скачать книгу бесплатно
I mean, don’t get me wrong—I’m happy that it did, really I am. But at the same time it is the tiniest bit vexing when you consider that she never wanted any of this in the first place. Her sights were firmly set on becoming a top psychologist; she already had her place secured on the MA course—she hadn’t even had to apply; they’d offered it to her. She wasn’t interested in anything which could even be loosely defined as a serious relationship, let alone a husband, and children … not on her radar at all. She’d always maintained that watching her parents thrash their way through an acrimonious divorce had been enough to put her off all of that for life.
No, it was always me who wanted those things, not Heather. And yet … look at us.
“Quite, and thank you for announcing that so loudly,” she says in an arch voice. “But what I mean is, feelings often come later. In real life, instant attraction is a very rare thing. In fact, I’m not so certain it exists at all.”
“Speak for yourself,” a voice behind us says. “Although it’s good to know how you really felt about me back then. Don’t spare my feelings, will you?”
Heather twists around to roll her eyes at her husband. “All right, so instant mutual attraction doesn’t exist. And you already knew how I felt about you back then. I made no secret of it.”
“Hello, Dominic,” I chime in.
“Hello, Clara.” He smiles thinly at me, dropping his squash bag onto the floor and heading towards the fridge. “And what brings you here this evening? Something to do with men, I should imagine, from the look on my wife’s face.”
I have a sinking suspicion that Dominic thinks I’m some sort of man-eater. God only knows what Heather tells him. Either way, I don’t think it helps endear me to him.
Dominic and I have an odd, uneasy sort of understanding. We’re pleasant enough to one another but, on the whole, we try to keep our contact time to a minimum. We’ve never really got on, not since those early days at university. I know that he thinks I’m immature, that I create unnecessary drama. And he …
Well, sometimes he looks at me and I’m convinced that he knows. He knows what I thought about him all those years ago, how I tried to persuade Heather to break up with him. How I said that he’d only hold her back.
Obviously, I was wrong. I mean, if they hadn’t stayed together, they would never have had Oscar. And now here they are and … well, clearly, it was the right choice. It should all be water under the bridge. But still, I can’t help but feel that Dominic resents me for it somehow.
“She has a new admirer,” Heather pipes up, eyes shining.
“He is not an admirer!” I sit up so hastily that I only narrowly avoid sloshing wine all over my lap. “Believe me, there’s nothing even remotely …”
“She kissed him!” Heather squeals. “And then he bowed to her!”
“That is totally out of context,” I splutter, snatching her empty wineglass from her hand. “How much have you had to drink today?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she says defiantly. “I haven’t been anywhere. Except to the half-term lunch, but that doesn’t count.”
Ah, so that explains it. You’d think that a midday gathering with fellow school gate mothers would be a refined affair. Not a bit of it. By the sounds of things, they’d put most illicit teenage house parties to shame in terms of alcohol consumption.
Dominic frowns faintly at her before turning his attention to me. “He actually bowed to you, did he? How … courtly of him.”
The last sentence is uttered with a barely repressed smirk, and I resist the impulse to narrow my eyes at him.
“Haven’t you got a squash game to get to?” I say sweetly.
It has the desired effect because he jumps to attention, grabbing an iced bottle of water from the fridge and slinging his sports bag over his shoulder.
“Oh, damn. Yes, and I’m already late.” He swoops down to drop a perfunctory kiss on the top of Heather’s head. “I’ll see you later. Oscar’s fast asleep; he went straight off. I doubt you’ll hear more out of him tonight.”
Heather just flaps a hand in a vague sort of farewell.
“Now we’ve got rid of him,” she says as the sound of the front door closing echoes through the house, “do you want some dinner? Only something simple, I’m afraid, as I thought it was just going to be me.”
“I’d probably better get back to Freddie,” I say reluctantly, getting up and taking our wineglasses over to the dishwasher. “Lord only knows what he and Casper will have got up to in the time I’ve been away. They’re both as bad as each other.”
“If you’re sure,” she begins, pulling items out of the fridge. Fresh pasta. A tub of pesto. Parmesan wrapped in paper from the Italian deli down the street. “Could you look in that cupboard for pine nuts? I think I bought some last week.”
I can only stare, mesmerised, as the ingredients stack up on the island in front of me. Proper food. I think of the congealed cold pizza waiting at home in the fridge and my stomach makes the decision for me.
“On second thoughts, maybe I will stay,” I say casually. I can’t let on to Heather how long it’s been since I last had anything that wasn’t reheated. She’d probably fall into a dead faint. “They can cope for an evening on their own. After all, Freddie’s a grown man.
Supposedly. And Casper …” Here, I find myself tailing off. What do I say about Casper?
Heather’s busily toasting pine nuts in a frying pan, but she turns to me with an amused look. “Is a grown cat? Supposedly?”
“Has had his fair share of trouble for one week,” I say firmly. “Believe me, he won’t go looking for any more. He was quiet this morning. I think last night shook him a little. He’s realised that he’s not as invincible as he thought he was.” A hopeful thought strikes me. “Perhaps he’ll turn over a new leaf.”
“Hmm …” Heather prods the pine nuts with a wooden spoon, not looking wholly convinced by my logic “… I’ll believe that when I see it.”
Chapter 7 (#ulink_f583099d-e892-502e-b7d3-cd18241d222a)
I wake with a start, jerking into an upright position in bed. Darkness envelops the room, broken only by a pale lilac light creeping beneath the curtains.
Momentarily disorientated, I fumble for the bedside lamp, relieved when its warm glow chases away the shadows, revealing the familiar outline of my bedroom. Everything looks as it should be, at least. Yesterday’s dress thrown over the back of the pink velvet chair, the cream painted wardrobe hulking in the corner, the door slightly ajar as always. I bought it at an antiques centre several years ago, and it’s never closed properly. My dressing table is littered with various paraphernalia: bottles of nail polish, lipsticks, a piece of amethyst given to me by my mother, its faceted crystals gleaming in the lamplight.
I sit there for a moment, the duvet drawn up under my chin for warmth, wondering what might have woken me. Normally I sleep fairly soundly. Unless I’m having a nightmare, and usually, if I’ve had one of those, I know all about it. I wake up cold, shaking, the remnants of the dream still clinging to the edges of my mind like cobwebs.
No, I’m pretty certain that I was sleeping quite peacefully. So what …?
And then I hear it. A deafening, screeching sound fills the air, followed by yowling. It sounds like it hails from the bowels of the earth itself, but I know better than that.
Fully awake now, I throw the covers aside, heart already in my mouth. As I clatter down the stairs, knotting my kimono at my waist, I keep telling myself that I’m overreacting. That of course it’s not Casper. That I’ll open the kitchen door and he’ll be safely there, all curled up in his …
All right, so he’s not in his basket. He’s not on the windowsill either. Or on the chair. He’s nowhere to be seen.
Really, who was I trying to kid? If there’s a fight going on, he’s bound to be involved. I’ve never known him to miss one yet.
The hideous screaming sound has stopped and I waver in the middle of the room, trying to decide what to do next. Then, with a huff of resignation, I pull on my flowery wellington boots, which now live permanently next to the back door. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to take a nightly sojourn into the garden in pursuit of my errant pet. Far from it. But I know I’ll never get back to sleep until I’ve reassured myself that he’s all right.
“Casper?” I call softly, even as I do so wondering why I’m bothering. As if that cacophony hasn’t woken the whole street anyway. He certainly has a way of making me unpopular with the neighbours.
Tentatively, I venture out onto the lawn, my boots sinking into the damp grass. The first light of dawn is bleeding into the sky, washing the garden in an ethereal pink glow. Dewdrops have transformed the lawn into a shimmering carpet and the air is bitingly cold, invigorating in its sharpness. It would be stunningly beautiful, I suppose, if I weren’t too preoccupied with worry to pay it much attention.
I check half-heartedly under a few bushes, already knowing that he won’t be there. He’ll turn up when he’s good and ready, and not a moment sooner. I don’t come across his assailant either. Or – and I have to allow for this possibility – his victim. I’m not so blinded by love that I don’t know what he’s like. He’s just as likely to start a fight as he is to get drawn into one.
Giving up the search, I trudge back into the kitchen to find a tousled-looking Freddie standing there, yawning extravagantly.
“What’s going on? I got up for a glass of water and saw that the lights were on downstairs.”
And yet, somehow, the screeching and caterwauling completely passed him by. My brother would make a fascinating case for medical science. His tendency towards complete obliviousness never fails to astonish me. I swear he could sleep through the apocalypse with no trouble at all.
“I can’t find Casper,” I explain, stamping my boots on the mat to knock the excess mud off them. “He’s not in the garden.”
Freddie stares at me like I’m utterly insane. “Clara, he’s a cat. What do you expect? That he’s going to just stay in one place?”
“I know, but …” How can I explain it to him? How can I tell him how much Casper means to me? Of course, to him, it seems ridiculous. Even to my own ears it sounds it.
At that moment the cat flap rattles and Casper slinks into the kitchen, drawing up short to look askance at us both. For a cat, he has a surprisingly expressive face, and I can tell that he’s wondering what the humans are doing up at this hour.
“There you are.” Instinctively, I move towards him, the relief in my voice audible.
Certainly, he’s been in a tussle of sorts; his fur is all standing on end, his eyes bright and feverish. But he looks okay, at least. To be honest, I feel a bit foolish now, having got into such a state about it all.
“See, he’s fine.” Freddie’s already halfway through the doorway, stifling another gargantuan yawn. “Nothing to worry about. Now can we go back to bed?”
“Freddie …” I’ve drawn my hand away from Casper’s side to find it stained red. For a moment, I can only stare at it, frozen.
“What?” He turns, then blanches. “Oh, God. Is that …? What do we do?”
Casper’s leaning into me now, obviously weakening. I shake the fog from my brain, willing myself to stay focused. This is no time to panic.
“Get the cat basket out of the cupboard under the stairs, will you? We’re going to have to make a dash across town.”
***
“What were you even thinking?” I pant as we cross the market square. Rearranging my grip on the basket, which was digging painfully into my fingers, I continue. “Why must you get yourself into every fight going?”
Casper looks up at me balefully from where he’s nestled on his favourite blue blanket. I know he must be feeling bad because Freddie and I managed to get him into the basket with surprisingly little fuss. Usually, the very sight of it is enough to send him into histrionics.
I longingly watch a car trundle past. There’s no point in my owning a car here in Cambridge; in fact, very few people do. Normally, I’m quite content to get around on foot, although this morning that’s not so much the case, what with my rather unwieldy cargo.
I’m beginning to wish I’d just bitten the bullet and called a cab. I’d forgotten how heavy Casper starts to feel by the time you’ve lugged him halfway across town. Failing that, I should have let Freddie bring him.
“Besides, you’re not exactly a spring chicken any more, are you?” I point out, stopping on the corner to catch my breath. “Don’t you think you should be past all of this by now? Isn’t it time to retire to your basket and let the younger toms have it out?”
Actually, that’s probably a bit unfair. The truth is, I have no idea how old Casper is. When I first took him in, the vet estimated him to be somewhere between four and twelve.
Which is … you know, helpful.
In any event, he’s old enough to know better. But perhaps not quite at the pipe and slippers stage just yet.
He obviously feels the same because he glowers at me before turning around in his basket so that he’s facing the other way.
“Fine, be like that,” I mutter. “It was only a suggestion. Ah, here we are.”
Thank God the vet opens early, I think as I wrestle my way, cat basket in arms, through the glass doors. Inside the cool grey interior, all is calm. There are a couple of people already in the waiting room, baskets by their feet. Classical music floats through the air. Behind the curved steel desk, a receptionist taps away efficiently at her keyboard.
“Good morning,” I say, still slightly breathless. “I need to make an emergency appointment.”
She looks up, a pleasant smile on her face. Then her eyes travel down to Casper, filling with dread. “Oh, no,” she says emphatically. “Absolutely not. That cat is banned!”
I’d anticipated that we’d come up against this issue, so I’m already prepared with a response. “Look, I know he hasn’t always been the easiest of patients …”
“Easiest?” Her voice comes out as a strangled shriek. “He’s an absolute nightmare. He can’t possibly come in here.”
Casper, who’s been quietly slouched in the corner of his basket, opens one eye and emits a faint hiss. The receptionist pales, shrinking behind the counter.
“You’re not exactly helping yourself,” I murmur at him out of the corner of my mouth. “Just work with me here, all right?”
He falls silent, which I take as tacit agreement.
I turn back to the receptionist. “If you could just give him one more chance …”
“He’s already had more chances than he deserves,” she retorts. She holds up her hand, beginning to tick off her fingers, and immediately I feel a sense of foreboding.
“There’s no need—” I begin hurriedly, but it’s too late.
“First he broke the brand new scales.”
“That was an accident,” I say defensively. “He didn’t mean to do it.”
She gives me a hard stare. “He kicked them off the bench. There was nothing accidental about it.”
I notice that the other people in the waiting room are pretending very hard not to listen, but with little success. I feel heat rising beneath my skin.
“Then, of course, there was the time he escaped and ran all around the surgery.” She’s warming to her theme now. I could swear she almost seems to be enjoying herself. “We had to have half the staff pulled away from their duties to chase him around. Twenty minutes it took us to catch him, and even then we had to throw a towel over him to do so.”
“He must have panicked. No one likes to see a thermometer heading towards their rear end. Isn’t that right, Casper?” I appeal to him.
He just looks back at me disdainfully. If cats could roll their eyes, I’m certain he’d be doing so right now.
“And then, of course,” the receptionist trills, triumph colouring her voice, “the final straw was when he bit poor Stacey. She was traumatised.”
I wince. That was pretty bad. Who knew a tiny nip from a cat could produce so much blood?
“He sensed that she was nervous, that’s all,” I reply quickly, with a mollifying smile. “Inexperienced. Perhaps he took advantage a little, I’ll admit. I’m sure it happens all the time.”
She looks at me sourly. “It doesn’t.”
I feel my face fall. Wow, she’s a tough nut. I thought it would be easier than this.
“We had to sign her off with stress, you know,” she’s saying now. “It was weeks before she felt up to facing another patient on her own.”
I sense that I’m getting nowhere with this line of attack. She looks completely and utterly unmoved. If anything, she actually looks even stonier than she did when we first came in. So, flinging my pride out of the way, I resort to the only tactic still available to me: shameless pleading.
“Look …” I put Casper down on the floor, where he immediately starts terrorising a Jack Russell sitting under the nearest chair. Placing both hands flat on the counter, I look her straight in the eye. “I understand why you don’t want him in here, I do. But I haven’t had time to find him another vet just yet, and now he’s injured. I don’t know where else to take him. So will you please just see him once more? Then I promise you solemnly that I will take him far away from here, find another surgery, and we will never darken your door again.”
For the briefest of moments she looks on the verge of relenting. Then the Jack Russell whimpers from beneath the seat, cowering away from Casper. She purses her lips, and I know that I’ve lost her.
“I’m sorry, Miss Swift,” she declares, not looking particularly sorry at all. “But it’s just not possible.”
A cold sensation lodges itself in the pit of my stomach as I take in her words. What am I going to do? This was my one and only plan. I look down at Casper. He’s lying on his side, panting heavily. I’m willing myself to calm down, but it’s not working.
Then, from the doorway through to the surgery, an unfamiliar voice speaks. “I’ll take a look at him.”
