‘In a way, yes.’
I carried the basket indoors, explaining Ebony’s situation as I went. I pretended I’d offered to have her for the weekend to save the nurses having to look after her.
‘They’re too busy, I suppose,’ Nana said with a sniff. ‘Poor little cat. Well, it’s a good job you’re kind enough to help out, Sam. I suppose that’s why you’ve come down here, then, is it?’
‘Well, pets aren’t allowed in my flat,’ I said with a smile. ‘But no, of course that’s not the only reason, Nana! I wanted to see you.’
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ she said with a note of sarcasm in her voice. ‘And you didn’t want to see that boyfriend of yours.’
‘Not my boyfriend any more, actually.’ I shrugged. ‘Didn’t Mum tell you?’
‘Your mum? No. She only called to tell me all about her cruise and the friends they’ve got staying for the weekend. So what happened with your young man?’ She shuffled into the kitchen. ‘Shall I put the kettle on, or is your extended version of Lent still going on?’
I met her eyes, and quickly looked away again. ‘I’d still prefer orange juice, thanks. Look, I’ll tell you the whole story in a minute. But is it okay if I let Ebony out of the basket? She’s a bit shy, though. She might just run behind the sofa and hide.’
‘Ebony? Is that her name?’
‘Well, it’s what I’ve called her. What do you think?’
I lifted the little cat out of the basket, and Nana paused in pouring out my drink to give her a quick glance.
‘Yes. Nice enough name for a black one, better than Sooty or Blackie, I suppose. Cute little thing, isn’t she? A stray, did you say?’
‘The vets think so. She was very bedraggled and thin when she came in, poor thing.’
‘Still looks a bit scrawny to me. Needs some fattening up.’ She gave me a look. ‘Much like yourself.’
‘Well, I’ll be getting fat soon enough, anyway.’
She turned round sharply to face me then, delight barely concealed on her face. ‘Oh, my Little Sam, is it true, then? I did wonder. What with no tea and no wine.’
I laughed. ‘That’s all it takes, is it? How to sum me up: if she’s not drinking tea or wine, she must be pregnant.’ And then with no warning, I suddenly went from laughing to full-on crying. ‘Oh, sorry! It’s my hormones!’ I blubbed. ‘I just keep crying, but I’m not really upset. Don’t worry. I’m fine. I … I came to cheer you up.’
‘Here.’ Nana gently took the little cat out of my arms and put her down, turning back to hug me. ‘For God’s sake, girl, you’re not fine at all. You’re pregnant and I don’t suppose you have a clue what you’re going to do. D’you think I’m so old I can’t imagine how that feels? And as for cheering me up, what in God’s name made you think I needed it?’
I’d been in the house for five minutes and already I’d blown it. Instead of carefully trying to find out how depressed Nana was, I’d not only got her comforting me, but I’d blabbed about thinking she needed cheering up! At this rate, before the evening was out I’d be admitting I’d brought Ebony with the sole intention of leaving her with Nana, instead of waiting and hoping for her to make the decision for herself.
‘Oh, I’ve just been so worried about you missing Rufus,’ I said, blowing my nose noisily. ‘I know how upset you were to lose him.’
‘I see.’ She nodded thoughtfully. ‘Look, come and sit down in the lounge, for heaven’s sake, and bring that poor little cat with you. We can feed her in a minute. Want a piece of cake to go with that orange juice? Coffee and walnut, your favourite, unless you’ve gone off that too?’
‘No, of course I haven’t.’ I tried to smile in response. ‘Thanks.’
I followed her into the lounge, Ebony trotting behind me, meowing.
‘Well, of course I do miss old Rufus,’ Nana said once we were both settled on the sofa. ‘I’m lonely, Sam, I don’t mind admitting it. He gave me a reason to get out of bed in the mornings, and a reason to force these stiff old knees of mine to carry me up and down the road every day. Now, sometimes it hardly seems worth it. Oh, don’t worry, I’m not about to swallow a bottle of pills or throw myself under a bus or anything like that – and don’t give me that look, I’m well aware that’s what you and your mother are probably frightened of. I’ve got too much respect for the sanctity of life, if you must know. And not only that, your granddad would be livid with me when we met up on the other side. No, I’ll soldier on, Sam, don’t you worry. It just all feels a bit pointless at times, that’s all.’
‘Oh, Nana, I hate to hear you say that. You’ve always had such a zest for life,’ I said. ‘You’ve still got your friends, here in the village, haven’t you?’
‘Well, yes, although they’re dropping like flies, of course, that’s what happens when you get to my age – more funerals than there are birthdays – and those that are left, half of them are more dead than alive. Unless you count nosy-parker Parks next door, of course. She’s in and out of here like a dose of salts these days, wanting to know if I’ve had my dinner and got my shopping in.’
‘It’s good of her to keep an eye on you,’ I said. ‘I only wish you lived closer to the family.’
‘Huh! I’m not moving up there with your mum and dad, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’d be lonelier in their house than I am here, Sam, and that’s the truth. They’re never there, the pair of them, always gallivanting off on holidays and business conferences and whatnots. Anyway, enough about me. Tell me what happened with that boyfriend of yours, and how long you’ve known about the baby – if you can talk about it without crying?’
‘Yes.’ I managed a smile. ‘I’m sorry, Nana, I’m just a bit emotional at the moment, but honestly, it’s all fine,’ I lied. And I gave her an edited version of my break-up with Adam. Trying not to worry her, I made light of my anxieties about the future. ‘I do want the baby,’ I finished. ‘Although I suspect it’s going to be hard, on my own.’
‘You’ll find a way,’ she said gently. ‘You’re a coper, you are. Like me.’ She looked down at Ebony, who I was surprised and pleased to see, after a little while of walking around the room mewing anxiously, had now jumped up on to Nana’s lap. ‘Now, this is all very nice, but we need to sort out a litter tray and things like that, Sam.’
‘I’ve brought everything she needs.’ I’d made a trip to a pet shop before I left London, loading my boot with a cat bed, boxes of food, food bowls and a scratching post, as well as a covered tray and a sack of litter. I’d have to make sure I didn’t touch any dirty litter myself, though – I knew it was dangerous for pregnant women. And I’d have to donate all this stuff to the shelter if I ending up having to take Ebony back with me! But for now, I wasn’t going to think about that. ‘I’ll go and get it in from the car,’ I said. ‘Look at her! She’s really taken to you, Nana.’ Ebony had climbed up to Nana’s shoulder, where she was now nuzzling her cheek.
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘She seems to have done, doesn’t she, bless her.’ And as I left the room with my car keys, I thought I heard her add, half under her breath, ‘And I suppose that was the whole idea, wasn’t it?’
Depressed or not, Nana was always one step ahead of me!
Chapter 11
Nana was determined to make a fuss of me, even bringing me a couple of dry biscuits to eat in bed before I got up, saying it would help with the nausea. It didn’t, but I ate them anyway to please her. She fed me so much, I had to gently explain that doctors didn’t advise ‘eating for two’ any more during pregnancy and that I wasn’t actually underweight, anorexic or wasting away, just because I was still perfectly slim at only seven weeks pregnant.
Meanwhile, I concentrated my efforts on Ebony, giving her lots of cuddles, grooming her to try to encourage her coat to grow back nice and thick and shiny, and feeding her lots of small meals. It took me a while to get Nana to understand that she mustn’t be given too much to eat at one time just yet, because she’d been undernourished and needed little and ofte
n for now. Nana was all for buying her some fish or chicken and filling up her food bowl.
‘I see.’ Nana nodded, watching Ebony eating her food. ‘She looks like she’s still starving, bless her.’
It was true – she did. The poor thing probably thought each meal might be her last.
‘Once she’s in a permanent home with someone to love her, she’ll settle down,’ I said, keeping my fingers crossed behind my back.
Nana glanced at me and smiled. ‘You should’ve been a vet, Sam. Shame you didn’t—’
‘Yes, well, it’s too late to think about that now,’ I said brusquely.
‘But you’re going to be a good mum,’ she added, giving me a hug. ‘Because that needs all the same things – being patient, caring and loving. You’ll be a natural, Little Sam.’
Once again I had to blink back the tears. Was Nana right? Would I be able to care for the baby properly on my own? Would it come naturally to me, as she suggested? I smiled at the thought of holding my own tiny child. I already pictured him, for some reason, as a boy, although of course I didn’t mind either way. I tried to imagine feeding him, rocking him, playing with him, and I found I was smiling, despite all my worries. I remembered how I’d been reassured, last time, by talking to Izzie, at the shop, and suddenly wanted desperately to listen to some more of her cheerful, friendly chatter.
‘Let’s go out for a walk,’ I suggested to Nana.
I made sure Ebony was shut safely in the kitchen before we opened the front door and explained to Nana that the chances of her running off again and getting lost would be worryingly high.
It still felt odd walking down the village street with Nana without Rufus. It was a fresh, sunny day, the trees around the duck pond waving their bright new green leaves in the breeze, beds full of tulips in people’s front gardens startling the morning with their vibrant reds and yellows. As usual, people stopped to talk to us. This time my visit was too sudden for word to get around about it, so I had to explain a dozen times or more that I was only there for the long weekend.
‘That’s a shame,’ the red-haired Maggie Stammers said. ‘I bet your nan loves having your company – don’t you, Peggy?’
‘’Course I do,’ Nana retorted. ‘But Sam’s got her own life to live, in that dratted London. She can’t keep running down here just to keep me company. I’m perfectly fine on my own.’
It was becoming one of her constant refrains. I just wished I could believe it.
Izzie was sorting out a delivery of groceries at the back of the shop when we arrived. She looked pleased to see me, explaining, as Nana toddled off to look for her favourite magazine, that it was always good to have someone nearer her own age to chat to. The village, she confided, was full of older people – not that they weren’t all lovely, she added quickly. Apparently a lot of the young families I’d seen at the Easter service had merely been visiting their parents and grandparents here rather than being permanent residents.
‘There’s so few of us around here now with kids,’ she said sadly. ‘I worry about the school.’
She explained that the little village school now consisted only of two very small mixed-age classes.
‘My Oliver starts in September,’ she went on. ‘But there are only two of them going up this year from the preschool. That’s getting smaller and smaller too – just as my little Evie is due to start there. I’d be so upset if they have to close down eventually. They look at the population, you see. And, well, it speaks for itself. There have been no new families with kids moving in.’ She smiled. ‘And don’t look at me to have any more! I’ve done my bit!’
I laughed and said she certainly had.
‘Anyway,’ Izzie said, rubbing her back before bending over her boxes again. ‘You’re lucky you don’t have to worry about things like that.’
‘Actually,’ I said, lowering my voice. ‘I will have to, before too long.’
‘You’re expecting?’ she said, looking back at me with excitement. ‘Oh, congratulations!’ She gave me a hug and I felt a rush of warmth for her. ‘I wondered why you were staring so hard at the baby knitting patterns that day!’
‘Oh, I was just terrified that I might have to learn to knit bonnets and shawls,’ I joked, and we laughed together again.
When I looked around for Nana, I found her at the pet shelves, picking out some treats for Ebony, together with a couple of jingly plastic balls. She looked a little bit abashed to be caught in the act.
‘Well, if she’s here for the weekend, she’s going to need a few extras,’ she excused herself, trying to sound nonchalant about it.
Ebony already seemed to be making herself at home in the cottage. I’d put her little bed near the radiator, and whenever she wasn’t curled up in there, with her chin resting on the edge of the bed, watching us, she was on Nana’s lap. Nana pretended not to be pleased. (‘It’s just this chair, I reckon – it must have a nice smell to it.’) But I saw the way she smiled at the little cat as she stroked her, the way she whispered to her: ‘There now, get yourself nice and comfy, that’s right. Poor little soul, are you feeling better now?’ And when Ebony started chasing one of her new jingly balls across the floor, batting it with her paw and pouncing after it with her tail twitching, Nana positively shrieked with delight.
‘Ah, Sam! She must be feeling happier, mustn’t she?’
I had to agree. Up till then she’d been too poorly, and far too timid, to indulge in that sort of spontaneous play. It was lovely to see. Becoming ever more hopeful of a positive outcome for Project Ebony, I showed Nana how to bathe her bad eye, how to brush her poor thin coat and check that her mouth wasn’t sore from where Mr Fulcher had removed a couple of bad teeth. Ebony seemed to relax when Nana held her and didn’t struggle so much while these ministrations were carried out. When I woke up on the Sunday morning, I could hear Nana talking to Ebony in the kitchen, to which the little cat answered with squeaky-voiced meows. The two of them definitely seemed to be developing a rapport.
I decided to make myself useful by cleaning the windows upstairs and, when I came back down, it was to find her sitting in the lounge, stroking Ebony with one hand and holding her framed photo of Granddad in the other.
‘He was a good man, was my Bert,’ she was telling the little cat, who was looking back at her with big eyes as if she understood every word. ‘If he was here now, d’you know what he’d be saying? “Pull yourself together, you daft old bat!” But …’ And at this point she put down the picture and wiped her eyes with her apron. ‘But it’s really hard, you see, when you lose someone you love so much, and then when my poor old Rufus went too, well – Oh! Sam!’ She jumped, and Ebony flew off her lap in fright. ‘I didn’t see you there. I was just chatting to the little cat, trying to cheer her up a bit, you know …’
‘I know.’ I ran to put my arms round her. I felt so bad for trying to convince myself Nana wasn’t really too sad or lonely. Of course she was. I couldn’t bring back my granddad, or Rufus, but I’d do anything I could to make her feel better. I picked up the framed photo and gazed at it with her. ‘Granddad was such a lovely man, wasn’t he? You must miss him so much.’
‘But he wouldn’t want me being like this, Sam. Silly and emotional. It doesn’t help,’ she said crossly. ‘You know what he used to say, if ever I was feeling sad about anything?’
‘No?’
‘Get your hat on, woman, we’re going to the Horse!’
I smiled at her. ‘So maybe we should do that right now. It’s nearly lunchtime. Come on: get your hat on, then!’ I knew she’d feel better for chatting to some of her friends at the pub. But I was all too aware that, if I hadn’t been there to encourage her, she wouldn’t have bothered.
The pub was packed with people, but luckily, thanks to Nana’s ways, we had managed to secure our favourite spot by the window. While I was at the bar getting our drinks, I felt a blast of cold air behind me as the door flew open and I turned to see an excited Jack Russell terrier and a beagle rushing
in, pulling David the dog-walker behind them.
‘Apollo! Brian!’ he yelled.
A couple of people sniggered.
‘He doesn’t have any control over them dogs whatsoever,’ Suzie the barmaid muttered.
I felt a flash of sympathy for poor David, who had now joined me at the bar, red-faced, and was asking for a bowl of water for the panting dogs.
‘Not Tess and Mabel today, then?’ I asked him, and he told me that these two were his weekend dogs, and that they were usually better behaved than his other two charges.
He’d looked surprised and pleased to see me, and I had to explain again that I was only there for the bank holiday. While he waited for Suzie to pour him a beer, he told me he had a bit of gossip for me.
‘Daisy-May, at the vet’s, has decided to retire.’ He gave me a meaningful look. ‘I reckon she’s had enough of our mutual friend.’
‘I don’t blame her,’ I said with feeling, remembering Joe Bradley’s attitude when I met him at the petrol station. ‘He must be the most difficult person I could imagine to work for. Good for Daisy-May, I could tell she was getting stressed out by the job.’
‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘Everybody around here is saying the same thing. He seems to upset everyone he talks to.’
I wanted to agree with him, although when I looked back at Nana, I couldn’t help remembering how kind and gentle Joe had been to her when Rufus died. But no, I wasn’t going to allow myself those sorts of thoughts about him. Look where they’d led me before – feeling like a complete idiot!
‘I’d better get back to Nana,’ I told David. ‘She’s been feeling a bit down.’
‘Of course. Sorry you’re not staying for longer, Sam,’ he added.
‘I daresay I’ll be back again soon,’ I said as I turned away. I’d be wanting to come back and check on Nana again before too long. Whether she kept Ebony or not.
And in fact, when we came home from the pub, Ebony helped to make the decision for her.
The Vets at Hope Green, Part 2 Page 3