Chapter 23
‘Mrs Merryfield, Mrs Merryfield! They’re coming. The puppies are coming!’
Danny was hopping up and down in front of her, his eyes wide with the pure excitement that you only really saw in the under-fives. When they went to Big School, some of them gradually lost their sparkle, Gemma noticed, because a teacher had told them that they weren’t good at a particular subject. Then bang went that natural confidence, possibly for the rest of their lives.
Others became arrogant, as though to provide a protective layer between themselves and outside critics. A sudden flash of a small Joe in school uniform came into her head for some reason. Was that what had happened to him at school, or later in life, and explained his difficult manner?
If, on the other hand, you could make a child feel good at something, they took that certainty into adulthood. And that was why she loved her job so much, just as her grandmother had done before her. ‘Teachers can make the difference,’ she had told Gemma when she was growing up, ‘between a happy adult and a discontented one.’
Now, as Gemma bent down and held Danny’s hot hands in hers, she wanted to bottle his excitement and squirt it out at some adults she knew – no names mentioned! – who could do with a large dollop of imagination and spontaneity not to mention integrity.
Some people, she thought, couldn’t help distorting the truth, just like Joe had at the school social. ‘We’ve split up,’ he had kept muttering when his glamorous companion had helped him into the ambulance en route for A she’d have a word with them later.
Now Toby’s dad was explaining how long Millie, the beautiful black pointer who was sitting quietly next to Gemma, had carried her puppies for, and how they had been born. Sienna had her hand up, straining urgently. ‘Why do dogs come out in bags?’
‘Good question,’ said Toby’s dad enthusiastically. ‘It’s to keep them safe when they are being born, rather like wrapping up a fragile parcel.’
It was a great lesson which managed to roll biology, parental care and hygiene all in one. Afterwards, the questions were endless.
‘Toby’s dad! How do the puppies get out of their plastic bags when they are born?’
‘What if you don’t like them? Can you take them back to the shop? My mum does that.’
‘Why does that puppy have a funny tail?’
The last one came from Danny, who was sitting almost nose to nose with the smallest one in the litter. Gemma’s heart melted and when she looked across at Bella she could see her assistant mouthing, ‘Sweet!’
Wow, if the pair had melted Bella’s heart, they definitely must be cute!
Toby’s dad put a large gentle hand out and stroked the puppy’s back. ‘Each one of us is different in life, you see. Some of us are born with two arms and some with one.’ He glanced at Gemma to see if he was stepping out of line, but she nodded in encouragement. No doubt this would lead to more questions later, but that was why they had talks like this.
‘Pongo here has a kink, which means he might not be so valuable when the puppies are old enough to be sold. But to us he’s as special as all the others, because we love him.’
Pongo gazed up at his master with a look that clearly said ‘thank you’. Gemma felt her eyes fill with tears. This was happening more and more recently: something that was to do either with her impatient hormones, or the official letter that had arrived in the post that morning.
Toby’s dad – such a nice man! – stayed for over an hour, and was still there when the mums arrived to collect their offspring.
‘You won’t prise Danny away very easily,’ Gemma warned the quiet American woman whom she was beginning to warm to. They might only be five weeks into term but already she’d noticed that Nancy Carter Wright was much calmer. She loved it when that happened. It meant that she, Gemma, and her team were doing their job in helping not only the Puddleducks to grow, but also their parents to start letting go.
Together they looked at Danny, who was sitting now with Pongo in his lap while Toby’s dad carefully supervised. ‘He’s head over heels in love with that gorgeous puppy.’
‘Head over heels in love,’ repeated the American softly. ‘I was that once.’
Gemma glanced at the woman’s damp eyes. ‘Is there anything you’d like to talk about?’ she asked quietly.
The woman shook her head. ‘I’m going through some stuff at the moment.’
Gemma’s heart sank. Not another, after Darren’s parents? Children are resilient, she tried to tell herself, but her experience at Puddleducks had shown that wasn’t always true.
‘Let me know if I can do anything.’
The woman nodded. ‘Thanks.’
‘Mummy, Mummy!’ Danny was calling out to her. ‘Look. This is Pongo! Can we have him? Pleeeease!’ The American woman laughed, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. It was an ‘are you kidding on top of everything else that I’ve got to cope with’ laugh. Gemma had learned to recognise those, over the years. ‘Sorry, sweetheart. But a dog wouldn’t be right for us at the moment.’
Danny’s face was crestfallen. ‘Why not, Mummy? Pleease.’
Toby’s dad was talking now, softly but in an authoritative manner. ‘Puppies need someone to be at home with them all day.’
‘But my mummy is!’
‘They also need lots of care and attention.’
‘I can do that!’ Danny’s voice was getting more tearful. ‘If Daddy was home, he’d let me have a puppy.’
There was a hushed silence. ‘You know that Daddy will be home by Christmas,’ said the American woman quietly. ‘We’ll see then.’
Danny’s voice rose in a wail. ‘But Pongo might have gone to someone else then.’
‘That’s enough, Danny. Besides, someone would have to pick up his … pick up his business and we know that means nasty germs, don’t we?’
Toby’s dad shot Gemma a shocked look.
‘Come on, Danny.’ Mrs Carter Wright’s voice was rising now with impatience. ‘We need to go back now. Granny’s waiting.’
‘Hate Granny. She’s a bossy boobs.’
The American mother gave a sad smile. Poor, poor thing. ‘All things must pass,’ whispered Gemma to her. ‘It’s an old saying, but true. Difficult times don’t go on for ever.’
Danny’s mother bent her head in acknowledgement. ‘Thank you.’
‘And by the way.’ She’d almost forgotten. ‘Your mural idea. We’ve got the go-ahead from the head. So if you can organise a team of parent volunteers, we’re on!’
The woman’s face lit up. ‘That’s great. Really great.’
Whoops! Johnnie and Sienna had got their hands on the paints and were face-painting each other (‘The brush just jumped up, Miss Merryfield!’). And Bella was half-heartedly washing up the orange, blue and pink plates from elevenses so she could get to an ‘appointment’ somewhere. Gemma had a feeling that the various appointments Bella had had recently were not with the doctor or optician, as she had claimed, but were job interviews.
Maybe it would be only kind to help. ‘What’s happened to the shopkeeper?’ she teased as she bent down to collect the plastic apples and pears which had rolled on to the floor. ‘Honestly, you just can’t get service like you used to! By the way, Bella, thanks for cleaning the sink. Great lemony smell!’
Bella shot her a filthy look. ‘That’s my new perfume.’
Oh dear. Still, in this job you won some and you lost some. A bit like life, really. A memory came into Gemma’s head of the appointment she had had in town on the day that she’d accidentally reversed into Joe’s bike. That reminded her. She needed to make a phone call or two. Just to make sure that everything was still on track for Christmas.