17
L owell heads back into the house and grabs a waxed jacket to follow them down into town.
Janey is glad about this. Okay, he’s a bit of a weirdo who treats her like a crazed stalker, but at least he didn’t say, oh, who cares , or, let Jack Meakin handle it (she doesn’t want to have to explain exactly how Jack Meakin would handle it) or, I’m busy right now . He just grabs his coat.
‘How did you . . . ?’
‘We were having a look at the Seagate cottages. She was in there.’
He shakes his head. ‘Must have gone looking for a quiet spot. Oh, poor Felicity. I should never have let her go to Jack’s.’
‘Why did you?’ asks Janey, curious.
He glances at her quickly. ‘It was a bad . . . ’ He checks himself, as if he doesn’t want to talk in euphemisms any more. ‘My marriage broke up, if you must know,’ he says, quite shortly. It sounds to Janey like the kind of thing a therapist would have told him to be more upfront about.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says.
‘And I had to work, and it didn’t seem fair on Felicity. She couldn’t go with . . . well, anyway. So Jack offered to take her for a bit, he’s always had a bit of a soft spot for her . . . well, I thought he had.’
He sighs.
‘The divorce, obviously,’ he says, carrying on, ‘had a terrible effect on Felicity as well as everyone else in this family. Do you think she was acting out?’
Janey frowns. ‘I think she was doing what dogs do,’ she says. ‘And I think you were very irresponsible not getting her fixed if you didn’t want this to happen.’
He sighs a little. ‘I always . . . I always thought we might have a litter from her. She’s such a beautiful dog, and wolfhound pups are worth their weight in gold.’
Janey smiles tightly. ‘Not necessarily these pups, I don’t think,’ she says. ‘Didn’t you see she was missing, on the local Facebook group?’
He looks at her with a hunted expression. ‘You’re on the local Facebook group?’ he says with some fear in his voice. To be fair, the local Facebook group has a lot to say on . . . well, pretty much everything.
‘My mum did the birth,’ says Essie unexpectedly, coming up from the garden, and Lowell looks up.
‘You did?’
Janey shrugs.
‘I thought you were an ear specialist.’
‘Turns out when you’re used to sticking your hands in awkward parts of anatomy, it starts to feel quite normal,’ says Janey, and instantly wishes she hadn’t when she sees his face.
She realises that one of the freedoms of getting older – being able to say whatever you like – isn’t always ideal.
Just because you can, it doesn’t always mean you should.
‘Well, thank you,’ he says. ‘I think.’
*
They reach the Seagate cottages. By now word has got around, and there is a small clutch of children on their way home from school, hanging about on the off-chance that they might get to see some puppies.
Jack Meakin is standing outside with a face like fizz, as if he’s somehow been denied the opportunity of having some fun drowning wee dogs.
‘Yon vet’s upstairs,’ he says. ‘Will cost you a pretty penny, aye.’
‘I thought Janey here did all the work,’ says Lowell.
‘She did!’ says Dwight, bounding down to the doorway.
‘Excuse me,’ says Ahmed as they enter, drying his hands on a towel.
‘Someone made sure the afterbirth was safe and all the puppies were healthy. You’re welcome.
’ He sees the faces of half the town, every single one of whom will need a vet at some point for something or other, and decides discretion is the better part of valour.
‘Actually, delighted to be of service, don’t worry about it,’ he mutters.
‘Now I have to get back, I have a musk rat surgery. Your pups are all fit and well, Lowell.’
‘So what do I do with them now?’ says Lowell, looking astounded.
Ahmed shrugs. ‘Some puppies make a lot of money on the open market . . . some crossbreeds are very valuable,’ he says. Then he frowns. ‘I’m not sure about wolfhounds and Westies, though. That’s more of an—’
‘Offence against God,’ chips in Jack Meakin.
Lowell blinks as if he’s having a very surprising afternoon, as indeed he is, and the entire party proceeds upstairs with the exception of Jack, who is looking, not angry, just disappointed, and rubbing his weather-cracked nose dolefully.
Dwight has clearly been unable to help himself, and is sitting down, stroking Felicity and being a lot less bullish than he normally is. Essie glances at him.
‘Must make a change from rounding up all those cattle,’ she says.
‘Aye, yeah, good one, aye,’ he says lazily, not looking at her, then turns back to Janey. ‘Can Felicity have some food?’ he says. ‘I reckon she’s absolutely hanging for a scran.’
Nobody wants to leave the puppies, but Janey finds a cereal bar in her handbag – she always has snacks in her handbag, never quite lost the habit from when the children were small. She checks it for raisins then hands it over. It vanishes into Felicity’s big hairy maw in two seconds flat.
‘I’ll get some more,’ says Janey, but Felicity has now obviously smelled Lowell approaching, very gingerly, and her tail starts thumping again. Dwight gets up as Lowell moves forward.
‘Hello, my sweet girl,’ he says, stretching out his hand. ‘What have we got here, then?’
Felicity bends her large grey head and forces Lowell to start scratching her ears.
‘Oh, my girl,’ he says quietly, and Janey can hear a slight crack in his voice. ‘Oh, my darling girl. I am so sorry. So sorry.’
But Felicity doesn’t look sad at all. She is butting his hand, then licking the squirming pups then butting his hand again. It is clear as day that she’s saying, Look! Look what I have! Look!
Lowell picks up one of the tiniest white pups and it squeaks, its tiny paws flailing. Felicity watches him, but he doesn’t take it far.
‘It’s beautiful,’ he says, stroking the velvety head with his finger. ‘It’s absolutely beautiful.’
‘I can’t believe this town is going to be terrorised by giant Westies,’ says Essie. ‘Or tiny Irish wolfhounds. Hard to say.’
‘All the nippiness and feistiness of a Westie, but in the body of a vast Irish wolfhound,’ says Dwight. ‘Nothing can possibly go wrong.’
‘It’s like the plot for a horror film,’ says Essie. ‘Maybe a kind of Jason Statham-y one.’
‘Oi!’ says Dwight at once. ‘Don’t diss on the Statham, what’s wrong with you?’
‘Be quiet, the pair of you, and make yourselves useful and get some dog food,’ says Janey.
She nearly gives them a pound coin each but restrains herself just in time; they’re grown-ups.
And she watches them go down the stairs and thinks, this is the most animated she’s seen Essie since she got here.
‘Well,’ she says, as she and Lowell are left alone with the dogs in the room.
‘Well,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘God. I don’t . . . I don’t know what I’m going to do.’
‘I wonder . . . ’ says Janey, not wanting to pry but even so. ‘Do you think your daughter would be excited to see them?’
He blinks. ‘Oh, God, yes. But I go there, normally.’
‘Where’s “there”?’
‘Galloway.’
Janey winces. Galloway is just about as far from Carso as you could possibly get. A solid eight-hour drive on very narrow roads, or about eighteen hours by public transport. She might as well be living in Canada.
‘Well, surely she’ll want to come up and . . . ’
He shrugs and Janey feels the issue is immediately closed, like a door being slammed shut. ‘Well,’ she says. ‘First things first. Where is she going to stay?’
Lowell looks concerned. ‘Will she need looking after all day?’
‘I don’t think so,’ says Janey. ‘I think dogs have been having puppies for a really long time without going into hospital or anything.’
‘Yeah, she looks absolutely fine,’ says Lowell wonderingly.
‘I know,’ says Janey. ‘After Essie I lost three pints of blood and couldn’t walk for three days.’
‘Christ,’ he says, and Janey regrets mentioning it. He is a complete stranger who probably doesn’t need the image of her gushing blood from her vagina in his head. ‘No wonder you knew what to do.’
‘Yeah, dogs definitely have it easier,’ says Janey. ‘Hey, maybe she could stay here.’
She is Googling frantically on her phone. All new dog-mums need is somewhere reasonably cosy – the house isn’t heated, but it is sheltered, and the weather is warming up outside. With plenty of blankets they should all be okay.
‘Do you think that cowboy lad would mind?’
‘Mind?’ says Janey. ‘I think he’s already choosing a pup.’
‘But what about . . . won’t they poo and stuff?’
‘Well, I regret to inform you . . . ’ says Janey, and hands him the phone. He holds out while he fishes around for his glasses, and uncovers a horn-rimmed pair in his black pocket. They suit him.
‘Let’s have a look . . . oh. Yuk.’
‘I know,’ says Janey. ‘Barely worth the glasses.’
The web page informs them that the puppies will pee and poo, and the mother will eat it, to cover up their tracks from predators.
‘I wish I didn’t know that,’ says Lowell, rubbing his rumpled face. ‘Today is proving something of a steep learning curve.’
‘Well, if we all popped in, I’m sure we could manage it.’
Lowell looked at her. ‘Seriously?’
‘Yeah – my Essie is just hanging around at the moment and we’re only next door. Dwight will be here. If you pass him some cash, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.’
‘And then what will I do with the dogs?’
‘I think,’ predicted Janey wisely, indicating the children still hanging around outside, ‘that problem might solve itself.’
*
‘This is getting ridiculous,’ says Essie. ‘And very expensive.’
‘Naw!’ says Dwight. His enthusiasm is genuinely quite appealing, Essie thinks. Today his jeans are stonewashed. Where do you even find those, never mind get them on? ‘It’s alright, I’ve got money.’
‘I thought you were being a big housing investment guru?’
He shrugs, as if slightly self-conscious that he’s been showing off. ‘Aye, whatever.’
‘Well, then, you should be watching costs like a hawk.’