Chapter 2
I have never been sporty.
The act of physical exertion is not something I have ever thought Gee whiz, getting out of breath and sweaty, that’s something I wish my life had more of about.
And yet … yet, here I am. Running. Running through a field. “Oh, Jesus,” I cried as I reached the crest of the hill.
“Two minutes to go, you’re doing great!” said the American-accented woman in my pocket.
“Fuck off, Brenda, or whatever your name is,” I snapped. Beside me, Kenny ran along, happily oblivious to my near death.
This was torture. But I kept going. That’s when I saw them – and what a sight they got to see in return: me in a sleeveless T-shirt and running shorts, red as a tomato, sweating profusely as I jogged (very slowly) up a hill with my dog running rings around me.
“Hi, Arden!” Rita Parkinson called out from the cab of her tractor. She swung out of the open compartment door, while her husband, John, drove. “You’re doing so well. We’ve been watching you. Remember last month, you had to stop and walk up this bit!”
As neighbours, I loved the Parkinsons. They were calm, peaceful people who looked out for you. Rita’s actions as my number one exercise fan, however, were not the best part of my day.
I waved back and then ducked through a hole in the hedge. “Kennedy, come, we’re going this way now!”
Kennedy, my rescue dog, a half Dobermann and half black Alsatian, didn’t even bother to slow down as he bounded through the hedge. He was basically a panzer tank and could have made his way through the Ardennes and into Normandy in less time than it took you to say, “Please stop humping my leg.”
I was never sure I was a dog person, but after the things that had happened over the last few months, I decided that a big beast of a guard dog was probably not the worst idea.
The only flaw in this plan was that Kennedy was more likely to lick things to death than anything else.
I’d also been against the idea of having to train a puppy and deal with their overly energetic chaos. My naturally bleeding heart had told me to try and adopt an older dog who might not be as popular as a younger one.
Kennedy was five and had a little bit of grey around his muzzle, but aside from that, he was as fit as a fiddle, and my plan to get a dog who didn’t have enough energy to run the Iditarod on a daily basis had not been picked up by him.
On the very slim plus side, this meant his need to burn energy had driven me to start running.
On the negative side, I now had a dog that was eating me out of house and home, chased the cats if I even thought about taking a day off from exercise and worst of all – did I mention this yet? – made me have to go running.
“That’s it for today. Wow, you did so well,” Becky with the good hair or whatever her name was told me from the app in my pocket.
“Piss off and die, you little bitch troll from hell!” I yelled at her but deep down I was glad I’d made my daily target. “Come on, Kenny. No, put that down. Don’t eat it! For fuck’s sake!”
I walked through my front door ten minutes later and promptly collapsed my sweaty body onto the floor of my kitchen.
Kenny licked the sweat off me. “Kenny, stop,” I said, weakly.
I knew if I didn’t tell him off, he’d start licking in some private areas, and I didn’t want to be up on a bestiality charge.
From inside my pocket, my phone began to buzz. Christ, why did people insist on calling me? Had I not given off enough of an I hate you, leave me alone vibe?
I saw the name of the person calling. It was only 9 a.m., and already my day was turning out horribly.
“Hi Ollie,” I said and rolled over onto my front, pushing Kennedy’s exploring nose from my shorts.
“Hello? Why do you sound like that?”
“I’ve been running.”
“Really?”
“Do not sound incredulous or I will hang up on you,” I warned.
“Ooh, touchy-touchy. Anyway, I’m calling to see if you’re free for lunch?”
I perked up, slightly panicked. “You’re in the neighbourhood? Or am I supposed to be in London?”
“No, I’m in Bristol. Stayed over last night after a client meeting that ran into the small hours. I’ve been up and working again since six this morning and am knackered. I’m taking the afternoon off as a quasi-long weekend.”
“Is it Friday?” I asked. I’d lost all track of time.
All I did was run and edit my latest book to the sadistic wishes of Verity, my agent, and my editor, Hortensia.
Verity would dangle news of a possible TV adaptation deal of my books in front of me whenever my mood darkened, which was, frankly, becoming a joke.
We’d had one meeting with some executives months ago and then never heard from them again.
“Yes, of course, it is. Have you been drinking?” he said.
“No.” I pushed Kennedy’s investigating nose away again and got up to open the fridge to find him some food. Mostly so he’d stop sniffing me in places I normally only let people into after the third date. “Just busy.”
“Ha. Well, anyway, I’ll be done in about an hour or so here, and then my self-declared half-day begins. How would you feel if I took the long way back to London and stopped in to see you? We could have lunch at the pub in your village.”
“Pub’s closed,” I blurted out.
“It’s not,” Ollie said.
“I live here, I think I know it’s closed.”
“Then how come it had a ‘grand reopening’ party last weekend, which was on Twitter?”
“Because the internet is fake news.”
“Come on, it’s a beautiful day. Going to be a scorcher apparently, with this heatwave. Why not spend it in the beer garden with me? I’ll pay and everything.”
“I don’t know, I’ve got loads to do.” It was a lie.
“That’s a lie. Arden Forrest has never been too busy for anything. Dropping everything to focus on something new is your preferred way to live.”
“Fine. But let’s not go to the pub, I could meet you halfway? Oh, why don’t we go to Bath? Bath’s nice and has loads of restaurants.”
“Because you don’t live in Bath, and I want to see your village.”
“No, you don’t. It’s a shithole. Right awful dump. Potholes, casual racism, horse shit all over the street. It’s feudal.”
“Can’t be worse than south London,” he said.
“I—”
“Great. I’ll be there soon. Can’t wait!” He hung up.
“He hung up on me,” I informed Kennedy, who was staring at the tin of dog food in my hand and wagging his tail in a sly if I play my cards right, there could be food manner.
“I can’t believe he hung up on me,” I told him as I forked some pieces into his bowl. Within seconds, it was out of the bowl, and he was eating it on the floor and making a mess. I sighed. “Do I want Ollie to come here? I should clean.”
Two hours later, post me showering, post Kennedy getting a bath, post the bathroom being put back together and Kennedy sulking under my bed when I tried to dry him, post the rest of the house getting a frantic cleaning (which mostly consisted of me throwing paper in cupboards), I deemed us acceptable for guests.
“Kennedy, sit still. Try and look calm and demure.”
He was parked in front of the fridge licking his bollocks. “Demure, Kenny.” I eyed the cats, who were asleep on the sofa. “Good. Stay like that. Don’t move a whisker.”
I heard a car in the driveway. Ollie, because he was a prick, drove a Jaguar. Sorry – let me expand that properly – because he was a prick with too much money, Ollie drove a Jag. A 1983 V12 XJS. It was supposedly sleek and powerful and sexy and lots of other words.
The only thing I could tell you about it was that it was a nice maroon colour.
I’d had to stand in field after field, after industrial brownfield site, after driveway on cul-de-sacs in Essex, after used car lots in Walthamstow, after motorway service centres, while Ollie searched for his dream car the year before we’d split up.
He’d always wanted a classic Jag, and he was at a time in his life when he could afford it (i.e.
no longer subsidising me), so he was going after his heart’s desire.
“Isn’t it beautiful, Ard?” he said about the car on the driveway of a particularly BNP-looking man’s house in suburban Essex one Sunday afternoon, which had also been the hottest day of the year.
“It’s a nice colour,” I offered as I fanned my T-shirt, trying not to show how it was sticking to my sweat-slicked torso.
They had gone back to discussing prices, and the man’s wife had come out and offered me a drink and told me how nice it was that I had accompanied my friend on his journey. “Making sure that it’s not a bad decision and he doesn’t get in trouble with the missus,” she’d said, giving me a wink.
“Lady, I am the missus” was what I absolutely did not say.
Instead, I laughed blithely and silently wished he’d fucking buy it or not so we could leave.
It was his money; he could do what he liked with it.
As long as it didn’t affect the week in Portugal we had booked as a holiday, he could buy a gold-plated shredder to stick ￡50 notes in.
Back in the present day, Ollie emerged from that same car.
“Hello!” he called as he got out. I hadn’t seen him in about three months.
Not since we’d run into each other at a cocktail party where my boyfr …
the person I was with had threatened to have him ejected in a coke-fuelled temper tantrum.
Previous to that, we’d had dinner in London in the weeks after I’d moved down here.
He’d asked me to come back to London, and, more importantly, take him back. I’d said no.
Let’s say, considering we had dated for five years, lived together for four-and-a-half years and been in love for somewhere in between those two amounts of time, our last few meetings had been strained.
It was his fault, I told myself. He was the one who’d slept with the twenty-two-year-old from his work. Who’d sent dick pics and lied to me and brought him to our flat to have sex with in our bed while I was away.