Puppies Are For Life

‘You saw our room when you were here before,’ Susannah reminded her at the top of the stairs. ‘But you haven’t seen this one done up. This is the guest room.’ Pushing open the door with a flourish she saw that the suitcase now dominated the bed and the ghetto blaster was perched on top of the smart pine dresser. It didn’t look quite the same.

‘Oh,’ Katy said from the door. She slowly stepped in, her eyes drawn to the bed. ‘You’ve got a new bed too!’ she gasped. ‘What have you done with my old one?’

‘Katy –’ Susannah picked up a doll from the window-sill and fiddled with its hat. She had dressed it to tone in with its surroundings, but Katy appeared not to have noticed it. Turning round she found a recumbent Katy – boots and all – testing the bed fully clothed. ‘Katy –’ she began again; but how could she explain to her daughter that this was not exactly her room? Nor was it her home any more, not really. Well, of course it would always be home to her in a sense. And yet … it wasn’t.

‘We – er –’ she thought quickly – ‘we decided we ought to put in a double, since this is really a guest room, you know. I mean, when you’re here a single would be fine, but when Simon and Natalie come to stay – and little Justin, of course – it makes sense to –’

‘But this one’s hard as a rock. Mine was nice and soft. It had a hole that fitted me, too. Right in the middle of the mattress.’

‘Well, now it’s gone to the tip.’ Susannah sat the doll down with a bump. ‘This mattress will be much better for you,’ she added, struggling for a more sympathetic tone. After all, she reminded herself, Katy had definitely sounded upset about something over the phone. ‘Soft beds are bad for your back. And anyway you’ll not notice it just for a few days.’

Katy slanted a look at her mother. ‘I’ve come for much longer than that.’

‘Oh … really? How – how come you’ve got time off right now? I thought you were saving your days for Christmas.’

Katy swung herself off the bed. ‘I’ve lost my job,’ she said flatly, beginning to pull drawers from the dresser to see what was inside. There was nothing in them; only a woody piney smell that began to permeate the tiny room.

‘Lost your –’ Words failed Susannah for a moment. Then she hurried over to where Katy was standing. No wonder she’d shown no enthusiasm about the cottage, with news like this on her mind. ‘Oh, Katy I’m so sorry! But how?’ She could see the girl’s reflection in the cheval mirror and sensed that tears were close in spite of her attempt at non-chalance.

I –’ Katy swallowed – ‘I can’t do the work any more; they’ve given me the sack. I’ve got two months’ pay to come – and – and – oh, Mum, I don’t know what to do!’

Susannah saw her own distraught face reflected back at her as Katy turned and buried herself in her arms. When her daughter finally came up for air she ventured another question.

‘But why can’t you do the work, Katy?’ She took the opportunity of brushing aside the hair lock. ‘You were managing very well. I thought they liked you. They made you secretary to the Head of Department, didn’t they?’

Katy nodded and sniffed and mopped her eyes with a tissue. ‘I thought he was so nice at first but he turned out to be nothing but a slave-driver.’ She snorted with disgust. ‘He had me working all hours and I didn’t get a penny extra money for doing it. But if you complain you’re done for, you know; they just get shot of you for some reason or other and find someone else.

‘Do you know, there were forty-three applicants for that poxy little job? I was over the moon when they picked me. But now –’ her tears welled up afresh – ‘I’ve got RSI!’

‘Oh good God!’ Susannah whispered, her stomach taking a turn. This was her worst nightmare realised: that a child of hers should contract some deadly disease. How on earth would she cope? She found herself sitting on the edge of the bed, not knowing how she had got there, or what to say. ‘But what is it, this RSI?’ she managed eventually. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it.’

‘Where have you been all your life?’ Paul said suddenly from the door. ‘It’s what typists and chicken factory workers get these days –’ He went over to Katy and hugged her for the second time that evening. ‘Isn’t it, my precious love?’

Katy nodded and allowed herself to be comforted by her father’s long, strong arms. He was like a cuddly bear in his thick woolly sweater and she sighed with a surge of relief.

‘Repetitive Strain Injury,’ Paul went on over his daughter’s head, for Susannah’s benefit. ‘I was watching a programme about it the other night. If you perform the same movement with your hands over and over again …’

But Susannah was nodding dumbly; she now recalled hearing about it. You got pains in the hands and arms after a while. Some people got it really badly and were crippled for the rest of their lives: they couldn’t even lift their arms to do their own hair. And they would never be able to work again.

‘A lot of doctors,’ Paul was saying, ‘don’t even believe it exists, let alone trouble themselves to try and sort out a cure. I believe I read about a case in the paper recently where someone successfully sued for compensation. I’ll look into the possibilities tomorrow.’

Katy cast him a look of gratitude: at least he wasn’t taking the attitude that she was swinging the lead, like some people did. ‘I can’t do anything much with them,’ she said holding out her hands. ‘And they hurt like flaming hell. Do you think I could have a hot water bottle, Mum? Oh, and I’ll need you to unpack my case …’

‘Of course Mum’ll make you a hot water bottle, won’t you dear?’ Paul was still clinging to his daughter as though she had been away for ten years instead of only a matter of months. He let her go at last and followed Susannah downstairs.

‘Well, this is a turn-up for the books, isn’t it?’ he said, rubbing his hands together as they went into the kitchen. ‘Fancy getting our Katy back! Now you won’t be bored any more.’

Susannah turned and stared at him for a moment, before going over to the sink. She began to run water on to the sad remains of lasagne she found there and went to wipe spills from the microwave.

‘How long is this RSI business going to last?’ she asked, Paul trailing her round the kitchen. She stopped to throw a startled look at the ceiling as loud thumping came down through the beams: Katy had managed to plug in the ghetto blaster.

‘No idea,’ he replied. ‘I expect she’s hungry, don’t you? What have you got to give her?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She suddenly felt extraordinarily tired.

‘Well, I must say you seem really pleased to see your own daughter. Couldn’t you make more of an effort? She needs your support, poor kid, not the cold shoulder you’ve been giving her.’

‘Oh, I haven’t! Have I? I didn’t mean to. It’s just that … look, there’s some ham for your sandwiches tomorrow …’

‘Give it to her, I don’t mind. I don’t begrudge my daughter anything in her time of dire need, even if some would. Not when the whole world must seem to have turned against her the minute she’s set foot in it. Poor kid.’ He watched Susannah take bread from the bread bin. ‘I don’t understand what’s the matter with you, Sue. You’re her mother, for heaven’s sake.’

‘She’s a young woman now, Paul, not a child. Do you realise I’d had two babies by the time I was her age?’

That seemed to throw him a little. ‘God,’ he muttered, ‘were we crazy?’

‘Just normal for those times. You got married, scraped as much of a home together as you could for a year or so, and then got down to filling it. Just think if we’d waited until I was older, we’d still have little ones hanging around.’

‘Hmm,’ he said, still thoughtful. ‘I don’t mind our young Justin, of course, but little ones at our age …’

‘Well, that’s the way it would be if I had been your career-type,’ she pointed out. ‘Career women are putting off having babies until it’s practically too late to bear them. Over forty they are, in some cases. Here, the hot water bottle’s ready.’

‘Hmm,’ he said again.

It lay between them on the work top – a dingy flop-eared apology for a rabbit that Susannah had taken from the bottom of the medicine cupboard. It bore a label forbidding anyone to throw it away, on pain of death.

Paul finally picked it up and held it out to her. ‘I think it would look better if you took it up. Don’t you?’

Jan was in celebratory mood. She had opened a bottle of Côtes de Bergerac, prepared a crisply roasted duck, and made the farmhouse kitchen as cosy as possible – given the difficult circumstances – with candles and a huge fire: Now all that was needed was for Frank to loosen up a little after his journey, and they could have a memorable evening. But, having demolished the food and drunk two-thirds of the wine, Frank was still withdrawn and barely communicative.

She observed him across the table with the detachment that even a short separation can bring. Something was definitely wrong. Of course he was no spring chicken – nor was she – but the trip back from England seemed to have drained him far more than it ought to have done.

She reached out to the block of mature English Cheddar that now sat between them and cut herself another piece from its corner. ‘Absolutely delicious,’ she pronounced, popping crumbs of it into her mouth. With her cheeks sucked in and her eyes half-closed, she looked to be in seventh heaven.

‘Mmm,’ Frank said absently, toying with a crust of bread. It would have been more than his life was worth to have failed in the minor duties he had been given for the trip, and he congratulated himself on having at least managed to remember the block of cheese, the jar of ploughman’s pickle, the slab of fruit and nut chocolate, the eighty tea bags, and the three tubes of Jan’s favourite moisturising cream from Boots.

‘Have another piece,’ Jan urged, so that she, too, could help herself again without appearing greedy. ‘And,’ she ventured to add, ‘tell me when you think the money will be sorted out.’

So far they hadn’t talked much about the funeral or its implications; Frank had stripped off for a shower the minute he got in and she had been busy with the meal. But still Frank wouldn’t be drawn.

‘I suppose,’ Jan pressed on, ‘it’ll take ages, won’t it, having to sell Bert’s grotty old house before we can do anything else? Or did you get the solicitor to agree to hurry it all along? Couldn’t it be sold by auction, perhaps? Or –’

Frank swallowed down more of the wine while his wife prattled away, hardly aware of its subtle flavour; tonight he desired only numbness. Eventually, realising that even another bottle wouldn’t be sufficient to achieve that, he raised his travel-tired eyes to hers and told her as gently as he could that they could expect nothing from his brother Bert.

‘Oh, but … surely …?’ Jan suddenly lost her appetite and let fall her piece of cheese.

Fingering a locket that hung perpetually round her neck, her gaze wandered past Frank’s left shoulder and pierced the gloom. In the light of the wavering candle-flame her closely shorn head appeared gaunt, her neck thin and scrawny, and her eye sockets deeply shadowed. Only her eyes shone through like glittering marbles.

‘Well, who is going to get Bert’s house? Susannah? Not that I’d begrudge it her really. You know I hold nothing against her, even though she’s never taken to me …’

‘No, well, it’s not Susannah; it’s some old flame of his.’

Jan giggled her relief. ‘Now I know you’re teasing me. For a minute I thought –’

‘No! No I’m not, Jan. Honestly. I only wish I were.’

And Jan could see from his face that he was telling her the truth. ‘But –’ Her gaze wandered over his shoulder again. She could just about make out the tarpaulin that stretched from one side of the farmhouse to the other. It concealed a door-less, window-less construction yawning open to the winter sky. ‘I never knew Bert had an old flame. The wily old devil.’

‘Not so much of the “old”. Don’t forget he was younger than me.’

‘Yes, but he always seemed so much older, somehow, on the few occasions I met him.’ She sat back in her chair, her hands slapping down on the table. ‘Well, this is a turn-up for the books, I must say. What are we going to do now?’

‘I’m sorry, Jan, really I am.’ Frank ran a hand over his face and looked glummer than ever. ‘Why don’t you go ahead and say it: it’s all my own stupid fault? I should have been nicer to Bert while he was alive. Brotherly love and all that. Then we’d be out of this dreadful mess.’

Jan let out a sigh. ‘I never wanted to be married to a hypocrite, Frank. At least you’re always honest about your feelings.’

‘Yes, and just look where it’s got us: well and truly in the mire.’

It wasn’t in Jan’s nature to be down-hearted for long. ‘Actually,’ she pointed out, ‘apart from your air fare for the trip, we’re no worse off than we were a week ago.’

‘We’re not a jot better off, though, either.’

‘But at least we’ve got each other.’

Frank managed a smile at last. Dear old Jan. He should have known she would hold nothing against him.

He looked at the remaining goodies, unpacked in delighted haste and still scattered across the table. It had been a horrendously expensive shopping trip, all in all, but well, what the hell …

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