Page 42 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

It is true: Bute is all Westie at the back and scrawny wolfhound at the front. She looks like two different dogs who’ve been caught up in an evil experiment.

Al holds up the next two, a bitch and a dog. ‘Caithness and Dingwall!’

‘Dingwall?’’ Essie pats the tiny creature. ‘That’s not a very pretty name.’

‘Dingwall is lovely!’

Caithness gets orange, Dingwall gets purple.

‘Eriskay . . . ’ Al picks up another dog.

‘I think Eriskay is more of a girl’s name,’ says Essie.

‘I thought you were a bit more up-to-date than that,’ says Al. ‘Are you assigning gender to that pup?’ He gives a grin of satisfaction as Essie is forced to agree. ‘And Freuchie,’ he says, pointing to the last one.

‘Where’s Freuchie? I haven’t ever heard of that made-up place.’

‘It’s where the Scottish Deer Centre is!’

‘Wait a minute,’ says Essie, her face confused. ‘They have a place you can go and seemore deer? Are we trying to get rid of the things or are we trying to encourage them? Make your mind up.’

Eriskay gets the blue, even though it is incredibly gender-essentialist, points out Essie, and Freuchie gets the green, and Al and Dwight head out for lunch without Essie, who has job application prep and is going to stay behind and do it, and not play with the dogs. Freuchie is the only one who looks remotely normal, like a lovely white cuddly Westie, just on a vast scale. All the others, Al has pointed out cruelly, look as if they’ve broken out of the Island of Dr Moreau.

Essie looks up Mergers and Acquisitions specialist, and tries to think like a Mergers and Acquisitions specialist. She isn’t sure how much time passes, but it’s hard to concentrate, as the puppies scramble around and Felicity stretches out in a sunbeam.

‘Teeny weeny dogs,’ she suddenly finds herself singing. ‘In a loft somewhere . . . teeny weeny dogs . . . who will grow a lot of hair . . . teeny weeny dogs . . . like to sleep all day . . . teeny weeny dogs . . . who were born in the hay.’ Technically they were born on a mattress, but it doesn’t really matter. ‘Teeny weeny dogs . . . will grow big or small . . . teeny weeny dogs . . . we don’t know because your mum is big but your dad we don’t know at all . . . teeny weeny dogs . . . you are squeaky and wee . . . teeny weeny dogs . . . I can’t believe that your mum . . . licks your pee . . . ’

She starts as she hears a sudden noise behind her. She glances around, and it’s Dwight. She doesn’t know how long he’s been standing there and is mortified that he’s been listening to her ridiculous singing.

‘Oh, uh, hi,’ she says, carefully putting Bute down and scrambling to her feet. She’s wearing her oldest jeans, for dog-cuddling purposes, and brushes them down hastily.

Dwight, it has to be said, had rather enjoyed the girl, the sunlight in her hair, her voice sweeter than she knew, crooning a little song to the dogs. It looked oddly timeless, in the old cottage there. He was not a particularly sentimental man, except when listening to Wichita Lineman and thinking about his dad after a few Jack Daniels, but. Well.

‘No, go on,’ he says quickly. ‘I liked the verse about the dog licking the pee.’

He comes over, carefully lets Felicity sniff his hand.

‘Aye, they’re something, eh. Did they get bigger again?’

‘Dingwall’s on the move.’

‘I can’t believe you gave them all names. Which one is on the move?’

Essie indicates Dingwall, who is still snuffling around the milk bowl, not quite managing to figure out how to get his head over the top of it, but very excited to find a drip.

‘Alrighty, then,’ says Dwight, picking him up. ‘You are obviously the strongest and the smartest. You are going to be mine.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What do you mean, what do I mean? I’m taking this hound.’ The pup was one closed pair of eyes and a vast black button nose in a scraggy ruff of black, white and grey. ‘I’ll call him Smokey.’

‘Well, one, he’s called Dingwall, and two, you can’t justtakea dog. They’re not objects.’

‘I’m afraid he was born on my property so I think that makes him mine. And someone’s gotta take them.’

‘It’s “got to”,’ says Essie. ‘You’re not American.’

‘Git down then, my boy Smokey.’ Dwight is ignoring her and playing with the dog, getting him to bite on his finger.

---