Puppies Are For Life (10 page)

‘We’ve split up,’ Simon told them bluntly. ‘Oh, it’s only a temporary thing. Temporary until I can get a job, that is.’

The room fell strangely silent. But not for long.

‘Another job?’ Paul said. ‘What – can’t you manage on the one you’ve already got?’ He had never been in favour of Simon going into the estate agency business straight from sixth-form. Bad enough that he had showed no inclination to go to university – and that was Susannah’s fault. She had a dread of being a pushy parent and had half-convinced Paul that it was better for the children to make up their own minds about what they wanted to do – with disastrous, in Paul’s opinion, results.

But an estate agency! And that was before the property market took a dive. Things were bound to be hard right now.

Simon shook his head.
Another
job? Stupid Dad, his expression was clearly saying.

‘Well, a lot of people are moonlighting these days,’ Paul defended himself.

‘And jolly good luck to them!’ was Simon’s bitter reply. ‘I can’t find even one job, let alone two.’

‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this,’ Susannah said from her chair. ‘First Katy. Now you. Oh, I know the circumstances are different, but heavens, even so … both of you!’ As well as Harvey Webb.

Unemployment. It was as though a plague had crept into the house. They had been hearing about it for a long time now – people had succumbed to it in droves – but so far it hadn’t afflicted them.

‘That’s rotten luck, son,’ Paul said eventually, and Simon couldn’t bear to look at his father; he was sure to have an ‘I told you so’ expression on
his face. And if he hadn’t, then that was somehow worse, because he deserved it. If only he’d listened to his father …

‘Oh, Simon, I’m so sorry,’ Susannah said. She shook her head and looked bleakly down at her hands. What could one say at times like this? Especially since there was little or no chance of Simon getting a similar job elsewhere. And what else could he do that would pay him well enough to help support a small family?

‘We can’t afford to rent the flat any longer,’ Simon went on, ‘not on Natalie’s money alone. Oh, I know I can claim benefit or something, but – well – we were finding things a bit tight as it was. Even though we could save on a childminder with me at home, it’s not going to be anything like enough to make much difference. So we thought about it long and hard, and in the end we decided there was only one thing for it. We would have to go our separate ways for a while and pull in our horns and save. So Natalie’s gone to stay with a friend.’

‘And I suppose the friend couldn’t take you all?’

‘No, she hasn’t the room.’ Simon cast an agonised glance around at his family. ‘You see, I really didn’t have much choice. And it makes sense for me to have Justin with Natalie still in work; I’m the one who’s going to be stuck at home all day, at least until I can find a job.’

‘And the cat?’ Susannah couldn’t help asking. ‘I suppose Natalie’s friend wasn’t willing to take on the cat?’

‘Oh, she would have done,’ Simon reassured her. ‘Only she’s allergic to them.’

‘But Simon –’ Susannah spread her hands –‘we’re not geared up to a cat here. They like to have their freedom. Windy Ridge was fine for old Tammy before she snuffed it, but how will this one come and go? We can’t keep opening the door to let it in and out. We can’t even have a window open for it at this time of year.’

‘Oh, Mum,’ Katy said, ‘don’t make such a fuss. Dad can always make a cat flap in the back door.’

‘Yes – I suppose that’s a possibility …’

‘You must be joking,’ Paul cut in. ‘That door’s the original one; you won’t catch me making holes in it. Nor in the front one,’ he added quickly, seeing Katy about to suggest it.

Simon put his hands over his ears. ‘All right, all right. You don’t have to make a song and dance about it. Gazza’s quite used to using a dirt tray. I’ve brought all that stuff with me.’

‘And where do you propose to put a dirt tray?’ Susannah wanted to know. ‘In my kitchen, I suppose, where I’ll be putting my foot in it every five minutes.’

‘Oh, Mum, don’t be like this!’ Simon sent his mother the pleading look that had got him sweets and biscuits when he was half the size he was now. ‘What could I do but bring him with me? Kittens are like puppies, you know; they’re not just for Christmas. You wouldn’t like me to take him for a
drive along the M4 and forget to bring him back, would you?’

‘Don’t be silly, Simon.’ Susannah shuddered in horror. His little-boy look had only worked in part. A large portion of her was filled with an overwhelming resentment: resentment that he’d taken it entirely for granted that he could dump all this on her without so much as a ‘Do you mind?’.

Simon sat back on the sofa, his face grim and sulky, as if he couldn’t fathom why his parents were making such a fuss over a small kitten when he had a mountain of problems a mile high on his shoulders. He stood up, banging his head on a beam and not improving his expression. ‘Talking of dirt trays,’ he muttered, rubbing a growing lump, ‘I’d better go and set it up before Gazza needs to use it.’

‘I think he’s left it a bit too late for that,’ Katy said with a giggle when he had gone.

Susannah followed her gaze. The kitten had taken itself off to a corner of the room where a large rubber plant stood in a ceramic pot. There, perched over a hole he’d just dug, Gazza blinked blithely back at them.

‘That was really yummy,’ Katy pronounced next day, having crammed the last crumbs of chocolate cake into her mouth. She licked her fingers one by one and wiped them on her dressing-gown. ‘Can you make another one, Mum?’

‘If I can find the time.’ Susannah sighed, tipping a laundry basket out on to the kitchen table and wondering how she was going to get so much stuff dry on a foul wet Sunday in November.

Where on earth had it all come from, she had wondered earlier, finding sleeves and trouser-legs cascading over the edge of the bathroom storage stool so that the lid would no longer lie down to make a seat. Then she had realised: Katy and Simon must have brought some washing with them. Dear souls.

‘Tell them to do it themselves,’ was Paul’s suggestion when he found her clucking over it. But she knew
that
would never work. She had tried that in the past, and had thought better of it when she came home one day to find Katy’s favourite blouse – and absolutely nothing else – enjoying a long
leisurely programme in a machine full of sudsy water. Another time she had opened the door of the airing cupboard to discover Simon’s soggy contribution draped all over her dry things.

‘Aren’t you going to get dressed today?’ Susannah asked Katy now as she began to make a row of unmatched socks on the clothes horse.

Katy had pulled the colour supplement towards her when she finished her slice of cake, and was absorbed in it. ‘Mmm, I will later,’ she said, not looking up.

‘And aren’t you going to have something proper for breakfast today? Chocolate cake is hardly suitable. Why don’t you have some toast? And an egg?’ Susannah tried not to stare at the hollows at the base of Katy’s pale little neck. She had hardly an ounce of fat on her, and if Susannah hadn’t witnessed how quickly the cake was disappearing, she might have seriously considered the possibility of her daughter being anorexic. Or bulimic. Or both.

‘Heavens,’ she went on, receiving no response, ‘I dread to think what you’ve been feeding yourself on while you’ve been living away from home. What did you and Andrea use to do about food?’

‘Oh –’ Katy looked vague – ‘we used to manage all right. Chips, and – and pizzas and things.
You
know.’

‘Well, that doesn’t seem very – oh, Paul, what are you doing back so early?’

‘We haven’t got to the pub yet,’ Paul said, fishing
in the depths of a carrier bag. ‘I thought I’d get you this.’

‘What is it?’ she asked, finding her hand suddenly weighed down by a cold and solid lump.

‘Beef,’ he proudly informed her. ‘I thought Katy needed fattening up, and she used to love her Sunday roast. Well, I knew you didn’t stock this kind of thing any more, so Simon and I popped over to Salisbury’s to get it for you. They’re open on Sundays, you know.’

Susannah wished they were not.

‘How awfully jolly kind of you,’ she said. ‘But Simon doesn’t eat meat now, he was telling me only yesterday. He and Natalie –’

‘Oh, I’ll make do with vegetables, Mum. So long as there are plenty of them.’

‘Right.’ Paul looked pleased that everything was settled. ‘Well, we’ll be off then. Ready, Si? Back about half past one.’

‘Well, that was really delicious,’ Paul said, throwing his napkin aside. ‘It was well worth waiting for.’

Everyone agreed with him – especially Gazza who’d had a share – even though the meal hadn’t made it on to the table until the early part of the evening.

‘Well. I’m glad you all enjoyed it,’ Susannah said. ‘Now you won’t mind washing up.’

‘Just stick it in the dishwasher,’ Simon told her, yawning, and stretching.

‘What dishwasher?’

‘Uh? Where’s it gone?’

‘It wouldn’t fit in this kitchen. Anyway, with only two of us here it hardly seemed worth keeping it.’ Susannah ignored their stares. Anyone would have thought she’d sold her own grandmother. She got up from the table and went into the studio; she simply
had
to get on with her work.

‘Oh, you’re not messing about in here, are you?’ Paul complained later when the washing-up was finally finished. She had had to turn a deaf ear to the shrieks and arguments that had ensued.

‘I am
not
messing about,’ she said through clenched teeth.

‘Well, whatever you like to call it … you can do it any old time. You don’t want to be stuck in here on your own. The family’s all together again and we’re going to watch a video. Aren’t you going to join us?’

Suppressing a ‘huff’ of exasperation at the interruption Susannah tipped tesserae on to a sheet of white card. After what had seemed to her the most tiresome waste of a day, she hadn’t felt in the least bit creative when she’d finally got into the studio – the trivial duties of the day had sucked her dry of inspiration – and she had only just begun to get absorbed in her latest design when Paul barged in.

An artistic mood, she was discovering, did not automatically befall you the minute you had time to devote to your craft. Paul’s suggestion of watching a video came as a strong temptation not to bother at all, if he did but realise it. She was tired,
and drained … but this would never do.

‘I can’t, Paul. Really I can’t. I’ve got to get this table top started.’

‘But … you can do that any time, surely?’

‘Actually, I can’t.’ She drew a long breath. ‘I’ve got someone coming to see my work. Tomorrow, in fact.’ Though as she spoke she wondered whether she had dreamed Harvey’s phone call after all. ‘And if I don’t get a move on with this there’ll be nothing for them to see.’

She looked up in time to read astonishment on her husband’s face, and the small glow of triumph that flared inside her was soon extinguished by guilt; it seemed wrong to feel so good inside when Paul was so clearly dismayed.

His mouth had been working loosely. ‘Who?’ he finally came out with. ‘Who have you got coming to see you?’

‘Just someone from the village. They’re newcomers like us, I think.’

‘They?’

‘Well, he. I mean they both are, he and his wife – newcomers, I mean. But he’s the one that’s interested.’

‘Oh, he is, is he?’

‘Interested in mosaics,’ she stressed.

‘Sounds a right poofty type to me.’ He frowned. ‘Do you think I’d better be here? I could take the afternoon off if you –’

‘Oh, don’t be so damned ridiculous!’ she snorted. Then, remembering how she had once
thought Harvey Webb might not be thoroughly honourable, she added, ‘The children are here, anyway. I’m sure I’ll be perfectly safe.’

‘Well, all right, if that’s the way you want it. So –’ Paul moved round the table to study her design with the air of one who knew about such things – ‘he’s commissioned this wonderful table, has he?’

‘Well, no, not exactly. He just wanted to have a look at the sort of thing I do. Maybe, if he likes what he sees, then he might decide to commission something. That would be really wonderful, wouldn’t it? Now do you think I could have a bit of peace, Paul? I’m finding it hard to concentrate.’

‘OK.’ Paul backed away with hands held up in surrender. ‘But if you ask me, you’ve enough on your plate with the family right now, and … good lord, what on earth’s that dreadful noise?’

As they were talking they had been partly aware of an arc of light piercing the flimsy blind and sweeping all round the room. Now they realised that a car had come up their drive, its engine revving hard.

‘There’s a damned great van outside,’ Paul growled, having twitched back one edge of the roller blind.

‘A caravan,’ Susannah corrected, peeping through a gap on the other side.

United against imminent invasion, they stared out into the gloom. Then they exchanged puzzled glances.

‘More visitors you haven’t told me about?’ was Paul’s caustic suggestion.

‘Well,
I
didn’t know they were coming,’ Susannah wailed. ‘And I certainly don’t want them here.’ She watched in dismay as her father’s caravan sank into a rut behind the wood-pile, never to be moved again.

Seconds later, Jan – a spry, spidery figure in black stirrup pants, despite her years, and a close-fitting black woollen sweater – climbed out of the passenger seat of the Volvo that had towed her most treasured possessions almost non-stop from the south of France, and turned to look at the cottage. She seemed to know instinctively that Paul and Susannah were watching her and she waved both arms in the air.

Susannah couldn’t hear from where she stood but she knew that Jan’s arms would have jangled with bracelets as she hailed them, and if she had not been wearing gloves a collection of large rings would have flashed in the light of the moon. Jan never went anywhere without her jewellery.

‘I don’t believe this!’ Susannah breathed. ‘What does Dad think he’s playing at? He gets me to
run his errands for him, then turns up to do them himself.’

‘Obviously thinks you aren’t capable – if that’s really why he’s come.’

Winter blew into the kitchen ahead of the new arrivals and Susannah hugged herself against the chill as she stood waiting on the doorstep. She unwound only briefly to embrace her father and step-mother, and there was no enthusiasm in her greeting.

No one seemed to notice, though; there was too much going on, what with Justin waking at the commotion and Jan and Frank’s delight on finding that both their grandchildren were at home.

‘And you’ve got another cat!’ Jan exclaimed, unable to choose between taking Justin from Simon’s arms or Gazza from his bean-bag bed. She doted on children and animals, and although she had had a number of pets over the years she had never had children of her own. She had put her career before anything else, and had not even intended to marry. Frank had been something of an after-thought, though all in all not a bad one, she often congratulated herself.

‘The cat belongs to Simon and Natalie,’ Susannah explained.

‘Ah, yes! Natalie. Where is the dear little girl?’ Jan looked round the kitchen and Susannah cringed: Jan couldn’t help but notice the sorry state the place had got into over the weekend, and although Susannah professed not to care two hoots
for Jan’s opinion on anything, she didn’t like to be thought of as a slut.

‘Oh – er – Natalie?’ Susannah repeated. ‘Yes, why hasn’t she come over, Si? I thought you said she was going to join us?’

‘I only said she might.’

‘And how’s my favourite granddaughter?’ Jan went on, having darted Simon a closer look than she’d so far spared him. ‘I thought you were up in London, Katy. The big bad city and all that. What are you doing here?’

Jan was rapidly brought up to date on the latest news. She commiserated where necessary – telling Katy about a friend who had worked in a post office and got a similar condition through banging a rubber stamp – and made all the right noises, while Frank was slowly helped over the journey with a generous glass of malt whisky.

They had crammed together in the sitting room by then but the conversation soon faltered and died; there were one or two obvious questions to be answered before they could all move on.

‘Well –’ Jan glanced round at the family in the heavy silence that followed, her gaze resting pointedly on her husband. But he merely indicated with a turn of his head that since this was all her idea she could expect no help from him. He had been persuaded to fall in with her plan on condition that they dump themselves on no one but Susannah; she was at least family, which was better than having to lose face in front of their friends.
But to expect him to have to explain everything … no, that was best left to Jan.

‘I – er –’ Jan twisted a silver bracelet. ‘We suppose you’re all wondering what we’re doing here. Well, the fact is we were wondering whether you’d mind very much if we were to camp for a while in your garden. Just for a week or two …’

‘What – camp – outdoors … in this weather?’ Paul laughed at the notion outright. ‘But this is the middle of winter.’

‘We can see that, Paul,’ Jan told him in the tone with which she used to put down her overconfident pupils, ‘but the weather is immaterial. We have power – although it would be useful if we could plug into your garage supply or something – and we therefore have plenty of heat. We can cook, and wash, and – well – everything, really. We’re thoroughly self-sufficient. As you know, we lived in the van for several months while the farmhouse was being gutted; we can very easily manage.’

‘Yes, but –’ Paul balanced an extra-large log on top of the fire – ‘that was in summer in the Dordogne …’

Ever ready with a practical view, he was doing a good job of discouraging his in-laws, Susannah decided, even if that wasn’t his intention. But she couldn’t resist a contribution of her own, for good measure. ‘And what would you do for water?’ she said. ‘We’ve found that the outside tap freezes up if we leave it on.’

‘Water … well, yes.’ Jan bit her lip. ‘That could
be a bit of a problem. Look, we know you don’t have much room, which is why we’ve decided not to impose … just as well, really, isn’t it, what with Simon and Katy back home … but maybe we could come into the cottage now and then? To do a bit of washing in your automatic, Susannah? Or to take a shower or a bath? And – well – you know. But we wouldn’t get in your way, of course. We could come in when you’re out at work.’

‘Wouldn’t you be better off on a proper site?’ was all Susannah could think of to add.

‘At this time of year? Don’t be daft.’ Paul poured more Glenfiddich into Frank’s glass and lavishly helped himself. ‘They’ll all be closed in winter, won’t they? I can’t think why you don’t book into a hotel, though, rather than camp outdoors. But I can see you’ve made up your mind, Jan, what you want to do, and far be it from me to argue. Would you like me to help you fix things up outside, Frank? Before it gets any colder?’

Jan sat back with relief. ‘Thank you, Paul, that would be lovely,’ she said on her husband’s behalf. She had thought she could count on Paul. She hadn’t expected an ecstatic welcome from Susannah, of course, and she certainly hadn’t got it, but Paul was always a perfect gentleman.

‘You still haven’t said why you’ve come,’ Katy felt compelled to point out. ‘I mean –’ she glanced doubtfully at her mother and father before confronting Jan once more – ‘you don’t often come to see us, do you?’

‘Katy …’ Paul felt uncomfortable enough at his daughter’s bald statement to rumble a parental warning. It was an accepted fact that Frank and Jan didn’t visit much, or expect to be visited in return – between them they barely marked the usual rites of passage – and everyone knew it was because Susannah wished it that way. But these things were not usually mentioned.

‘It’s OK,’ Jan was quick to assure him. ‘Katy has every right to ask. And we should have explained it all sooner.’ She looked to Frank again but he had just found something interesting at the bottom of his glass. ‘The fact is … we’ve had to give up on the farmhouse. We’ve tried – nobody knows how hard we tried – but …’ she shook her head with a kind of shudder … ‘we really had no choice. Yesterday – or was it the day before? I’ve lost track – we decided to call it a day and put it in the hands of an agent. Though if it ever gets sold, the way things are, I’ll eat my woolly hat.’

‘But why?’ Susannah was sufficiently intrigued to question her step-mother directly. ‘Why do you want to sell it? And why might it not be sold?’

Frank shrank lower into his chair; how he hated being reminded of his unbelievable failure, of his abysmal handling of the whole damned affair!

Jan looked into the fire. ‘It’s rather a long sad story. When we found the farmhouse it was just what we’d been looking for, although it needed a lot done to it, as you know. Well, we didn’t want to lose it but we hadn’t sold our house here in
England, so the only way we could be sure of getting the property was by putting our life savings into it and purchasing it like that. We could then use the money from selling the house here, which we had no doubt we would do in no time, to replenish some of our savings and pay for the renovations.’

Simon was one jump ahead. ‘But the housing market crashed and you couldn’t sell the house for ages. And when you finally did you didn’t get as much as you were expecting?’

‘Exactly. Not nearly enough by half.’ She reached up to pat Simon on the cheek. ‘Having been in the business you would know all about that, dear, wouldn’t you?

‘But that’s only part of our troubles. We’ve been taken to the cleaners by shoddy workmen since then,
and
got involved in a legal wrangle about the land. We’ve had to pay a fortune to a solicitor who could be conning us hand over fist, for all we know, because we can’t understand a word he says. And the place turned out to be more derelict than we realised, too. Oh, I could go on and on about it all night, but I won’t. Our money’s just trickled away.’

‘So,’ Paul enquired of Frank, ‘that’s why you were so hopeful of inheriting from your brother?’

‘We could have finished the building work,’ Frank growled from the depths of his chair, ‘and taken in holidaymakers to try to recoup some of our losses.’

‘Not that we fancied that idea very much,’ Jan
pointed out, ‘since we aren’t as young as we were. And to be honest it was all a big mistake anyway.’

‘A mistake?’

‘We were never truly happy there! We missed England, you see; missed it terribly. We’re both so glad to be back.’

‘The proceeds from selling Bert’s house could still solve a lot of problems, though,’ Frank said. ‘We’ve only got our pensions now; nothing to fall back on at all. No luck on that score, I suppose, Susie? You would have said by now, if there was.’

‘With – with the solicitor, you mean?’ Susannah had been dreading the question, and she hesitated while thinking what to say, but Paul took it upon himself to answer.

‘I don’t think you stand much chance of contesting the will,’ he told Frank soberly. ‘You would need to prove that your brother was incapable of rational judgement through mental illness, for example. Or you would need to have been a dependent of his, and of course you’re clearly not that. Or there would have to have been obvious errors or ambiguities in the wording of the instructions …’

He spread his hands as if to say there was little point in his going on, while Susannah sat motionless and stared at him. If he knew so much on the subject, she was wondering, then why the hell couldn’t he have told her about it, before she trudged up to London for nothing?

‘Is that what the solicitor told you?’ Frank
was asking her now point blank.

‘Er – no, not exactly.’ She saw her father exchange a knowing look with Jan, and wondered at it. Did they discuss her weaknesses and foibles in private behind her back? ‘I – er – didn’t actually get to see the solicitor after all.’

Now it was Paul’s turn to stare – at his wife: a stare that said she must be losing her marbles. ‘But you went up to town just to see him!’ he protested. He couldn’t believe what she’d said.

‘Yes, I know, but I changed my mind.’ Trying to ignore Paul she turned to her father with a pained expression. ‘Well, I couldn’t bring myself to do it, you see. Not after calling on Dora Saxby.’

‘You – you went to see that woman?’

‘Yes, on the spur of the moment. I really didn’t intend to. I don’t know why I did. Maybe I was just plain nosey. I wanted to see what she was like.

‘And I recognised her, Dad, as soon as she opened the door. She
was
that old lady we saw at the funeral; the one I thought had got left behind by another funeral party.’

‘I didn’t even notice her.’

No, Susannah reflected, Dora wasn’t the sort to invite attention. Faded and weary in her threadbare clothes, she was hardly the scarlet woman one might have expected. During their short chat over tea and biscuits, Susannah had warmed to her immensely. A more gentle, caring and selfless person would be difficult to find. Small wonder that Bert had loved her. Perhaps she could discuss
this with her father in private some time; right now she would stick to the facts.

‘Dora was very nice and invited me in. She looks after a sick old husband, and has done so for many years, which is why she never left him for Uncle Bert. She couldn’t. She’s poor, and a decent sort, and terribly unworldly in many ways; didn’t want to even think about her inheritance.

‘I think the thought of owning her own house scared her half to death. She didn’t know what to do about it. Well, to cut a long story short I persuaded her to consider letting it out or selling it, because she doesn’t want to move. She’ll need the money one day, for nursing costs and so on. I think she saw sense in the end. So after that …’

‘You couldn’t dream of going to see the solicitor,’ Jan said in full sympathy with Susannah, ‘and possibly making things more difficult for the poor old dear. I don’t think I could have done that either.’

‘
If
we can believe her story,’ was Paul’s aggrieved comment. Women could be so damned soft! ‘The “poor” woman’s story I mean, not Susannah’s. I wouldn’t put it past my hopelessly gullible wife to have –’

‘I think it’s time to sort out the caravan now, my dear,’ Jan butted in. She swiftly rose to her feet and put her hand on Frank’s shoulder, after darting glances at Susannah and Paul. Little escaped Jan’s antennae, and they had been doing overtime that evening.