you can’t leave that up there.”
“Why not?” Al folds her arms over her chest and stares admiringly at her handiwork.
“Because it’s really negative. This holiday is supposed to be about new starts.”
“Okay, then.” Al pulls her sleeve over her hand and rubs at the wall. “There you go.”
“Fuck?” Leanne says, and everyone laughs. “That’s it?”
“That’s the best you’re getting out of me. Your turn, Emma.” She hands me the chalk.
“Oh, God.” I look at Daisy, who’s still deliberating what to write, a pale chalky patch now smeared on her bottom lip. “I don’t know what to write, either.”
“Give it to me, then.” Leanne snatches the chalk from my hand and, before I can object, she steps towards the wall and starts scribbling. When she steps back, there’s a self-satisfied grin on her face.
“What the hell?” Al squints at what she’s written. It’s longer than the things other people have written and, to fit it all in, she’s had to twist the sentence over and around other scribbles like a snake.
“It’s a Maya Angelou quote,” Leanne says. “‘The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.’”
I have to fight not to roll my eyes. Trust Leanne to be pseudo-deep when everyone else has drawn dicks and bollocks and written things like “I love beer” on the wall.
“Okay, I’ve got it.” I twist the chalk from her fingers and read aloud as I write. “Emma, Daisy, Al, Leanne: the adventure of a lifetime.”
Daisy steps forward and nudges me out of the way. She rubs out “the adventure of a lifetime” and replaces it with “best friends forever”.
“There.” She stands back and pulls the three of us into an awkward hug. “Perfect.”
Al rummages around in her backpack, pulls out two cans of lager and chucks one at me. We left the bar half an hour ago and we’re back at the guest house, ostensibly to sleep, but Al seems to have other ideas.
I catch the can of beer. “What’s this for?”
She settles back on her bed and kicks off her trainers. “Not being a dick.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tonight. It was like the Daisy and Leanne Show. Well, the Daisy Show, with a one-woman audience.”
“They were trying to cheer you up.” I pull the tab on my beer and take a swig. We drew lots to decide who’d share with whom in the guest house. Leanne wanted to share with Al, and for me and Daisy to share, but Daisy thought it would be fun to “mix things up a bit”, especially as we’ll have to share rooms at the retreat and in the jungle, too.
“I know, and I would have laughed if it wasn’t so sad.”
“Al!”
She smirks at me over the lip of her can. “Come on, Emma, admit it. I could see you cringing.”
“Well.” I shrug. “Maybe a bit. I felt like I should have held up a neon sign pointing to our table that said, ‘We Are Having FUN!’”
“Best friends forever!” Al bursts out laughing and the tension I’ve felt all evening finally dissipates.
There’s a knock at the door and we both freeze.
“Come in,” Al shouts.
The door swings open and Daisy’s blonde head peers around the doorway.
“Are you two bitches having fun without me?” She points at our beers with mock horror. “And you’re drinking the duty free!”
Al reaches into her backpack and chucks a beer at Daisy. “Join in, let’s be friends forever!”
She cackles with laughter and the sound fills the room.
Present Day
“Jane? Have you got a minute?” I’m elbow deep in dried dog food when Sheila calls my name. She’s standing in the doorway of the supplies room with a woman I’ve never seen before. Unlike Sheila, who’s nearly six feet tall and all bosom and bum, the woman standing next to her is tiny. She’s barely five feet tall and her Green Fields’ standard issue navy polo shirt hangs flat from her shoulders, skimming her non-existent chest. Her grey trousers nearly cover the toes of her black trainers.
“Of course.” I stand up, tip the scoop into one of the twenty metal bowls on the table to my right, then wipe my hands on my trousers and cross the room.
“Jane, this is Angharad, one of the new volunteers. Angharad, this is Jane; she runs the dog section.”
“Hi!” I smile at the newcomer. From a distance, she looked about nineteen, but, up close, I can see she’s nearer my age. She tucks a strand of her neat bob behind an ear as she smiles up at me.
“Hi.” She holds out a hand and I shake it.
“Angharad’s between jobs at the moment,” Sheila says, “so she thought she’d do a bit of volunteering while she’s looking for something permanent. She particularly requested the dog section – a big dog lover, apparently.”
“Great.” I smile at Angharad.
“Okay, so, I’ll leave you to it, then.” Sheila nods then turns to leave.
“You said you came to work by bike; do you live nearby?” Angharad asks as we speed past Freddy and head towards the wild boar pen up near the top field.
“In a cottage down the road. I can see Green Fields from my back garden.”
“Wow, that is close. Have you worked here long?”
“Three years, give or take.”
I’m giving her the official guided tour of the sanctuary. She’ll already have been shown around when she attended the volunteer evening, but I’d rather chat as we walk than stand opposite each other in the silence of the supplies room.
“Where did you train?”
“Bicton, near Exeter. I did a Foundation Degree in Animal Science Management and Welfare when I was twenty-five.”
“You were a mature student, then?”
I can tell by the expression on her face that she’s waiting for me to go into more detail, to explain what I did before my degree and why I waited until I was twenty-five to study animal welfare, but I ignore her unspoken questions. Instead I point at the pigs. They greet us with a series of increasingly noisy grunts and squeals as we approach them.
“Bill and Ben. I shouldn’t imagine you’ll have anything to do with them if you’re going to spend most of your time in the dog compound, but watch out for them if anyone asks you to help out. They’re half wild boar,” I explain. “We’re not sure what they’re crossed with, and they’re a damned sight more dangerous than they look. Clever, too.”
Angharad gestures towards the multiple locks, clips and chains on their pen. “That’s a lot of locks.”
“They’ve escaped several times since they arrived, but I think we’ve outfoxed them. They’re vicious buggers, too. Turn your back on them for a second and they’ll bite you. That’s why we always lock them in their shed if we’re cleaning their run, and vice versa. They locked me in, once.”
She laughs and I’m astonished by the way it transforms her. Gone is the studious look of concentration that’s been etched on her face since we were introduced. Her laugh’s