Spencer had his arms folded tight in a sulk, his chin pressed down into it, but Leo was waving his fat little hand, near the window, so she could see. ‘Look after Toffee, Mummy!’ he called out.
Zoe’s heart tugged as she waved back, and she had to force herself to hold her smile. Then David floored the accelerator and they vanished into the night.
Shivering, Zoe lifted Toffee’s crate so he was at eye level.
‘So, Toffee,’ she said. ‘Just you and me. Got any plans for the weekend?’
Toffee licked her nose through the bars and yapped to be let out for a wee.
Which was progress of some kind, thought Zoe.
12
‘Be kind to me, Megan,’ pleaded Rachel. ‘In real life, at this hour, I’m not even awake yet, let alone standing up fully dressed.’ She peered at the rota on the table. ‘And about to organise volunteers.’
It was a Saturday morning, Rachel’s first proper experience of the volunteer walking club’s main day. Megan had woken her up with a cup of tea outside her door, and then Gem had woken her up more insistently by removing the covers from her bed.
Rachel told herself that at least he’d packed in the licking her awake as if he was trying to raise her from the dead routine.
‘You’re doing great!’ said Megan, who looked far too cheerful for someone who’d been up for two hours already and had mucked out all the kennels. ‘Why don’t I put you on bacon sandwiches?’
She steered Rachel over to the Aga, where two loaves of bread were stacked up next to several packets of bacon and a bottle of tomato sauce. Rachel had raided her emergency savings account to replenish the kitchen cupboards, pay Megan and deal with the most urgent bills; the rest of the bills were scary enough to make sorting out the probate forms more of a pressing matter.
She’d made a new list, anyway. Getting started on asset listing was a job for the afternoon.
‘Fry the rashers, put them in the warming oven, make sandwiches when walkers come back. Repeat all morning. We usually get about ten or so regulars turning up,’ Megan explained. ‘And your poster campaign’s worked a treat.’
‘I warn you, I don’t really do cooking.’ Rachel lifted the heavy old pan gingerly onto the hot plate. ‘I’m more of an eating-out girl.’
‘Hello? Am I too early?’
They turned round to see Zoe Graham standing at the kitchen door, Toffee under one arm. When Toffee spotted Gem in the basket by the Aga he wriggled happily and squirmed out of Zoe’s arms to greet his grown-up friend.
‘Please don’t tell me you’ve come to give him up?’ begged Rachel.
Zoe shook her head. She was wearing a blue knitted hat that squashed her reddish curls around her face. ‘No, my ex has got the kids for the weekend – house seemed a bit weird and quiet, and I got all the hints Freda was dropping about weekend walkers, so . . .’ She raised her hands and her eyebrows theatrically. ‘Here I am! You should put up notices in the solicitors’. Get all the weekend-off single parents down here.’
‘You told your ex, did you?’ Rachel said. ‘About the daycare?’
‘And you said, “No!” ’ added Megan, making the policeman hand gesture. ‘To him and Toffee?’
Zoe’s eyes clouded. ‘Sort of. I told him he couldn’t take Toffee and leave him in the car all weekend. I’m going to, honestly, soon as they get back. David gave me some cash, look, so let me give you something up front.’
‘That’s brilliant!’ Rachel took the notes off Zoe before Megan could wave it away. Fifty quid, right now, was fifty quid towards food. Her savings schemes were set up for new season fashion, not kennel support, and they were already running low. ‘Call that Toffee’s first month’s fees, introductory offer. I’ll get you a receipt.’
‘It’s a start,’ said Megan encouragingly. ‘I mean, not about the money, about you setting him straight. It’s about not letting him ride roughshod over you!’
‘Why change the habits of a lifetime?’ sighed Zoe. ‘Like I’m not letting that one there ride roughshod over my life.’
‘Dogs are different,’ said Megan, looking on indulgently as Toffee climbed all over Gem, tugging at his ears while Gem stared at his paws.
Rachel tucked the cash into the back pocket of her jeans. ‘Megan, why don’t you give Zoe a couple of dogs to take out, then by the time she gets back, I might have worked out how to make a bacon sarnie?’ She examined the packet doubtfully. ‘And don’t rush back.’
On the other side of Longhampton, Natalie and Johnny were sitting in Natalie’s Mini, watching Bill emerge from his front door, in his new role as a dog owner.
Natalie was biased, but she thought he looked like a Boden model, all cheekbones, and chunky parka, and knitted hat. And black poodle accessory.
Although, having said that, Lulu did seem to be using Bill as her handsome owner accessory, the way she was strutting over to the car.
‘Only a guy as good-looking as Bill can carry off a poodle,’ said Johnny. ‘So to speak.’
‘I think he looks gorgeous.’ Natalie waved at Bill so he’d see them waiting. ‘He’ll be fighting them off in the park. There’s nothing girls love more than a man with a dog.’
‘Are you going to be saying that when I’m walking Bertie around the park?’ Johnny gave her a cheeky look, and she nudged him.
‘I’m going to be with you. We’re going to be walking him together. Anyway,’ Natalie settled back in her seat, ready to go,‘just make sure Bill talks to that nice Megan at the kennels.’
‘What? Oh, now I get it . . . This isn’t just a simple volunteering job at all, is it?’
‘We’re going to meet Bertie again,’ Natalie insisted. ‘But I thought, while we’re there, that Megan was very much Bill’s type.’
‘In what way?’
Bill was fussing around his front door now, checking he’d got the right keys. Obviously he hadn’t, because he turned and waved his hands at them, tied Lulu to the front door and vanished inside. Lulu sat down, patiently.
‘In that she seems the nice organised type,’ Natalie went on. ‘No baggage, good with dogs, well-travelled, cheerful . . .’
‘How do you know all that? You’ve only met her the once!’ Johnny rounded his eyes.
‘We had a nice chat on the phone when I rang up about Bertie’s home check. Anyway, you can tell.’ Natalie smiled through the windscreen as Bill came out, now in a different coat, with a different lead. ‘I can see them really hitting it off. He just needs a bit of a nudge in the right direction. The settling down one.’
‘Well, you’ve been nudging for the last three years,’ said Johnny. ‘But you know what a bloody perfectionist he . . . Hi, Bill!’
‘Hi, Natalie, Johnny!’ Bill lifted up the poodle and put her under his arm.
‘Hi, Lulu!’ cooed Natalie.
‘Hi, Auntie Nata—!’ Bill began to reply in a poodle voice, until Johnny gave him a look and he stopped.
Johnny got out of the front seat so Bill could slide his lanky frame into the back.
‘If you see, there’s a little clip there you can attach Lulu to,’ said Natalie, leaning over to point it out. ‘Yes, that’s it.’
‘It’s for Bertie. She’s got all the gear already,’ said Johnny over the top of the car. ‘We’ve come via Pet World. As if seven hours on the internet last night wasn’t enough to learn every fact about Basset hounds, we now have the whole kit, including something called a clicker, with which Nat’s going to start her new career as a dog behaviourist.’
Bill raised his eyebrows. ‘The full Natalie special.’
‘Yeah,’ sighed Johnny. ‘Well, it’s a bit more complicated, mate. Get in and she’ll tell you more than you ever wanted to know.’
Megan had paired Zoe up with Bertie and Treacle the labrador, on the grounds that they were about the size Toffee would eventually grow up to be, and told her to be firm, remember her “No!” and if the worst came to the worst, issued her with some biscuit bribes.
And t
hen she sent her out on the Three Mile Lap, as shown on the photocopied handout the weekend walkers were given.
All the way down the hill, and round the first side of Longhampton Park, Zoe could see herself like an advert for shampoo or something, smiling happily at other dog owners enjoying the crisp weekend morning. The dogs were demented with joy to be out of their runs into the open air, and so was she. It was the first new thing, Zoe realised, with mild horror, that she’d done on her own since the boys were born. And it seemed to be going OK.
In fact, it was more than OK. It was like being on holiday – on her own. She felt free and light and released. And better than that, the dogs seemed to be taking her seriously, keeping pace with her steps and occasionally looking back with a touching need to check she was still with them.
But as soon as they hit the wilder part of the park, on the way back, Bertie and his nose got wind of something and he shot off like a pony, pulling out the whole of the extendable lead in one surge.
‘Slow down!’ yelled Zoe, ineffectually, as she felt the lead click out to its maximum extension, and then, with a yank, it nearly tugged her arm out of its socket. She began to walk faster, to stop the collar choking Bertie, who was trotting now, so fast his ears were flapping. ‘Slow down! Heel! Heel!’
What were you meant to shout? She scoured her brain for dog instructions. ‘Stop! Heel! Stay!’
Nothing worked. Bertie was hauling her determinedly across the common towards some other people – and their dog.
Now she was almost running. Zoe looked down at Treacle who had begun to trot next to her, ever obedient, despite the strange new direction the walk was taking. ‘Sorry,’ she gasped, but the docile Labrador didn’t seem unduly bothered.
Zoe felt something vibrating in her jacket pocket – her phone was ringing. The sense of freedom vanished and her brain immediately started to throw out lurid scenes of amusement park accidents, motorway pile-ups, Leo taking ill on some ride.
She looked ahead to where Bertie was heading – it was a fairly clear patch of grass with no bushes or hedges to fall into – and decided to risk it. She switched the lead to the other hand, still running, and rummaged around in her inside pocket for the phone. It slipped out of her fingers. As she was grabbing for it, her foot connected with a loose molehill of earth, and she lost her balance, stumbling forward towards the wet grass and a metal drain cover she hadn’t seen until it was hurtling towards her forehead.
Zoe threw out her hands but it was too late to break her fall. She dropped her phone and the leads as she skidded along the ground, cracking her head against the drain. Stars exploded behind her eyelids and she could hear the sound of jubilant barking, as Bertie galloped free. Everything seemed a very long way away.
‘Ow!’ she half-sobbed, tasting the iron tang of blood where she’d bitten her lip. In a moment, she knew, there’d be a sudden burst of pain from her forehead and her skinned palms. This was the part she tried to talk the boys through, so they wouldn’t notice.
The phone rang twice more, out of sight, and then stopped.
Zoe tried to sit up, but everything was spinning. The dogs! Where had the dogs gone?
She looked up to see Bertie bouncing with delight around the three people with the dog, who were staring over towards her while their poodle skirted Bertie’s advances like an unwilling woman being chatted up in a club. Treacle meanwhile was hovering protectively over her, wagging an uncertain tail and drooling.
‘Bertie!’ yelled Zoe, scrambling to her feet. As she did, little stars of pain shot up and down her palm, her leg, her shoulder, and she felt her knees give way beneath her. She slid back onto her hip. ‘Oh, God.’
This was painful and embarrassing. And now, she could hear the people coming over to her. She shut her eyes and put a tentative hand to her forehead. Her hat had come off, and there was an enormous lump there where there definitely hadn’t been one before.
‘Are you OK?’ a man called. ‘Don’t move, we’ve got a doctor here.’
‘Can you grab the dog?’ she yelled hopefully. ‘Please?’
‘I’ve got him,’ shouted a woman.
The sound of running footsteps got louder and turned into heavy breaths, some of which weren’t Treacle’s.
‘That looked painful,’ said a wry voice. ‘And very You’ve Been Framed.’
Zoe opened her eyes and saw a man standing over her. He too was wearing a woolly hat pulled down over his ears, and tufts of black hair stuck out over his dark brown eyes. Even a bright red wind-chilled nose didn’t diminish the effect of faint weekend stubble and long dark lashes.
Why do you only ever meet hot men when you’ve just made a total fool of yourself, she wondered through the dull roar in her ears.
‘Um, I’m no expert, but I think you might have ripped your jeans,’ he added. ‘I’d get up quite carefully if I were you.’
Zoe groaned inwardly, then realised she’d actually groaned aloud as the sensation returned to her grazed palms.
His manner became more professional as he squatted next to her and held her chin in his hand, so he could stare into her eyes. Embarrassed, Zoe tried to look away. ‘Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but can you look into my eyes, please?’ he asked. ‘Don’t worry, I am a doctor.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I bet you are.’ Zoe managed a fat-lipped smile. ‘You don’t just hang around the park waiting for dog walkers to fall over so you can hypnotise them?’
‘Nah.’ His eyes were gorgeous, thought Zoe, like Toffee’s on a good day: huge and brown and melting. She wondered if her pupils were going black as A Sign of Attraction, like the teen magazines had said. ‘Not worth it in this weather. Nope, I don’t think you’re concussed. You didn’t black out?’
‘No.’
‘Good. But you’re going to have an amazing bruise for your boyfriend to explain away in the morning.’
‘Lucky I don’t have one then, isn’t it?’ said Zoe, without thinking.
He didn’t drop her chin, but grinned. Why, Zoe asked herself, had she chosen that morning not to bother with make-up? Not even mascara?
‘Do you feel OK to get up?’ he asked, checking her over for other injuries. Zoe was sorry to say she didn’t have any for him to find.
‘I’m hurting more about ripping these jeans. They’re my favourites.’
As she lurched to her feet, Zoe saw the other couple approaching, with their own dog, the black poodle, as well as Treacle on her lead and Bertie, who was now bouncing happily around the woman, easily reaching up to her hip at full stretch.
‘Lean on me,’ said the man, slinging his arm around her shoulders for support. ‘That’s it, put your arm round my waist if it helps.’
‘Hello, I’m Zoe.’ Zoe offered him her other hand to shake, since they were now in closer contact than she’d been with any man since before David. He smelled of clean washing and his wool overcoat, and he was keeping her upright as if she weighed nothing.
‘Oh, sorry. I’m Bill,’ he said. ‘Bill Harper,’ he added. ‘I think we might have met at the surgery? I’m terrible with names.’
‘We haven’t. I’d have remembered. Hello, Bill,’ she said, and they shook hands gingerly. Even Zoe could tell it was just an excuse for them both to touch hands and suddenly she felt a bit too warm, despite her polar jacket.
I shouldn’t be fancying random men in the park, she reminded herself. Ten seconds ago, I was panicking that my kids were hanging upside down from a roller coaster!
‘My phone—’ she began, and Bill scrambled to look for it on the ground just as she bent down too. Their heads bumped and she yelped.
‘You’re not from one of those Personal Injury ads, are you?’ he asked, rubbing his forehead through the woolly hat.
‘No,’ said Zoe. ‘Just a bit clumsy right now.’
‘Everything OK?’ The blonde woman hurried up with the three dogs, passing the leads to the other man so she could pick up Zoe’s mobile. ‘Johnny, grab that, would you? Here, is this
your phone? Anything broken?’
‘That was quite some flying leap,’ the other man – Johnny – agreed. ‘Bertie’s got some apologising to do.’
‘You know him?’ Zoe looked between them, surprised. From the way Bertie was sniffing and wagging round the woman, he certainly seemed to.
‘We’re on our way to give him a walk, actually.’ She reached down and fondled an ear. ‘Hopefully we’re Bertie’s new foster parents. Natalie, and Johnny. Hi!’
‘Lulu’s from the rescue too,’ Bill explained. ‘I think she and Bertie have some history. Oh, man, you’ve made a right mess of your hands. There must have been glass down there or something.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a red hanky. ‘Just press this over it, OK. And keep your hand above your head.’
‘To stop the bleeding?’
‘No, to stop you punching me by accident.’ Bill grinned and Zoe felt a smile appear on her own face. A rather stupid one, she suspected.
‘Shall we head back up to the kennels?’ suggested Natalie. ‘We parked down here to give Lulu a walk first – didn’t want her to think we were taking her back so soon after Bill getting her!’
‘Is the chocolate Lab yours?’ Bill asked as Zoe took Treacle’s lead back from Johnny, and they set off towards the path.
‘No, but I’ve got a Labrador puppy. Or rather, I’ve been landed with a puppy,’ she said. ‘I work during the day, so he’s in doggie daycare with Megan. He can only do fifteen-minute walks at his age.’
‘Fifteen minutes?’ He pulled a ‘fancy that’ face. ‘I thought puppies were hard work?’
‘Hard work?’ Zoe dragged her stinging hands down her face. ‘Oh, the crying. And the drama! I’ve been sleeping on the sofa just so I can let him out twice a night to go to the loo. I don’t know who’s training who.’ She pulled Treacle away from a tempting rubbish bin and winced at the pain in her forehead.
‘How’s the head feeling now? Any worse?’ Bill glanced up at his friends who were being hauled at a much brisker pace up the path by Bertie, who had decided enough was enough.