Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts (7 page)

She ought to be relaxing, she knew that. This was rare and precious ‘me time’, that the other mums at the salon were always going on about in the wistful way that other people talked about lottery wins. Didn’t she spend every hour of every working day wishing she was putting her feet up at home? Didn’t every hairdresser long to be horizontal and off their varicose veins?

‘Me time,’ she said aloud. Five more hours to fill before the boys came back – loads of time for . . . What?

Zoe’s mind went blank. It used to be so easy in the days before motherhood, when she still read glossy magazines for fun, and not because they were lying around in the consultation area. Her Sunday nights had been a strictly timetabled facemask leg-shave hair-pack routine, and she could talk about books, films, minibreak destinations – the lot. These days she still made lists, but they always seemed to feature ‘use up bananas’ and ‘wash sheets’.

She looked at her reflection again, and saw a sad woman, whose blonde streaks needed redyeing, whose eyebrows needed plucking, and who basically couldn’t cope when she wasn’t being frazzled to a crisp by two small boys.

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ said Zoe crossly, and went into the kitchen to help herself to the packet of Bahlsens she’d hidden from Spencer, who could smell a chocolate biscuit from across the street. They were her one secret treat, for the rare moments she got to indulge herself. It was the first time she’d actually eaten one before midnight.

I could phone Mum, Zoe thought, putting the newly descaled kettle on. Or Cal. But even as she thought it, she knew she didn’t want to talk to either of them. Her mum and her best mate seemed to have joined forces in their campaign to get her ‘back in the saddle’ – a phrase that Zoe thought summed up the romance of post-divorce dating pretty well – and every conversation seemed to come back to the theme of when Zoe was going to start dancing lessons or going to book groups or whatever else you had to do to find yourself a date, second time around.

She told them that Spencer, Leo and Dr Who were the only men she had time for now, but if she was being honest, the whole idea of going out there again made her want to crawl into a hole and hide. David had crumpled up what little self-confidence she had, and as for the minefield of introducing a new man to the boys – if she got as far as finding one . . .

The kettle boiled and Zoe jumped. ‘Me time’ was all about tarting yourself up to find a new bloke. Right now, she preferred the idea of cleaning her house. That was what her inner ‘me’ really wanted: a carpet with no lurking Lego and a ring-free bath.

As it turned out, Zoe solved the problem of filling in the rest of the afternoon by falling asleep in her chair in front of
Come Dine With Me
, passively enjoying the sight of other people knocking themselves out over a social life she didn’t have.

Some sixth sense nudged her awake at ten to seven, however, and she nearly bounced out of her chair at the distant sound of a big car engine at the end of the street.

‘I think that’s them,’ she said aloud. It was weird, not having anyone around to talk to. She couldn’t quite get out of the habit.

With one last, wistful look at her tidy sitting room, Zoe got up and began flapping round the kitchen, yanking off her pinny and checking the fridge. They’d need feeding immediately; David always took them to McDonald’s, and then filled up the remaining spaces with sugar in as many forms as he could find.

The thought of David made her nervous too. Not that she still fancied him. God, no. The magic had worn off long before the unpleasant scenes at the solicitors’. But since bloody Jennifer had become a permanent fixture in his life, with her transatlantic accent and her bloody charity marathon-running, he’d started looking at Zoe with fresh pity in his eyes when she appeared, hassled to death, on the doorstep, and that made her feel smaller than any outright insult. Zoe had only met Jennifer once, at a work party, but she could tell she was the sort of woman who got up at six to go to the gym in full make-up. One of their friends let slip that Jennifer had insisted her husband keep the kids when she walked out. It made sense.

The car hooted at something at the end of the street, and she knew from the impatient tooting that it had to be David.

Damn, damn, damn, she thought too late, if only I’d put the facepack on while I was watching telly, I could have had intensive moisturisation and a hygienic kitchen. She ran her hands through her hair, then gave up and stuck a clip in it, and threw on the Domestic Goddess pinny her mum had given her as an ironic Christmas present. It hid the coffee stain on her t-shirt.

Zoe hurried to the front door in time to see David’s huge new Chelsea tractor pulling up outside. Spencer, looking older than his seven years, got out almost at once, while David was still on the phone. Leo, just seventeen months younger, struggled a bit to get out of his belt, then jumped down onto the pavement after his big brother, and they scurried round to the back of the car, fizzing with excitement.

Zoe’s heart swelled up with love at the sight of Leo’s too-big ski jacket falling over his hands. As soon as she opened the door, Leo and Spencer stopped getting their bags out of the boot and hurled themselves into her arms, almost knocking her over in their excitement.

Until that moment, Zoe had thought she’d missed them, but in fact had had no idea quite how much. Just seeing them again was like stepping back into full colour, at top volume, and immediately she felt complete again, back to normal. They’d only been away a day; David had to ‘be somewhere’ on Sunday. Somehow he’d used that to get them next Saturday too.

‘Hello! Hello!’ she said, over the top of their gabbling about go-karting and burger bars in London, and – her heart swelled – how much they’d missed her.

‘Don’t go overboard, lads – you’re making it look like we didn’t have a great time!’

Zoe took a deep breath and looked up to see David unloading their bags with a triumphant expression.

If he wasn’t such a git, she thought, he’d be a properly handsome man. Divorce suited David. He’d either been on holiday already or Jennifer had a sunbed – his face was glowing and his light brown hair was shorter than he’d worn it before, though the speckles of grey had miraculously vanished. Gone was the scruffy jumper and jeans weekend uniform he’d worn for the years they’d been married, and in its place he wore a fine dove-grey cashmere jersey over a t-shirt, and, yes, those were definitely Chinos and deck shoes. In February.

David had become a yummy daddy, just as he’d offloaded his childcare responsibilities. How ironic, thought Zoe.

‘Hello!’ she said tightly. She had an agreement with herself that she could be as foul as she liked about him in her own head, so long as Spencer and Leo didn’t hear it.

‘Hello!’ he replied, leaning casually on the car. ‘Been cleaning?’

‘Yes.’
Yes, you bastard, although how would you recognise that particular activity? You never even so much as turned on the dishwasher for years.
Zoe’s smile intensified.

David lifted an eyebrow and looked amused. ‘Wow. Things
have
changed.’ Then he frowned. ‘You’re not thinking of selling the house behind my back, are you? Because . . .’

‘Mum!’ Spencer tugged her sleeve. ‘Mum, Dad’s given Leo the best present
ever
.’

‘Yeah!’ agreed Leo. ‘You’re never going to guess what it is, it’s so cool!’

Their faces were shining with excitement, and even as she smiled down, pleased to see them so happy, Zoe’s heart sank. David’s presents usually involved a lot of cleaning up for her. She hoped it wasn’t going to be something that made them sick, damaged the house or turned her into Scrooge Mummy in comparison.

‘Let me guess!’ she said, making a reasonably good show of pretending to furrow her brow. ‘Is it . . . a Tardis?’

‘No!’ howled Spencer and Leo.

‘Is it . . . a Dalek?’ Zoe cast a furtive glance over the car towards David. She half-thought it might be; she’d investigated hiring one for Leo’s sixth birthday party the following week, only to discover she could get NASA to build her one for slightly less. It would be just like David to upstage her cunning cardboard approximation.

He shook his head dismissively. ‘I don’t think it’s useful to buy into all that branding at their age. We need to talk about that, by the way. This Dr Who party business.’

Aaaarrrrrrrggggggghhh, shut up, you po-faced bastard.
‘Too late,’ she said. ‘I’ve already ordered the cake.’

‘No, Mum!’ said Leo. He was nearly bouncing with joy, his round face beaming up at her. He looked like a mini David, but with her brown eyes. Her heart twanged. ‘Guess again, guess again!’

‘Better than a Dalek,’ said Spencer, scornfully.

Zoe hoped it wasn’t a bike. Please, not a bike. Or a mini Ferrari or something.

‘Is it . . .’ She pantomimed putting her finger on her chin and looked at Leo with one eye closed. ‘A speedboat?’

‘No!’ he cackled, unable to hold it in any longer. ‘It’s a puppy!’

Her jaw dropped, and this time there was no pantomime involved. ‘Not a real one, though?’

‘Yes a real one!’ Spencer butted in, nearly knocking Leo out of the way. In the last few months he’d grown noticeably bigger than his brother, starting to look like a real boy. ‘Look, let’s get him out! He’s in the boot. His name’s Toffee and he’s just like off the telly and he’s going to sleep in my room during the week, and in Leo’s at the weekend.’

‘
My
bedroom!’ howled Leo. ‘He’s going to sleep on
my
bed, Spencer! He’s my dog!’

‘No, I’m the oldest . . .’

‘He’s
both
yours,’ insisted David in a calming, caring-and-sharing tone that made Zoe want to strangle him. ‘Be gentle, Leo, Toffee’s probably very scared after his journey.’

As the boys slipped into their habitual squabbling over who would get the puppy out, Zoe straightened up and glared over the top of the car. ‘David. I can’t believe you’d be so irresponsible!’ she hissed. ‘We talked about this at Christmas. You
knew
I’ve said they can’t have a dog! It’s impossible!’

He raised his hands. ‘Nothing’s impossible, Zoe. It’s a question of what’s
convenient
. We all have to make compromises and I really think it’ll be good for them. Give them a sense of routine.’

Zoe could barely breathe for outrage. Routine? After he’d destroyed every scrap of routine they knew? There was so much wrong with this that she didn’t know where to begin. The trouble was, she knew she had thirty seconds flat before he passed the buck onto her and screeched out of the boys’ lives for another week.

‘Maybe you should come in and have a cup of tea and we can talk about this,’ she managed, but already David was looking shifty.

‘I’d love to but I’ve got to make tracks. Jennifer’s got plans for this evening. She’s been away all week and we need to, you know . . . catch up.’ He said it in an unnecessarily euphemistic way and Zoe felt her chocolate biscuit repeating on her.

‘Oh? She’s been away?’ At least she wasn’t muscling in on the boys’ weekend, she told herself. At least there’s that.

‘Yes,’ said David, meeting her gaze with a certain amount of smug confidence. ‘But I thought it might be nice if she came along with us when we go to Alton Towers next time. We might even bring her two, though they’re a bit older. Make it a family outing.’

Zoe’s mouth went dry. ‘We need to talk about that. About how we explain new relationships to the boys. Didn’t the counsellor say it’s best to leave it until they’re OK with the idea of the divorce? Are you sure it’s the right time? Do you even know Jennifer’s children?’

‘It’s been a year, Zoe,’ David interrupted her with a wave of his hand. ‘We’ve all got to move on. And I don’t like the implication that Jennifer is some kind of flash-in-the-pan rebound thing. We’re very serious about each other.’

Zoe took a deep breath and tried to quell her rising panic. This wasn’t the time. The boys were squealing, there was a whimpering noise coming from the back of the car, she hadn’t even thought about the prospect of Alton Towers so soon after Legoland. There was enough hysteria in the house as it was. ‘David,’ she said, as emphatically as she could. ‘This is something we need to discuss properly, not something you throw at me two minutes before you drop the kids off.’

The trouble was, Zoe was confrontation-phobic with a heart softer than melted ice cream. And David knew it – he’d always known it. That was precisely why he was doing this.

‘Spencer! Come out of the road!’ she called. ‘Leo! Be careful! Get on the pavement, please. Both feet.’

The boys peered impishly from behind the back of the car. It was obvious something was up. How can I possibly take care of a puppy, as well as two kids and a job, wailed the voice in Zoe’s head.

She looked at David. ‘I can’t deal with a puppy. Why do you always make
me
the one who has to say no?’ Her voice sounded strangled.

‘So don’t say no,’ said David, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘Bye, boys! Are you going to come and give Dad a cuddle?’

‘Mum! Look!’ Leo thrust something into her arms and instinctively Zoe grabbed hold of the wriggling golden puppy. It was warm and soft, and heavy like a baby, with a seal-smooth coat and huge brown eyes that looked up at her with absolute trust. It made a whimpering noise and tried to lick her hand.