Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts (42 page)

‘I’m fine, Rachel.’ Pause. ‘Are you all right? Are you lonely?’

‘No, not at all!’ She swallowed. ‘Look, Mum, I’ve got some news – I’m having a baby.’

The pause on the other end of the phone stretched out so long that Rachel could hear the front door bang, and her dad come in with the paper. She wondered if her mother had passed out.

‘They didn’t have your magazine, Vally, so I got you some mints!’ he called, and Rachel’s throat squeezed at the years and years of gentle domesticity her parents had shared. That wasn’t going to be her child’s pattern, for good or bad.

Get a grip, she told herself. That’s not the life you wanted either. You went to quite a bit of trouble not to have a life like Mum and Dad.

‘Sorry, love,’ said Val, faintly. ‘Your father came in, I’m not sure I heard you properly. What did you say?’

‘I said, I’m having a baby.’ Rachel tried to make her voice lighter this time. So Val would know to be pleased.

‘How?’ Her mother sounded winded. Not angry or disapproving, but baffled, as if Rachel had told her she was growing a third leg.

‘Oh, the usual way. Man meets girl. Stork finds house.’

‘Rachel, don’t be flippant. I thought you might have gone off and had whatever it is those single women have done. Artificial insemination or something.’ Val sounded huffy. ‘I mean, you don’t have a boyfriend. Not that you’ve told me about,’ she added.

‘I have now. Sort of. And this wasn’t planned but I’ve decided to go ahead and . . .’ Rachel grimaced at her own reflection. These weren’t words she’d ever thought would come out of her own mouth. ‘Take the chance to be a mother.’

‘Well, congratulations,’ said Val. She sounded about as happy as the last three people who’d said that, thought Rachel.

The mouthpiece went muffled as if she’d covered it with her hand. Rachel could make out her mother saying, ‘It’s Rachel. She’s having a baby . . . Yes, a baby. No, not the dog.
Her
. I don’t . . .’

Then her dad came on. ‘Hello, love. Congratulations! Is it right what I hear? That you’re going to be a mum? Wonderful news!’

‘Thanks, Dad.’ Rachel’s emotions churned again at her father’s genuine warmth. ‘Bit of a shock.’

‘
You
were a bit of a shock. So was Amelia. All babies are. I’m very pleased for you, love. Are we going to meet the lucky dad?’

‘Yes, well, that was what I was calling about.’

‘I’ll put you back onto your mother,’ said Ken. ‘She’s gesturing.’

‘Mum,’ said Rachel, heavily, as the phone changed hands. ‘I thought it would be nice if . . .’

‘Who is the father, Rachel?’ Val’s voice trembled. Such soap-opera conversations weren’t really in her repertoire.

‘His name’s George. He’s a vet I’ve been seeing, he treats the dogs here at the kennels.’

‘But you’ve only been
there
ten minutes!’

‘I know. It’s like I said, a bit of a surprise. But that’s life, isn’t it? Anyway, I was wondering if you and Dad would like to come and stay for the weekend. You can meet George properly, and see what’s been going on here. You might like to have a look round the house and see what you’d like to have of Dot’s.’ She tried a joke. ‘You don’t
have
to take a dog home with you, but if you’d like one, there’s a really lovely spaniel here that’d suit you.’

‘You can’t bring this George home to see us?’

‘Mum, I can’t leave Megan here on her own with all the dogs. It’s not fair. And George is really busy with work – it’s still lambing season.’ Rachel tried not to think too hard about what ‘bringing George home to meet the parents’ would be like. They were two obstinate adults, not a pair of teenagers who’d been caught out. At least if they met in her own house, she’d be able to control the dynamics, and divert too many awkward questions.

‘Well, if that’s the only time you can fit us in, then I suppose that’s the best time,’ said Val, and then immediately corrected herself. ‘I didn’t mean that to sound critical, Rachel. It’s just . . .’ She struggled. ‘I never know what to say to you. I never know whether you want me to be pleased or not.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ Rachel was thrown by the strange, sad tone in her mother’s voice.

‘I don’t mean anything. Now, what dates are we talking about?’ Val continued, sounding more like herself. ‘I’ll rearrange some of my hospital rota. Can we bring anything? Have you been to the doctor and had your check-up? I can ring Amelia if you want, and see what things she has left from Jack.’

Rachel leaned her head against the wooden banisters. Now it was really starting.

‘To be honest, Mum, I’d rather you gave me some advice about running a fête,’ she said. ‘I’m holding an Open Day to raise some money for the dogs. Next month. Don’t say anything. I know it’s not like me.’

The pause on the other end was only just shorter than the baby pause.

‘What a nice idea, Rachel,’ said Val. ‘Have you thought about what you’ll do if it rains?’

Rachel let her mother furnish her with plentiful advice about the importance of keeping a good float on every stall. Maybe it was her way of making everything normal again.

Downstairs, the kitchen was deserted, apart from Gem, who lay waiting for her at the threshold. Megan’s jacket was thrown over her favourite chair, nearest the Aga, suggesting that she’d arrived back from her walk, but there was no sign of her or Freda, who normally took it as a signal to start elevenses.

‘Are they both in the kennels?’ she asked, as Gem followed her through to the office.

Sure enough, Freda and Megan were both in the kennel office; Freda was at Rachel’s laptop, while Megan leaned over her from behind, trying to help her understand what was going on.

‘We’ve had some emails,’ Megan explained. ‘About adopting some dogs!’

Natalie and Rachel’s new website had started to gain momentum, after Rachel had registered it with a couple of national dog rescue sites, and enquiries were trickling in at a rate of three or four a day. Rachel was trying to put up two special pages per day, and the final one had gone up the night before.

‘Well, one dog,’ Freda corrected her, and at once, both her and Megan’s eyes turned guarded.

‘Who?’ Rachel put down the coffee mugs she was taking to rinse out and went to see. She scanned the screen over Megan’s shoulder. ‘Oh.’

Four emails in a row had the subject heading, Bertie the Basset Hound.

‘Who’s going to tell them?’ asked Freda, as all eyes – Freda’s, Megan’s, Gem’s – turned to Rachel.

Natalie was walking Bertie down by the Longhampton canal when her mobile rang in her jacket pocket.

She was in a bad mood already, because the waitress in the deli wouldn’t let her in to order a takeaway coffee, and had deliberately failed to understand her ‘cappuccino’ mime through the glass. And Johnny, who normally took out the bins without fail, as part of his husbandly duties, had left them festering for two weeks in the garage – a smell cocktail that had proved too tempting for Bertie and his Nose of Doom.

She pulled out the phone crossly and answered it, expecting to hear Johnny apologising or Rachel asking how to make an Excel document.

‘Hi, is that Natalie Hodges?’

‘Natalie Hodge, yes,’ she said automatically. Bertie was snuffling around in the undergrowth, on the trail of something disgusting, and she gave his lead a tug. He looked up at her, balefully, and she wagged a finger.

‘My name’s Maria Purcell, from Blue Sky Solutions – I’m sorry we haven’t been in touch before now.’ The woman’s voice was brisk and professional, and Natalie had to concentrate. ‘We’ve been moving offices, had some IT issues. But I’m calling to touch base and to run a few possibilities by you, if you’ve got a second? Is this a good time?’

Natalie stopped walking. She’d almost forgotten she’d registered with the recruitment agency – it was something the HR department had told her to do on the weird day that Selina had told her she was to be made redundant.

‘Um, yes, it’s fine,’ she said. She tried to refocus her brain into a sharper gear, but it was hard when Bertie was leaning over in the gleeful about-to-roll-in-something motion, his ears already caked in something noxious.

‘No,’ she mouthed, giving him the hardest stare she could manage. He rolled anyway, closing his eyes in delight as he coated his neck in Fox No. 5, the rank stench of which
didn’t
come out with tomato sauce, no matter what the internet said.

Natalie toyed briefly with the idea of hanging up, dragging him away and calling back, claiming they’d been disconnected. Instead she offered him a treat from the bag in her pocket and he was at her side like a shot.

‘Are you still there?’ Maria Purcell prompted her.

You need a job, she reminded herself. This is a six-month sabbatical, not a way of life.

‘Yes, I am! Go ahead,’ she said, marching Bertie swiftly away from temptation and down the towpath.

‘I’ve actually got an amazing opportunity coming up in the next few weeks, something that I think you’ll be glad you were made redundant for,’ the recruitment lady went on. ‘I’m going to email the details over to you now. Are you near your computer?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Natalie. ‘I’m just walking my dog!’

‘Oh.’ There was a note of surprise, not entirely approving either.

Dog walking wasn’t something that went on a CV, Natalie reminded herself. No one actually gardened on gardening leave.

‘Well, maybe you could call me as soon as you get back.
There’s an element of time sensitivity with this. It’s just that your
experience matches perfectly with the client’s requirements and I know you’ll be thrilled when you see it. The salary is negotiable at the moment, but with your background . . .’ She could almost hear the keys tapping on the agency’s cut.

‘Of course,’ said Natalie, in her best office voice. ‘I’ll get back to you a.s.a.p.’

Natalie printed out the details as soon as she got back in, and once she’d shampooed Bertie, because the smell was unbearable within four walls, she spent the rest of the afternoon staring at the job description.

She’d only been off work for a few weeks, about the length of Johnny’s summer holiday, and yet something about the wording of the job description made her want to turn her phone off, not ping her CV straight back to Maria.

‘. . . you will crave responsibility and empowerment
. . .
’

‘. . . strong strategic vision and a stop-at-nothing attitude to make it happen . . .’

‘ . . .you must be someone with tenacity and resilience . . .’

She looked at Bertie who was reclining on his spoiled-dog leather beanbag, chewing a disgusting pig’s ear: his reward for enduring a pretty rigorous bath. ‘Look at this.’ She waggled the paper. ‘Do they want a brand manager or a gladiator?’

He regarded her with his tragic eyes, and Natalie dug out her phone and took a photograph of him, to remind herself that that was how mournful he looked when he was warm, damp, eating a pig’s ear, and had her full attention.

There were too many photos of Bertie already on her phone.

She turned back to her CV on the laptop. The job was to lead a marketing team for a small organic chocolate brand that had just been bought out by a major food manufacturer. They wanted someone with big corporate experience, but with a delicate touch – something she had, from the organics launches she’d worked on in her last job. On paper, it was perfect, and it was only thirty miles away, outside Birmingham.

‘How bad would it be,’ she went on, ‘to tell Maria Purcell that I don’t want to take this chance of a lifetime because I’m trying for a baby? It’s better than going for it, then bailing out on maternity leave, right, Bertie? More honest?’

She paused, and looked down at Bertie, now rolled onto his back, offering her a view of his speckled ermine tummy. He was a different dog to the creature she’d taken in a few weeks ago. He hadn’t been cowed, like some of the dogs, but there’d been a sadness about him, as if he was trying extra hard to make them love him so they wouldn’t leave. Now when he rolled over, he closed his eyes, knowing a tickle was seconds away.

How had they lived properly without him?

Johnny’s reaction wasn’t quite what she’d expected.

Or rather, Natalie couldn’t quite put her finger on what his reaction was. He seemed keen in some respects – typically proud that she was obviously qualified for what was a pretty high-level job opening, and typically rude about the management jargonese – but at the same time, she got the feeling he was holding something back.

They were lounging on the sofa after dinner, one at each end with Bertie sprawled across the middle. It was a huge sofa they’d bought as a wedding present, big enough to lie on together to watch television, but not so big that Bill or any of their other single friends at the time would see it as a spare bed.

‘So, do you think I should send them my CV?’ she asked.

‘Up to you, Nat.’

‘I know, but should I?’

Johnny put the job description down. His face was deliberately blank. ‘It’s a great opportunity. You’ve always wanted to lead a marketing team on your own, it’s a small team in a bigger player, you like chocolate. Sounds like you made it up yourself.’