‘You shouldn’t creep up on people like that!’
The man pushed himself to sit and clapped a hand to his chest. ‘I wasn’t creeping up on you!’
‘I didn’t hear you – were you stalking me?’
‘Stalking you! You’re a maniac! You shouldn’t be on the streets without supervision!’
He still sounded badly winded, but he’d fallen heavily on his back and so it was no wonder. Somewhere, in the corner of Lara’s brain where common sense prevailed, she had to feel a little sorry for him. He looked genuinely a bit scared by her, and she supposed she had reacted a little strongly…
‘You shouldn’t creep up on people in the dark,’ she insisted, choosing not to listen to common-sense Lara. ‘That’s what you get when you do!’
‘What if I’d been a little old lady? Would you have assaulted me then? I only asked you a civil question!’
‘But you’re not old and you’re not a lady.’ Lara folded her arms.
‘For all you knew I was. You didn’t have a clue; you just flung me across the road regardless!’
‘Well, I knew you weren’t a little old lady,’ Lara fired back. ‘Unless her HRT had gone really wrong, there was no way a little old lady was going to have a voice that deep!’ She gave him an obvious once-over. ‘You look like a mugger to me. Or worse. Creeping around the streets at night with your hoodie and your silent shoes… What else was I meant to think?’
He got to his feet and stared at her as he brushed himself down. ‘Well, I’m not a mugger. Or worse,’ he said, mimicking her voice on the last phrase. ‘Jesus, what’s wrong with you? Innocent people do go out at night, you know.’
He paused for a second, but when he spoke again Lara was shocked to find the hint of a smile. Surely not? She’d imagined it, hadn’t she?
‘Or are you saying that because you’re a mugger?’ he continued, rubbing at the base of his spine. ‘Should I be hiding my wallet? Although, if the way you just floored me is anything to go by, I should probably just surrender and give you my wallet right now, because you’ve given me enough bruises as it is and I don’t fancy a broken collarbone to go with them.’
‘You could have been anyone,’ Lara insisted, though she really was beginning to feel she’d overreacted. And the fact was, she was softening ever so slightly because, now that she looked closer, this guy was around her own age, seemed like he might have a good sense of humour and was very attractive. At least, the dim glow of the street lights was making him look good. And there was no dim glow that could make someone’s voice sound that soft and velvety, so that had to be real, and it was ever so—
‘I had to defend myself,’ she added, her thoughts brought back to the moment as the sensation of her pyjamas sliding down her hips gave an unwelcome reminder of what she was wearing and how much she needed to get home. Hurriedly, she shoved a hand beneath her sweatshirt to hitch them up and tried to look like she didn’t care.
‘Well,’ he said, and there was definitely a smirk there. ‘You certainly did that.’
‘Look, I didn’t mean to overreact and I’m sorry. I just want to find my… Oh!’
In a pool of light a few lamps away could be seen a little feline figure, padding towards them.
‘There he—’
‘Satchmo! There you are!’
Lara looked on in bewilderment (and not a little indignation too) as the man walked over to what she now saw clearly was Fluffy and lifted him into his arms.
‘Blimey,’ he said, cradling the cat, ‘you haven’t half caused me some aggro tonight.’
‘That’s my cat!’ Lara cried.
The man turned to her in confusion. ‘This is my cat.’
‘No… I think I know my own cat when I see him… Fluffy!’ She clicked her fingers. ‘Come on!’
‘You’re mistaken – this is my cat.’
‘It’s mine!’
‘It’s mine! And I feel sorry for your poor cat. Who calls a cat Fluffy? Are you too busy to think about names because that must have taken you all of a nanosecond to come up with?’
‘Well it’s better than Sasquatch or whatever your cat’s called,’ Lara returned sourly.
‘Satchmo. And it’s a great name. Not that it’s any of your business what I call my cat.’
‘It’s none of your business what I call my cat either!’
If Lara had been warming to this guy, this new complication had well and truly chilled things again. He stared at her now, looking perplexed.
‘What’s your problem?’ he asked. ‘First you try to break my arm and now you’re trying to take my cat?’
‘It’s my cat!’
‘You’re wrong.’
‘And you’re a weirdo, sneaking up on people at night.’
‘Weirdo? And you base this assertion on the fact that I walk around after dark?’ he asked, a bit too smugly for Lara’s liking, who was now beyond tired and getting a bit cold and desperate to get her cat and go home. Not to mention the rogue pyjama bottoms heading south again. The first thing she was going to do when she got home was bin them – something she should have done months ago.
‘Look,’ she said through gritted teeth, ‘I just want my cat.’
‘Well, you’d better go and look for your cat because it’s not this one.’
‘I’m telling you he’s mine! Bloody idiot!’
Lara sprang forward and made a grab to take by force what she was absolutely sure was Fluffy. The man dodged her easily, but in the ruckus the cat leapt from his arms and landed nimbly on the pavement a few yards away. They both bent to retrieve him at the same time, their joint efforts achieving nothing but annoying the cat so much that he streaked off, tail wagging as he went.
‘Now look what you’ve done!’ Lara hissed, a hand shooting downwards to rescue her pyjama trousers again.
‘Me? You’re the psycho cat abductor!’
‘What!’
‘If you hadn’t been trying to grab him like a lunatic he wouldn’t have run off!’
‘If you hadn’t been trying to take him I wouldn’t have had to!’
‘For the last time, he’s my cat!’
‘He’s mine! Besides, yours, mine… neither of us is getting him back now, are we?’
The man looked as if he was going to continue the argument, but then he simply sighed and broke into a jog, heading in the direction the cat had taken. Lara was about to give chase when her attention was caught by a car turning into the silent street and pulling up close to where she stood. The engine stopped and the headlights went out. Selina got out, waving at her. Lara could see the nurse’s uniform peeking out from beneath her jacket. It looked as if she’d just finished a shift.
‘You’re out late,’ Selina called as she walked over. ‘After your cat as usual?’
‘Well, yes,’ Lara said. And then added with new indignation in her voice: ‘But some guy is currently hunting him down insisting he belongs to him.’
An idea occurred to her. She could get to Fluffy much quicker if Selina took her in the car. With a bit of luck they could spot him from the road, scoop him up and be home so fast the man wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. And fair was fair, you couldn’t go around taking people’s cats, so Lara had every right – didn’t she? This was her cat, wasn’t it? She shook away the sudden doubt. Of course it was – how would she not know Fluffy?
She was about to voice the request, cheeky though it might sound, when Selina spoke.
‘I expect that’ll be Theo,’ she said cheerfully.
Lara looked at her sharply. ‘You know him?’
‘Oh, I see him around a lot looking for that cat, just like I sometimes see you. I expect half the neighbourhood goes looking for that cat of an evening,’ she said airily, pulling her bag from the car and digging into it for her house keys.
‘What?’ Lara asked, mouth wide open and feeling rather huffy She couldn’t believe that Selina had chosen this moment as the first time to mention this to her. If someone else had
been out looking for her cat, she wanted to know about it. How come Selina would take any opportunity to gossip about things that didn’t matter but never mention that someone else was feeding her cat? Lara could only assume that she didn’t see an issue with it. Perhaps it was understandable for someone who didn’t have a pet, but it irked Lara just the same.
‘Theo feeds it; has been for a few months now. I’ll bet half the street feeds it – you know what cats are like.’
‘Well yes, but…’ Lara’s sentence trailed off. She suddenly felt very stupid. She watched as Selina walked to her front door.
‘Goodnight, Lara.’
Half the street feeds it… That might be some cats but not mine, Lara thought as Selina’s front door opened and she went inside. Not my Fluffy. He’s mine; he’s not fickle like all those other cats.
But he was. The proof of that was playing out on a nearby street as this stranger tried to claim him. Well, Lara wasn’t going to be beaten and she wasn’t going to give up her beloved Fluffy to some lanky… what was his name again? Theo?
So you want to fight me for Fluffy, eh, Theo? Lara folded her arms tight across her chest and stared along the dim street towards where Fluffy had gone and Theo had followed. Well, if it’s a fight you want then it’s a fight you’ll get!
Six
Betsy set a paper bag down on the desk in front of Lara.
‘Will that do?’ she asked. ‘I went to the market – thought it would be cheaper.’
‘Oh, thanks.’ Lara picked up the bag and peered inside. A second later she took out a tiny silver bell. She turned it over in her fingers.
‘It’s not what you wanted, is it?’ Betsy frowned, hands going to rest on her hips. ‘I’m sorry – you want me to take it back and swap it?’
‘No – of course not – it’s fine.’ Lara looked at it again. It had been sweet of Betsy to offer to dash out to the pet store for her and she didn’t have the heart to tell her that, actually, the bell was far smaller than she’d wanted. She’d wanted something obvious, something that would tell the world that Fluffy had a loving owner and was not in the market for a new one. At the same time, a big enough bell might make enough noise to help alert Lara to his whereabouts a lot quicker the next time she was out looking for him. Like, before a certain Theo had a chance to get to him…
‘It’s not fine,’ Betsy said, taking the bell from her and dropping it back into the bag. ‘I can tell. I’ll take it back and get a refund.’
‘Honestly,’ Lara said, grabbing it back. ‘It’s a few pounds’ worth – hardly worth taking it back. I’ll give it a try; I’m sure it will do the job.’
‘I can tell it’s not right.’ Betsy snatched the bag from Lara but not with anger. ‘The woman in the market said it was OK to return it if it wasn’t what you wanted because I really wasn’t sure. I mean, it’s just a cat bell but—’
‘I know.’ Lara smiled. ‘I’m probably over-egging the pudding, as my mum would say.’
‘My mum says that too, but that’s probably because she’s always making puddings.’ Betsy tucked the paper bag into the pocket of her denim jacket.
‘No… but I am; I know. It’s just…’
‘I don’t have a cat but even I know that cats wander. It doesn’t mean he wants to go and live with someone else; he just likes to visit.’
‘You say that, but my aunt’s cat went to live with someone else.’
‘Come on – Fluffy would never leave here. He’s got it too good.’
‘Try telling that to Fluffy,’ Lara said with a wry half-smile. ‘I’ll pop to the pet shop after work. Thanks for trying anyway.’
Betsy sat at her own desk and hung her jacket over the back of her chair. ‘It’s OK – I thought as I was going that way for lunch anyway I could save you a job. I’ll take this one back on my way home.’
‘Thanks.’
Betsy nodded as she logged back into her laptop. ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if that guy was doing the same thing right now?’
‘What?’
‘The guy from last night. Wouldn’t it be funny if he was buying a cat bell too? So that he could keep Fluffy instead of you?’
‘Fluffy’s not his cat. He can buy as many bells as he likes for his own fleabag. Anyway,’ Lara sighed, ‘I don’t suppose for a minute that a bell will stop Fluffy from wandering all over the neighbourhood every night.’
‘He must have always wandered so you might never stop that,’ Betsy said mildly. ‘He came from somewhere when he came to you.’
‘But he didn’t come from a home.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He was so thin,’ Lara said defensively. ‘If he’d come from a good home he would have been well fed. And I even took him to the vets to make sure he wasn’t chipped or registered in any way and they had nothing, so…’
‘Maybe he got lost and they looked for him but they couldn’t find him because you had him.’
‘Cats don’t get lost. And they couldn’t have looked hard because as well as checking he wasn’t registered on any pet database I also put posters up all over the place to say I’d found him and nobody came to get him back.’
‘But still, my mum says cats go where they want and love nobody.’
‘Fluffy loves me.’
‘But he goes missing all the time.’
‘Not all the time…’
‘But a lot. Why don’t you just let him go on his way – he’ll keep coming back if he really likes you.’
‘I don’t know… because it’s better than doing nothing at all? It may be a pathetic attempt to keep him, but I don’t have anything else. I just don’t want to lose him; I know he probably likes to visit other people, and I might be in denial about that, but he’s still my cat even if he does. I just don’t want him to like someone else’s house so much that he doesn’t want to come back to mine.’
‘He would never do that. Like I said, he’s got it too good here.’
‘But what if this Theo guy gives him better food or a comfier bed, or lets him scratch the sofa as often as he likes? What if he decides to stay there?’
‘I thought you just said Fluffy wasn’t his cat?’ Betsy raised her eyebrows and Lara had to give a rueful smile.
‘You and I both know that’s probably not true.’ She shook herself. There was work to be done and she was getting sidetracked by something that, ultimately, was probably pointless. She could no more stop Fluffy from wandering than she could stop the earth from turning.
She handed a scrap of paper over to Betsy. ‘Would you be able to call this lady and ask her whether she wants champagne at the lawn reception or if she’d rather keep the costs down with Prosecco?’
‘No problem.’ Betsy took the note. ‘Anything else?’
‘There’s a bit of filing to do and some expenses to record. Otherwise, if you could just man the phones until I get back that would be fabulous – I shouldn’t be longer than a couple of hours.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’ve got an appointment with that friend of Abbie’s, the bride from last weekend – Chloe. She called this morning and wanted to discuss a booking but she’s struggling to get over here so I said I’d go and see her at work during her lunch break.’
‘Righto, boss.’
Lara grinned as she reached for her car keys. ‘If you’re not careful I’ll start to like being called boss and I’ll turn into some horrible monster and then you’d be sorry.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ Betsy said with a laugh.
‘Yeah? Try me!’ Lara replied, laughing herself as she headed for the door.
Chester’s city walls – or what remained of the ancient stones – stood proudly against a blue sky. Like much of Chester, their history had begun with the Romans, the city having been a major strategic base during their occupation of Britain all those centuries ago. Lara always found that aspect of her home fascinating and staggering in equal measure. It was hard to comprehend all those years – two thousand of them,
in fact – slipping by one after another, all those lives, all those dramas. How many people had walked these streets before her? How many were to come after she’d gone? While the city had moved on so quickly and so far, along with the rest of the world, growing into a trendy shopping centre and tourist destination, it also felt sort of ancient and eternal, as if it had never not been there, as if the ghosts of its past still walked in its present.
Lara had parked up in a car park on the outskirts of the city and was walking to the solicitor’s office where Chloe worked. It was far easier this way – not to mention far more pleasant on a warm sunny day in a beautiful place like this. So far it was proving to be an exceptional summer, day after day of blue skies and warmth, and Chester was busier than Lara had ever seen it, with shoppers, school parties and day trippers. There were people heading to the river for a walk or a pleasure cruise; people exploring the amphitheatre, the remains of the Roman baths or walking the ancient city walls; people mooching along the main shopping streets, lined with the distinctive black and white buildings that dated right back to Tudor times.
She’d already passed a teacher with a primary-school class taking rubbings of some old bricks at the remains of the Roman bathhouse, every child dressed in a neat scarlet V-neck – though she could see a lot of them probably wanted to whip their school sweaters off and get into a nice loose T-shirt. Poor things, she’d mused, though she understood that their teacher probably found it a lot easier to keep track of them if she could immediately see their little red figures. It had made Lara smile though. They were so cute and engrossed in their task, chatting excitedly amongst themselves as the teacher kept a close eye on the proceedings.
Lara had always loved kids and she often daydreamed about her own. How many would she have? What would they be like? How would it feel to be a mother? Of course, she also mused with some degree of irony, she’d have to find a suitable father first, though she always tried to push that rather major complication to the back of her mind, refusing to acknowledge it.
The Break Up: The perfect heartwarming romantic comedy Page 5
