by Sophie King
‘I thought he’d eaten something at first.’
She was horribly aware of gabbling now, partly from the relief of hearing her husband and partly with fear about Mungo who was, even as she spoke, lying motionless in his basket, sleepy from the drugs.
‘But now the vet thinks it might be a brain tumour. He’s walking up and down – pacing continuously and bumping into things.’
She glanced at him. ‘He’s on sedatives now but when they wear off, he begins pacing again.’
His voice was cold; detached. As though they were talking about something else. ‘Can they do anything?’
It was the same question she’d asked the vet over and over.
‘He’s booked in for a scan – it’s going to cost a fortune.’
‘I’ve put some more money into the account.’
She wanted to scream. ‘That’s not why I’ve rung. I thought you’d want to come back. To say . . . to say goodbye.’
‘I can’t.’
He couldn’t have fired back a faster reply.
‘Why not?’ She could hear the panic mounting in her own voice. David not come back? David who had loved Mungo; taken him for walks every night. Would he have come back if it had been one of the children?
As though reading her mind, he said: ‘Have you called Ross? He’ll come up and help.’
The anger which she’d felt briefly before was now coming back. Lashing in waves; burning like an insidious indigestion. ‘Don’t you want to come back, David? Don’t you want to say goodbye? For God’s sake, where are you? I know you’re with that woman. I know . . .’
‘I have to go. Email me. I don’t know when I can pick it up but try anyway.’
Click.
For a few seconds, she stared at the phone in her hand as though doing so might make him come back on the line. When the vet had first told her about the tumour, she’d been ashamed of the tiny hope that had then leaped into her chest. The hope that maybe this news might make her husband come home. But now what?
Kneeling down beside the silent Mungo, she gently stroked behind his ears; something he’d always loved since a puppy. He didn’t stir but she could feel him breathing. Slowly. Heavily.
Phone Ross, her husband had said. She’d already done that. Had phoned both children; both calls had gone straight to voicemail. They’d come back when they got the messages, of course. They adored Mungo. But David owed it to her to return. Sod him. If that’s how he wanted to behave, she’d show him. Show them all.
She couldn’t wait to tell the group. See what they thought.
She’d slept fitfully that night, waking at 5am – something she’d started doing since David left – vaguely aware of a dream in which she’d been riding a bicycle clutching her husband from behind. There was a cat somewhere in the dream but she couldn’t remember how. Karen had said something at the last meeting about being prepared for weird dreams. Journeys, she had said, were quite common. They meant you were moving on. Did a bike count? She didn’t feel she was moving on herself. And Caroline, who invited herself round later that night, certainly didn’t.
‘Bastard.’
Her sister was perched on the kitchen table, cigarette in one hand, glass of Chardonnay in the other. ‘He’s not worth it, Alison. Not if he can’t be bothered to come back and see his sick dog. Just look at him!’
Caroline waved her hand at Mungo who had started to pace again. Every now and then he stood and stared at blank spaces as though he could see something. It was scary.
‘Can they do anything if it is a tumour?’ Caroline stubbed out her cigarette in the butler sink. At any other time, Alison would have asked her not to do that.
‘Not much.’ She swallowed. ‘But tomorrow’s scan will tell us more.’
Caroline topped up her glass without being invited and then opened the freezer door.
‘No ice?’
‘You’re asking me about ice when my husband has left and the dog is dying?’
‘Don’t get tetchy, Alison. I’m only trying to help. When are the children coming?’
‘Tomorrow.’
Caroline sniffed. ‘You’d think they’d have come down a bit earlier. Selfish kids are, nowadays. Makes me almost glad I didn’t have them myself.’
She jumped off the table. Something about her looked different. Slimmer perhaps. It suited her.
‘Have you lost weight?’
‘A bit. Comes from working too hard. Talking of which, I’ve got to go. Up early tomorrow, I’m afraid, for a client.’ She kissed Alison on one cheek. ‘I’ll call you. Look out Mungo, you bumped right into me then.’
Her sister had never been a dog person, thought Alison as she saw Caroline out. Or much of a child person either. But when you didn’t have parents any more, a sister was the only lifeline left to the rest of yourself.
Three hours later, Alison was getting desperate. Mungo’s pacing had increased, pushing his head into every tiny corner, every crevice. Nothing worked. Not even sitting in front of the television with him which he normally loved (it happened to be a programme on toads. Toads! When would she have watched something like that when the children were at home?).
Then, just as she flicked onto another channel, Mungo charged past her again, his eyes fixed on some unknown object ahead. This was scary! Really scary. He couldn’t even hear the door knocker which was going right now – normally Mungo would have run for the door, barking madly. Still, thought Alison, feeling a huge wave of relief as she opened it, at least one of the children had come back early.
‘Hi? Alison?’
She stared at the stranger on the doorstep, who was looking at her as though she should know who he was.
‘Alison Greene?’
Instinctively, she put her hand on the red alarm button next to the front door. All she had to do was press it and it went straight through to the police.
‘I’m Clive. Clive Cartwright. Didn’t Ed tell you I was coming round? I know it’s a bit late – sorry about that. But I tried ringing and you’ve been engaged all the time and then I found myself in your neighbourhood so I reckoned I might just try you. No worries. I’ll come back another time.’
‘No. Wait.’
Memories of a snatched conversation with Ed, that nice man from the group, who had indeed called yesterday – or was it the day before? – floated back to her. Something about whether she really was serious about a lodger and if so, would she be interested in taking on his because Ed’s stepbrother needed somewhere to stay and there wasn’t enough room for both. It would only be temporary and it might give her a taste to see if she liked having a stranger in the house.
‘I’m sorry. I’d forgotten.’ There was something that drew her to this man’s warm face with eyes that didn’t look away and that friendly northern accent.
‘I can see you’re busy.’ He took a step down from the step, crunching the gravel on the drive that needed replacing. A job David had intended to do.
‘Yes. No. Please. Come in.’
She wanted him to keep her company now. Anyone. The Big Issue woman on the street corner would have done. Somehow she found herself taking him into the sitting room where the television was still on. There was a strange moaning sound from it and the flashing of bare limbs. Don’t say she’d turned to the Adult Channel by mistake!
‘I wasn’t watching that!’ She felt herself turn beetroot. ‘I started watching something else to take my mind off everything. My dog. He’s ill. We’ve got a scan tomorrow.’
The words were chopping out of her mouth as though she couldn’t find the bits in between to link them in proper sentences. But this big, kindly man seemed to understand.
‘We used to have a dog.’
She grabbed the information like a lifeline. ‘Can you take a look?’
He hesitated. ‘Why don’t you ring the emergency vet? There’s got to be one on duty.’
‘There is. But I’d rather my own vet looked at him. He’s known him since he was a puppy.’
‘Hello, old fellow.’
And before she knew it, this Clive was kneeling next to Mungo who was never particularly keen on strangers and yet who seemed to accept – no, almost like – the way he was stroking behind the ears and talking in that low, crooning voice that was almost hypnotic; that made her feel he might be able to work miracles.
‘He lies down like that one minute and then charges about the next as though he’s hyper . . .’ she began to explain but no sooner had the words come out of her mouth than Mungo tottered up and wobbled towards the wall as though it wasn’t there; as though he was going to go straight through it. ‘See what I mean?’
She stared at him, willing this man to say it was all right. That he knew what could be done.
‘He’s in pain, Alison. We need to get help on this.’ His eyes were more serious now. ‘If I were you, I’d ring that emergency vet. Fast.’
He came with her in the car, holding Mungo in the back wrapped in his favourite smelly blanket as though he’d always known him. At the traffic lights, when she was able to stop and look back, Mungo raised his head and looked at her, the way he always used to and she felt a stab of hope again.
‘He’s talking! Did you hear that? He said something to me!’
Clive nodded. ‘I don’t understand people who say dogs don’t talk,’ he said quietly.
But then the lights changed before she could agree and they were at the vet’s which was, like all the other shops in town, in darkness. ‘She said she’d come out,’ she said appalled.
‘The lights are going on now. See?’
His voice was reassuring, making her feel that it still might be all right. ‘Come on, old boy. In we go.’
The vet was surely too young to have qualified. At least that was her first impression. But her tone was professional and she could tell from the way she was examining Mungo that she knew what she was doing.
‘I’m sorry.’ They were both looking at her now as though a team. ‘I honestly think the only thing to do is to put him out of his pain.’
The words slammed against her with the weight of a freezer. ‘But the children. My husband. They’re not here.’
The girl glanced at Clive as though she had thought he was the latter. ‘Can they get here in the next few minutes?’
‘No.’
The look on the vet’s face was enough to make her realise. Kneeling down, she buried her face in Mungo’s soft fur. ‘I’m so sorry darling. I love you. I love you so much.’
The girl’s face was softer now with understanding. ‘I promise you. He won’t feel a thing.’
Alison couldn’t remember the drive back. Later, she realised Clive must have driven the car; possibly without being insured. Dimly, she could recall being handed a mug of something hot and sweet which she sipped, sitting on the floor, next to the empty basket which was still warm from Mungo.
The house was so silent!
‘Don’t go.’
Had she said that? Or merely imagined it?
Dimly, she had a memory of walking up the stairs alone and curling up on the bed, in a foetal position. This was too much to bear, she told herself, before falling into a dark blanket. Too much.
‘Mum. Mum!’
Mum?
The voice seemed to be coming at her through water. She tried to ignore it but it was persistent. It was coming, she realised, as she heaved herself up into a sitting position, from a tall figure at her bedroom door. A tall, gangly figure. A young David.
‘What’s going on?’
Fumbling for the light in the dark, she switched it on. It was Ross. Frowning. Furious.
‘Where’s Mungo? And what the hell is that man doing on our sofa in the sitting room?’
16
KAREN
The Memorial Hall was booked up that month, so she’d had to send out her handouts instead with a little apology note. It was booked up for the following month too according to the clipped-voiced Chairperson of the Bookings Committee. And she couldn’t find anywhere else in time.
‘I can’t let them down again,’ she’d wailed. ‘I feel terrible about this month as it is.’
‘Invite them round to your place,’ suggested Adam. ‘Just the once.’
She nodded while putting a small piece of bread into little Josh’s hand so he could feed the ducks which were flapping expectantly on the side of the pond. They’d gone out for the day to a place near Wycombe – her suggestion. Anything to try and repair fences with Hayley.
Ever since that evening when she had seen from her daughter-in-law’s face that it was too late, Hayley had been avoiding her. ‘It’s OK, love,’ she had managed to say when Adam was out of the room the other day. ‘I don’t disapprove, you know. You had your reasons.’
But Hayley had shot her a look that said ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ before announcing she couldn’t come along on today’s outing, as she had an essay to do for her Open University degree (inspired, she said, by Karen’s example).
‘I know you haven’t got a lot of room but it’s cosy.’
Adam’s voice jerked her back to the present. The thought of the new man, (Hugh-with-the-public-school-voice), perching on the edge of her slightly torn chintz sofa (that she couldn’t bear to get rid of because it had come from the ‘old’ house and made her feel secure), unnerved her slightly. Still, he had seemed so grateful at the end of the session that she didn’t want to let him down.
‘You really love doing these groups, don’t you, Mum?’
She nodded. ‘I’m no Anthony Clare.’ She’d always loved listening to him on the radio especially when she’d been going through her dark stage, and she rather missed his reassuring voice now he was gone. ‘But I’ve been through it.’
Adam was taking Josh by the hand now. He was a good dad. Better than his own, thank God. ‘You ought to think of being a life coach, Mum.’
‘Hah! One day. When I don’t have to sell pregnant goldfish.’
‘What?’
‘Never mind.’
It had become an in-joke at the office that one, along with the used condoms. Sometimes if it wasn’t for work, she thought she’d go mad. That’s what Alison needed. If she found a job, it would give her something else to think about. The routine had certainly saved her, not to mention the income. In contrast, the young one – Lizzie – needed to cut down on her work. And as for Ed . . . he just needed to focus. On one woman at a time. She hadn’t worked out Violet yet. Or Hugh.
‘Everything all right with Hayley?’
Bother. She hadn’t meant to ask that but it had come right out of her mouth although what it had to do with her rambling thoughts about Ed, she had no idea. A ‘smother mother’ – that’s what she’d become. All she cared about were her children and that included Hayley. Was that why she had never really found a substitute for Paul? Was she really so lonely that she had unwittingly used her son and his family for a mental prop? Perhaps that was why she had needed to start the club as a buffer against her own loneliness which she’d been in denial over.
‘Hayley?’ Her son was frowning. ‘Sort of. But she’s been a bit weird recently. Distant. Moody. Not like her.’
A tight feeling caught her chest. ‘Then talk to her. Ask her what’s wrong.’
‘I have. She says I’m imagining it.’
Communication is the key. That’s what all the self-help books said. Karen had read them all. But if you were the only person trying to do the communicating, there wasn’t much you could do.
‘Your dad was like that.’
Normally she was very careful not to criticise Paul in front of her son. But Adam was nodding. ‘That reminds me. Gran rang. Sorry. Forgot to tell you. Says she needs to speak to you.’
The office was hectic today. Even more so than usual and it wasn’t just her feeling uncertain after Adam’s news. Four of them with headphones and computers at their desks – there should have been five but the new girl was off ‘sick’ again even though Sandra had spotted h
er nipping into a recruitment agency on the way to work.
Karen didn’t blame her really. This job could be a bit of a killer. Really intense, which was even more of a reason why you had to see the funny side.
Today, she was helping Sandra sift through the Special Occasion notices which people dropped into reception rather than ring or email. It was difficult to read some of the handwriting.
‘Look at this,’ she said, handing one to Sandra for inspection.
‘Congratulations on your new baby,’ it said in loopy writing.
‘What’s wrong with that?’
Karen pointed to the next line. ‘Hope you’ll look after this one better than the kids you had with me.’
‘OK. I agree. We’ll write and explain we can’t use it.’
Amazing how many people used the Classified Ads as a forum for revenge. Phone again!
‘Three springer crosses. Two black and one chocolate? Karen did a double take. ‘Didn’t you advertise them the other week?’
‘I did.’ The desperation in the woman’s voice shrilled down the line. ‘There were six then and I found places for three of them. But not everyone wants puppies any more.’
Karen’s heart did a little lurch. Could she? No. It wouldn’t be fair on the cats.
‘I don’t want any money for them. I just want to make sure they go to good homes.’
Karen liked the sound of this woman. ‘Let’s try the Pet section again and I’ll also keep my ears open in the office for anyone who might be interested.’
‘That’s so kind.’
Karen got off the phone as fast as she could without being rude. Only five minutes till her lunch break and boy did she need it. Not that she’d have much time to swallow the hummus sandwich which was wrapped up in her handbag. She had Doris to see. And that could take up all afternoon if she wasn’t careful.
Funny, thought Karen, as she made her way through the crowded streets of High Wycombe, towards the café where she’d arranged to meet Doris, how she’d always got on well with her mother-in-law despite everything.
