As a joke, I send Lauren a picture of my ailing lavender plant in a cracked pot at my back door, in contrast to her parents’ herbaceous borders bursting with colour. I also send one of Walter, hoping it doesn’t scream ‘lonely cat man’. She messages,I hope you’re going to invite me over to meet him.
‘Of course I am!’ I reply, poised to add:He can’t wait to see you.No, don’t put that, I tell myself. It could sound faintly pathetic because of course, it’s not Walter who’s counting the days, like a child anticipating Christmas, until Lauren comes home.
One Saturday evening, back home after a few drinks with Fraser and a couple of other old friends, I message:So looking forward to seeing you again.I’ve really missed you.Immediately I wonder if it was a bit much. When her reply comes –Can’t wait to see you too!– I relax again. But it still feels a bit too good to be true.
A couple of days later Tony Lomax arrives with Bob, his mildly arthritic but otherwise perfectly healthy – if ancient – collie cross. Somewhere in his seventies, Tony has been bringing in Bob for over a decade and always, very sweetly, places a packet of shortbread on the reception desk for us all. By ‘all’ I mean Fraser and me plus our practice manager, receptionist and two veterinary nurses. We’re a close-knit team of six, and we’re very fond of Tony in his unravelling sweaters and threadbare cords. We’re also aware that Casey, our practice manager, doesn’t charge him for consultations, which is absolutely fine. (‘Don’t you worry about that, Mr Lomax. Lovely to see you. Take care!’)
They’re hardly classed as consultations anyway when Tony comes in and says, ‘Do Bob’s eyes look a bit milky to you, James?’ They are a little, but no more than they were two weeks ago when he last brought Bob in. But Igo through the motions of giving them another inspection anyway.
‘Nothing to be concerned about there, Tony,’ I tell him. ‘Just a sign of his age, but his vision seems perfectly fine.’
How could we charge an elderly man for that? As Fraser once put it, ‘Billing Tony would be like taxing his loneliness.’ We know he’s a worrier; that Bob’s slightest ailment has him imagining the worst. I’m behaving like Tony now, I realise, deciding that the holiday was so lovely – actually perfect – that it can’t be the same here in drizzly Britain with our jobs, our families and lives to navigate.
Maybe I’m trying to prepare myself for being disappointed when it fizzles out. Or maybe I’m just being realistic.
‘He’s just not quite right,’ Tony says as he and Bob are about to leave.
‘He’s in great health for his age,’ I try to reassure him. ‘His heart and lungs are good. He’s the perfect weight, he eats well and his coat’s in lovely condition. I can’t see anything to worry about right now.’
Tony looks down at him and frowns. ‘But when he does go, what are the options?’
His question takes me by surprise. ‘When he passes away, you mean?’
He nods, lips pressed together firmly. What’s brought this on? ‘Honestly,’ I start, ‘I don’t think—’
‘I’ve looked into those pet cremation places,’ Tony cuts in. ‘Two hundred quid, some of them charge. I can’t afford that. What am I going to do?’
‘Tony,’ I say, ‘if you’d like to talk over the options sometime, we can do that. You can chat to Casey or come in and talk to me. But honestly …’ I glance down atBob; bright-eyed,bristlingwith health and currently sitting on my foot ‘… I really don’t think you need to worry about that now.’
After they’ve gone, I feel bad for not sitting Tony down with a cup of tea and going through it all, patiently, with him. We’re all well aware that it’s often company he wants rather than going home to an empty flat. I know he lives alone and that, from what I’ve gathered from our chats, there’s no family. No one he’s ever mentioned, anyway. But the rest of the team have gone home, and after eleven hours of non-stop consultations I’m itching to lock up and do likewise.
Later, as I clear up after dinner, I wish I’d said something like, ‘It’s good to have a plan in the back of your mind. But instead of worrying, how about just enjoying Bob while he’s fit and well?’ I should have tried to help Tony focus on the positive. And something switches in me, and I think, why not just look forward to Lauren coming back, and see what happens? I’m out of practice, I guess; unused to this early stage when it still feels pretty fragile, like a houseplant you could easily over-water or under-water or place in too hot or too cold a room, as is evident by my plant-killing abilities. (‘Thank God you’re better with animals, Dad,’ Esther announced as I disposed of the peace lily I’d bought, under her instruction, as apparentlyevery home needs living plants.)
I’ve wondered, too, if I’m actually not that good at relationships either. After all, Rhona and I divorced and Polly, my last girlfriend, ‘travelled six thousand miles to get away from you’, as Rhona is fond of joking – accompanied by barking laughter from her boyfriend.
When Lauren comes back and we go for dinner it turns out she’s had similar thoughts to me. Could it really be like it was in Corsica? How will we see each other withme being in London and Lauren in her Hertfordshire village?
It’s not that far, we agree, and she comes back to my house and stays the night, and of course it’s just as wonderful as it was in Corsica. There’s no Blue Curaçao feeling at all; no hint of old-man-pub nicotine ceilings.
It is actually perfect being with her again. I don’t even get around to introducing her to Walter.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LAUREN
My life seems to have taken on a new vividness, as if the brightness setting of the world around me has been turned right up. Even when James and I are apart, I’m aware of a newfound sense of happiness; of feeling fully alive. Weekend after weekend we spend together, sometimes at his place in north London and sometimes at mine, with James getting to know Charlie a little, bit by bit.
We don’t want to force that part. Okay, it’s not as if he’s a little kid. But taking things gently feels like the right thing to do, especially as we’ve never been in this kind of situation before. Me having a boyfriend, I mean. At least, one who spends time at our place, drinking coffee with me in the mornings, and having dinner with us, just being here.
‘D’you like James?’ I ask Charlie one evening in late September after I’ve just waved him off.
‘Yeah. ’Course I do,’ Charlie replies. I want to dig further; to ask:What d’you think of him really?I want to discuss him endlessly, the way you do when you’re in love – because I am.
James says, ‘I love you,Lauren,’ one night at his place. We’re in bed, just lying together in each other’s arms, and I can feel the steady beat of his heart. Feeling as if I could burst with joy, I kiss him.
‘I love you too.’
He takes my hands in his. ‘Sometimes I can’t believe this has happened.’
