I took a deep breath. I hadn’t told anyone else, here in the village, this much about my break-up with Josh before. It had felt painful to say it all out loud, but Simon was so easy to talk to.
‘So it’s doubly galling that he’s now doing more for Mia than he did when you were together,’ Simon said, giving me his sympathetic look.
‘Exactly. He took her to Torquay over Easter, and he’s talking about taking her abroad somewhere in the summer holidays. Abroad! We never went abroad, not in the whole time we were married.’ I stopped, looking at Simon apologetically. ‘Sorry. You don’t need to hear all this.’
‘It helps to talk to someone, Nic. That’s what friends are for.’
I nodded gratefully, strangely touched that he thought of us as friends. Because he’d already confided in me about his wife and how long it had been since she’d died, I felt able to ask him whether he thought he’d ever settle down with anyone else. He seemed to consider for a while before answering.
‘I don’t know. I have dated a couple of women during the last few years. It felt strange at first, but there was one I became quite close to. I did start to wonder if it might become more serious. But it turned out she wasn’t the settling-down type.’ He laughed. ‘Either that, or I just wasn’t the right one for her.’
I found myself wondering what on earth that woman could have been looking for that she didn’t find in Simon. He seemed to be that perfect combination of rugged and strong, but kind and gentle.
‘Her loss. She must have been daft,’ I said lightly, touching his arm.
He laughed again, shaking his head. ‘So must your ex, if you ask me.’
Simon really did have a habit of always making me feel better about myself and cheering me up.
It stayed sunny and really quite warm for the rest of that weekend. People were outside in T-shirts, smiling at each other and commenting that the weather surely couldn’t last. But I was just glad it lasted for Sunday. Mia had been so excited about her new friend Eddie coming to play. We invited Gran to join us for the day, and when the fabled Eddie turned up, I chatted to his mum, Louise, for a few minutes and discovered that she was a single parent herself, having brought up Eddie on her own since he was a baby. I suggested she might like to stay for the afternoon and join us for the barbecue we’d planned later, and she accepted gratefully.
‘I haven’t had a chance to make friends in the village yet,’ she admitted. ‘This is so nice of you.’
‘It’s nothing, I know how it feels. I’m just grateful that Mia’s made a friend,’ I said, and went on to explain that Mia was new to the school too.
‘Yes: Eddie told me that. It’s hard for them, isn’t it, starting somewhere new. Especially if they’re a bit quiet and shy. Eddie says Mia’s only just turned six? She’s quite a bit younger than him, then. He was seven in January.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Eddie wasn’t much taller than Mia, but he was obviously in the school year above her. ‘These mixed-age group classes are a bit hard to get used to, aren’t they. But there’s no alternative really in such a small school.’
We chatted together over a cup of tea while the two children ran around the garden playing with Smartie. It was the most relaxed I’d seen Mia with anyone from her new school. She and Eddie seemed comfortable in each other’s company, but neither of them were getting silly and overexcited. I wondered if Eddie, being more than a year older than her, was a calming influence on Mia.
‘He cried on his first day at the school,’ Louise admitted. ‘He told me afterwards that the other boys laughed at him.’
‘Poor Eddie,’ I said. ‘Mia’s been quite unhappy too. She’s taking longer to settle than I hoped.’
‘Oh, but apparently when Eddie got upset, Mia told him not to worry, that she’d be his friend and look after him.’ Louise smiled. ‘I thought that was so sweet. I think he’s in love with her now.’
I looked at her in surprise. ‘Mia hasn’t told me any of this,’ I said. ‘But honestly, I’m so glad they’ve become friends. Perhaps that was what they both needed – another newcomer so that they didn’t feel so alone.’
‘What I needed too, actually,’ she said shyly, giving me another smile. ‘This is so nice, Nic. Thanks again for inviting me.’
Mum and Gran came out into the garden then, announcing that it was time to try out the new games, and the rest of the afternoon was spent happily competing against each other in crazy golf, hoopla, bat-and-ball and kicking the football into the net (or in my case, around it – I was hopeless). By the time we’d had the barbecue, it was early evening and cooling down. When Louise and Eddie left, she suggested a return visit another weekend.
‘We’ve just got one of the little houses on the new estate, though,’ she said. ‘Tiny garden. Nothing grand like this.’
‘Oh, we’re not grand at all,’ I laughed. ‘The difference is, at least you’ve got a place of your own.’
‘Yes. It took a long while, though. But you’re right: it’s all mine, and it feels good.’
‘I really like Eddie. He’s nice to me,’ Mia said after they’d gone. ‘He doesn’t think I’m a baby.’
‘You mean because you’re younger than him?’ I said.
‘No. Because I cry sometimes at school,’ she said, very quietly. ‘And some of the other children laugh and call me a baby.’
This was a first. She was actually talking to me about it. I pulled her onto my lap and gave her a hug.
‘I bet that feels horrible,’ I sympathised. ‘But Eddie doesn’t laugh?’
‘No, because he cried too, on his first day. So that’s why we’re friends.’
‘He seems like a really nice boy. I’m glad you’re friends. And you will soon make others.’
‘I don’t care now. Eddie’s my best friend ever. When can we go to his house?’
‘Soon,’ I promised her. Satisfied, she jumped off my lap and ran to play with Smartie again. I felt a lightness in my heart that hadn’t been there before, a feeling that everything might work out OK after all. And just to round off the day, a little later I went to get something from my car – my insurance documents, which I kept in the glovebox, and which I wanted to check as the policy was soon due for renewal – and found something in there that we’d all given up for lost.
‘Pink Bunny!’ Mia squealed in surprise as I held it out to her.
‘Where on earth did you find that?’ Mum asked.
‘In the glovebox. I’m sure I didn’t put it there,’ I said, shaking my head, puzzled.
‘Surely we checked in there when it went missing?’
‘Well, no, I don’t think I did, because I so rarely even open it.’ I thought back to Mia’s birthday. ‘Gran,’ I said, turning to her. ‘You were in the front seat, weren’t you? You wouldn’t have put—’
‘Mia’s bunny – in the glovebox,’ she interrupted me. ‘Oh dear. Yes, maybe I thought it would be safe there, and then … well, I must have completely forgotten about doing it. I’m so sorry.’
‘It doesn’t matter, Gran. At least we’ve found it.’
‘Well, yes, I’m glad about that but poor Mia was ever so upset. What a daft old thing I am,’ she added, with a self-deprecating laugh. ‘I’ll be forgetting my own head next.’
‘Your own head?’ Mia squawked, staring at Gran in surprise. ‘But it’s stuck onto your body, Granny Helen!’
We all laughed, and the incident was smoothed over happily. Mia cuddled Pink Bunny for a while, and took him up to bed with her that night, but the ironic thing was that over the course of the next few days, it became obvious that she didn’t care so much about him anymore. Now Furzewell was beginning to feel like home, she didn’t need the comfort quite so much. What a relief.
CHAPTER 13
I don’t know if it was the sunny weather, the feeling of summer just around the corner, or the fact that Mia was beginning to look happier, but during those first weeks of May I felt much more content myself. Fruit trees in the orchard next to
the park were full of pink and white blossom. All along the lanes, hawthorn and blackthorn scented the air, and the hedgerows were sprinkled with the pinks and reds of ragged robin and red valerian, the creams and greens of wild garlic and cow parsley. Daisies and buttercups spread across the meadows by the stream; and Cuckoo Copse, where I sometimes walked Smartie, became carpeted, almost overnight, with the delicate blues and whites of bluebells. Smartie would scamper ahead of me, sniffing in delight at all the new, unfamiliar scents, and looking back at me from time to time, his eyes bright with excitement, his tail wagging with pleasure.
At school, I was getting to know the teachers better, and enjoying the banter of the staffroom again as I had in my previous job. I was pleased and relieved when Mr Gregory took me to one side and confirmed that Mia had definitely ‘turned a corner’.
‘She’s much more settled,’ he said. ‘It’ll take time for her to catch up again, but at least she’s happy now. We want her to be enjoying school and the progress will come.’
‘Yes.’ I nodded. ‘I’ve noticed it at home, too. She brought me a book yesterday – one she’d had as a birthday present – and said she wanted to read it. It was a bit too difficult for her but she sat with me and we read it together. She was really trying hard. She says she wants to move on from the easy books she’s been bringing home from school.’
‘And she will do, very soon, but I don’t want to rush her and make her lose heart again.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, glad Mia had such an understanding teacher. ‘I think it’s made all the difference that she’s got a new friend in the class now.’
‘Yes.’ He smiled, but went on to warn me: ‘Eddie will be in a different class, though, from September – he’ll be in Year 3, and that’s mixed with the year above.’
‘Of course.’ I nodded. I knew that was going to happen but I didn’t want to give too much thought to it yet, especially with Mia only just starting to feel comfortable.
In my reception class, the four- and five-year-olds were used to me now, and I’d got to know which among them needed gentle coaxing, who might respond well to lots of praise and encouragement, and who required firmer handling. I’d always loved my job, but at this little school – with all its memories of my own childhood – I felt as if I’d really found myself at last. Mrs French, the reception teacher, had told me several times how pleased she was with me, and I was beginning to envisage my role being a long-term career choice, rather than just a convenient job while Mia was so young. My self-esteem might have taken a big knock in my personal life, but here at work I was feeling more confident and happier day by day.
After school, Louise and I often chatted together as we waited for Mia and Eddie outside their classroom, and it was gratifying to see the two children come out together, talking happily and pleading to be allowed to play at each other’s houses. On the Friday of that first week after our bank holiday together, we took them both to Smiths for an after-school cake as a treat, while we talked over a cup of tea, and we agreed it was something we could repeat whenever possible. I was enjoying Louise’s company. She understood my anxieties about being a single parent in a way that Amber probably couldn’t, and hearing how Louise had coped with the difficulties of bringing up Eddie herself made me feel a little less afraid about the future.
But it was the times I spent with my fellow dog walkers when I felt the most relaxed. Despite our different situations and characteristics, we did seem to have a lot in common – we were all dog lovers, after all – and there was always plenty to talk about as we walked. On one occasion, when Amber happened not to have joined us for the walk, Sara was giving us an update on the interviews that had been carried out by the reporter from the South Devon Recorder.
‘Apparently he’s got enough for his story now,’ she said. ‘It’ll be going in this week’s paper.’
‘Great.’ I nodded. ‘Well, let’s hope it does some good. Somebody must know what’s happened to all these cats. They can’t all have just vanished into thin air.’
‘Hm.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Trouble is, Nic, somebody might know perfectly well what’s happened to them but have good reason for keeping quiet.’
‘You really think someone’s taken the cats?’ Simon said, frowning.
‘Taken them, or done something to them, yes. I think it’s a very strong possibility, don’t you?’ she retorted.
We all walked on in silence. We were probably all thinking the same, but didn’t want to say it. It was too horrible to contemplate.
‘Let’s be honest,’ she resumed after a few minutes, ‘we all know people who don’t like cats, who complain about other people’s cats digging up their gardens and frightening away the birds.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and they’re entitled to their opinion.’ I shrugged. ‘Personally, I don’t like mice. Or spiders. But I wouldn’t hurt them. I just try to keep out of their way.’
‘And what happens if you find a mouse in your kitchen? Or a spider in your bath?’ Craig teased.
I laughed. ‘Well, of course, I do a lot of squealing and hopping around!’
‘And scream for a man to take it outside?’ he said, grinning.
‘No. I do it myself,’ I protested.
‘Squealing and hopping all the way?’ Craig persisted.
‘Nothing wrong with a bit of squealing and hopping, is there, Nic,’ Simon said. Everyone had been laughing at Craig’s teasing – including me. We always enjoyed the way he joked with us, and I had to admit it was one of the things I found … quite attractive about him. It cheered me up and distracted me from my own worries. ‘I do some of that myself,’ Simon went on, ‘if I put my hand on a slug when I’m working. Yuck!’
‘But you’re a gardener,’ I laughed. ‘You must have to deal with slugs and snails and worms all the time.’
‘Yes, and I’m fine with snails and worms. And caterpillars, and pretty much anything else I might come across. It’s just slugs – I can’t bear them. Slimy, squishy things, ugh! I know they’re all God’s creatures, but even so…’
‘They’re revolting,’ Craig agreed. ‘I bet Nic would squeal and hop about if she had to touch one of them.’
I laughed again, but Sara interrupted, sounding a bit tetchy now that we’d all changed the subject from what she’d wanted to discuss:
‘Well, maybe that’s how some people feel about cats.’
I’d got used to this. If Craig started chatting to me or Amber – teasing us, in that friendly, flirtatious way of his – she made it fairly plain that she didn’t like it. It was becoming more and more obvious to me that she liked him and didn’t want to have to share his attention. I wished she’d just get on with it and ask him out or something. I was sure he’d be up for it. Although he often showed off a bit about the women he’d supposedly been seeing, none of us had ever actually met any of them. Amber reckoned he must live his life as a series of one-night stands, whereas my personal theory was that he might be inventing them all. Although, to be fair, it was hard to believe he wouldn’t be successful with women.
‘People don’t squeal and hop around when they see a cat, Sara,’ Simon pointed out reasonably, ‘however much they might dislike them.’
‘No. They just kidnap them, or put poison down for them.’
‘Ouch!’ I pulled a face. ‘Don’t say that.’
‘Why not? It’s what we’re all thinking, isn’t it? We should face facts. We’re not going to find these cats alive. The whole point of the newspaper article, the posters and everything, is to try to find the culprit.’
None of us responded this time. We walked on, calling to the dogs, who’d been running madly in circles around each other on the grass of the park, and the subject was dropped.
The culprit, I thought to myself. Was that really what we were looking for? Was Sara right – was there actually a crazed cat-hater in the village, kidnapping or exterminating them all? It was a truly horrible thought.
Within a few days, Sara had
more news for us, not particularly good news either.
‘I spoke to Robert last night.’ Her newspaper editor friend. ‘He can’t run our story on the front page after all.’
‘Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter if it’s inside, does it?’ Simon said. ‘If it’s a full page, as you said, with pictures of the cats and a big catchy headline…’
Sara shook her head. ‘Front page is what we need. People look at the headline when they’re browsing in the paper shop or the supermarket, even if they’re not intending to buy the paper. It won’t have half as much impact if it’s inside.’
‘So why can’t he do that now? I thought he’d promised you,’ I said. Maybe her relationship with Robert wasn’t as close as she liked to think.
‘He will, but it’s got to wait another week. He’s got a bigger story this week. He wouldn’t tell me what it was but he said it affects Furzewell in particular, so he wants it to headline for our local edition.’
‘Well, I guess another week won’t hurt, will it.’ Simon said. ‘Some of the cats have been missing for months now, anyway. I wonder what the big story is. Affecting Furzewell? I didn’t think there was ever anything exciting going on in the village.’
‘Maybe someone’s tractor got vandalised,’ Craig joked.
‘Someone heard the first cuckoo,’ I suggested.
‘Or there was a riot at the pub because they ran out of cider.’
The Lonely Hearts Dog Walkers Page 10