by Kim Nash
‘Jack, this is my very best friend in the whole world, Shivani.’
‘Oh, that’s quite hurtful. There was me thinking that I was your very best friend in the whole world, Nellie-bum. But anyway, it’s lovely to meet you Shivani. I was just coming over to say why don’t you go back to the house and get yourself ready, Nellie. I know you said you wanted to get quickly showered and changed before kick-off.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘You’ve got about an hour at my reckoning.’
‘It’s nice to meet you too, Jack. You are exactly as I imagined you to be.’
I felt the heat burning up inside of me. Please do not embarrass me, I pleaded to her with my eyes.
‘Yes, you are everything she said you were.’
I grabbed her by her arm and swung her round.
‘Thanks so much, Jack, we’ll be back in a bit.’
‘Fuck me, Nell, you never told me he was a God!’ she said as we walked away.
‘Ssshhh, you nutter. He’ll hear you.’
I turned and looked behind me and Jack was watching us walk away. He raised his hand in a little wave. My heart skipped.
‘And I think you’d better tell me why the fuck he calls you “Nellie-bum” too!’
* * *
‘Wow-fucking-wee! This house is huge. And totally gorgeous. Why on earth did you reconsider coming back to the Midlands when you get to look at that view every day?’ Shivani asked as she looked out the lounge window.
I was beginning to wonder that myself. I felt more at home there each day.
‘I’ll give you the full tour when we get back later but right now, I need to jump in the shower and get ready. Help yourself to anything you want. There’s another bathroom on the ground floor and I’ll be as quick as I can. Can you just do me a favour and let Norman out for a wee, please?’
‘Will do, babe. I’m just going to sit and look at the view.’
Hanging on the back of my bedroom door was a dress I’d discovered right at the back of Aunty Lil’s wardrobe. I knew as soon as I saw it that I wanted to wear it for the event. The fitted bodice was made from taffeta and then the pleated chiffon skirt skimmed over my hips and draped to just below the knee. I slipped on some little kitten heels with diamantes on the front in a practically identical colour. I was so glad at that moment that I was the same size as Aunty Lil in both clothes and shoes. She had fabulous style and wearing this dress made me feel a million dollars. As I swirled down the staircase, Shivani wolf-whistled at me and I did a twirl.
‘Babe, you look hot as hell tonight! He’ll never keep his eyes off you.’
‘Who?’
‘Who do you think? I haven’t been your friend for twenty years to not know that you are head over heels in love with Jack. And he looks at you the same way.’
‘Don’t be silly, Shivani. He’s with Natalia.’
‘Don’t tell me she’s the one with all the fake tan who I saw on a bench at the top of the beach steps, with her tongue down the back of some beefy guy’s throat.’
‘Oh my god. That must be Sergeant James. She must be cheating on Jack with him.’ I looked at my watch. 4.50 p.m. We had to go. The event was about to start. I hadn’t time to worry about that. ‘Come on, let’s go! Oh no! Where’s Norman?’
‘He was sitting on the chair in the lounge when I looked a few seconds ago. Come on, you can’t be late to your own event.’
‘Bye, Norman, won’t be long darling,’ I yelled as we slammed the front door behind us.
As we ran down the steps to the beach, all you could hear was the hum of chatter and all you could see was a queue of people lining up to get to the beach hut. There must have been at least a hundred people. Natalia hauled me over. ‘Come on, quick. You need to declare the event open. You need to say a few words.’
I was totally unprepared for what lay before me. Fairy lights lined the beach hut and the two large gazebos around them. There were table displays of jewellery, bags and shoes and rails and rails of clothes. Tables and chairs were dotted around with bottles with fairy lights inside them made wonderful centrepieces. It all looked so pretty. Natalie thrust a glass of Buck’s Fizz into one of my hands and a microphone in the other. Jack helped me up onto a milk crate so I could see everyone and they could see me.
‘Erm, I just wanted to say thank you, for making this event possible. We’re here this evening to raise money for the Fantastic Furries Dog Shelter, which is a cause that was very close to Aunty Lil’s heart.’ A lump appeared in my throat and I had to swallow it down before I could continue. ‘I’d love to raise as much as we can in honour of Aunty Lil. Please do grab a glass of complimentary Buck’s Fizz and browse the goods. If you’ve already donated items, you will have a number on your ticket which will tell you how many items you can take. Anything above that number, will be charged at £2.50 an item. I’d like to thank you all for coming along to this swishing event. And I suppose it just leaves me to say, enjoy your evening and let’s get swishing.’
A round of applause followed and the crowd surged forward. Jack helped me down from the crate.
People were picking clothes up off the rails already and I could see things exchanging hands with lots of oohs and aahs. There were so many clothes hanging up, all sorted into sizes and some even with tags still on that had never been worn.
Jack was still holding my hands and turned to face me. ‘Nellie-bum. You are stunning tonight. And I’m so super proud of everything that you have achieved here. Look what you have done.’
I looked around me, but couldn’t get the words that he’d said out of my head. He’d told me I looked stunning. How on earth was I supposed to react to that? He couldn’t keep confusing me this way. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I was going to have to say something for my own sanity.
‘Jack, you have no right to say these things to me.’
‘What?’ He frowned. ‘Why not? They’re all true.’
‘Because of you and Natalia. You can’t be with her and say these things to me. You can’t look at me the way you do. You can’t play with my feelings like this and it’s not fair on her either.’
I turned to walk away but he grabbed my hand and looked deep into my eyes.
‘I don’t know what you think is going on with me and Natalia, but I can assure you that it’s nothing. She told me earlier about the time she took you out for lunch and warned you away from me. I had no idea she felt that way towards me and I had no idea she had said those things to you, until she told me this afternoon. I’m sorry that she said what she did, but surely you know me by now, Nellie-bum,’ he said in a low voice, his eyes never moving from mine.
He tucked a stray hair behind my ear, and his hand brushed against my face. I closed my eyes and breathed him in.
‘I loved you all those years ago, Nellie-bum, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell you then. I don’t think I ever stopped. I promised myself that I’d let you get away once and that you wouldn’t ever get away from me again.’
I heard music start to play. When I turned around, Tom had set himself up with a guitar and an amplifier. He had the voice of an angel and the song he was singing was another of Aunty Lil’s favourites – ‘The Way You Look Tonight’.
The sun was starting to set, the sky was turning dark blue. Friends surrounded me laughing and drinking, and had helped my little dream come to fruition. Everything was picture-perfect.
‘Dance with me.’
Jack held out his hand and I looked deep into his eyes. I knew that everything he was saying was the truth. I took his hand and moved in close.
He whispered into my ear, ‘I love you, Nellie-bum. I always have and I always will.’
When his lips met mine, a million fireworks erupted in my tummy. The kiss was everything I thought it would be and more. Just twenty years later than originally planned. But spectacularly worth the wait.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Tidying up had taken a while but with so many of us helping, it was much quicker than I thought. The even
ing had been a huge success and we’d raised well over two hundred and fifty pounds on ticket prices alone. The price from the swishing came to just over twelve hundred and fifty pounds. We had lots of delighted customers who had gone away with bags and bags of new clothes. And we’d also had some generous donations from local businesses who’d wanted to help. We needed to do a proper count up of everything tomorrow but I reckoned we’d raised at least fifteen hundred pounds which was pretty good going for our first event.
Shivani had been an absolute trooper on the clearing-up front, working hard to get everything done. Natalia asked if she could see me tomorrow as she had a lot of things to explain, so we arranged to meet for lunch before she wandered off hand in hand with Sergeant James whose first name turned out to be Reginald. No wonder he stuck to Sergeant James as much as he could.
Jack flung his arm around my shoulder as we sauntered back to Aunty Lil’s house. It had been an exhausting day but I don’t think I’d ever felt so proud of anything I’d achieved and I don’t think I’d ever felt happier.
Norman was normally waiting by the front door as soon as he heard the key in the lock but unusually there was no sign of him. I wandered into the lounge and summer room calling him, but couldn’t find him anywhere. Shivani said she’d look in the kitchen while I scoured the bedrooms, in case he’d got himself shut into any of the rooms, but he was nowhere to be found. My heart began thumping harder and harder as I called his name but there was no pitter patter of his feet to be heard anywhere.
‘Norman? Norman?’ My voice was becoming more fretful by the second. Where the hell was he?
‘Nell, I think you’d better come down to the kitchen.’
My heart sank. Sometimes you can just tell by the tone of someone’s voice that something is wrong and I knew it at that moment – Jack’s voice was flatter than I’d ever heard it before. I flew down the stairs, nearly missing the last few in my haste.
As I raced into the kitchen, the back door was wide open. Shivani was sat at the kitchen table with tears running down her cheeks and looking horrified.
‘I’m so sorry, Nell. You asked me to put him out for a wee and I assumed he’d come back in. But I’ve just been out in the garden and the back gate was open. I did see the window cleaner here earlier and meant to mention it but with all the rush of getting out on time, I just forgot all about it. They must have left the gate open. I’m so sorry, Nell, but I think he must have got out.’
Jack went to comfort me, but I shoved him aside and fled out into the garden calling Norman’s name at the top of my voice. There wasn’t a soul in sight as I ran out of the gate, frantically searching up and down. Blood was pumping through my veins so quickly as I ran towards the shops, scouring the gardens and hedges all the while. But there was no sign of him anywhere.
Shivani ran in the opposite direction. I knew how awful she must be feeling right now but I couldn’t even think about her feelings. I just wanted to find Norman. Wherever he was he might be frightened and thinking he was going to be told off. I tried not to screech his name, but instead call him cheerfully, as if he was just in the garden, so he wouldn’t be scared to come back.
‘Come on Norman, where are you boy? Are you coming for a biscuit?’ The word biscuit was normally a sure thing to get him running straight to me from anywhere. But there was nothing.
As I got nearer to the house again, I spotted the woods at the bottom of the road and got an awful feeling. Surely he wouldn’t have gone in there. He didn’t normally go in that direction, but I had a feeling deep inside my tummy and it wasn’t a good one. I picked up my pace and started searching around the bushes, repeatedly calling his name, trying to keep the panic from my voice.
Suddenly, I heard a whimpering sound. I stopped to make sure there was no other noise, to see if I could hear it again. There it was, a faint whine.
‘Norman? Norman?’
There it was again, a strained noise. The awful noise of someone or something in pain. I ran towards the noise and searched frantically through the undergrowth and yelled for Jack, who quickly appeared behind me. There, under a tree, was my gorgeous Norman, who was covered with blood. His eyes were closed and I couldn’t tell if he was alive. I gasped and looked at Jack, as he knelt on the ground and blew air through Norman’s lips. He then let out a huge sigh of relief as he put his hand over Norman’s heart.
‘He is breathing, but it doesn’t look good, Nellie. Move over and let me take a look. In fact, can you go and get a blanket? Here’re my keys too. Bring the pickup truck over. I think we need to get this fella to the surgery and see how much damage has been done. It looks like he’s been hit by a car.’
‘Oh my god. Norman, my darling. We’ll get you sorted, sweetie. Oh you poor thing.’ I went to stroke his head.
‘Nellie, go now. We don’t have any time to waste.’
‘Oh Norman.’
‘NOW, NELL! GO!’
When I came back with the truck, Jack jumped in the back seat with Norman.
‘You’ll have to drive,’ he said.
‘I can’t drive this huge thing.’
‘You don’t have a choice, Nellie. I need to keep applying pressure to the wound. I’ll sit on the back seat with him. Just get us there as quickly as you can.’
I took a deep breath and rammed the vehicle into drive. It was blooming huge and I’d only recently got used to driving again, let alone a bloody great truck. Thank god it was an automatic. I was trying to balance driving quickly with driving safely and not taking corners too quickly so that I didn’t hurt Norman any more than he already was. It was all quite difficult when I was already shaking like a leaf.
Jack phoned ahead to the surgery and told the emergency team what had happened and to prep one of the operating theatres. It felt unusual to hear him in work mode. He was calm and authoritative and it felt good to know that he was in control.
‘Pull up right outside the front doors, Nellie.’
I did as he asked and he jumped out the minute the truck came to a stop.
I turned to face him. ‘Is he going to be OK, Jack?’ I was almost scared to ask the question that was on the tip of my tongue. Norman didn’t appear to be moving at all.
Jack looked me straight in the eye. ‘It’s not looking good, Nell. I’m so sorry. I can’t make any promises but all I can say, Nellie, is that I’m going to do everything in my power to save him.’
I didn’t realise that I was holding my breath as he lifted Norman from the back seat and carried him through to one of the rooms to the right of the yard. My whole body began to shake and Natalia appeared from nowhere and wrapped a shawl around my shoulders as she guided me towards the waiting room where she had a hot cup of sugary tea waiting for me. Shivani followed behind. I couldn’t bring myself to even look at her, let alone speak to her. This was all her fault.
After ten minutes of sitting around counting the seconds ticking away on the clock, I had to get outside for some air. My chest felt tight and I couldn’t get my breath. I’d left the house without my handbag so didn’t even have my inhaler at hand. I crouched down to the floor and put my head between my knees barely balancing and remembering what my social worker had told me years ago, when I used to get panic attacks. I took a deep breath in through my nose until I couldn’t fill my body any more with good air, and then breathed out through my mouth, pushing out all of the bad. After five breaths like this, my breathing regulated and within a few minutes returned to a normal pace. I felt calmer and more able to cope.
The sky was clear, and as I looked up at the stars there was one star, brighter than all of the others surrounding it. I didn’t realise I could love a dog the way I did, but Norman had become my new everything.
‘Please, Aunty Lil. I know you probably want him back with you, but we were just starting to make a really good life for ourselves. Please don’t take him, not yet.’
Natalia was suddenly by my side. I’m not sure where she had come from again, she was in stealth mode
I think.
‘Jack has done all he can for the time being.’ She held my hands within hers. ‘All we can do now is wait.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
It felt like hours had passed and I don’t know how I could possibly have slept but when I woke, I was lying on a bench, Natalia was stroking my hair, and my head was bizarrely on her lap. Funny who has your back when you really need it. She’d been really very kind over the last few days. Reg was clearly good for her.
Natalia told me that she’d told Shivani to go home and get some sleep and that we’d call her as soon as we knew anything.
A door creaked open down the corridor and we all awaited the approaching soft footsteps which got louder and louder until Jack stood before us.
His face broke out into a smile. ‘He’s going to be OK, Nellie-bum. He’s going to be OK.’ He held his arms out to me.
‘Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!’ I jumped into his arms and wrapped my legs around him and as we fell backwards, I remembered that I was no waif as we hit the decks. Jack bumped his head on the bench behind him but, as a true gentleman, had broken my fall as I landed right on top of him with my face mere millimetres away from his. ‘Jeez! I’m so sorry! Are you OK? Oh my god, Jack, what have I done? Jack! Jack!’
But no movement came from him at all. The poor guy might have just saved my dog, but in my excitement, I may have bloody killed him.
He shook his head and came to. ‘For fuck’s sake, Nellie-bum. What have you been eating lately?’
We both laughed out loud and I hoped that him cracking a joke meant that he’d forgiven me. He looked down at my lips and back to my eyes again questioningly. I leaned forward a tad and our lips met.
‘Oh get a room you two!’ Natalia laughed at the sorry state we’d ended up in and gave us both a hand up before wandering behind the reception desk. She seemed to find the whole situation hilarious.