Puppies Are For Life (9 page)

‘So how was it? Your JAR. Was it all right?’ Susannah slumped down in the seat Paul had saved her, in case she happened to be on the same train.

‘About as pleasant as your trip to the gynaecologist,’ he said loudly, and slung his briefcase into the rack.

‘What?’ She laughed incredulously, embarrassed because the train was still waiting to pull out and in the lull many an idle ear must have picked up on the conversation. ‘But I haven’t been to see a gynaecologist! What in the world makes you think I have?’

‘What makes
you
think I went for a JAR?’ he countered.

‘But –’ she thought frantically – ‘you said … oh, no, you went for that recently, didn’t you? Sorry, I must have got confused.’ She glared at a woman across the aisle who smiled sympathetically back at her. ‘Well, what have you been doing in London? I don’t think you ever said.’

‘What I told you was that I was seeing Wesley Morris.’

‘Yes, I know, I know. But what about?’

‘About work … and – and staff. And so on.’

Susannah waited dutifully to learn more, but nothing came. All this fuss, she thought crossly, and he had nothing to tell her!

‘And the solicitor?’ he asked eventually. ‘What did he say? You see
I
remember these things.’

‘Oh, him? Not a lot.’ If Paul wanted to be bloody-minded and not tell her anything, then she wouldn’t say anything either. Two could play at that game.

She pulled a magazine from beneath the flap of her bag where she’d secured it, thumbed it open and pretended to read.

Straightening up from his weekly inspection of the windscreen fluid container on Saturday morning, Paul was surprised to discover his son pulling up on the drive behind him. He lifted his head slowly to the growl of a noisy exhaust.

‘Didn’t know you were coming, Simon,’ was his guarded response as the lad uncurled from the vehicle like a spring. ‘Perhaps your mother forgot to mention it.’

‘No.’ Simon slammed the door of his hatchback and gave a breezy grin. ‘She isn’t expecting me either. I thought I’d surprise you if you were in. And I’ve brought a key in case you were out.’ He went over to his father, shoved his hands in his jeans pockets, and stood rocking on the outer edges of his trainers. ‘How’s it going, then – the new car?’

‘Fine. I’m very pleased with it.’

Simon slid into the driver’s seat, fiddled with each of the controls and jiggled through all the gears, his eyes taking on the far-away gleam that men tend to get in their dealings with brand new cars. His dad was lucky to have all this: super car,
nice home, uncomplicated wife, and of course employment; all the things he’d taken for granted that he would have too.

‘Where’s Natalie?’ Paul asked, poking his head through the open window. ‘Haven’t you brought her with you today?’

‘Oh … no.’ Simon opened the glove box. ‘She might be over later. Christ!’ He suddenly slapped his forehead. ‘I forgot all about Justin!’ Leaping from the car he rushed over to his own less-than-satisfactory model where he found the child was still asleep.

Justin was strapped safely into his padded seat with his chin doubled up under his rosebud mouth and his striped bobble hat half-covering his eyes. His limbs jerked as Simon released the seat from its moorings but he settled again almost immediately.

Susannah emerged from the kitchen at that point, her eyes focused affectionately on her grandson.

‘For heaven’s sake! Bring him in out of the cold,’ she said in an exaggerated whisper, and began rubbing her upper arms at the sudden change in temperature. She had been peeling potatoes in the kitchen when she spotted the new arrivals.

‘Just admiring the new car, Mum. No, let me take him in; he’s quite a weight. Oh, but could you bring in the nappy bag, d’you think? It’s in the back of the car. It’s not locked.’ He smiled mischievously. ‘Justin was making some fiendish noises before he dropped off. He was going sort of cross-eyed, too.’

‘Oh dear. No Natalie?’ Susannah lifted out the nappy bag and glanced around as though expecting her son’s girlfriend to materialise from behind a bush.

‘No, no Natalie.’ Simon dumped both baby and chair on the nearest kitchen work top as if they were so much shopping. ‘Mmm, chocolate cake! Smells good. A lot better than Justin does, anyway. When’s it going to be ready?’

‘Not for ages yet. It needs butter icing and chocolate and … look, Simon –’ Susannah gripped his elbow to prevent him taking off into the cottage – ‘Simon, I can see it might be necessary to bring Justin’s cot with you in case he needs a proper nap – obviously he’s getting too big for the carry-cot now – but did you really have to bring that cat?’

On lifting the hatch she had come face to face with a complacent black kitten dozing behind the bars of a wicker basket. Its white paws were tucked under its chest and it had a crooked black smudge on its nose.

‘Gazza,’ Simon yelped. ‘I forgot about him too.’ He rushed out on his long legs and was back a moment later. ‘It’s a good job you reminded me, Mum, or he might have had an accident too. Oh, don’t worry, he’s properly house-trained now. He really is quite good.’

‘I’ll bet.’ Watching as he bent to release the cat, Susannah spared a thought for her brand new furniture, even if Simon hadn’t. ‘But – she began.

‘Well, well, look what the cat brought in,’ a voice
said behind them. They turned to find Katy in her pink dressing-gown.

‘That’s a nice way to greet your brother,’ Simon said. ‘And what are you doing here, sister dear?’

Katy pouted. ‘Staying for a while,’ she muttered, then put a hand out to the cat. ‘Oh, let me hold him. Please! He’s so lovely!’

‘Staying?’ Simon’s eyebrows lifted as he queried this statement with his mother.

‘She’s got problems with her hands. From typing,’ Susannah explained, whipping the cake from the oven and slamming the door with a thud. ‘She can’t work for a while.’

‘Oh, really?’ Something like contempt flickered across Simon’s face. ‘How long’s “a while” going to be?’

‘As long as a piece of string,’ Katy growled. Then her expression became animated. ‘Have you got any string, Mum? Cats like to chase after it, don’t they?’

‘Yes, he’d like that,’ Simon agreed. ‘And he’s terrific with a ball; that’s why we called him Gazza. Just wait till you see him in action. Where’s my old table-tennis set, Mum? There’s bound to be an old ping-pong ball or two in there.’

‘I bet Mum’s thrown it out,’ Katy told him.

‘Oh, Mum, you haven’t, have you?’

Susannah ran a hand through her hair. Ping-pong balls? String? The cake to finish and nappies to change? She didn’t know where to start. ‘Heavens, I don’t know,’ she said, but she was
actually thinking:
my son will be twenty-four next birthday; my daughter twenty-one. Yet here they are, playing round my feet with a kitten like they were still in nursery school. Where did I go wrong?

Then she remembered what she had been going to say several minutes before.

‘Simon,’ she said, addressing the top of his head again, ‘why have you brought all that stuff in the car with you – the buggy, the hold-all and the bath?’

But at that point Justin woke up. And he didn’t like where he was. Simon scooped him from his chair and carried him into the sitting room.

‘Look, Justin,’ he told the distraught child, ‘this is Nana and Grandpa’s house. Don’t you remember? It’s all nice and decorated now. Isn’t it lovely and cosy?’ He stood looking about him. ‘It’s not as big as I remember it,’ he told his mother. ‘Did you bring the nappy bag through?’

‘Yes, I did.’ She dumped the bag on the floor and folded her arms. First Katy did nothing but criticise, and now Simon. ‘And this place is plenty big enough for the two of us, I’ll have you know. Your father and I are delighted with it. When the time comes and we’ve only got our pensions to live on, you’ll both see how sensible it was for us to move.’

‘OK, OK, all right, Mum.’ But Simon was not paying much attention. He suddenly stood back from the baby and the nappy-changing business he’d embarked on, wearing a look of distaste. He shot his mother a glance. ‘I don’t suppose …?’

Susannah knelt down to take over the messy
task. ‘And you haven’t said why Natalie’s not here,’ she said, lifting Justin’s lower half with a deft tweak of the ankles. She whisked the disposable away and memories came flooding back with the first squirt of pink baby lotion. Somehow, though, nappy-changing wasn’t quite the same when the child wasn’t your own. She was relieved when the job was over and she could address the other end with baby talk.

‘Who’s a lovely clean boy now?’ she cooed, putting her face only inches from the child’s. Justin had seen his Nana in Bristol less than a fortnight ago but now he stared back at her as though she were an alien. Not one smile of recognition. Not a flicker of a reward for what she had just done for him. Ah, well.

‘Can I have him now?’ Katy asked, the kitten having escaped her. It had taken refuge under the television and now, perhaps inspired by the nappy-changing business, had decided to wash itself; it had one tiny leg poised delicately in the air. Katy took Justin over to the window, to ‘see if Grandpa’s finished working on the car yet’.

‘Simon,’ Susannah tried again, ‘you still haven’t told us why Natalie hasn’t come with you. Is she all right? Is she not well?’

‘She’s fine. Fine. Just busy. She … may be over later.’

‘And –’ Susannah shook her head as she tried to fill in by guess-work what Simon seemed reluctant to tell – ‘why have you come to see us on your own? How long do you intend to be here?’

‘Thanks, Mum,’ he grunted. ‘You make me feel really welcome.’

‘Oh, Simon, I didn’t mean – it’s just that – well, I do need to know how many to cook for, and if you were thinking of spending the night here there’s nowhere for you to sleep at the moment, as you can see. You know you’re always perfectly welcome, but –’

‘Am I?’ Simon stuck his jaw out as he looked around the room, and his eyes fell on his sister. Katy had beaten him to it. ‘Look, I can sleep on this sofa here. No problem. I don’t suppose it makes up into a bed, does it? No? Well, anyway, it’s not very long, I know, but I’ll manage.’

‘And Natalie – if she comes over? Does she sleep standing up?’

‘Now if I put all the cushions on the floor …’ He looked about him again, pretending not to have heard. ‘What happened to that nice big sofa we had in Windy Ridge? That one was really huge. And it was much more comfortable than this.’

‘It wasn’t really, you know. It was old and worn and the springs had gone to pot. It would never have fitted in this room anyway. We took it to the tip and –’ Susannah snapped her lips together. What was she doing? Why should she have to explain her purchases when it was nobody’s business but hers and Paul’s? She wouldn’t dream of criticising the awful bedsit that Katy had been sharing with her friend, or Natalie and Simon’s scruffy rented flat.

Natalie had the weirdest of tastes, in Susannah’s opinion: hideous blankets adorned the most uncomfortable seats in Christendom, and there was a peculiar arrangement of what looked suspiciously like covered orange boxes that they used for storing their clothes. She and Paul had never passed comment, though. Not within earshot anyway.

‘What do you think they’ve done with all the money we gave them?’ Susannah had whispered to Paul after their first visit to see the couple in the home they’d been setting up together.

‘Lord only knows,’ he muttered as they drove off down the road. ‘They’re taking this recycling thing a bit far, aren’t they? Do you think they realise what a fire hazard it all is? Knock one of those smelly candles over and the whole place would go up in flames.’ He gave a derisive snort. ‘Do the environment no end of good, that would. I only hope Simon’s had the sense to get them properly insured.’

‘Oh, don’t say things like that,’ Susannah said with a shiver. ‘And to hell with the insurance; what about the baby, when it arrives? Perhaps we should give them each a smoke alarm for their birthdays.’

Paul had glumly agreed with her. He was pretty fed up. He hadn’t liked the idea of Simon and Natalie living together, even if it was the way things were done these days. Particularly when there was a baby involved. And of course that was another thing he didn’t like: the fact that they had started a family so soon.

‘Look, Simon,’ Susannah said now, one hand on her hip, the other clamped to the top of her head as if afraid it would blow off, ‘even if you sleep in here –’ and she wasn’t very happy at the thought of her beautiful new sitting room being turned into a doss-house – ‘even if you sleep in here, where do you think you’re going to put Justin? Cots take up an awful lot of space; there simply isn’t room for one. Not that I would want a cot in here for long anyway.’

‘You can’t have my room,’ Katy put in quickly, ‘I’ve slept in the only sheets. And there wouldn’t be room for Justin and me together either, if that’s what you were about to suggest.’

Susannah felt two pairs of eyes on her, as if she could magically expand the cottage to accommodate them all. Or were they expecting her to –? ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Most definitely not. Your father and I are much too old to have a baby in our room.’

‘What’s age got to do with it?’

‘Oh, be reasonable, Katy. Can you honestly see your father and I getting up in the middle of the night to see to a baby? No, no. Much as we love him, of course …’

‘He’s very good, you know,’ Simon said.

‘But we’d be nervous wrecks within days. And how long is this going to be for, Simon? You know, you still haven’t said.’

‘I don’t really know yet.’ Simon met her eyes, looked away again, and began to busy himself with stripping the sofa and fireside chairs of their
beautifully upholstered, pristine cushions. Lining them up on the floor, he was trying them out for size when his father wandered in from the garden.

‘He’s going to sleep on them,’ Susannah explained.

‘What – now?’

‘Don’t be silly, Paul. Tonight. And maybe tomorrow night. And … I don’t know how many nights after that. Simon was about to tell us, weren’t you, Si?’

But Simon had gone into the kitchen to look around. When he pushed open the door to the studio his face lit up. ‘But this is great! I’d forgotten about this. It was a play room once, wasn’t it? And there’s even an electric radiator. If we push that old table out of the way and tidy up some of the mess, it’ll be a perfect room for Justin!’

‘Yes,’ Susannah heard herself say from a long way off, ‘absolutely perfect. Now why didn’t I think of that? But you never did tell me, Simon, why you had to bring the cat with you too. Just what is this all about?’

Simon waved his hands at them all, a sickly grin on his face. ‘OK, OK, I can see it’s big confession time. Let’s go and sit down and I’ll tell you all about it.’

The sitting room was crowded with all four of them seated, Justin and Gazza taking centre stage on the oval patterned rug.