The Pet Shop at Pennycombe Bay

by Sheila Norton

  ‘Make sure you clean the sink and wipe the floor when you’ve finished, won’t you,’ she said as she headed back into the house. ‘I’ve got someone coming round for dinner later.’

  ‘Huh!’ I whispered to Prudence as I soaped the fur under her tummy. ‘I doubt whether whoever it is will care less what state the house is in, never mind a bit of dirt out here!’

  Of course they won’t. She rubbed her wet head against my arm. Don’t take any notice!

  When she was dry, I took her indoors and fed her, then cooked myself some sausages and sat at the kitchen table to eat my meal. As soon as I’d finished I went into the lounge, Prudence padding in after me. I closed the door and put the TV on.

  ‘They’ll be eating in the dining room,’ I said to Prudence, referring to Ruth and whoever her visitor was. I’d noticed the table set with the best tablecloth, cutlery and napkins.

  But we don’t care, do we? Prudence put her head on one side, and I stroked her as she gazed at me lovingly.

  After a while I heard someone arrive, and turned up the volume on the TV. It was a man’s voice, and I could hear their conversation and laughter as they cooked together in the kitchen. Prudence had fallen asleep by my feet and it was only when there was a sudden loud bark from out in the hallway that she jumped up, shook herself, and ran to the door, whining and sniffing the other dog’s scent.

  ‘Blimey, Prudence, I don’t believe it!’ I whispered to her. ‘Don’t say she’s actually allowed her new boyfriend to bring a dog round here.’

  Yes, and I want to go out and meet him, please!

  I opened the door, and walked straight into the guy I’d met on the beach that morning.

  ‘Oh!’ he said, sounding as surprised as I was. ‘Hello again! Um … Jess, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’ I looked at my feet, hoping he hadn’t noticed that I’d blushed bright red. ‘Hello, um, Nick.’

  ‘I had no idea you lived here,’ he said. ‘With Ruth, I mean.’

  ‘She’s my cousin.’

  ‘I see. She’s never said – that she had a cousin, I mean. Or that you lived with her.’ He sounded quite confused. I wondered how long he’d known Ruth. Presumably not long, as this, as far as I knew, was the first time he’d been to the house. It wasn’t too surprising that she hadn’t bothered to mention me. I was far more shocked that she’d allowed another dog into her house. Buddy and Prudence were already circling each other, tails wagging, preparing at any moment to have a full-on romp around the room.

  ‘Do you two know each other?’ Ruth demanded, suddenly appearing behind Nick with a tea towel in her hands. She sounded put out.

  ‘Not exactly,’ he said, turning round to her with a smile. ‘We just met on the beach this morning. Walking the dogs.’

  ‘Oh, the dogs,’ she said in a bored voice. She looked down at them and added, ‘Let them out in the garden, will you, Jess, if they’re going to start getting boisterous.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Nick said. He gave me a little grin, as if we were sharing a secret – making me feel flustered all over again. ‘Come on, Buddy. And you, Prudence!’

  As the dogs followed him excitedly down the hallway, I heard him saying to Ruth: ‘Why didn’t you tell me your cousin lived with you? She was so quiet I’d never have known she was here.’

  ‘She’s always quiet,’ came Ruth’s scathing reply. ‘She keeps herself to herself.’

  I closed the lounge door again and turned back to my TV programme, my face burning with the shame of being, as usual, the quiet girl, the awkward one who didn’t know how to make polite conversation with people. I’d have loved to have someone like Nick for a boyfriend, but because of my crippling social anxiety I doubted it would ever happen. The few boyfriends I’d had – none of them lasting more than a couple of months – had given up on me pretty quickly, and I understood why. I was hard work. I wasn’t good at relationships, and found it difficult to get close to people. I knew I ought to work at it, to push myself and make more of an effort. I was thirty, for God’s sake, not thirteen – it really was about time I grew up and got over this ridiculous shyness. But no matter how many times I berated myself for it, I just couldn’t seem to do anything about it.

  At work in the shop, though, my awkwardness fortunately never troubled me. Jim could chat for England, and I enjoyed his easy company and all the Pennycombe Bay gossip he shared. Added to which, the customers themselves often liked to stay and chat. Most of them were regulars we knew by name, or sometimes by their pets’ names.

  ‘Blackie’s dad hasn’t been in for a while,’ Jim would muse, referring to the elderly owner of a long-haired cat, who always bought his food, litter and flea treatments from us. ‘I hope he’s all right.’

  The rest of the day would then be spent asking other customers if they’d seen or heard of Blackie’s owner, resulting in one of the old chap’s neighbours promising to pop round and check on him. If nobody did, Jim or I would go and call on him ourselves at the end of the day.

  A couple of weeks after Nick’s dinner date with Ruth, Jim was fretting about someone else. Vera had been a regular customer with her little terrier, Trevor, until the previous year when Trevor had sadly gone to the great kennel in the sky, as Jim liked to refer to it. Vera hadn’t been able to face getting another dog, but she still came into the shop whenever she was passing. All she really wanted was to sit on the chair at the counter that Jim kept for exactly that purpose and enjoy a rest and a chat. If we weren’t busy, I’d make her a cup of coffee while they caught up on all the gossip. Jim had known her since their school days and had apparently even dated her for a while, back in the 1960s, before they met their respective spouses. They were both widowed now and I knew he was still fond of her.

  ‘She hasn’t been in at all this week,’ he said now, shaking his head at me. ‘It’s not like her. I think I’ll pop round and see her, Jess. Can you manage on your own for a bit?’

  ‘Of course.’ I nodded at him. ‘I hope Vera’s OK.’

  After he’d gone, I got on with tidying the stock. I was lost in my own thoughts and when the bell rang to let me know a customer had come in, it gave me such a start that I nearly tumbled off the little set of steps I’d been using to reach the top shelf.

  ‘Are you all right, Jess? Sorry, did I give you a fright?’

  It didn’t help my state of mind at all that I recognised that voice straight away: Nick. He’d been to the house a few more times now since that first visit, always brought Buddy with him and always had a quick chat to me about the dogs before Ruth hustled him away with a glare at me as if I’d initiated the conversation – which, of course, I’d never have had the courage to do.

  ‘I’m OK, thanks. I was just … concentrating. On the, er, canine eye drops.’

  ‘Right. Yes, I find canine eye drops do take a lot of concentration.’

  I blushed crimson, and he laughed. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I just came in for an emergency bottle of dog shampoo.’

  ‘Of course.’ I put on my efficient shop assistant voice as I showed him the different brands of shampoo we stocked. I could see Buddy outside the shop, tethered to one of our rings and drinking greedily from the bowl of water we always kept topped up out there. ‘He does look like he needs a little wash! Prudence is always the same after a long walk,’ I said.

  ‘Understatement of the year. He’s covered in mud and slime. I took him through the far end of Penny Woods and, of course, he jumped in the pond. I should know better by now,’ he said ruefully. ‘And the whole point of taking a long lunch break today was that I’ve got my first appointment at the care home.’

  ‘The care home?’ I echoed as I rang up his purchase.

  ‘Yes. That’s why I need to give him a good wash. The residents won’t exactly want to stroke and pet him in this state, will they?’

  ‘Do you have a relative or someone to visit in the care home?’ I asked shyly.

  ‘No – it’s not a personal visit.’ He look
ed at me in surprise. ‘Haven’t I told you? Buddy and I have joined “Pets As Therapy”. You know, the charity?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘It’s a scheme where volunteers take their dogs or cats into care homes and hospitals and so on,’ he explained. ‘Haven’t you heard of it?’

  ‘No. What do you do there?’

  ‘We just chat to people, and let them stroke the pets. Apparently they love it – it calms them, and encourages them to talk. It even has health benefits, so I’m told. Lowers their blood pressure or whatever. But as I say, I’m only just starting today, so I’m a bit unsure myself how it’s all going to work.’

  He was smiling as he said this. He seemed so confident, despite the fact that it was his first time. I felt sure Nick never got nervous about anything in his life, whereas to me, the idea of chatting to complete strangers sounded like my worst nightmare.

  ‘Well, I hope it goes OK,’ I told him anyway.

  ‘Thanks. I’d better dash, if I’m going to wash this filthy beast first. I’ll let you know how I get on.’

  And with a nod and a smile, he was gone.

  When Jim came back, it was with the worrying news that Vera had fallen over in her garden and broken her ankle, and was now having to stay indoors, keeping her foot elevated as much as possible.

  ‘I’ve said I’ll call round every couple of days to see how she’s doing,’ he said.

  ‘I’d be happy to do that,’ I offered, but he shook his head, apparently wanting to take responsibility for his old friend himself.

  ‘Vera’s going to hate being immobilised like this,’ he muttered. ‘I knew something must be wrong.’

  ‘Poor Vera. I’m sure she’ll appreciate you calling on her, though.’

  He looked worried and distracted for the rest of the day. I tried to take his mind off it by telling him about Nick and the Pets As Therapy thing.

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard of that,’ he said. ‘It’s a nice thing for your friend to do.’

  ‘Oh, he’s not my friend!’ I said quickly, flushing. ‘He’s my cousin’s new boyfriend.’

  ‘I see.’ Jim nodded. ‘And is your cousin involved in this charity too?’

  I laughed. ‘No, not at all. I’ve told you, I don’t think Ruth really likes dogs. Although she seems to be pretending to, since she met Nick. It’s quite funny really. He brings his dog round – Buddy – and Ruth gets this look on her face like she’s trying to smile, but it hurts.’ I mimicked Ruth’s forced smile, and Jim chuckled. ‘Then she bends down to Buddy and sort of pats him with her fingers – like this.’ I bent to pat an imaginary dog, my arm outstretched as far as I could reach, my fingers stretched, a look of distaste on my face.

  ‘If your cousin doesn’t like dogs, I’d have thought she’d be better off being honest about it,’ he said when we’d both stopped laughing. ‘I can’t really see a relationship working out where one partner likes dogs and the other one doesn’t.’

  I didn’t respond. I didn’t want to say I agreed with him; it felt too disloyal to Ruth.

  ‘Anyway, what’s his dog like?’ Jim added.

  ‘He’s lovely. A big shaggy cross-breed, very affectionate. Prudence loves him.’

  ‘She’s told you she wants to marry him, I suppose,’ he said, with a twinkle in his eye.

  ‘Of course!’ I laughed. ‘She thinks they’d have beautiful puppies together.’

  I didn’t tell too many people about my conversations with Prudence, but I knew Jim understood. He had two cats himself, and said he spent half his life talking to them. He didn’t even seem to think it was too strange that I also invented Pru’s replies. But perhaps he’d start to wonder about me if I admitted that I made up an imaginary life for her, with imaginary doggy friends who visited, when I left her on her own! No, I didn’t talk to anyone about that. I was far too embarrassed about it!

  CHAPTER 3

  June passed uneventfully, with its long light evenings when I loved to linger on the coast path with Prudence, enjoying being outside without my coat. I didn’t even mind the inevitable summer showers too much because the rain felt warm and gentle, compared with the dreary downpours of winter, and it was helping the wild flowers to grow, and the roses in our garden to bloom.

  Nick had now become a regular visitor to West Hill Villas, always bringing Buddy with him, and by the time Pennycombe Bay’s tourist season was beginning to build up in early July, Ruth was getting to be an expert at the whole business of pretending to be a dog lover. Anyone who didn’t know her better might even have been taken in by the way she welcomed him and petted him – even going so far, when Nick was there, to pretend she liked Prudence as well as Buddy. She kept up the pretence right to the moment when Nick left, and then she’d tut and sigh about the dog hairs everywhere and ask me to get the Hoover out. I often felt like asking her why she let him bring Buddy round, if it annoyed her so much. But I didn’t want to give her the chance to say she didn’t want Prudence in the house either. I had to admit it was good of her to tolerate Prudence living there with me, when it was pretty obvious she’d have preferred a pet-free environment, so I wasn’t about to rock the boat. And neither, it seemed, was she – because, as she admitted to me in one of her unusual confiding moments, she was crazy about Nick.

  Nick. My own heart gave an involuntary little lurch at the thought of him. He was undeniably gorgeous, and it felt like we had so much in common: he really did share my love of animals, rather than just pretending to. But his presence now, whenever he was here in the house, inevitably reduced me to tongue-tied stupidity. I tried so hard to act normally when he chatted to me, but as usual I panicked so much about what to say that my pulse raced and I’d find myself stuttering over my words, unable to even meet his eyes. What made it worse was that he was so nice to me. I often wondered what on earth he must make of the contrast between his clever, sophisticated, beautiful girlfriend, who had her own home, wealthy parents and an enviable career, and her pathetically shy, under-achieving, hard-up little shop assistant cousin. I guessed he only bothered to talk to me because of the dogs. He’d been telling me all about his sessions with Pets As Therapy, and I loved hearing about his weekly visits to the care home.

  ‘The old people get so excited when I take Buddy in,’ he said after his third or fourth visit there. ‘One old lady has tears in her eyes when she sees him. She was telling me today that she had a dog herself, but when she needed to move into the home she had to give him to her daughter. She chatted to me about it for ages. The carers told me afterwards that it was the most they’d heard her say since she’d been living there.’

  ‘Ah, that must be so rewarding,’ I said. When we talked about this I could sometimes almost forget my shyness. ‘It’s really good of you to give up your time to do it.’

  ‘But it’s only one lunch hour every week,’ he said. Nick worked locally too. He was a salesman at a car showroom just out of town. ‘I could probably do more, to be honest. I’m thinking about upping it to two days per week.’ He glanced at me. ‘Does it appeal to you?’

  ‘What?’ I stared back at him. ‘Me? Go and visit people in a care home with Prudence?’

  ‘Well, why not?’

  ‘I … I don’t think so.’ I was coming over hot with panic just at the thought of talking to all those strangers. I shifted awkwardly from foot to foot, blinking fast, trying to find words to explain how I felt. But it was no good, he’d never understand. Looking down at the floor and taking a couple of breaths to try to control my embarrassment, I fell back on a pathetic excuse. ‘I’m … er … not sure I could get a long enough lunch break,’ I mumbled. In fact I was pretty sure Jim would let me take as long as I wanted, if he knew the reason.

  ‘Well, you could probably do it after work. Or at the weekend.’

  ‘Um … I don’t know … I work Saturdays.’ Actually I always got Wednesdays off in lieu, but he didn’t need to know that. I could feel myself shrinking under his gaze. Could he tell I was just making excuses?
>
  ‘Fair enough, Jess,’ he said mildly. ‘Nobody’s trying to twist your arm. I just thought it was something you might enjoy – you and Prudence. But I expect you’ve got enough on your plate.’

  I didn’t, of course. I didn’t have anything whatsoever on my plate apart from work, housework and looking after Prudence. I gave him another quick look, wondering if he was being sarcastic, but he was smiling back at me with a little shrug as if to say it didn’t matter. Afterwards, though, after Ruth had called him away as usual with a snappy little aside to me, under her breath, about keeping him talking about dogs all bloody night, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I so admired him for what he was doing, the happiness he was giving to those elderly people just by taking Buddy to visit them. But I couldn’t imagine myself ever getting up the courage to follow his example.

  But the conversation stayed on my mind, and the next day at work I found myself talking to Jim about it again while we had our morning coffee.

  ‘Good for him,’ he said when I told him how enthusiastic Nick was about the scheme. ‘It’s very worthwhile. They say stroking pets has health benefits, don’t they? Even hospital patients recover faster if they have contact with pets.’

  ‘That reminds me,’ I said. ‘How’s Vera getting on?’ I was aware that he was calling in to see her regularly, and it seemed like ages now that Vera had been incapacitated with her broken ankle. ‘Is she still no better?’

  ‘No.’ He frowned. ‘I’m quite worried about her, actually, Jess. She seems to have gone into a bit of a decline since the fall. She’s still in a lot of pain, and the painkillers the doctor’s given her have made her feel rough. I keep telling her she ought to call the doctor back, but she won’t.’ He sighed. ‘I’ve got a horrible feeling she’s not eating properly, either. She says she’s got no appetite.’