The Lonely Hearts Dog Walkers

by Sheila Norton

  ‘Well, not the dog-walking group, no,’ he said, equally quickly. ‘I think it’d be a mistake for them to know we’re seeing each other. It could make the others feel awkward. But surely your mum doesn’t gossip?’

  ‘You don’t know her! Working in the shop is fatal. If I said anything about it to her, she’d have told half of Furzewell by lunchtime the next day.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ He smiled again as I reached over to grab my seatbelt, inadvertently showing off most of my thighs as my skirt rode up, and probably too much of my cleavage as I leant over. Louise had lent me her short denim skirt, as I didn’t think I’d get away with wearing the red dress yet again, and I’d teemed it with a new stripy top I’d bought online.

  ‘Can I help with that?’ he asked, as he took the seatbelt out of my hand, let it go, and instead put one hand on my leg, the other around the back of my head and began to kiss me. It was several minutes before he took a deep breath and suggested, ‘Shall we just forget the meal and go straight back to my place?’

  ‘Oh, well,’ I said, flustered – wanting to say yes, but feeling like I should say no – ‘I’m actually quite hungry…’

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said, starting the car and giving me a smile. ‘Let’s eat first then!’

  In fact, after the meal, we did go back to his place. It was a ground-floor apartment in a converted old mansion on the outskirts of the village and inside it was a typical bachelor pad, with modern, minimalist furniture, straight edges, black-and-white décor and a few stylish framed prints on the plain walls. Feeling awkward, I sat on the edge of the black leather sofa, absent-mindedly stroking Judy, who’d rushed to greet us when we walked in. While Craig made coffee in the little white kitchen, I stared at the bedroom, which was directly opposite the lounge. From where I was sitting I was looking straight at his king-size bed, which was draped with black linen and looked … tousled … as if he’d just got out of it.

  I shivered at the thought. Was I ready for this? Another man – already – after spending so many years with just the one, my only one? I’d thought it would help to make me feel better, restore my self-esteem a little, but now it had come to it, I wasn’t so sure.

  ‘Actually, Craig,’ I called out, getting to my feet, feeling shaky with indecision, ‘I think I’d better go.’

  ‘Already?’ He appeared in the kitchen doorway, a coffeepot in his hand, disappointment evident in his voice. ‘No coffee? No … anything else?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I was regretting it, even as I was saying it. But it was no good, was it, if I wasn’t sure. ‘I’m not being fair to you. Maybe we shouldn’t keep seeing each other.’

  He put down the coffeepot and, wiping his hands on his trousers, came over and enfolded me in his arms.

  ‘Don’t be silly. Of course I was hoping you’d stay. But only when you’re ready.’ He kissed me, slowly and tenderly. I felt myself melting, wondering if even now I could change my mind. But then he let me go, holding me at arm’s length and looking into my eyes. ‘Maybe another time, Nic?’

  ‘If you still want another time.’ I smiled. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to, Craig. I do, but—’

  ‘I understand. You don’t have to explain.’

  All the way home, all the time we were saying goodnight in the car, I cursed myself for my stupid indecision. Craig had turned out to be so different from what I’d expected. His reputation, and even the way he behaved in the group, cast him as some kind of Jack-the-lad, but in fact he seemed to be a genuinely decent guy, giving every appearance of actually caring about me, rather than just wanting a quick one-night-stand and moving on, as Amber had implied.

  ‘Ooh!’ Louise gasped when I whispered to her the next day, when she came to collect Eddie, that I’d gone back to Craig’s place for coffee. ‘Come on, tell me all.’

  I gave a weak little smile as I led her into the kitchen, away from the children. ‘Nothing to tell, unfortunately. I bottled it.’

  ‘Didn’t like the coffee?’ she quipped.

  ‘Didn’t even have it. I just wasn’t sure if I was ready. And he was lovely about it. I don’t think he deserves his reputation, you know.’

  ‘Sounds like you regret not staying now.’

  I sighed. ‘Yes, I do. But if I’d stayed, would I have had regretted that instead?’

  ‘Well, only you can answer that, love,’ she laughed.

  ‘I know. I feel so mixed up. I did want to stay. But I still feel bad, about Josh. About still being married.’

  ‘Hurry up and get divorced, then,’ she said with a chuckle. ‘Look, you’re separated. You’ve told him it’s definitely over. You don’t wear your ring. You don’t even see him anymore, apart from for handovers. You’ve said often enough that you want to get on with your life.’

  ‘Yes. But I’m not sure Josh would feel the same about it.’

  She looked at me, her head on one side.

  ‘You still care what he thinks?’

  ‘No! Well … not really … only about this. I mean, if I found out he was seeing someone else, I don’t quite know how I’d feel about it, if I’m honest. I realise it’s inevitable, but I’d just prefer not to know about it.’

  She gave me a careful look. ‘Are you sure you don’t still have feelings for him?’ she asked quietly.

  I shrugged. ‘A mixture of feelings, I suppose. After so long together, it’s not like you can just switch off completely, is it? I’m disappointed in him, and I feel annoyed with him a lot of the time. But he’s still … was still … the only man I’ve ever loved. I guess it’s going to take longer than this, to move on. I thought dating Craig would help with the process. Now I’m not so sure.’

  Louise gave me a hug. ‘I understand what you’re going through, and you’re right, it does take time. But sooner or later you will both move on, and if that involves either of you having new relationships, well yes, it’ll feel weird at first, but you will get used to it.’

  ‘Thanks, Lou.’ I hugged her back. ‘I’m glad I can talk to you.’

  She smiled. ‘And meanwhile, why not just keep dating Craig and see how it goes.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right.’ I smiled back at her. ‘And I’ll have to try not think about Josh, if things do move on. I’m sure he won’t be thinking about me.’

  But in fact, he was still, annoyingly, occupying my thoughts more than I wanted. For a start, I still couldn’t get over the fact that he’d turned up at the school talent show. That following weekend, he was picking Mia up to take her to Lanzarote for ten days, and I was determined to talk to him about it then.

  His parents were going on the holiday too, and although I couldn’t help feeling horribly excluded by this little family jaunt, I was comforted by the thought that they’d be there for Mia’s first trip abroad. It would be nice for Mia to spend time with her paternal grandparents. I’d always got on well with Sue and Steve, back when we all lived here in Furzewell, before Josh and I married and moved to Plymouth. But since they’d moved away too, to a village in Hampshire, we hadn’t seen them so often.

  ‘Nana Sue and Grandpa are having one room, and Daddy and me are having another one,’ Mia told me happily as I helped her pack her little panda case on wheels. ‘And there’s a swimming pool, and Daddy’s going to teach me to do a sitting-down dive.’

  I bit back all the warnings buzzing like wasps in my head: ‘Be careful’, ‘Don’t go near the pool without Daddy’, ‘Make sure you put sun cream on’. I had to trust him now or I couldn’t let her go. It was hard though.

  ‘I can’t wait to go on the plane,’ she added, giving herself a little hug of excitement. Then she suddenly stopped and looked at me, her smile fading. ‘I wish you could come too, Mummy. Will you be lonely?’

  I put my arms round her, breathing in the scent of her strawberry shampoo.

  ‘No, sweetheart. I’ll miss you, but I’ve got lots to do, helping to get ready for the pet show. And when you get back, we’ll be going to Cornwall with Louise and
Eddie.’

  ‘Oh yes. Wow!’ She jumped up and did a little dance on the spot. ‘I’m going on two holidays, aren’t I?’

  ‘Yes, you are.’ I smiled at her. I could have added that it made up for the times I’d just taken her to Torquay or Teignmouth for a week on our own because Daddy couldn’t be bothered to come anywhere with us. But I wasn’t going to burst her bubble. She was happy, that was all that mattered.

  I kept the smile fixed to my face when Josh arrived to pick her up for the drive to Exeter airport, where they’d be meeting his parents.

  ‘Come in for a moment – if you’ve got time?’ I suggested. ‘Mia’s just getting her shoes on.’

  ‘OK,’ he said, sounding surprised. ‘Yes, I’ve allowed loads of time.’ He came in and stood in the hallway, looking a little awkward. I hadn’t asked him in before. In fact, it struck me that it must be the first time he’d set foot inside Eagle House for years.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ he went on. ‘You’ve got Mia’s passport for me? She’s not upset about being away from you, is she? She’ll be fine, Nic: I’ll take good care of her.’

  ‘I know you will. And I … well, I just wanted to say, it was good of you to turn up for the school talent show the other week. A bit of a surprise,’ I couldn’t help adding.

  ‘Oh. Well, Mia had told me all about it, about the song she was going to sing with her friend, and … I decided I’d like to be there. I know I’ve never been to anything before,’ he added quietly, meeting my eyes now, ‘but I wish I had. It was amazing.’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ I said, fighting feelings of irritation again. It wasn’t as if there had ever been anything stopping him from coming before. But I was determined not to turn this into an argument. We’d never be able to move on, either of us, if I kept looking back to how things used to be. ‘Mia was so chuffed that you came,’ I said, keeping my voice steady. ‘And you didn’t need to have rushed off afterwards. She’d have loved it if you’d joined us for ice creams.’

  ‘To be honest, Nic, I didn’t want to intrude – it was your time with her. Your school, your input in her life that’s helped her to do so well here. I can’t take that away from you.’ He hesitated, and then went on in a rush: ‘Nothing I do with Mia – the holidays, the outings, the presents – can ever come close to the fact that you’ve made her what she is: the child with the confidence to stand up on that stage and sing like that.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, blinking at him, completely taken aback. ‘Well, it hasn’t been easy—’

  ‘I know. It wasn’t ever easy for you, was it, even when we were together. You’ve pretty much brought her up on your own.’

  We stared at each other in silence for a moment. I couldn’t respond, I was too stunned. Josh had never before admitted his lack of input into Mia’s upbringing, even though he could hardly have denied it. Then Mia suddenly burst out of the kitchen where she’d been saying goodbye to Mum and Smartie.

  ‘Are we going now, Daddy?’ she said excitedly, adding as she threw herself at me for a hug: ‘Bye, Mummy. Don’t be sad.’

  ‘I won’t,’ I reassured her, forcing a smile. ‘Have a brilliant time, sweetheart.’ But I felt terribly unsettled after they’d gone. And it was only partly because of saying goodbye to Mia.

  For the first few days she was away, I felt so bereft, I threw myself into the pet-show preparations with a vengeance, to take my mind off her empty bedroom and the unnatural silence in the house. Simon had organised another gardening weekend in the park to keep it tidy, and Louise, who’d taken this week off work to be at home with Eddie, had spent some time organising a working party to clean the toilet block. We’d had the water turned back on, but the building had been padlocked up for so long, there were cobwebs draped across the insides and outsides of the windows, some of the locks on the cubicle doors were broken and we had to call a plumber to fix a dripping tap.

  ‘I feel like locking them up again, now they’re clean,’ Amber said, when we finally stood back, with our group of helpers, and surveyed the sparkling windows, clean floors and fully working toilets, bleached to shining perfection and supplied with a fresh supply of loo rolls.

  ‘Sara suggested putting up one of those signs that asks people to leave the facilities the way they’d like to find them,’ I said. We exchanged a smile, both of us aware that although Sara was certainly putting in more work than anyone else on this project she was never likely to turn up on toilet-cleaning day. ‘It shouldn’t be necessary, but—’

  ‘But some people are dirty and lazy, unfortunately,’ Amber said with a shrug. ‘Well, let’s hope they’ll be more considerate now that it’s all being funded by the community. By ourselves.’

  The plumber, a local guy who’d joined the Friends himself, had waived his bill, and Simon had got the new plants and shrubs for the flowerbeds at trade price, but the incidental costs were adding up. Apart from what we’d spent that weekend on cleaning materials, loo rolls, bins, soap dispensers, mirrors, hand dryers to replace the ancient rusty ones that had made enough noise to wake the dead and didn’t even dry properly, and new bolts for the doors, there had already been the expense of advertising the pet show, buying prizes for the winners and printing the programmes.

  ‘We’ve got money coming back from the businesses that’ve advertised in the programmes, though,’ Amber pointed out, as we started to walk to the pub together. ‘And none of the pet-show judges want a fee. Craig’s used his charms to get the boarding kennels woman on-side and we’ve now got both vets.’

  ‘That’s true. Well done for sorting that out,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, it’s thanks to Kelly, really.’

  ‘Kelly?’ I queried.

  ‘The nurse at the vet’s – I told you, didn’t I? She was the one who suggested Mr Brent and persuaded him and the other vet, Andrew Gordon.’

  I giggled. ‘Which of them is she sleeping with?’

  Amber stopped dead in the street and rounded on me, her face flushed with annoyance. ‘Oh, sure, bring it down to your level, Nic. She’s not sleeping with either of them. They’re just decent guys who want to help out.’

  ‘It was a joke,’ I said, staring at her. ‘Keep your knickers on!’

  ‘Maybe I should be saying that to you.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  She shrugged. ‘You know perfectly well what I mean. I’ve noticed what’s been going on with you and Craig, how you shamelessly flirt with him. You might as well just stand up in the pub and announce that you’re having sex with him.’

  ‘I’m not, actually. But so what if I was?’ I shot back, cross and upset now. ‘It’s nothing to do with you, or anyone else.’

  ‘Isn’t it? Not even Sara?’

  ‘No. Why should it be anything to do with Sara?’ I said. ‘Just because he flirts with her too? That’s just the way he is. You told me yourself that they weren’t seeing each other.’

  ‘I said not as far as I knew. But maybe you should ask her. Look, I don’t want either of you to get hurt, Nic – you and Sara are both my friends, and although I do like Craig, I know exactly what he’s like. And I’m sorry, but you’re really vulnerable at the moment, so soon after separating from Josh. I’ve tried to warn you—’

  ‘Well, maybe you should just keep your nose out of it,’ I retorted. ‘Forget about that drink, Amber. I’m going home.’

  ‘Suit yourself!’

  We both turned and walked in opposite directions. All the way home, I was feeling furious with Amber, furious that Craig and I had – apparently – not been anywhere near as discreet as we’d thought, and furious most of all with myself for reacting so childishly. It wasn’t until I’d made myself a cup of tea and calmed down a bit that I started, seriously, to wonder what she’d meant about Sara.

  CHAPTER 26

  Missing Mia was like a continual ache, somewhere deep inside my chest. However hard I tried to think about other things, it nagged away at me constantly. I imagined all the worst things possi
ble: her tripping and falling into the pool, hitting her head; or paddling in the sea, being knocked over by a wave; or going out too far with her over-confident beginner’s version of doggy paddle and getting swept away by the tide. Or lying in a strange bed, in an unfamiliar hotel room, missing me, and being upset.

  When my phone warbled suddenly one day, snapping me out of imagining one of these scenarios playing out, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Josh said the display as I swiped to answer the call. I almost dropped it in fright.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I said, without even a hello. My chest tightened with fear as all those horrible possibilities I’d been imagining flashed through my brain again.

  ‘Eh? Nothing,’ he said. ‘Everything’s fine. Oh I’m really sorry, we did say we wouldn’t call unless it was an emergency. But I just thought you might like to have a chat with Mia.’

  ‘Oh. Is she upset? Has she been missing me? Perhaps you could bring her back early if she’s really unhappy—’

  ‘Nic, calm down, she’s fine. She’s having a brilliant time.’ He paused. ‘It’s you we were thinking of.’

  We? I smiled now, picturing Sue and Steve nagging Josh to call me, reminding him that I’d be missing Mia and worrying about her.

  ‘That was nice of them,’ I said, thinking aloud.

  ‘Them?’ He paused again. ‘It was Mia’s idea, actually. She thinks you might be lonely.’

  ‘Ah, bless her. Put her on, then.’

  And seconds later, I was listening to my baby girl’s voice bubbling over with happiness as she described the beach, the sea, the ice creams she’d been having, the pool where, as promised, Daddy had taught her to do a sitting dive and bought her a lilo in the shape of a flamingo.

  I listened, and smiled, and pictured her little face, flushed with excitement.

  ‘And are you remembering your sun cream?’ I said when she paused for breath. ‘And your hat?’