I understand the theory,’ James says, ‘and it’s great – but how do you manage this?’
‘Manage what?’
‘To persuade people to do things for you for free.’
Luke laughs. ‘Just my natural charm, I guess. Anyway, there’s nothing wrong with what we’re offering, Dad. It’s the location, I think. Too tucked away. I know we couldn’t afford the seafront but we need to work harder to let people know we exist.’
James nods thoughtfully. ‘You’re probably right, and I think the flyers are a great idea. Here, give me that bottle.’ Taking it from him, James removes its top, peels off the foil seal and replaces the stopper. ‘There. Think you can manage now?’
‘Oh, thanks, Dad.’ With a smirk, Luke squirts ketchup noisily all over his plate and proceeds to shovel in his dinner with enthusiastic chomps and slurps. Christ, James thinks, he’s capable of thinking creatively and blagging all kinds of favours and freebies, but he still needs his dad to open a new sauce bottle. And he eats like he’s at a trough in a farmyard, not at a kitchen table – yet is capable of engaging in extremely noisy sex under this very roof.
James blinks down at a bowl of leftover potato salad, trying to forget the terrible rumpus he heard last night, signalling that Luke and Charlotte had got back together. He should be happy for his son – he suspects that Luke is deeply in love with her – but, like buffalo copulating or people being cut open in hospital, he doesn’t feel it necessary to be subjected to every gruesome, sick-making detail.
Although James likes to think he’s a reasonably modern man, he couldn’t help thinking: What would Amy make of this? She adored her only child, coddling him like a delicate egg. (James isn’t quite sure what a coddled egg is, but it’s surely not dissimilar to a younger Luke who was still having his fish fingers cut up into dainty pieces at ten years old). But she’s been out of their lives for two years now – Luke was so aghast that he’s shunned all attempts at contact – and James is left with the task of trying to ease his transition into being a capable grown-up man. Sure, he’s full of ideas and enthusiasm. It’s the practicalities – like remembering to order butter and clean the meat slicer – that he’s not so hot on.
Pushing his plate aside, James glances down at Buddy, taking a few seconds to register the rich odour which is beginning to permeate the kitchen. It definitely isn’t sausage or potato salad and, as far as James is aware, nothing is rotting in the bin.
‘Look, Dad,’ Luke exclaims, jabbing his fork in the direction of the cooker. There, sitting in front of it, is a large turd.
‘I don’t bloody believe it.’ James leaps up, sending his chair clattering backwards, at which Buddy scoots out of the kitchen.
‘That’s disgusting,’ Luke observes as his father clears it up. ‘Why did he do that?’
‘Because he needed to go,’ James snaps.
‘Did he?’
James stomps out to the back garden, drops the carrier bag-wrapped gift into the bin and marches back inside. ‘Luke,’ he says sternly, ‘we had an agreement, right? I do the morning and lunchtime walks and you do the evening—’
‘We wouldn’t have to,’ Luke interrupts, ‘if you put up a higher fence that he couldn’t jump over. Then he could just have a little wander about in the garden.’ Ah yes – another of Buddy’s newly-developed quirks. For years, he had pottered about happily on the lawn, without showing any desire to escape.
‘I don’t exactly have time to build another fence right now, Luke.’ James frowns at his son, wondering if he plans to place his dirty plate and cutlery in the dishwasher or – the favoured tactic – expects them to spirit themselves into the appliance all on their own.
To avoid the issue, he wanders through to the living room and sinks into the sofa, overcome by a wave of exhaustion. He starts to flick through the newspapers he brought home from the shop. It had been Luke’s idea to add two small tables by the window, plus a rack of newspapers, to encourage customers to linger over a coffee and snack. So far, they’ve been the only ones to read them.
‘Dad …’ Luke has appeared in the doorway. ‘I was just thinking, maybe we should take Buddy to a trainer again.’
James looks up at him. ‘Remember what they said last time? That he seemed to have trouble grasping basic commands. That was a polite way of saying he’s a hopeless case.’
‘What’ll we do then?’
James studies the handsome young man who turns heads every time he saunters through town. Luke has inherited his grey eyes, but Amy’s striking cheekbones and long, rangy build.
‘Um … what would you think if we found him another home?’ he asks hesitantly.
There’s a beat’s silence as Luke studies his fingernails. ‘I’d feel bad but …’
‘Yeah, I know. Me too.’
‘I mean, I love him,’ Luke adds, ‘and he’s a great dog, but …’
Buddy trots into the room and arranges himself comfortably at James’s feet. ‘I just don’t think he gets enough attention from us two,’ he says, reaching down to tickle behind his ears. ‘Maybe that’s the real problem. He’s playing up because he’s lonely.’
Luke nods sadly. ‘He was Mum’s dog really, wasn’t he?’
James starts to speak, horrified that his eyes have started to water.
‘Hey, Dad.’ Luke lands beside him on the sofa and puts an arm around his shoulders. ‘Maybe it’s the best thing to do.’
‘You really think so?’
Luke’s phone bleeps with an incoming text, but he has the decency to ignore it. ‘Yeah. Sometimes I reckon Buddy doesn’t really like us very much.’
‘We’re too male for him,’ James suggests.
‘God knows what it is. If we advertised him, though, would we mention him being scared of everything and occasionally crapping on the floor?’
James musters a weak smile, enjoying just being here with his son, and Buddy lying at their feet. ‘I think,’ he says carefully, ‘we might just keep those little details to ourselves.’
Chapter Fifteen
It’s a bleak, wet Tuesday and Rob has called in sick. He never throws a sickie, and he despises those who do, such as fashion editor Ava who had the audacity last week to claim she’d ‘caught something’ the morning after she’d been to the lavish PR party she’d spent all afternoon getting ready for. Eddy doesn’t seem to mind skivers. Perhaps that’s all part of the new ‘dynamic’ attitude: being so ‘out there’ that sometimes you can’t be arsed to go to work.
This morning, though, Rob couldn’t face the office so he called in, feigning a migraine. Which was true, sort of. The terrible reality – that Nadine says she’s having his baby – is creating a terrible tension around his frontal lobe, as if his brain is in danger of bursting out of his skull. And now, hell, Kerry is phoning his mobile.
‘Hi,’ he croaks, digging a fingernail into the well-worn corduroy sofa.
‘Hi, hon, sorry to call you at work, hoped you’d be on your lunch break—’
‘Is everything okay?’ It’s his knee-jerk reaction. Any time Kerry calls during the day, he fears that one of his children is being stitched back together at A&E.
‘Yes, it’s fine, it’s just … I know this sounds stupid, but I’ve just been out for a walk to clear my head. Been working on those Cuckoo Clock songs all morning …’
Nadine’s having my baby rings loud and clear between his