Puppies Are For Life (5 page)

Not that he could contemplate such a thing, of course. How would that make him look? A grown man, with responsibilities, running home to Mummy?

Not if he could help it.

‘Grief!’ Harvey muttered to himself when he finally got out of bed. His sleep-swollen eyes fell on the debris on Julia’s dressing table and followed a trail of jumble to the bathroom. He hadn’t noticed how untidy Julia was all the years he had been out working. Or if he had noticed it hadn’t bothered him. It was only now, stuck with it for most of the day, day after day, that it was really beginning to get to him.

Heaving himself from the bed he picked up a pair of red panties, two flimsy blouses, and a heap of wet towels. He dropped the clothes in a white wicker Ali Baba and hung the towels on a heated rail. He cleaned out the shower, tidied up the line of toiletries that ran almost the entire length of the bath tub, and then made the bed.

And he didn’t stop there. Fired by – well – he wasn’t sure what had brought on this aberration, he went on to clean the whole house. And when it was all in order and fit to be photographed for
Homes and Gardens
, he had a late lunch sandwich and a long, hot shower. Then he sat down at the piano in the lounge.

Mozart, he thought, his hands stiff and uncooperative; that’s what I need. Something to make me feel human again.

But he discovered that what he could hear in his head could no longer be reproduced by his fingers. Not surprising, since he hadn’t played for years. It didn’t matter though; there was no one around to listen. So he went on playing, stumbling over the cold keys and repeating his many mistakes, his thoughts drifting about with the music.

Was this real life, he asked himself: cleaning the house and strumming out tunes? Was this what soldiers dreamed of in the trenches when they were miles away at war? Did they really yearn only for their homes, for their loved ones safely about them, and all this crashing, unmitigated ordinariness? And when they were safe and sound at home did they yearn for excitement again, wishing they were back in the thick of it?

Harvey dropped the lid with a jangle and covered his eyes with his hands. Being out in the thick of things didn’t seem to be the answer either: caught up in the world of business, making money, dashing about in pursuit of an absorbing career. No. All that really gave you was an excuse for not addressing the big, burning question; you could simply tell yourself you hadn’t the time to think about it.

But now he had all the time in the world. The question stood before him, and nothing would make it go away. The ultimate riddle – a riddle he
couldn’t begin to discuss with his nearest and dearest because she wouldn’t have the remotest idea what he was on about – was beginning to drive him crazy:
what the hell was this life all about?

But a loud thundering at the front door prevented him having to come up with an answer just then.

‘Yes?’ he demanded, his eyes sweeping the small band of workmen he found propping up the porch.

‘Mr Webb? We’ve come early,’ their spokesman told him with a grin. ‘Now’s not often that happens, is it? We saw yer car on the drive, so we knew someone must be in, and we thought – well, you ain’t likely to object, are yer, mate?’

‘Object? To what?’ But Harvey had spotted a blue van with writing on the side and it began to trigger his memory.

‘Object to us getting on with it,’ the ring-leader said. ‘Make a start, kind of thing. Get the gear into the house and have another look-see. Know what I mean? Then tomorrow we can get down to things bright ’n early.’

‘Oh.’ Harvey’s face fell. ‘The bathroom. Of course.’

Some time ago Julia had decided they must have the guest bathroom refitted, and he had absently agreed. At the time, when quotations and so forth had been bandied about, he hadn’t taken much notice except for the final cost. He had nodded at colour charts and samples and hadn’t thought he would be much affected by the actual work; he’d
certainly never dreamed he’d be part of the surroundings when it happened. Now he realised his privacy was about to be invaded, when all he wanted was to be left alone with his misery and the great mystery of life.

‘I suppose you’d better come in,’ he said, holding the door a little wider, and he watched in dismay as the work-party shambled past him in paint-splattered boots. Within minutes every room in the house seemed to be cluttered with copper piping, a shiny new bathroom suite stuck all over with impossible tape, ladders in three different sizes – what would they need those for? – and a stack of filthy tools. All Harvey’s work of the past four hours had gone to a ball of chalk.

But the boxes of tiles Julia had selected for the walls were too much to stomach.

‘Oh no,’ he said, taking one between his fingers as though it stank, ‘definitely, absolutely, and most decidedly not. This lot can go straight back where they came from.’

And then he had an idea.

The green hold-all with tan leather trim bumped against Frank’s thigh as he walked towards the boarding gate. It bulged so much with goodies for Jan and himself that it made him tilt as though drunk. His arm muscles were strained and he was panting heavily. He was getting too old for globe-trotting, he decided. But at least this was the only luggage he had to worry about. He wouldn’t have to hang about the airport waiting for suitcases to be disgorged; he could get straight off home to Jan.

Lord, what a wasted trip! And how was he going to break the news? It was the last thing Jan would be expecting to hear from him. They had both been so sure of Bert’s money. For five short days they had blissfully assumed that all their problems were over. And now they were back to square one. Back to the nightmare that had begun almost as soon as they had left England and was still going strong.

Frank sighed as the crowd slowed to a crawl. No amount of goodies would ease the pain for his wife. Poor Jan. She had always been such a help to him – even before Rose died. A kind-hearted colleague
whom he’d respected and grown to love. She didn’t deserve all this.

He handed over his boarding pass, tender warmth flooding his hard old heart. Dear Jan. What would he have done without her?

Simon sat in his car, staring up at the converted house. On the outskirts of Bristol and less than a mile from the one he and Natalie had lived in, it looked almost identical: Edwardian, three floors under a grey slate roof; run-down and generally uncared for.

He bounded up the path.

‘I told you not to come here,’ were Natalie’s first words. She looked furtively over her shoulder and Simon was well aware of Lara hovering in the background. But he wasn’t going to be deflected.

‘I’ve gone to a lot of trouble finding someone to keep an eye on Justin –’

‘You really shouldn’t have bothered.’

‘The least you can do is listen to me. Come outside for a walk.’ He began to pull her across the threshold and she frowned under her straight blonde fringe. Clearly Simon was determined; there was little point in arguing. ‘My shoes –’ She stumbled into them and let him lead her outside, but in the street she rounded on him.

‘You know this is utterly pointless.’

‘No it isn’t. Listen to me. First of all, you can’t just walk out on me like this. It isn’t fair. I can’t help it if I’ve been laid off.’
Let go
was how it had been
put to him. As if they were doing him a favour!

‘I haven’t walked out on you, Simon. Not permanently, anyway.’

‘What? Well, what’s this all about then? I really don’t understand. We should be facing our problems together, not split up like this.’

‘We need some time on our own. Some space to think things through. Face it, Simon. Things hadn’t been going right, had they? Not since …’ She looked down the street. Words seemed to have become too painful for her. It was as if she couldn’t bear to talk about Justin and the way his coming into their lives had changed things. Unlike Simon she had never been able to accept the unplanned pregnancy, and when Justin finally arrived had regarded the bundle in her arms as one might an unexploded bomb. Nurses had attributed her fits of weeping to the baby blues, but although they had subsided, little else had improved since then.

Natalie turned to Simon, biting her lip, her anorak flaring in the wind behind her. ‘You can claim benefits, you know. And you could get a room somewhere. Oh, you’ve got a brain in your head, haven’t you? I’m sure you’ll manage all right.’

Simon snorted in incredulity. That she could wash her hands of him he could maybe come to terms with, but to be parted willingly from her child … well, it still boggled the mind.

‘Oh, Natalie …’ He groaned. He stepped towards
her, his eyes moist, his hands slipping inside her coat.

‘No, Simon.’ Her voice was cold. ‘Don’t. And don’t come to Lara’s flat again. She’s not happy about it. Phone me at work if you must, and we’ll meet up, somewhere, sometime. You can bring Justin with you, if you like,’ she added grudgingly, and with that she ducked into a path that led to the back of the house and disappeared from view.

Simon was left on the pavement with a heavy heart – and a fearful one. Bring Justin with you
if you like?
And
Lara
isn’t happy? This Lara obviously meant more to Natalie than anyone else did. He spent the rest of the evening wondering why.

‘Got rid of him already?’ Lara smiled approvingly. ‘It didn’t take you long.’

‘Yes.’ Natalie’s smile was less strong. Pleasing Lara brought a glow of pleasure … but it was hardly enough to banish her doubts. She wasn’t sure about the course she was taking, in spite of her bravado in front of Simon. Was she really a wicked mother? Or was Lara right about leaving Justin with Si? It didn’t seem right to have to support a man, but … oh, she didn’t know. She was tired of thinking about it all. So horribly, desperately tired. And it made life that much easier, falling in with Lara.

But heaven knew what Simon’s parents would think of her when they found out what was going on. They would certainly not approve, neither
would they understand. Hell. She really didn’t want to fall in their estimation – any more, that is, than her inept handling of Justin must have lowered her already. Oh, she’d noticed how Susannah looked at her, as if she was doing everything wrong. Not that she said anything of course – never interfered. She could just feel it.

Really, the Hardings were much better parents than her own; she quite liked them. They had been good to her and Simon, giving them money and helping out. She wouldn’t want them upset.

Oh, but she really couldn’t think about them either. She had too much else to consider. And all she wanted to do, really, was sleep.

Susannah’s saw made comforting
phwitt-phwitt, phwitt-phwitt
noises as she cut up lengths of wood in her work room – or studio as she had recently begun to refer to it. It was dark outside at the moment but, during the day, light slanted through a sky-light as well as from a window at one end of the room overlooking the garden, making it not only a practical place in which to work but a pleasant one. In the centre was a large wooden table with a pair of stools pushed under it, and beneath the window was a work bench and a deep square sink. Her materials were neatly ranged on shelves.

Not for her the chaotic methods of the stereotypical artist; Susannah had to have everything in perfect order before she could create – and that included the whole cottage. If a bed was unmade
or a cup unwashed it had to be dealt with first.

Susannah loved the room, her pleasure in it only slightly marred by a sense of guilt. Paul had wanted to convert this single-storey extension, which the previous owners had used as a play room, into a dining room and she had had to battle it out with him.

‘Where will we entertain?’ he’d argued, looking round at what space was available and finding it seriously lacking. Cottages were all very well, he had begun to realise, but unless you could afford three knocked into one they were a bit claustrophobic.

‘Oh, there’s enough room for a table in the alcove in the lounge,’ Susannah had pointed out with a wave of one hand. She had no patience for serving up elaborate meals, and dinner parties bored her rigid.

‘Hardly ideal.’ Paul wrinkled his beakish nose at the idea. He’d recognised, though, the determination in his wife’s eye and had eventually decided to back down.

Now, coming in from a meeting that he’d told her – over the phone when she got back from the funeral – that he wished he’d chaired himself because then it would have taken up only half the time, his face registered that same frowning displeasure.

‘You’re early,’ Susannah said, removing a length of moulded wood from the Workmate and barely glancing up at him.

‘It’s gone seven o’clock.’ He stood impatiently
watching her, his briefcase still at his side.

‘Your dinner’s in the microwave,’ she went on. ‘I’ve eaten mine already.’

‘Oh.’ His shoulders drooped as he nodded his head in unwilling acceptance of the fact, but he hung about for a bit longer, shifting from one foot to the other as though hoping circumstances might change: Susannah might drop what she was doing and decide she should head for the kitchen. She might mix him a gin and tonic, or give him a welcome-home kiss. She might stand on her head and do cartwheels … He went upstairs to get changed.

And returned less than ten minutes later wearing a polo shirt and sweater that set Susannah’s teeth on edge; Paul had about as much colour sense as a cat.

By now he was carrying his dinner plate in a cloth with one hand and a glass, knife and fork in the other. He arranged them neatly on a corner of the table before hooking one of the stools with his ankle and parking himself on top of it.

‘You don’t have to eat in here,’ Susannah told him with a little laugh. But the words had a chilly rasp to them.

‘What do you want me to do?’ he tossed back at her. ‘Drop sauce on the living-room carpet, or sit in the kitchen on my own?’

‘No –’ she shrugged carelessly – ‘I just thought that, what with all the sawdust in here and everything …’

‘Tastes like sawdust anyway,’ he grunted, cautiously licking the fork. ‘A bit more isn’t going to make much difference.’

He ate in silence for a while, pausing between mouthfuls to watch her, his head cocked on one side.

‘So what’s it going to be this time?’ he finally got around to asking.

Susannah tightened the vice a little. ‘A coffee table – eventually.’ She glanced up to find him sawing at a chunk of lasagne with apparent difficulty.

The problem seemed to be one of those dried-up corners, she noted with dismay, where the pasta pokes up through the sauce and turns to indestructible cardboard in the oven. Stainless steel cutlery was no match for it – the saw she held in her hand might be more suitable – but he managed to spear it at last and surveyed it with resignation. It sat solidly on the prongs of the fork, steaming gently, and looking about as palatable as layers of loft lagging.

And if she was meant to feel guilty about the quality of the meal that evening, she did. Pulling something from the freezer and re-heating it simply wasn’t good enough, she reminded herself, even if you had made it earlier yourself. Guilt could only be kept entirely at bay by starting a meal from scratch and creating a sink-full of dirty pots. Then you had proof that you cared.

‘What’s wrong with the table we’ve got?’ Paul
wanted to know, ploughing manfully through the meal.

‘Nothing. Nothing at all. This isn’t for us anyway.’ She hesitated before going on. ‘It’s going to have its top done in mosaics.’

‘Oh.’

Their eyes met.

‘Bringing out the big guns now, are we?’ He was trying to make a joke of it and not succeeding. ‘I mean, if you threw something that size at me …’

Damn! She’d splintered the wood. ‘That could always be arranged,’ she growled.

He grinned at her crookedly. Then suddenly pushing the plate to one side he went over to where she was working.

‘Here, hadn’t I better do that?’ He jerked back the sleeves of his sweater to reveal the hairy backs of his wrists.

It was some seconds before she realised what he was about. ‘What? No, no, of course not,’ she protested. But she was practically having to elbow him out of the way. Or was he elbowing her? A ridiculous little scuffle ensued during which she grew increasingly cross. ‘Look, I did do woodwork at evening class, you know.’

‘Yes, I know you did, but –’ he shook his head with a kind of shudder – ‘I can hardly bear to watch you. You’ve made a right little cock-up there, haven’t you?’

‘It’s nothing I can’t put right. And if you hadn’t
sat there, chewing – a-and putting me off – I’d be almost finished by now.’

‘That’s right, blame me.’ He shrugged and folded his arms. ‘You just carry on and make a pig’s ear of it; I’ll enjoy the laugh. It just doesn’t seem right, though, somehow.’

‘What doesn’t?’ She straightened up to glare at him. ‘The fact that a woman can be perfectly capable of carpentry? Really, Paul, you must try to move with the times. You sound like you’ve just stepped out of the Ark.’

‘Well, I can’t help that. I was brought up to believe certain things. In my day girls got pastry sets for Christmas and boys were given tools. You knew where you were. If someone’s since decided to move the goal posts, why should I have to change my views?’

‘Because, dear husband, you’re going to look like some kind of dinosaur if you don’t.’

Susannah stood poised with a pencil in her hand. It really was difficult to concentrate with Paul hanging round. Usually he watched television or strolled down to the pub when she was involved with the chores or whatever. Why had he chosen her to be his source of entertainment tonight?

‘You know,’ she went on, while Paul ‘helpfully’ held her ruler in the wrong place, ‘you’ve had it too easy all these years. You haven’t had to adapt. What would you have done if I’d been a fully fledged career woman? The sort you hear about these days. You know: educated up to the eyeballs; smart,
good-looking top executives; nannied children etc., etc. I don’t think you could have coped.’

‘I really don’t see why not. On the contrary, I would have liked it very much.’

‘Well, of all the bloody nerve!’ Susannah threw down the pencil.