I suspect he’s timed this perfectly. I unhook my hair from his polo shirt button then shuffle to a safer distance. ‘The film’s just finishing, but I could watch it all over again!’ I hug my cardigan to me. ‘How was your call-out?’
He pulls a face. ‘It was a horse with colic, and unfortunately she died.’
My heart sinks for his crap evening. ‘I’m sorry. Would a beer make it better?’
He sighs. ‘Thanks, but I’ve had more than enough already. We called in The Yellow Canary for a debrief. Elise still thinks it’s her fault if she loses a patient.’
I push out of my mind how young and beautiful she is. And vulnerable too. That’s a dynamite combination, according to the pangs in my chest. What’s more, if he’s been drinking on an empty stomach he may be totally rat-arsed. ‘How long were you in the pub?’
‘Long enough to make the world feel a better place.’
I’m not sure if what I’m looking at is a shrug or a drunken wobble. ‘Don’t worry, it’s the after party next, you can dance yourself sober.’
‘An on-the-beach Abba disco?’ The line between his eyebrows deepens. ‘It’s been a long day, and I’ve got an early start tomorrow. I’d best head back.’ Which seems slightly perverse when he’s only just arrived, but it’s his loss.
Nell frowns. ‘You should go too, Cress, make sure he’s okay. Top him up with iced buns.’
‘Me?’ As I take in her frantic throat-cutting gestures behind him I’m thinking of the night I hit the fizz and he caught me staggering along the landing and tried to save me. ‘There are a lot of stairs to climb if you’ve been firing down beers.’
He gives a grimace. ‘Nothing so lightweight, we were lining up shots.’
I blink to hide that my eyes just popped open. Not that I’m thinking of the worst-case scenario, but pissed people fall off balconies all the time and Charlie would never forgive me if I let that happen to Ross. Worse still, I know I used to groan at them, but the world would be a very sad place without Ross’s dog jokes. ‘I’ll walk you home.’ As I leap into action I’m not thinking of Elise any more, I’m concentrating on the best way to soak up the alcohol. ‘How about some honey baklava? Or a cheese and filo turnover for the road?’
‘It’s fifty yards, Bertie, not fifty miles.’ As Ross loops his thumbs into his pockets it reminds me – even if it’s almost dark, I really need to keep my eyes at chest level. Or somewhere else entirely.
We say our goodbyes and we’re making our way across the sand when Sophie calls after us. ‘Tuck him up safely, I need him in tip-top shape for next weekend. My Happy Day wouldn’t be the same without him.’
And for the first time in ten years I’d have to agree with her on that.
27
On the way home after the Mamma Mia! night
Mugs and heart-to-hearts
Very late Saturday
As we walk along the dune path towards the harbour Diesel trots ahead, cocking his leg on every reed clump, and Ross falls into step a yard to my right, but he’s making no effort to be sociable. As for stumbling on the stairs, he takes them two at a time, and even beats Diesel to the top. But as he lets us in and still doesn’t say anything it finally hits me – he probably hates that I’m here when he’d rather be alone.
As he throws the French doors open and clicks on a table lamp to illuminate the dusk I clear my throat. ‘I’m sorry…’
He flops down on the pink velvet sofa. ‘What’s that?’
I take a deep breath. ‘Sorry for implying you needed looking after. And for forcing myself onto you when I’m the last person you want to be around.’
The lines on his forehead deepen. ‘Why would you think that?’
I might as well get to the bottom of this. ‘You haven’t said a word the whole way home.’
‘Really?’ He shakes his head as if it’s news to him, then he blows out his cheeks. ‘Truly, it’s not about you, Bertie. But thanks for your concern.’
I slap my hand onto my forehead and regroup. ‘There I go again, being self-centred. I always imagine being a vet is wall-to-wall cute puppies and forget about the ones that don’t make it.’
He’s stretching out his fingers, rubbing his palm on his knee. ‘You can’t win them all. Sometimes things go unbelievably well and you feel like a god, and then you lose an animal for no apparent reason, and crash back to reality again.’
I remember one of our family holidays in France, camping on a farm where a carthorse had died. There was something hugely poignant about the leaden lump of a body at the side of the lane under a tarpaulin. For the time it was there us kids rushed to get past it as fast as we could.
I’m thinking about the trauma Ross has been through this evening, and all that time we were whooping it up watchingMamma Mia!‘If a horse dies it’s so much more significant than a hamster; it leaves a much bigger space in the world where it should be running free.’
