‘I’ll go and talk to Mia now, about the dog idea,’ I said, getting to my feet abruptly. ‘Hopefully it’ll cheer her up and give her something nice to focus on.’
Mia was lying on her bed, holding Pink Bunny and staring at the ceiling.
‘Are you OK, baby?’ I asked her gently. I sat down on the bed next to her, stroking her face. ‘I know it must have been a hard day for you. But it’s going to get easier, I promise. Can you think of anything that might help you settle down here?’
She sighed. ‘Only if Monty came back.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I wish we could find him, too. But what if we got a new pet, to keep us company here and make it feel more like home?’
‘A new kitten?’ she asked, opening her eyes a little wider. ‘Can we get a ginger-and-white one?’
‘Maybe. Or … what about a dog instead? A puppy?’
‘A dog?’ She looked at me in surprise. ‘A real one?’
‘Of course!’ I laughed. ‘Why don’t you come downstairs and look at some pictures with me. If we’re going to get a puppy, we’ll need to decide which type would be best for us, and we can choose together.’
And thankfully, as soon as she was cuddled up with me on the sofa, looking at doggies on my laptop, school seemed to be forgotten. For now, anyway.
CHAPTER 5
‘Labradoodle, labradoodle!’ Mia sang to herself over and over, giving little skips of excitement as she went to wash her hands for dinner later. ‘Isn’t it a funny name, Mummy?’
It hadn’t taken us long to settle on our chosen breed. And once Mia was tucked up in bed, I called a dog breeder near Exeter who I’d found on the internet. As luck would have it, he had just one male puppy still available, of a litter of caramel-coloured labradoodles that were ready to be rehomed ten days later.
‘I’d sold them all,’ he explained. ‘But the lady who was taking this little chap has changed her mind. Wants something smaller.’ I heard the exasperation in his voice. ‘You’d think people would work out what they want before they choose, wouldn’t you.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed, secretly pleased about it. ‘Well, we’re certain this is what we want.’
‘Good. Glad to hear it. Well, why don’t we arrange a date for you to come and meet the puppy – and for me to meet you, too.’
With the thought of the puppy and a day arranged for meeting him firmly in her mind, Mia seemed to have cheered up a bit. She reluctantly got herself through her school days, without too much more crying or obvious distress, although she still wouldn’t really talk to me about it. I took her with me for the visit, and the breeder encouraged her to carefully handle and stroke the friendly little puppy, while politely asking me some searching questions about our home, how experienced I was with dogs, and whether I understood the latest advice about caring for puppies. The interrogation made me feel quite nervous, but apparently I did OK, and we were soon making another date – for coming back to collect our pup.
I took a photo of our ‘new baby’, which Mia then kept by her bed, and I marked the ‘puppy collection’ day on our wall calendar so that she could see how soon it was. We agreed to wait to choose a name until we brought the puppy home, but when we were finally in the car, coming home with our eight-week-old bundle of fluff and mischief, Mia announced that she’d already decided his name should be Smartie.
‘Because they’re my favourite sweets,’ she said. ‘And he’s my favourite puppy.’
‘Fair enough!’ Mum laughed.
Even while I was dishing up his first meal in Eagle House, Mia was trying to cuddle him, telling him she loved him and that he was her best friend. I smiled, pleased at how quickly he seemed to have cheered her up. But my smile soon dropped when she added wistfully:
‘Can we take him back home to our other house, Mummy?’
Although she continued to be very quiet and withdrawn on the subject of school, and the renewed habit of thumb-sucking seemed to be here to stay, Mia did at least seem more settled now at home in Eagle House. She was all smiles whenever she saw the little dog, and spent hours running around the house playing with him, or sitting down with him on her lap, cuddling him and, I suspect, whispering her secrets to him.
The following weekend she went back to the old house for the first time. Josh collected her on the Saturday morning, sweeping her into his arms on the doorstep of Eagle House and hustling her into his car, pretty much ignoring me and Mum. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come and pick her up tomorrow?’ I said, following them down the path, trying to get Mia to turn back to me for a last goodbye.
‘No. I’ll bring her back after her tea,’ was all he said.
He strapped Mia into her car seat and started the engine. She gave me a little wave, the car disappeared down the lane and I stood there, hugging myself against the cold, feeling bereft. I tried, all weekend, to keep myself busy. I cleaned all the windows, ignoring Mum’s squawks of protest. I met up with Amber again for lunch in the pub, and did a lot of mostly unnecessary washing and ironing. By the time Josh brought Mia back on the Sunday, on the dot of six o’clock as agreed, I was almost breathless with the need to see her and hug her. It was the longest she’d ever been out of my sight.
‘Hello, sweetheart.’ I pulled her into my arms, kissing her face and the top of her head. ‘Did you have a nice time?’
I’d been so worried that she’d have found it strange, being with her father for so long. It hadn’t exactly been the normal pattern of her childhood, especially in recent years.
‘Yes,’ she said, her eyes bright. She struggled out of my embrace. ‘Daddy took me to the Soft Play and the cinema and bought me some new trainers – look!’ She lifted her feet to show off the sparkly silver shoes. ‘When can I go back again? I like it better at our other house.’
‘Don’t react,’ Mum warned me, after Mia had settled down in front of the TV with a sigh, as if it was already boring to be back with us. ‘And don’t try to compete.’
Compete? I’d wanted to yell. As if I could! There were no soft play centres, cinemas or shops for buying sparkly trainers anywhere within miles of Furzewell. But what hurt me most was the fact that Josh was now playing the bountiful father, whereas when we were together he was normally too busy to take his daughter anywhere or do anything with her. And now the weekend was over, I was having to deal with the hangover from it.
We were well into March now, with its promise of spring, which never quite seemed to be fulfilled. Daffodils nodded in the chilly breeze, and after a few milder, sunny days we noticed the occasional primrose daring to spring up in the park and meadows. Then the wind would whip up again, whistling through the valley where the village was situated; the clouds would gather and we’d have two solid days of heavy rain. I was fed up with wearing my boots to negotiate the muddy puddles in the country lanes and my heavy waterproof coat because of the unexpected downpours. I couldn’t wait for the weather to improve.
‘But this is my favourite time of year,’ Gran said when Mia and I popped over the road to see her, as we often did, after school. ‘So much nicer to be looking forward to summer than looking back on it, I always think.’ She rummaged in her cupboards for a packet of biscuits. ‘Ah, here they are: your favourites, Mia. Take two, go on. I’ve been keeping them specially for you. Want a drink of milk with them?’
‘Thank you, Granny Helen,’ Mia said.
Gran raised her eyebrows at me. ‘Quiet, isn’t she,’ she whispered.
‘I know. School seems to be tiring her out,’ I whispered back. ‘But when we get home to Smartie, he always cheers you up, doesn’t he, Mia,’ I added out loud, and Mia nodded.
‘He’s my best friend,’ she told Gran. ‘I really love him.’
‘And is your mum OK with having a puppy around the house again?’ Gran asked me. ‘I must admit I was a tad surprised. She said she’d never get another one.’
‘She seems to be enjoying him. But I’ll be doing everything for him – walking him and so on, and
of course he’ll come with me and Mia when we move out.’
There was a silence. ‘You think she’ll let you move out?’
I laughed. ‘Of course she will! By the time I’m in a position to get my own place, she’ll have had enough of us cramping her style.’ I paused and glanced at Gran before going on, ‘Mum has quite a social life these days, doesn’t she?’
‘That’s one way of putting it,’ Gran said. ‘I know what Ros is like. Can’t bear to be on her own. Always off out somewhere, with one of her friends or another. Or one of her boyfriends.’
‘Boyfriends?’ I nearly choked on my biscuit. ‘Since when has Mum had boyfriends?’
‘Oh, there have been a few, over the years. Never anything serious, though. I suppose she doesn’t tell you. The last one seemed quite a nice chap, good-looking, too. Can’t think of his name – he’s a local. He lasted longer than the others. Mostly she only sees them once or twice, from what I can make out. She comes out with that same old line every time about enjoying being a single girl.’ Gran snorted. ‘Anyone would think she was twenty-five, the way she talks – not coming up for sixty.’
‘Well, good for her, I suppose, if she’s enjoying her life.’
‘Hmm,’ said Gran enigmatically. ‘That’s as may be. Anyway, drink up, both of you.’ She got to her feet and looked for her shoes. ‘I’ll walk back round to Eagle House with you and say hello to that little doggy – and your mother, I suppose! I need to stretch my legs.’
Gran and Mum had a strange relationship. I knew they loved each other really, but the way they spoke to each other, and about each other, you might not have guessed it. They were quite different: Gran was small and wiry, with a tough, calm, no-nonsense attitude and a wealth of common sense, whereas Mum had always been the big, cuddly, emotional type. I wasn’t sure whether I took after her or not; from the physical point of view I was more like Gran. I hadn’t inherited Mum’s generous figure, or her rounded face and thick, wavy hair. When I was at the most emotionally fragile stage of growing up, I’d been called Nic the Stick by some of the boys at school, which might have traumatised me for life if I hadn’t, instead of her curves, inherited Mum’s fiery nature. I was perfectly able to answer my tormentors back, calling them worse and more humiliating names than any of their unoriginal ‘stick insect’ and ‘beanpole’ taunts. And luckily for me, as I grew older and taller, my skinny figure and straight blonde hair became the must-have look. Despite the fact that I had this look by accident rather than by design, the boys were suddenly staring at me in a different way, and the teasing stopped. Through it all, it was Gran, even more than Mum, who’d given me the constant reassurance I’d needed that I looked perfectly fine.
‘Sticks and stones may break your bones …’ had been Gran’s favourite quote to help me understand that the teasing didn’t matter, and it always made me laugh, in the circumstances.
‘But Stick is what they call me!’ I’d remind her.
‘Well, there you are, then,’ she’d say, with a satisfied nod, as if it explained everything.
Gran had already become as charmed by Smartie as Mia and I were. She loved to sit with the little pup by her feet, rubbing his tummy, or rolling his ball along the floor for him to catch and bring back to her. He showed signs of being a happy and energetic little dog, and we’d started teaching him some basic commands like Sit, Stay and Leave it, right from his first day with us, so that he would learn quickly.
‘He’ll be a big dog, won’t he, when he’s fully grown?’ Gran said.
‘About medium size, really, we think. He’s a second-generation labradoodle, and the breeder said neither of his parents were exceptionally big,’ I explained.
‘Mummy says Smartie’s going to need lots of long walks, once he’s allowed to go out,’ Mia told Gran. ‘We’re going to walk him in the park with Mummy’s friends.’
I explained about Amber and her dog-walking group.
‘That’s nice,’ Gran said approvingly. ‘Glad you’ve met up with Amber again. She was always a nice girl, wasn’t she? I’m surprised she’s never got married.’
‘Maybe she had more sense,’ I muttered under my breath.
The next time I met Amber at the Fox and Goose, she’d invited Sara to join us.
‘Hope you don’t mind,’ she whispered to me as Sara went to the bar to get the first round of drinks. ‘She was keen to meet up with you.’
‘Can’t think why,’ I said with a shrug. ‘We were never friends at school.’
Sara had clasped me in an embrace as soon as I’d arrived in the pub, kissing me on both cheeks and exclaiming that I hadn’t changed a bit – which of course was ridiculous – and I had no intention of saying the same thing back to her. In fact, annoyingly, she’d changed very little over the years. Since having Mia I’d put on some weight – no longer quite such a stick – and I now coloured my hair blonde, because, if I left it to its own devices, it was a dirty shade of mouse rather than the natural blonde of my younger years. But Sara still had the same slim figure, the same long, glossy, chestnut hair, and was wearing heels and full make-up just to have a drink in the village pub. Needless to say, most of the men in the pub were eyeing her up surreptitiously over their pint mugs.
‘How did she walk down the lane in those shoes?’ I muttered, with a touch of bitchiness, as Sara tottered back towards our table with the drinks balanced on a tray.
‘Try to be nice, Nic,’ Amber whispered back. ‘It won’t hurt you to smile.’
I felt rebuked and I supposed she was right, I had to make an effort, especially if I was going to join their dog-walking group. Just because I’d become the kind of person who slopped around in jeans, boots and anorak, and had the type of flyaway hair that stood on end as if I’d had an electric shock whenever I went out in the wind, didn’t mean I couldn’t look at someone who dressed so much more glamorously without turning up my lip in a sneer. If I wasn’t careful, it could be misconstrued as envy.
‘So! How are things with you, Sara?’ I said, trying to adopt a more interested tone ‘What have you been up to over the last … um … fifteen years or so?’
She took a sip of her sparkling water – no wonder she was so slim – patted her scarlet lips gently with a serviette, and gave me a beaming smile.
‘Well, after graduating from Oxford – I expect you heard I got a first in law? – I passed the LPC with flying colours—’
I tried to stifle a yawn. I was tired, and although I was trying to pay attention, needless to say I didn’t know what the LPC was. I was beginning to regret asking the question.
‘Then I took up a training post,’ she was going on, ‘with, well, you won’t have heard of them, but one of the best law firms in London. Daddy had a connection there luckily—’
‘Of course,’ I said mildly, lifting my glass to hide my grin. Amber nudged me.
‘And after completing my training period—’ Sara was saying, smiling benevolently at us. I wondered how long this was likely to go on.
‘So: you’re a solicitor,’ I interrupted her eventually. ‘That’s great, it must be … um, fun. And is that how you met your husband … partner?’
Her smile disappeared. ‘Keith worked for the same company, yes.’ She took a big gulp of her water. ‘I don’t work there now, of course. After we split, I was headhunted by a company back here in Devon – in Tavistock, actually – so it made sense to move back.’
I tried to imagine the difference between a prestigious law firm in London and one in Tavistock. The difference between the potential salaries. Of course, I really had no idea, but I couldn’t help thinking it would have been a comedown. Headhunted didn’t quite seem to fit. I actually felt a bit sorry for her, for a fleeting moment. But when she continued, in the same self-aggrandising tone, to describe how important her job was, how busy, how stressful, how much her company relied on her and valued her – my sympathy went straight out of the window again. Same old Sara.
This was exactly how she’d bee
n at school. When the rest of us were comparing notes after our GCSEs, commiserating with each other about how hard the maths questions were or the fact that we’d revised all the wrong stuff for history, Sara would smile that infuriating superior smile and say that, actually, she’d found it fairly easy. We didn’t care that she passed them all, mostly with A grades. She’d flouted the unspoken rule: you were supposed to complain about them. You weren’t supposed to say you’d found them easy, when everyone else was crying on each other’s shoulders about the ridiculous and unfair questions. But that was typical of Sara. She was the girl who, even at the age of about fifteen when most of us delighted in being different from our parents’ generation, prefaced almost every opinion she voiced with ‘Daddy says—’ or ‘Mummy thinks—’.
‘So anyway,’ I interrupted her again, mid-monologue about her unbelievable volume of work, ‘I hear you’ve got a dog now. What sort of dog is it?’
‘My petite Babette?’ she said, brightening. ‘She’s such a precious girl – my little princess. I adore her. She’s a bichon frise.’ I nodded. She would be. ‘And Amber says you’re going to join our little dog-walking group, Nic. You’ve got a new puppy? How wonderful.’
‘Yes. He’s called Smartie,’ I said, suddenly feeling like the parent of a new baby, attempting to keep up with the other mums in the cute kid stakes. ‘He’s a labradoodle.’
‘Oh, a cross-breed. Very à la mode.’
I sighed and drained the rest of my beer. What was the point? I didn’t even want to try to compete with her. What I really wanted to hear was the goss on this Keith, her ex, but although I tried several times during the next hour or so to lead the conversation back in his direction, Sara was obviously determined not to discuss him.
‘Perhaps he had an affair with another solicitor,’ I said to Amber as, outside the pub afterwards, we watched Sara climb into her rather smart BMW to drive the short distance home. Of course – couldn’t get those shoes muddy.
The Lonely Hearts Dog Walkers Page 4