The same went for her dogs.
That’s what Shannon would talk to Scarlett about.
‘Here we are!’ Anastasia said, holding the tiny tiara aloft. ‘I knew I had one. Come here, my precious.’ She scooped up one of the little black dogs. ‘We’re going with a Tea Dance look today.’
Shannon tried not to pull a face. ‘Mmm hmm, very nice.’
Shaggy and Scooby, both fawn pugs, panted up at her. They didn’t seem at all phased by the tartan tuxedo jackets or the straw hats they wore.
Daphne and Velma wore matching pink and yellow tulle dresses, which shone against their shiny black coats. Daphne’s tiara was a little crooked.
‘Don’t forget the cards,’ Anastasia said. ‘And tell anyone who takes a photo–’
‘I know. Hashtag Supercalipugalicous.’ She stuffed the business cards Anastasia handed her into her big bag. ‘We’ll be back in two hours.’
She closed the door on the crazy lady and led her dogs around the corner. ‘Time for another costume change.’
They might be made to look ridiculous at home, but in the park Shannon was boss. She hated the idea of animals in costume. Every year from Halloween through to New Year’s she had to stay off Facebook to avoid seeing grumpy cats in Santa hats or dogs dressed as pirates. ‘That’s better.’ Stuffing the tiny tuxedos and frilly frocks into her bag, she walked them to the park where Scarlett was already waiting.
‘So these are the pugs,’ she said. ‘No outfits today?’
Shannon answered her by opening her bag to unleash the pink tulle.
Scarlett picked out one of the dresses. ‘Oh god, I see what you mean. Crimes against dogmanity.’
‘It should be outlawed. I just feel bad having walked them like that for so long before I got the nerve to take off those stupid outfits. And these aren’t even the worst of it. Sometimes they’re the Spice Girls.’
Scarlett put her arm round Shannon’s shoulders. Because of their height difference, it was an awkward embrace. ‘Don’t feel too bad. It’s the owner who should be ashamed of herself.’
When Shannon first met Anastasia she thought what most people probably did when they saw her mad hair, kimonos and dogs. She was an eccentric dog lover with too many photos of herself and her pets. But there was more to Anastasia than that. Her blog, for one thing. It was one of the most popular in the country and she posted photos and videos nearly every day. Shannon wondered just how much she’d spent on costumes for the pugs over the years. Liberace’s closet probably wasn’t as full as Anastasia’s spare bedroom.
Everything seemed to be about that blog – how highly it was ranked and how many people commented on the photos – and that was the problem. Shannon got the feeling that the dogs were more props than pets. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she told Scarlett as they circled the park, ‘they want for nothing. It’s just that they’re constantly being dressed up and filmed in weird situations. Last week she put them in a mini kitchen and had them pretending to bake tiny cakes. She called it the Great British Bark Off.’
Scarlett snorted. ‘That’s pretty good, you’ve got to admit. Do you think she loves them? Do they get enough attention?’
Shannon wasn’t quite sure how to answer that. ‘She’s definitely obsessed with them and her groomer is there nearly every day. Between the outfits and grooming and me, they’re getting a lot of attention but, I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem like a healthy situation. I think Anastasia’s the one really getting the attention. That blog is just a way to say look at me all the time.’
‘Yeah, probably. Have you ever heard her shout at them, or do they seem fearful of her?’
‘No, never. I can’t imagine Anastasia shouting. But isn’t it psychological cruelty to make them wear those outfits?’ She was speaking from personal experience. She still had the scars from childhood from when her mum had made her wear her cousin’s hand-me-down dungarees. Her too-long arms and legs stuck out of them, earning her the nickname she didn’t shake till college. Scarecrow.
‘If there’s any question about mistreatment,’ Scarlett continued, ‘you know I’ll be the first one to ring the RSPCA. But as they’re getting exercise every day and it sounds like they eat well and are well looked after, I think they’re okay. You’re doing the right thing, though. At least they can keep their dignity in the park.’ She kneeled down to pug level as they wriggled around her. ‘Who’s who?’
‘The boss-eyed black one is Daphne and the other black is Velma. Shaggy is the bigger fawn one.’ Scooby licked Scarlett’s knee. ‘And that’s Scooby. Careful, he’s a slobberer. They really are sweet dogs.’
She had such a soft spot for little dogs. She’d always wanted one growing up, but she and her brother had to make do with their cat, Sniffles. Sniffles didn’t even want to be a cat, let alone a dog, so he was pretty unsatisfying as far as pets went.
Scarlett brushed off her jeans as she stood up. ‘I know this walk isn’t really about the pugs.’
So much for Shannon’s future in Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
‘So tell me everything about Mr Darcy,’ Scarlett said.
‘Only if you tell me everything about the fertility tests you and Rufus took.’
‘That’s extortion.’
‘That’s concern, Scarlett. I’m worried. It’s hitting Rufus hard. I need to know how you feel.’
It wasn’t the first time that Shannon had seen Rufus cry, but he didn’t usually let his feelings out quite so much. Not to say he wasn’t emotional, just that tears weren’t usually the result of all that feeling.
He’d cried when his parents decided to sell their house in Berkshire and move to Tenerife, she remembered. That was a tough time. It didn’t matter that he’d probably see them more often thanks to Ryan Air’s cheap flights and the Canary Islands’ tempting sun. Shannon saw the teenager in him again, abandoned. He got over it after the first Christmas spent on the beach, though. It would probably take more than a winter tan to feel better about having dodgy sperm.
‘He’s worried that the tests will come back with the same result,’ Scarlett said.
‘What about you, though?’ Shannon pushed.
‘What time do you need to get the pugs back?’
‘We’ve got plenty of time. What about you, Scarlett?’
At first she didn’t think she’d answer and to be honest, that hurt. If the shoe was on the other foot, she’d tell Scarlett everything.
‘I feel bad that Rufus is so upset,’ Scarlett began, ‘but part of me is also relieved because… I can hardly even say it.’ Then she whispered, ‘Better him than me. Isn’t that a crazy thing to think about someone you love? I have to be the shittiest person on earth.’
Wow, thought Shannon, momentarily stunned. Actually that did sound kind of shitty. ‘You’d rather have him be unhappy than you?’ She thought about her mum, and how many times she’d said she’d die rather than see Shannon hurt. Granted, she usually said it when laying on a guilt trip, but the conviction in her voice said she meant it. Shannon was no expert in love (she barely counted as a keen amateur), but wasn’t that what loving someone was all about?
‘Of course I don’t want either of us to be unhappy! It makes me sick to see him upset like this, blaming himself and wondering why he can’t do what everyone else can. I know the feeling.’ Her voice took on a defensive edge. ‘I’m just saying that after all this time, it’s a relief not to feel it. It doesn’t mean I’m any less upset for him.’
Shannon nodded. ‘Being grateful that you’re not unhappy isn’t the same thing as wishing unhappiness on someone else. It doesn’t make you a horrible person. I’d probably feel the same way in your shoes.’
It was a little lie. Actually Shannon had no idea how she’d feel. Being so many steps removed from wanting a baby – first she’d have to have a date, then a boyfriend, who loved her, who she loved back, and they’d have to want a baby, and then try for it and then have trouble – she could hardly even imagine it.
&nbs
p; ‘He’s really going to need us, Shannon,’ Scarlett insisted. ‘I’m afraid of what’ll happen if the tests come back with the same result. He’s upset enough as it is. We both have to help him through whatever’s coming.’
‘Of course we will,’ Shannon said. ‘He’s my best friend. You both are. I’d do anything for you.’
Just as long as everyone stayed loving and supportive, she thought. But what if they didn’t?
She supposed she’d always known that her social life was precarious. Growing up, it balanced on the rocky outcrop that was Rufus. Her parents had tried everything they could think of to find Shannon some girlfriends. It was no use. She and Rufus were besties. They didn’t need more than each other, friend-wise at least. By the time they started university together her parents had given up on a wider social life for their daughter.
Then he met Scarlett and Shannon’s group of friends doubled all at once. But what if their goodwill for each other wore off now and one of them started resenting the other, or worse, what if they started blaming? Then who was she supposed to side with?
Chapter 17
Things looked peaceful at Margaret’s house when Scarlett arrived for their session. The front curtains were drawn closed and Biscuit didn’t even bark when Scarlett rang the bell. That was promising.
She waited a few moments, listening for the telltale shuffle of feet, before ringing again. They’d switched to mornings so maybe Margaret was having a lie-in.
No, there were footsteps. A dishevelled young man flung open the door. ‘Oh, hiya, I’m Scarlett. Here for Margaret?’
‘She’s not in, but you’re welcome to wait. She should be back any minute.’ He beckoned her into the hall. ‘Would you like a drink?’
Who was this polite boy? ‘No, thank you.’ She followed him into the living room. The big flat-screen TV on the wall had the cricket on.
‘If you’d like anything at all, just let me know. Please make yourself comfortable.’ He settled on to the sofa while Scarlett undid her coat and found a chair.
Maybe Archie had a twin. One with his volume turned down.
Scarlett was still uncomfortable about having walked in on last week’s face-off. She wasn’t used to families who shouted. Rufus’s family all spoke like they were in church and her mum, strong-willed as she was, never raised her voice. Dad only yelled when he was excited about something (which was, admittedly, often) and Felicia never bothered with drama.
But it was fair to say that if she’d ever treated Felicia or her mum like Archie had treated his, they’d have knocked her into next week.
They both heard a car pull into the drive. Archie clicked off the TV before bounding from the sofa. ‘Excuse me, please.’
‘Mum!’ he bellowed. ‘I’m late.’
Margaret hurried through the door after Biscuit. ‘Hello, Mrs Fothergill, I’m so sorry! I meant to get back before you arrived.’ She went to the windows and drew back the heavy curtains. ‘Archie, it’s so gloomy in here!’
‘I’ve missed the first part of the match, thanks to you,’ he said, ignoring his mother’s greeting.
‘I am sorry!’ She glanced at the TV. ‘Couldn’t you have watched it on Sky?’
‘Why don’t I just sit at home then and watch Sky all the time, and not ever see my friends?!’
The little turd, thought Scarlett. He was watching it on TV.
‘All right,’ Margaret said. ‘Here are the keys. Will you be warm enough in that?’ Her hand found the sleeve of his cotton jacket, but he pulled his arm away. ‘Do you need some cash?’
‘Yes, please.’
She pulled twenty quid from her purse. He stuffed it in his pocket on the way to the door.
When Margaret slumped to the sofa her bright red wool coat rode up at the shoulders, engulfing her ears. She kept batting the collar away from her face.
‘Don’t you want to take your coat off?’ Scarlett asked.
‘Of course. What am I thinking? Thanks ever so much. Actually, I don’t really like this coat,’ she said, taking it off. ‘It’s always shifting around or pulling in the wrong direction. I feel a bit like a letterbox in it. But Arthur gave it to me and he gets so sullen if I don’t wear it.’
As if Margaret’s wardrobe choice was a personal rejection. It sounded to Scarlett like Arthur’s ego had brittle bone disease.
When Margaret’s phone rang she stabbed at the buttons. ‘Hello darling?’
‘Mum, this car stinks of dog,’ came Archie’s voice over the speakerphone. ‘It’s disgusting. Why don’t you give Biscuit a bath?’
He hung up.
‘I did, in fact,’ she explained, putting her phone back in her pocket. ‘We’ve just been to the groomer. She needed her glands done. I’m afraid Archie’s right. She did stink up the car, but she’s all clean now.’
Scarlett could see that. Biscuit’s ears looked extra fluffy and she had the ever-so-smug look of a freshly washed dog.
‘Would you like a drink?’ Margaret asked. ‘I’m going to make a pot of tea.’
Margaret looked like she could use a little chat before they started. ‘I’d love a cup, thanks.’
Clearly frustrated, she bustled around the kitchen making conversation while she rinsed out the pot and gathered real china teacups and saucers. As she was reaching into one of the high cabinets she knocked the sack of sugar. It hit the floor in a sweet tidal wave. ‘Bugger. Do you take sugar?’
When Scarlett shook her head Margaret nodded to herself. Then she scooped as much as possible from the floor back into the sack, picked out a few pieces of fluff, and swept the stray crystals into the bin.
‘I don’t understand how some people can be so polite to others and beastly to me,’ she said, sniffing the milk before pouring it into a delicate pitcher.
Scarlett happened to know just how that felt lately. She fought back the tears that pricked her eyes thinking about the last week around Rufus. How could someone she’d loved for years, someone closer to her than anyone else in the world, who’d shared her most intimate moments, act like he couldn’t stand being in the same room? She thought she knew every facet of the man. Clearly she didn’t because this fragment was painful and she had no idea how to smooth it. She’d been cheery till her cheeks ached. She tried cajoling him out of his moods, despite feeling like shit herself, inside and out. The more she tried, the more jagged his edges became. All she wanted to do was make him feel okay again. Then maybe they’d be okay again.
It wasn’t that he wouldn’t tell her what was wrong. Every day he told her. They shouldn’t have taken those tests, he’d said. It was better not knowing.
She wondered whether he’d feel the same way if she’d been the one with the bad test results.
‘All I do is try to make everyone happy,’ Margaret continued, unwittingly echoing Scarlett’s thoughts. ‘But everything I say seems to set Archie off.’
Scarlett dragged her mind back to Margaret. This was her session after all. ‘Maybe that’s the problem,’ she said. ‘You’re too nice for your own good.’
‘I don’t know how else to be,’ she answered. She had, once upon a time she said, had her own mind. But those days were so far behind her now that she could only see them if she squinted. In that dim and distant past she thought she might have been an outgoing young woman with some ambition. She’d be foxed if she could remember now what those ambitions were. Wife and Mother were the only titles she’d answered to for decades and she wasn’t quite sure what had happened to the rest of it.
She glanced at Biscuit. ‘Your whole family’s a pain in the arse sometimes,’ she said. ‘And you. You’re no better.’
Biscuit turned to stare out the bi-fold doors into the garden. She wasn’t listening to Margaret any more than Arthur or Archie did.
The slight breeze had a warm edge as they worked together outside with Biscuit. The daffs and crocuses had given way to pink, purple, fuchsia and white stocks all along the borders. Their sweet heavy fragrance mixed with the scent o
f freshly cut grass. Margaret’s was the kind of garden Scarlett had always wanted. She’d have to adopt Margaret to look after it, though. She was hopeless with plants.
‘I’ve been practising all week, like you said, Mrs Fothergill. Watch this. Biscuit, sit.’
Biscuit glared back at Margaret. What do I look like, your performing monkey? I think not.
‘Sit, Biscuit.’
The dog gave Margaret the spaniel equivalent of a whatever-face.
‘Blasted dog. She was doing it before. I guess we need some more practice.’
‘It takes time, but she’ll get there,’ Scarlett said.
‘Well, I haven’t got much time left,’ she murmured. ‘Oh, that sounds melodramatic. I just mean that, well, it’s Arthur, you see. He says I’ve spoiled the dog. Honestly, I haven’t, though. He thinks if I can’t even get an animal to behave when we’re going to a professional trainer, well then I really am hopeless.’
The more Scarlett heard about this Arthur, the more she wanted to strangle him. ‘Margaret, take it from me, you are not hopeless. What proportion of dogs do you think I’ve met who don’t listen to their humans? I’ll tell you. A hundred per cent. That’s the only reason people come to me. If their dog minded them, they wouldn’t need my help. So I hate to break it to Biscuit, but she’s not special. And if Arthur thinks he can do better, he should be here to try.’
‘Oh, that I’d love to see!’ Margaret said. ‘That’s not the deal with us, though. He’s the breadwinner. I do everything else.’
Love, honour and do thy laundry, Scarlett thought. Margaret should renegotiate her terms.
They hadn’t been training long in the garden when Margaret had to take a call from the caterer. Their sessions always seemed to be a series of interruptions with some training in between.
‘I thought the quote was eight ninety-nine per head,’ she said. ‘I’m sure it was in your email… Oh. Really? Bowls? Are you sure they’re more efficient than plates? I didn’t think a serving table would be that expensive. Aren’t they just folding tables? No, no, of course I’m not telling you how to do your job. It’s just that we’d agreed a price and now it’s not long till the party. I see. I guess I didn’t read all the Ts and Cs. Yes, of course we do, Octavia. We’re so grateful that you can do it for us. When do you need payment?’ She sighed. ‘Okay. I’ll just have to explain the increase to Arthur. Hmm? Yes, I suppose I could just send it from my account. No, you’re right. No reason to bother him with the details. All right. Thanks every so much again. Thank you. Bye.’
Love is a Four-Legged Word: The romantic comedy about canines, conception and fresh starts Page 13
