James clears his throat. ‘I should have explained. You see, I’m helping my son with his business – he has a sandwich shop – while trying to keep up with my own website design work. Things have been incredibly hectic lately, but this evening, when I started to think about Buddy …’ He tails off.
‘I did wonder,’ she says carefully, running a hand over Buddy’s soft fur. How on earth will she tell Freddie and Mia that Buddy has to go back? Rob was right – it was a rash move. Even if this hadn’t happened, all kinds of things can go wrong: illness, accidents, death … Buddy opens an amber eye and looks at her. She no longer cares about his barking outburst or the fact that he pooed outside school; it’s just what dogs do.
‘… He has a few issues,’ James is saying, ‘since, er, something happened at home.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘He gets really anxious,’ James goes on, ‘like if he sees or hears another dog that he can’t greet and sniff, and if a truck goes by – any large vehicle really – and there’s been some chewing and the odd, er, little accident …’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she murmurs.
‘No, I’m sorry. I wish I’d been more honest with you from the start.’
Kerry bites her lip. His voice is lovely; warmer and friendlier than the clipped tone he’d adopted when she’d been at his house. ‘You can come and pick him up tomorrow if you like,’ she says flatly.
‘Oh. Er … right. Okay.’
There’s a stilted pause, and Buddy shifts position so as to edge further onto Kerry’s lap. ‘My children will be away with their dad then,’ she adds, ‘and I’d rather it happened when they’re not around. The sooner the better, I suppose, before they get too attached.’ Some hope of that. The entire evening has been filled with cuddling, grooming and playing with Buddy, and he seemed to relish the attention.
‘Er, I only want him back if he’s too much for you,’ James says.
‘No, I didn’t say he was too much. I thought you said you’d made a mistake …’
‘Did I?’ James sounds baffled. ‘No, I just wanted you to know what he’s like – his little quirks, I suppose. I thought you should know what you’re taking on. But he’d never hurt or bite anyone and he loves people. He’s just …’
‘A handful?’ Kerry says, laughing now and overcome with relief. ‘Oh, of course I don’t want you to take him back. Absolutely not. My children are thrilled and we all think he’s fantastic – in fact he’s asleep with his head on my lap right now.’
‘He’s doing that with you already?’ James sounds as if he’s smiling.
‘Yes, he is.’ Buddy opens an eye again and she’s filled with a rush of warmth for him. ‘I’m sure we can cope with his quirks.’
‘I’m really glad. I just felt, you know – a bit guilty …’
‘A sort of Trade Descriptions Act thing?’
‘Yeah.’ He chuckles. ‘Well, maybe I’ll run into you sometime when you’re out walking him.’
Kerry pictures James in his empty-feeling house, with a space in the hall where Buddy’s basket used to be, and it’s on the tip of her tongue to arrange something. But he clearly has too much on his plate right now. ‘I’m sure he’d like that,’ she says. ‘And thanks, James. He’s the perfect dog for us.’
Later, when Kerry goes to bed, Buddy follows her upstairs and leaps up onto her bed, settling on the lower section of the duvet. It’s tempting to let him stay there; the bed has felt huge since she moved here, and seems to have expanded even more these past few weeks. But she can’t let Buddy sleep here, as some kind of husband substitute; it would be too sad, too poor-dumped-wife to contemplate. Yet he wants to be near her, so she fetches his basket from downstairs and places it in the corner of her bedroom.
He curls up in it instantly. Soon she hears his deep, steady breathing, and as Kerry drifts towards sleep herself, she already feels a little less alone.
PART TWO
Settling in
‘There are bound to be a few small hiccups during the early days. Building a new relationship requires much time and patience.’
Your First Dog: A Complete Guide by Jeremy Catchpole
Chapter Twenty-Five
December 1, the first snowfall
‘SNOW!’ Freddie charges into Kerry’s bedroom where she’s still submerged in duvet and launches himself on top of her.
‘Ooof,’ she cries, catching her breath. ‘What is it, Freddie?’
‘Snow, Mummy, snow!’ Mia appears in the Mickey Mouse pyjamas Rob’s parents bought her, much to his distaste. Commercial tat, he reckons, but who cares what he thinks these days? It’s childish, yes – but Kerry now derives untold pleasure from the children enjoying the things Rob regards as either ‘tacky’ (contraband chocolate cereals, all things Disney) or ‘potentially dangerous and certainly troublesome’ (dogs). She knows she shouldn’t waste brain space by considering Rob’s likes and dislikes; it’s been two months since the split, after all. Yet she can’t ignore a frisson of delight as she reflects how much he’d hate a bounding, panting animal on the bed, shedding his fur and biting playfully at a pillow. It’s astounded her, how quickly she’s fallen in love with Buddy, and how he and Freddie are providing all the male attention she needs right now (despite Brigid urging her to pounce on attractive male dog-walkers). Anyway, it’s not as if she’s being besieged by offers. At the current time, Buddy is the only male trying to lick Kerry’s face around here.
Freddie, Mia and Buddy are all on her bed now, peering out through the window as fat snowflakes fall from a colourless sky.
‘Come and see, Mummy,’ Mia commands, her face pressed up against the glass.
‘I can see from here, sweetheart …’
‘Come and see properly.’
‘Okay, okay,’ she laughs, glancing at her alarm clock as she squeezes in beside her children at the window. At 7.48 a.m., Shorling is waking to its first snowfall of the year. The row of beach huts and the ice cream kiosk are already thinly coated in white. The sea view from Kerry’s bedroom has helped to soothe her during these past eight weeks, and it’s all the better for being shrouded in fresh, storybook snow.
‘Hey, you’ve already got your boots on,’ Kerry remarks, spotting a flash of silvery rubber peeping out from Freddie’s PJ bottoms.
‘Yeah.’ Freddie’s wellies are as sparkly as disco balls, bought for him during his last visit to Rob’s parents. Rob told her he’d spotted them, glinting in their come-hither way in a shop window (as far as Mary is concerned, whatever the grandchildren desire must be theirs).
‘He slept in them,’ Mia announces, ‘like, all night.’
‘You can’t have,’ Kerry says as Freddie starts giggling.
‘I did,’ he says proudly. ‘I sleep with my wellies on every night.’
‘What, every night since you were at Nanny and Nonno’s last week?’ Kerry asks. ‘But I always tuck you in and you’re never wearing them then …’
‘He waits till you’ve gone,’ Mia offers, with a pause for effect, ‘then he puts ’em on in secret.’
‘Oh, Freddie …’
‘So I’m always ready