Page 31 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

‘How could he not know?’ says Essie, who is already, unavoidably, down among the puppies. Ahmed had warned her to be careful, that mum might be defensive, but in fact Felicity’stail is beating lazily; she seems very happy to be showing off her new babies. Ahmed handles them quite casually, stuffing them on to Felicity’s nipples; they form a double decker layer of pups, half grey, half white, all falling all over each other, each one blind to anything but the need to suck.

‘Two boys, four girls,’ says Ahmed. Then he looks at Janey again. ‘You know, if you hadn’t been here and the first had got stuck for much longer, all of these dogs might have died. Felicity included.’

Janey beams with pride. ‘Well,’ she says. ‘And look at them!’

Dwight has found a number for someone to go and knock up Jack Meakin, who, when he arrives, lets out a mighty sigh, after complaining vigorously about how dusty the stairwell is all the way up. Janey thinks he will be thrilled they’ve found his dog, plus VAT. She is completely incorrect about this.

‘Felicity!’ he hollers, even as the dog wags even more to see him. ‘Oh, my God, you absoluteslut!’

‘All those years of dog church, completely wasted,’ Janey whispers to Essie, who giggles.

‘You terrible girl,’ Mr Meakin is saying now, shaking his head at the dog, who is desperately excited to see him, but unable to get up, held down by six very busy puppies. ‘I can’t believe you let those dogs do things to you. I guess we’ll never know who the father is.’

Dwight grins. ‘By the colouring, I’d say you want to have a word with some of the Westies.’

As they are just north of the West Highlands, the little West Highland terriers are extremely common around town, mostly called Jock, with the occasional Hamish thrown in for good measure.

‘How?’ says Essie. ‘How does a West Highland terrier have sex with that . . . pit pony... ?’

‘Excuse me?’ says Mr Meakin, whirling round.

The room goes quiet and undoubtedly, everyone is currently completely unable to prevent themselves from picturing it. Essie suddenly thinks she might have hysterics.

‘Aye, there’s a chest of drawers left over there,’ points out Dwight, and at that point it’s too much. All three of them explode laughing.

‘I’m so glad you find it funny,’ says Mr Meakin fiercely. ‘Now I’ve got these puppies to deal with and she’s not even my bloody dog.’ He turns to Ahmed. ‘I mean, what’s the usual procedure.’

Ahmed looks at him with thinly disguised disapproval. ‘The usual procedure,’ he says carefully, ‘is that if you don’t want your bitch to have puppies, you have her safely neutered.’

‘It’s not my dog,’ Jack Meakin says instantly. ‘I’m just minding it.’

‘Well, then, I believe we should probably inform whoever’s dog it is.’

‘Isn’t there a way we could just make this . . . go away?’ he says.

‘No way,’ says Dwight. He had left the room, but reappears, with the bowl filled up with fresh clean water. Felicity laps at it gratefully and Janey feels bad for not remembering how incredibly thirsty breastfeeding makes you.

‘Well, she can’t come home with me, not like this,’ says Mr Meakin.

‘Did you not even notice she was pregnant?’ asks Ahmed, genuinely astonished.

‘She’s a very hairy dog,’ says Mr Meakin ferociously.

There’s a silence, apart from the tiny pants and squeaks of the brand-new babies, and nobody feels like laughing any more.

‘There’s a pound,’ says Ahmed, reluctantly. ‘But they only hold on to them for . . . ’

Janey can’t bear to think of it. ‘Whose dog is this?’ she says.

‘The Thomases’,’ says Mr Meakin. ‘I’m his gardener. I took their dog in when she left.’

‘Well, I think this makes it his problem,’ she says mildly, keen to stop Jack Meakin picking up tiny puppies and drowning them, or whatever it is he has in mind. ‘Can you call them?’

Jack tries, on his aged phone – which, oh, Christ, has Tinder on it, Janey notices in horror. He hadn’t put ‘possible puppy-drowner’ on his profile, that was for sure. But there’s nobody picking up.

‘We’ll go to the house,’ offers Essie, out of the blue. Janey looks at her, and is surprised to see how affected her daughter is. She looks genuinely frantic, terrified that something bad is going to happen to the puppies, and suddenly very young.

Meanwhile Dwight has usefully dug up some old blankets from a back room somewhere, and is tucking Felicity in. She looks up at him gratefully, tail still thumping. The puppies have stopped mewling and are either still sucking, blissed out, or fast asleep, making a pile. Nobody needs to say what’s on everyone’s mind.

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