‘A dog is a tie I don’t need right now,’ she snapped, her voice suddenly sharp. ‘I mean, having to think about something else all the time. Feeding it, training it . . . And before you even suggest it, no, that dog cannot go and live with Owen in the flat. It’s bad enough worrying about what he’s doing to the carpet.’
‘Tavish doesn’t need training,’ said Rory. ‘He’s nearly eleven – he’s as trained as he’s ever going to get. That’s like eighty in human years.’
Michelle raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s not selling it to me either. I know what elderly dogs are like. Unreliable. Anna, how often do you hoover?’ She pointed accusingly at her. ‘And don’t pretend it isn’t twice a day.’
‘Twice a . . . ?’ Anna looked guilty. ‘Er, right, yeah. But he won’t shed as much as Pongo. I’ve had a look on the internet.’
‘No.’
‘But, Michelle . . .’ She pointed to where Tavish was sitting in an empty orange crate, his bearded head regarding the shop with an imperial air. ‘Look at him. Look at him. No one’s going to adopt a dog his age. He’s been loved all his life, and now he’ll probably die in a concrete run. All alone. No wonder he’s desperate to come home.’
‘No.’
‘What about a dog share?’ said Rory.
‘Give me a break.’ Michelle turned her attention to him. ‘I thought you were the logical side of this.’
‘I am. Tavish would be fine in the shop during the day. And I’d have him at night. Or some weekends, because I’ve never been on a minibreak in my life.’ He put the word ‘minibreak’ into air apostrophes, which irritated Michelle. ‘I didn’t think anyone had minibreaks outside Bridget Jones.’
‘I’m not Bridget bloody Jones,’ she snapped.
‘You have read Bridget Jones’ Diary?’ asked Anna hopefully.
‘No, I saw the film,’ said Michelle. ‘Customer,’ she added, glad of the distraction as a woman struggled in through the door with a pushchair.
Anna rushed over to hold the door, and immediately started chatting about whatever it was that bookish people chatted about, which usually led to them buying something from her.
Rory took Michelle’s elbow and steered her discreetly into the Local Interest section.
‘Don’t start,’ she said, in a warning tone. ‘I thought you’d realised by now that when I say no I mean no.’
‘Like when you said you didn’t want to run this as a bookshop, then changed your mind?’ Rory fixed her with his unsettling half-smile. ‘Look, Mr Quentin is very fond of that little dog. Very fond.’
Michelle stared back at him. She didn’t like the faint note of reproach in his tone. ‘There’s nothing in the lease that says I have to house his pets as well as his unsellable collection of military history books.’
‘Not in so many words.’ Rory cast a sideways look to make sure Anna was occupied with the customer. ‘But surely a businesswoman like you can see that there might be significant advantages to doing a personal favour for your landlord. It might perhaps lead him to do you a return favour somewhere down the line?’
Michelle’s brain raced, trying all the possible explanations like locks. She didn’t want to pick the wrong one.
Was he saying that if she took in the dog, Mr Quentin might drop his ridiculous insistence on the premises remaining as a loss-making bookshop rather than a profitable linen heaven?
Was that really it? Rory was almost as much of an evangelical paperback worshipper as Anna and Mr Quentin. Was this dog really that important? Or was Rory just unable to pass over a deal?
Michelle’s opinion of him dropped again, irrational as that seemed.
Her gaze strayed across to where Tavish was patiently receiving the attentions of Anna and the woman who’d just come in; Anna had put a cushion in the crate for him, and he already looked like he’d been there since about 1954. Michelle had to admit it – he added a certain bookish ambience to the place. He was a canine Kelsey.
She thought hard. It was already March. Even if the bookshop carried on making the tiny profit it was currently making she still had to carry it for another nine months; there was no money here to cover any emergency repairs, or more wages. She could just about juggle the numbers to give Anna enough to order a constant basic level of stock, but if Mr Quentin could be persuaded that A Book at Bedtime was pretty much the same thing as a bookshop, just with added beds . . .
Michelle felt a flash of guilt, but she tamped it down quickly. Books and beds. They went together well enough – it would just be a case of . . . proportion. There wouldn’t be quite so many books as there were now.
‘Are you thinking yes?’ Rory pressed her.
‘Weekends or weeknights?’
‘Either. We can rotate.’
‘And who’ll walk him?’
‘He won’t need much. I can do alternate lunchtimes.’
‘Food?’
‘Doubt he eats that much. We can do a monthly kitty contribution. Say, twenty quid?’
Rory’s responses were quick and professional, unlike the bumbling manner he’d had in his offices. It gave a sleek confidence to his face, which she had to admit was quite attractive. For a baby-abandoning love rat.
‘And you’ll work on lifting the bookshop clause earlier if possible?’
‘I will speak to Mr Quentin both in my capacity as his executor and as co-guardian of his dog.’
Michelle wondered if he’d been so accommodating or enthusiastic when it came to custody of his kid.
‘Done,’ she said.
Anna came rushing over. ‘Michelle,’ she hissed. ‘It’s Rachel, from the rescue kennels. She’s come for Tavish. What should I tell her?’
Rory and Anna stared at her expectantly. Between Rory’s stupid floppy hair and Anna’s appley blondeness, they looked like two of the Secret Seven, thought Michelle. How did this happen?
Was it the shop? In which case, she didn’t want to know what she was turning into.
‘Tell her . . . Tavish can stay,’ she said, and hoped she wasn’t making a big mistake.
13
‘There’s something refreshingly honest about the Malory Towers and Chalet School books; being rich or beautiful is never as important as being kind or brave. And there’s always comeuppance! And midnight feasts.’
Rachel Fenwick
‘You know, I never thought I’d say this to a potential new owner,’ said Rachel from the kennels, gazing around Michelle’s elegant sitting room, her face soft with envy, ‘but I think your house is almost too nice to bring a dog into.’
‘Thank you,’ said Michelle with a proud smile.
Though Rachel was technically part of the mafia-like Longhampton dog set, since she owned the kennels and was married to the town vet, she didn’t wear a quilted gilet or match her winter coat to her dog’s. She was one of Michelle’s best customers at Home Sweet Home, and was the only person Michelle knew who didn’t talk about London as if it was some imaginary destination like Narnia, or Heaven.
Had Michelle had more free time to be sociable, or had Rachel been a jogger, they’d probably have got on really well, thought Michelle.
‘I can’t believe you didn’t have some interior designer in to do it.’ Rachel looked around, taking in the restored floorboards and mouldings. Her clipboard checklist dangled from her hands, all the boxes ticked and most additional space filled with jotted websites and decorating tips Michelle had passed on as they’d walked around.
‘Oh, it’s just all things I like.’ Michelle shrugged modestly, but she knew the sitting room was looking particularly good today, with the spring sunshine reflecting off the canal water, sending ripples of light onto the china blue walls. There were splashy bunches of bright yellow daffodils everywhere, and she’d brought a whole box of scented candles home, as preparation for serious dog-odour masking.
Tavish had gone back to the kennels for a night or two of pampering – really, Rachel confided, because the staff up there wanted to say goodbye – an
d in the meantime, she and Rory had equipped themselves for his arrival in their houses.
Michelle wasn’t sure what Rory had done, but she’d designated an area at the far end of her kitchen for Tavish and bought the only half-stylish bed she could find in the pet superstore. She’d resisted the temptation to go mad with cushions and toys;Tavish was a lodger, not a tenant.
Rachel picked up a blown-glass dove and sighed. ‘I wish I had time to do things to my house. I used to read all the magazines – you know, Elle Decor and House Beautiful . . .’ She laughed. ‘Those days of minimalist white carpets are gone, gone, gone.’
‘Why? What happened?’ Privately, Michelle didn’t understand people who let their houses get into a state. All it took was a routine, and some discipline and proper storage. ‘I don’t see you living in a tip,’ she went on, noting Rachel’s perfectly messed haircut and dark red nails. ‘I see you with a scrubbed kitchen table and lots of Irish linen.’
Rachel laughed aloud, a generous noise tinged with just a little regret. ‘I wish! No, I moved out of a chic studio flat into a massive old house, and I had a baby, and a dog, and I ended up living with a man who thinks tidiness is a sign of not enough to do . . . Your priorities change, don’t they?’ She put the glass dove down. ‘Luckily for me, most of the time home checks reassure me I’m not the only one with a pile of stuff in every corner. Not today, though!’
Michelle smiled tightly, but she felt a pinch of resentment at the ‘priorities’ comment, more so because up till then, she’d been feeling a sort of camaraderie with Rachel, as stylishoffcomers-in-arms. Why did having kids provide you with some kind of moral trump card that turned an elegant house into a sign of ‘not enough to do’? Making your living environment as relaxing as possible wasn’t some kind of failure.
‘But anyway, you’ve motivated me to go home and tidy up,’ Rachel went on with a final glance at Michelle’s built-in cupboards. ‘Shall we have a look at your back garden?’
Once the garden had been approved (‘Fences, great – not that Tavish will want to go far . . .’) and admired (‘Those pots! Where did you find them?’), Rachel handed over a stapled set of pages to Michelle.
‘It’s our standard set of guidelines for first-time owners,’ she explained. ‘My husband, the world’s bossiest vet, wrote them, and he does go on, but it’s better than having the lecture directly from him.’
‘I’ve had dogs before,’ said Michelle. ‘I had . . .’ She paused, conscious that even Anna didn’t know what she was about to tell Rachel. She hadn’t mentioned it because she was ashamed at having left Flash behind, at not having fought harder for him when Anna had struggled so much to love Pongo along with the girls. It would also have led to awkward questions about Harvey, and she didn’t want to have to answer those either.
‘I had a spaniel with my ex,’ she confessed. ‘Flash. He’s a lovely dog, a working cocker, black and white. Speckly nose.’
‘Aw.’ Rachel looked sympathetic. ‘The ex got custody?’
‘Sort of. I wanted to move out here for a fresh start, and Flash spent a lot of time with my parents’ dogs, so . . .’ Michelle shrugged. ‘My ex suggested weekend access but I didn’t want to confuse him.’
Him meaning Flash and Harvey.
‘That’s tough,’ said Rachel. ‘I bet you miss him.’
Michelle nodded, but didn’t say anything, and Rachel interpreted her silence as regret, carrying on with comforting briskness.
‘Still, it’s brilliant that you’re giving Tavish a home now. It’s a bit unconventional, this dog sharing, but I think it’s better than him being in kennels. Speaking of which . . .’ She checked her watch. ‘I need to get round to Rory’s flat, give it the once over.’
‘I’ll give you a lift,’ said Michelle. ‘He’s left a set of keys at the shop to let you in if he’s not already there. Do you need to interview him?’
‘Rory? No.’ Rachel grinned. ‘We know Rory up at the kennels. He’s one of our weekend walking volunteers. He used to come with Mrs Quentin when she got a bit doddery and couldn’t quite manage. Nice guy.’
Michelle’s business brain suddenly wondered what a concerned neighbour like Rory might stand to inherit when Mr Quentin died. He was already the executor of the estate. Maybe there’d been method in his dog-walking. Or rather, a long-term strategy.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Nice guy.’
In the bookshop, Anna put her bag down on the desk and stared at Kelsey, but Kelsey had the phone tucked between her ear and her shoulder and was pushing back her cuticles. From the tone of her voice, Anna intuited that she was on the phone to her very patient best friend Shannon, who worked across the road in the deli.
‘No Michelle?’ she said, but got no reply.
Anna wondered if she could find a book about sign language, so Kelsey and Shannon could just sit in the front of their respective shops and sign at each other through the windows. Their hands would be blurs, she thought. Never stopping, like those French women who used to knit by the guillotines.
‘. . . and I was like, I can see Ethan if I want to, Jake, it’s not like you own me or anything, and he was like, listen, Kelsey, I am so not cool with that . . .’
Anna coughed and stared at Kelsey until she turned round and said, ‘Listen, Shannon, I’ll have to call you back, yeah, I’m at work,’ and hung up.
‘No Michelle?’ Anna repeated. It was nearly quarter past ten, and she was late herself.
‘No, she’s being home-checked by the dog woman.’ Kelsey looked as if she’d either been crying or had had a late night. Maybe both. Her big blue eyes looked shiny and there were bags under them the colour of mushrooms. Anna didn’t know if it was Ethan or Jake who’d caused them. It was too hard to keep up.
Thank God I don’t have to go through this with Becca, thought Anna, with a surge of relief for studious stepdaughters. And fingers crossed Chloe stays completely fixated on impressing Simon Cowell, rather than any of the boys in her class.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked.
‘I’m fine.’ Kelsey sniffed.
‘Good. Well, listen, you can do something for me.’ Anna pulled a set of cards out of her bag and some silver pens. ‘I don’t think you’ve done any book recommendations yet, have you?’
‘I don’t read books,’ said Kelsey, alarmed.
‘I bet you do. What about Harry Potter? Or something funny, like Shopaholic? I want comfort reads. Books that make you feel warm, books to read when it’s raining outside.’
‘I could do Harry Potter, I suppose,’ said Kelsey dubiously. ‘That first one was a short one, wasn’t it?’
‘Yay! That’s the spirit. You only have to fill up this card. I don’t need a dissertation.’
Kelsey looked uncertainly at the postcard. ‘How big can I write?’
‘Big as you want. Here’s a silver pen. Go on!’ said Anna encouragingly.
The shop bell jangled and Michelle walked in, followed by Rachel. They were both on their mobiles, although Rachel hung up when she came near the desk and smiled.
Kelsey took one look at Michelle, who was having a very terse conversation with someone, and scuttled into the back room.
‘Hello!’ said Anna to both of them. She’d tidied the shop to make it look as doggy-friendly as possible and put some of Pongo’s Bonios in the drawer, just in case.
‘Morning,’ said Rachel. ‘If you’ve got the keys, we’re just going upstairs, so I can check Rory’s flat’s not full of small furry animals and mantraps.’
‘What do you think it is full of?’ wondered Anna, out loud. ‘What’s in Rory’s flat?’ was another game they played in the shop when it was quiet. Even Becca joined in with that one. ‘Claymores and chess sets? Or crystal radios and life-size Daleks?’
‘Law textbooks and back issues of Model Railways Monthly, I should think.’ Rachel smiled and started flipping through the ‘four for the price of three’ box of kids’ books.
‘I imagine it like Lord Peter Wimsey??
?s apartment,’ said Anna. ‘Books and bachelor artefacts.’
Michelle had finished her call, and gave her a boggly ‘I don’t think so’ look.
Anna frowned back. She couldn’t work out why Michelle was so down on Rory. Was it all to do with his son? She’d tried explaining that families were complicated, but Michelle just seemed to cling on to it, like she needed a reason to distrust him.
‘Rory can’t make it,’ said Michelle, pocketing her phone. ‘But he’s happy for me to show you round. Shall we?’ She gestured upstairs.
Anna watched Rachel and Michelle head out with the keys, then her natural curiosity got the better of her, and she called through to the back room.
‘Can you mind the desk, Kelsey? I’m just popping upstairs too.’
Rory’s flat was the same size and shape as the one Owen was currently sprawling out in, but there the resemblance ended.
Every wall was lined with bookshelves, and what wasn’t crowded with books was painted shabby magnolia. It obviously hadn’t been decorated for years and in some spots, Anna could make out Wallpaper Through the Ages – garish 70s patterns in the bathroom, spriggy 50s florals in the hall.
There was a mounted Star Wars light sabre along one wall, and a bicycle wheel in the hall, and two big boxes of assorted Man Junk that had obviously got stuck there when he moved in. The air smelled of washing drying on radiators; not an unpleasant smell, but a disorganised one. This was very clearly The Post-Relationship Emergency Move Flat that Rory had never settled into. Anna’s sympathies for him grew when she saw the brand new cot still in its flatpack, leaning up against the door. Bought, but never used.
She flashed Michelle a sidelong glance and could tell from her wrinkled nose that not only had she seen the cot, but she was dying to tidy up and slap a few coats of emulsion over the loud wallpaper for good measure.