by Matt Dunn
Firstly, people always say you can tell a lot about someone by the way they treat animals, and Tom’s made a profession out of it. If that’s not a glowing recommendation, I don’t know what is. Whereas Luke doesn’t even seem to like me, even though everyone else likes me. Except Miss Harris.
Secondly, Tom has a Good Job, as Julie’s dad would describe it. Being a V-E-T takes years of training, and you have to be clever. This means Tom also has money, probably, and a lot of it (I know this because whenever Julie takes me to the V-E-T, she always complains that it costs her a fortune. If they were together, it wouldn’t). Whereas on the odd occasion Luke’s been at our house and Julie’s ordered takeout, he always seems to have forgotten his wallet.
Thirdly, Tom is slightly younger than Julie. Human females tend to live longer than human males. So if Tom and Julie get together, with any luck, they’ll die at roughly the same time, which is a good thing, because neither of them would be lonely (and of course because Julie won’t have to get a cat).
Fourthly, and despite his job, I like Tom. Julie’s dad seemed to like Tom. Whereas I’ve only ever met one person who seems to like Luke, and that’s Julie. Though I still can’t figure out why.
Fifthly, at least, up until the “affair” affair, Tom seemed to like Julie. Really like Julie. Maybe not as much as I do, but still. Luke, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to like her very much at all—if he did, he surely wouldn’t treat her as badly as he does. And I may be mistaken, but Julie seemed to like Tom too.
Finally, but perhaps most important, Tom is single and available. And after what he pointed out today, I’m even more sure Luke’s only pretending to be.
8
The following week’s pretty uneventful in terms of Luke Incidents (zero, apparently because he’s away on a work thing, according to what Julie tells Priya on Friday night). There are also no Tom Encounters, though that’s perhaps not surprising given how the last one ended. Twice I spot Santa parading through our garden as if she owns the place, and the second time, as she’s in clear breach of the deal Julie negotiated with Miss Harris the other day, I decide I’m well within my rights to bark frantically at her from my vantage point on the windowsill.
By Sunday lunchtime, and after a late start thanks to Julie “self-medicating” the previous evening with a couple of bottles of Chardonnay and a film about someone called Bridget Jones (which was supposed to be a comedy, but for some reason had Julie in tears on more than one occasion), we’re standing outside a shop called Boots on the High Street. I’m doing my best not to get run over by strollers that to me seem the size of trucks, or assaulted by sticky-fingered, snotty-nosed toddlers when a familiar but unwelcome scent makes my nostrils flare.
It takes me just a moment to locate the source of the scent, and it’s coming from a little further along the High Street. Sure enough, when I narrow my eyes and peer through the legs of the other shoppers, I spy Luke making his way toward us along the pavement. What’s worse is, he’s not alone. There’s a woman with him—about Julie’s height, and with the biggest stomach I’ve ever seen, carrying a couple of bags with JoJo Maman Bébé printed on them—so I glance anxiously up at Julie, because you don’t need to be a bloodhound to work out that the woman with Luke is probably Luke’s wife.
Going on what she told Tom the other day, Julie’s never met Luke’s wife, and from what she’s said to Priya previously, she’s never wanted to. While I can understand why, it suddenly occurs to me that this might be the perfect opportunity to drive a big enough wedge between Julie and Luke to enable Tom to squeeze in through the gap. All I have to do is steer Julie toward them.
Luke’s glued to his phone, and evidently he hasn’t seen us, so I start tugging Julie away from the window.
“Doug!” she says, giving my leash a light yank.
I try again, this time adding an insistent whine for effect, though it doesn’t seem to make any difference.
“What’s the matter?” she says, though I can tell by the way her brow is furrowed, she’s not far from adding “with you” to the end of that sentence.
Anxiously, I peer along the pavement. I’ve lost sight of Luke and his wife among the melee of shoppers, but his scent is increasing, so I do the same with my tugging, hoping Julie will think I’m desperate to go to the toilet. After a second or two, my plan works, and Julie begins walking obliviously toward them. I trot ahead of her, and all of a sudden Julie freezes, and I’m jerked to an unceremonious stop.
“What the f...!” she says, under her breath, followed by a louder, “You have got to be kidding!” presumably as she registers the size of Luke’s wife’s stomach and the associated purchases. Then she scoops me up off the pavement so quickly it makes me feel a little light-headed.
To my surprise and delight, she begins marching purposefully toward Luke and his wife, as if she’s planning on confronting him. Though when they’re almost upon us, she evidently loses her nerve, because she spins ninety degrees and carries me into the nearest shop, taking up a position next to the window where she can stare out at the pavement without us being spotted. Then, a loud throat clearing is followed by an indignant “Excuse me!” from behind us. Which perhaps not surprisingly, makes us both jump.
It’s evidently not Luke, and the voice is a little too old-sounding to be Luke’s wife. Even so, at the sternly-uttered words, Julie swivels nervously round, to find an older, haughty-looking woman staring pointedly in my direction, as if she expects me to say something in response.
“Hi?” says Julie, phrasing the greeting as a question.
The woman’s gaze momentarily alights on Julie, then returns to linger on me. “Didn’t you see the sign on the door?”
Julie narrows her eyes. I’m not sure she even knows what shop she’s walked into, such was her hurry to get off the pavement. “What sign?” she says, and the woman does a pretty good impression of one of my indignant snorts.
“The one that says, No Dogs.”
“Oh. Right.” Julie glances nervously back at the door, then out the window, evidently worried Luke and his wife must be nearly here by now.
“No. Sorry. Obviously. Otherwise I wouldn’t have...” Her voice trails off, and she half presents me to make her point, but the woman doesn’t respond. Instead, she just folds her arms and increases the intensity of her glare, and Julie grins guiltily. “Even though I’m carrying him?”
“Especially because you’re carrying him. What if he starts chewing the merchandise?”
I snort derisively. Even I have my standards.
“Doug wouldn’t do that. He’s very well beha—”
“Doug?” The woman looks at me again and shakes her head, and I’m beginning to suspect she’s probably got a cat at home. If not a couple of them.
“Did you want me to...” Julie nods at me, and then at the window, just in time to see Luke and his wife draw level, so she hurriedly ducks down behind a rail of suits. When she eventually stands up, the woman is still there, and still wearing the same stern expression.
“Sorry, I...” Julie takes a deep breath, and then another, in an attempt to calm herself down. “I’m hiding from someone.”
The woman smiles, though it’s hardly sympathetically. “Well, while they’re still counting to a hundred, why don’t I show you something?”
“What?”
“The way out.”
The woman strides purposefully toward the door and hauls it open, then stands there, leaving us in no doubt we’re supposed to walk through it.
“No, you don’t understand. I...” Julie hesitates, as the expression on the woman’s face suggests she doesn’t want to understand. Or care.
Reluctantly, Julie carries me back outside, peers nervously along the pavement in the direction Luke and his wife have headed, then breathes an audible sigh of relief, which I’m happy to mimic. After all, my plan has worked to an extent. Julie
’s seen Luke with his wife, and the fact that his wife is pregnant is bound to have given her pause for thought.
But Julie doesn’t pause at all. While the normal course of action would be to head off the opposite way, I feel my leash tugged sharply as she sets off in pursuit, and we begin tailing the two of them along the High Street.
Luke’s wife is walking slowly on account of how round she is, so it’s easy to keep pace with them, even with my short legs. After a few minutes, Luke and Luke’s wife pause briefly, then after a quick discussion, they head down the narrow lane that leads toward the river. Julie hesitates too—perhaps because it’ll be hard to follow them unnoticed down there. Then she looks down at me as if for reassurance, and we set off after them.
Switching to “stealth” mode, I ignore the ducks and pigeons who normally congregate on the riverbank, while doing my best to tone down the loud snort-panting that’s my modus operandi when out on a walk. Soon we’re a mere few meters behind them, although it’s not me but Julie who nearly gives us away, when her phone suddenly rings.
We duck behind the nearest tree, and Julie stabs the answer button and whispers a frantic “Hello?” Luke has had his phone glued to his ear since we first saw him, and I’m worried it might be him calling. But instead, and to both of our reliefs, it’s Priya.
“Whatcha up to, Jules?”
“Just...shopping. In town.”
“Cool! Me too,” says Priya. “I’ll ditch Sanj and come and meet you. Where...”
“No!” says Julie, a little too quickly. “I’m with Doug, and...”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“And... Well... Luke.”
There’s a pause, and then: “You’re with Luke? In public? And on the weekend?”
“Sort of.”
I frown up at Julie. “With” would suggest a distance of considerably less than the twenty or so yards currently separating us. Not to mention our hiding behind a tree.
“Jules...”
“We’re kind of following him. Them.”
There’s a pause, and then: “Them?”
“Yeah. He’s out with his wife, so...”
“His wife?”
“That’s right,” says Julie, a little hysterically. “His pregnant wife.”
There’s another, longer pause, and then: “Say that again?”
“His pregnant wife,” says Julie, softly, and I hear Priya swallow hard down the other end of the phone line.
“Oh, Jules. I’m so sorry,” says Priya sympathetically, followed by an urgent, “Stay where you are. I’m coming to get you right now.”
“No, that’s fine. I’m just going to...” Julie’s voice trails off, possibly because she’s not sure what our next steps are.
“Don’t do anything silly,” warns Priya, though in a way that suggests that ship has already sailed.
“I just want to see them together. How they are with each other. That’s all,” Julie says.
Priya suddenly adopts a serious tone. “Jules, listen to me very carefully,” she says. “This is not a good idea, and...”
Julie makes a funny hcarr noise. “Sorry, Priya, my reception isn’t so good, and I can’t quite...” She does the hcarr thing again, ends the call, then gives me a mischievous glance as she switches her phone to silent.
“Come on, Doug!” she says, and I’m only too keen to oblige; if this helps Julie see what Luke’s really like, then Priya’s wrong—this is a good idea.
We duck behind another tree as they make for the pub on the riverside, and after a moment, Julie checks how she looks in her “selfie” camera, flattens down a stray hair or two, takes a deep breath, and we follow the two of them inside.
From the safety of behind a pillar, Julie peers around the pub’s interior, then heads for the far end of the bar. Luke and Luke’s wife have already gotten drinks, and are heading toward a table by the window, so Julie quickly gets herself what looks like a goldfish-bowl-sized glass of white wine, and picks up one of the pub’s huge laminated menus. Then we take up position at a table directly behind Luke at the opposite end of the room, which is ideally placed so Julie can check out Luke’s wife without him seeing her.
I peer up at Julie, who’s studying the two of them with the same intensity David Attenborough demonstrates on The Blue Planet, though I can’t yet work out what she’s hoping to achieve by being here unnoticed. Maybe Julie doesn’t have a plan: she might simply finish her drink and leave, file the information away, reflect on it, leaving Luke none the wiser until she decides to confront him with it at a later date.
What I want to achieve, however, is some sort of confrontation, and luckily, hanging on the wall behind where Luke’s wife is sitting is a large, vintage mirror, angled slightly downward, and in which Luke keeps checking out his own reflection.
Careful that Julie doesn’t spot what I’m doing, I inch sideways, until I’m right in his reflected line of sight. Which means it’s not long before he spots me giving him “the evils” from my position under Julie’s table.
Luke does a double take, then shakes his head briefly, perhaps having just decided there must be a lot of pugs in the world and that they all look the same. Then, as he takes a sip of his lager, he swivels round in his chair, as if casually checking out whether the bar’s busy, and his eyes track along the length of my leash until he catches Julie peering at him from behind her menu. As he splutters noisily into his beer, nearly choking on it, Luke’s wife looks up from where she’s been scrutinizing the menu and frowns at him.
“You okay, hon?”
It takes him a moment to stop coughing, then he nods. “Sure. Just went down the wrong way.”
“Right.” She smiles sweetly, reaches across the table, and briefly squeezes his hand, leaving me in no doubt things aren’t anywhere nearly as bad as Luke tells Julie they are.
As Luke’s wife turns her attention back to the menu, Luke uses the cover of another coughing fit to shift his chair to where he can stare at Julie and me in the mirror, evidently trying to figure out what’s going on. It’s possible, I can almost see him thinking, that we’re just in here at random: it’s a small town, after all, and if you’ve been out shopping then here’s as good a place as any to have a restorative drink. But whatever the reason is that’s brought us to the same pub at the same time, Luke doesn’t seem that happy about it, and what’s more, he looks like he doesn’t have the faintest idea what to do now, except to perhaps try to wait it out.
Eventually, Luke’s wife puts her menu down, then hauls herself inelegantly to her feet, a pained expression on her face. Luke hurriedly drains the rest of his pint and stands up too, but she frowns.
“I’m only going to the toilet,” she says, so he sits back down again, his expression like someone who’s just missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime.
As Luke’s wife nears our table, Julie does her best to avoid eye contact, but I do the opposite, and, in fact, give her the full head-tilt, tail-wag treatment. Unsurprisingly, it works because she bends awkwardly over to take the paw I’m offering, then angles her smile up at Julie, like mothers do when they see another woman with a cute baby. I imagine the polite response would be for Julie to smile back, perhaps invite her to pet me, then nod at Luke’s wife’s stomach and ask something like, “when are you due?” or maybe even “who’s the father?” but she’s evidently too scared to do anything but stare into her glass.
After a moment, Luke’s wife shrugs, gives me one last smile, then resumes her journey toward the Ladies’. Luke’s still watching in the mirror, holding his breath until he’s sure his wife’s passed us without incident, then—as soon as she’s squeezed herself through the door that leads to the toilets, and is therefore safely out of earshot—he leaps out of his chair and marches angrily across the pub.
“What are you playing at, for God’s sake?” he hisses to Julie,
trying to make himself heard above the sound of my growling.
“I’m not playing at anything,” she says sweetly, although her hand on my leash is trembling. “I was just out walking Doug and fancied a drink. I didn’t know you’d be in here with...” She narrows her eyes. “Who is that?”
“You know very well who it is.” Luke’s gone pale, as if he’s just realized he might be in a bit of trouble. “Listen, we’ll talk about this another time, I promise, but right now, I’m begging you, please leave.”
Julie indicates her glass. “I haven’t finished my drink yet.”
Luke frowns down at the table, and for a moment, I think he’s considering picking Julie’s wine up and downing it himself. “Right, well...” He reaches into his pocket and retrieves his wallet. “How about if I pay for it?”
Julie smiles innocently, then picks her drink up and takes the smallest of sips, leaving Luke in no doubt that he’ll be paying, one way or another. “You’re alright,” she says, although he plainly isn’t.
“Julie, please.” Luke glances anxiously toward the toilet door. “Sarah’s pregnant...”
“Really,” says Julie, her voice heavy with sarcasm. Even so, Luke pales, as if he’s just given away some vital piece of information.
“Yes, and I can explain the...” He mimes having a fat stomach, then glances at the toilet door again, grimacing at the sound of the hand dryer starting up. “Just not right now.”
I find myself hoping Julie’s enjoying his discomfort, but for some reason, judging by her expression, I suspect not—perhaps because she’s realized Priya’s been right all along, and that Luke is a liar. And if he’s lied about his home life...
“Darling?”
Luke freezes.
Sarah has emerged from the toilet, and is waddling over to join us, so Julie leaps out of her seat as if she’s the one who’s been caught doing something wrong.