Ninepins (21 page)

Beth had run upstairs, followed by Willow; she could be heard moving from room to room, banging doors, calling Dougie's name. Presently, she clattered back down.

‘We can't find him. Oh, Mum, you don't think he's run away or something, do you?'

Laura's heart sank. What if he really wasn't here? What if Tessa, in her hurry, had accidentally let him slip out of the door? Her mind conjured visions of a small hours neighbourhood search, of the police and the RSPCA. Not to mention the phone call to Simon.

Just when she was steeling herself for the worst, she heard a sound from down by her feet. Disturbingly human: a soft, plaintive whimper. She squatted down on her haunches and peered beneath a deep-set shelving unit stacked with basins and saucepans – and into a pair of inscrutable amber eyes.

‘Hello there, lad,' she said, in her best jollying tones. ‘We're not going to hurt you. We've come to take you for walkies.'

Dougie stared back at her, unblinking. He did not move.

Kneeling down beside her, Beth began to croon. ‘Dou-gie. Come on out, boy. Waaa-lkies.'

But there was no movement. Very cautiously, Laura began to extend a hand towards the darkness beneath the shelves – and quickly retracted it, as the yellow eyes narrowed and an ominous, low grumbling noise arose.

Beth clambered to her feet. ‘Food. He always comes for food. Let's see what there is.' She opened the fridge door. ‘What d'you think? Cheese? But it's that sliced kind in the plastic, like in MacDonald's. Or, hang on, here's some sausages left over, on a plate. Ugh – they're all white and furry at one end. Would they poison him, d'you reckon?'

‘I expect he's had worse.' There was Alfie's football, for a start.

‘Here, Dougie. What's this?' Beth was back on all fours, dangling a cold sausage towards the void.

Suddenly there was a scrabble of claws and a rush of hair and teeth and Dougie rocketed out and across the kitchen, emitting a siren wail. Leaving them rooted, he shot through the door and out into the hall and freedom.

‘Little devil,' said Laura. ‘How on earth are we going to get hold of him?'

‘Don't be horrible. Poor Dougie – he's scared.' But Beth, Laura could tell, was also enjoying herself royally. She pointed her sausage towards the hallway. ‘Come on.'

More quietly this time, in order to avoid setting their quarry to flight again, they retraced their earlier steps through the downstairs rooms. It was a laborious operation, since it involved crawling on hands and knees among the questionable dust and debris of Simon and Tessa's floors and peering under bookcases and behind settees.

‘Not here,' decreed Laura eventually. ‘Better try the bedrooms again, I suppose.' She sat back on her heels. ‘Where's Willow?'

Beth shrugged. Their eyes met.

‘Upstairs.'

They mounted them together, side by side. When they reached the top, there was Willow at the end of the landing, sitting cross-legged in the far corner. She didn't even glance up at their approach, but remained completely motionless, head bowed low so that only her fringe and the tip of her nose were visible. And on her lap, curled as serenely as if he had been asleep there all evening, was Dougie.

 

In a spirit of rapprochement following the shoplifting incident, Laura allowed Beth to come home by herself on the bus twice a week. It might seem paradoxical, but instinctively Laura judged it to be the right move, an extension of trust to inspire the deserving of it.

On Wednesday afternoon, therefore, as she drew near home, she was met by Beth and Dougie, walking towards her along the drove. She was earlier than usual, and the clear, frost-bright skies which had been with them all week served to emphasise the lengthening of the days. Almost five o'clock, and she could make them out clearly against the pale ribbon of the road. They approached in a drunken zigzag, the small terrier scurrying to one side and then the other at the limit of his lead, nose to the ground and tail aloft, dragging Beth behind. Laura slowed the car and wound down her window, letting in a shock of icy air.

‘Dougie's sniffing for rabbits,' Beth called out as soon as they were within hailing distance. ‘I'm sure he is. He doesn't do this at Dad's.'

Rats, more likely, thought Laura, along here by the dyke. ‘Have you brought a torch?' she asked, when Beth came up. ‘It'll be dark soon.'

‘Oh, we're not going far. He already had a walk when I first got in. Me and Willow took him over the fields. This is just an extra.'

Meeting me?
Laura smiled. ‘Hang on, then. I'll just go and park the car and then I'll walk back along and join you.'

The thermometer was falling with the dusk. Laura's legs felt naked in the tights she'd worn for work; the cold air sliced straight through them. It really would be a short one: catch up with Beth and then straight back home.

They seemed to have stopped, though. In the lowering light, she could make out her daughter's stationary figure, hunched in her coat with collar up and hands in pockets. The grey dog merged to invisibility with the grass of the verge.

‘Come on, Beth,' she muttered to herself as she walked towards them. ‘Get a move on, and let's get inside.'

‘I think he's found one!' Beth's shout was still from a distance, but Laura could see her face, turned towards her and glowing. ‘He's found a rabbit.'

Coming closer, she saw that Dougie's head was indeed hidden in the earth, plunged deep in some hole or burrow; only his rear end was above ground, and wagging furiously.

‘Oh dear, but you don't think he'll actually catch it, do you, Mum? He might kill it. Oh, he won't kill the rabbit, will he?'

Quite possibly, thought Laura. He had terrier in him, after all. ‘I hope not. Let's try to get him away from the hole.'

Taking hold of the lead, her hand round Beth's, she began to tug hopefully. ‘Come along, silly dog. Come away from there.'

Dougie pulled back, harder, and began to growl under his breath in the determined manner of one not to be deflected.

‘Dougie,' pleaded Beth, as she lent her weight to the tussle, ‘please stop that. Leave the poor bunny alone.'

It was surprising that so small an animal should be so strong. The two of them hauled on his lead, leaning hard to the task, but they couldn't budge him. Until suddenly, like something straight out of Laurel and Hardy, the resistance ceased and they staggered backwards across the tarmac, clutching each other for support. Dougie went sharply into reverse and then swung round towards them, triumphant, with something dangling between his teeth.

‘Nooo,' wailed Beth, burying her face in Laura's shoulder. ‘He's killed the rabbit!'

Laura advanced towards the dog, not at all sure she wanted to look, either. But she should; she must, in case by some miracle the rabbit was still alive.

‘Drop it,' she commanded, and to her amazement he did.

The rabbit lay where it fell. Even in the gathering darkness, she could see the stained fur, and an eye, glassy and staring. There was no movement at all. But maybe it was only stunned? She took another step forward and peered down at the lifeless form – and then she laughed out loud. No wonder Dougie was gazing up at her, tail beating, with the expression of a magician who has just produced his best trick. Not, in this case, a rabbit, but a child's teddy bear.

‘How could it have got there?' Beth wanted to know as they set off for home.

Laura had only guesses. ‘Dropped from a car, perhaps, on the main road? And then maybe an animal picked it up – a fox? Or it was washed there by the flood?'

Dougie was trotting ahead of them, in a straight line now, with his trophy in his mouth.

‘Clever boy,' said Beth. Then, after a moment, ‘By the way, Dad rang.'

‘Oh, yes?'

‘He's home now.'

‘Alfie's out of hospital?'

‘No, Dad. He's gone home with Jack and Roly, but Tessa's still at the hospital with Alfie. They're keeping him in a few more days, Dad says.'

‘Right.' She must call Simon. She knew the operation had gone well and Alfie was recovering nicely, but she should ring for another bulletin.

‘Anyway, Dad's still going backwards and forwards a lot, he says. So he says, could we keep Dougie another week? Can we, Mum, please?'

Laura looked ahead at the dog with his bear, then across at her daughter, and smiled. ‘I don't see why not.'

Beth drew closer and squeezed her hand beneath her mother's arm. ‘Brilliant.'

It seemed like an opportunity to ask, ‘Was Rianna on the bus today?'
Do you still hang out with them – with her and Caitlin?

The hand stayed put but Laura sensed a withdrawal, nonetheless. Hostility? Or merely awkwardness?

‘Mm.'

Don't pick at it; that's what she would have told Beth. Leave well alone. But something impelled Laura to talk about it, confront it. Tensions unvoiced were always worse, spreading beneath the surface like a bruise.

‘Did you sit with her, as far as Longfenton?'

A shake of the head.

‘No?'

‘She was with some Year 8s.'

Laura nodded. For a minute they walked on without speaking, while she considered her next approach.

‘And how are things, at school? OK?'

‘Fine.'

Of course it was a dead end. The wrong moment, the wrong questions: she always got it wrong. Better to put back the lid, to close the box back up.

‘So, what do you think he's planning to do with it? Dougie, I mean, and his teddy? Take it to bed with him?'

‘Eat it, more likely,' said Beth, her voice eager with relief. ‘He eats everything. At Dad's once, he ate nearly the whole of a papier mâché snowman that Jack had made at nursery. Tessa said he pooed solid newspaper the next morning when she took him for his walk. She said you could still read bits, but I think she was messing about.'

Just as they were coming near the front door, though, in the midst of her chatter about the dog, she casually said, ‘I might have Alice over. On Friday after school, if that's OK? We want to practice this thing we're doing for drama, and walk Dougie, and then she could stay for supper.'

Laura didn't react, beyond a brief nod; she kept her satisfaction to herself.

‘And can we have macaroni cheese?'

 

The Sunday outing was Vince's idea. His original suggestion had taken Laura by surprise, because she had come to think of him as a townie.

‘Let's go skating. There's a place where everyone goes, up near Downham Market, on Salter's Lode.'

‘But we don't have skates.'

‘I do. And I could borrow some for the rest of you easily enough.'

She had forgotten he was raised in Wisbech, making him really more of a fensperson than she was herself.

‘We used to go when I was a kid. Never Mum, but me and Dad and my uncle and cousins.'

‘At Downham?'

‘No. Not on the lodes at all – it wasn't cold enough, most years. You need at least a week's good, solid freeze to make them safe enough. But there were some fields near us which always flooded in the winter, along the side of the Nene. The water was shallow, only a foot or so, so it was always safe to skate.'

It was the first time she'd heard him so enthused.

‘The whole town used to turn out. All the boys from school would be there, staging races. Seemed like everybody had skates, and if they didn't they came anyway and just slithered about. Some brought toboggans. There'd be dogs pulling people along, and little kids sliding in just in their wellies.'

She tried to picture it: Vince as a small boy, scarved and hatted, ruddy-faced.

In the end, though, the skating expedition had to be shelved. On the Friday, clouds rolled over and a westerly wind blew in, bearing a scatter of rain; the temperature rose above zero and stayed that way all day and even through the night. By Saturday afternoon, walking across the fields with Beth and Dougie, the sound of trickling could be heard where all had been silence.

Vince rang that night. ‘It won't be safe, after this thaw. No one will be skating.'

‘We can't go?'

Across the room, Beth looked stricken, and Laura was surprised at the depth of her own disappointment.

‘Maybe we could do something else instead? Go somewhere. I don't know – a walk? Take Dougie out.'

‘Let's. And then a pub lunch.'

They fixed on Wicken Fen. Vince drove, insisting that if there were to be muddy paws on a car seat, that car seat should be his. The fen itself was a nature reserve, and the National Trust took an unsurprisingly dim view of dogs disturbing the flora and fauna, but all around the perimeter ran paths and tracks accessible to the public, both human and canine. On this side of the boundary, Dougie could run and bark and scramble the moorhens with impunity.

‘Can I let him off, Mum? Please.'

The terrier's inclination to come when called was unreliable at best. At Simon's, Beth assured them, he wore his lead on the pavements but ran loose in the park at the end of the road. Laura was more circumspect, feeling you couldn't take risks with someone else's dog. At Ninepins, therefore, the lead had so far remained firmly attached. But out here at the fen, so far from any roads, with the sun breaking through cloud and four of them here to look out for him, she felt an upswell of confidence.

‘All right then.'

Beth crouched to release the clip from his collar. ‘Go on, boy.'

For a moment, Dougie appeared to be unaware of his freedom; he stood planted in front of Beth, tail slowly waving, squinting up at her face. Then he was off.

‘Blimey,' said Vince. ‘He can't half move for a littl'un. Will he come back OK?'

‘I hope so.' Laura spoke bravely, but it didn't look good. There was an unwavering sort of determination about the way he was streaking away along the path before them, head low and tail out horizontal. Tales filled her head, of animals who ran for home from distances of more than this. But up ahead at a turn of the path he swerved abruptly to one side, spun round and halted; after sniffing the air for a second, his head came down again and he charged back towards them at full tilt.