animal books from remembering the pleasure and fun of sharing life with her own pets.
When not working on her writing Sheila enjoys spending time with her family and friends, as well as reading, walking, swimming, photography and travel. For more information please see www.sheilanorton.com
Also by Sheila Norton
The Pet Shop at Pennycombe Bay
The Pets at Primrose Cottage
The Vets at Hope Green
Oliver the Cat Who Saved Christmas
Charlie the Kitten That Saved a Life
For the dog walkers among my own family and friends – and especially the very special humans belonging to new puppies Dexter the labrador, Rosie the cocker spaniel, Tess the labradoodle and Rusty the border terrier.
Part 1
* * *
DOG DAYS
CHAPTER 1
I woke up suddenly, in complete darkness, wondering for a moment where I was, and what had woken me. The bed felt unfamiliar; the positions of the door, window and a wardrobe that I managed to make out as my eyes gradually adjusted to the dark, all wrong. Then the noise came again and there was a movement beside me and a quiet little whimper. It all came rushing back to me: the disturbed night, the tears, the protests, my eventual caving in to allow Mia to sleep in the bed with me, just this once, so that we could all get some peace. We were back in my mum’s house in Furzewell – without my husband Josh, Mia’s father. I’d left him behind, walked away from him, our home, our marriage and half my life history. Mia and I were here to make a new start.
It wasn’t a spur of the moment thing; I’d thought it all out. But now, lying here in the dark, the doubts were threatening to overwhelm me. Especially after being woken by the cockerel – a noise I’d forgotten about from the years spent growing up here in the countryside, letting me know there’d be no more sleep for me now before daylight. I fumbled for my phone and glanced at the time, sighing when I saw the illuminated figures: 5:52. I groaned, and Mia stirred beside me again.
‘The cock-a-doodle-do woke me up,’ she muttered.
‘Me too, sweetheart,’ I said with a little rueful laugh as the cockerel crowed again, sounding for all the world as if it were just outside our window instead of at the farm down the road.
‘When will it stop?’
‘Usually they stop after it gets light. Or occasionally they carry on all day.’ I yawned. ‘We’ll get used to it.’
‘It’s still night-time, though.’
‘No, it’s early morning. But they start when there’s just a tiny smidgeon of light in the sky. We don’t have to get up yet.’
It was the February half-term holiday. No school. A whole week for us both to get settled in – long enough, surely, I’d thought, overly optimistically, before we actually got here. Now, remembering the previous night’s tears and tantrums, I wasn’t so sure. ‘We can just lie here and snuggle for a bit,’ I said, pulling Mia’s warm, sleepy body towards me and stroking her soft dark hair. ‘Why don’t you try to go back to sleep?’
I was aching with tiredness myself, and longing to close my eyes and drift back off, rooster or no rooster. But a few minutes later there was a clatter outside on the landing, the door was flung open – light suddenly flooding the room and making me groan again and cover my eyes – and Mum was standing in the doorway holding a tray.
‘Morning, darlings!’ she hollered. I felt like putting the pillow over my head. ‘It’s turned six o’clock. I knew you were awake – I heard you talking – so I thought you’d appreciate a nice cup of tea in bed on your first day. Nice glass of milk for you, Mia,’ she added. ‘And your favourite biscuits.’
‘You shouldn’t have,’ I muttered. She really shouldn’t. No chance now of getting back to sleep. My mother’s voice was louder than the rooster’s.
‘Did you sleep well?’ she boomed as she plonked the tray down on the bedside table.
‘Not really. I—’
‘And what time did you sneak into bed with your mummy?’ she went on, directing this, in a disapproving tone, to Mia. ‘Aren’t you a bit too old for this?’
‘She didn’t sneak in, Mum,’ I said quietly. ‘I brought her in. At about two o’clock, when it was obvious neither of us were going to get any sleep otherwise.’
And she’s only five, I wanted to add, but didn’t, because I didn’t want to argue, already, on our first day, in front of Mia. And she’s upset.
‘Oh,’ she was saying, surprised. ‘Was there a problem? I slept like a log.’
‘Good. I didn’t want to disturb you.’
Mum’s bedroom was at the other side of the house, along the passage, down some rickety steps, through a heavy wooden door and round a corner. Nevertheless, I’d been conscious, every time Mia had started crying again, that it would be unfair if we woke her up – to say nothing of it being a bad start to our stay. I blinked back the memory of how Mum had been talking when she’d welcomed us the previous day, sounding for all the world as if we’d both agreed to spend the rest of our lives together.
‘Welcome home, darling.’ She’d been hugging me before I’d even crossed the threshold. ‘It’s so good to have you back.’ She’d stepped aside so that I could shepherd Mia, who had her thumb in her mouth and Pink Bunny clasped tight to her chest, into the house ahead of me. ‘And it’s lovely to have you here too, sweetheart,’ she added, bending to kiss the top of Mia’s head. ‘Come on, let’s get the kettle on and find you a chocolate biscuit, shall we?’
‘I’ll just get the bags in from the car,’ I said, but Mum hustled me through to the kitchen, shaking her head and smiling.
‘There’s plenty of time for that. We’ve got all the time in the world, now, haven’t we? Just us three girls together.’
I took a sharp breath, slightly put out by the inappropriateness of her happy girly excitement. I supposed she was just trying to be cheer
ful for our sakes, but I’d been expecting a degree of sympathy, sadness, perhaps even a telling off for walking out on my marriage, rather than being greeted with the kind of enthusiasm that made me wonder if she’d secretly been hoping, for the previous twelve years, that it wasn’t going to last.
I couldn’t dwell on this for long, though. Before we’d even got our coats off, the mood was changed abruptly. Mia, still holding onto Pink Bunny, was looking around the kitchen, eyeing the cat basket, crouching to peer through the cat-flap in the back door.
‘Where’s Monty?’ she said.
Mum stopped in the act of filling the kettle, letting the tap run and turning to give me an anxious look.
‘Didn’t I tell you?’ Mum said more quietly.
‘Tell me what?’
‘He’s gone.’
‘Oh!’ I gasped. ‘No, Mum, you didn’t say. When did he—? What happened? He was only young, wasn’t he?’
‘No, I don’t mean that – well, I hope not. I mean he’s gone, disappeared. A week or two ago now. I’ve looked everywhere, asked everyone. I keep hoping he’ll just walk back in one day, but the longer it goes on…’ She sighed. ‘I do wonder if something’s happened to him.’
‘Oh, no.’ I glanced at Mia. She was standing rigidly by the back door now, staring from one of us to the other. I lowered my voice, gave Mum a warning look and changed the subject. ‘Anyway, did you say you had some chocolate biscuits?’
‘Where’s Monty gone?’ Mia repeated in an accusing voice.
‘We’re not sure at the moment, darling,’ I said. ‘Perhaps he’s playing hide-and-seek somewhere.’
‘Can I go and look for him?’
‘Not right now. Come on, let’s get you a drink and a biscuit.’
‘But I want to find Monty.’ Her lower lip started to wobble. ‘I wanted him to sleep on my bed.’
She burst into tears. And it was all my fault for making a promise I couldn’t keep.
I’d come back to Furzewell, to my childhood home, to the village where I’d grown up and lived for the first twenty-three years of my life, because it felt like the only option. I was going to start again, return to my country girl roots, for Mia’s sake as well as for mine. But five-year-old children don’t always react to things the way we expect. I’d been prepared, of course, for Mia to cry about leaving our house in Plymouth, her school and her friends. I knew she’d be upset about all these changes. I’d uprooted her in the middle of her second school year, and I was aware that was potentially asking for trouble. But I’d done my best to handle everything carefully and sensitively, assuring her that she’d see Daddy regularly, that he’d pick her up and take her back to spend weekends in her old bedroom, and that her best friends from the old school, Polly and Jamila, could come to play with her during the school holidays. She’d seemed to accept all these reassurances calmly, without too many questions, but what I hadn’t reckoned on was the fuss she’d make, at the last moment, about leaving our cat behind.
‘Why can’t Bella come to Nanny’s house with us?’ she’d asked sadly.
‘Because she’d probably get lost,’ I explained. ‘She doesn’t know her way around in Furzewell. And anyway, she’s Daddy’s cat too, so wouldn’t it be kind to let him have Bella to keep him company? Otherwise he’d be on his own.’
‘Well if we don’t go, he won’t be on his own,’ she pointed out. ‘So let’s just stay here.’
‘We can’t do that, baby. I’ve explained it all to you, haven’t I? I’ve got a new job in Furzewell. We can’t take Bella, can we – Nanny’s cat wouldn’t like it. He’d be jealous, and they might fight, and Bella might get hurt. But you’ll be able to play with him – Monty – instead.’
She’d put her head on one side, considering this.
‘He is a nice cat. He’s got funny little twitchy ears. Will Nanny let him sleep on my bed?’
‘I expect so.’ I crossed my fingers. ‘If you give him lots of cuddles as soon as we get there, he’ll want to be your friend.’
‘OK,’ she conceded eventually. ‘I’ll ask Nanny if Monty can be my cat.’
I was so relieved this seemed to pacify her, that it didn’t even occur to me talk to Mum about the cat. He’d always been there whenever we’d visited her, and had always been a friendly boy, so I’d had no reason to doubt Mia would be able to make friends with him again. Anyway, it had completely slipped my mind as I’d been so busy with the preparations for our departure: my job interview at Furzewell Primary School, the school visit for Mia, the packing, and the strained discussions with Josh about what was mine, what was his, and why the hell we were going anyway. These particular discussions would take place late at night, when Mia was asleep, the arguments hissing back and forth between us, and usually ending up with him sighing, shaking his head and saying he supposed I’d soon be coming back, and wasn’t it about time I grew up and stopped thinking the grass was greener somewhere else?
I didn’t rise to the bait. I just turned away, closing the argument, because I needed to keep our strained relationship as civil as possible, to keep things calm and especially not to wake Mia up. But I knew in my heart he was wrong. I wouldn’t be back. My marriage was over, and I was starting again – back in Furzewell. I’d always loved it here, where I grew up. The quiet streets, surrounded by open countryside; the old grey stone buildings; the bench under the big old oak tree on the little village green, where as teenagers we’d gathered in the evenings to chat and flirt and drink cheap cider; the neighbours and local shopkeepers who’d known me all my life – I loved everything about it, even the bleakness and feeling of isolation that set in during the winters here. Now, in the middle of February, the lanes and fields and footpaths were full of mud, the sky grey and the nights often sharp with frost, but to me, it was still beautiful. I’d made up my mind, weeks before, that I was really going to do it – I was coming back to Furzewell for good. I’d stay at Mum’s, but only until the marriage could be dissolved, the house sold, the mistakes of my life completely erased, and then I’d find somewhere permanent here, just for Mia and myself. Leaving Josh was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. But being back here in Furzewell was going to make it just that little bit easier.
CHAPTER 2
Eagle House, our family home, was named after the pub it once used to be. From old pictures I’d seen long ago, I’d deduced that The Eagle hadn’t been a very big pub. But as a house, it had seemed enormous to me when I was a little girl, probably because it was detached, standing in its own grounds, and had five bedrooms. This was unusual enough for houses around here, even though none of the bedrooms were large. Neither of the two living rooms downstairs, which were originally the public bar and the snug, were particularly big either. But what had made it such a fun place to grow up in were the passages between the rooms – narrow, with uneven floors, steps and dark corners to hide in – and the big fireplaces. The fireplace in the lounge was actually so big that in the summer, when there wasn’t a fire lit and it had been cleared, I could sit right inside it – something Mia still enjoyed doing now.
The garden was huge too, and that morning, after I’d brought in all our bags and boxes from the car and made a start on unpacking them, I put on my coat and joined Mia outside, where she was walking around the perimeter, searching shrubs and bushes and calling for Monty.
‘He’s hiding for a long time, isn’t he,’ she said, and then added more quietly, looking at the ground, ‘do you think he’s run away?’
‘We don’t know, Mia. Nanny says she’s been looking for him, calling him every day, but he hasn’t turned up yet.’ I sighed. I knew it was always best to give children the truth rather than making things worse by fobbing them off, but at times it was so hard. ‘You know what cats are like – Bella’s the same – they do wander off sometimes. But it’s been a long time now, and Nanny’s worried that Monty might have got lost.’
‘Nanny said something might have happened to him, didn’t she? What, though, Mummy
? What might have happened to him?’
I swallowed. ‘Well, he might … I don’t know … he might have wandered into someone else’s garden, and been frightened by a dog, and climbed up a tree and got stuck. Something like that.’
‘Or got run over by a car,’ she said bluntly. ‘That’s what happened to Polly’s old cat. Her mummy and daddy got a new one, though, and she likes it better than the old one because it’s a kitten. It’s ginger and white.’
Children can be tougher than we think. And fickle.
‘But I want Monty to come back,’ she added, putting a stop to the thoughts I was having about the possibility of going out to buy a ginger-and-white kitten. ‘He was going to be my cat, and I wanted him to sleep on the end of my bed like Bella did. I couldn’t go to sleep last night because I missed my other bedroom and I didn’t have Bella. Mummy, please can we go and look for Monty? In case he is stuck up a tree. He might come down if we call him?’
‘Yes, I suppose he might,’ I agreed, to make her happy. I’d keep the ginger-and-white kitten option in reserve, though. Sadly I didn’t hold out a lot of hope of finding Monty around the village after two weeks, although I guessed stranger things had happened. ‘Come on, then, let’s go out now, while it’s not raining.’
‘Can we go to Nanny’s shop too?’ Mia said, brightening up instantly. ‘Can we get some sweets?’
‘Of course.’ I smiled at her. Mum worked part-time in one of the shops on Fore Street and it had always been Mia’s treat, whenever we’d visited Mum in the past, to call in there while she was at work. Everyone in the shop would make a fuss of her, and her treat would be a children’s magazine and a small bar of chocolate or packet of sweets. Right now, it didn’t feel like much at all, especially to compensate for everything else.
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