Page 30 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

As her eyes adjust, she realises what it is: a huge dog.

The dog is trembling and groaning, and as they get closer they understand why. Stuck coming out of the dog’s rear end – what Essie had originally thought was a separate appendage – are the closed eyes of a tiny creature.

‘She’s whelping!’ says Janey. ‘Oh, you poor dear. This must be the missing Irish wolfhound! It was on Facebook.’

Dwight pulls out his phone and looks it up.

‘Her name’s . . . Felicity.’ He frowns. ‘That’s a weird name for a dog.’

‘Alright,Dwight,’ says Essie.

The dog is in distress and wants to twist away but Janey speaks low, comforting words and her tail thumps, just once, on the floor.

‘Mum, you’re anaudiologist; you can’t birth a baby.’

‘Managed two of my own,’ says Janey, still in a sweet, calming singsong voice, moving closer still. ‘Dwight, could you run and see if the vet is about? Essie, feel like giving me a hand?’

‘No.’

‘Well, is the water still on?’

Dwight nods.

‘Run me some hot.’

‘There’s no hot.’

There is, thankfully, a scrap of pink soap from downstairs, and Janey soaks her hands in the cold water and lathers up as well as she can, before gently getting hold of the tiny creature stuck in the birth canal.

‘Come on, baby,’ she whispers gently, getting as much soap into the canal as possible. She’s spent enough time with Lish for some of it to rub off, and Al’s birth had been an at-home-at-incredible-speed affair – he’d come careering out like a runaway train and has barely stopped since – so she knows the basics.

Essie can’t help being a bit impressed by her mother’s calmness, as she gently twists the tiny form the right way up and pulls, ever so gently, until with a slither the tiny creature, covered in streaks of blood and goo, finally drops on to the ground. Essie wouldn’t go near a dog’s vagina in a million years.

Janey is reasonably sure, given she doesn’t know how long it was stuck for, that the puppy will be dead, but Felicity noses round and starts licking the tiny bundle with a sandpapery tongue, great long licks, and to Janey’s surprise and delight, and Essie’s astonishment, the tiny mouth falls open, a little pink tongue appears, and with the tiniest of snorting noises the creature takes its very first breath.

‘No way!’ says Essie, grinning and dashing over. ‘Mum, look!’

And Janey glances at her girl, her darling daughter, delighted and engaged.

‘Watch this,’ she says, moving the bundle down to Felicity’s tummy as, sure enough, the brand-new thing snuffles, eyes tight shuts, its nose in the air, nestling and pushing until it finds and latches on to one of Felicity’s nipples and, after a few momentsof snuffling misconnections, finally settles down and starts pulling contentedly, as Felicity continues to lick and lick.

Essie finds she has tears in her eyes.

‘I can’t believe something so disgusting can be so beautiful,’ she says.

Janey smiles. ‘I think you’ve just described womanhood,’ she says, and puts her arm around Essie, squeezing tightly. ‘Now,’ she says to Felicity, who looks tired and unhappy but appears to be heaving again, moving to try to expel something. ‘Dogs don’t have babies in ones, do they?’

By the time Dwight thunders up the stairs with Ahmed the vet, who has been tending to an illegal albino crocodile in Wick and wasn’t best pleased about it, Janey has helped with pup number two, and it looks as if number three is well on its way.

Ahmed smiles.

‘Good midwifery,’ he says, washing his hands. ‘That was a breech. It’s strange such a big dog should have such trouble giving birth. She looks old for a litter.’

He pats her gently, as the last three pups arrive without incident and Felicity keeps up her constant licking routine, despite looking as exhausted as a dog can look, and flopping back on what Janey has finally realised is a mattress. A mattress that is now good for nothing but being set on fire, but it makes sense that Felicity found her way here.

‘I know this dog,’ says the vet. ‘Mr Meakin looks after her for the big house. He hasn’t been to see me for ante-natal though.’

‘Maybe he didn’t know,’ says Janey. She knows Jack Meakin, a tough, solitary outdoors type. She tries not to think about his dating profile.

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