Must Be Love (29 page)

‘You know, you wouldn’t believe they weren’t real,’ Drew says, and I hear Aurora’s sharp intake of breath, see her raise her hand as if to slap him, and now he’s examining her ear with his mouth, and she’s got her hand on his belt.

‘Is that a syringe in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?’

Worried she’s about to reveal the answer to her question, I step in, clearing my throat.

Aurora looks up, blushing and rearranging her décolletage. Drew grabs Saba and lifts her onto the table.

‘I hope I’m not interrupting anything,’ I say with irony. ‘I’d like a word with you, Drew. In the office. Ten minutes.’

As it turns out, we don’t meet in the office, because Frances immediately calls me into Reception, where a woman in a dark suit is bawling her eyes out over a hamster in a tissue box. It’s Ally Jackson, one of our clients and the roving reporter for the
Chronicle
, the one who wrote the sensationalistic article about the Captain. I’m not inclined to feel overly sorry for her.

‘I’ve told him, if Harry dies, I’m going straight for a divorce,’ she sobs.

I look into the box and see the hamster lying flat out with blood coming out of his mouth, and change my mind. Poor little thing.

‘What happened?’ I pick him up and lay him out on the desk.

‘Mind you don’t get blood on my daybook,’ Frances says.

‘My husband trod on him.’ Ally presses a ball of tissue against her mouth.

‘Let me take him through to Kennels and I’ll see what I can do. I can’t promise anything …’ I nod towards Frances as I pick Harry up again. ‘Can you fill out a consent form, please?’

‘C-c-c-can I say goodbye?’ Ally stammers, and before I know what she’s doing, she’s holding my hand – the one holding the hamster – and smothering it with wet kisses. ‘Goodbye, mummy’s bestest boy.’

‘I’ll be in touch,’ I say, backing hurriedly out through the double doors and into the corridor. In Kennels, I give Harry warm fluids and a shot of steroid, and pop him into the incubator.

‘Frances said you were out here.’ Drew turns up with a couple of Saba’s nylon sutures on his scrub top. He flicks them off onto the floor as he steps up and looks over my shoulder. ‘That looks like a bit of a waste of time, if you ask me. Why don’t they go out and buy a new one?’

‘Because they care about this one’ – I assess Harry’s shallow breaths, dull pinhead eyes and the intermittent twitch of his paws – ‘and I care about him too.’

‘You don’t care all that much for me, or Aurora,’ Drew says, a cheeky twinkle in his eye. ‘She wanted me to take a look at her rash. I went along with it out of the goodness of my heart.’

‘Sure,’ I say, as I write up Harry’s inpatient card.

‘I was afraid it might be mange. Well, it could have been. She could have caught it from the dog.’

‘You should have sent her off to see a doctor.’

‘What, and let someone else have all the fun?’ Drew tips his head to one side, making me smile. ‘She was flirting with me, that’s all. It was completely harmless.’

‘She has a boyfriend – what about him?’

‘She didn’t mention that. Come on, Maz. What’s wrong with you? We’re both consenting adults. Me and Aurora, I mean. Not me and you …’

‘It could be interpreted as sexual harassment.’ Maintaining the moral high ground in the face of his teasing is difficult. It’s hard not to forgive him.

‘On her part, not mine. She started it.’ Drew sighs. ‘I can’t help it if women like taking their clothes off in front of me.’

‘You’re lucky it was me who caught you together, not Shannon.’ Drew frowns as I go on, ‘I think she’s under the impression that you two are an item.’

I’m fond of Shannon. She’s part of the team at Otter House now and I’m not going to stand by while Drew makes a fool of her, which is why I go quiet as she walks into Kennels, carrying Seven in a white wire basket.

He sits up on a white blanket with a ball that’s almost as big as he is by his side. He’s still tiny, but his eyes are open now – they’re a grey-blue colour, like his wavy coat – and I think it’s a pity Shannon’s eyes haven’t been opened to Drew yet.

‘It’s puppy love, Maz, that’s all,’ Drew says, having the last word.

I don’t believe him. Shannon is going through the throes of her first grown-up love affair with a man who isn’t taking it seriously. I enlist Frances to help me catch Drew out.

‘Delighted to be of assistance,’ she says later, her face glowing at the thought, I suspect, of having permission to have a good old dig. I imagine her sitting Drew down with tea and biscuits and giving him a grilling. He might resist at first, but Frances has a knack for extracting information you don’t want to give up. She leans towards me across the desk. ‘Maz, I’m sorry I inadvertently put my foot in it with the Fox-Giffords. I wanted to say something before, but –’

‘Oh, that,’ I interrupt. ‘Don’t worry about it, Frances.’

‘All right then, but I hope you don’t mind me saying that you don’t seem to take much notice of that neat little bump of yours. I’ve never seen you talk to it.’

I’m gobsmacked.

‘I realise you’re trying to protect Emma, but you have to think of yourself and your baby.’

‘You think I should be playing it a bit of Mozart now and then?’ I say, my voice tinny in my ears.

‘Oh, don’t worry about getting upset, dear.’ Frances reaches across and pats my arm. ‘It’s normal to be a bit teary.’

‘I’m not normal, though.’

‘Of course you are …’

‘But I-I-I don’t have any maternal feelings. I don’t wish it ill, but I don’t know what to say to it …’ I snivel into a tissue from the box on the desk. ‘I just can’t bond with it.’

‘Does Alexander know?’

‘I can’t bring myself to tell him, he’s so excited. I feel as if I’m letting him down.’

Frances smiles, and for once I’m grateful for her interference.

‘It sounds a bit silly, but have you tried sitting down quietly and starting a conversation?’

‘Of course we have. Alex and I are always talking.’

‘Not you and Alex. You and the baby.’

I shake my head.

‘It’ll happen, Maz,’ Frances says. ‘When you see the baby on the scan again, you’ll be completely smitten.’

‘I doubt it. I wasn’t the first time, was I?’

‘It’ll look quite different now,’ Frances insists. ‘Come on, don’t tell me you’ve never fallen in love before. Look at you and Alexander. No, he isn’t the best example. Look at you and Ginge. You have to admit he wasn’t the most endearing character when you first met him, but you saw through all the hissing and spitting, and loved him all the same.’

It’s true, I muse, following Frances’s gaze towards Emma, who’s walking through the entrance into Reception, as she continues, ‘You and the baby – you’ll adore him. Good afternoon, Emma.’ Frances opens up the daybook. ‘There are three messages for you.’ She dents the page with a lime-green fingernail. ‘The clinic in London called back.’

‘What’s that about?’ I say, accompanying Emma back to the staffroom, where she unpacks a lunch of salad and berries from a canvas bag.

‘It’s a fertility clinic. My clock’s ticking now, and every month that goes by is another month wasted. I know it sounds a bit heartless because it hasn’t been very long since – well, you know … Ben and I want to try again, but I’m not leaving it to chance this time. We’re going private to hurry things along. We can have all the tests within a month, then we can go straight for IVF, if that’s what it takes.’ Emma removes a fork from the drawer under the sink. ‘We’ll have to make some changes to the rota, because I don’t know what I’ll be doing or where I’ll be from day to day.’ She sits down on the sofa. ‘Don’t look like that, Maz. It won’t be for ever. Thank goodness for Drew, eh?’ ‘Let me know the dates and I’ll sort it out with him.’ ‘Thanks, Maz. I knew you’d understand.’ I sit down on the other end of the sofa, as the baby gives me a kick. Looking down, I touch my bump and give it a tiny prod in return.

‘Is that the baby?’ Emma asks. ‘Can I?’ she adds, resting her fork across her pot of salad.

I nod, and as she reaches over and lays her hand across my bump, her eyes light up, and I’m pleased.

I hope her trips to the fertility clinic work out and she’s successful in her quest to have a family, although I really wish we could just be vets again, and not have all this complicated personal stuff getting in the way.

Chapter Sixteen

Love Is Blind

I scoop up Ginge from where he’s parked himself in front of the tumble dryer, having bumped his head on the door, which has been left open in spite of Izzy’s bright yellow Post-it note reading,
Keep Shut!
I make a mental note to have a look at Ginge’s eyes sometime. He recovered completely after his daredevil ride in the machine, but over the past couple of weeks he’s started walking into things. I put him down beside his food, lock the cat flap so he can’t wander, and head to Reception to have a word with Frances.

‘Have you seen Emma?’ I ask. It’s a very small practice compared with some, yet it’s still possible to lose people in it.

‘Emma hasn’t been in today.’

‘But I’ve got to go out. I booked the afternoon off ages ago.’

I check the daybook for the last Wednesday in May. The date is highlighted with asterisks and exclamation marks. How could she have missed it?

‘Emma’s rather taken up with this treatment she’s having,’ Frances says.

‘I know.’ I call her.

‘I’m sorry, Maz,’ she says. ‘I’m not feeling up to it. Can’t Drew see my appointments and do the visits later?’

‘We’ve got a lot on. I’d really appreciate you coming in, even if it’s for an hour or two.’

‘I’m sore where Ben’s been injecting me and I’ve got a muzzy head. In fact, I feel like an enormous egg.’ Emma pauses. ‘Talk to Drew – it’s what he’s here for.’

‘I don’t like leaving him to his own devices,’ I say, but she’s completely self-absorbed, chattering on about her IVF. The results of the clinic’s investigations were promising. According to Emma, she had to go through blood tests, physical examinations and a laparoscopy, and Ben had to do his part with a plastic pot and lads’ mags. There was no obvious abnormality detected, nothing to stop Emma conceiving naturally, but they decided to go ahead with IVF to help things along.

‘You’d have thought my husband would be good at injections, being a doctor. My bum’s a big enough target.’

‘Emma, don’t be ridiculous.’ Emma’s always been a bit sensitive about her curves, whereas I rather envy them. ‘I’ll do the injections for you, if you like.’

‘Ben would be mortally offended.’ Emma hesitates. ‘Actually, Maz, I’d forgotten about your scan. I feel really bad.’ Then she forces a laugh. ‘I blame it on all those extra hormones I’m having. Something must be working …’ I can hear the desperation in her voice. ‘Mustn’t it?’

I can’t answer that. I don’t see why she can’t come in for an hour or two. Without her input, I’ll be rushed off my feet tomorrow, playing catch-up with the appointments.

‘So, I’ll let you know when I feel up to coming in,’ Emma goes on. ‘Thanks for being so understanding, Maz. I can always rely on you.’

‘I do what I can,’ I begin, ‘but there is a point where it feels you’re not merely relying on me – you’re taking advantage. It seems unfair that you aren’t prepared to compromise just a bit.’

There’s silence, then Emma comes back.

‘I didn’t realise you felt like that.’ Her voice turns to vinegar. ‘You’ve not said anything before.’

‘I didn’t want to upset you because I know how much it means to you, but I’m finding it tough, running the practice on my own.’

‘You aren’t running it on your own. You’ve got Drew and I haven’t abandoned you completely. I’ve kept up with the admin – I notice you didn’t deal with much of that.’

It’s true. I can’t deny it.

‘And when I am at Otter House, you treat me as if I’m not there,’ she continues. ‘You’re always doing things like arranging Izzy’s pay rise behind my back.’

‘You weren’t there,’ I say indignantly.

‘Well, I think you’re being incredibly selfish.’

I picture her dark eyes flashing, red spots spreading across her cheeks. She’s been livid on my behalf before – over one particular ex of mine when he left me for another woman – but not at me like this.

‘What about you?’ Why should I back down when she’s being so unreasonable? ‘All I’m asking you is to cover for me while I have this scan.’ I wasn’t all that worried about having a second scan before Lucie’s comments about me having half a baby. Now I just want to put my mind at rest that the baby’s developing normally. ‘I’m not going to cancel.’

‘And I’m not going to come in.’

For a moment I try to recall what we had written into our partnership agreement about how we’re supposed to resolve arguments. At the time I thought the whole idea of a pre-nup was completely unnecessary, but now I’m not so sure. Emma’s working half-time, yet she’s still taking a full-time salary.

‘So when are you going to come in? Next month? Next year?’

‘Oh, don’t be facetious, Maz.’ Do I detect a wobble in Emma’s voice as she goes on, ‘I can’t cope with seeing anyone today. I can’t concentrate on anything.’ With that, the phone cuts off. Conversation over.

On my way to the hospital, I calm down. I was right to stand up for myself – Emma’s got to realise I’m stressed out too – but I could have handled it better.

My renewed sense of calm remains until I’ve parked and discovered Alex is nowhere to be seen. Grumbling to myself, I go on into the maternity unit, the baby trampolining on my bladder. I’m lying on the bed with my top pulled up, my tattoo – an apple with an arrow through the middle – stretched unevenly across the swell of my belly, looking more like a cartoon than a tasteful piece of body art, when Alex bursts into the room.

‘I’m not too late, am I?’ He comes over and takes my hand, then flashes a smile at the sonographer, who squeezes one of those chilly blobs of gel onto my skin.

‘I’ve just finished scanning a couple of mares,’ Alex says.

‘I should let you do this yourself, then.’ The sonographer’s probe dents my belly. ‘How many weeks?’