Page 35 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

‘Yon vet’s upstairs,’ he says. ‘Will cost you a pretty penny, aye.’

‘I thought Janey here did all the work,’ says Lowell.

‘She did!’ says Dwight, bounding down to the doorway.

‘Excuse me,’ says Ahmed as they enter, drying his hands on a towel. ‘Someone made sure the afterbirth was safe and all the puppies were healthy. You’re welcome.’ He sees the faces of half the town, every single one of whom will need a vet at some point for something or other, and decides discretion is the better part of valour. ‘Actually, delighted to be of service, don’t worry about it,’ he mutters. ‘Now I have to get back, I have a musk rat surgery. Your pups are all fit and well, Lowell.’

‘So what do I do with them now?’ says Lowell, looking astounded.

Ahmed shrugs. ‘Some puppies make a lot of money on the open market . . . some crossbreeds are very valuable,’ he says. Then he frowns. ‘I’m not sure about wolfhounds and Westies, though. That’s more of an—’

‘Offence against God,’ chips in Jack Meakin.

Lowell blinks as if he’s having a very surprising afternoon, as indeed he is, and the entire party proceeds upstairs with the exception of Jack, who is looking, not angry, just disappointed, and rubbing his weather-cracked nose dolefully.

Dwight has clearly been unable to help himself, and is sitting down, stroking Felicity and being a lot less bullish than he normally is. Essie glances at him.

‘Must make a change from rounding up all those cattle,’ she says.

‘Aye, yeah, good one, aye,’ he says lazily, not looking at her, then turns back to Janey. ‘Can Felicity have some food?’ he says. ‘I reckon she’s absolutely hanging for a scran.’

Nobody wants to leave the puppies, but Janey finds a cereal bar in her handbag – she always has snacks in her handbag, never quite lost the habit from when the children were small. She checks it for raisins then hands it over. It vanishes into Felicity’s big hairy maw in two seconds flat.

‘I’ll get some more,’ says Janey, but Felicity has now obviously smelled Lowell approaching, very gingerly, and her tail starts thumping again. Dwight gets up as Lowell moves forward.

‘Hello, my sweet girl,’ he says, stretching out his hand. ‘What have we got here, then?’

Felicity bends her large grey head and forces Lowell to start scratching her ears.

‘Oh, my girl,’ he says quietly, and Janey can hear a slight crack in his voice. ‘Oh, my darling girl. I am so sorry. So sorry.’

But Felicity doesn’t look sad at all. She is butting his hand, then licking the squirming pups then butting his hand again. It is clear as day that she’s saying,Look! Look what I have! Look!

Lowell picks up one of the tiniest white pups and it squeaks, its tiny paws flailing. Felicity watches him, but he doesn’t take it far.

‘It’s beautiful,’ he says, stroking the velvety head with his finger. ‘It’s absolutely beautiful.’

‘I can’t believe this town is going to be terrorised by giant Westies,’ says Essie. ‘Or tiny Irish wolfhounds. Hard to say.’

‘All the nippiness and feistiness of a Westie, but in the body of a vast Irish wolfhound,’ says Dwight. ‘Nothing can possibly go wrong.’

‘It’s like the plot for a horror film,’ says Essie. ‘Maybe a kind of Jason Statham-y one.’

‘Oi!’ says Dwight at once. ‘Don’t diss on the Statham, what’s wrong with you?’

‘Be quiet, the pair of you, and make yourselves useful and get some dog food,’ says Janey. She nearly gives them a pound coin each but restrains herself just in time; they’re grown-ups. And she watches them go down the stairs and thinks, this is the most animated she’s seen Essie since she got here.

‘Well,’ she says, as she and Lowell are left alone with the dogs in the room.

‘Well,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘God. I don’t . . . I don’t know what I’m going to do.’

‘I wonder . . . ’ says Janey, not wanting to pry but even so. ‘Do you think your daughter would be excited to see them?’

He blinks. ‘Oh, God, yes. But I go there, normally.’

‘Where’s “there”?’

‘Galloway.’

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