Getting Over Mr. Right (28 page)

“But what are we going to tell Lucas?” she asked, her eyes welling up with tears.

“We could tell him that Ben ran away,” said Dad. “Like we did when the next-door cat got his rabbit.”

“He was only eight. I don’t think he’ll fall for that this time.”

“I suppose we could just tell him the truth,” I suggested.

“But he’s going to be so upset,” said Mum.

“The dog’s dead whether we lie to him or not,” said Dad.

Throughout these discussions Lucas remained sound asleep. Breakfast was a quiet affair. Mum, Dad, and I sat at the kitchen table with our backs to the conservatory, but at some point each of us was compelled to twist around and look at the dark bundle on the conservatory floor. It was such a sad shape. Mum was so overcome that she forgot to have a go at Dad about using the velvet throw from the back of the sofa as a shroud.

“Oh, Ben,” she cried, when she realized she had absent-mindedly left him a piece of crust that he wouldn’t be begging for. “How could you do this to us?”

It was almost midday when Lucas eventually came downstairs. I could see Mum’s bottom lip wobbling as she heard her son call out, “Benny, boy. Where’s my favorite Benny?”

But that morning there was no skitter of claws on the kitchen tiles as Ben raced to present himself for attention.

“I can’t tell him,” she told me.

“I’m not doing it,” said Dad, who was wiping his eyes.

“I suppose I’ll have to do it,” I said.

So that is how I ended the feud with my brother. I intercepted him at the kitchen door and took him into the living room. “There’s something you need to know,” I said. “You should probably sit down.”

I could tell from his face that he knew what was coming. Not once in the lifetime they had spent together had Ben failed to greet Lucas at the bottom of the stairs in the morning. Lucas had not missed the implication.

“Ben’s dead, isn’t he?”

I nodded.

“Oh, Ashleigh!” Lucas sank on to the sofa and covered his face with his hands. His shoulders shook violently as he began to cry. I had expected him to be sad. I had not expected to see his actual heart breaking.

“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s okay. I don’t suppose he felt a thing. He was a happy dog. He had a happy ending. He had a good life.”

“He was my best friend!” Lucas sobbed.

The whole house went into mourning. Mum didn’t open the curtains in the front room that day. Dad agreed that such a level of respect was appropriate. Ben wasn’t just a pet. He had been part of our family. Lucas spent that afternoon sitting in the conservatory with Ben’s body. He refused to eat. He just sat in one of the wicker armchairs with the squeaky toy that had been Ben’s favorite. From time to time we heard a mournful wheeze and an
eek
when Lucas squeezed the toy, as though he hoped the familiar sound might bring Ben back from dog heaven. While out in the garden, looking for some sage for Mum to add to that night’s chicken dinner, I stepped on another of Ben’s toys and was horribly moved by the pathetic sight of the abandoned plaything. For the first time in months the tears that sprang to my eyes were about something other than bloody Michael Parker.

Lucas didn’t join us for supper. Dad pushed away his plate half finished. As he turned from the table, he went to scrape what remained of his chicken into Ben’s bowl. My mother choked on a sob.

“Move it,” she said to my father, as though the earthenware dish were a photograph of a beloved child.

At nine o’clock Lucas finally came into the kitchen and announced that he wanted a cup of tea. I made it. As he warmed his hands around it, I was struck by how young he looked. I could see the six-year-old who tormented me. I had to refrain from ruffling his hair.

“I feel so sad, sis,” he told me. “Ben really was my best friend. After you left home, he was all I had. He was like a brother to me.”

“I guess you’ll have to make do with just having a sister now.”

I put my arm around his shoulders, and he pulled me in for a hug.

“Are we friends again?” he asked me hopefully.

“We’re better than that,” I said. “We’re siblings. You couldn’t lose me if you tried.”

The following day I helped Lucas bury Ben in the back garden.

“Can’t you do something to make him look his best first?” Mum asked. “You must have learned that on your dog-grooming course?”

I told her that dog grooming for funerals was a separate module her thousand pounds hadn’t paid for.

Anyway, we marked Ben’s grave with the squeaky rabbit, proper memorial pending. I knew it wouldn’t be long before Mum got over her grief and wanted the rubber toy out of her flower bed.

When the burial was over, Lucas finally gave me what I took to be a heartfelt apology for the anguish he had caused me with his little film.

“It was funny, though,” he added.

I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t, but I couldn’t keep a smile from my lips. “It was quite funny,” I admitted grudgingly. “But you’ll never do anything like that again, right? I just want to forget all about it.”

Fat chance.

The worst thing about Ben’s death was that there was no longer any reason why Mrs. Charlton could not bring her standard poodles, Roxy and Satin (aka Rocky and Satan), with her when she popped around for a cup of tea. And suddenly Mrs. Charlton seemed to be popping over for a cup of tea all the time. She had recently set up a local branch of the Neighborhood Watch and was trying to persuade Mum to act as treasurer.

Mum wasn’t the only person Mrs. Charlton was trying to persuade to work for free.

“Oh, it may be September but it’s still so hot!” she said one afternoon with a sigh. “A real Indian summer. I don’t know if Roxy and Satin will be able to cope with this for much longer. I had them trimmed in August,” she said to my mother, “and that was supposed to be it for the year. On my pension …”

I saw the anguish in Mum’s face and knew it was only a matter of time before she collared me. She caught me later that day as I tried to sneak from my bedroom to the kitchen for a cup of tea and perhaps a piece of toast.

“You’ve got to do something about those dogs,” she said, “or I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“I can’t,” I said.

“Why not?”

“I haven’t gotten my certificate.”

“Well, they’re taking their bloody time with that,” Mum pointed out. (As far as she was concerned, I had finished the
dog-grooming course six weeks earlier.) “But I’m sure Mrs. Charlton doesn’t care whether you’ve got your certificate or not. All she wants is for someone to give those dogs a free trim before they expire from heat exhaustion.”

The pressure continued as I boiled the kettle and waited for the toast to burn.

“In any case,” said Mum, “don’t you think it would be a good idea to keep your hand in? As soon as your certificate comes through, you’ll be able to start applying for jobs. Wasn’t that the whole point?”

I couldn’t argue with that.

“But I won’t be insured,” I tried helplessly.

“Insured for what?” my mother asked. “How wrong can a quick poodle trim go?”

“They don’t want anything fancy,” said Mrs. Charlton as she led Rocky and Satan into my mum’s pristine kitchen.

A good thing, I thought. I said, “I’ll just give them a basic,” as I covered the floor with old newspaper. The only tools I had at hand were some kitchen scissors and a pair of beard clippers left over from the year Dad decided he might look distinguished with a goatee. Mother had quickly vetoed that, and so the clippers had hardly been used.

I figured that all I had to do was set the clippers to a reasonable length and approach trimming the dogs as though I were giving some bloke a buzz cut.

“But I’d rather you didn’t watch,” I told Mrs. Charlton.

“Why not?” she asked. “The dogs like to know where I am.”

“I’ve found,” I said, “when I’ve been practicing on live dogs for my course, that they are actually better behaved and calmer with their owners out of sight. It helps me establish a new pack hierarchy,” I explained.

I had no idea what I was talking about, but Mrs. Charlton seemed convinced. She allowed my mother to persuade her back into the conservatory with a newly opened packet of biscuits.

I was left with the dogs. Two standard poodles the size of small ponies, with tongues lolling out like great slices of ham. As I pondered which end of a poodle was safe to start on, Satan let out a tremendous fart that filled the room with a stench worse than nerve gas. Then he sat down and refused to get back up. I would have to start with Rocky.

Distraction seemed like a good idea. I liberated a packet of prosciutto from the fridge. (I would later find out that Dad had been saving it for his Thursday-evening cordon bleu course.) I dangled a thin strip of the stuff in front of Rocky. As she wolfed it down, I clamped her body between my knees and made a start.

My plan to use the clippers got off to a fine enough start. I was astonished when I managed two very neat strips from Rocky’s bottom to the top of her head. But that was all I had time to do before the dumb animal finished the prosciutto and realized that all was not well. She turned to nip me on the knee. Added to that, two stripes of poodle contained more hair than a year’s worth of the average man’s beard. The damn clippers were clogged up already.

I tossed Rocky another strip of prosciutto while I tried to unblock the clippers. That gave me less than ten seconds before she was at my other knee, trying to free herself from between my thighs. Satan, meanwhile, had belatedly decided it was time to come to his partner-in-life’s assistance. While Rocky struggled and menaced my knees, Satan was worrying the bottom of my jeans and my ankles in equal measure.

“What’s going on?” Mrs. Charlton shouted.

“Everything is under control,” I said.

I threw the rest of the packet of prosciutto into the corner of
the kitchen. Satan abandoned Rocky to her fate. I managed two sweeps of the clippers over Rocky’s head, leaving her with something like a fluffy Mohawk. I got in another line across her shoulders, leaving her with a huge bald cross on her back. Then Satan had finished the rest of the prosciutto and was after more. And failing prosciutto, or even Spam, Satan decided he would have to make do with my bottom.

“Ow!” I jumped into the air, releasing Rocky to join in with the attack. Before I could cry for help they had me on the floor, pulling at my clothes and growling like the hellhounds they were. Mrs. Charlton and my mother came rushing into the kitchen.

“My babies!” cried Mrs. Charlton.

“My baby!” cried Mum. I think she meant me.

Lucas broke off from playing a war game to help the two women rescue me. Rocky and Satan were banished to the garden.

“They were just playing,” Mrs. Charlton explained.

I was, thank goodness, largely unharmed, but there’s nothing like the smell of drying dog-lick on your face …

And when it was established that I wasn’t dying, the real trouble began.

“What has she done to Roxana!” Mrs. Charlton exclaimed (Roxana being Roxy/Rocky’s real name).

“She wouldn’t stay still,” I protested.

“You have ruined my pedigree poodle!”

“I’ve only just finished my training. What did you expect?”

“I expected somebody half competent,” said Mrs. Charlton to my mother. “You’re always going on about how talented your daughter is. This”—she pointed at Roxy, with her coat like a lawn cut by someone driving a riding mower under the influence—“this is a bloody disgrace. She’ll have to pay.”

“She will not. She was doing you a favor. If you weren’t such a cheapskate, this wouldn’t have happened. Always going on
about what a poor pensioner you are while you’re driving a brand-new Nissan.”

“That Nissan was a gift from my son, who is a good deal more talented and successful than yours.”

“Hang on,” said Lucas. “Don’t bring me into this.”

“You had better get out of my house,” shouted my mother. “Before I call the police and have them come to take your dogs away. Savage, is what they are! They should be put down!”

Mrs. Charlton gasped. Then she and her hellhounds were gone.

“Oh, darling,” said Mum, as she checked me for puncture wounds one more time. “I am sorry. I shouldn’t have made you try to groom those stupid beasts.”

“Ben wouldn’t have let them anywhere near you,” Lucas chipped in.

“Can you forgive me?” Mum asked me. “For making you risk your life like that?”

I nodded. “Mum, of course I can. If you can forgive me for having lied about taking a dog-grooming course in the first place …”

It seemed that Mum could not. Forgive me for having lied about the dog-grooming course, that is. There was much shouting in the house that afternoon. By lying about the course, said Mum, I may as well have robbed her. Did I have any idea how difficult it had been for her and my father to save that thousand pounds in the first place? And what had I spent it on?

“Drink,” I told her. “Drinking to forget Michael.”

Well, I was hardly going to tell her I’d spent it on an old sock full of crap that I’d dropped down a drain in an attempt to win him back.

All day and all night my mother raved. She’d raised a thief and a drunkard. She’d lost the respect of an elderly neighbor in the process. She’d never be able to hold her head up again.