Megan’s face softened. ‘Gem’s grieving, Rachel. He lost the only owner he’s ever known, and he’s not a young dog, you know. He’s seven, so he’s like . . . fifty-something. He was with her when she died – came haring back here to tell me, just like Lassie. Poor soul.’
Rachel felt sad, and self-conscious. ‘I’m not the right person to replace Dot.’
‘All dogs ask for is a walk, and a pat,’ insisted Megan. ‘And the sound of your voice. Go on. Tell him to stay.’
Rachel looked awkwardly at Gem, who pricked up his feathery ears and wagged his tail along the ground, nearly knocking over Tinker the Westie.
‘Stay,’ said Rachel in a feeble tone.
‘And point to where you want him to be.’
Rachel pointed to Megan’s feet. ‘Stay there.’
Gem wagged his tail harder, then dropped down with his head on his paws, still looking up at her, waiting for her smile.
He looked so grateful for the attention. So keen to please her. Something flickered in Rachel’s numb heart. He wanted
her
attention.
Her
approval. He wanted to be owned and loved.
The other dogs scampered around, clearly thrilled to be out of their concrete runs and on the fresh grass, and Rachel made a decision; if she did one thing today, she was going to start the rehoming drive George had gone on about. It wasn’t just about money – these sad dogs needed people to love them. She couldn’t cope with the guilt if it was her inertia trapping them in the kennels.
Then maybe she could sell the house and kennels with a clean conscience. Dot couldn’t ask much more than that.
‘Good boy!’ she said to Gem. ‘Good boy.’
‘Great! Good boy! And good girl!’ Megan added, and tapped her watch. ‘We’ll have you doing agility in no time! See you back here at eleven? OK. Go!’
She hurled the first chewed-up tennis ball into the green space, and Rachel wasn’t sure if she was talking to her, or to the dogs who hurtled off after it.
6
While the boys were getting their Monday morning school things from their room, and safely out of earshot, Zoe swallowed a mouthful of scalding coffee to make her voice sound croaky, and dialled the salon number from the phone in the kitchen. She didn’t want them hearing the outrageous but totally necessary lie she was about to tell Hannah, the reception manager.
As it rang, Zoe kept one eye on the makeshift pen of cardboard boxes where Toffee was taking only his second nap in thirty-six exhausting, nerve-shredding hours.
At least, she hoped he was taking a nap. He could just as easily be shutting his eyes while trying to decide which bit of her house to destroy next. It was hard to say who was more excited – Toffee, or Leo and Spencer. Between them, they made an exhausting whirlwind of destruction. The sitting room looked as if someone had attacked it with a wrecking ball, and there were flakes of kitchen roll everywhere from the numerous ‘accidents’ she’d mopped up since Toffee had arrived.
Who knew a small puppy could hold so much wee?
‘Hey, Hannah!’ she said, when she heard herself being clicked onto speaker phone. ‘It’s Zoe, I don’t think I’m going to be able to come in today. I’ve had a terrible weekend. Haven’t slept a wink for two nights . . .’
Toffee began wriggling in his box, opened one eye and let out a happy squeal of delight to see Zoe. Her heart sank as he clamped his jaws around the edge of the cardboard box.
‘You sound really bad, Zoe,’ said Hannah. The salon was already rattling with early cleaning, the radio blaring in the background. ‘Do you want me to rearrange your clients for today?’
‘Would you? I’m sure it’s just a bug, but I didn’t want to spread it round,’ said Zoe, reaching for the biscuit barrel, keeping one eye on the box and one ear on the racket upstairs. The boys were racing through their toothbrushing in record time, to get back to winding up Toffee. ‘Listen, I’ll let you know how I am in the morning, cheers.’ She rang off, with Hannah’s bewildered get well wishes still hovering in the air.
She caught sight of her guilty face in her clean oven door and felt terrible.
Zoe hadn’t taken a sick day in years, and dragged herself into the salon through marital breakdowns, sleepless teething nights and snow. They owe me a few days’ sick, she told herself, though the guilt didn’t ease up. Neither did the bone-weariness spreading throughout her body. She was used to teething and nightmares but not night-long howling.
Zoe leaned out into the hall. ‘Spencer! What are you doing up there? Come on, we’re going to be late!’
As she raised her voice, Toffee began squealing in earnest again – a familiar sound that now went through Zoe like a knife.
She looked at him and Toffee made a whimpering noise.
Zoe knew what that meant and, abandoning the idea of putting bread in the toaster for herself, she grabbed the puppy, took four massive strides across the kitchen and held him out of the back door. Even then, she still ended up with most of the hot dribble on herself. She put him down and went to rinse her hands for the millionth time.
‘Good boy,’ she said firmly as Toffee sniffed around the back step. ‘Good wee.’
That was something she’d learned in the ten minutes she’d grabbed to look up house training on the internet. Take them out every hour, praise them when they went where you wanted, introduce a non-embarrassing phrase they could associate with going to the loo. So far, Toffee would learn to ‘toilet himself’ every time someone yelled, ‘Oh, for God’s sake, not there!’
Zoe and Toffee regarded each other with mutual suspicion. ‘Where am I going to leave you while I go to the shops to get all the stuff your stupid daddy didn’t bring with you?’ she demanded. How long could you leave a puppy for, anyway?
A thundering down the stairs indicated that the boys were on their way. Zoe could hear Leo yelling ‘Toffee! Toffee!’ which set the puppy off yelping in pure joy. She picked him up so he wouldn’t run under their feet.
‘We’re going to have to get you to a training class,’ she said to his perfect wet nose. ‘And possibly your brothers as well. I reckon they need a bit of training too.’
She stopped as Leo and Spencer barrelled into the kitchen, all tousled morning hair and toothpaste breath. In Leo’s case, most of the toothpaste was still round his mouth but at least it showed he’d tried.
‘Tofffeeee!’ squealed Spencer, making a grab for the dog and lifting him so his back legs dangled precariously, leaving the plump tummy exposed. ‘Can we take him to school with us, Mum? Please? Please?’
‘Yeah!’ Leo jumped up, trying to touch Toffee too, but Spencer lifted him out of his brother’s reach so only the wagging tail bounced in his face. ‘I want to show Mrs Barratt!’
‘You can’t take Toffee to school,’ said Zoe, reaching out to support Toffee’s dangling back end. He didn’t seem to mind, being busy covering Spencer’s scrunched-up face in adoring licks. ‘Hold his legs, Spencer, or else you’ll hurt him! He’ll be here when you get home.’
‘Oh, pleeeease!’ Spencer dragged his attention from the puppy and gave her an unsettling clear-eyed stare that reminded her of David at his most motivated. ‘Dad said it would be cool to show our class. We could do a talk on puppies.’
‘I suppose you’d be telling them all about the cleaning up and the feeding and so on?’
‘Yeah,’ said Spencer. ‘
Obviously
.’
Zoe was horrified at the new tone in his voice. It was cheeky, almost defiant. He’d always been the sweetest-tempered little boy, even with the baby brother who’d halved his attention time, but lately, since they’d been going off with David for weekends, there was a sharpness creeping into Spencer, as if he was testing her to see how far she’d let him go.
‘Hey!’ she said. ‘That’s enough of that. There’s a lot more to having a dog than just playing with him. Do you know how big he’s going to get? And how much walking he’s going to need every day? Did Dad tell you about that?’
‘I heard him crying last night,’ said Leo. ‘I think he should sleep with me.’
‘He’s lonely,’ said Spencer, the dog expert. ‘He misses his mum. Maybe we should get another one?’ he added, as if he’d just thought of it. ‘To keep him company?’
‘Yeah!’ said Leo. ‘Two puppies! Toffee and . . . Fudge!’
‘No!’ Zoe put her hands on her hips. It made her look more in charge even when she didn’t feel it. She could still smell puppy wee on her shoes. ‘I haven’t even said we’re definitely going to be able to keep Toffee. This is . . .’ Oh, God. She was such a pushover. ‘. . . just a trial.’
‘But Mum!’ The wheedling started at once, and Zoe felt herself caving in at the sight of Spencer and Leo’s pleading faces, not to mention Toffee’s chocolate-button eyes gazing up at her, his soft ears flopping onto his face. The dutiful, playful Labrador companion of a million kids’ books.
Two boys and an Andrex puppy versus one harassed, guilty mother – it was hardly a fair fight.
Zoe struggled to get a grip. What about all the great reasons you had for not getting Spencer a puppy in the first place, demanded a voice in her head. What happened to them? The time? The mess? The fact that you have a full-time job?
As if he could read her mind – which he probably could – Spencer piped up, his attitude transformed from proto-teen to angelic boy-dog-owner. ‘I’ll look after him all evening,’ Spencer begged. ‘I’ll clean his box and everything. Please, Mum! Please!’
The alarm Zoe set each morning to get them to school on time went off and she sprang into action.
‘We have to go,’ said Zoe, panicking that she’d be the last mum at the school gates
again
. Toffee would just have to stay in the kitchen with the door closed for an hour. How much damage could he do? All the plugs were still child-proofed. ‘Put Toffee in the box, please, Leo, no, don’t pick him up again. He needs to have a sleep after his breakfast. Shoes on? Coats on. Have you got your trainers for PE, Spencer?’
Spencer went to get his bag, but Leo was still leaning into the box, kissing the dog, and mumbling something into its double-velvet ear.
‘Leo, come on.’ Zoe hunted for her keys. ‘We’re already late.’
‘I’m so happy, Mummy,’ he said.
‘Why, darling?’
‘Because we’ve got a dog!’ Leo looked up, his round face cherubic with delight. ‘Dad said you’d make us send it back, but you haven’t and I’m really excited! You’ll let him stay, won’t you?’
Oh God, thought Zoe. Even Leo knows what a pushover I am. And he’s not even six.
Zoe dropped the boys off at the school gate and raced – slumped in her seat while she drove past the Angel Hair and Heavenly Beauty salon – to the massive pet store on the industrial estate, her mind filling with visions of what Toffee might be destroying next. She was already one pair of FitFlops and a remote control down.
She pulled into the first parking space and tried David’s mobile for the tenth time since the boys’ return, but he wasn’t answering. It didn’t surprise her; David had got quite selective of late about which calls he decided to pick up, and which he ignored because he was ‘in a meeting’. He’d always been like that, but now she was beginning to think he’d actually changed his phone.
Zoe sank back and felt her stomach jangle with the first tremors of panic. Time was ticking away. What was she meant to do? Who could she ask for help? None of her friends had dogs, and anyway, this wasn’t
about
dogs, this was about her and David and the boys.
Zoe made herself take three deep breaths to stop the hysteria that swamped her chest, threatening to close up her throat. It came and went more and more frequently now, as David’s desertion stopped feeling like some midlife crisis phase he’d wake up from, and hardened into stark reality, and it was getting harder to hide it from the boys. But she had to hide it. She had to look like she was coping as well as she’d done in the past.
She pulled down her sun visor and stared at herself in the vanity mirror, as if she were looking at a friend. ‘Just get what you need for now,’ she told her half-crazed reflection. ‘Just enough to keep Toffee in one place, and happy. Then you can call David, tell him it’s too much for you to cope with, and . . .’
She didn’t finish. I’ve got to stop talking to myself, she thought. The wide-set brown eyes in the mirror lost their mad expression, and stared back at her with something approaching sympathy. She and her reflection both knew there wasn’t going to be an ‘and’.
The boys wanted the dog. It was unfair to uproot a puppy again. If she made David take it back, she’d look like Cruella de Vil. She’d just have to make the best of it.
The first thing Zoe spotted when she pushed her trolley through the doors was a magazine with a ‘foolproof guide to Welcoming Your New Puppy’ – and, falling on the first useful piece of information she’d had since Toffee arrived, she set off round the store with it propped open, throwing in whatever it told her to: a collar and lead, puppy food, a basket, a cushion for the basket, a crate for toilet training, chews, toys, cute snuggly things to stop Toffee feeling so lonely at night.
Fifteen minutes later, she was at the till, watching in awe at the amount a puppy cost, before you even took it to the vet’s. This makes the kids look like a bargain, she thought, wondering if she’d really needed the puppy sleeping bag after all. She realised with a sinking heart that she’d have to call David anyway, for more money to pay for it.
If
she could get hold of him.