‘Nat!’ Megan gave her a sideways look. ‘Don’t put them off!’
‘Well, we’re used to Bassets,’ said Adam. He rolled his eyes. ‘We know all about the fox poo and the deafness and the hairs everywhere.’
‘We’ve got two others,’ his wife explained. ‘Wouldn’t have any other kind of dog now! They’re such characters.’
‘But good for you, fostering,’ Adam went on. ‘I couldn’t do that. Our house would be full of rescue dogs in a month! I wouldn’t be able to hand them over to the new owners!’
‘Natalie and Johnny are very special people,’ said Megan quickly. ‘I think they’d keep him, given half a chance.’
‘We would,’ said Natalie. ‘Like a shot. Um, Bertie’s with my husband at the moment – I sent them off for a quick walk and they’ve been gone ages. Shall I ring them?’
‘Please!’ said Paula. She looked genuinely excited. ‘We can’t wait to meet him.’
Natalie’s heart sank as she imagined Bertie in the back of their car, driving off to his new life, leaving his empty basket behind in their kitchen.
‘We’ll just mill around here,’ said Megan. ‘Come and find us when you track them down?’
‘I won’t be long,’ said Natalie, and slipped off into the crowd, where they wouldn’t see the pain on her face.
‘You might have to hold these on, Leo. Toffee, sit! Sit, please!’
Zoe was trying to make Toffee’s rabbit ears stay on his head when she heard a familiar voice behind her.
‘That is the best rabbit and magician I have ever seen!’
She turned round awkwardly, since she was crouching on her heels at Toffee height. Bill was standing behind her, with Lulu on a smart new silver lead. She looked freshly clipped, as if she was going to Crufts even if the rest of them were slumming it.
‘You know what you need, don’t you?’ he went on, smiling down at Leo, who gazed in awe at the very tall man above him. ‘You need . . . this!’
He whisked a white handkerchief out of his back pocket and handed it very solemnly to Leo.
‘Say thank you,’ prompted Zoe.
‘Thank you,’ said Leo, obediently.
‘Muuum,’ whined Spencer. ‘I want an ice cream.’
‘Not now, Spencer,’ she said in a firm Toffee-training tone. ‘Leo’s about to go and do his competition. We’ll get ice cream when we’re all ready.’
‘Give me the money and I’ll go on my own.’
‘No.’ Zoe glared at him, then glanced up at Bill. The last thing she wanted was for Spencer to throw a wobbler now. ‘Just wait.’
‘How are you?’ Bill asked. ‘Lulu and I have missed your company at lunchtime.’
‘Oh, I’ve been rushed off my feet. Bit of nice weather and everyone wants their highlights doing.’ Maybe it was the spring sunshine filtering through the blossom, but Zoe felt as if the air around them was suddenly warmer. She’d forgotten how much she liked just standing next to Bill. His easy company made her feel younger and less frazzled.
The megaphone crackled and Megan’s voice boomed out over the orchard. ‘Would all entrants for the Fancy Dress Pairs please make their way over here? Cheers!’
Zoe began to lead Leo by the hand, but he shook her off. ‘I want to go on my own,’ he announced. ‘I’m a big boy.’
‘No, you’re not, you’re just a baby,’ snotted Spencer, and Zoe gave him her hardest, scariest stare, to which he responded by shoving his tongue under his lower lip.
Don’t rise to it, she told herself. Ignore the bad, reward the good.
‘Go on, Leo.’ Zoe gave him a little push. ‘We’ll be watching you from right here! Good luck!’
She and Bill watched as Leo wove his way across to Megan, who welcomed him and Toffee with open arms and a little round of applause.
‘I think he’s a shoo-in,’ said Bill, nudging her, and little sparks of electricity shot down her arm where his shirt touched her bare skin.
She glanced down and saw Spencer staring sulkily around the field, then asked Bill how things were going with his plan to get the patients dog walking to health. They chatted away easily, and then clapped heartily when Leo and Toffee took first prize from the Lady Mayoress against a boxer who’d come as a Dalmatian, two clowns and Superman.
‘Ice creams all round, I reckon,’ said Bill.
‘Yes, ice creams! What kind do you want, Spencer?’ Zoe turned round when he didn’t answer. ‘Spencer?’
He wasn’t behind her any more.
Oh, for God’s sake, she thought, crossly. He’s wandered off.
It was another of Spencer’s new range of irritating tricks to wind her up: drifting away in supermarkets or shops to do his own thing, leaving her breathless with panic. It was irritating because it worked every single time, and every single time, when she found him, he did his ‘Muuuum, I was only reading the magazines/looking at the dog/picking my nose’ whine.
‘Problem?’ asked Bill as Leo came bounding across to them, with Toffee in hot pursuit, minus his bunny-girl ears.
‘Spencer. He’s gone to get his own ice cream, I think.’ She grimaced apologetically. ‘Sorry, he’s going through an arsey phase.’
Bill looked around the orchard. ‘Get used to it. I understand it lasts about fifteen to eighty years with average males. Do you want me to stay here in case he gets back?’
‘Would you?’ Zoe was relieved at the casual way Bill offered. ‘I won’t be long. Here, take Toffee’s lead. Can I get you anything?’
‘Chocolate and a flake.’ Bill winked at Leo, who was looking askance as Toffee sniffed around Lulu. ‘Don’t worry, Leo, they’re old friends.’
‘Come on, you.’ Zoe picked Leo up. Baby or not, she wanted to get back before Spencer reappeared and started giving Bill the worst possible impression of her family.
Natalie tried Johnny’s mobile, but he didn’t answer, and then she found herself distracted by two charming ladies from the bakery by the town hall, who were awfully keen to sponsor a kennel, so long as it was just used for German shepherd dogs.
By the time she’d shown them round, and explained about the random selection box of dogs the rescue cared for, there was still no sign of Bertie and Johnny, and she walked down to the bottom of the orchard to get better reception. Before she could dial she spotted Johnny coming up from the footpath, and waved to get his attention.
As he came nearer, she realised he was on his own. No Bertie. Her heart sank and she rushed over.
‘What’s the matter?’
Johnny’s face was red, and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. ‘I’ve lost him.’ He bent over, his hands on his knees, panting.
‘What?’
‘I’ve lost Bertie. I let him off the lead, just for a second, to have a pee in that thickety bit at the end of the orchard, and he must have smelled something because he . . . vanished.’ Natalie could tell he was panicking. ‘One moment he was there, the next all I could see was his tail, and then nothing! He must have smelled a hare, or something.’
Natalie felt sick. Bertie looked like a couch potato but when he decided to move, there was no way of keeping up with him. He could vanish in the woods in seconds.
‘Did you call for him?’
‘Did I call for him? Of course I bloody called for him.’ Johnny looked despairingly at her. ‘But come on, Nat – you know what his recall’s like. Zero, unless you can make the noise of a roast chicken.’
‘That’s not funny. What were you thinking? I never ever let him off where I can’t see him.’ Natalie grabbed her head. ‘How big is that wood? It’s massive.’ Collingdale Wood stretched all the way back from Four Oaks towards Rosehill, with the big dual carriageway on one side. But there was a wall, Natalie reasoned, and fields on the other side – he’d have to run a long way to get onto a main road.
But the wood itself was huge. A horrible thought suddenly struck her. ‘It’s got traps in it, hasn’t it? And rabbit holes. Jesus, Jon, what if he’s gone down a hole and
got stuck? Or put his nose near a rabbit trap?’ Her voice cracked and she had to cover her mouth. She knew she was over-reacting but the combination of the past few months’ tension and fear for unsuspecting, curious Bertie was unbearable.
Johnny put his hands on her arms. ‘Look, don’t panic. We’ll find him.’
‘Don’t tell Megan. She’s with the couple who want to adopt him. They’re looking for us now! Oh God, what if he’s hurt? How will we find him?’
‘Natalie.’ Johnny shook her gently. ‘This is Bertie. He’ll probably run around the wood for half an hour, get covered in deer shit, and then head back to the kennel for a bacon sandwich.’
‘Maybe we should look there.’ Natalie started walking, then stopped. ‘Johnny . . .’
She was about to say, please let’s keep him. Please don’t let him go.
He stopped, his face red. ‘What? We’re wasting time.’
‘Nothing,’ she said and carried on.
When Spencer had been gone for half an hour, and Zoe had done four laps of the orchard with Leo and Toffee in tow, her annoyance started to take on a sharper edge of panic.
‘Are you sure you don’t know where he might have gone?’ she asked Leo, for the tenth time. There were so many people and dogs milling around now that it was hard to see if Spencer was just lurking behind a tree. ‘He didn’t say anything about wanting to go into town, did he? He hasn’t walked down there on his own?’
Leo bit his lip and wouldn’t look at her. Zoe dropped down next to him, wrapping Toffee’s lead around her wrist so he couldn’t escape.
‘Tell me, Leelee,’ she soothed. ‘I won’t be cross.’
‘Spencer said last night he was going to see Daddy but I thought he meant next week. Not now.’ Leo started to go red. ‘I didn’t think he meant now. How will he find Daddy? Daddy isn’t here! And he took the bag with Toffee’s things in it.’
Oh shit, thought Zoe. She straightened up and tried not to let Leo see how rattled she was. Spencer could have gone out of the gate, through the garden and down to the town, or he could have headed across the open fields.
He was too smart to get into anyone’s car, she told herself. But if he was planning to go all the way to David’s?
‘I think we need to start looking a bit harder for him,’ she said. ‘Naughty Spencer – he’s going to make poor Toffee miss his special class!’
‘Naughty Spencer,’ agreed Leo, and grabbed hold of her hand as if he was scared she was going to leave too.
‘Let’s see.’ Zoe searched the crowd for Megan’s blonde plaits, and spotted her over by the leaflet stand, cooing over a fierce black Scottish terrier that looked like a giant Hitler moustache. ‘Why don’t we find Megan and show her your lovely costume?’
She marched over so quickly Toffee and Leo could barely keep up, and arrived just as Megan was rapidly withdrawing her hand from the dog. ‘Megan, can you mind Leo for five minutes?’
‘What’s up?’ Megan shook her fingers and put on a brave smile.
Zoe dropped her voice. ‘Spencer’s vanished. I’ve got to tell Rachel so she can make an announcement or something but I don’t want Leo to get worried. Can you distract him?’
‘Oh no!’ Megan’s eyes rounded. ‘Course! But he’ll turn up, Zoe – he can’t have gone far. Do you want me to send one of the hounds after him? They’ll pick up his scent! Might be quite interesting to see how quickly they find him.’
‘No! He’ll be terrified! It’s my own fault. I was talking to Bill and he was pestering me and I told him he’d have to wait and to stop being a pain! Because I wanted to talk to Bill!’ Zoe gulped. ‘I’m a terrible mum. I put my own stupid crushes before . . .’
Megan grabbed her arm. ‘Zoe, that’s ridiculous – you’re allowed to have friends, for God’s sake. Is this going to happen every time you meet some new bloke? It’s boundaries again. Spencer’s got to know you love him, but you can’t put up with him flouncing about for attention. You wouldn’t let Toffee howl or pee for attention, would you?’
Zoe shook her head miserably.
‘Well, then. Find him, and tell him, really calmly. Now then, Leo Graham!’ she said, changing her voice. ‘I hear there’s a Guess the Weight of the Dog competition going on, and I need a dog expert! Can you help me?’
She led Leo away towards the enormous St Bernard sitting patiently next to Natalie’s sponsorship table, and Zoe made a beeline for Rachel and her microphone, her heart threatening to force its way up her throat.
Bertie wasn’t in the kennels.
He wasn’t by the bacon sandwich stall either, or anywhere in the house.
Natalie was frantic, and she could tell Johnny was just as upset, even if he was trying to do his usual calm-in-a-crisis teacher thing. He kept telling her to stop panicking, but he was chewing his hangnails and frowning when he thought she wasn’t looking.
‘The best thing we can do is to go back down to the woods,’ he said, leading her along the side track so Megan wouldn’t spot them without Bertie. ‘It’s the last place he saw me, and he might be able to smell us.’
Natalie didn’t want to tell him that the guides she’d read warned that once Bassets got their noses down, they didn’t look up until the scent went dead, by which time they were miles away. ‘But what if he’s lost?’
‘He’s not lost, he’s just off for a run, in broad daylight, a couple of miles from his own house!’ Johnny said, putting an arm around her as they stumbled over the molehills. ‘Come on, Nat, he doesn’t know his new parents are here. Stop thinking he’s packed his little knapsack and run away.’
As soon as Johnny said it, Natalie couldn’t help imagining Bertie’s bewildered face as they handed him over, and she let out a racking sob.
‘Natalie, I love him too, but he’s a dog . . .’
‘It’s not just Bertie.’ The dog was just the final straw at the end of a long chain of miserable what-ifs. ‘It’s everything!’
‘What everything?’ asked Johnny.
She stared at him, unable to believe he was still pretending not to know. ‘Everything we’re not talking about! My job, our baby, your sperm tests. Everything! There’s all this going on, but you’re making me make the decisions, and I can’t stand it any more.’ She waved her hands around frantically. ‘Do we keep Bertie? Do I go back to work? Do we sign up for IVF? And you’re like, “It’s up to you, Nat.” It feels like last month I knew everything there was to know about you, and now . . . Now you’re like a stranger who won’t tell me what’s going on in his head! You lie there next to me every night, but it’s like you’re miles away.’
‘Don’t.’ Johnny started to turn his head away, but Natalie wouldn’t let him.
‘You’ve got to snap out of this, Johnny. Otherwise we might as well not bother!’ Natalie wasn’t sure where it came from, but she realised she meant it.
That jerked a reaction out of him. ‘What?’ he demanded.
‘I mean . . .’ Natalie stared at her husband, seeing him for the first time as a grown man, not the gangling sixth-former he still was in her mind’s eye. This was the man she’d promised to spend the rest of her life with – the silent, troubled man, not the hopeful teen who thought everything would work out. He’d gone for ever, after the first sperm test. Natalie wasn’t sure she knew this new Johnny.
‘I mean, I don’t know what you want any more,’ she said.
‘You don’t know what I want.’
‘No.’ She shook her head, feeling that they were standing at a junction, where one careless word could send them hurtling down the wrong path, with no way back.
This is the worst possible time to be discussing this, she thought, her nerves jangling – Bertie could be getting away, lying hurt somewhere, but if we let this conversation go bad, or if I stop him now he’s finally talking, it could end everything. Adrenalin was surging through her so hard her fingers were twitching.
Johnny stared out towards the wood, and then turned back to her. His face was grim,
and scared. ‘All I’ve ever wanted is you,’ he said. ‘You and a family. I thought it would just happen, like us getting married, us getting jobs. I’ve been so lucky. And now I can’t give you a baby, I’m bloody petrified about what happens next. That’s why I don’t want to talk about it, all right?’
‘What did you think I was going to say?’ Natalie demanded.
‘That you wanted out,’ he said simply. ‘To find someone better. Someone richer. Someone who can let you stay off work for ever, looking after his dog and having babies and being the one thing that makes him rush home every night. Instead . . .’ He took a gulp of air. ‘Instead, I’m just an inarticulate sod with inadequate sperm, who can’t even tell you how shit he feels. I know you’re too kind to leave so I was thinking that . . .’ Johnny blinked. ‘That maybe I should be the one to set you free to find someone else.’
‘What?’ Now Natalie was stunned. ‘Have you gone mad? Is that what you’ve been thinking?’
He nodded, unable to speak.
‘Don’t be so bloody stupid!’ Natalie flung her arms round Johnny’s sturdy neck and stretched onto her toes to look him right in the face. Just the idea of what he’d been working out in his head, shuffling out into the cold like a penguin sacrificing itself for the rest of the nest, made her want to cry. ‘You’re all I’ve ever wanted – and if we don’t have babies, we don’t have babies, Johnny. I’m not going to leave you, and everything we’ve got, because of something we don’t have. That’s ridiculous.’
‘It’s too much to ask,’ he mumbled. ‘I can’t let you make that sacrifice for the rest of your life. For me.’
Natalie stared fiercely at him. Her toes ached from standing on them, but she didn’t care. ‘It’s not a sacrifice. It’s what I want. And if you’d asked me, I’d have told you that. Why didn’t you ask?’
‘It’s hard.’ Johnny’s face twisted with shame. ‘It’s just so hard to talk about. For a man.’