‘Of course she’s not,’ Will snapped, stung at the suggestion. He’d finished his therapy because he didn’t need it anymore, and to imply that he’d fostered a dog as a substitute for Roland was very wrong and also a little offensive. Will stepped through the open door of the shop to be met by the sight of the dog in question sitting like a queen on a throne, or more prosaically an old basket-weave chair that they sometimes incorporated into a shop display, her bottom cushioned from any stray bits of wicker by an old picnic blanket. Kneeling in front of her in subjugation was Will’s half-sister, eighteen-year-old Sage.
‘Oh my God, we love Blossom!’ she said by way of a greeting, not even bothering to turn her head. ‘Look! She does tricks!’ Sage held up a palm. ‘High five, Blossom.’
Blossom didn’t need to be told twice. She raised a paw and was rewarded with something from a blood-smeared plastic bag.
‘Ugh! What is that?’ Rowan exclaimed.
‘I popped to the butcher’s to get some liver,’ Mary said, poking her head out of the back room. ‘You can see every one of her ribs, the poor little thing.’
‘Blossom is the perfect name for a florist’s dog,’ Sage said, as she fed Blossom more disgusting raw liver. ‘She can be our official shop dog.’
‘She’s not going to be the official shop dog. She’s on short-term foster . . .’
‘Dad said that she didn’t seem to like you very much, right, Mum?’ Sage titled her head in Mary’s direction, but Mary could sense that there was a confrontation brewing and withdrew. Sage, on the other hand, ‘was a messy bitch who lives for drama’ according to her Instagram bio. ‘She should just come and live with us, because we have a back garden.’
It sounded ideal. Mary, Ian and Sage lived in the big house that Bernie’s parents had bought just before the Second World War. Ian had had his own flat when they got married, but Mary was happiest in her childhood home and Mary’s happiness was Ian’s number one priority, so he’d willingly agreed to move in with his in-laws.
When he’d come back from New York, Will had moved into the family home too, for three months. He’d had to put up with Mary cosseting and fussing over him, Sage alternating between sheer brattishness and A-level angst and Ian jawing on about inner tubes and aluminium clinchers. Will had almost cried tears of gratitude when the flat above the shop became vacant and he could move in there while he considered his next move.
He was still working on that, but his plans certainly didn’t involve handing Blossom over to Sage who wasn’t house-trained herself.
‘Make the most of her, because Blossom is going to her rightful owner on Monday and I am counting the hours,’ Will said, and he swore that Blossom, who’d just performed another high five, gave him a reproachful look.
An hour later, with the shop closed and everyone finally gone, Will took Blossom back upstairs. He unclipped her lead and she shot into the living room, no doubt to sit under the table. Will followed her, a hand at the back of his neck where he had a particularly painful knot of tension, which his fingers prodded rather than soothed.
He refilled the cereal bowl, which was doing time as Blossom’s water dish, and decided that even though according to the schedule it was now time for Blossom’s dinner, she couldn’t be hungry if she’d been scoffing raw liver all afternoon. Instead Will made himself a cup of tea and sunk down on the sofa.
The evening stretched out before him. He hadn’t reconnected with anyone but family since he got back from NYC. Not that he was the type of person who’d kept in touch with acquaintances from school or university. Will had always tried to look forwards rather than backwards. But living in Muswell Hill was very different from living and working in downtown New York, where you could just hang out with people with no expectation that you were doing anything other than just hanging out. He’d joined a gym, but that was because working out was good for his physical and mental health, not because he was looking for buddies to spot him, then go out afterwards for burgers and bantz.
Will wasn’t lonely – it was impossible to be lonely with his family – but this last year, he’d been alone for quite a lot of the time.
He heard the now familiar clatter of claws on the wooden floor. ‘You can’t possibly want to go out,’ he said to Blossom as she emerged from under the table. ‘You did everything you needed to do ten minutes ago.’
An awful thought occurred to him. ‘I bet all that liver has upset your stomach, hasn’t it?’
He lifted his head in time to see Blossom approach him. Carefully, so as not to alarm her, Will swung his legs round so he could get up, but as he did, Blossom jumped up on the sofa to claim the spot that Will had just vacated.
‘You’re not actually allowed on the sofa. I have this rule – no animals of any kind on the furniture,’ Will explained gently, as he and Blossom shared an uncertain look. ‘It’s not personal. But you don’t smell that great and this sofa was very expensive. Come on, off you get!’
So as not to startle her, Will made a very gentle shooing motion with his hand. Blossom stood up, but instead of jumping off the sofa, she turned round. Once, twice, three times, then settled herself. She ended up about as far away from Will as she possibly could while still enjoying all the comfort of a well-upholstered velvet sectional. Her little body curled into a tight ball, her ridiculously large head resting against the sofa arm. Blossom had obviously decided that if the nice people downstairs could tolerate Will, then she could too.
Will tensed up for a good five minutes before he brought his arm up and let his hand make the most fleeting of contact with her fur. Blossom didn’t flinch. She didn’t even shy away when he stroked the length of her spine with the flat of his hand, so Will continued with the rhythmic movements, until Blossom let out a massive yawn, tongue lolling out so he had a bird’s-eye view of all those sharp teeth, then settled back down. Maybe even a little closer to him now, as she started a volley of snores that were loud enough to raise the dead.
Carefully, so as not to wake her, Will reached for his phone on the side table. He took a close-up of Blossom in repose – she had no bad angles – then opened WhatsApp so he could send the picture and a brief message to Margot.
She’s fine.
7
Margot
Margot had planned to pick Blossom up as soon after she landed on the Sunday afternoon as humanly possible, so she could be rescued from the clutches of Will, who might be handsome but had finally replied to her second text message with a mere two words.
Nothing good ever came from a terse texter.
Alas, her plans to liberate Blossom were scuppered by Belinda from the rescue centre, who insisted on an official handover on Monday at their premises, so Margot could fill out the last of the paperwork. She was pleased that they were being so thorough and didn’t offload dogs willy nilly, but still, it had been marginally easier to buy her flat than to adopt a dog who so desperately needed a loving home.
Margot was still hungover from the last night in Portugal, where they’d celebrated wrapping up the lookbook shoot with too much Aperol and not enough chips. Fortunately, there was a car waiting at Stanstead Airport that would drop Derek off then deliver Margot home. Also waiting for her was a voice message from Will.