Chapter Twenty #3
She makes a noise that Christopher reads as fine, but not my favourite one, just as puppy number seven arrives screeching its little head off.
Thelma cleans it off and sets it right against Nessa with its siblings, along with Nash’s now-poopless puppy.
Dai still clutches his all-white puppy in his hands and Christopher is almost certain he hears Dai tell the puppy that she is now named Khloé.
Perhaps they’ll all be named after Nash’s co-stars at this rate.
‘So all this time you’ve been, what, a superfan?’ Nash needles, this time looking directly at Christopher.
‘I didn’t want to be weird!’
‘But that’s your natural state. This makes the last twenty-four hours even wilder, Calloway.’
‘What happened in the last twenty-four hours?’ Dai asks, and Thelma shrugs, eyebrows raised.
‘Never mind,’ huffs Christopher, holding out his hands for the last puppy, who seems to be slowly making an appearance, much to Nessa’s relief. Oh God, is this that bad? Worry bubbles through his body. ‘You knew I’d seen your movies,’ he says, trying to keep the whine out of his voice.
‘I just had you pegged as being a casual embarrassed viewer hiding his Netflix history, not a connoisseur of the romance genre.’
‘Well. They’re good movies,’ says Dai, coming to both of their defences.
Is Nash angry with him? Did he cross a barrier by not being upfront about exactly how much of Nash’s cinematography he’s seen (a lot) before they slept together?
Is that the sort of thing you’re supposed to disclose to an artist, because that seems like the worst possible option and biggest turn-off.
Oh no, did he not tell him because part of him knew it was a turn-off?
This is the worst possible outcome, really.
‘Can we just move past this?’ Christopher asks, trying to ignore how much it sounds like begging.
‘Not a chance.’ Nash doesn’t sound angry as much as amused. Though, Christopher still isn’t sure where the line is. Where does fun joking end and being angry at each other in the snow begin?
‘I was hoping we could be grown-ups about it.’
‘Oh, you have no idea how much worse I am going to be now,’ Nash laughs, arranging all the puppies alongside Nessa’s tummy.
‘Quiet a moment,’ barks Thelma, lifting the final puppy to her chest.
The three men crowd closer, as Thelma strokes the puppy’s soft head.
‘My hands are too stiff,’ she says handing the puppy to Christopher. The puppy is cool in his hands, a little too cool. Oh god. Does he have a puppy in trouble in his hands? A literal life in his hands?
‘You’re the baker, right? Good at kneading? She needs rubbing, firmly and quickly.’
Transferable skills, he hopes. Without another word from anyone, Christopher rubs at the puppy’s back, mirroring Thelma’s suggested movements.
Well, that’s one way to find something more important to worry about than accidentally seducing someone on false premises slash being an embarrassing superfan.
Sure, this situation with Nash is mortifying, but he might be responsible for this tiny creature taking its first ever breath. Or . . . not, as it currently seems.
Nessa raises her great, exhausted head and looks squarely in his direction.
‘I won’t let her go,’ he whispers.
The room is a held breath as he rubs and rubs, and then at the last minute does a second check of her mouth. In one sweep, his fingers pull away a thick plug of mucus-y something.
And to his delight, she takes a breath.
A deep, very alive breath.
‘Oh, thank Christ.’ He clutches the puppy against him, but not too hard, worried he might disrupt its breathing again.
Still in his hands, Thelma looks the puppy over. ‘She’s fine, the colour is coming to her.’
‘You scared the living daylights out of me, little miss,’ Christopher whispers.
As if in answer, the puppy yips and then farts.
‘I love her,’ laughs Nash. Finally, he has lost the smug-gleeful look, and instead there’s a softness. A smile, not a smirk. A look that Christopher could fall into if he wanted to. A look he wants to touch.
‘Good work, lad,’ says Thelma, patting him on the back.
Dai nods enthusiastically, but is unable to speak, his face streaming with tears. He gives Christopher a wobbly thumbs up instead.
‘Are you going to keep them all?’ asks Nash.
‘Oh no, I’m too old for that. I might keep one, just for her.’
That’ll be Khloé then, Christopher imagines.
Dai smothers his face in Nessa’s. She gently licks the tip of his nose where tears have beaded. ‘You’re such a good girl, aren’t you, my Ness? Look at all your lovely babies.’
Christopher hadn’t realised until now, but he’s still clutching the last puppy to his chest. She’s tucked her head against his Paddington Bear scarf, and her tiny pink nose is flushing with life.
A yearning rumbles in his chest, but then, perhaps it’s quite a silly idea.
After all, collies need a lot of time and energy and entertainment.
More so than his parents’ dogs Stella and Luna, even, and they’re a pair of nightmares when they’re not asleep.
This puppy in his hands is at least half collie, and depending on what the hiker’s dog was, she’s going to probably have that high energetic need.
But then, maybe that could be a good thing for him?
After all, he was thinking about bringing someone on to help out at the bakery, to take over some of the responsibilities.
Perhaps a commitment like this puppy is a step in that direction? There’s no way he can have both.
And if this whole bakery dream falls apart . . . well, he’d still have her.
Plus, he has been lonely without animal companionship. He couldn’t have a dog in London – he was in the office too often, which was strictly anti-dog. But here, he could. Here, in this new life he is shaping for himself.
When he looks up, Dai is grinning at him. ‘She’s yours if you want her. I wouldn’t dream of taking her, if you want her.’
‘She should meet her mum first,’ Christopher says, replacing her back with her siblings, mentally memorising her pattern, the pinkness of her nose, the little black patches on her forelegs. ‘But . . . yes. Please.’
Dai nods, and the deal is done, he supposes. Wow. In two months, he’ll have a puppy. That feels like a good commitment towards keeping going, to finding joy in his life. A small, brand-new bit of meaning.
‘So, what’s the plan?’ says Thelma with a clap of her hands.
‘Well, I can’t move her inside where there’s no heat. I’ll have to wait it out until the power comes on.’
‘You can’t stay in here forever.’
‘It’s fine! There’s a heater.’
Christopher thinks back to how cold Dai looked when they first turned up, and questions the efficacy of it. The room is warm now with all these warm bodies, but that’ll go soon.
‘Oh? And what are you going to do, eh? Piss in that corner, wash in the other?’
‘Well, where else am I supposed to go?’
Thelma fixes him with a stare. ‘Dai, don’t be a twmffat.’
A heavy pause follows as they size each other up.
‘Thelma, really. I can’t.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s an imposition.’
‘Not if I’ve offered.’
‘It is.’
‘Because it’s me?’ she asks with an arched brow.
‘Of course because it’s you!’ Dai says this with so much hurt that Christopher feels as if he should grab Nash and leave the two of them to their private moment. It’s been an emotional day, and everything spills out of Dai in a torrent of tears. ‘I didn’t mean to stand you up all those years ago.
I wasn’t supposed to be gone for so long.’
‘Then why did you?’ Thelma says, her short tone softened. ‘I was waiting there for you. You never came back. I felt like such a fool.’
‘Maybe . . .’ he begins, glancing from Thelma to the nest of dogs next to him. ‘Maybe we can talk about it, finally. If you’d be willing to hear me out?’
‘I might.’
‘But how are we going to get the dogs to yours?’
‘We can help,’ offers Christopher. ‘There’s space in the back of the van, and a little fold-down seat. We can pack all your bits up and the dogs and take you over to Thelma’s.’
Dai ponders this for a moment, a nervous look on his face.
‘I’ll drive really slow,’ Christopher insists.
‘Oh, he will. You can be sure of that,’ Nash says.
‘All right then,’ agrees Dai. He looks to Thelma and repeats a little softer this time, ‘All right then.’
A shared flush spreads on Dai and Thelma’s cheeks as they gather up the things ready to move the nine dogs over to her farm. For them all, it’s perhaps the start of something new. A new beginning, among a whole litter of new beginnings.