by Matt Dunn
Julie narrows her eyes in doubt, but I widen mine, realizing this is actually an excellent idea. Even though I know it could all go horribly wrong, a part of me can’t help but be fascinated to see where it goes. All I need to do is make it happen.
And fortunately, I know exactly how.
13
It’s Wednesday, and thanks to an Oscar-worthy, sad-eyed, cone-enhanced performance from Yours Truly while Julie was getting ready this morning, she’s working from home today. When she phones her dad to tell him she’s going to walk me instead of him, Julie’s dad sounds a little upset, and I feel a little guilty, as he won’t have an excuse to visit the Park Café, but it’s a small price to pay so I can put my plan into action.
“Not that way, Doug,” Julie says, when I take a left turn at the end of our street, but I tug insistently on my leash, hoping Julie will attribute my choice of alternative route to disorientation caused by my plastic adornment. After a few seconds of futilely attempting to lure me back the usual way, she tries, “No park today?” but I just snort and keep walking.
I have a rough idea of what street I’m aiming for—I’ve been there once before, when a drunk Julie decided to engage in a little light stalking on one of our evening walks. I can only hope that she doesn’t realize where I’m taking her before it’s too late.
Fortunately, Julie’s more interested in something on her phone, and seems happy to let me lead her, so it’s only when we reach our destination—a large, redbrick, faintly-smelling-of-Luke house in the middle of a Victorian terrace in the posher side of town—that she looks up from her screen and goes pale.
“Doug?” she says hesitantly, as I stop to sniff the gate, double-checking that Luke’s scent is actually coming from the house rather than wafting in on the wind. But the odor has an aged whiff about it, a layering, as if it’s historical, which can only mean this is Luke’s house. Where, I assume, Luke’s wife lives too.
I do my best to pick up Sarah’s scent, but before I can get another nostril-full, Julie tugs me away—a little roughly, I have to say, given my injured state. I’m just about to voice my annoyance when I realize my plan’s worked, as Julie’s desire to flee suddenly evaporates, and she peers curiously at the building.
Stealthily, we cross the road, then Julie presses her phone to her ear, pretending to be midconversation, though all the while her eyes are fixed back on Luke’s house. All of a sudden—and my timing couldn’t be better—a car pulls up, reverses into the vacant spot in front of the gate, and to Julie’s apparent horror, Sarah climbs awkwardly out.
Julie’s still on the phone, though her pretend conversation has been replaced by a selection of slightly more choice vocabulary, and in the absence of any other ideas, she drops down behind the nearest parked car, as if hiding from a sniper.
Quickly realizing this won’t do, I surreptitiously take a couple of steps to my left and peer round the car’s rear bumper, wondering how best to attract Sarah’s attention without blatantly barking. As she waddles around to the opposite side of her car, and unloads several large shopping bags, I can’t help but whine in frustration, worried that at this rate, she’ll miss us. Fortunately, my cone clearly doubles as a megaphone, as Sarah looks up at the sound, then spots me on the other side of the road. She smiles, and then—though I’m too stunned to warn Julie—crosses over toward us.
“Hello, gorgeous,” says Sarah. “Are you on your own?”
Instinctively, I turn to look at Julie, who’s shaking her head frantically at me while mouthing the word no. But Sarah figures out the answer herself when she kneels down to pet me hello, and her eyes follow my extendable leash around to the far side of the car, and she sees Julie sitting on the pavement.
“Are you okay?”
Julie looks up, startled. “What? Me? Oh, fine. I was just, you know...” Julie’s face contorts with the effort of trying to come up with an excuse. “Picking up after this one,” she says, a little too much like she’s only just thought of it and is very pleased with the fact.
“Right,” says Sarah, though she doesn’t sound totally convinced.
“When I realized he’d only done a number one, so I had nothing to pick up, I suddenly felt dizzy. So I thought I’d sit down for a bit.”
“Oh,” says Sarah, in the same tone, as she struggles to stand up from petting me.
“Of course, you’ll be having a lot of that to contend with,” says Julie, as if desperate to fill in the gap in conversation.
“A lot of...?”
“You know.” Julie nods at Sarah’s stomach. “Sorry, I didn’t mean... Haven’t we met?” she says, evidently deciding attack is the best form of defense.
“Have we?”
“Yes!” says Julie, as if she’s just remembered the answer to a question that’s been troubling her. “In the pub. Last Sunday. You’re Sarah. Luke’s wife? Sorry, you already know that. I’m Julie. I work for him. And this is...”
“Doug! Of course! How could I forget?” Sarah grins down at me, and I snort in response. “Sorry, I didn’t recognize you with your cone on.”
“Alsatian,” says Julie, by way of an explanation, and Sarah smiles sympathetically.
“This is a pleasant surprise,” she says.
Julie makes a face designed to indicate that it’s a small world, then says, “Small world,” just to back it up.
“Do you live around here?”
“No. The other side of town. Sandycombe Road.” Julie leaps up from the pavement and brushes the dirt from her jeans. “I was just taking Doug for a walk. We normally go to the park, but to tell you the truth, I think he’s a bit embarrassed about the whole cone thing, so he decided he’d go this way. Probably aiming for somewhere no one he knew was likely to see him.”
“That’s...impressive,” says Sarah, though she looks like it’s not her first choice of words.
“Well, they’re intelligent dogs, pugs. They were originally bred as lapdogs for Chinese monarchs. Which means they’re, you know...” Julie peers down at me, so I wag my tail encouragingly. “Smart.”
“Right,” says Sarah, then she glances back toward her house. “Listen, I’ve got some frozen stuff in the car that I really ought to get inside and into the freezer...”
“Oh. Fine. Sure,” says Julie. “Well, nice to see you again. We’ll just...”
“No, I didn’t mean...” Sarah smiles warmly. “Did you want a cup of tea?”
“Tea?” says Julie, though I suspect that might not be her first choice of beverage right now, then a strange expression comes over her face, and I realize my work here is done.
“Tea would be lovely,” she says.
* * *
We’ve carried the shopping in, and Julie is begrudgingly admiring Sarah’s granite-surfaced, invisible-handled, breakfast-barred, fully-equipped kitchen, perhaps wondering whether it’s the kind of kitchen she’ll have when she and Luke are together, when Sarah suddenly says, “Whoa!” and sits heavily down on a kitchen chair.
“Are you okay?”
Sarah looks up at her, takes a breath, and nods. “Yes. Thanks. Just a little faint. It happens sometimes.” She rubs her stomach, as if to underline how what’s in there is the reason, rather than she’s drunk in the afternoon or has some debilitating disease. Then she forces a smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll be... Whoa!” She tries to get up, but the effort’s apparently a little too much for her. “Just give me a minute.”
“Can I do anything?”
“No. Thank you.” Sarah fans herself with her hand. “Though you could put the kettle on. And you’ll find a packet of biscuits in the cupboard over there.”
“For Doug?” says Julie, doing as instructed with the kettle.
“For Doug. Sure,” says Sarah, and Julie grins. “One of the benefits of being pregnant. You can eat what you want. Though as far as I can tell it’s the only benefit.” She r
eaches down and scratches me between the ears, and I snort approvingly.
“When are you due?”
“September. Which can’t come soon enough, as far as I’m concerned.” Sarah puffs air out of her cheeks. “Do you have any? Kids, I mean?”
“God no,” says Julie, a little too quickly, then she corrects herself. “I mean, I’ve got Doug. And besides, I’d need a husband first.”
“You can have mine, if you like!” says Sarah, making a face as she rests both hands on her bump, and though I catch Julie’s almost imperceptible double take, it’s obvious to all of us she’s joking.
“Really? Thanks!” says Julie, playing along, and with probably just about the right amount of sarcasm. “Anyway. Tea?”
“Please,” says Sarah, then she shakes her head. “I can’t believe I’ve got three more months of this. That’s the last time I let Luke anywhere near me, I can tell you.”
“Me too,” says Julie, then she blushes, and uses her search for the biscuits to hide her embarrassment. “I mean, I can’t believe it either. You’re huge.”
“Aren’t I?” says Sarah. “Though that’s probably because it’s twins.”
“Twins?”
“You know. Two babies.” Sarah rolls her eyes as Julie finally locates the packet of biscuits. “In for a penny, and all that.”
“Right. So, did you...? I mean...” Julie spends some time trying to locate the plastic pull tag on the side of the packet, as if desperate to buy time to come up with an appropriate question. “Do, you know, twins, run in the family?”
“Nope.” Sarah heaves herself up, walks over to the kettle, finds a couple of mugs on the worktop next to the sink, drops a tea bag into each of them, then tops them up with boiling water. “One of the risks of IVF, though,” she says, giving the teas a stir.
“IVF?”
“That’s right.” She fishes the tea bags out, drops them into the bin, then locates a carton of milk in the fridge, holds it up for Julie’s approval, and splashes a bit into each of the mugs. “We’d been trying for ages, but no luck, so we thought we’d give this a go. And hey, presto...” She glances down at her stomach again. “Took me a bit by surprise, I can tell you. But Luke seems made up.”
“Right,” says Julie, perhaps beginning to understand that “made up” is a phrase that also applies to most of Luke’s excuses.
She pulls out a chair and sits down heavily, grateful Sarah’s too busy making the tea to notice how white she’s gone. From what I can tell, she’s close to tears—and if she bursts out crying in front of Sarah, then who knows what’ll happen?
Even though it means forgoing a biscuit, there’s only one thing I can do. With a loud sigh, I get to my feet, and go and scratch at the kitchen door.
“Everything alright, Doug?” says Sarah, and when I let out a plaintive whine, she looks across at Julie.
“I think he probably needs to, you know...” Julie takes a breath. “Go again. Which means I really should...”
“But you haven’t had your tea?”
Julie takes a look at the steaming mug that Sarah’s holding out toward her, and I find myself hoping she’s not considering chugging it like she did the wine the other day. “Sorry,” she says, looking pointedly at me. “But the consequences...”
“Ah,” says Sarah. “Another time, then. And thanks for your help with the shopping.”
“Don’t mention it,” says Julie.
As we walk back home, something tells me Julie is going to be mentioning it to Luke. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s great news.
Because judging by the look of thunder on her face, if she wasn’t sure her and Luke were over before, she’s a hundred percent positive now.
14
I’m napping next to Julie on the sofa that evening when a frantic knocking on the front door startles me, so I leap down to the wooden floor, run-skid round the corner, and sprint, barking, down the corridor. Julie’s not far behind me, and when she slips the chain on, then cautiously opens the door, my fears (and nostrils) are confirmed. It’s Luke.
“What do you want?” Julie says, icily, emphasizing the you. She’s a lot more composed than I’d have expected, given the bottle of wine she’s already polished off.
“You came to my house?”
“What are you talking about?”
“This afternoon.” Luke is doing his best to squeeze his face through the gap between the door and the doorjamb. “Sarah said.”
“I didn’t come to your house. I was walking Doug past your house. Sarah happened to pull up in her car with about half a ton of shopping, so I offered to help her with it, and she invited me in for a cup of tea. What was I supposed to do? Say no?”
“Yes!” Luke scowls at her as he evaluates her explanation. “Down my street seems like a strange place to be walking your dog.”
“He was walking me, actually!”
Luke glares down at me, then up at Julie. “I don’t believe you.”
“Look who’s talking!”
Luke stares at her for a moment. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We don’t have sex anymore,” says Julie, in a silly voice, which I guess is supposed to be an impression of Luke. “I’m trying to work out how to tell her. I’m just waiting for the right opportunity to leave.”
Her eyes flash with anger. “If by ‘we don’t have sex anymore’ you meant, ‘because I’m jerking off into a cup instead so we can have a baby—sorry, two babies—by the skillful use of a turkey baster,’ then perhaps you should have been a bit clearer.”
Luke’s mouth flaps open and shut for a moment or two, then he sighs, as if he’s about to do Julie a favor by explaining. “It’s a bit more complicated than that.”
“You decided to start a family when you’d promised me you were ending one.”
“That’s not...”
“Do you really expect me to believe that was the first step toward leaving her?”
“It was!”
“How so?”
“Let me in, and I’ll explain.”
“No way,” says Julie, and I let out a low growl to back her up.
“What was I supposed to do? Say no? Tell Sarah we’re not ready yet? We’ve been together for ten years.”
“Yes, you were supposed to say no! Especially given everything you were telling me. Although I’m not sure that word’s in your vocabulary.” Julie folds her arms. “If ever there were the perfect opportunity to begin the ‘I’m leaving you’ conversation...”
“I...” Luke sighs again. “Okay. Here’s the thing. I wanted to leave her with something. Sarah had always been desperate for a baby, so I thought it might soften the blow if we... I mean, if she...”
Julie’s look of incredulity evidently shuts him up, because he stops speaking abruptly. “So you were prepared to get her pregnant and then leave her? How is that an upside for anyone?”
“It’s...”
“If you say complicated, I’m going to...”
“It is!”
I look up at him, then at Julie. It’s more than complicated. You’d need to be smarter than that Stephen Hawking chap was to work it out. Something Julie evidently isn’t, because she frowns.
“Explain it to me, then. Because following on logically from what you’ve just said—which believe me is difficult—at what point do you leave her now? How old do the twins have to be? I mean, is there an optimum time to abandon newborns? Before they call you daddy, perhaps? Or do you wait a few years until you can explain your disappearance face-to-face?”
Luke tries to shake his head, but he can’t, because his face is still pretty tightly wedged. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
“And I don’t. So finally we’re on the same page.”
“Julie...” Luke reaches a hand through the gap, though frustratingly it’s
too high for me to jump up and bite.
“Oh, just... Fuck off, Luke!”
“Okay, okay,” he says, though in a typical example of him not following through with his promises, he doesn’t. “Just promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“That you won’t tell Sarah.”
“Tell her what?”
“About us. It would devastate her. And she doesn’t deserve that.”
“She doesn’t deserve you.”
“Please, Julie.” He sniffs loudly. “I’m begging you.”
Julie widens her eyes. “Are you crying?”
Luke looks like he’s realized he might have accidentally hit on something. “No,” he snuffles, his acting worse than anything I’ve seen on EastEnders.
For a moment, I worry Julie’s going to cave, and I snort derisively in the hope I can make her understand this is all a sham. But as I check out her body language, I see there’s something different about her. Something...stronger. As if she understands that finally, she’s the one holding the leash.
“Don’t you think she deserves to know?”
“No,” says Luke, desperately. “I mean, yes. And I’ll tell her. But it should come from me. Just...”
“What?”
“Tell me you won’t see her again.”
“Only if you do the same,” says Julie, and I fear she’s actually giving him another chance, especially when she slides the chain off the door and opens it a little wider. But just as Luke’s expression begins to morph into what I’m sure is intended to be a victory grin, Julie’s does the same, then she slams the door shut in his face, which—given Luke’s shout of pain—isn’t quite clear of the gap.
Julie strides defiantly back along the hall and into the kitchen, pours herself the biggest glass of wine ever, and then—completely against the run of play—bursts into tears. Huge, shoulder-heaving sobs that I suspect might take a long, long time to subside.
“What have I done?” she says, to no one in particular through a river of snot, but all I can do is look up at her proudly.