‘I’m sorry but this is an emergency. I wouldn’t be going if it wasn’t important.’
‘It’s only a cat!’
When Lara spoke again there was steel in her voice.
‘Not to me.’
‘If you go I won’t pay you!’
‘Fine. Don’t pay me.’ Lara turned to go.
‘I’ll ruin your business!’
‘So be it,’ Lara called back as she hurried away, leaving both Selina and Mrs Wilson to watch her go. ‘If I have to choose, I’ll choose my cat every time!’
Lara raced to her car. She’d always used a different vet for Fluffy, but she knew where the one Selina had taken him to was. She was tense but she tried to stay calm. There was no point in panicking until she got there and heard for herself what she was dealing with. But still, in the back of her mind was a treasonous little voice full of fear.
What if the news was the very worst? She couldn’t bear to lose her beloved Fluffy, not on top of everything else.
Twenty-Two
The waiting room had pastel-coloured sofas and bright cushions with cartoon pictures of cats and dogs on them, and it looked as if the owners had at least tried to make it welcoming. But no matter how cheerful it was, no amount of cute, colourful décor was going to make Lara feel anything other than miserable. They might have tried to pretend that it was a warm, happy place, but the floor was a heavy-duty vinyl and the walls were covered in a shiny, washable paint and the smell of disinfectant hung in the air. To Lara it said sick animals.
She sat on one of the pastel sofas now, leaning forward, tense, the only person waiting. She’d arrived during the out-of-hours surgery time and so she’d had to buzz for access. There had been no receptionist on duty, and a nurse had shown her in and then disappeared into a side room. All around was profound silence, apart from the faint buzzing of the strip lights and the occasional slam of a distant door. She’d wanted to call her mum, but it was late and Fay would probably be in bed by now. Despite this, it was tempting, if only so she didn’t have to sit here alone and stew over all the worst outcomes.
She hadn’t been able to speak to the vet on duty, who was still with Fluffy. The nurse had said he was trying to stabilise him and get a full picture of his injuries. They knew for certain that one of his back legs was broken. There were also rib fractures and one of the broken ribs had damaged his lung. They suspected additional internal bleeding but were assessing that now. It didn’t sound good, especially when the nurse asked if, rather than trying to save him and bearing in mind that if he recovered he might never be the same cat again, did she want him put to sleep? The bill was going to be big, the nurse said, possibly in the thousands. Selina had apparently told the nurse she’d pay it, but even if Lara had been forced to find the money herself then she would have.
Still, she’d been torn between her selfish desire to save him because she loved him so much and guilt that by doing so she was subjecting him to a life of pain from his injuries. She asked the nurse if it would be kinder to let him go rather than save him, but the nurse wouldn’t give an opinion either way. In the end, Lara had decided to go with the treatment, heartened slightly by the suggestion that what she was being told about his prognosis could well be the worst-case scenario. Things might not actually turn out to be anywhere near as bad.
It hadn’t been all that hot over the past couple of days, but someone had switched on the air conditioning, perhaps thinking to make Lara comfortable. She shivered under the vents now and wished she had something thicker to wear than her blazer.
She wondered what was happening at Fiona’s wedding, but she couldn’t let it worry her. She’d made the decision to be here and she’d just have to try and smooth it out with the Wilsons if she could on Monday, though she didn’t see that going well. More likely she’d have to forfeit her fee, but it was what it was, and if it made their appraisal of her services a little kinder for having them for free, then it was a small price to pay. Perhaps it might even salvage the damage she’d done by walking out on them tonight, though truthfully, if it had been a choice between possibly losing her business or not coming here tonight, she would always have chosen to come. Songbird Wedding Services was a hugely important part of her life, but nobody could know what Fluffy meant to her, and nobody could hope to understand. It didn’t matter. Let people say she was foolish, let people say he was only a cat – she didn’t care what they thought.
She’d spent perhaps twenty minutes with these thoughts when the intercom behind the reception desk buzzed. The nurse who’d seen Lara in appeared from the side door again and spoke into it.
‘Hello? Can I help?’
‘It’s Selina Marquez,’ came the reply. ‘I brought a cat in earlier and I wondered if I could come and see how things are.’
Lara had never been so glad to hear a friendly voice.
‘Just a minute,’ the nurse said, and then she pushed a button. There was a loud click and then Selina came in. Lara looked up with a tense smile, ready to thank her for coming and to reassure her that she placed no blame upon her, when her attention was drawn to a second figure, hands deep in his pockets, coming in behind her.
‘Theo?’
‘Selina told me what happened and she said she could give me a lift down here. I know he’s not my cat anymore but…’
‘He’s always been every bit as much your cat as mine,’ Lara said. ‘We were kidding nobody but ourselves there.’
He nodded. ‘I guess you’re right.’
‘What about the gig?’
‘We were just about finished anyway.’
‘Yes, but what about… well, didn’t you need to pack up and stuff?’
He gave an evasive shrug and Lara wondered if there was something he wasn’t telling her, something to do with what she’d seen pass between him and Chas earlier, but he didn’t volunteer any information.
‘So you’re OK with me coming?’ he asked instead.
‘I’m glad you care enough to come,’ Lara said. She meant it too, because she realised just what it would have taken for him to be here now after all that had happened between them. It meant a lot to her.
Selina dropped into a seat next to Lara. She looked as if she’d been crying. Theo kept his distance, taking a seat on a nearby sofa.
‘Is he going to be alright?’ Selina asked.
‘I don’t know yet,’ Lara said. ‘It’s still too early to tell. They told me he has a lot of complex injuries.’
‘Oh, God,’ Selina said. ‘I can’t tell you how bad I feel about this—’
‘Don’t,’ Lara said. ‘You’d warned me about this before – if it’s anyone’s fault it’s mine.’
‘I don’t see how it’s either of your fault,’ Theo said. ‘You can’t tell a cat where to walk, and you can’t stop him from running in front of a car when you’re not there. For that matter, you wouldn’t be able to stop him from running in front of a car even if you were.’
‘I was probably driving too fast,’ Selina said. ‘It was dark and I didn’t see him until it was too late.’
‘I doubt that either,’ Theo said. ‘If you’d been driving too fast, there’d be no surgery that could save him. Don’t keep beating yourself up over this – there was nothing you could have done. He ran out in front of you and you did your best to stop. You brought him here straight away. You did everything you could.’
‘He’s right,’ Lara said, forcing an encouraging smile for Selina. ‘You can’t blame yourself.’
Selina sniffed, and though she was still clearly upset, she seemed to relax a little.
‘You should go home,’ Theo said to her. ‘You’ve done a long shift at work and then you’ve been driving all over the place because of this. You must be worn out, and if you’re not sensible about it you’ll end up having an accident that hurts you as well.’
‘I’m alright,’ Selina said.
‘There’s no point in all three of us sitting here all night,’ Lara said. ‘Theo’s right a
bout that too. Why don’t you go? I’ll phone you as soon as I have news, I promise.’
Selina looked as if she might argue, but then she seemed to make a decision.
‘You’re probably right,’ she said. ‘I’ll be a danger on the roads if I stay awake much longer. I’ll go.’
She got up, and Lara rose too and pulled her into a hug.
‘Don’t feel bad,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be fine.’
‘Give me your mobile number,’ Selina said. ‘I’ll phone first thing to see if you know any more.’
Lara pulled out her phone and they exchanged numbers. ‘It’s probably about time,’ Lara said. ‘We’ve been chatting for months and never done this.’
‘Now I’ll always know where to find you,’ Selina said. ‘That’s if you’re still speaking to me after this.’
‘Of course I will be. Go home; get some sleep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’
With a last hug, Selina left. Lara sat down again with a heavy sigh. She looked up at Theo.
‘Can I ask what was going on with you and Chas tonight?’
‘What?’
‘Come on, I need something to distract me. I could drive myself mad worrying about Fluffy but there’s nothing I can do except wait. You can tell me while I do.’
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘I do.’
‘Right…’ he said slowly. ‘I’m leaving the band.’
Lara blinked. ‘But you love that band!’
‘I did. Not anymore.’
‘What’s changed?’
He shrugged. ‘I just realised that it wasn’t a healthy place for me to be. Chas… well, he can be an arse at times. We had a falling-out, earlier this evening, and it all just came to a head. I was thinking I might start a band of my own. One with a less stupid name.’
Lara had to smile, despite everything else that was going on around her. But it faded as quickly as it had come.
‘At the risk of sounding arrogant, I hope this decision wasn’t anything to do with me.’
‘Maybe. I’m not expecting you to do anything about it though.’
‘What did he do?’
‘It wasn’t so much what he did, but what he didn’t do. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut.’
‘About what? Us?’
Theo nodded. ‘I’ll admit that I told him about us spending the night together that first time. Not details, of course, but that it had happened. It was just mate to mate; I didn’t think it would go any further. But then Lucien had told him things about you, and he told Lucien what I’d told him about us spending the night together, and somehow it all blew up from there. He didn’t say any of it to me, though – the first time I heard of it was when you told me.’
‘Why didn’t you say then that it hadn’t come from you?’
‘Would you have believed me?’
‘Of course I would. I just wanted to hear it.’
Theo shook his head. ‘I’m not so sure. I was angry with you anyway because I thought you’d gone with Lucien and that just made things worse. I guess both of us could have handled things better.’
‘I suppose so,’ Lara said. ‘We can’t change it now.’
They were silent for a moment, and the slam of a door somewhere in the building brought Lara back. She looked at him, eyes misting as she thought of Fluffy, even now under the vet’s knife.
‘Are you really OK?’ Theo asked. ‘You put on a good show for Selina there but I know you better.’
She shook her head, sniffing away her tears. ‘Honestly? I could do with a cuddle.’
Pointing a finger at himself, he raised a questioning eyebrow and she gave him a watery smile.
‘Why not? There’s nobody else here to do the job.’
He moved to sit next to her and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close. She closed her eyes, silent in his embrace, and let herself drift. Selina wasn’t the only one who was tired – it had been a long day for her too. In fact, it had been a long week. A very long and lonely week.
As she sat, wrapped in Theo’s arms, she realised just how right it felt. Did she really care about all that other stuff? Did she care about the petty things that would keep them apart? Was it all worth giving this up for?
They stayed like that, the strip light buzzing and a door slamming occasionally in a distant corridor, and Lara was content to feel him against her, to smell him, to feel comforted by his presence. In their brief time together, their relationship had always been so physical and his body had meant something different to her than it did now. Right now, it felt like an anchor, something to hold on to that would steady her. Right now, it felt like home.
He stroked a hand along the length of her hair and she lost herself a little further in him. His gentle breaths sounded like everything there was and his touch felt like the only sensations she’d ever want to feel again.
‘You’ll stay with me?’ she asked.
‘Of course.’
‘Thank you.’
‘He’s going to be OK, you know.’
‘How can you sound so certain?’
‘One of us has to be.’
‘You didn’t talk to the nurse earlier. I want to be positive but it all sounded so hopeless. She asked if I wanted him put to sleep.’
Lara felt Theo’s breath catch briefly before he spoke again. ‘I take it you said no to that,’ he asked in an even tone, suggesting a calmness that Lara didn’t buy for a moment.
‘I did,’ she said, but she had to wonder whether, if she’d given the nurse a different answer, he would have been angry. He’d once told Lara that she could keep Fluffy as her cat alone, but did he really feel that way?
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I should have asked you first.’
‘I don’t suppose there was time. If it had been the other way around I hope you would have supported the decision I made for him. I’m glad you didn’t have him put down, though.’
‘We might still have to if things don’t go well tonight. We have to consider that.’
‘We will. But I hope it will be OK if we consider it together. I know what I said about him not being my cat but—’
‘Absolutely,’ Lara said. ‘If I’m honest I think I’d appreciate the support. I’m terrified that I won’t do the right thing by him, but at least if there are two of us making the decisions we might stand a chance of getting it right.’
He pulled her closer, and that was all she needed to know that he felt the same way.
The side door opened, and Lara looked up at the clock to see that an hour had passed since Selina had left. She and Theo had spent it silently together. There were things they needed to talk about but Lara had been content that they didn’t need to do that yet. She’d simply been grateful and comforted by the fact that he was there. As the nurse came into the waiting room, Lara sat up and stretched, suddenly taut and expectant. The nurse gave them a brisk smile.
‘We’ve done as much as we can do for the moment.’
‘And?’ Lara asked.
‘Time will tell. He’s stable and we think he’ll pull through, but there are no certainties at this stage.’
Lara allowed herself a deep sigh of relief, her shoulders slumping from sheer exhaustion.
‘Perhaps you want to go home,’ the nurse said. ‘There’s nothing more happening here tonight. We’ll be open at eight in the morning – you can call then for an update.’
‘You might as well,’ Theo said. ‘This is not a place you want to sit all night and you must be tired.’
‘You too,’ Lara said, looking at him.
‘A bit. I’ve survived worse.’
‘Alright,’ Lara said. She got up, feeling stiff and cold, but less tense now.
‘We’ll be in touch if anything changes overnight,’ the nurse said. ‘Otherwise phone us in the morning.’
‘Thanks for the lift home,’ Theo said as they stood outside his house. The sky was heavy with rapidly moving clouds, though the night was mild and dry.
‘I wasn’t going to leave you standing there in the vet’s car park when you’d gone to the trouble to come and sit with us.’
‘I know, but still… I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had.’
‘Even I can’t stay that angry at anyone.’
He looked at her, his face illuminated at one side by the glow of a street lamp, his eyes dark and warm. ‘I’m sorry you were angry. I deserved it but I didn’t mean to upset you. I said and did stupid things and I realise that now.’
‘I know.’
‘I was… well, I thought a lot of you.’
‘I thought a lot of you too.’
‘I guess this isn’t the time to talk about that, eh? Are you worried?’
‘About Fluffy?’ Lara asked. ‘Yes. I’m trying to be encouraged by what the nurse said to us, though. I don’t think she really would have sent us away if she thought he wasn’t going to make it.’
‘That’s a good way to look at it.’
‘Perhaps luck will be on our side. We can only hope.’
‘He’s a tough cookie. I have a good feeling that he’ll be OK.’
‘You do? I wish I could be as optimistic. But everything else seems to be turning to shit these days so I can’t help but feel there’s a trend emerging here.’
He gave a rueful smile. ‘I can’t help feeling that might be my fault too.’
‘It’s not all about you, you know.’
‘Maybe some of it’s about me?’
Lara couldn’t help a tired smile of her own. ‘Maybe some of it. Don’t let it go to your head, though.’
He turned towards his house, but then turned back to her. ‘You’ll be alright? On your own tonight?’
‘Do you have an alternative?’
He shrugged. ‘You could come in and stay with me. We wouldn’t have to do… As friends, that’s all I mean. As one friend supporting another. You don’t have to spend the night worrying alone. You could spend the night worrying with me.’
‘It wouldn’t be us getting back together.’
‘Perish the thought.’
The Break Up: The perfect heartwarming romantic comedy Page 25
