The Pets at Primrose Cottage

by Sheila Norton

  ‘You couldn’t have shot the bolt on the gate,’ I said, my voice shaking. ‘For God’s sake! Sugar can open doors with her paw as easily as anything. She could be anywhere by now. Sugar! Sugar!’ I yelled, starting to run around the garden. It was huge, and there were flowerbeds, plants and shrubs everywhere. I had no idea where to start.

  ‘You search this side, I’ll start on the other side,’ he suggested. But almost as soon as we’d started, I heard her. She was yowling, and it wasn’t a happy sound.

  ‘She’s in pain,’ I muttered, my heart thumping with fear. And then there was more yowling – a different voice, a different cat, and then Sugar’s yowl of pain again, accompanied by some loud hissing. I knew what that meant.

  ‘She’s being attacked!’ I yelled, racing towards the sound of the fight.

  Behind a pergola further down the garden there was a big, angry-looking tabby standing menacingly over the prostate form of poor Sugar, who was in the submissive position and crying pitifully. I recognised that tabby straight away. He was the same cat who’d bullied poor, nervous Pongo.

  ‘Leave her alone!’ I shouted, holding the tabby back with one hand as I made a dive to pull Sugar away from him with the other. Before I could stop him, the big cat had dug his teeth into my wrist. ‘Ow! Get off!’ I yelled, wrestling myself free, getting a scratch on my arm in the process. ‘Go on – scram!’ He glared at me balefully and turned reluctantly to slink away. I picked Sugar up in my arms. ‘All right, baby,’ I soothed her. ‘You’re OK, I’ve got you now.’

  She was limp with shock and trembling. She was also bleeding from her mouth, and from a wound on her ear. She meowed pitifully as I tried to inspect the wounds. There was quite a lot of blood, making it difficult to see whether the injuries were serious or not, but she was certainly in a state.

  ‘You won’t tell Vanya about this, will you?’ Rob said, sounding shaken.

  ‘Are you joking?’ I retorted. ‘Of course I have to tell her! But right now, you need to take us to the vet’s. Now!’ I repeated more emphatically. ‘It’s an emergency!’

  ‘OK, OK.’ He led the way back to the house. ‘Grab a towel or something,’ he said. ‘I don’t want her bleeding all over the car seat. Or you,’ he added, glancing at the scratch on my arm and the bite on my wrist, which were both dripping blood.

  ‘Get me a couple of plasters, then. And Sugar needs to be in her travelling basket,’ I said, trying to restrain my anger. I got the basket out of the cupboard where Vanya kept it, spread an old towel inside and gently placed Sugar onto it. She didn’t protest – she was still too dazed and scared. The poor thing had probably never even had to face another cat without being safely on the other side of her protective fencing. ‘I’ll sit on the back seat with her,’ I said tersely to Rob as we went out to the car. ‘Hurry up, can’t you? I’m worried that she might be going into shock.’

  Luckily, the vet’s was only a few minutes’ drive away.

  ‘I’ll wait in the car,’ Rob said, turning on the radio.

  ‘No, I need you to come in,’ I said. ‘You’re paying the bill.’

  I got out and slammed the door of his precious car. Sugar was still ominously quiet in her basket, her breathing shallow. I was worried about her suffering shock, obviously, but, although her wounds weren’t bleeding too heavily, I was also anxious about scarring. Normally that would have been the least of my worries, but Vanya had drummed into me how important the damned cat show was to her, and I was aware that if Sugar had any visible ‘defects’ on the day, her chances would be scuppered. I was terrified at the thought of her blaming me – she had a scary way with her and I didn’t like to imagine her really angry. And how would something like this affect my new little business? She could make things bad for me if she was cross enough.

  As I carried Sugar into the vet’s surgery, she let out a couple of feeble cries, and I felt ashamed for worrying about myself when she was obviously in pain.

  ‘OK,’ said the vet after examining her carefully, ‘she’s obviously very shaken and scared, but she’s not actually in shock. That could have been very serious. These wounds look superficial and the bleeding seems to have stopped now; if she’d lost a lot of blood I’d be more worried, but to be honest the one on her ear is just a nasty scratch, and the gum should heal well. I’d say the other cat caught her with his claw when her mouth was open.’ He glanced at me. ‘She’s very lucky. It could have been a lot worse. I know Sugar very well. Mrs Montgomery brings her here for all her treatment. She’s a very well-cared-for cat, of course, but she wouldn’t have had a clue how to defend herself.’

  ‘Poor Sugar,’ I said, tears in my eyes. ‘Well, I’m relieved it’s nothing serious. But do you think these wounds will heal in time for next week? Mrs Montgomery’s entered her into a cat show and I know how important it is for her that Sugar is at her best.’

  ‘Quite.’ He gave me an appraising look. ‘And you’re supposed to be looking after her for Mrs Montgomery?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, flushing red. ‘But it wasn’t me who let her get out. Mr Montgomery put her in the run before I arrived this morning, without fastening—’

  ‘Ah.’ The vet nodded, his mouth a tight line. ‘Say no more.’

  ‘I would never … I mean, I love Sugar! I look after her properly. I would never let any harm come to her.’ I went on anyway, my anger with Rob now mixing with my upset about Sugar and my determination to protect my reputation.

  ‘I understand,’ he said quietly. ‘Look, the gum will certainly heal without any problem. And the scratch on her ear is superficial – it shouldn’t scar, but I can’t promise. I’d like to say she’ll be fine in time for the show, but it’s too soon to say for certain. Give her plenty of TLC and keep bathing the wound. I’d suggest Mrs Montgomery brings her back to me before the show, if she’s worried. But only time will tell.’

  I thanked the vet and went back out to the waiting room, where I left Rob to take care of the bill.

  ‘The cat’s fine, isn’t she?’ he said as he joined me outside. ‘Seriously, Vanya doesn’t need to know, does she?’

  ‘Yes, Rob, she does,’ I said, crossly. ‘The vet can’t be sure whether or not Sugar will have a scar from the wound on her ear. Vanya will be furious if she can’t be entered for the show, and I’m not taking the blame for it. I’ve got the reputation of my business to think about.’

  ‘Bloody cat,’ he muttered as he started the car. ‘More bloody trouble than it’s worth. It’s all Vanya cares about – she’s obsessed with the damned thing.’

  ‘Perhaps Sugar’s the one who gives her the affection she needs,’ I retorted. I was past caring about being rude to him. Vanya was my client, not Rob.

  ‘Affection? She certainly never shows me any,’ he retorted. ‘I only stay with her because of my reputation – I’m a parish councillor, you know. I don’t want the scandal of a divorce, but we live completely separate lives, if you follow my drift,’ he added in his usual suggestive tone. ‘She has her cat, and I have … my own ideas of fun.’ He caught my eye in the mirror and winked at me.

  I ignored him. The state of their marriage didn’t surprise me, but I was disgusted that even now, having come so close to letting Sugar get seriously injured, he was smarming up to me like this.

  I spent the rest of the day making a fuss of Sugar, and by the time I left that evening, she was trotting around the house in her usual, confident little-princess manner. I could only hope the wound on her ear was going to heal without a scar – otherwise I couldn’t even imagine how upset and cross Vanya was going to be. Sugar couldn’t win any more cat shows if her perfect looks were ruined by a scar, and although I didn’t really approve of animals being judged on their appearance, my scary client was the one who made those decisions.

  It had turned surprisingly warm, and on the way home, I pulled up the sleeves of my jumper and enjoyed the sunshine. Turning into the Town Square, I bumped into Matt.

  ‘Ah, good, I’m glad I’ve se
en you,’ he said, smiling. ‘Are you still OK for a drive over Dartmoor this Sunday? This weather is supposed to last for the weekend.’

  I was relieved that the awkwardness I’d felt between us, after the conversation with Annie at the Fayre, seemed to be forgotten. I really wanted us to be friends, now that I was getting over my worries about him.

  ‘Yes, I’d like that, thank you,’ I said, and then noticed he was staring at my arm. I looked down. The scratch from my earlier encounter with the tabby cat had bled through the plaster, and there was also an angry weal on my wrist where he’d bitten me.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked, looking concerned. ‘Did the cat you’re looking after do that?’

  ‘No. Another cat, who was attacking her. Long story. She’s OK, though, thank God.’

  ‘But you might not be. Seriously, you know cat scratches and bites can be dangerous, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I do, but this is very minor. It’s fine—’

  ‘Has it bled a lot? Did you wash it thoroughly?’

  ‘No, it’s only bled a bit and no, I didn’t exactly have time … what is this? Are you a doctor as well as a journalist now?’ I teased him.

  ‘I’ve done a first aid course,’ he said, smiling. ‘And I don’t want you getting ill.’

  ‘Well, that’s very nice of you.’ I must admit, it felt good to have someone care about me. ‘But I’m absolutely fine. I just hope Sugar’s going to be all right for the cat show her owner is counting on winning. Her utter dick of a husband couldn’t even manage to bolt the door of her run.’

  ‘You saved the day, by the sound of it – getting yourself wounded in the process, too. Quite a story!’ He smiled again. ‘Can I write it up for the paper? Everyone loves an animal story, and it has that lovely feel-good factor—’

  I stared at him. ‘No! No, Matt, you can’t write it up for the bloody paper. I can’t believe you! I had a horrible experience there this morning. I was really frightened we’d lost Sugar, and then I was scared she was badly hurt. She still might be scarred for life – and the first thing you think about is getting your damned story!’

  ‘Actually, the first thing I thought about was the possibility of you getting a nasty infection,’ he retorted.

  ‘Really? It seems to me that you only care about getting stories out of me. Well, I wish I’d never told you about it. Look somewhere else for your stories, Matt, because you won’t get another bloody word out of me.’

  ‘I see.’ He turned away from me crossly. ‘Well, thank you so much for your support, Emma. I thought we were friends, but it seems to me it’s all a bit one-sided. I will look elsewhere for my stories, then. And you can bloody well look elsewhere for your taxi ride over the moor.’

  ‘Suit yourself!’ I shot back, and walked away, seething. As if I’d asked him to take me for a drive! What was the point of a friendship with someone who turned every conversation into an opportunity for a news story? One-sided? He was right about that, but it seemed to me it was all on his side and nothing on mine!

  I felt miserable all evening. After what had happened with Shane, it had been nice to think that someone like Matt was taking an interest in me, being kind to me, or so I thought. Now it seemed he was just using me for his own agenda after all. Was I doomed to be treated like crap by every man I met?

  The following day was the last of my current stint of looking after Sugar, and Vanya was due home at lunchtime. Again I kept my distance from Rob, spending the whole morning playing gently with Sugar. Perhaps I’d give up with men altogether, as I should surely have done already, and devote myself to animals. I felt sad, tearful, tired and fed up. When Vanya came home and asked how Sugar was, I suggested she talk to her husband. I had my jacket on, ready to leave, by the time she came back out of his study, her face like thunder.

  ‘I don’t want him anywhere near Sugar in future, Emma,’ she said. ‘Next time I go away, I’d like you to stay here overnight, if you don’t mind. I just can’t trust him here on his own with her. I’ll make it worth your while, of course,’ she added. ‘And to show my appreciation for what you’ve done this time—’ She got her wallet out of her bag and began to count out banknotes. ‘I’m giving you a bonus, in cash, so it counts as a gift and you don’t have to declare it on your books.’

  ‘Oh, no – honestly, you don’t have to do that. I’m glad we saved Sugar from being badly hurt, of course, but we still don’t know if she’ll have a scar or not.’

  ‘I’ve had a look, and it’s healing nicely, Emma. I’ll take her back to the vet for another check before the show, but I feel fairly confident. If it hadn’t been for your quick thinking – to say nothing of getting scratched and bitten yourself, I hear – I shudder to think what might have happened. So please accept my gift. Treat yourself. You deserve it.’

  I thanked her profusely and asked her to let me know whether Sugar was going to be OK for the cat show, and how she got on. I was relieved she wasn’t cross with me, and touched that she was so grateful, that she seemed to think so highly of me. But it hadn’t lifted my mood. I still felt hurt and upset about the argument with Matt. I didn’t want to go straight home. I had a headache that wouldn’t shift, and I thought perhaps a walk in the fresh air would help, and maybe even cheer me up a little. And it had been quite some time since I’d walked past Bilberry Cottage. I wanted to see whether there was any sign of anyone living there yet.

  Instead of easing it, the bright sunshine seemed to make my headache even worse. I trudged slowly down Moor View Lane, wondering if it would have been better after all to go straight home and take some paracetamol. I was nearly at Bilberry Cottage now, though. I rounded the bend in the road and slowed down, staring in at the windows of my favourite little house. At first glance, nothing seemed to have changed. The stepladders were still in the middle of the downstairs room, the windows bare, the place seemingly empty and deserted. Then I noticed the car parked at the side of the house. And, squinting through the sunshine, I thought I saw movement at one of the upstairs windows. Trying to ignore the throbbing of my temples as I lifted my head to look more closely, I watched as a shadowy figure came into view at the window. My head swam. I held onto the gate, everything beginning to go hazy. My mind must be playing tricks on me. Surely it couldn’t be … I must be imagining it! I tried to focus, but the figure at the window blurred and swam in front of my eyes. Panicking, I grasped the gate and leant over it, my head down now, waiting for the dizzy spell to pass, but instead it intensified, the world beginning to spin in circles around me. And the last thought I had before everything went black, was: Shane! Shane, here! Here in Crickleford, here in Bilberry Cottage. Oh my God. He’s found me.

  PART 3

  TRUST YOUR HEART

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Where was I? What had happened? I held my hand up to my head. I was burning up. I tried to sit up, but everything started to spin around again.

  ‘Lie still,’ someone said. The voice seemed to come from a million miles away. ‘I’m taking you to hospital.’

  Hospital? Why? I shook my head, trying to make sense of it, but it just made my head hurt even more. I blinked and my surroundings suddenly became clearer. I was lying on the back seat of a car. And we were moving. Who …? And then I remembered.

  ‘Shane!’ I gasped. I sat up, trying to ignore the dizziness and nausea. ‘Stop the car! Let me out!’ I made a grab for the door handle, and the car screeched to a halt. Through a haze I saw the driver jump out of the car.

  ‘Hey, what are you doing?’ he yelled, wrenching the back door out of my grasp, but I’d already fallen back onto the seat, unable to move. ‘For God’s sake, Emma, just lie still. You fainted. You’re ill. We’re going to A&E, OK?’ He paused. ‘Who’s Shane?’

  I stared back at him. Blinked again.

  ‘Oh. Matt.’

  ‘Yes. I found you collapsed in the street. It was lucky I just happened to be passing. Now, could you possibly just stay in the back there and not throw yourself o
ut of the car?’

  ‘OK,’ I said, weakly. ‘Sorry.’

  I couldn’t work it out. I felt too ill. I closed my eyes again, and when I next came to, I was being lifted into a wheelchair and taken into the hospital. And it wasn’t until I was, eventually, waking up again in a bed on a ward, with a drip pumping intravenous antibiotics into me, that I noticed the state of my arm. It was red and swollen from elbow to wrist, the wounds where the cat had scratched and bitten me looking twice as big and twice as nasty as before.

  ‘Cat scratch fever is bad enough,’ a nurse told me a little later. ‘But their bites are often really dangerous. Cats have all kinds of horrible bacteria in their mouths from killing and eating their prey. You’ll be all right now, thankfully, but I’ve nursed patients before who needed emergency surgery because their infections went right down to the bone.’

  I flinched. That bloody vicious tabby cat! ‘Sorry to have caused so much trouble,’ I muttered.

  ‘Not at all. It was lucky that young man found you. Apparently you’d passed out at the side of the road.’

  ‘Matt,’ I remembered. ‘Yes. Lucky he was there.’

  But as the nurse walked away, I frowned, trying to clear my head. I’d been at Bilberry Cottage. What a coincidence that Matt had turned up there, just as I collapsed. And – was that a dream I’d had about Shane appearing in the window? It must have been! A hallucination, perhaps, because I’d been running a fever. I shuddered. It had scared the life out of me to think he might somehow have found me here in Devon. Not that he’d ever want to see me again, of course, but he might be looking for revenge, after what I’d done. No, I had to think logically – it couldn’t have been him. Someone had been in the cottage, though, so perhaps it was occupied, after all. So that certainly put an end to my dream of buying it myself one day!

  I had no idea where the hospital was – the journey had been a blur – but at least I had a mobile signal there, so I was able to call Primrose Cottage and tell Lauren and Jon what had happened. Once the doctor had pronounced me fit to be discharged on oral antibiotics, Lauren arrived to take me home.