Puppies Are For Life

by Linda Phillips

  ‘Yes … I see … but –’ Susannah felt for firm support among the largest cardboard boxes and gingerly sat on the edge of one. ‘I still see myself as married, actually …’

  ‘I suppose I do too, come to that. But I don’t feel particularly bound by my vows. Do you? And I don’t see why I shouldn’t come and go as I please. If I want to spend my time helping you, and you have no objection, then what’s to stop me? Anyway, enough of this talk, let’s get down to work.’

  ‘Yes. Work.’ Susannah looked round the room, her thoughts awry. She wondered why it was, if Harvey was so sure of his facts, that he didn’t challenge his wife on the matter? And why bring the tale here to her? What – exactly – was she supposed to make of it all?

  But there was only one answer to that, really, and she thought she could guess what it was.

  They were sitting by the fire that Harvey had laid that afternoon, eating kebabs from a takeaway. A candle flickered from the top of a wine bottle balanced on a stool, revealing them in their rag-bag clothes, and they ate in reflective silence. They could have been hard-up newly-weds, Susannah decided, except for the obvious signs of marching time stamped on their lived-in faces.

  Harvey had been a real godsend. Her new studio was virtually ready and the front room had been straightened out furniture-wise. They were still clattering about on draughty floorboards but there was little they could do about that.

  ‘I’m not going to lash out on new carpets,’ she told him. ‘Not when it isn’t even my place.’

  ‘Perhaps just an ethnic rug of some sort? Shouldn’t cost too much.’ He looked down at the floor at the space between them where such an item might go. He seemed to be imagining things to himself.

  ‘Hmm.’ She looked at him from under her lashes, chewing contemplatively on her food. It was half-past nine and he had made no move whatsoever in a homeward direction – hadn’t said a word on the subject.

  He shifted his knees and sent cutlery sliding to the floor. She picked up her glass and spilt wine. Meat turned to rubber in her throat.

  When they had finished with the food and Harvey had declined anything more to drink – although he had taken only half a small glass of not-bad-at-all Chablis – she took the debris out to the kitchen. She was scraping rubbish into a flip-top bin when he came and stood behind her.

  He’d brought the lighted candle with him and he placed it carefully on top of the fridge.

  ‘Susannah …’

  She started, missed the bin, turned and put a hand to her hair, conscious of how bedraggled she must look. She had hardly had time that day to draw breath, let alone attend to her appearance.

  ‘You look fine,’ he assured her, reading her mind, and he slipped an arm round her waist. They stood for some time, surveying each other, as the fridge started up a noisy hum. ‘Are you glad I came?’ he asked her after a while.

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course I’m glad. I was feeling … a little bit lonely.’ She could feel his hand on her hip, warm and full of promise. Imagining what that hand might be capable of, she fought to keep calm, to play it cool; act like the mature woman of the world that she was far from feeling.

  ‘It’s getting rather late to drive back tonight,’ he told her. ‘And what’s there to go back for in any case?’

  ‘N-not a lot, from what you’ve been telling me.’ She put a hand against his chest. ‘I do think you may have got it wrong, though. About Julia, I mean. She seems so – I don’t know – really nice. Oh, I know I scarcely know her but –’

  ‘No, you don’t. You know nothing. You’ll just have to let me be the judge, won’t you?’

  ‘And what if it turns out you’re wrong?’

  He merely looked at her, his eyes glittering. His hand went out to the light-switch. ‘Will you let me stay the night?’ he wanted to know in the sudden darkness.

  ‘There’s only one bed, you know. One tiny little single bed.’

  ‘I know.’ His Adam’s apple moved twice, up and down as she watched it.

  She swallowed hard, full of doubts. ‘I don’t know …’

  But he allowed her no time for indecision. He picked up the candle, took her hand in his free one, and led her slowly towards the stairs. They walked up the thirteen steps, jostling side by side. And she could swear his fingers were crossed as they clung to hers. Every step of the way.

  Harvey cried when it was over. Susannah didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Was – was I that disappointing?’ she forced herself to ask him. She stared at the window with its skimpy curtain. She thought she had acquitted herself reasonably well. What had she done wrong?

  He reached for Uncle Bert’s trousers, dug about in the pockets for a handkerchief, then loudly blew his nose. ‘Don’t be so damned ridiculous.’ His voice was muffled and cracked. ‘Don’t you ever cry?’

  ‘Oh … you mean with a climax? Urn, once or twice I have. Yes. I didn’t think men did too, though.’

  ‘Big boys don’t cry? Well, I’ve never done it before. Cried like that – over anything.’

  ‘So why did you do it just now?’

  He turned to face her again, his eyes still wet, but beautiful. ‘Because you just made me so happy, Sue. You’ll never know how much.’

  CHAPTER 26

  Beneath a grey, ominous sky an endless flow of people traipsed to and from their cars. Paul watched them through the window of the motorway service station for a while, slouched over a cup of coffee in an attitude of total despair. How had it all come to this, he was wondering for what must be the hundredth time.

  He drew his eyes to Katy on the opposite side of the table. At least he had her. But since agreeing to let her accompany him permanently to Scotland he had had many second thoughts. Was it fair to take her with him, even though she’d wanted to come? The job situation was even more dire in Scotland than where they had been living before – supposing her hands improved sufficiently for her to look for one. And how would she amuse herself, all the time he was at work?

  But she had insisted that it was what she wanted to do, which was understandable: new horizons had their attractions, after all. He would need someone to look after him, was what she’d said to persuade him.

  But he’d much rather that person was Sue.

  Katy tore a Danish pastry apart and poked a piece into her mouth. She chewed on it mechanically for a while, gazing at the same drab scene as her father.

  ‘Where are we now?’ she asked, washing the cake down with cold milk.

  ‘You’ve got a milk moustache,’ he grunted, passing her a paper napkin. ‘We’re nearly through the Lake District. Didn’t you notice the lovely scenery?’

  ‘Yes.’ She ignored the tissue and licked her lips. When would Dad notice she was no longer a little girl? ‘So we’re nearly there, then?’

  But Paul dashed her hopes with the most withering look he could muster. He knew he was being mean to his daughter, but she was the only person around on whom he could vent his ill feelings.

  ‘Didn’t you ever do geography?’ he chided with a despairing shake of his head. ‘The Lakes are not in Scotland, dear girl. We’ve still got a long way to go.’

  ‘But we’ve done hundreds of miles already! We started way before dawn. I didn’t know it was this far. We should really have flown instead.’

  ‘And leave the car in Wiltshire, I suppose? Fat lot of use that would have been. I told you; the place I found to rent’s some way out of Glasgow – a fair bit beyond, in fact, because although I don’t mind working in the city, I didn’t fancy living there. I’ll need the car to commute.’

  Actually, he had chosen the pretty little bungalow on Loch Long with Susannah mainly in mind. She would surely have loved it. He had honestly believed at the time that she would come with him, when it came to the crunch. He still couldn’t believe she hadn’t.

  Katy could see precisely why her father hadn’t wanted to live in Glasgow as soon as they hit the M8.

  ‘Da-ad,’ she said with growing trepi
dation as the car plunged on regardless, ‘is this really it?’

  ‘Yes,’ he answered shortly, daring her to say any more, so she curled up in her seat, her feet pressed up against the glove box, and fell into a silent gloom.

  But eventually the monstrous causeway ceased its march through the hell of modern living and began to follow the Clyde. Once Dumbarton was behind them things began to improve.

  ‘We’ve been stuck in this car all day,’ Katy said, yawning her widest yawn. They were passing a village called Rhu at the time, but she couldn’t see much of it.

  ‘I had noticed,’ Paul growled. His head was beginning to ache. It was dark already again, and he was growing a little concerned. In his initial delight with the bungalow he hadn’t realised just how far he had committed himself to commuting.

  ‘We’re nearly there now,’ he said at last, making tedious progress along a serpentine stretch of road. ‘That’s Loch Long on your left; the bungalow’s just round the bend, I think, if my memory serves me correctly’

  Paul had remembered wrongly They negotiated a dozen more bends before the bungalow came into sight. But by then Katy had fallen asleep.

  After a morning of being all politeness to Harvey, Mrs Wardle discovered that, charming though he undeniably was, he was not Susannah’s husband. Much to Susannah’s relief she withdrew her services immediately. From then on she was only glimpsed over the garden fence on the odd occasion, pegging out voluminous stockinette knickers on her washing line.

  ‘I feel like a scarlet woman,’ Susannah told Harvey, having already suffered many pangs of doubt and gnawing guilt. She had never been unfaithful to Paul in her life and had not intended to be now, even though they were estranged. Romance had never been on her agenda; Harvey was a hidden extra. And she knew she wasn’t in love with him – well, maybe she was a little – so why had she gone to bed with him? To feel wanted and comforted, she supposed. He was a good provider of both those things, as well as having obvious physical attractions.

  But if Harvey had any qualms about what he was doing, he didn’t let on to her; and whenever she got too serious about the situation he would smooth-talk her out of the mood.

  ‘Susu,’ he announced on the Saturday morning when they were lounging in bed with a stack of toast, ‘we’re out of luck.’ He had been thumbing through a free local rag he’d found on the doormat, in search of a car-boot sale. ‘There are only – let me see – twelve boot sales to choose from today. And a jumble sale or five.’

  ‘That all?’ Susannah smiled as she sipped at an orange juice.

  ‘There’s one that can’t be far away from here,’ he went on, ‘judging by its name; it’s on a school playing-field.’ He glanced up at her, licking a blob of marmalade from the corner of his mouth. ‘You know, people will buy anything at these sales. Have you ever been to one before? Julia –’ he checked himself – ‘well, you wouldn’t believe the junk they sell. You ought to take along some of your own stuff, you know, not just your Uncle Bert’s.’

  ‘My mosaic junk, you mean? Thanks for your vote of confidence.’ And thanks for the mention of Julia, she silently reproved him; Julia often sneaked into his conversation. Did he realise just how often? On several occasions Susannah had suspected she might be being used by Harvey somehow to teach Julia a lesson.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean your stuff was … well, you know what I really mean. It’s certainly worth a try. In which case perhaps we should go up market a bit; pick a more salubrious venue?’

  ‘It’s a wonderful idea,’ Susannah said, kissing him on the chin. ‘Whatever would I do without you?’

  Harvey beamed like a young boy scout who’s earned his bob for a job. There seemed nothing he liked more than to be useful.

  Perhaps they were both being used.

  Rain sheeted across the windscreen of Paul’s BMW. His tired eyes pierced the night. He might have been in a car-wash for all he could see of the road ahead. It certainly felt that way; the vehicle was constantly buffeted by a wind blowing up the Clyde, as if by huge invisible brushes. Water streamed from every direction. It scudded up under the wheel arches, hammered a tattoo on the roof; and the wipers were going berserk.

  But he was almost used to such conditions now; it had rained like this the whole week.

  ‘Doesn’t it ever stop?’ Katy had wanted to know after her first three days’ experience of it. She was kneeling on the lumpily cushioned window-seat at the time, her mouth turned down at the corners and her head propped up on one hand as she stared out across the loch. At least, she stared as far as she could see, which was the garden gate. Thick mist and driving rain hid everything else from view.

  ‘It can’t rain for ever,’ Paul had told her. But tonight he believed it could.

  Arriving at last at the bungalow, he scurried indoors to be greeted by the smell of … he sniffed extra hard … he couldn’t make anything out.

  ‘Oh, are you very hungry?’ Katy dragged her head from her book.

  ‘Well of course I’m very hungry. In fact I could eat a horse. What have you done for dinner tonight?’

  ‘I haven’t done anything yet. There’s nothing much to cook.’

  ‘Of course there is. There’s plenty.’ Paul held his temper in check with iron control. He’d had a long day catching up on a pile of paperwork inherited from his predecessor, attended a draggy management board meeting in the morning, and dealt with a tricky staff problem in the afternoon. The last thing he wanted was to have driven all this way home to find no meal ready on the table, no word of welcome, and Katy two inches into a Jackie Collins.

  He threw off his wet mac, kicked away his shoes and strode through to the kitchen. ‘Look at all this!’ he said, flinging open the fridge. ‘Loads and loads of stuff. We only went to the supermarket a few days ago.’

  ‘I know.’ Katy glared at him through the serving hatch. ‘But I didn’t fancy cooking any of that.’

  ‘You didn’t –?’ Paul began to lose control of himself. ‘Eggs.’ He picked up the box and slapped it down again. ‘We could have had an omelette at least. Chicken breasts: you could have done something with those. Cheese. Vegetables. Salmon steaks.’ He planted his hands on his hips and waited, but Katy had nothing to say.

  Paul crossed to his bedroom, then, to discover that his bed had not been made. And the bathroom was still warm and wet with recent steam. Katy’s mattress, when on an impulse he thrust a hand under the knotted covers to test it, was faintly warm too. No doubt about it: she had not been up very long.

  Like a bloodhound tracking a scent he loped back to the lounge, his attention now fixed on the carpet.

  ‘Those,’ he said, pointing downwards, ‘are crumbs from your lemon cream puffs. And you polished those off the day we bought them.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So why are the crumbs still there?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t they still be there?’

  ‘Because they should have been Hoovered up, that’s why. You do know what a Hoover is? That grey thing under the kitchen work top. Now is it too much to ask that you become acquainted with it?’

  ‘Oh, stuff it, Dad. What’s the point? Who’s going to see this place but us? We’re stuck in the middle of nowhere, miles from civilisation. Who gives a toss about a few measly crumbs?’

  ‘I do, as it happens. And I care about my empty stomach. And you told me you were going to keep house for me; not slum around all day doing nothing.’

  ‘Oh, stop nagging, will you? I can’t stand it! I’m not your wife, you know. God, no wonder Mum didn’t want to come with you. I hate you when you’re like this!’

  She flounced off to her bedroom, wailing, ‘I hate this house, I hate this weather, I hate Scotland. And I wish I’d never come!’

  ‘Katy? Katy, I’m sorry.’ Paul sat on her bed with a twang. ‘Am I really so awful to live with?’

  Katy dropped her book and kneeled up to hug him, relieved that he wasn’t still cross. ‘Of course you’re not horrible, Dad. You’re the b
estest father in the world.’ She grinned. ‘Except when you’re tired and hungry.’

  ‘And … I wasn’t like that to your mother, was I? Do you really think that’s why she went?’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Dad, I didn’t mean that.’ She punched his chest playfully. ‘That’s not why she went off on her own.’

  Katy sounded confident she had all the answers, and Paul studied her with surprise.

  ‘Why then? Why did she? Do you know why she went?’

  A glow swept over Katy. Her father was asking her opinion? For once he was treating her as an equal? Wonders would never cease.

  ‘It’s really very simple, you know. Women these days want more. More than the family and housework – and not just some mindless little job, either. We want big things for ourselves.’

  ‘Well, I know all about that. I’m not stupid. But it doesn’t apply to your mother.’

  ‘It does! That’s what I’m trying to say. Being liberated means being free to do … whatever you want to do. And Mum wants to do her own thing, for once – something rewarding and interesting and for herself. I can’t say I really blame her.’

  Paul stared at his daughter in amazement. ‘How come you know all about this?’

  Katy looked up at the ceiling. ‘Well, of course I know all about it. I’ve never known anything else. My generation takes it for granted.’

  ‘Do they?’

  ‘Oh –’ she tucked her feet under the old-fashioned eiderdown, looking a little shame-faced – ‘I know I’ve not shown Mum much sympathy. Not given her much support. I suppose you could say I’ve been a bit of a pain. I’ve been just a wee bit jealous, you see.’

  ‘You, jealous of your mother?’

  ‘Yes! Because she’d got it all, hadn’t she? Or nearly did have. Somehow she lost you in the process … But me – well, I’ve got nothing. I’m stuck in some kind of warp. No job, no money, no life.’

  ‘Poor Katy.’ He patted her shoulder. ‘Life’s not being very kind to you, is it? What are we going to do about you?’

  ‘I don’t know, Dad.’ She sniffed hard. ‘And you? What are you going to do about Mum?’