Puppies Are For Life (25 page)

Harvey would have snapped her out of this mood. No, that wasn’t right: he would never have allowed her to slip into it. He wasn’t much of a one for introspection, she didn’t think. Though how well had she actually known him? Traits, it had to be said, had already begun to surface after only a few days together: traits that could be amusing or annoying to live with, depending on your mood. At first she had laughed at his happy-go-lucky attitude, finding it a refreshing change after Paul’s, but sometimes …

Susannah suddenly jumped as though someone
had poked her in the back. She rushed out into the hall, leaped the stairs two at a time and ran to the back bedroom. No!

She clattered back down the stairs, threw open the front door and hurtled down the path. But she knew it wasn’t there. The skip. It had been collected. And in it must have been her Uncle Bert’s card-table.

She had told Harvey ten times over that it wasn’t part of the junk, but junk it had now become. He must have tossed it in without a thought. With as much ease as he had now ditched her. Slowly she went back indoors, put a match to the fire, and gave herself up to a good long howl.

‘So what are you doing now, Mum?’ Katy asked over the phone. She was showing a keen interest in the mosaic business, which Susannah found a little puzzling; she hadn’t cared less about it when she had the opportunity.

Still, Susannah thought, it was nice to be asked. And at least Katy was keeping in touch. She struggled to her feet. She had fallen asleep after her fit of weeping; now she was stiff and cold because the fire had died down to nothing. ‘Well –’ she raked a hand through her hair – ‘I’m about to start on a wall panel. For someone over in Highgate …’

‘But you’re not going to be working over Christmas?’

‘Christmas? Well … I might be.’ Nothing had really been settled.

‘You can’t spend Christmas alone!’ Katy was clearly horrified. ‘Look, why don’t you come up here? There are things going on in the hotel; it should be quite a hoot.’

A shudder ran through Susannah. For carefree youth, perhaps. ‘Oh, I don’t think it’s quite my scene …’

‘Well, there are a lot of old dears here, too.’

‘Thanks.’

‘They come up by the coach load, you know. Oh, please come and stay here for Christmas. I’ll book you a room right now. Whatever you do don’t drive, though. Get a seat on a plane before they’re all gone.’

‘Katy, I’m really not sure …’ It was easy to see through Katy’s ploy: there was no doubt some sort of scheme afoot for getting her together with Paul, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for that. It would be useless going back to their old ways, and even if he admitted the need for change she didn’t feel strong enough at the moment to hammer out a new set of rules with him.

And yet to be alone at Christmas … well, that seemed like the end of the world.

The girl on the reception desk was a stranger; Susannah had expected to find Katy there. Then she realised, as the girl looked up, that it
was
Katy. She was wearing a smart white blouse and a navy pencil-slim skirt. And her hair had been neatly cut, although it was still unnaturally blonde.

‘Mum!’ Katy shrieked, and flung herself across the counter for a hug. Then she walked round the desk properly and grabbed her mother by the hand. ‘Look at the tree, isn’t it lovely? And I helped put up those decorations. Did you hire a car from the airport? I’ve fiddled you a room with a view. Can you stay until New Year’s over? That’s going to be the best part of all.’

Up in her chilly room overlooking the loch, Susannah wished she had not come. It was good to see Katy happy again, but the girl’s ebullience and renewed joy in life only emphasised Susannah’s own loneliness. It wasn’t much help, either, that when Katy wasn’t rushed off her feet doing her job, she was busy socialising. It was a big hotel and there were a number of room maids, waiters and
waitresses all roughly Katy’s age, who were obviously much better company for her than her mother. Not that Susannah minded that, of course – she was pleased for Katy – but she herself felt like a spare part, an oddball, an intruder. Nobody needed her.

Why was it, Susannah wondered as she gazed across the loch with unseeing eyes, that it was hell to be needed when you didn’t want to be needed, and hell not to be needed when you did?

She needed someone. She ached for someone. Every guest at the hotel had someone, or so it seemed. Someone to walk and talk with. Someone to sit at the dinner table with. How conspicuous you could feel on your own! Mealtimes were so painful that she would have preferred to stay in her room, and only made an effort to go down to the cavernous, draughty dining room for Katy’s sake. Not that Katy could eat with her, but she would have worried had her mother pined away upstairs.

Sometimes a kind, well-meaning soul would spot Susannah making for her lonely table by the window (Katy’s influence again) and draw her into their group. Susannah couldn’t decide which was worse: having to pretend she enjoyed her own company or having to exert herself to converse with total strangers. It was at the end of evenings like those that thoughts of her pretty little cottage in Upper Heyford flooded her mind; of Justin’s first Christmas, raucous laughter, and family jokes
round the log fire. She would crawl into bed, her heart breaking, furious because she had only herself to blame.

But on Christmas Eve it appeared that she would be forced into sharing her own table. It had been set for two, instead of the usual one, and she nearly bolted away If it hadn’t been for the young waiter on her heels, escorting her to her seat, she would have done. Perhaps, she thought, sinking hopefully on to the hard seat, Katy was going to be allowed to eat with her for once, instead of having to go to the cubby-hole off the kitchens where staff usually snatched what they could. She had almost relaxed, having convinced herself she was right and that Katy would be with her soon, when a pair of dark trousers came to her attention out of the corner of her eye. Then she nearly knocked over her jug of water.

‘Mind if I join you?’ It was Paul, and he didn’t wait for her answer. He pulled out the other chair and planted himself down on it. But he avoided meeting her eyes.

Susannah slumped with her head in her hands. Since he hadn’t shown up so far, she had decided that nothing had been further from Katy’s mind than an attempt at reuniting her parents. Susannah had been on tenterhooks at first, knowing that he was only a few miles down the road and could appear at any moment. And now he had, when she least expected it.

‘This was Katy’s idea,’ she said, when the shock
of his arrival had ebbed. ‘I guessed she might try something like this.’

‘Actually, it was mine.’ His voice was quiet and reasonable; the harsh tones of the previous weeks, she was relieved to note, had gone. ‘I thought it was time we talked.’

She made her tone matter-of-fact too. ‘About our bank account and so on, I suppose.’ They had both been dipping into their joint account – Uncle Bert’s estate was still being sorted and the five hundred pounds hadn’t yet materialised – but it was a convenience that couldn’t go on for ever. If Paul wanted a proper separation there were all sorts of things to go into. If. But surely he wasn’t going to broach such a subject on Christmas Eve?

In the background a recording of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ had started up. Susannah hoped she would be able to clear the lump it always brought to her throat before she next had to speak.

‘No,’ Paul said firmly, snapping the big red menu shut, ‘I didn’t want to talk to you about money.’

‘Well … what then?’ She took a sip of water.

‘I think we should talk about us. Don’t you? It’s what we should have done in the first place. Then perhaps we wouldn’t be where we are.’ He made a window-wiping gesture in the air. ‘And I’m not blaming you for that, Susannah. I know I’m very much at fault.’

The waiter came for their order, and while Paul was giving it Susannah stared at him over the single candle. There were hollows in his cheeks and
under his eyes. He looked as though he had really suffered over their split. She drew her gaze away. And that was without him knowing anything about the Harvey business. Pray God he would never know about it.
She
would never tell him; he’d been hurt badly enough.

‘I know I wouldn’t discuss things in the past,’ he went on, seeing that Susannah seemed incapable of speech, ‘for the simple reason I didn’t want to. I didn’t want things to have to change, you see. Selfish, I suppose you’d say’

‘No, Paul –’

‘Of course, they had changed, anyway,’ he hurried on. ‘With the children leaving the nest they had to change. But I wasn’t ready to accept it. It’s funny –’ he attempted a little laugh – ‘I always thought it was women who were supposed to suffer from the empty nest syndrome, and men who got the mid-life crisis. In our case it seems to have happened the other way round. You know, I really missed Katy and Simon when they left. Life seemed so flat all of a sudden, and sort of – I don’t know – finished, without them. I was thrilled when they had to come back.’

He took her hand. ‘Does that sound really awful of me? I suppose it does. And I couldn’t understand why you didn’t feel the same.’

‘You thought me a wicked mother.’

‘I did. Heaven help me, I did. But I’m the one who’s not such a good parent. I should have been able to let them go, not try to over-protect them.’

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself.’ She placed her other hand over his. It was breaking her up, seeing him castigate himself like this. ‘You’ve been a wonderful dad, and don’t let anyone tell you differently. Anyway, they’re both doing fine now, aren’t they? I suppose you’ve heard about Simon and Natalie? Oh, I don’t suppose we’ve heard the last of any of them, not by a long chalk. And that’s just the way I want it, in spite of what you might think.’

‘Really?’ Paul’s face lit up with a smile.

‘Yes! I don’t wish them right out of my life; I never did. All I ever wanted was to be treated as an individual again, and not just somebody’s mum. Somebody with needs and desires of her own, and to be allowed the chance to fulfil them.’

Paul was nodding his head. ‘I should have listened more to you. You were right to want to do your own thing. But that was the very reason why I behaved like a prize pillock. I didn’t know why at that time; it was Katy who brought it all home to me.’

‘Katy?’

‘Yes, Katy. Perhaps she’s more in touch with her emotions, as current jargon would have it. She had the insight to realise that she was rather jealous of you, which was why she adopted that sullen attitude of hers. And that made me see it was just the same with me. Don’t look so surprised. I was jealous too. Because you’d found something interesting to fill the rest of your life, whereas I had
nothing in particular to look forward to. I didn’t think I would even have a job for much longer at that stage, and the thought half scared me to death.’

‘Poor Paul.’ He looked so guilty. But wasn’t she guiltier than he? At least he hadn’t gone off with another woman. ‘Retirement’s going to come to you one day, you know. You have to prepare for it.’

‘I know, I know, I’ll be working on it.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve been given a couple of years’ grace.’

Susannah shook her head, trying to sort out her thoughts. ‘I feel I’ve only just started in life. I can’t seem to think of all this as the final years of our lives.’

‘And that’s the way it should be.’ He studied her as she took a sip of wine. ‘Sue … couldn’t you … wouldn’t you like to have a craft shop one day – one that was attached to your studio, perhaps? I’ve seen potteries and places like that all over the place up here. But it wouldn’t really matter where it was. And when I finally retire I could run it for you. Couldn’t I? While you got on with –’

Their eyes met across the table, suddenly wary, suddenly shy. ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ started softly above their heads. Not that one, Susannah thought desperately, getting choked all over again.

‘Sorry,’ Paul muttered eventually, loosening his collar a little, ‘I can’t seem to get used to the idea of …’

‘Of not being together for ever? Me neither.’

‘Seems a waste, somehow, chucking it all away.’

‘Is there something the matter, Sir – Madam?’
The waiter had sidled up. He indicated the untouched plates; they hadn’t even noticed them. ‘I – er – couldn’t help hearing you talking of throwing it away. If you’d like to order something else?’

‘Oh –’ Susannah managed to giggle past the constriction in her throat. ‘I don’t think we want to do that.’ She looked Paul straight in the eye with a message only for him. ‘What do you say, Paul? Shall we hang on to what we’ve got? It really hasn’t been all that bad.’

Paul smiled broadly and raised his glass to hers. ‘No, not at all bad, really. Let’s give it another try.’

‘To us,’ they murmured together, leaving a confused waiter to scratch his head and silently drift away.

Linda Phillips is in her early fifties and lives in Wiltshire. A former civil servant, she started writing six years ago, when her own two children flew the nest.
Puppies are for Life
is her first novel.

First published in Great Britain in 1998 by
Fourth Estate Limited
6 Salem Road
London W2 4BU

Copyright © 1998 by Linda Phillips

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

The right of Linda Phillips to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition © MAY 2012 ISBN 9780007455355

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.