The Heart Whisperer (36 page)

A few ducks were bobbing on the pond. Claire made herself walk over to the edge of the water and called Dog's name. The swan made a beeline for her, shaking out his tail and turning his head to give her his best profile. He'd be glad, she thought, if Dog never turned up at all.

She did another two circuits of the park and then walked back towards her flat slowly, checking all the gardens on the street and asking all the mothers and kids who were on their way to school if they'd seen Dog. Nobody had.

She spent the morning ringing round the Gardaí stations and the Dublin dog pounds and posting ‘lost dog' messages on boards. At about lunchtime, the bell rang. When she opened the door, she thought that Ray was wearing a red tie-dyed T-shirt before she realised that he was covered in blood.

He sat on the side of the bath while she examined the cut on his nose. The bone wasn't broken but the skin was split badly along the bridge.

‘Willow was terrified,' Ray was babbling, ‘and Ash was furious with me even though it wasn't my fault. I mean, it was my fault. I shouldn't have used Chip's song. But we lost the Rice Krispie buns and Willow couldn't stop crying. And then Maurice DeVeau turned up. Maurice-fucking-de-Veau. It was so weird—'

‘Ray!' Claire interrupted him. ‘You need go to A & E to get a couple of stitches put in.'

‘Just put a plaster on it!'

‘It might scar.'

‘I don't care.'

She stared at him. Ray freaked out if he got so much as a pimple. ‘I'm not sure I believe you but if that's what you want, stop talking and tilt your head back.'

She cleaned the blood off his nose with cotton wool soaked in TCP.

‘Shouldn't your girlfriend be doing this?' She pressed on a little pad of cotton wool and taped it into place.

‘Izzy is was-sy,' Ray said.

Claire didn't look as smug as he thought she might at this news. In fact, he thought, squinting up at her through the fumes of disinfectant, she looked kind of miserable. ‘What's up?'

She wiped her eyes with a piece of cotton wool. ‘Dog got out yesterday. A handyman came to fix the pipes and left the gate open. I've looked everywhere. It rained all night and he's so old and he's scared of everything and I'm afraid something's happened to him …'

Ray put his hand on her arm. ‘Claire, I think Richard let him out.'

She glared at him, put the TCP back into the cabinet and banged the door closed.

‘Willow was here yesterday. She saw Richard and Dog in the garden. She said Dog was going for a walk but when I looked out, Richard was still there and—'

‘I know what you're doing.' Claire folded her arms. ‘You're trying to mess things up between me and Richard so I'll start hanging out with you again.'

‘Maybe he didn't let Dog out but he was definitely up to
something. Willow saw him throwing money in the recycling bin and I thought he looked really shifty.'

‘Get up!' Claire said quietly. ‘And get out.' He had to follow her out into the hall. ‘Go!' She unlocked the door that connected her flat to the rest of Ray's house.

‘You know I've got good “creepdar”,' Ray said. ‘I saw through Declan Brady back in the day, and I'm telling you, this guy's a creep. He got rid of those nettles – my nettles, Claire – without my permission. And—'

‘You're pathetic!' Claire propelled him through the door and closed it after him. Then she went out to look up and down the laneway just in case Dog had come back. She walked past the bins back up to the kitchen. ‘Don't,' she told herself. But she walked over despite herself and lifted the lid on the green one. She moved some squashed food packaging out of the way, her hand touching something slimy. This was exactly what Ray wanted her to do, he was probably watching her right now. She was about to close the lid when she saw something glinting between a pizza box and the pink-tinged styrofoam pad from a packet of mince. Something round and silver that could, to a small girl standing at an upstairs window, have looked just like a coin. It was the worn metal disc from Dog's collar.

Nick had been trying to call Oonagh all day but her phone was switched off. He was standing out in the front garden, trying again, when Brian Cunningham appeared at the wall. ‘There are faeces in my borders.'

‘I'm sorry. What did you say?'

‘Sorry's not good enough!' Mr Cunningham snapped. ‘I told your sister that if that animal came into my garden one more time, I'd call the Gardaí.'

‘I am calm and relaxed,' Nick told himself, but his self wasn't listening. ‘Do you seriously believe that an elderly dog consulted a map and walked four miles, crossing several busy roads just for the pleasure of crapping in your garden?'

Mr Cunningham held up a small plastic bag and dropped it over the wall. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘I do.'

There was a clatter behind him and, when he looked over his shoulder, the old man was making his way down the hall. Somehow, he managed to get as far as the kitchen without his walking aid.

‘Christ!' Nick hurried after him. ‘What are you doing? You're not supposed to walk without the frame!'

‘Dog is in the back garden.' The old man was breathless. ‘I saw him from my window.' He hauled himself awkwardly along by the fridge, the cooker then the sink. It hurt, Nick could see that from his face, but he didn't stop and he made it, at surprising speed, to the back door. He pushed it open and a huge grey blur cleared the Cunningham's wall and hurled itself at him. If Nick hadn't been able to pull the old man out of the way, he would have been knocked to the ground. Dog was wet and filthy. His hairy coat was plastered against his long, wiry body. He put his paws up on the sink and stood on his back legs, nibbling the old man's hair and whinnying with delight.

‘I thought Claire was looking after him,' the old man panted as Nick eased him into a chair.

‘So did I,' Nick said.

Dog lunged at his father again. Nick made a grab for him but he got away and crawled under the table, then he erupted under the old man's chair.

‘Dog! You need to calm down!' The old man laughed. Dog did an arthritic circuit of the room and then buried his head in his lap.

Nick could feel his eyes welling up in an allergic reaction. ‘He can't stay here. You'll break something else.'

‘But he can stay till Claire comes to get him?' The old man looked up at him. ‘Can't he?'

Claire stared at Dog in amazement. ‘It must be two or three miles.'

Nick sneezed. ‘It's four.'

‘Bless you!' Claire bent down and smoothed Dog's straggly mutton chop whiskers and tangled her hand in the wet fur at the back of his neck. His tail beat a wild tattoo on the floor of her dad's kitchen and he licked the knee of her jeans thoughtfully.

‘You want to know the first thing he did when he got here?'
Nick started to laugh. For a second, Claire saw the ghost of the boy he had been before the accident. She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.

Nick grinned. ‘He jumped over Cunning Ham's wall and crapped in his flower bed.'

The night out in the rain had worn Dog out. He curled up in a tight ball, between the fridge and the cooker, with his head on the draught snake, and he wouldn't come out when Claire turned on the six o'clock news.

She turned the volume up so he could hear it in the kitchen. Anne Doyle's emotionless voice describing the latest Eurozone crisis seemed to soothe him, and by the time the weather came on he was fast asleep.

Claire couldn't believe that Richard had let him out deliberately. There had to be an explanation. When he rang from London she told him that Dog had made his way to her dad's house but she hadn't mentioned that she'd found the disc from his collar in the bin.

‘I told you he'd show up, didn't I?' Richard had sounded genuinely delighted.

‘Yes,' Claire had said, uncertainly, ‘you did.' Maybe she was wrong?

‘I'm just going into the meeting now and I'll go straight to Heathrow when it's over. I should be back with you at nine. We'll celebrate!'

Richard kissed Claire and then turned to look at Dog. She watched his eyes widen when he took in the disc that she had reattached to his collar and the little balloon of hope that had been bobbing around in her chest deflated and sank.

‘Well, well. The return of the prodigal dog!' Richard turned away, quickly, and started opening a bottle of champagne he'd taken out of a duty-free bag. ‘Not much to celebrate on the viral front, I'm afraid,' he said over his shoulder. ‘Europe and America don't want the ads.' She heard the pop and the whisper of the champagne pouring into a glass. ‘Which is their mistake.' He turned back to her and held out a glass. She didn't take it.

‘How could you do it?' she said flatly.

‘What?' A flush began spreading up his neck, past the collar of his white shirt and into his face. ‘Come on. You don't even like dogs, Claire, you said so yourself, and this one is ruining our lives. It sheds hair everywhere. It freaks out every time I touch you. I think it ate my bloody Rolex. I was doing us both a favour!'

‘In what sick scenario would abandoning an old dog be doing me a favour?' And as she said it, Claire remembered that she had tried to get rid of Dog herself, just a few months ago.

Richard topped up his glass. ‘He's the reason you haven't moved in with me.'

Claire grabbed the bottle from him and held it over the sink. The champagne frothed and fizzed around the plughole as she poured it away.

‘Hey!' Richard said. ‘Steady on! That's a brut!'

Claire whipped around to face him. ‘Get out!'

He came over to the sink and put his arms around her. ‘Look, I'm sorry. It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing. I opened the kitchen door and it smelled like a lion's den in here. I thought that if I let him go, some kids might find him and take him in.'

‘Some kids did find him, twelve years ago!' Claire pulled herself free. ‘They tied him to a trolley in a supermarket car park. Please, just go!'

Richard blinked at her. ‘You're breaking up with me over a
dog?
' She nodded. ‘What am I supposed to tell my family? You're supposed to be coming to Val d'Isère at Easter. Helen was going to ask you to be a bridesmaid at her wedding.'

‘Tell them what you did, Richard. They're normal. They'll understand.'

Richard's face darkened. ‘What do you know about normal? Your life was a mess till you met me. I fixed up your flat and your computer and put new locks on your doors. I even sorted your bloody plumbing. And I gave you a job, Claire. I put my reputation behind that viral campaign and you screwed it up.'

‘
What?
'

‘I couldn't see it at the time – I liked you too much – but I realised it as soon as I got into the editing room. You have this look on your face in every shot, like you should be on stage in the
Abbey, instead of getting your hands dirty doing an ad.' He was shouting now. ‘So if you want me to go, I'll go! But you'll be sorry. Because I'm the glue that's holding your crappy life together and—'

There was a low throbbing sound, like a car idling, a car with a very large, powerful engine. Dog emerged from around the side of the fridge, his head low, his black lips pulled back to reveal an impressive row of pointy, yellow teeth. If it hadn't been for his ears, one lying flat, the other one sticking straight out and turning up at the end, he would have looked terrifying.

‘You don't scare me!' Richard snorted. But he picked up his briefcase and looked at Dog warily.

Dog growled again, and this time, Claire thought, he sounded as if he might mean business. She hooked her fingers around his collar. His fur was still damp from the rain.

‘I'd leave, if I were you,' she said to Richard.

He threw his key on the table, opened the back door and slammed it behind him.

Claire couldn't sleep. She felt as if the storm raging outside was inside her. Her head was whirling, replaying the months since she'd met Richard. Finding all the moments when she should have seen this coming. She would have seen it if she hadn't been so desperate to keep the stupid promise she'd made on her birthday. She lay, listening to the clatter of hailstones against her window, wondering whether it was ever really Richard she'd fallen for, or his family. The chance to be part of something she'd never had.

She suddenly remembered the chain he'd given her. The little gold disc that said ‘Believe in You.' She got up and took it off. Then she opened the bottom drawer and took out the box of her mother's things. At the bottom, between the bottle of Opium and the hairbrush, she found the locket. She looped it around her neck and fastened it and got back into bed. Then she did what she had done when she was small. She rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger until she fell asleep.

She was woken by a loud thump out in the hall. She froze, then she remembered that Richard had left his key. When she opened the door, Dog was standing there, trembling. There was a
deafening roll of thunder and he pasted himself against her legs, his eyes rolling, his ears twitching in terror.

He was too scared to move so Claire hooked her hand around his collar and dragged him over to the bed. She had to haul him up, one stiff leg at a time, and when he lay down, with his long, boney grey back to her, she put her hands over his ears. He smelled of damp dog and leather collar and, strangely, of meringues. Eventually, he gave a huge, shuddering sigh and began to snore.

Nick listened to the wind rattling the old, single-glazed windows and howling through the attic over his head. When Claire was small, she always had one of her nightmares when there was a storm. She'd wake up and Nick would find her asleep outside the old man's door and he'd bring her back to bed and stay with her until she went to sleep again. He wished he could go back to sleep but his mind was wide awake.