Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts (49 page)

‘No! He’ll be terrified! It’s my own fault. I was talking to Bill and he was pestering me and I told him he’d have to wait and to stop being a pain! Because I wanted to talk to Bill!’ Zoe gulped. ‘I’m a terrible mum. I put my own stupid crushes before . . .’

Megan grabbed her arm. ‘Zoe, that’s ridiculous
– you’re allowed to have friends, for God’s sake. Is this going to happen every time you meet some new bloke? It’s boundaries again. Spencer’s got to know you love him, but you can’t put up with him flouncing about for attention. You wouldn’t let Toffee howl or pee for attention, would you?’

Zoe shook her head miserably.

‘Well, then. Find him, and tell him, really calmly. Now then, Leo Graham!’ she said, changing her voice. ‘I hear there’s a Guess the Weight of the Dog competition going on, and I need a dog expert! Can you help me?’

She led Leo away towards the enormous St Bernard sitting patiently next to Natalie’s sponsorship table, and Zoe made a beeline for Rachel and her microphone, her heart threatening to force its way up her throat.

Bertie wasn’t in the kennels.

He wasn’t by the bacon sandwich stall either, or anywhere in the house.

Natalie was frantic, and she could tell Johnny was just as upset, even if he was trying to do his usual calm-in-a-crisis teacher thing. He kept telling her to stop panicking, but he was chewing his hangnails and frowning when he thought she wasn’t looking.

‘The best thing we can do is to go back down to the woods,’ he said, leading her along the side track so Megan wouldn’t spot them without Bertie. ‘It’s the last place he saw me, and he might be able to smell us.’

Natalie didn’t want to tell him that the guides she’d read warned that once Bassets got their noses down, they didn’t look up until the scent went dead, by which time they were miles away. ‘But what if he’s lost?’

‘He’s not lost, he’s just off for a run, in broad daylight, a couple of miles from his own house!’ Johnny said, putting an arm around her as they stumbled over the molehills.
‘Come on, Nat, he doesn’t
know
his new parents are here. Stop thinking he’s packed his little knapsack and run away.’

As soon as Johnny said it, Natalie couldn’t help imagining Bertie’s bewildered face as they handed him over, and she let out a racking sob.

‘Natalie, I love him too, but he’s a
dog
. . .’

‘It’s not just Bertie.’ The dog was just the final straw at the end of a long chain of miserable what-ifs. ‘It’s
everything
!’

‘What everything?’ asked Johnny.

She stared at him, unable to believe he was still pretending not to know. ‘Everything we’re not talking about! My job, our baby, your sperm tests. Everything! There’s all this going on, but you’re making me make the decisions, and I can’t stand it any more.’ She waved her hands around frantically. ‘Do we keep Bertie? Do I go back to work? Do we sign up for IVF? And you’re like, “It’s up to you, Nat.” It feels like last month I knew everything there was to know about you, and now . . . Now you’re like a stranger who won’t tell me what’s going on in his head! You lie there next to me every night, but it’s like you’re miles away.’

‘Don’t.’ Johnny started to turn his head away, but Natalie wouldn’t let him.

‘You’ve got to snap out of this, Johnny. Otherwise we might as well not bother!’ Natalie wasn’t sure where it came from, but she realised she meant it.

That jerked a reaction out of him. ‘What?’ he demanded.

‘I mean . . .’ Natalie stared at her husband, seeing him for the first time as a grown man, not the gangling sixth-former he still was in her mind’s eye. This was the man she’d promised to spend the rest of her life with – the silent, troubled man, not the hopeful teen who thought everything would work out. He’d gone for ever, after the first sperm test. Natalie wasn’t sure she knew this new Johnny.

‘I mean, I don’t know what you want any more,’ she said.

‘You don’t know what I want.’

‘No.’ She shook her head, feeling that they were standing at a junction, where one careless word could send them hurtling down the wrong path, with no way back.

This is the worst possible time to be discussing this, she thought, her nerves jangling – Bertie could be getting away, lying hurt somewhere, but if we let this conversation go bad, or if I stop him now he’s finally talking, it could end everything. Adrenalin was surging through her so hard her fingers were twitching.

Johnny stared out towards the wood, and then turned back to her. His face was grim, and scared. ‘All I’ve ever wanted is
you
,’ he said. ‘You and a family. I thought it would just happen, like us getting married, us getting jobs. I’ve been so lucky. And now I can’t give you a baby, I’m bloody petrified about what happens next. That’s why I don’t want to talk about it, all right?’

‘What did you think I was going to say?’ Natalie demanded.

‘That you wanted out,’ he said simply. ‘To find someone better. Someone richer. Someone who can let you stay off work for ever, looking after his dog and having babies and being the one thing that makes him rush home every night. Instead . . .’ He took a gulp of air. ‘Instead, I’m just an inarticulate sod
with inadequate sperm, who can’t even tell you how shit he
feels. I know you’re too kind to leave so I was thinking that . . .’ Johnny blinked. ‘That maybe I should be the one to set you free to find someone else.’

‘What?’ Now Natalie was stunned. ‘Have you gone mad? Is that what you’ve been thinking?’

He nodded, unable to speak.

‘Don’t be so bloody stupid!’ Natalie flung her arms round Johnny’s sturdy neck and stretched onto her toes to look him right in the face. Just the idea of what he’d been working out in his head, shuffling out into the cold like a penguin sacrificing itself for the rest of the nest, made her want to cry. ‘You’re all I’ve ever wanted – and if we don’t have babies, we don’t have babies, Johnny. I’m not going to leave you, and everything we’ve got, because of something we
don’t
have. That’s ridiculous.’

‘It’s too much to ask,’ he mumbled. ‘I can’t let you make that sacrifice for the rest of your life. For me.’

Natalie stared fiercely at him. Her toes ached from standing on them, but she didn’t care. ‘It’s not a sacrifice. It’s what I want. And if you’d asked me, I’d have told you that. Why didn’t you ask?’

‘It’s hard.’ Johnny’s face twisted with shame. ‘It’s just so hard to talk about. For a man.’

‘Johnny, no one has everything. We have a
lot
. And I tell you something else,’ she went on, barely knowing where the words were coming from, ‘I’m taking the rest of that sabbatical. I’m going to find out everything I possibly can about low sperm count problems and we’re going to get help. And we’re not giving Bertie back either.’

‘But what about your job?’ Johnny looked confused but relieved.

‘We’ll work something out.’ Natalie felt her whole self lift up as Johnny suddenly put his arms around her and hugged her tightly to him. ‘Now, I don’t want to sound panicky,’ she added into his ear, as he kissed her hair and neck. ‘But we’ve still got to find our dog.’

He let go at once, his face serious. ‘Right. He might have found his way out by now.’

They set off at an urgent trot towards the wood, Johnny calling Bill on his mobile as they went. The main track split into two paths, down each side of the trees, and as they approached it, Johnny pointed towards the left.

‘You head down that path and I’ll carry on along the main track. You’ve got his whistle, haven’t you?’

Natalie nodded, although Bertie hadn’t responded to it ever. Her spirits sank as she strode across the rutted ground, sweeping the undergrowth for signs of a white tail or brown ears. Branches scratched at her arms and legs, but she barely noticed.

‘Bertie! Bertie!’ she yelled in between blasts of the whistle. She could hear Johnny yelling on the other side, through the pine trees, and horrible images crowded into her mind.

Just let him be safe, she thought, as tears coursed down her face. If Bertie’s safe, then things will be OK. Johnny and I will be OK, if he just comes back.

It felt as if she’d been walking and yelling for hours when suddenly she saw a flash of white and brown in a clearing, and something clicked inside her.

‘Johnny! Over here!’ she screamed, crashing through the undergrowth. If that was Bertie he wasn’t moving, and as she got closer, Natalie’s relief curdled into horror; there was a sticky red trail of gore plastered over the snowy whiteness of his throat and muzzle.

27

Natalie didn’t know how she scrambled so fast across the bushes, but she couldn’t get to her dog fast enough.

As she got closer, she realised that he wasn’t on his own.

Bertie was lying down next to a boy, who was sobbing miserably – big chest-aching sobs that shook his small frame. His bare arms and legs were covered in scratches, and he cradled Bertie’s big head on his lap for comfort. The blood all over Bertie’s mouth and nose didn’t seem to have come from any bite on the child’s body, and the way he was hugging the dog didn’t suggest Bertie had attacked him.

Oh, my God, thought Natalie. He must have put his nose in a trap and broken it! She couldn’t imagine what sort of agony the poor creature must be in.

The Basset was lying quite still, but when he saw Natalie, his tail gave a faint wag. It wasn’t his usual sofa-thumping strength, and she wished passionately that she could have the pain instead of him.

Natalie fell to her knees next to Bertie and the little boy. She couldn’t help it; her instinct was to comfort the dog first, pressing her head close to his, and reaching out for the boy at the same time. He threw himself into her side, clinging on tight with both arms. He seemed familiar – Natalie racked her brains as to where she’d seen him before. At the kennels?

‘Is he OK? Are you OK?’ Natalie choked back her tears. Bertie! What had happened? What had this poor kid seen? ‘It’s all right, it’s all right. Shh . . .’

Johnny charged breathlessly through the undergrowth, and a few seconds later Bill came running over, with Lulu following, bouncing over the branches like a fluffy deer.

When the boy saw Bill, he started crying even harder.

‘It’s OK, Spencer,’ said Bill, kneeling down next to him. Gently, he moved Natalie aside, ostensibly so he could examine the boy, but really so Johnny could examine Bertie without Natalie seeing. ‘No need for the waterworks, chap. Are you hurt? Or just a bit scratched up?’

Johnny was leaning over the dog now, trying to shield him from Natalie’s view. ‘Don’t look, Nat,’ he said. ‘Look after Spencer.’

‘I want to see!’ she sobbed. ‘What’s wrong with him, Johnny? Should I call the vet?’ She pulled out her mobile with shaking hands.‘He’s down there now . . . Oh God, I don’t have George’s number.’

‘What happened to Bertie, Spencer?’ asked Bill, in the calm doctor voice. ‘Did you see?’

‘He chased me.’ Spencer hiccupped so hard he could barely breathe. ‘And then I fell over. And then he tried to get in my bag, and he . . . he . . .’

‘Natalie,’ Johnny began, in a serious voice. ‘You need to see this.’

‘And then he ate my sandwich!’ Spencer dissolved into tears, looked up tragically at Bill, and then vomited copiously all over him.

Johnny held up two large bacon sandwich wrappers, both smeared with the tomato sauce that was now coating Bertie’s white bib. ‘You’re going to have to teach Bertie better table manners if we’re going to keep him, Nat,’ he said gently. ‘But ten out of ten for his acting.’

Zoe’s mobile rang just after Megan had asked everyone there to look for a seven-year-old in a white ‘Ben 10’ t-shirt.

‘Are you missing a son?’ Bill asked.

Zoe could have fallen to her knees with relief. He gave her directions and she hurtled down the path to the woods, where she met Bill, Johnny, Natalie and Spencer coming out, with Lulu and a sheepish Bertie in tow.

Natalie and Johnny looked drained, and Bill was covered in vomit, all over his new shirt and jeans and suede trainers. Spencer, on the other hand, had one small splash of puke on his t-shirt.

‘Oh, my God, what happened?’ she cried.

‘Spencer. We think you’ve eaten something you shouldn’t have, don’t we?’ Bill turned his head sideways to check Spencer’s expression, and Zoe couldn’t help thinking that he was even more amazing, covered in sick. ‘Some berries, did we think they were? And you were a bit upset too.’

Spencer nodded unhappily.

‘But we’re going to get you back to the surgery and checked out,’ Bill went on, apparently unconcerned about the state of his clothes. ‘With the special vomit tester.’

Spencer’s face picked up a bit at that.

‘What did you eat?’ Zoe asked anxiously. ‘Didn’t I tell you we don’t eat things off the ground, Spencer?’ She was trying not to cry, but the sheer relief of finding him safe was making it very hard. ‘I was so worried!’

She held out her arms, and he ran into them, shoving his head under her arm with puppyish malcoordination. When they’d hugged enough for Zoe to regain control of her face, she held him a little way from her, so he could see how worried she’d been. ‘Where were you going, Spencer? What were you doing in the woods?