Chapter 16
Nora loved her parents but they were like wasabi – best in small amounts.
It was her dad’s birthday, which meant her mum would have been cooking all day and the house would be full of their friends and neighbours.
The noise levels were already quite high when Nora got there and her arrival only added to the cacophony.
Her mother welcomed her and announced to everyone that Nora had arrived like she was the entertainment.
On some level she often felt like she was. She found her dad hiding in the garden.
‘Happy birthday, Dad.’ She threw her arms around him, and he hugged her back.
‘I am so pleased to see you. You are my most favourite person.’
Nora was suspicious. ‘Why?’
‘Because your mother, she tell me I can’t have a beer until Nora is here.’
Nora gave him a look. ‘I’ve got presents for you. They’re better than beer.’
‘Are they wine?’ he asked, looking hopeful.
Nora playfully thumped him on the arm.
‘I will love them whatever they are,’ he said, taking them from her. She hoped he was as good as his word because she’d put a lot of time and effort into the sweater vest. Her mother came outside to join them.
‘Ali, you have guests,’ scolded Una.
‘I know. That is why I am out here,’ said Ali, pulling a face.
But her mother was better practised at the art of communication using only a look, and the one she was giving them at that moment had them both bustling inside without further comment.
Ali perched on the arm of the sofa and Nora found a place to sit on the floor.
Una shooed next door’s children out of the chair so she could sit there and they joined Nora on the rug but Nora still had a good view of her dad.
First he opened her safe present. She could never go wrong with coffee.
It was like a sacred ritual in their house.
Ali nodded sagely at the coffee beans Nora had bought him and his favourite biscuits to have with his coffee.
He opened his card and passed it straight to his wife, who carefully read every word of the verse.
Nora had tried to explain that nobody really paid a lot of attention to the verses in cards but her mother didn’t agree.
‘If that was the case, then why are they there?’ her mother had argued.
Nora had learned that a well-chosen card could have her mother shedding a tear, which always meant extra Brownie points for Nora.
She was torn between watching her mother read the card and her father opening his next present.
Ali completed his task first. ‘What do we have here?’ he asked, as he carefully removed the woollen item from its wrapping paper. He held it up and studied it. His expression seemed to be still asking the same question. He looked around the garment to Nora for an explanation.
‘It’s a sweater vest. A tank top. It’s like a jumper but without any sleeves,’ she said. The many faces in the room looked at her blankly. ‘You can wear it over another top like a shirt.’
‘OK,’ said her dad. She could see he was trying hard to be positive about it.
‘I made it. I knitted it all myself.’ She wobbled her head. ‘With a bit of help from a friend but mainly I did it on my own. It’s the first thing I’ve ever knitted,’ she said to the assembled faces. ‘Try it on, Dad.’
Her dad’s expression changed to one of utter pride.
He got his head and arms in all right but then it ground to a halt.
Perhaps Nora had misjudged the sizing. ‘Give it a tug,’ suggested Lilian-from-next-door, who was sitting next to her father.
She helpfully pulled the garment down. While the intention was to pull it down, it first needed to go over Ali’s rotund middle section – something Nora hadn’t accounted for.
He had embraced life in Melton Mowbray and was a regular at Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe.
She could see her dad was holding his breath.
He looked like he was wearing a knitted corset and she feared for the sweater vest when he finally breathed again.
There was a tear on her mother’s cheek but Nora didn’t know if it was from the card or the state of her daughter’s knitting.
The rest of the evening was filled with chatting, laughter and many cups of coffee once they had managed to wrestle Ali out of his sweater vest without doing him or the top any permanent damage.
Nora’s phone pinged with a text from Liam and she was about to read it when her mum flicked the light switch and plunged them all into darkness.
Nora would have to read it later. Una carried in a cake with a single candle on top and started a round of a traditional Bosnian birthday song that only she, Ali and a couple of others there knew, so everyone else just sang happy birthday.
Ali blew out his single candle and everyone clapped.
Nora had a quick look at her phone.
Hey how’s it going?
It was a good sign that Liam was messaging her unprompted. She fired back a quick reply.
Visiting my parents. How about you?
Slices of cake were passed around and Nora had just taken a large bite of her piece when her mother asked the dreaded question. ‘So, Nora, how is the husband-hunting going?’
Everyone stopped to listen. It was like those moments in werewolf films when the stranger walks into the busy local pub and it goes completely quiet, only here there was cake and no mythical beasts.
It was made worse by the fact that Nora needed to speedily finish her mouthful of cake before she could answer.
There was a nanosecond where she considered revealing the 37 per cent rule but she dismissed it.
Her parents would likely not understand but, more importantly, Nora did not want to reveal to them just how many boyfriends there had been.
She slapped on a smile, then worried that she might have chocolate cake on her teeth and stopped. ‘I’m not husband-hunting, Mum, and you know that. I’m fine as I am.’
‘Alone?’ said her mother.
‘But I’m not alone because I have Oliver.’
‘Is that the praying mantis?’ asked Lilian-from-next-door.
‘Yes,’ said Una with a sorrowful shake of her head. ‘What message does that give to a man? I’m going to gobble you up.’
‘It gives no kind of gobble message to anyone.’ Nora blinked a few times due to the horror of finding herself repeating ‘gobble’ in a sentence to her mother. ‘And Oliver is a chameleon.’
‘It’s the same thing,’ whispered Una to Lilian, as she indicated swirling eyes.
‘No, it’s not. He’s not.’
‘He’s also not a man though, is he?’ said Una.
‘Dad, help me out here,’ said Nora, but Ali was suddenly fascinated with his sweater vest and was either trying it on for a second time or was trying to hide inside it.
*
Jay decided he was going to take the bodybuilding plan seriously.
Perhaps with a beefier physique he would have more leading-man potential, and it could only help when it came to impressing women.
Muscly legs would also be a bonus for climbing.
And there was the other incentive – he might actually be able to manage his dog.
According to the dog behaviour gurus on the internet, proper exercise seemed to be the answer to all of their problems. A tired dog was a happy one and apparently less likely to pull when on the lead and more likely to respond to commands. Jay was up for giving it a try.
A short drive brought him to a farm and for a small fee Jay had been shown to a huge empty paddock.
Armed with treats, which he had let Bruce sample, he took a deep breath and let Bruce off the lead.
Bruce raced off and in between sniffing he bounded about.
Jay decided to see if he could get Bruce to come back on command.
He got out the treat and called his name.
Bruce stopped sniffing whatever he was sniffing and looked in Jay’s direction – progress indeed.
Jay waved the treat and called him again.
Bruce began trotting towards him and Jay felt like the dog whisperer.
But it was short-lived. Something caught the dog’s eye, or nose, and he raced off to the left.
Jay wasn’t worried because this was a fully enclosed space.
Apparently Bruce hadn’t read that part because in a stride and a scramble he cleared the fence and was gone.
‘Shitting hell,’ said Jay, breaking into a sprint.
Jay ran around the farm, looking and calling for Bruce.
He was also keen to find the man who had eagerly taken his money because his secure field was no such thing.
He saw someone near some stables, quite a way from the dog area.
By now Jay had a stitch, which was making him walk like that time he’d worn high heels on stage in a production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
He waved as he got closer and the man waved back.
Jay’s waving became frenzied and with a frown the chap came over.
‘You’re not meant to leave them on their own,’ he said.
Jay took a moment to catch his breath. ‘I didn’t. He left me. Over your secure perimeter.’
The man seemed astonished. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, why else would I be looking for my dog? He could be anywhere.’
‘Don’t worry. We’ll find him.’
After another twenty minutes of searching, Jay was frantic and losing hope. They found themselves back at the secure dog-walking area. ‘Did you actually see him escape?’ asked the man.
‘Well, obviously I did. I was watching him when he …’ But Jay didn’t finish the sentence because the man was pointing into the middle of the paddock where Bruce was lying down, panting.
‘What the hell? He wasn’t there before. He definitely escaped.’ But the man was already walking off, shaking his head.
Great. Was there nothing Bruce wouldn’t do to make him look like an idiot?
‘Heel, Bruce,’ said Jay, getting out the treats, although he had no idea why he was rewarding his behaviour.
Bruce raced to Jay, devoured the treat in a nanosecond and ran off before Jay could grab him.
On his way past, Bruce brushed Jay’s leg.
Jay felt the sensation of something dripping down his calf.
When he looked down he could see it was a brown liquid.
It was at about the same time that he smelt it.
‘Good grief. What the actual … Bruce!’
Jay scrambled around to find a tissue to wipe the offending substance off his leg.
The dog came back to sit in front of him.
He looked happy. His tongue was lolling out of his mouth.
‘Bruce, you reek!’ Jay clipped on his lead.
Now Bruce was closer he was not only smellier but Jay could also see that his once black dog was now more black with a wet coating of brown.
From outside the area the man came striding over. Jay waited in anticipation for the moment the smell hit him. ‘Shit!’ said the man, recoiling.
‘Exactly what I think it is too. So you tell me how he’s got covered in it if he didn’t leave the secure area?’ Jay folded his arms and then remembered the poo-soaked tissue in his hand so unfolded them quickly.
‘Where on earth …’ Although the expression on the guy’s face changed to that of someone who had worked something out. ‘Oh dear. I think he’s been for a swim in our cesspit.’
Jay wanted to forget everything about the journey home and the state of his car boot.
It would be a long time before he would be putting his shopping in there.
The smell would wilt any salad. And now he had got Bruce home he had to work out how on earth he was going to get him into the bath, which was up a flight of light grey carpeted stairs. Bruce glared at his owner.
‘Don’t look at me like that. You did this. Why would you go for a swim in someone else’s poo?’ Jay couldn’t help the involuntary retch that followed the sentence. He’d been doing that all the way home, even though he’d had all the windows open.
Bruce barked his reply. There really was only one way to get him upstairs and that was for Jay to carry him.
He steeled himself and faced his poo-drenched nemesis. Bruce’s nose twitched and he looked around, sniffing the air.
‘The smell is you, mate. You absolutely honk,’ said Jay, his gut churning.
It was no good, he’d have to hold his nose.
But then how would he lift the dog? Jay took a clothes peg and attached it to his nose.
It pinched a bit but it definitely helped.
Bruce gave him a quizzical look. Now all he had to do was pick the dog up.
Jay approached the canine in the same way he had once tried to lift a barbell weight at the gym.
Legs apart and almost in a squat position.
Jay was quite pleased with his posture. Bruce backed away.
Jay waddled a couple of steps towards him, making his thighs start to burn.
‘Stay still,’ instructed Jay. Bruce dodged. This was useless.