Chapter 11
ELEVEN
The next morning, I was impressed when both Nick and Sofia turned up before breakfast to sandwich the Linzer cookies together with jam.
‘Marilise will be ever so pleased,’ said Angela, who was making breakfast. ‘Where are you going to put the number?’
My last job before going to bed last night had been to paint a large number two on a sheet of paper.
‘I thought in the window of the sitting room,’ I said. ‘Then we can take her outside on a pretext at lunchtime.’
This plan was agreed to and when lunchtime came, we sprang into action.
‘Marilise,’ said Sofia, her face wreathed with excited smiles that were a total giveaway. ‘I wanted to ask you something about one of the windows, but you can only see it from outside. Can I show you?’
Knowing something was up, Marilise smiled gently and agreed. We all trooped out of the front door and stood looking at the house.
‘It’s that one!’ said Sofia, pointing to the sitting room window where my large – and now, I could see, rather wonky – number two was displayed.
‘Oh!’ said Marilise. ‘The next part of the advent calendar! For me?’
‘Yes!’ said Sofia. ‘Come in and see your present.’
We all went back inside and showed Marilise the pile of cookies.
‘Oh, my goodness,’ she said, and swayed slightly on my arm. I quickly helped her to sit down.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, yes, more than all right, I am delighted,’ she said, brushing a tear away. ‘It is such a long time since I saw these – for a moment, I’m afraid I was overcome.’
The worried look had crept back on to Sofia’s face and I squeezed her shoulder.
‘It’s okay, that’s a good thing.’
‘Very, very good,’ said Marilise. ‘You have made me feel very happy. Maybe, after lunch, we can all share these, and I will show you some photographs I have of Christmas when I was a girl. Nick, maybe you could fetch the albums, if I tell you where they are?’
I looked at him to see what his reaction would be. Did he want to see pictures of his grandmother’s past Christmases, or would he make some excuse about a work call and vanish? But he surprised me.
‘I’d love to,’ he said, and his eyes flickered over towards me.
After lunch, we all made ourselves comfortable in the sitting room: Marilise in her chair, Greg, Angela and me on the sofa, Astrid and India perched on the window seat and Sofia flitting from chair to footstool to floor.
Nick brought in a pile of photograph albums, bound in blue silk.
He placed them on a small table next to Marilise and she picked up the first one and opened it, turning a few pages.
‘Ah, yes,’ she said, smiling. ‘This is Christmas when I was eight years old, the same as you, dearest Sofia.’ Sofia beamed. ‘We had a lot of snow that year, even more than usual, and here you see my sister, Leonore, and I wearing the beautiful outfits my mother bought for us.’
She held out the album with shaking hands and although I made to take it from her, Nick was faster.
He gazed down at the photo, then showed it round to us all.
Two little girls with pretty, mischievous faces smiled out at us through the years.
They were wearing capes with fur-lined hoods and long velvet skirts with shiny lace-up boots peeping out from underneath. India pointed at one of the children.
‘She looks like you, Sofia!’
We all leant in for a closer look and saw that she was right.
‘Let me see,’ said Marilise, and she took the album back and examined the photo closely.
When she looked up, she had tears in her eyes.
‘It is true, you are so like my darling Leonore. Beautiful girl,’ she whispered, but we did not know if she meant her sister or Sofia; maybe both.
‘Come now,’ she said, turning the page. ‘I think there is a picture of the tree… Ah, yes! Here it is, and another of us with our parents.’
Again, we looked, admiring the beautifully decorated tree with its real candles and piles of wrapped presents underneath.
‘There’s another family resemblance,’ I said, pointing to Marilise’s father.
‘And I have said that many times,’ said Marilise. ‘But now maybe you will believe me, Nikolai. Look.’
He peered at the picture and a strange look came over his face. For a moment, I wondered if he would be the next to well up, but he blinked quickly and the moment was gone.
‘He’s very handsome,’ he said, and the weak joke moved the conversation on.
We looked at the albums for another twenty minutes or so, until Greg checked his watch.
‘I’d better get going,’ he said. ‘I need the windows of this house sparkling clean if you’re going to be making them all into an advent calendar and the light fades so early these days.’
I also checked my watch and looked up at Marilise’s happy but pale face.
‘I think it’s time for your afternoon nap,’ I said. ‘Can we look at these some more later?’
She agreed readily, and I took her upstairs, along with the precious albums, which I thought she might want to look at again if she woke up early.
I went downstairs and headed straight to the kitchen, thinking that I could do some chores and take them off Angela’s list. Nick was in there, crouching down over Steve, in his habitual sleeping place.
Nick looked up at me as I came in. His face was grey and his eyes panicky: something was very wrong.
‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘Are you okay?’
He shook his head.
‘No,’ he said, his voice sounding strangulated. ‘It’s Steve, he’s not well.’
‘What’s happened?’ I asked, looking at the dog, who was lethargic – even for him – and seemed slightly cramped up.
‘I think he ate something horrible when I took him for a walk. He often picks up disgusting things, but I can usually make him drop them, or sometimes he’s sick straight away. You – you couldn’t take a look at him, could you?’
‘Well, I’m not used to dogs as patients, but I don’t mind trying.
Has he eaten or drunk anything since you got back from the walk?
’ Nick shook his head. I knelt down and reached out a hand to stroke Steve’s head.
He half opened one slightly rolled eye in response.
I stroked his body and could feel him trembling, and his heartbeat felt irregular.
I gently pushed his lips up. ‘Are his gums normally this pale?’ I asked Nick, who had gone rather pale himself.
‘No – oh, I don’t know. I don’t think so. What do you think?’
‘I think you were right. As I said, I am not a dog nurse, but it looks like poisoning. I think you should call the vet.’
As he started fumbling for his phone, Steve’s whole body contracted and then he was violently sick.
‘Have you got that number?’ I looked up at Nick, but he had frozen, shock and fear etched on his face. ‘Give me the phone,’ I said calmly. ‘And please get some kitchen towel and a small plastic box.’
The screen of the phone was lit up and Nick had already found the vet’s number, so all I had to do was press ‘call’ and in a few moments I was speaking to a kind man at the surgery, who assured me that the vet would be with us within the hour and gave me instructions as to what to do until then.
I thanked him and hung up, then took the things I had asked for from Nick.
‘Okay, the vet will be here soon. We need to clear this up, of course, and I know it’s gross, but we should put some in that little box for the vet to see. I’m going to go and get us both some gloves.’
‘Can you give him anything to help?’
‘No. All we can do now is look after him until the vet gets here.’
I ran to get some disposable gloves, and we cleaned up. Then he was sick again, so we cleaned up again.
‘Thank you so much for helping,’ said Nick, as I mopped Steve’s face with wet paper towels. ‘I’ve never seen him this ill.’
At that moment, Angela came into the kitchen.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked, and we explained. ‘Oh, poor chap,’ she said. ‘Thank goodness he has a real nurse to look after him. You stay here and I’ll look out for Marilise this evening.’
I opened my mouth to protest, not sure that I could do more than anyone else, especially once the vet had been, but Nick was faster.
‘Thank you so much, Angela,’ he said, his voice quivering with emotion. ‘It’s such a relief to have Laura here. I-I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to Steve.’
I nodded.
‘Yes, thank you. Let’s see what the vet says.’
We didn’t speak much for the next forty-five minutes. When he heard the knock on the front door, Nick leapt up and rushed from the room, returning almost immediately with the vet.
‘What’s up, fella?’ he said and crouched down to examine him. I handed him the box so that he could inspect its contents and, after a few minutes, he stood up.
‘All right, I think what young Steve here has, is a case of acorn poisoning. Could he have ingested any this morning?’
‘Yes,’ said Nick. ‘He does sometimes pick them up, but I didn’t know they were poisonous to dogs, and I don’t think he’s ever eaten one before.’
‘First time for everything,’ said the vet cheerily. ‘The good news is that we’ve caught it fast and he’s been sick.’
Nick, back on the floor next to his dog, stroked his head.
‘There you go, boy, you’re doing well.’
Steve licked his hand feebly.
‘See, he’s picking up already,’ I said encouragingly.
‘That’s right,’ said the vet, starting to unpack various items from his bag.
‘I’m going to give him some fluids and charcoal immediately and I could take him back to the surgery with me overnight, or you can look after him here, if you prefer.
He’ll need monitoring all night and might need some more medication. ’
‘I’d rather keep him here,’ said Nick. ‘Laura is a nurse and has been amazing so far.’
The vet glanced at me, and we gave each other the faintest whisper of a smile.
‘That’s fine,’ I said. ‘I can monitor his temperature and heart. Anything else?’
‘Help me with these subcutaneous fluids now,’ said the vet. ‘You can give more in a few hours, if you’re all right with that?’