Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
‘Has anyone heard from Bets?’ asked Doris, sitting in the centre of the salsa dancers like a queen bee with her cast propped on a chair in front of her. ‘You, Jack? Ella? Devon?’
It seemed she was now talking to Jack again, although occasionally she’d remember he was in her bad books. Thankfully the excitement of Bets going off to be on television had trumped her being the victim of dastardly Jack.
They were all sitting in the garden of The Half Moon, Jack and Devon having come to join Ella after her dance class.
Tiggy was at their feet, hoovering up stray crisp crumbs.
Jack took a quick picture of her in a beam of sunlight, sitting next to Doris’ plaster cast, and sent it to Bets with the caption: ‘Tiggy’s taken me to the pub, although she keeps refusing to get the first round in. ’
‘A couple of texts,’ said Ella.
‘How’s she getting on?’ asked Doris. ‘Or is she too fancy to talk to us mere mortals anymore? Does she say what Jeremy Quentin is like? If I were ten years younger, I’d give him a whirl.’
‘She’s getting on fine,’ said Ella. ‘I think it’s quite hard work and the hours are long.’
Jack frowned. He didn’t think Bets was getting on fine at all. Reading between the lines of her very short messages in response to his pictures of Tiggy, she was being exceptionally circumspect.
‘What’s she said?’ he asked, worry stirring in his gut. Bets was the queen of the long text and quick back and forth.
‘I thought she’d been in touch with you,’ said Ella, her eyebrows arching in surprise.
‘Only about Tiggy. I send her a little video of Tiggy every day.’ All he got was a thumbs-up and a thank you. ‘We tried to FaceTime her but she didn’t pick up.’ Of course, she might have been busy but something didn’t feel right.
‘We?’ asked Devon.
‘Me and Tiggy,’ said Jack. ‘Tiggy misses Bets. She’s just about stopped growling at me in the mornings, although possibly because she knows I’m the only one feeding her at the moment. I wanted Bets to provide proof of life for Tiggy. I think she thinks I’ve buried Bets under the patio.’
Devon snorted into his beer. ‘You’re as soft as she is.’
‘Oh, and you aren’t?’ sniped Jack, irritated that no one was taking him seriously.
Ella laughed and said with obvious feeling, ‘Yes, he is.’
The conversation picked up and flowed on but Jack couldn’t leave his concern alone. While everyone else was occupied chatting, he lowered his voice and spoke to Ella.
‘Would you mind showing me Bets’ texts?’
Ella stared at him for a minute and then shrugged, before giving him a gentle understanding smile. ‘Sure.’
She discreetly handed her phone over and he held the handset under the table and scanned the text communication between the two women.
‘Arrived safely. Knackered going straight to bed. Speak tomorrow. xx’
‘Good luck on your first day, tomorrow. You’ll be amazing. I know it. Smash it. Love Ella x’
‘Thanks bestie. Crazy first day. Lots to learn. Doing a night shoot tomorrow. So will be very late.’
‘How was it? Did you meet anyone famous? What’s everyone like?’
‘Everyone is great. Very busy. How’s everyone back home?’
The texts continued in the same unsatisfactorily vague vein. Jack frowned.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Devon, looking over his shoulder.
He shook his head. ‘These messages. They don’t sound very much like Bets.’
‘What, you think she’s been kidnapped or something?’ scoffed Devon.
Doris, who had bat ears, interrupted them.
‘Tosh, boy. She’s too busy having fun. Not thinking of us boring old farts.
She’s left us behind. Leave the poor girl be and let her have some fun.
She deserves it.’ She gave him a beady-eyed look to make her point.
‘Now who’s going to get me another Negroni?
’ She shot Jack a piercing look and waved her empty glass. Ella jumped up and took the glass.
‘I didn’t know you drank Negronis,’ said Jack, something clicking in his brain.
‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Jack Ashcroft, but I know an awful lot about you and Bets.’ Her Groucho Marx impression made her look like a slightly mad professor.
‘The quiz. That was you.’
‘Of course it was. Thought the two of you should know what you were missing…’ She sighed. ‘Obviously I was barking up the wrong tree. Neither of you were ready then.’
Jack raised a quizzical eyebrow but he wasn’t in the mood to get into a discussion about his love life with Doris.
He rounded up Tiggy and left the pub, setting off across the green in the warm evening sunshine.
It had been another lovely summer’s day and the practice had quietened down as lots of people began to go on holiday.
He was starting to get used to his new role as nurse, even if Diane did take every opportunity to rub his nose in his demotion.
In a couple of weeks, the schools would break up and things would become even quieter.
Despite taking place at 4 a.m. – 3 p.m. in Sydney – the interview had gone exceptionally well and he was almost daring to hope he might get the job. If not, he’d soon be out of work again.
He let himself into the quiet barn, the lofty space cool after the heat outside. He helped himself to a beer from the fridge and went out through the French doors of the lounge to sit in the little patio area. Tiggy trotted out after him and sat there giving him her usual intense stare.
‘What do you think, Tigs?’ he asked, rubbing at his temple.
‘Something’s not right.’ A quick thought struck him and he opened up WhatsApp on his phone and scanned back through the messages Bets had sent him while he was away.
He smiled at some of the memories and the pictures she’d sent.
She always had a story or anecdote, always mentioned little things that had happened in that sharp way of hers.
No wonder her stand-up routine had been so good; she’d always been observant and funny, spotting the ironic, comic or absurd.
Surely being on a TV set with so many different personalities was a gift for Bets’ comic eye.
His unease was giving him a headache. She might not want to be in a relationship with him but he was still her friend and friends looked out for each other.
Suddenly, without warning, Tiggy jumped up and landed in his lap, her hefty bulk a surprise. She circled on his thighs a couple of times, her claws digging in as she tried to make herself comfortable, and then she sank onto his lap with a heavy sigh.
Jack stroked her under the chin and she lifted her head, her eyes closed in bliss.
‘I have to send a picture of this to Bets,’ he told the dog.
‘You’ve finally deigned to avail yourself of my lap.
’ Until now Tiggy had kept her distance, which was quite insulting.
She was the friendliest dog he’d ever known and would go to anyone and quite happily sit on any lap …
except his. And yes, he had taken it personally.
‘You worried about her as well, chum?’ he asked and the dog opened her eyes and studied him intensely. ‘Me, too. Me, too.’
He took an awkward selfie of him with the dog on his lap and sent it with the caption: ‘She likes me now … but only because she’s missing you.’
Almost immediately a message pinged back.
‘I miss her, too. Give her a kiss from me.’
‘What about me?’ He risked the cheeky text because he still loved her and needed her to know that, even though he knew it was hopeless. She was moving on and it looked like he could be as well.
‘You can kiss her, too, if you like. Is there a piece of cheese in your pocket? Is that why she’s sitting on your lap?’
‘That’s not cheese,’ he texted, smirking to himself.
She sent him back a couple of aubergine emojis and a laughing emoji.
‘Careful, you’ll shock my dog.’
‘YOUR dog. Don’t get too comfortable, mate.’
‘As if. So how’s it going?’
There was a long pause and three dots appeared. Then they disappeared. Then they appeared again, for several long seconds. Jack waited as patiently as he knew how. They disappeared again and then nothing.
‘You okay?’ he texted again.
‘Fine. Busy. Tired. I miss MY dog. Night, Jack.’
He put down his phone on the table.
‘What do you think, Tiggy?’ All he received in return was a quiet snore, which wasn’t very helpful.
Jack sat there thinking until the sun finally dipped below the trees on the horizon.
Bets wasn’t happy but he knew there was no way she’d let anyone know. She’d think she was letting the whole village down.