Best of Friends (19 page)

The only problem was that then they’d begin to realise that Lizzie would be there on her own. The happy and civilised Lizzie and Myles partnership, which had survived the earthquake of divorce, was over. Myles had moved on. Lizzie hadn’t.

Lizzie didn’t like people talking about her and she certainly didn’t like them feeling sorry for her. That was why she resented Sabine’s existence.

Outside the surgery, Lizzie caught sight of Clare Morgan’s indolent ginger cat, Tiger, delicately walking along the garden fence to find a hot spot to lie in.

“Hello, Tiger, you gorgeous thing,” she called.

Typically, Tiger pirouetted off the fence at just that moment and Lizzie was left facing Mr. Graham, the solicitor whose office was joined on to the surgery and who was now standing open-mouthed on the far side of the fence, his car keys dangling limply in his hand. Lizzie hadn’t seen him in time and she flushed at the thought that he’d imagined she’d called him Tiger. Mr. Graham was as round as he was tall, and had both overwhelming halitosis and the misplaced conviction that he was something of a ladies’ man.

“Sorry … talking to the cat …” she mumbled, before rushing into the surgery in a lather of embarrassment.

Oh Lord, how had she managed to do that? Next thing she knew, Mr. Graham would be paying court to her, chatting to her if she sat in the surgery garden at lunchtime and winking at her at every opportunity. He’d tried it with Clare, who had given him very short shrift. Trouble was, Lizzie found it impossible to say no to people who turned up on the doorstep selling tickets, no matter what the tickets were for and no matter how broke she was. How would she say no to Mr. Graham?

The other consequence of the beautiful morning was an empty surgery. It had always surprised Lizzie that the number of patients who wanted appointments was in direct proportion to the state of the weather. Perhaps the horrible flu that had seemed life-threatening in the rain magically transformed into a light sniffle as soon as the sun appeared.

Lizzie was tidying up before lunch when the phone rang. “Cork Road Surgery,” she said pleasantly.

“Lizzie, it’s Sally Richardson. Did I call at a bad time?”

“No, it’s quiet here, Sally. What can I do for you? Is it for you or the boys?”

As she spoke, Lizzie opened the appointments book.

“No, the boys don’t need an appointment, thank God,” Sally said gratefully. “They’re getting their tonsils out next month, as you know, and since we made the booking, they’ve been fine. I was phoning to ask you to a party tomorrow. I’m sorry it’s such short notice—I meant to ask you last week but I was so busy it slipped my mind.”

“Lovely,” said Lizzie with pleasure. She hadn’t been to a party for ages. “Is it a special occasion?”

“It’s fifty percent a welcome party to these lovely new people who’ve moved in, and fifty percent because we haven’t had one for ages, not since Steve’s birthday party with the drunken conga.”

“I’d love to come,” Lizzie replied.

“Great. Come around eight and there’ll be food—a paper plate and a plastic fork each, mind you—and hopefully fun. Dress code is whatever you feel in the mood for. Bring someone or come on your own, Lizzie, whichever you want. See you then.”

Lizzie drew a big star on tomorrow’s space in her diary, thinking that it was ironic how Sally could make it sound so normal when she said “bring someone or come on your own,” while all Lizzie and Myles’s old friends either stumbled over the words with embarrassment or else made a big fuss about it.

Sally and Steve had never met Myles and clearly saw Lizzie as a single woman. Even better, they were perfectly happy to accept this, instead of either commiserating with her about the awfulness of life or trying to fix her up with single friends, who were uniformly so strange that it was quite apparent why they were still single. These two options were the most popular, Lizzie had found. The old friends she and Myles had seen when they were married didn’t seem to know what to make of her. They never invited her to parties and only asked her to the occasional dinner when they had a man to spare, as though Lizzie was so desperate she’d launch herself on any roving husbands like a nymphomaniac cruise missile if there weren’t any unattached men around. There was no point explaining that she wasn’t interested in men, married or otherwise. Married women didn’t believe her, preferring to behave like anxious medieval monarchs peering over the ramparts of their castles—always scared of invaders and always ready to whisk the drawbridge up.

She’d never widened her circle of friends enough to meet other divorced women, with one notable exception. Lillian, a woman she knew from the surgery, had invited her along for a night out with some other divorced friends, the ones that Clare Morgan nick-named the Harridans.

It had not been the enjoyable bonding session Lizzie had hoped for. The night had involved plenty of good food, lots of drink and some harmless flirtation with the waiters, but had moved on to dark depressed rumblings about what “He” had done now.

The worst venom was reserved for when a particular He appeared to be getting on with his life. Taking holidays, buying a new car, or, worst of all, enjoying himself, were top of the list of hate crimes. Lizzie was shocked. She’d expected the positive approach to singlehood that Clare Morgan espoused, not this outpouring of rage. She hated the venom with which the exes were discussed, and the malicious glee with which His failures were greeted. Myles had never been the sort of pig these women talked about, and even if he had been, Lizzie wouldn’t have wanted to ill-wish him like one of the witches in
Macbeth.

Clare Morgan hadn’t been surprised by her reaction. “I knew you’d hate it. Lillian has a Ph.D. in bitterness. I’ve known her and her husband for years and it’s a miracle the poor idiot stayed with her so long. Lillian likes to imagine that she’s the victim but it’s all her own doing. Keep away from her and those women she hangs around with,” she advised Lizzie. “Bitterness is catching.”

Clare’s advice on enjoying life did not mean either finding another man or grieving over the loss of a husband.

“Wash another man’s dirty socks and worry over what to cook for his dinner?” she said scathingly, although Lizzie found it hard to imagine the clever, self-possessed Clare ever washing any man’s socks. “You’d want your head examined if you went back to that drudgery. I date men when I feel like it, but I don’t need them in my life all the time. I’ve learned to enjoy my own company, Lizzie. This is the fun way to enjoy life and I don’t intend to go back to the other way, ever.”

Fun. Lizzie flicked on the surgery answering machine. What was fun when it was at home?

ten

O
n Saturday afternoon, the day of the Richardsons’ party, Jess was studying the newsagent’s window for cards to see how people advertised themselves as babysitters when she noticed the tall woman with the black and brown puppy in her arms. The woman’s weathered face was thin and might have been stern but for the fact that she was laughing as the puppy did his best to lick her face energetically.

“He’s lovely,” said Jess, the words out of her mouth before she’d thought about it.

“He is,” agreed the woman, smiling. “He’s just been in the vet’s having his shots and he’s so thrilled to be out that he’s bouncing for joy. He wet the floor three times when we were there.”

“Ooh, poor darling.” Jess was stroking the puppy under his chin and he was responding deliriously, trying to chew and lick her fingers simultaneously.

The woman surveyed Jess, taking in the neat sandy hair, the pretty but understated face, and her tall, slim figure.

“Would you like to hold him?”

“Yes, please.” Jess snuggled the puppy in her arms, inhaling his lovely milky puppy scent and adoring the way he switched his ardent face-washing to her.

“His name’s Twiglet,” said the woman.

“Lovely Twiglet,” crooned Jess. She wasn’t really noticing what the woman was doing until she looked up and realised she had put up a notice on the newsagent’s board.

Meeting to discuss fate of Dunmore Animal Refuge.

After twenty years in Dunmore, our local funding has been cut and the refuge faces closure. We need your help, please. Come to the Parish Hall on Tivoli Road on Wed 23
^rd
, 7 p.m.

“Is that where you’re from, the rescue centre?” Jess asked.

“Yes, Twiglet too. He and one of his brothers were rescued from a refuse sack dumped on a building site. Some kind person heard them yelping and brought them to us.”

Jess was horrified. “How could anybody do that to a puppy?” she cried.

“People do it all the time or else we wouldn’t be so busy,” the woman said wryly. “They won’t pay to spay their dogs and then the refuse sack is their idea of a solution when their bitch has a litter. It’s worse with kittens. An unneutered tom can father thousands and thousands of kittens, and a female cat can start producing kittens when she’s six months, a litter every four months, the females of which can have kittens at six months and so on. You can do the sums yourself.”

“But can’t you tell people that if they don’t want kittens or puppies, then they should have their dogs—sprayed, is it?”

“Spayed,” corrected the woman. “Education is the answer but money is the solution. A lot of people say they can’t afford it.”

“There should be government funding to help.” Jess was out-raged at the thought of thousands of unwanted baby animals being dumped.

“What’s your name?”

“Jess.”

“I like the way your mind works, Jess. If you’re keen on animals, do you fancy doing a bit of volunteering at the centre? We can always do with helpers to feed kittens and pups, not to mention the less savoury parts of cleaning out the kennels.”

“Oh, I’d love it.” Jess’s eyes shone. The woman saw that suddenly she wasn’t understated at all, but very pretty, with a brilliant smile sparkling with vivacity and intelligence. “I’m at school, though.”

“Dogs need feeding on Saturdays and Sundays, and maybe you’d have time in the evenings and holidays as well,” the woman said matter-of-factly. “I’m Jean Harvey. The number’s in the book and the address is too. We’re on the Old Farm Road. Take the bus to Little Dunmore, but get off at the Snow Hill crossroads and we’re up the left road about a hundred yards. Make sure your parents don’t mind you helping out and they can phone me if they want.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” promised Jess, kissing Twiglet’s velvety head goodbye.

Jean strode off to a filthy green Land Rover and Jess turned up the road for home. She felt a strange tingle of excitement at this new plan. She loved animals, and this opportunity to work with them was wonderful. She’d have to make sure that poor Wilbur wasn’t jealous. He was her darling, but sweet, adorable Twiglet was so cute too. She idly wondered what would happen to him when he was older. Surely the centre found new homes for unwanted puppies. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if she could take him home and care for him? Now that they lived in Lyonnais, they had loads of room for a dog.

Caught up in her dreams, Jess walked home with a smile on her face that her mother would have barely recognised.

Abby spent most of Saturday hacking back the undergrowth at the bottom of the front garden, screeching every time another horror-movie-sized spider appeared. Somehow, her hard-wearing garden gloves had vanished and she was stuck with flimsy cotton ones that were suitable for a bit of gentle bulb planting on a patio, perhaps, but not for Indiana Jones-style jungle-busting.

Tom was no help. He’d woken up that morning complaining of flu, and was now lounging in the kitchen, with the weekend papers spread out in front of him, wearing an expression that said
his
sniffles, headache and runny nose were undoubtedly symptoms of something much more serious than just flu.

“I’ve got so much homework to mark,” he said wearily, “but my head aches, my muscles are weak and I just don’t feel myself.”

Abby, who’d done the supermarket, dry-cleaner’s and organic vegetable shopping trip that morning, and who’d have liked nothing more than to flop down with the papers and a coffee, managed to keep quiet. She’d nearly ruptured herself hauling grocery bags in from the Jeep and now she had to work on the garden because it looked so overgrown and she simply couldn’t face another week of seeing the mess. It was Tom who’d insisted that having someone come in occasionally to do the garden was an unnecessary expense and that he would help out.

By half three, Abby was tired, scratched and dirty. Some steam-ing hot tea and a biscuit or three might give her the impetus to spend another couple of hours in the garden. Then she’d treat herself to a soak in a hot bubble bath and get ready for Steve and Sally’s party.

Tom was no longer sitting at the kitchen table, although the papers were still strewn across it, while a dirty mug and blueberry muffin crumbs on the worktop were evidence that the invalid had felt well enough to enjoy a snack. Hitting the kettle switch with the back of her hand, Abby went in search of him.

She found him in the living room, with the sports channel on and no sign of the much vaunted homework anywhere.

Tom glanced around and noticed his wife standing at the door, arms folded and lips tight.

“Don’t give me that look,” he snapped, turning back to the football.

“What look?” demanded Abby, marching up to the couch.

“Your ‘I’m working and you’re lying around’ look,” he replied. “The martyred look.”

“Well, I
am
working.” She wouldn’t lower herself by replying to the martyr crack.

“Nobody told you to,” he retorted.

Abby burned with the injustice of it. Nobody had told her to, for sure, but if she didn’t tidy up or get the groceries, who would?

“I wouldn’t have to work in the garden if you weren’t such a Scrooge about having someone come in twice a year to cut back the undergrowth,” she snapped. “Somebody has to tidy up this place.”