The distance started as pauses where there would normally be silly jokes, but it spread quickly and silently. Johnny started going off to bed early, claiming he was worn out from school, but really, Natalie knew it was so he could pretend to be asleep by the time she slipped under the duvet.
One night, determined to show him how much she still wanted him, baby or not, she pulled off her t-shirt and curled around his solid body, sliding her hands under the pyjamas he never normally wore to warm his familiar chest and thigh with her soft naked skin. Johnny, half-sleepily, began to respond, rolling over to press his lips against her arching throat, but they both seemed to realise at the same moment how different it was, knowing what they both knew now, and the passion slid away.
He had rolled onto his back with a heartbreaking sigh, and they’d lain next to each other, not touching, pretending to be asleep.
Natalie wasn’t sure how long she could bear it. There’d never been secrets in all the years they’d known each other, let alone thoughts that were too painful to share. It was as if they both knew the first person to speak would set off the miserable domino run of accusations and consequences, and neither of them could face the horrible thoughts forming like rainclouds in the back of their minds.
Next week, she kept telling herself. Next week, I’m going to tell him we need counselling for this. It’s too big a conversation to manage on our own.
In fact, it was only through Bertie and his new role as an unwitting ventriloquist’s dummy that they managed to start conversations at all.
‘Are you ready for your social club?’ Johnny demanded on Saturday morning. ‘Bacon sandwich, eh? Bit of a stroll and a chat with your poodly girlfriend?’
Natalie knew he was talking to her really, not Bertie.
‘I know we skipped last week,’ he went on, glossing over the fact that he’d taken himself off for a three-hour drive, leaving Natalie to haul Bertie round the canal loop on her own. ‘Don’t want you to think we’re neglecting your social life.’ He looked up at Natalie. ‘Bill rang yesterday, wanted to know if we were going up to the kennels to walk the homeless.’ He paused. ‘Said he missed us last week. We should probably go, before we get out of the habit.’
Was it only a fortnight since we got the results, she thought. It seemed so much longer.
‘Well, do you want to go on your own with Bill?’ She reached out a hand to stroke Bertie. He was sprawled along the sofa with his head on the arm and his ears dangling over the side. He shouldn’t have been on the sofa, but then she shouldn’t have been drinking caffeinated coffee either. What was the point? ‘Eh, Bertie? Spend some quality time with your daddy?’
‘Why?’
‘Well.’ Natalie shrugged. She knew it was childish but she had a sneaky feeling that Rachel hadn’t been entirely frank with her. She just had an instinct that she was pregnant, and right now, Natalie didn’t have enough energy to make her ‘happy’ face very convincing – and that would only make things worse for poor Johnny. ‘Bertie sees enough of me during the week. He’s pretty bored of my conversation.’
‘Don’t you want to come up to the kennels?’ Johnny frowned. ‘It was all you were talking about last week – this Open Day you and Rachel are organising. What happened to that? Is it all off?’
Natalie stirred her porridge. ‘It’s not off, but I’ve done what I can,’ she said. ‘I don’t want Rachel to think I’m trying to take over.’
‘I’m sure she doesn’t think that. You’re a marketing expert, Nat! I’m sure she’s thrilled to be getting your help.’ He sounded more like the Johnny she knew. ‘Come on, get your coat. Bertie wants you to come, don’t you?’
He crouched down and said in his Bertie voice, which for reasons they hadn’t plumbed was a lugubrious Scouse, ‘Hurry up, Nats. I’m gagging for me bacon sarnie.’
I should go, thought Natalie, watching him. He’s going to have to go through far more mortifying things than me in the next few weeks. We should be putting on a united front here.
But still something held her back. ‘Why don’t you meet Bill and have a natter with him?’ she said, brightly. ‘I’ve got some stuff to do – I’ll meet you up there and we can go for a pub lunch or something?’
Johnny gave her a funny look. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Call me when you’re on your way.’
As he left, with Bertie waddling behind him, Natalie wondered if this was how it would be from now on: doing things separately until slowly it didn’t feel weird any more.
Zoe’s patience was being tested to the very limits by the impossible task of hustling Spencer and Leo and their football kit and Toffee and some portable breakfast out into the car.
‘I need a sheepdog, not a Labrador!’ she groaned, as Leo darted back inside ‘for an apple’. ‘Spencer! Stop it!’
The plan was to take the boys to football, wear them out, and then go on to the dog walking with Toffee. Zoe told herself it was good for the boys to see what happened with the other dogs, and to see Megan training Toffee, but at the back of her mind she knew she was throwing Fate a challenge.
If Bill was there, and saw them, and met them, and realised how much a part of her Spencer and Leo were, then that was great. If he wasn’t there . . . Well. It didn’t matter. But she still put her lip-gloss in her back pocket, just in case.
She cast a warning glance at Spencer, who was kicking lichen off the front gate in a challenging way. He glared back and Zoe would have said something if her phone hadn’t rung and saved him from an official warning.
It was Rachel. ‘Zoe? You know that haircut you promised me? Any chance of getting it done today?’
Zoe thought about saying no, but heard herself agreeing, and went back inside for her scissor bag.
When she arrived at the Four Oaks kitchen two hours later, muddy and hoarse from cheering encouragement on the football pitch, Rachel practically had the towel wrapped round her neck in readiness. Her long fringe had grown right down into her eyes, and though it had a certain boho charm, Rachel’s nervous habit of shaking it to one side had got even worse.
The kitchen was full of volunteers in waterproofs and Leo and Spencer made a beeline for the Aga, where Freda Shackley was serving up the bacon sandwiches.
‘Zoe, you are a star and a half,’ Rachel said, as Spencer squirted extra ketchup onto the bacon roll. He was ignoring the paper towel Freda was trying to wrap it in, to Zoe’s panic. ‘I’m really sorry to hassle you on your day off, but I just can’t stand it a minute longer. It’s driving me mad.’
Zoe’s eyes flickered round the room, trying to keep track of her sons and puppy. Leo was rolling around under the table with Toffee, his face covered in ketchup too. Football hadn’t tired them out as much as Zoe had hoped, even if for Leo it wasn’t much more than a lot of running about and squealing.
There was no sign of Bill. Zoe tried not to feel disappointed.
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Spencer! You don’t need any more tomato sauce on that.’
He gave her a dirty look and added an extra squeeze. Zoe lowered her eyebrows.
Rachel looked a bit queasy at the sight of his sticky face. ‘Don’t you feed them?’
‘Constantly. It’s like shovelling coal into a steam engine. It never stops. Listen, shall I get them out of your way? Where do you want to go?’
‘The kennels office,’ said Freda, a bit too quickly. ‘Then you can keep an eye on the phones.’
‘Great. Come on, kids.’ Zoe hustled them out, wishing she could put leads on them the way she could with Toffee, who was, annoyingly, behaving as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth in front of Megan, his adored teacher.
Even if she didn’t already know Rachel worked in PR, Zoe could tell from the rough shape of her haircut that she’d been going to a pretty good salon in London, and she tried not to feel intimidated as she sized up the thick layers of black hair.
Everything about Rachel was glossy, she thought. The nails, the hair, the clothes, the car. But that’s what happe
ns when you don’t have kids. Plenty of spare cash to spend on hundred-quid hairdos. For a second Zoe felt a pang of envy, then remembered that even if she didn’t have kids, there’d be no way she’d pay that much.
At Megan’s suggestion, Spencer and Leo were trying to train Toffee to stay, now he’d more or less mastered “Sit”, but he was having too much fun chasing them around the office to want to be quiet. They were making so much noise, especially Spencer, who was bossing Leo as much as Toffee.
Zoe could feel the tension radiating from Rachel as she combed and snipped. It wasn’t just her hunched shoulders; Zoe’s fingers were picking up a tautness in the hair itself, something she occasionally felt in the salon. You got a knack for it, tuning into the client’s mood like a radio.
‘Will you two keep it down?’ she demanded, embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she added to Rachel. ‘They’re mad at weekends. I should be crate training them, not the puppy. Do they do small boy-size crates at Pets at Home?’
‘Can I ask a personal question?’ Rachel sounded tentative, not her normal confident self.
‘’Course. If it’s about hair dye, there’s no question that’s too personal, believe me.’
‘No.’ Rachel paused, and dropped her voice. The boys were too far away and too absorbed in their own game to hear. ‘Is it very hard, being a single mum? I mean, is it hard being everything to them, and still having your own life?’
Zoe wasn’t expecting that sort of personal question. ‘Well, it’s not how I planned it, put it like that. Originally there were supposed to be two of us on duty.’ She sighed, remembering the very early days when Spencer was a baby. David had been a good dad then. They’d been a good team. It wasn’t the stress that wore her out now, so much as being on call twenty-four/seven, primed for disaster. You were never primed for cuddles or funny moments, but the possibility of something going wrong haunted her.
She focused her attention back on Rachel’s layers. ‘Yes, it’s hard. Why? Am I making it look like the worst job in the world?’ She sized up a lock of hair, and spotted several silver hairs. Best not say anything. ‘It’s not all fighting and squabbling. They do have their moments.’
‘No! I didn’t mean it in a critical way. I think they’re lovely boys!’ Rachel didn’t turn around. ‘I meant, well, the rewards are worth all the hassle, aren’t they? When you see them growing up, and loving you, and turning into their own people.’
‘Absolutely. But it is hard.’ For once, Zoe was glad there wasn’t a mirror for her client to look into. She wasn’t sure what her face was doing. ‘It’s like climbing a mountain, I guess. You don’t know how exhausting it is until you reach the top and it’s all wonderful. But it’s knackering at the time. No question about that.’
‘But they’re yours.’ Rachel’s voice wobbled.
‘They’re mine,’ agreed Zoe. She decided Rachel was probably having a bad case of PMT-related broodiness. She sometimes got it herself, even though there was no way in hell she could cope with another baby, even if one arrived by DHL. ‘Well, mine, and their dad’s. Which is where it gets more complicated. You don’t want to get into that if you can help it.’
Rachel didn’t reply, and Zoe wondered if she’d said the wrong thing. Rachel was old enough to be divorced herself, even if she didn’t wear a ring. Oops. Tactless. Maybe she was considering doing one of those single-woman turkey baster things you read about.
She ran her fingers through the top of Rachel’s hair, lifting it up and dropping it to see how it fell. Not a bad cut, Zoe, she thought. Well up to London standards.
‘Tell you what,’ she went on, trying to sound as if she’d been joking all along. ‘You can have Spencer and Leo on a timeshare basis, like Toffee. I’ll drop them off with you for a couple of hours a week. That should be enough to satisfy any mothering instincts.’
The phone rang on the desk and Spencer grabbed it before Rachel could move from her seat. ‘Longhampton Police, Sergeant Fartipants,’ he said.
‘Or you could have them now?’ Zoe suggested. ‘Long as you want?’
Natalie felt bad as soon as Johnny and Bertie left to meet up with Bill.
She tried to distract herself by doing some housework, and arguing that she was giving Johnny some time with his best mate, but Natalie was too honest to ignore the truth – it was more to do with her avoiding Rachel, and she was ashamed of herself.
When Natalie’s conscience got going, it didn’t let up. What was the next step? Avoiding all pregnant women? Boycotting streets with Mothercares or primary schools? She and Rachel had really been getting on well before that – and it was rare for her to make new friends. If Rachel was pregnant by this married man she’d left behind, she’d need all the new friends she could get in Longhampton.
She stopped in the middle of the sitting room, and turned off the Dyson. Rachel had been honest with her, confessing that business with Oliver. She hadn’t needed to do that. And how was she repaying her?
But it was so unfair.
Natalie swallowed hard. The unpleasant truth was that Rachel had seemed like another member of her no-baby, no-worries club. But now even forty-year-old single women were more likely to get pregnant than she was – who’d be next? Freda? But it wasn’t Rachel’s fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.
Natalie managed another five minutes’ internal wrangling before she gave up, put on her coat and drove up to the kennels. Bill and Johnny were still out with the dogs when she arrived in the kitchen, but Freda and Megan offered her a bacon sandwich anyway.
‘If you’re looking for Rachel, she’s having her hair cut in the office,’ said Megan. ‘Ooh, do you think Zoe would do something like that for the Open Day? Haircuts?’
‘For the dogs, maybe,’ suggested Natalie, unable to stop herself coming up with fundraising suggestions. ‘Quick trims for the pets? You could do that, couldn’t you?’
‘I certainly could!’ Megan reached for the marker pen and added it to the ideas board. It was full of suggestions from the volunteers, ranging from ‘Quickest Recall Competition’ to ‘Apple Bobbing – Dog and Owner’. ‘What do you reckon? Two quid a trim?’
‘Yes, why not?’ Natalie’s fingers twitched to add ‘longest ears’ onto the competitions list. There had to be something Bertie could win.
‘Have you come to talk about it with Rachel?’ Freda asked. ‘I must admit, I’m looking forward to this dog show idea. It’s great to get people paying more attention to what we do up here. Get the little doggies into new homes. Ted and I have been talking about doing some kind of catering. I know we had a grill at the café, years ago.’
‘You could always just adopt a dog, Freda,’ said Megan.
‘Oh, we’re past that now.’ Freda sighed. ‘And we’d never find a dog like our Pippin. Did I tell you about . . .’
‘I’ll just go and find Rachel,’ said Natalie quickly, and went through the back door to the kennel complex.
When Natalie put her head round the office door, she wondered if a new vanful of strays had been delivered, judging by the hysterical racket emanating from the place.
It turned out to be Leo and Spencer, who could both do creditable Labrador impressions, plus Toffee, careering round the filing cabinets. They were smeared with tomato sauce and laughing gleefully, while they sent leaflets and stray bits of paperwork flying.
Rachel was sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, with Zoe finishing off the last snips of a new haircut that grazed her eyebrows and hung shaggily around her face. She looked unfairly sexy, even without any make-up and her eyes rimmed with dark shadows. Zoe looked a bit stressed, but that was probably because she was sending furious glares in the direction of her sons, every few snips.
When Rachel saw Natalie standing in the doorway, her expression changed from a faraway anxiety to something more focused. A more focused sort of anxiety, in fact.
‘Hi, Rachel. Hi, Zoe,’ said Natalie. She smiled at them both, as naturally as she could manage.
Zoe
seemed to tense up a bit too when she saw her, but Natalie put that down to being Bill’s friend. It was always a bit weird, getting to know your new man’s mates, wondering what was being reported back. She tried to make her smile extra-friendly.
‘Don’t suppose you know what time Johnny and Bill will be back?’ Natalie asked Zoe. ‘I’ve been working at home, thought I’d let Bertie and his dad have some quality time together,’ she added. ‘The plan is to have some lunch – do you want to join us? If you haven’t already made plans?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Zoe shrugged. ‘I haven’t seen Bill today.’
‘Oh.’ Natalie wondered if she’d missed something.
‘Actually, I should get a move on.’ Zoe put her scissors in her bag. ‘Spencer, can you be a big boy and get a broom? So you and Leo can help Mummy by sweeping up this lovely hair?’
Leo ran off at once, but Spencer stuck out his lip.
‘Don’t make me ask again,’ warned Zoe, and he slunk off.
‘I saw the ideas board in the kitchen,’ said Natalie. ‘Looks like there’s been some brainstorming going on. Open Day is go, eh?’
‘Yes, Open Day is definitely go. I’ve got the nod from the solicitor – apparently it counts as running the business, so I don’t have to wait for the rest of probate before we set a date.’ Rachel sounded a bit stiff.
‘Brilliant!’ Natalie moved out of the way as Leo returned with a brush twice the size of himself, followed by his reluctant brother. ‘When are you thinking of having it?’
‘Well, when does the weather start getting nice out here?’
‘July?’ suggested Zoe. ‘We have three days of summer, usually, but not in a row. Careful, Leo, mind the table . . . Well, where are we now? Last weekend in March? I’d make it early May. Gives you a good month to get things arranged, and that lovely cherry tree at the top of your drive will be in blossom by then.’
‘Will it?’ Rachel looked surprised. ‘I didn’t even know there was one. Are you volunteering then?’
‘Spencer!’ roared Zoe. ‘Thank you, could you put the hair in the bin? The bin. Yes, I guess it’s the least we can do.’ She rolled her eyes at Natalie. ‘We’re going to get out of your hair, if you’ll pardon the pun. Better get these two home.’