As soon as she utters the words ‘ice cream’, George is out and standing in front of us, his eyes wide with expectation.
We arrange to meet at lunchtime, when Maz is free again, and I persuade George to take a walk around the showground. Ross tags along with us.
‘You don’t have to,’ I say, assuming that he would prefer to catch up with Heidi and his dog. ‘I have my mobile if you need me.’
‘I want to,’ he says as he follows us out of the members’ enclosure. ‘If you don’t mind . . .’
What about Heidi? I want to ask. Won’t she be looking out for him? More questions chase through my brain. Where did she sleep last night? Did they have separate rooms at the manor, or did she and Ross share a bed for old times’ sake?
Chapter Eight
Cuddly Crocodiles and Silver Balloons
We pass the Talyton Animal Rescue stall, where Tessa and some of the volunteers are running a tombola. Ross stops to buy a strip of tickets and George turns the handle on the revolving drum before picking a winning number. The prize is a bottle of bubble bath, but Tessa swaps it for a Rubik’s cube and gives him a quick demonstration.
‘We’ve rehomed all the baby rabbits from Otter House,’ she says. ‘It wasn’t difficult – they definitely had the cute factor.’
We move on.
‘Isn’t that Merrie over there?’ Ross touches my shoulder, the contact like an electric shock shooting down my spine. I try to shake off the feeling of longing, following his gaze to where Mrs Wall is sitting at a small table outside a small, wigwam-style tent with candy-striped canvas. Merrie is perched on a cushion on a chair beside her. ‘Let’s go and see what planet our local soothsayer is on today.’
‘Oh, don’t be mean. Promise you’ll be kind to her.’
‘I’ll try,’ he grins. ‘George, have you met Mrs Wall, the fortune-teller?’
‘No, but I’m really hungry now,’ he pleads.
‘You’ve just had a bowl of crisps,’ point out.
‘I’m hungry for ice cream.’
‘So am I,’ Ross says. ‘We’ll go and get one as soon as we’ve spoken to Mrs Wall. I can check on Merrie’s skin at the same time.’
When we approach, she looks up from her crystal ball, which looks very much like an empty snowdome. She’s wearing a black coat with a lining of purple shot silk over her everyday clothes, and a scarf wrapped around her head like a turban.
‘Cross my palm with silver, my lovers, and I’ll read your fortune.’
‘Silver?’ Ross says.
‘Actually, it’s a fiver for the full works, three questions for the crystal ball and a palm reading.’
‘Oh, go on then,’ he says, but she declines the money that he takes from his wallet.
‘I can’t read the hand of a sceptic.’
‘Shannon, how about you?’ Ross pays for me before I have a chance to argue that she’s read my fortune using astrology at a previous year’s show, so I know that I’m going to be lucky in love and lead a long and happy life. However, I decide that I have nothing to lose by going along with it.
‘How would you like me to interrogate the crystal ball?’ she says, moving both hands over the glass.
‘I’d like you to ask if there’s a message from my father,’ swallow past a lump that forms in my throat.
‘You don’t believe in this stuff, do you?’ Ross whispers from my side.
I turn to him sharply. ‘I believe in the afterlife.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, backing down. ‘You go ahead.’
‘Don’t you?’
‘No.’ His voice is thick with sorrow and his eyes are fixed on Mrs Wall’s hands. ‘When you’re gone, you’re gone,’ he adds, his scathing attitude replaced with regret, and I wonder who’s on his mind.
‘Hush,’ she says. ‘I have something.’
‘How do you know you’re in touch with the right person?’ Ross asks.
‘Don’t question what you can never understand.’
‘I’m trying to figure it out.’
‘So you can mock and undermine me when I’m merely a channel along which the unexplained energies of the universe transmit. Hush,’ she repeats, holding one long finger to her lips. ‘There is indeed a message.’
My heart leaps. ‘You’ve found him?’
‘What a bit of luck,’ Ross says with sarcasm.
‘Ross, shut up.’
‘He has found you,’ Mrs Wall says, ignoring him. ‘He says to look out for the rainbows, darling, just as we used to.’
How does she know that? I think, feeling hopeful although not entirely convinced. My dad used to take me out hunting for rainbows.
‘Is he happy?’ I want to know. ‘He doesn’t feel . . . pushed out or forgotten, because you must tell him that he isn’t; that he’s always in my thoughts.’
Mrs Wall’s hands do an elaborate sashay above the crystal ball.
‘He knows he is loved and he loves you. And the appearance of a man with a name beginning with G has made no difference to him.’
‘Godfrey,’ sigh.
‘What a surprise,’ Ross cuts in.
‘It’s all right. Everyone knows he and Mum are an item. I’m glad Dad’s cool with him.’ wrap my arms around my chest. ‘Is there anything else?’
‘Nothing,’ Mrs Wall says quietly. ‘I’m so glad he came through for you. Now, give me your hand.’ She puts her tinted specs on top of her turban and examines my palm. Her eyes are remarkably green, calm and cat-like when she looks up at me.
‘You recall that I said you would be lucky in love – well, it’s clear that you will be married, very possibly within a year from now.’
‘Really?’
‘That all sounds rather vague to me,’ Ross comments.
‘Palmistry isn’t an exact science.’
‘It isn’t a science at all. It’s smoke and mirrors.’
‘We’ll see, shall we? I’m not normally a gambling woman, but I’ll make an exception. If Shannon isn’t making plans to marry by this time next year, I’ll give you a ten-pound note – and vice versa.’
Ross hesitates, as though taken by surprise, before shaking her hand. ‘Done,’ he says. ‘Can you tell her how many kids she’s going to have?’
‘Why? Do you think she’s going to marry you?’ she asks with a sly smile.
He chuckles. ‘I doubt it somehow.’
Mrs Wall takes a second look at my palm, counting the tiny lines on the edge of my hand opposite the base of my thumb. ‘There will be five children, all boys.’
‘That’s too many,’ I say quickly. ‘I mean, I’d like a baby in the future, one or two – not five.’
‘Just imagine taking five mini-bikes to motocross every weekend,’ Ross teases, and a picture of him on his bike with five boys on bikes in a row behind him, like a duck with ducklings, springs to mind.
‘It would be so cute, but these are my babies, not yours.’
‘The lines indicate the potential for you to have five children. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll end up with that many.’
‘All these rules made to be broken,’ Ross starts again. ‘Really, you can say what you like.’
‘I hate to say this, but you’re right,’ Mrs Wall says. ‘People take their own truth from my words.’
‘They pick and choose to suit their circumstances, you mean.’
‘Listen, young man, we are never going to agree on anything.’
‘I know. Would you mind me having a quick look at Merrie, seeing as she’s here?’
‘You’re welcome, but don’t ask me to cross your palm with silver afterwards. I’m not made of money.’
Ross grins as he strokes the dog, running his fingers through her coat and looking closely at her skin, checking her ears and paws in particular.
‘She’s looking better,’ he says.
Mrs Wall thanks him and George, who’s been watching intently, asks if he can have a go at the crystal ball.
‘We must ask M
ummy first.’ I don’t want him having any hang-ups because of what Mrs Wall tells him. I don’t think his parents would appreciate him having nightmares about the ghosts she can conjure up. We wish her a good day and Ross and I take George to join the queue outside the ice-cream van, and the three of us are eating vanilla cones with flakes and strawberry sauce when a woman appears with a dog that’s almost as big as Nero.
‘Hi,’ she calls, and the dog bounds in on the end of his lead to greet Ross.
‘Meet Bart,’ he says, looking at me as he hugs the dog, who is standing on his hind legs with his paws on his master’s shoulders.
‘That is a giant dog,’ George marvels, wiping his face with the back of his hand.
The woman smiles. ‘That’s so typical, introducing the dog before me.’
‘I’m George,’ George says.
‘Heidi, this is Shannon. Shannon, Heidi.’ Ross pushes Bart down so he has all four feet on the ground. The dog hangs back with his ears and tail down as he sniffs the air and holds my gaze with a cool stare. I avert my eyes, uncertain about his reaction when I’d expected him to make friends.
‘Let’s hope Maz is right and it won’t be too busy on call today,’ Ross goes on.
‘I hope so. You promised to take me out to see the sights tonight.’ I notice how Heidi rests one hand on his shoulder. She has shiny French-polished nails with immaculate white tips. Her hair is sleek, blonde, and feathered down past her high cheekbones, and her clothes – a rugby shirt with a bold stripe, crops and canvas shoes – are Joules and Musto. ‘Hello, Shannon. It’s lovely to meet you.’
I’m not sure what to say. My first impression of Heidi is that she’s okay, vibrant and beautiful – in fact, I’m not sure why Ross would give her the push.
He walks ahead with George, trawling all the stalls for freebies – pens, fluffy creatures for the dashboard of the car, badges, a sample of disinfectant for cleaning your cowshed and three silver balloons on sticks – while Heidi and I wander along behind with Bart between us.
‘I know Ross doesn’t like it much, but I felt like the lady of the manor this morning, waking up in that lovely old house.’
‘What about Bart? Does he get on with the Fox-Giffords’ dogs?’
‘We decided not to risk finding out – he slept in the bedroom with me and his dad.’
It takes me a moment to register that by ‘his dad’ she means Ross. So that’s it then, I muse. He really is unavailable. He and Heidi are still sleeping with each other. His status is what I’d describe as ‘complicated’.
‘This is so much fun,’ Heidi goes on. ‘I feel as if I’ve stepped back in time. There’s a Punch and Judy show and a stall selling old-fashioned sweets and candy sticks,’ she says brightly. ‘I’d love to live somewhere around here. It’s beautiful.’
‘So you’re thinking of moving to Devon?’
‘Not seriously. It’s a long way to bring the dog, but I need to stay where I am for work.’
‘What do you do? You aren’t a vet . . . ?’
‘I couldn’t do what Ross does. I’m a biologist – I work in a research lab in Surrey. I specialise in tissue cultures.’
It’s funny, but I imagined she’d do something more glamorous. I’m finding it hard to picture her in a white coat when, with her figure, she could be a model.
‘Who looks after Bart while you’re at work?’
‘I’m very lucky – my mother has him for doggy day-care.’ She flicks her hair back. ‘Ross seems happy here. I thought he might hate it. It sounds as if he’s making friends. He was at the pub the other night when I called him.’
‘We had a drink at the Dog and Duck.’
‘I see,’ she says slowly. ‘Oh well, I expect you spend a lot of time with him.’
‘Mostly at work.’ I don’t think she likes the idea of me fraternising with her ex after hours, but that isn’t my problem, I think, as Bart pulls her across the avenue between the stands. He introduces himself to a spaniel, which lifts its lip to reveal a full set of teeth as the hairs on Bart’s hackles rise.
‘Bart, come here.’ She tugs at the lead. ‘No,’ she adds, as he ignores her, and she has to resort to dragging him away by his collar. ‘I’m supposed to have taken him to dog training, but I haven’t had the time.’ She looks at me, her face flushed. ‘It’s no use asking Ross to do it – there’d be no consistency or routine. He’s always been like that: getting up in the morning and taking off on his bike whenever he feels like it. I suppose that’s one of the things I love about him, his spontaneity, even when it does lead him into making some pretty dim decisions.’
I’m not sure what to say. I don’t like talking about Ross behind his back, so I settle on a safer topic of conversation.
‘Bart seems like a lovely dog,’ I begin, even though I’m not sure about him yet. ‘How long have you had him?’
‘A couple of years now. Ross and I had been together for five years – we met at university – and we gave Bart a home on the assumption we’d stay together. We talked about marriage, I bought the dress, and then things began to unravel. I’ve seen it before. Man gets serious. Woman accepts proposal of marriage. Woman buys wedding dress. Man gets cold feet.’
‘I didn’t realise . . .’ That isn’t the impression he gave me when he talked to me about ending his relationship with her, and I wonder whose version is closest to the reality of what did happen between them.
She tips her head slightly to one side. ‘I’m hoping it won’t take him too long to see what he’s missing and then, who knows? Maybe . . .’
‘You mean, you want to get back with him?’
‘You seem surprised,’ she says, her brows arched in question.
‘No, not really,’ stammer.
‘I wouldn’t expect Ross to talk about personal matters with one of his vet nurses,’ she says. ‘Besides, you know what men are like. They’re never good at expressing their true feelings.’ She seems to accept my silence as mutual agreement, when it’s far from it. I haven’t noticed her ex having any trouble letting people know exactly how he feels. ‘Well, it would be great to be a family again,’ she goes on, giving Bart’s ear a rub. He grunts with pleasure. ‘And, maybe, in the future . . . well, look how good he is with George . . .’
Why didn’t Ross mention this possibility?, I wonder, as George comes running back with a green soft toy crocodile that’s almost as big as he is, having given up the Rubik’s cube.
‘I’ve got a ginormous crocodile,’ he shrieks, proceeding to wrestle it to the ground until it’s lying on its back and he has his foot on its yellow belly. ‘Gotcha!’ he bellows.
‘I think it’s time we took you back to find your mummy.’ I turn to Ross. ‘What was in those ice creams?’
‘I dread to think.’ He grins at George. ‘Now you’ve subdued that giant croc, you can pick it up and carry it.’
‘It might still bite me,’ he says, flexing his skinny arms.
‘How about tying the string from one of the balloons around his nose?’ Ross suggests. George nods in agreement, and Ross unfastens the knot on one of the strings, lets the balloon go floating off into the sky, and wraps the string around the crocodile’s mouth, finishing it with a bow. ‘How’s that?’
George waves his hand in front of the crocodile’s face and pronounces the move a success.
I wish Ross and Heidi goodbye before I take George and the crocodile along to the ring, where Maz is judging the ‘best pet in show’ class. Her top three are Sherbet, a sausage dog belonging to one of our clients; the pair of baby rabbits – Mojo and Flyte – who are safely ensconced in a white wire basket, and a very grumpy long-haired cat that’s also in a cage.
‘Which one would you choose?’ I ask George.
‘The rabbits, because then my crocodile could eat them. Snap, snap.’
I ruffle his hair. ‘You’d better not let your mum’s clients hear that.’
After some deliberation, Maz picks Sherbet as the winner, honouring his han
dler, a little girl in a red dress, with a matching rosette. The rabbits are second, and the cat third, and as the competitors parade around the ring to the sound of applause from the assembled audience, Maz spots us and comes over to the ringside that’s marked out with rope and straw bales.
‘Look what I won.’ George holds up the crocodile.
‘That’s wonderful, darling. Thanks for that, Shannon. Where am I going to put it?’
‘It was Ross,’ I say.
‘I’ll be having a word with him later. You don’t fancy having George a little longer? Sophia wants me to help supervise the Pony Club Mounted Games.’
‘I want to go with you, Mummy,’ George says.
‘Of course you do.’ Maz takes his hand. ‘I expect you want to catch up with some of your friends too,’ she adds, looking at me.
‘That’s the plan.’ George is lovely, but sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. Taylor isn’t able to make it to the show because she’s working at the garden centre all day, but Mitch has texted me to let me know he’ll be about this afternoon. I check my watch. It’s almost midday. I decide to have a wander and see how Frances has done with her entries in the WI competitions.
I check I have my mobile to hand in case Ross calls me to help out with any emergencies, and step inside the marquee. It’s buzzing with both people and some bees that are confined, I hope, behind some netting, and two beekeepers dressed in protective clothing. The scent of honey and sweat mingles with the fragrance of English roses that reminds me of the shop.
It takes me a moment to identify Frances amongst the crowd – she’s wearing a tunic printed with big black and white squares, white cropped trousers and cork sandals, and wearing a rosette. I thought that wasn’t the done thing in the WI, where winning is everything as long as you don’t make a spectacle of it. I make my way across the trampled grass to congratulate her.
‘What was it? The chutney?’
‘Of course,’ she smiles. ‘It’s my secret recipe that does it every time. Have you seen Bray Molland? He gave me this rosette.’ She touches the red ribbons. ‘Can you believe it? He shook my hand.’
‘I hope Lenny doesn’t mind,’ say, teasing her.
Vets of the Heart Page 12
