Eighteen Peony – Anger
Eighteen
Peony – Anger
I bang hard on the blue wooden door and wait.
Jake finally catches up with me. ‘What are you doing?’ he pants, out of breath from chasing me along the street and up another hill.
‘I won’t have people tittle-tattling about Will,’ I say, banging on the door with my fist.
‘Who the hell is Will?’ Jake asks.
I turn and look at him, debate for about two seconds whether to answer his question, then turn back to the door. I’m about to bang on it again when it swings open and Lou stands in front of us, looking annoyed and then surprised to see us.
‘Poppy, are you feeling better?’ she asks. ‘Why are you banging on my door? Has something happened?’ She looks back at Jake, concerned. ‘Is it the children?’
‘No, Lou,’ he begins from behind me. ‘It’s —’
‘Have you told him?’ I demand, interrupting Jake. I know I’m being incredibly rude, but I have to know.
Lou looks puzzled. ‘Told him what?’
I give her a meaningful look.
‘Poppy, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Look, I have to get back inside. Suzy is about to give birth.’
Suzy? Who is Suzy?
‘It’s happening now?’ Jake asks excitedly. ‘I thought she wasn’t due yet.’
‘I didn’t think she was,’ Lou says, holding open the door for Jake and me to come in. ‘But it’s happening a few days earlier than I anticipated. Seems Basil got to work quicker than I thought.’
And who is Basil?
As Jake and Lou disappear into the house, I have no choice but to follow. I’m not sure what I’m expecting to find as I enter Lou’s pretty cottage and we walk through to her living room, but it’s certainly not a brown-and-white spaniel lying in her dog bed in the corner. Blankets and towels surround her, and she’s panting and looking very hot and bothered.
‘Have you called the vet?’ Jake asks, kneeling down next to Suzy and stroking her head.
‘Yes, but he’s up at Monkswood Farm with a cow that’s having birthing difficulties. It seems all the animals in the area want to be born on May Day! I’ve delivered litters before, though,’ Lou says calmly. ‘I know what to do. I’m prepared.’
Another dog barks from outside.
‘That’s Basil,’ Lou says, seeing me look towards the back door. ‘He’s the puppies’ father, and he knows it too! He’s been pacing the house for days, waiting – a bit like me.’
‘Ah, right.’ I look at Suzy again. ‘How long before the puppies come?’
‘Could be minutes, could be hours,’ Lou says. ‘They’ll come when Suzy’s ready. So what was it you both called round for?’
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter now,’ I say. Seeing all this going on has made my temper tantrum seem less important. I’ll speak to Lou when she has less on her plate. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ I look down at poor Suzy; she’s panting hard, and I’m sure it won’t be long before the puppies start coming.
‘You could take Basil out for me?’ Lou says. ‘Like I said, he’s completely on edge about the puppies, so a quick walk would do him good. Whether he’ll go is a different matter though.’
‘Sure, I can try.’
‘Is that wise?’ Jake asks, ‘after… I mean, are you sure you feel well enough?’
‘Oh, what happened?’ Lou asks.
‘Nothing, really, I’m fine.’
But Lou turns to Jake for an answer.
‘She almost passed out, in the supermarket,’ Jake tells her. ‘I had to practically carry her out.’
‘Oh, you poor thing.’
‘I’m absolutely fine now,’ I insist, annoyed with Jake for telling on me. ‘I feel perfectly well enough to walk Basil for you, Lou, really.’
‘Well, you know best, lovey,’ Lou says, patting my arm. She heads towards the door. ‘Just watch Suzy for me, Jake, will you? I’ll be back in a tick. This way, Poppy.’
Lou leads me through to her kitchen, where she collects a red dog lead and some plastic bags, then we hurry out through the back door so Basil can’t get in.
Basil is the elderly basset-hound I’d seen Lou with outside the fish and chip shop the first night I arrived in St Felix. He looks up at us with large, doleful, very knowing brown eyes as we enter his garden.
‘Hey, Basil, want to go walkies?’ Lou asks, brandishing the lead in front of her.
‘Woof!’ Basil bounds over to us, and Lou attaches his lead to his collar.
‘He’s no trouble on walks,’ she tells me, ‘but he’s getting on a bit, so he doesn’t need to go for miles and miles any more.’
Basil sniffs around my feet. Then he sits down in front of me and looks up in that same knowing way he had when we’d entered the garden.
‘You seem to have made quite an impression,’ Lou says. ‘He doesn’t always like strangers. Perhaps he realises.’
‘Realises what?’ I say, eyeing Basil from above. It’s not that I have any issue with dogs, or any animals for that matter. I’m just not used to them these days.
‘That you’re related to Rose. Oh, don’t you know?’ she says, clapping her hand to her forehead. ‘I assumed someone would have told you. Basil was Rose’s dog. When she was taken into hospital, I said I’d look after him. After all, I had Suzy, and they already knew each other, so it seemed the ideal solution. Then of course when Rose didn’t return…’ As if Basil knows what she’s saying, he lets out a low howl. Lou crouches down and strokes his ear. ‘I know, fella, I miss her too.’
Basil nuzzles into her hand, and Lou rubs a little harder.
‘So he’s kind of hung around ever since, haven’t you, Basil? Him and Suzy get on fine – a bit too fine, actually, which is why I’m about to deliver goodness knows how many puppies. I thought old Basil was a bit past all that kind of thing and I didn’t need to worry, but it seems there’s life in the old dog yet – eh, Basil?’
I’m sure I see Basil smile.
‘Lou! You’d best get back in here!’ Jake calls from the house. ‘I think there’s one coming.’
Lou thrusts Basil’s lead and some bags into my hand.
‘He just worries, you know,’ she says as she dashes back up the garden towards the house. ‘Jake – it’s just his way, he doesn’t mean anything by it.’
I’m not sure if she’s referring to the forthcoming puppies, or to Jake’s earlier concerns about me taking Basil out.
‘Make sure you clean up his mess,’ she instructs as she disappears into the kitchen. ‘The Parish Council fine you if you don’t!’
I close my eyes for a moment. Great .
When I open them, Basil is looking up at me, panting.
‘Come on then, you,’ I say, leading him out of Lou’s back gate. ‘Perhaps you’d be good enough to keep it to number ones, if at all possible.’
Lou is right: Basil is easy to handle on the lead. He just pootles along next to me, stopping occasionally to sniff with his big long nose at anything that interests him, and when necessary he marks his territory with a small yellow trail.
I walk him back down into the town, and along Harbour Street, with the intention of us walking along the harbour front and then up on to the cliffs or maybe the beach, depending where the tide is at the moment. It’s May so the light is still good at this time, and the earlier threatening clouds I’d thought likely to bring rain when I’d been out with Jake are dispersing.
We’ve just passed The Blue Canary bakery, all shut up for the night now it’s gone six o’clock, and we’re just about to walk past Daisy Chain when Basil suddenly pulls up.
I’m not prepared for this, and my arm is nearly yanked out of its socket as the lead tightens behind me.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask. I look at him sitting firmly on the ground. ‘Do you need to go poo-poo?’
I roll my eyes. What has my life become?
Basil just stares up at me, his big dark eyes blinking slowly.
‘Come on, Basil.’ I tug on his lead. ‘Don’t be awkward, we were getting on so well there for a while.’
But he won’t budge.
Then out of nowhere he starts howling.
Long, loud, pitiful howls that send chills right through me. He sounds a bit like a wolf deep in the middle of some dark dense forest. Except Basil is a slightly overweight elderly basset-hound, sitting on a cobbled street in a quiet Cornish seaside town – a wily old wolf he most certainly is not.
‘What’s wrong?’ I hiss at him, as a few passers-by give us odd looks. ‘Why are you doing that?’
Basil stops howling and launches himself at the flower-shop door. Then he begins frantically scratching at it.
‘Stop it!’ I tell him. ‘We’ve only just painted that! Come on.’ I pull on his lead again, but he won’t budge. He sits in front of the door, facing it.
‘Do you want to go into the shop?’ I ask him in a slightly gentler tone as I realise what might be wrong. ‘Is that it?’
Amber has already gone home, so I reach into my bag and pull out my shop key, then while Basil’s tail begins to wag very fast, I unlock the door and open it for him. He bursts in, tail still wagging, and sniffs the floor like a bloodhound.
‘She’s not here, you know,’ I tell him. ‘If you’re looking for Rose, Basil, she’s not here.’
Basil ignores my advice and continues to explore the shop. Surprisingly he knocks over very little as he pads about. Rose must have had him in here with her quite a lot; he seems to know his way about. He even goes out to the back and has a look there, so I follow him to the shop counter.
Eventually he returns, tail down, his long ears almost dragging on the floor. He looks at me in disappointment, as though it’s my fault he hasn’t found his owner hidden in the back room. Then he slowly curls up under the desk in a ball, and I wonder if that’s where Rose kept a bed for him when they were here together.
‘Oh, Basil, I’m so sorry,’ I tell him, kneeling down to stroke him. Then I remember what Lou had done and I rub his ear hard. He lifts his head and pushes his ear into my hand. ‘Aw, you like that, don’t you?’ I say.
I sit down crossed-legged under the desk, and continue to comfort him. It’s quite nice being here without all the people, and of course the flowers. The real flowers are all in the newly restored cold store out back, so there’s nothing for me to be freaked out by. It’s just me, Basil and the shop.
‘It stinks when someone dies, Basil,’ I tell him as we sit together under the wooden shop counter. ‘I know exactly how you feel.’
Basil looks up at me with his mournful eyes.
‘It must be harder for you. I guess you don’t really know what happened to Rose; one day she’s here and the next… well, you’re living with someone else.’ I pretend to give him a nudge. ‘At least you saw a bit of action living with Lou, eh, fella? That’s got to be a bonus at your time of life?’
Basil just yawns.
‘But you obviously miss my grandmother, that’s why you wanted to come back in here, somewhere you’d feel close to her. Perhaps that’s what we all long for, Basil, the chance to feel close to the person we lost. Just that one last time.’
As Basil puts his head on my lap and closes his eyes, I reach out my hand to touch the heart that’s engraved under the desk.
Rebels together forever …