‘… So don’t just bring sandals, okay? You’ll need proper shoes with supporting structure …’
‘With supporting structure.’ A solemn nod.
‘Got that?’
‘Yes, Dad.’ She hugs me tightly, and I’m thinking now how much I need this holiday. I haven’t been anywhere for, God – two years, I think it is? And after all the crap Esther’s been through with Miles, she needs it too. So never mind the crazy fur coat and the big bottle of whatever that water stuff is. My daughter and I are going to Corsica together and it’s going to begreat.
CHAPTER THREE
JAMES
The toughest thing I’ve had to deal with in recent months wasn’t telling Maria Kowalski that her cat had an inoperable brain tumour, or the O’Haras that it had been too late to save their Dalmatian who’d eaten poisoned meat in the park. Yes, those sorts of situations are terrible. They’re the very worst aspect of running my small north London veterinary practice. But I’m trained for it, and even if I can’t make everything right, I always try to do the best and kindest thing for both the pet and the owner.
But I can’t do the best thing for Esther because there’s nothing I can do to stop her from loving Miles Lattimer-Jones, serial shagger and heir to half of Somerset as far as I can make out.
‘It’s an illness, Dad,’ she’d said, when his infidelity had come to light. ‘He’s promised to get treatment.’
Then: ‘He made a mistake and he’s sorry.’ Like he’d come home with the wrong kind of plant milk. However, I have to accept that I have very little influence over how she lives her life these days. As for catching our flight tomorrow, I remind myself that she’s a savvy young womanwho’s done incredibly well for herself, despite my strong reservations about the kind of life she was entering into.
‘Chill, James. Relax!’ my ex-wife Rhona is fond of barking at me. Or, somewhat unnecessarily: ‘Take that broom handle out of your arse’ – a favourite whenever I’ve said no thanks, I can’t sit knocking back cocktails with her and her boyfriend when I have work the next day. ‘He can’t possibly have a drink on a school night,’ she’s retorted on many occasions, while laughing at my squareness. Neither would she if she was operating to remove a stone from a guinea pig’s bladder at eight-thirty the next morning. Call me a party pooper but it wouldn’t be ideal, to have shaky hands and alcoholic sweats in those circumstances. But I guess Rhona is right in that I probably over-worry and should learn to relax more.
So, yes, I should be able to trust Esther to turn up for our flight in plenty of time. After all, what other option is there?Chill, James. Relax!I tell myself as I arrive at the airport at 6.30 a.m. Apparently Miles is on best behaviour at the moment so of course he’ll get her here on time.
By 7.05 a.m., too uptight to sit at a table, I’m standing at the coffee bar where we’ve arranged to meet. She’s only five minutes late, which counts as nothing. As she’ll be here any minute, I’m hanging off buying a coffee so I can get one for Esther at the same time. Miles too, if he comes in to see her off. I make a mental note to be friendly and not hostile towards him, so Esther and I don’t start our holiday on a sour note.
Time ticks on. My body is craving caffeine so I buy an Americano and tell myself to calm down;take that bloody broom handle out of your arse, James, she’ll be here any minute.The traffic’s probably bad.
Here she is, hurrying towards me with her long red hair bundled up messily on top of her head. Hair thatseemed, mysteriously, to double in volume a few weeks ago. How did it do that, I wondered? When I mentioned it, Esther said something about ‘a treatment’ she’d had – ‘and before you ask it was only fifty quid.’ Why had she felt the need to tell me that? I couldn’t remember any occasion when I’d asked her, as an adult, how much something had cost.
I reach for my suitcase, relief surging through me as the red-haired girl approaches, until I realise my mistake. (Somehow I seem to have packed my glasses in the case rather than having them to hand in my pocket.) It’s not Esther after all. But not to worry. They’re just running late, which I’d expected. That’s why I’d built in an extra hour. But as the hour slides by and text after text – then call after call – go unanswered, catching our flight is the last thing I’m worried about.
I pace around, pulling my wheeled case and gripping my phone as I try to figure out what to do without panicking anyone, like her mother. I’m also trying not to imagine Miles’s flashy red sportscar a mangled wreck at the roadside and other terrible scenes I can’t even allow into my brain.
Surely, if there’d been a problem this morning, she’d have called me? Yes, we’d had a tetchy message exchange late last night, just after I’d gone to bed. But I thought that was just Esther being Esther, seeing how far she could push me. Surely she hadn’t expected me to agree?I’m going to sleep now, I’d finally messaged at around 1 a.m.You should too, okay?And that had been that. No further messages received.
I wipe a slick of sweat from my brow with my hand. Something dark and heavy seems to have lodged itself in my gut. Why did I even ask her on this holiday? I was an idiot, I decide now, to believe it would all go smoothlywithout any drama. I realise, too, that Esther only agreed to come so as not to let me down. In amongst all the bravado and insistence that she knows everything – whereas I’m just some blundering fool who somehow managed to stumble through vet school – there’s a good, kind heart.
My lovely, caring, chaotic Esther who I’m so proud of and love very much. I don’t tell her that nearly enough. Too bloody worried about her wearing footwear with structural support and being on time for things. Fuck, when will I ever stop being so uptight?
Now I’m thinking I’ll have to tell the smart young executive couple next door that I won’t need them to look after Walter, my cat, after all. Because I absolutely don’t want to go on holiday now. Not without Esther. I don’t give a toss about wasted flights or the hotel or anything else.
But maybe sheisjust running late, and we can catch another flight or stay here overnight in a hotel and go tomorrow? I really don’t care. All I want is to see her running towards me in that ridiculous fur – sorry,fauxfur – coat, having defied me by bringing those three enormous cases. She can bring fifteen cases – plus hand luggage – as long as everything is all right.
CHAPTER FOUR
JAMES
‘Dad?’
‘Esther! My God, I’ve been so worried. Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Where are you?’
‘At home.’
‘At home? What’re you doing there?’
