Chapter 2 #2
“Oh my God,” I said. “You look—”
“Glowing?”
“Like I should not have dragged you out here at three in the morning.”
Bridge, with the help of the taxi driver, had finally finished emerging. “It’ll be good for the baby. It’s fresh air. New experiences.”
“It’s inside you. What’s it going to experience?”
“They experience all sorts of things. Sounds. Vibrations. Music.”
“Pollution,” I suggested. “Petrol fumes.”
“They’re going to grow up in London. They’ll have to get used to it sometime.
Besides”—Bridge forgot about me for a moment and turned to the taxi driver.
“Oh, thank you so much. Have a lovely evening.” She turned back to me.
“Besides, this is important. We can’t have a repeat of your wedding. I can’t go through that again.”
“Bridge,” I said, as sternly as I could, given how profoundly in the wrong I was, “it’s just a dog. We’re getting a dog. People do it all the time, often very irresponsibly.”
Her eyes—always fairly wide—widened further. “It’s not just a dog. You’re expanding your family.”
My commitment-phobic heart pinned a note saying It’s been fun to my ribs and did its best to sneak out my arse. “On a scale of one to one,” I asked, “how helpful do you think that was?”
“Sorry. I know you get scared and think you’re an awful human being who’ll be a failure as a dog-daddy, but that little puppy is counting on you.”
I gave an actual howl. “Still not helping.”
“I’m not trying to help.” Having subtly manoeuvred herself into poking range, Bridge took full advantage and poked me. “The last time I tried to help, you didn’t get married.”
“Which was the right thing to do,” I reminded her.
“And the right thing to do now is—” She stopped, looking very briefly pained.
“Bridge?”
“It’s fine. Just a contraction.”
I stared at her in a way that tried to balance concern for her well-being with concern for how badly everyone would kill me if Bridge had a baby on a bridge.
“Tiny contraction,” she told me. “They happen. Still probably got ages before it gets serious.”
My look of concern tilted very sharply in the how badly everyone would kill me direction.
“What’s right for you and Oliver now”—Bridge got straight back on the puppy horse—“is to get a dog. An adorable little dog who will literally be killed if you don’t take him home tomorrow and love him.”
Jesus Christ. “Nobody’s killing puppies. They’ll just find him a new owner. A better owner. Who’s better.”
“And what about Oliver?” demanded Bridge, who’d started poking again now that her definitely-fine-and-not-a-problem contraction had passed. “Are you going to stand in the way of Oliver getting a puppy? Can you imagine how handsome he’d look with a puppy?”
“I’ve seen him with several puppies,” I said. “You have to interact with them before they’ll give you one. He looks fine.”
This was a lie. He looked great. He looked like a poster trying to encourage you to get a rescue dog.
“You’re going to break his heart,” declared Bridge. “And kill a puppy.”
I collapsed against the railing and covered my face with my hands. “You know, we could have done this over the phone.”
“It wouldn’t have been as effective. You’re getting that puppy, Luc, whether you like it or not.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s the exact opposite of the advice they give you about dog ownership.”
“That’s advice for normal people. This is advice for you.”
“Um,” I said. “Thanks?”
“The thing is,” Bridge went on, as relentless as a clock counting down the last few seconds of an unwanted puppy’s life, “you don’t not want a puppy.
You want a puppy. You both want a puppy.
You want a puppy so badly you didn’t get one over the pandemic so you could be sure you were getting it for the right reasons. ”
“That was mostly Oliver,” I admitted. “I’d probably have just grabbed one from the supermarket in the hope it came with a roll of Andrex.”
Bridge made a triumphant gesture. Well, her poking took on a triumphant air. Then she looked pained again. “Sorry, that was another one. Still fine.”
“Pretty sure it’s not fine, Bridge.”
“It is fine. You’re trying to change the subject.”
“I’m not trying to change the subject. You’re having an actual baby.”
“Luc.” She heaved a sigh, something I’d given her ample practice at over the years. “This is so typical of you. You’ll say anything to avoid talking about your feelings. You called me up because you were having puppy fears. This is going to remain a puppy fears conversation.”
“But,” I tried.
“I might,” she went on, determined, “maybe, be willing to concede that you and Oliver knew what you were doing about the wedding. This is different.”
“How?” I asked, plaintively. “I could be making a horrible mistake. I could be making a horrible mistake with the life of another person…creature…dog.”
“Exactly.”
I lifted my head from my hands to give her my best What the fuck? expression. “What do you mean exactly? This isn’t an exactly situation.”
“It’s exactly an exactly situation. When you were freaking out about getting married, it was because you didn’t want to get married. You’re freaking about getting a puppy because you think you’ll be a bad puppy-haver.”
“I will be a bad puppy-haver,” I pointed out. “I’m lazy, I’m selfish, I’m easily distracted, I’m feckless. I don’t even know what feck is, but I know I lack it.”
“You don’t lack feck.” Bridge paused. “Probably. I’m not sure what it is either.”
“Well, clearly it’s something people need.” I might have been spiralling. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have a word for not having it. A bad word for not having it. A word that means if you don’t have it, you shouldn’t have a dog.”
Retracting her poking finger, Bridge gave me a consoling pat instead. “Oliver’s got plenty of feck. He’s extremely feckful.”
That was true. Oliver was feck as fuck.
“And you have other qualities. You’re kind, you’re loving, you’re fun.
Puppies need fun. And most importantly, you’re prepared to learn.
People who go into things expecting to be great at them are usually the…
the worst people to be in those things. I mean, do you think I’m expecting to be a great mother? ”
“You will be a great mother.”
“I know, but I’m going to let it happen naturally. I’m not expecting it. That’s the point.”
I could no longer tell if I felt better or worse for having this conversation.
Which, to give Bridge her due, had stopped me worrying about the fact Oliver and I were supposed to pick up a puppy tomorrow.
A puppy for whose arrival Oliver had prepared in depth and I had barely prepared in shallows.
To be honest, I was probably still in the changing room.
For example, of the nine dog books Oliver had purchased, I had read the first three pages of one.
And if that was the sort of dog owner I was going to be, what did it say about my readiness for…
I mean, what hope did I have of being a good—
“Luc,” said Bridge, in a slightly strange voice.
“What?” I asked, still dwelling on my canine inadequacies and the beyond-canine-ownership inadequacies they might or might not imply.
“You know how I said I definitely wasn’t going to go into labour?”
I didn’t like where this was headed. I didn’t like it for myself because this was a horrible situation to have put your best friend in.
But, mostly, I didn’t like it for Bridge because this was a horrible situation to have been put in by your best friend.
“You’re mentioning that to reassure me it’s still the case, right? ”
“Well,” said Bridge. “Here’s the thing.”
Oh fuck.
“I think I might be going into labour.”