The Lonely Hearts Dog Walkers

by Sheila Norton

  ‘I think she’s happy having me and Mia with her. But we won’t be there forever.’ I paused. ‘Try talking to her tonight, Si. Don’t tell her I’ve said all this, though, will you.’

  ‘Of course not. Thanks, Nic.’ He gave me a quick peck on the cheek. ‘I don’t feel particularly hopeful. But it’d be nice if she’d at least talk to me about it.’

  ‘I’ll try to send her in your direction, if I can,’ I promised him. ‘See you later.’

  The evening was a huge success. The number of people who crowded into the park far exceeded all our hopes. Everyone was in a great party mood: family groups, with young children wrapped up in their coats and gloves, holding the light sticks we were selling at the gates; groups of teenagers queuing for burgers even before the event started; adults enjoying an evening out, looking forward to the firework display. Sara was the MC this time, using the PA system to welcome everyone, to announce the lighting of the bonfire and the commencement of the fireworks.

  ‘Fabulous,’ Amber breathed as, eventually, the final burst of colour lit up the sky. ‘It’s been just fabulous, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’ I smiled at her. She’d worked hard all day, helping with the preparations, but now, watching the display, she was huddled close to Kelly, who had an arm slung around her shoulder. ‘Even better than I dared hope.’

  ‘And that guy from the council – Oliver – is here somewhere with his mates. I saw them come in. So let’s hope he reports back to his colleagues.’

  ‘Yes. It all helps, doesn’t it. If they trust us to run events like this, and if they see how successful we can be, they’ll be more inclined to believe we can raise the money we need.’

  Sara was on the PA system again, letting everyone know the fireworks had now finished but the catering stall was still open for another fifteen minutes, serving hot dogs and burgers, and asking everyone to please take any litter home with them. Just as she finished talking, I caught sight of Mum, with Louise and our two children.

  ‘Mum!’ I called her, worried that she was about to leave and I’d have missed my chance. ‘Could I ask you a favour? Take the kids over and get them a hot dog each? Louise and I are going to help with the clearing up.’

  ‘Thanks, Ros,’ Louise said at once. I’d already told her about my plan to get Mum talking to Simon.

  ‘No problem.’ Mum smiled. ‘Come on Mia, Eddie. I’ll take them back to Eagle House afterwards, girls. Louise, you can come and collect Eddie when you’ve finished. No rush.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum,’ I said – and watched her walk across the park to where Simon and one of the other volunteers were now serving the few remaining customers waiting for food. I couldn’t do any more. I just hoped it might be enough to get them talking again.

  ‘Not exactly subtle, were you,’ Mum remarked when, finally, we’d all returned back from the park, and Louise had collected Eddie and taken him home.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I’d poured myself a glass of wine and collapsed, exhausted, on the sofa while Mia had been sent upstairs to get ready for bed.

  ‘Oh, come off it, Nicky. Sending me over to the food stall, where a certain person just happened to be serving. He got the kids their hot dogs and then, surprise, surprise, immediately handed over to his mate and suggested we had a little chat while they were busy eating.’

  ‘So what? I thought you were still friends, at least. Nothing wrong with having a chat, is there?’

  ‘Except that, as you surely know, having a chat with someone who still hopes you might change your mind and want more, is really not fair. Raising their hopes. And a waste of both our time.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t help who was serving the food. The kids did want hot dogs.’ I paused. ‘So was it a waste of time, then?’

  ‘Of course it was.’ She’d turned away from me so that I couldn’t see her face. ‘And I don’t appreciate being manipulated like that.’

  ‘Oh, Mum, I am sorry. I didn’t mean to manipulate you. It just seems such a shame. There’s no harm in being friends, is there?’

  ‘We are still friends. I like seeing him occasionally. We go out for lunch from time to time. Now, shall we talk about something else? The fireworks were amazing, weren’t they?’

  I sighed. I’d done my best. If I pushed it, I would probably just make matters worse. I hoped Simon wasn’t too disappointed. Maybe Mum was right, it had been unfair to raise his hopes. What did I know, after all, about people’s relationships? I hadn’t exactly had much luck with my own.

  CHAPTER 39

  I’d never particularly liked November. The nicer aspects of autumn – the colours of the trees, the freshness and breeziness after the heat of summer, the crackling of leaves underfoot – were mostly past, but it didn’t yet feel properly like winter either. The weather was damp and dismal, with heavy grey clouds hanging in the sky and frequent bursts of drizzly, miserable rain sweeping into our valley.

  ‘What do you want to do about Christmas?’ Josh asked me when he returned Mia after her next weekend with him. He always came right up to the front door with her now, and always found something to talk to me about. It was a far cry from the earlier days when he just watched her until I opened the door, and then drove off without a word. I was glad he was less hostile now, of course, but in some ways I found it unsettling.

  ‘Christmas?’ I said. ‘Give over, it’s too early to think about it yet. It’s still at least six weeks off.’

  ‘Sorry.’ That was something new, too – Josh apologising. I stared at him, confused. ‘It’s just that I’d obviously like to see Mia at some point over the holiday,’ he went on. ‘If that’s OK with you, of course. But I realise she’ll want to be here with you and your mum most of the time. Just let me know what would work best for you.’

  I should have just said yes, of course, and that I’d think about it and let him know. He was being reasonable: I should have been glad. But perhaps it was just my own November mood, or perhaps I was simply irritated by the very idea of him being reasonable, after all the years I’d spent asking him to be and getting nowhere. I snapped.

  ‘So you’re actually planning on being at home at some point over the holiday, are you? Well, that’s a first. Since when did you care about Mia, or anyone else, at Christmas? It was as much as you could do last year to call me from work and ask me to save you some turkey.’

  He’d closed his eyes, looking down at his feet. I half expected him to turn and walk off. Mia, fortunately, had already run off to play with Smartie as usual.

  ‘OK. I deserved that,’ he said quietly. He looked back up at me and I blinked in surprise at the bleakness in his eyes. But it was too late for him to be sorry, to admit he’d been wrong, to start talking about the holiday, as if he’d even understood, in recent years, what the word meant.

  I swallowed. ‘Well, I’ll talk to Mia and let you know what she wants to do.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I am sorry, Nic.’

  ‘OK. Bye, then.’

  He turned to go, and I closed the door. He was sorry? Sorry, now? Now he knew how it felt to be left on his own, he was suddenly sorry for the way he’d treated me, neglected me and been so cold and uncaring towards me? Well, it was too late! He must realise that. Too late to start wanting to chat, to apologise and look at me with those sad eyes. It wasn’t going to help. It just made me feel confused, and I didn’t need it. I was happier now than I’d been for years, and I wasn’t going to let Josh mess with my head.

  But, of course, it wasn’t that easy. I was next to Simon for the dog walk the following evening, and after commiserating with him about the way Mum had brushed off his attempts to be friendly, I found myself telling him about Josh.

  ‘I don’t know how to react to him being like this – considerate, and even remorseful,’ I said, after I’d described the talk on the doorstep. ‘I can’t help thinking he’s just putting on an act.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, if he’s capable of bei
ng considerate and remorseful, why wasn’t he like it before? I mean, I get that he might have realised now how lonely it is, being on his own, so of course he wishes I hadn’t left him. What is it he misses, though? Obviously not me, or my company. He stopped caring about me too long ago. I suppose it’s just having someone to cook his meals and wash his clothes—’

  ‘I don’t think he’s that shallow really, Nic.’

  I stopped dead, staring at him. Smartie, who’d run ahead a little way but was still on his extendable lead, came to a jerking halt and turned round, barking at me to get moving again.

  ‘You don’t even know him.’

  Simon sighed, looking a bit shamefaced. ‘Actually, I do. I wasn’t going to tell you this – he asked me not to – but, well, it was a bit of a coincidence, that’s all. We were doing some landscaping at his company’s offices, back in the summer. He saw from the logo on the side of my van that we’re based in Furzewell, and one evening as he was leaving, we got chatting. He asked if I knew you.’

  ‘Oh my God. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this, Simon.’

  ‘I’ve wanted to, but … I didn’t think it would be helpful. He’s been confiding in me a bit, you see,’ he added, sounding uncomfortable now.

  ‘You’re still in touch with him?’ I asked, stunned. ‘I thought it was odd, that a couple of times when I talked about him you seemed to defend him. I presumed it was just male loyalty.’

  He laughed. ‘No, I don’t necessarily go in for that. It depends on the male. But in Josh’s case…’ He shrugged. ‘Well, anyway, what happened was, he wanted his garden – um, your old garden – re-turfed, and a small patio laid. So—’

  ‘Josh was having work done at home? Are we talking about the same Josh? He never even used to look at the garden. Or the house, really,’ I added half under my breath. ‘He was hardly ever there.’

  ‘I know. He told me. We talked a lot, while I was working in his garden.’

  ‘Hang on, hang on.’ I rubbed my temples. My head was throbbing. ‘You’re saying he was actually there, at home, while you were working?’

  ‘Yes. I fitted a lot of the work in over a weekend. He made me quite a few cups of tea,’ he added with a smile. ‘I … know you won’t want to hear me say this, Nic, but he seems like a really nice bloke. Of course, it’s one thing chatting to someone in their garden, and quite another thing being married to them, I realise that, but we’ve actually kept in touch. Just the odd text, from time to time, you know—’

  ‘Wait, I’m struggling with this, Simon.’ I felt like I needed to sit down. We were still standing in the middle of the park, the rest of the group now disappearing into the distance, Smartie and Max tangling themselves round our legs with their leads. ‘The weekend you were working on the garden – it must have been one of the weekends Josh had Mia, otherwise he’d have been at work. Mia didn’t mention—’

  ‘No, Mia wasn’t there. Apparently Josh doesn’t work any weekends now.’ He turned to me in sudden realisation. ‘Hasn’t he told you he’s changed his job?’

  ‘What?’ This time I actually did sit down – not so much in shock, although that was certainly part of it, but because Smartie had finally managed to trip me over. The ground was wet and muddy, and I could see Simon was struggling between concern and laughter as he helped me to my feet.

  ‘Your coat – and your jeans – they’re soaked with mud. We’d better turn back,’ he said.

  ‘No. We’d better go over to the quiet side of the park, let the dogs off to have a run, and find a bench to sit down and finish this conversation,’ I said firmly.

  ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you—’

  ‘Yes you should! I’m glad you did. But he should have told me himself.’

  I tailed off, thinking about all the times recently when Josh had tried to engage me in conversation, and how clear I’d made it that I didn’t want to chat. How cynical I’d been about his taking time off for holidays with Mia, and about his plan to see her over Christmas.

  ‘When did he change his job?’ I demanded, as soon as Simon and I had sat down. I was ignoring the cold damp seeping through the legs of my jeans. It was a small price to pay.

  ‘Early on in the summer. It was at his new company that I was doing the landscaping work when I met him. He’d just started there. He seemed relieved. He was telling me he’d got close to a breakdown while he was working at the other place. He’d been promised all sorts – a higher salary, a new car, shares in the company, a partnership one day in the future – to keep him working like a slave, all hours, taking hardly any holiday—’

  ‘No holiday. He seemed to love it, to thrive on it. He had no interest in being at home, at all.’

  ‘He told me he’d felt like a zombie,’ Simon said, with a sigh, ‘just going through the motions, getting up, going to work, working, working, working, coming home exhausted, falling asleep, getting up again – it had taken him over. He needed the money, he said. He couldn’t see any way out. You had a big mortgage on the house—’

  ‘Yes, we did,’ I admitted. ‘But we could manage. He only worked like that because he couldn’t face being with me.’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense, Nic. He was devastated when you left. He told me he misses you terribly. He still loves you.’

  ‘Huh,’ I retorted. But my voice was shaking, and I had to wipe away tears. ‘He’s never told me he still loves me. He never even said it while we were together. Not since … well, not for years.’

  Simon put his arm around my shoulders. It didn’t feel threatening, or creepy, anymore. It felt like – as he’d said – he was just being fatherly. I found myself wishing Simon actually was my father. He couldn’t have made any worse a job of it than my real one had.

  ‘You can go on telling yourself whatever you like, Nic. And I know how much he’s hurt you. But I think, deep down, you still love him too, don’t you.’

  ‘Huh,’ I said again. I was too confused to even speak, now.

  ‘Why don’t you just talk to him?’ Simon suggested gently. ‘It can’t do any harm – can it?’

  It can’t do any harm – can it? I repeated it to myself, over and over, during the rest of that week. It played on my mind while I was walking Smartie with the group, so that I lost track of conversations and forgot what I was saying mid-sentence. And it distracted me at home, cooking dinner, so that I overcooked the vegetables and let the meat burn. Even at work, I started calling children by the wrong names, making them laugh and call me Mrs Muddle. I knew I had to sort myself out. And Simon was right, there was only one way to do it. I’d have to talk to Josh, calmly and sensibly. Find out what the hell was going on. Changing his job? Having the garden landscaped? Taking all his weekends off? What else didn’t I know about? But I’d have to wait till the next time he collected Mia. It felt like ages away.

  In the meantime, though, something rather wonderful happened, to take my mind off my own concerns. Sara turned up one evening at the park gates with a smile on her face, so wide it looked as if her teeth were going to pop out.

  ‘We’ve won!’ she screamed at the rest of us who were there waiting for her. ‘We’ve done it, guys, we’ve actually done it!’ She waved a letter at us. ‘I’ve heard from the council: they’re not selling the park. We can keep it open, and from the first of January we can call it Furzewell Community Park.’

  ‘Oh my God!’

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘Fantastic!’

  We were all yelling at once, making the dogs bark with excitement.

  ‘Apparently they’ve been so impressed by our efforts, with the pet show and the bonfire party. And of course, the proposed deal with Craig’s company, together with Craig’s plans for the new features in the park, have clinched it,’ Sara added, nodding at Craig. ‘They’ve also finally conceded our point that another new housing development in the village would stretch the infrastructure too far. We’ve been invited to a meeting at the council offices next Friday – if any of you
can be free? – to go through it all, and get a proper legal contract drawn up. But basically, the land will still be owned by the council, but management and maintenance of the park will now be the responsibility of the Friends of Furzewell Community Park, and will remain so as long as they’re satisfied it’s being used and maintained for the community.’

  ‘We need to let everyone know,’ I said. ‘All the people in Furzewell who’ve signed up to be Friends of the Park.’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Sara nodded. ‘I’ll draft out a letter tonight. It’ll go by email wherever possible, of course.’

  ‘And I think we should let the local media know about it, too,’ Amber pointed out. ‘Let’s shout it out – not just locally, but countywide! Nationwide! We should tell people everywhere that it is possible to fight things like this, if a community is determined enough.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Sara agreed. ‘Although probably we ought to just wait till the paperwork’s signed next week. But isn’t it great news? Well done, everyone. It’s all been worthwhile.’

  ‘Even the dogs are excited!’ I laughed, as we set off for our walk. ‘Perhaps they understand. Their favourite walking place has been saved.’

  We went to the pub as soon as we’d finished the walk. Nobody could have disagreed that we had cause to celebrate that evening. We were so noisy and animated as we raised our glasses and congratulated each other that the barmaid and other drinkers in the pub were asking us what had happened, and were soon queuing up to shake our hands and buy us drinks.

  ‘Never mind waiting for the contracts to be signed,’ Amber whispered to me. ‘It’ll be all over Furzewell by tomorrow.’

  And, of course, as in any good small, gossipy village, in Devon or anywhere else – it was.

  CHAPTER 40

  By the time Josh’s next weekend with Mia came around, I still hadn’t worked out how to initiate the conversation I needed to have with him. In the end, I decided to wait until he brought her home on the Sunday evening. I then spent the whole weekend feeling ridiculously nervous, so that as soon as he rang the doorbell and Mia kissed me and skipped straight indoors to find Smartie, I gabbled, in a half-whisper in case Mum was listening: