‘Guard dogs? These excuses for dogs? No, notthese…’ He trailed off and I looked round momentarily, searching for some that perhaps were, but no others hove into sight and I began to relax. The man stared, obviously trying to work out who I was.
‘Hi, I’m Jess Butt… Actually, Jessica Allen.’ I quickly recalled my intention to be known by my former name, with nothing at all to link me to Dean. It was a start in the ‘conscious uncoupling’ – damned stupid phrase – from my husband.
‘Jess Butt?’ The man continued to stare, glancing towards my backside, and again, I wanted to laugh.
‘Jessica Allen. I’ve just changed my name.’
‘Have you? Why?’
‘Because my husband and I are no longer together – well, to be honest he’s moved in next door…’
‘Gone off with your next-door neighbour?’ The man whistled.
‘No, no, with my mum.’
‘Your husband’s gone off with your mum?’
‘No, my mum’s not there.’
‘She had enough of him as well?’ The man smiled. ‘He can’t be up to much.’
‘He’s not, actually.’
‘So, sorry, why are you here?’ The man peered round the wooden gate to the main entrance gates where my battered white van was parked. Badly, I now saw. ‘Oh, you’re in a van? Amazon? Or Tesco?’
‘No, no, I’ve come to pick up my daughter. She’s here… well, I hope she is… my husband dropped her off here this morning, apparently.’
‘I’ve been in a meeting for the last couple of hours, so I wouldn’t know.’
‘Do you have a daughter?’ I was beginning to get worried. I’d murder Dean when I got back. Actually, death was too good for him: a coming together of a rusty razor and that appendage of his he was so happy to put about sprang immediately to mind.
‘Ruby?’ he asked.
‘Ah, right, yes.’ Relief flooded through me.
‘Oh, has your daughter come to stay?’
‘Well, a play date. Isn’t that what it’s called?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘But,playingis perhaps something of a misnomer these days…?’ I trailed off as two figures came out of the house, making their way towards another gate at the far end of the huge garden. What was this place? Fort Knox?
‘Ruby?’ The man shouted in their direction, but the pair sped up, pulling back bolts on the far gate and disappearing behind it. ‘As deaf as her mother,’ the man said, muttering under his breath to himself.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ I sympathised. ‘Ruby and your wife are both deaf?’
‘Only when they want to be,’ he went on. ‘Selective hearing. I told her to take these damned dogs with her when she went but…’
‘Oh?’ I cocked my head in what I hoped was an empathetic gesture. Had Ruby’s mother gone shopping? Or somewhere more permanent? But the man was not forthcoming on his wife’s absence.
‘A woman let me in?’ I ventured. ‘Well, her voice did.’
‘Kateryna.’
‘Oh?’
‘The housekeeper.’ The man looked at his watch. ‘Do you want your daughter back then?’
