Page 43 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

‘Well, that’s not good for him,’ grumbles Essie. ‘I think you’ll have to ask that schoolhouse guy anyway. They’re technically his dogs.’

Without stopping playing with his finger around the puppy, who is squeaking with happiness, Dwight fumbles out his phone and calls Lowell, who actually picks up. Boomer, thinks Essie instinctively.

‘Hey, man, it’s Dwight,’ says Dwight on speaker.

‘Hi, there,’ says Lowell, sounding harassed.

‘Hey, I’m going to take one of your pups, okay?’

‘Oh, my God, that’s wonderful, that’s brilliant news. Thanks so much, Dwight. You won’t regret it.’

He is still being grateful as Dwight hangs up – smugly, thinks Essie. ‘Yeah, I think he’s okay with it,’ drawls Dwight, looking annoying.

‘Well, you can’t take him from his mother for another four weeks,’ says Essie.

‘Oh, he’ll be ready before then, won’t you?’

He leans down until the tiny creature is nose to nose with him. The pup sticks out its tongue experimentally and gets Dwight on the nose.

‘Then you and me are going to go get ourselves into some trouble,’ says Dwight, hypnotised by the tiny creature.

‘If you’re so great with dogs, why haven’t you got one already?’ says Essie.

‘Weirdly, dogs and North Sea oil platforms aren’t a very common mix,’ says Dwight, without looking up. Then his phone rings and he sighs. ‘Right, I gotta get down the builder’s yard. Donotlet anyone else have this dog, you understand? This ismy dogand his name is Smokey.’ He taps the purple Velcro collar the pup is wearing. ‘I mean it: don’t swap him out; he’s the best dog. Don’t you go taking him.’

‘I shan’t take your stupid “best dog”,’ says Essie, rolling her eyes.

Dwight takes a bunch of photos from different angles, clearly just in case. ‘Right,’ he says. Then he frowns. ‘What colour house paint should I get?’

Essie looks at him. ‘You haven’t thought of this?’

He shrugs. ‘Neh.’

‘Do you even have an account?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Do you have a business account with the builder’s merchant?’

Dwight shrugged. ‘I’m sure it will be fine.’

‘It will not be fine!’ Essie looks around at the wind blowing through the cracks in the warped window frames, the missing tiles on the roof. ‘And paint is the last thing you should be thinking of! Where’s the builder’s yard?’ she says.

‘Caithness.’

She frowns and looks at her watch, which is stupid, because she has absolutely nothing planned for the rest of the day that won’t be trying to spot Connor in the background of other people’s house parties from the weekend, when she’s sat in the house all day listening to her mother complain about her neck as if, oh, my God, that shit even mattered or would ever happen to her.

‘I’ll come with you. You can show me your budget. I can’t bear watching you bugger this up. It’s not fair on Smokey.’

Dwight nods as if he can see the sense in this. ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I mean, I haven’t got a budget, so . . . ’

‘Have you seriously never ever watched a single property show?’

Dwight shrugs. ‘Nope,’ he says. ‘On the rigs we watch . . . ’ He looks faintly embarrassed. ‘Other things. Shark films and that.’

‘You watch shark films out at sea?’

He shrugs. ‘Don’t you watch, like, bank heist films?’

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