Still, it was her job as junior partner, negotiator, valuer and most importantly, accounts person, in her Uncle Doug’s Old Curiosity Shop – “collectibles and curios for all” – to spend her working life rooting around among other people’s unwanted detritus, and, apart from the daily spider hazard, she absolutely loved it.
Taking another
deep breath, Erin felt gingerly along the top shelf with one hand while clinging tightly to the top of the ladder with the other. Choking quietly on the clouds of dust, she reached even deeper into the sweltering gloom and tried not to fall.
‘Any luck?’ Mrs Wilberforce’s voice was nearer now. ‘Oh, do take care, dear. You were such a cack-handed kiddie. Always had your knees plastered up or your arm in a sling. Mind, you were a fearless little thing. A proper tomboy. You haven’t changed all that much in the twenty-seven years I’ve known you, dear.’
Erin pulled a face in the sultry darkness. Thanks so much, Mrs W. Nothing like bolstering a girl’s ego.
‘And,’ Mrs Wilberforce continued, ‘I don’t want you to break any bones on my account. Not so soon before the big day.’
‘I’m not keen on hobbling down the aisle on crutches either, so I promise I’ll be careful. And I haven’t fallen off my bike or grazed my knees in the playground for some time now. Ah, I think I’ll just have to reach forward a bit more and move some of this stuff – I can see a box just over here …’
‘Good girl,’ Mrs Wilberforce’s voice sounded delighted. ‘Not long to go now to the wedding though, is it?’
‘Seventh of September. Six weeks and three days and ooh – about four hours.’
‘Not that you’re counting?’ Mrs Wilberforce chuckled. ‘Bet you can’t wait, can you? Young Jay’s a smashing bloke, and everyone speaks so highly of him. He’s the best vet we’ve ever had in Nook Green.’
Erin nodded in proud agreement on Jay’s behalf. He was, without doubt, the best vet
anywhere
in the whole wide world.
As she’d found out two years ago …
Two years ago,
very early on a similar scorching July morning, and still wearing her pyjamas, Erin had hurtled bare-footed out of Uncle Doug’s front door and raced across the green that gave the village its name, slithering on the dew-soaked grass, and crashed into the Nook Green Veterinary Surgery, carrying her beloved cat, Florence, inert in her arms.
‘I need to see Mr Howes,’ she’d sobbed incoherently over the desk to her receptionist-best-friend Sophie. ‘Now, Sophie! I’ve just found Florence lying on the kitchen floor and she’s been so sick everywhere, and I know she’s dying!’
‘Oh, sweetheart.’ Sophie had leaned across the desk, touching Florence’s immobile grey head and handing Erin a tissue. ‘How awful – but Mr Howes has left. Retired. Remember? I told you. He sold the practice. We have a new vet now – Mr Keskar – and he’s fully booked and we’re not even open yet and –’
‘I don’t care!’ Erin had sobbed even louder. ‘Is he here?’
‘Yes, but –’
‘Then ask him
to see Florence. Now. Please, please, please. You’re my best friend. Pull strings! Please, please, please Sophie, just ask him.’
‘OK. Look, go and sit down – the first appointment hasn’t arrived yet. I’ll just go and have a word with Jay.’
‘Jay?’
Sophie had hurried out from behind her desk. ‘Mr Keskar. Jay Keskar. He’s lovely, Erin, and brilliant. Try not to worry.’
Being far beyond worrying and unable to sit down in the tiny waiting room, Erin, cuddling Florence’s motionless body against her with tears dripping into the smoky, silky fur, had paced frantically up and down.
‘Erin …’ Bella, Erin’s other best-friend-from-childhood, and the practice’s veterinary nurse, clattered into the waiting room and hugged her. ‘Sophie’s just told me. Oh, poor you – poor Florence. Jay’s said of course he’ll see you now. Come through.’
Dry-mouthed, tears falling unbidden, and her heart thundering, Erin had followed Bella into the surgery.
‘Hello, Miss Boswell,’ Jay Keskar had smiled kindly at her. ‘Sophie and Bella have told me all about you and Florence. I’ve called up her notes on the computer, and she’s young and been a very healthy girl so far. Please just put her down on the table and I’ll have a look at her.’
Vaguely aware of Jay Keskar being tall and lean and dark, with silky blue-black hair and amazingly gentle deep brown eyes to match the kind smile, Erin laid the almost-unconscious Florence carefully on the table.
‘Thank you for seeing us,’ she’d sobbed. ‘Thank you so much.’
‘No problem. Now, let’s have a look …’
Jay had asked several questions while carrying out his examination, and Erin,
stroking Florence, sniffling and frozen with fear, had tried her best to answer them coherently.
‘OK.’ Jay had smiled reassuringly. ‘Her temperature’s through the roof – so we need to get that down straight away – that’s what’s causing the floppiness. I’m going to take some blood tests to rule out anything nasty lurking underneath, and I don’t think she’s been poisoned. My guess is that she’s been foraging and eaten something unpleasant and she’s suffering a severe reaction … if I’m right, then a couple of injections and a course of antibiotics followed by a special bland diet should have her back on her paws pretty quickly. I’ll just get Bella to help me. If you’d like to wait outside for about ten minutes, I’ll be as quick as I can.’
‘Is she going to die?’ Erin had sniffled behind the soggy tissue. ‘She isn’t going to die, is she?’
‘Not if I can help it.’ Jay had smiled again, his voice calming and reassuring. ‘I’ll run the tests and call you back in. Try not to worry, Miss Boswell.’
The waiting room had been no longer empty, and the two women with overenthusiastic dogs and the man with a very vocal cat in a travelling basket, chattered gaily with the relaxed air of people whose animals were in for routine treatment and who knew no heartbreak lurked behind the surgery door.
They’d all stopped talking and stared at the distraught Erin, in her pyjamas, with a mixture of amusement and shared pet-owner sympathy.
Pacing up and down again, she’d ignored them and scrubbed at her eyes with the now shredded tissue.
Jay Keskar, she’d thought, had been so much better and kinder and gentler than the brusque Mr Howes. But if anything happened to Florence … Oh God, if anything happened to Florence …
And ten minutes
was going to seem like ten hours.
‘Feeling better? Told you he was good, didn’t I?’ Sophie had leaned across the desk in the reception cubicle. ‘And smoking hot.’
‘
What
?’
‘Jay’s soooo fit. He’s to die for,’ Sophie had whispered.
‘Do not use the “d” word!’ Erin had hissed back.
‘Ooops, no, sorry – but you must remember me and Bella telling you we had some right dweebs come to look round when Mr Howes wanted to sell up, and then we said how gorgeous Jay Keskar was and we couldn’t believe it when he bought the surgery? And amazingly he’s
single
. We both fancy him like mad. So does every other female pet-owner in the village, sadly.’
Erin had shaken her head. She had some vague memory of Sophie and Bella enthusing wildly over their new young Indian boss, but hadn’t listened much at the time as she’d been recovering from being two-timed by Mike-the-plumber-from-Newbury and had been sworn off men for ever.
‘I didn’t really notice.’ Erin had blown her nose. ‘But he seems very kind and efficient – and as long as he makes Florence better he can look like Quasimodo for all I care.’
‘Didn’t
notice
?’ Sophie had looked scandalised. ‘He’s
scorching
.’
‘I don’t care,’ Erin had sniffed. ‘I only care about Florence.’
‘Erin.’ Bella had opened the door. ‘If you’d like to come back in now.’
Her stomach in knots, Erin walked back into the surgery.
Florence, looking sleepy but very alive, had been sitting up on the examination table and Erin had burst into tears again.
Jay Keskar had laughed and handed her a printout. ‘The blood tests were all negative. Look, kidneys and liver function – all perfectly normal.
No trace of FIV or FIL – I know she’s had her boosters but you can’t be too careful. I think she’s probably scavenged something like a dead mouse or a gone-off frog. She’s responded extremely well to the injections as you can see.’
‘Thank you,’ Erin had whispered, picking Florence up and hugging her, and being rewarded by a faint but distinct purr. ‘Oh, thank you so much.’
‘My pleasure. You can pick up Florence’s pills and the food from Sophie at reception. Make sure she has plenty of water to drink to counteract the dehydration from the vomiting, and if you’d make an appointment for a couple of day’s time, I’ll repeat the injections. But I’m confident that when I see Florence again she’ll be as right as rain.’
And muttering her thanks over and over again, Erin had hugged Florence even more tightly, and practically skipped from the surgery.
And, by the time she and the fully restored Florence had made their second appointment, she’d realised that Jay Keskar was not only the greatest vet in the whole wide world, but also the sexiest, most drop-dead gorgeous man she’d ever seen.
After that appointment, much to Sophie and Bella’s amazement, and despite having seen her at her absolute worse – incoherent, pyjama-clad, wild-haired, red-eyed and runny-nosed – Jay had phoned her and asked her out, and the rest, as they say, was history.
In just over six weeks’ time, they’d be married and she’d become Mrs Keskar, and she and the equally besotted Florence, would be moving into Jay’s picture-pretty cottage next door to the surgery.
She simply couldn’t wait.
Jolted back to the
present, Erin realised Dora Wilberforce was still chattering.
‘… and I’ve always said you make such a lovely couple. With him being all tall, dark and handsome and you looking like a little blonde fairy-doll – even if you are a bit of a ragamuffin at times.’
Another ego boost there. Ta, Mrs W. Erin grinned to herself again.
‘It was so kind of you to send me an invitation, dear. I’m really looking forward to it.’
‘Good. We wanted all our friends in the village to share our day, and as I’ve got such a small family, my side was going to look pretty bare without friends.’
‘Whereas Jay has lots of family to ask, does he?’
‘Millions.’ Erin sneezed more dust. ‘It’ll be all family on his side and our friends on mine. It’s worked out really well.’
‘And you’re just having Sophie and Bella as bridesmaids, are you?’
‘Yes – oooh
– atishoo! Excuse me.’ Erin sneezed again as she dislodged several decades’ worth of grime from the shed’s ceiling. ‘Sophie and Bella and I made this pact when we were at primary school. We always said we’d be one another’s bridesmaids.’
‘Lovely. The three of you have always been best friends, haven’t you? But doesn’t Jay have any female relatives who want to be bridesmaids too?’
‘No, well, not exactly. He’s an only child as well, and he’s got so many zillions of cousins that we couldn’t just ask one or two of them without offending the others.’
Mrs Wilberforce laughed. ‘No, I can see that would have been tricky.’
Tricky? Erin chuckled. It would have been a total nightmare. Jay’s extended Indian family – and friends of friends who’d all become honorary aunts, uncles and cousins – stretched to every corner of the globe. There would have been an international incident if they’d even
tried
to choose a bridesmaid from the dozens of candidates.
‘And are their bridesmaids’ frocks pretty?’ Dora queried. ‘I do like a pretty frilly frock at a wedding. Pink or blue is always lovely, I think.’
Erin smiled. Sophie and Bella definitely weren’t wearing anything frilly, and certainly not in pink or blue. ‘You’ll have to wait and see …’
‘Oh,’ Dora sighed impatiently. ‘So I suppose that means you won’t tell me about your frock either? You
are
wearing a frock, aren’t you?’
‘I am. And it’s absolutely gorgeous – and it’s a huge secret.’
Dora sighed again. ‘Well, just so long as you’re intending to walk down the aisle looking like a princess rather than an urchin in those tatty jeans you usually live in.’
‘Jay’s mum says
much the same,’ Erin laughed. ‘She says – whoops …’
The ladder suddenly rocked backwards. Erin clung on with both hands and giggled. ‘Ohmigod.’
Mrs Wilberforce sounded disapproving. ‘I bet she doesn’t say that. From what little I’ve seen of Deena Keskar, I’d think a profanity was the last thing she’d utter. A proper lady, she is.’
Oh, yes, Erin thought. Jay’s mum, Deena Keskar, her future mother-in-law, was certainly a proper lady: always elegant, always perfectly groomed and perfectly poised.
It was going to be an awful lot to live up to.
‘Anyway.’ Dora Wilberforce clapped her hands. ‘We’ve wasted enough time on wedding chatter, dear. Try and find the box, there’s a good girl.’
Erin shook her head, giggling again.
Ah – was that it? Over there? Tucked behind all those old news papers? Erin stretched upwards again. The ladder shuddered.
‘Erin … You’ve gone very quiet now … Are you sure you’re managing, dear?’
‘Yep, sorry. I’m still looking, and the ladder just had a bit of a wobble.’
Teetering on the top platform of the stepladder, Erin stretched out for the box. Clouds of dust puffed into Mrs Wilberforce’s shed’s airless gloom.
‘Gotcha!’ Erin muttered triumphantly. Then, ‘Whoops-a-daisy …’ followed by ‘Oooh, no – don’t let me fall …’
Giggling, she swayed wildly as the weight of the box threatened to send her tumbling inelegantly down the dozen grubby rungs to the equally grimy floor. She grabbed the side of the ladder with one hand, balancing the box with the other, and slowly made her way downwards.
Halfway down and
she hadn’t slipped or dropped anything. Result!
Then she screamed.
Instantly rigid with terror, Erin clutched the box and stared at the enormous spider.
The spider, having appeared nonchalantly over the top of the box, stared back. Feeling the sweat tingle across her scalp, inch down her neck, then snake icily along her spine, Erin whimpered.