Page 55 of The Little Flower Shop By the Sea
‘Lou! You’d best get back in here!’ Jake calls from the house. ‘I think there’s one coming.’
Lou thrusts Basil’s lead and some bags into my hand.
‘He just worries, you know,’ she says as she dashes back up the garden towards the house. ‘Jake – it’s just his way, he doesn’t mean anything by it.’
I’m not sure if she’s referring to the forthcoming puppies, or to Jake’s earlier concerns about me taking Basil out.
‘Make sure you clean up his mess,’ she instructs as she disappears into the kitchen. ‘The Parish Council fine you if you don’t!’
I close my eyes for a moment.Great.
When I open them, Basil is looking up at me, panting.
‘Come on then, you,’ I say, leading him out of Lou’s back gate. ‘Perhaps you’d be good enough to keep it to number ones, if at all possible.’
Lou is right: Basil is easy to handle on the lead. He just pootles along next to me, stopping occasionally to sniff with his big long nose at anything that interests him, and when necessary he marks his territory with a small yellow trail.
I walk him back down into the town, and along Harbour Street, with the intention of us walking along the harbour front and then up on to the cliffs or maybe the beach, depending where the tide is at the moment. It’s May so the light is still good at this time, and the earlier threatening clouds I’d thought likely to bring rain when I’d been out with Jake are dispersing.
We’ve just passed The Blue Canary bakery, all shut up for the night now it’s gone six o’clock, and we’re just about to walk past Daisy Chain when Basil suddenly pulls up.
I’m not prepared for this, and my arm is nearly yanked out of its socket as the lead tightens behind me.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask. I look at him sitting firmly on the ground. ‘Do you need to go poo-poo?’
I roll my eyes. What has my life become?
Basil just stares up at me, his big dark eyes blinking slowly.
‘Come on, Basil.’ I tug on his lead. ‘Don’t be awkward, we were getting on so well there for a while.’
But he won’t budge.
Then out of nowhere he starts howling.
Long, loud, pitiful howls that send chills right through me. He sounds a bit like a wolf deep in the middle of some dark dense forest. Except Basil is a slightly overweight elderly basset-hound, sitting on a cobbled street in a quiet Cornish seaside town – a wily old wolf he most certainly is not.
‘What’s wrong?’ I hiss at him, as a few passers-by give us odd looks. ‘Why are you doing that?’
Basil stops howling and launches himself at the flower-shop door. Then he begins frantically scratching at it.
‘Stop it!’ I tell him. ‘We’ve only just painted that! Come on.’ I pull on his lead again, but he won’t budge. He sits in front of the door, facing it.
‘Do you want to go into the shop?’ I ask him in a slightly gentler tone as I realise what might be wrong. ‘Is that it?’
Amber has already gone home, so I reach into my bag and pull out my shop key, then while Basil’s tail begins to wag very fast, I unlock the door and open it for him. He bursts in, tail still wagging, and sniffs the floor like a bloodhound.
‘She’s not here, you know,’ I tell him. ‘If you’re looking for Rose, Basil, she’s not here.’
Basil ignores my advice and continues to explore the shop. Surprisingly he knocks over very little as he pads about. Rose must have had him in here with her quite a lot; he seems to know his way about. He even goes out to the back and has a look there, so I follow him to the shop counter.
Eventually he returns, tail down, his long ears almost dragging on the floor. He looks at me in disappointment, as though it’s my fault he hasn’t found his owner hidden in the back room. Then he slowly curls up under the desk in a ball, and I wonder if that’s where Rose kept a bed for him when they were here together.
‘Oh, Basil, I’m so sorry,’ I tell him, kneeling down to stroke him. Then I remember what Lou had done and I rub his ear hard. He lifts his head and pushes his ear into my hand. ‘Aw, you like that, don’t you?’ I say.
I sit down crossed-legged under the desk, and continue to comfort him. It’s quite nice being here without all the people, and of course the flowers. The real flowers are all in the newly restored cold store out back, so there’s nothing for me to be freaked out by. It’s just me, Basil and the shop.
‘It stinks when someone dies, Basil,’ I tell him as we sit together under the wooden shop counter. ‘I know exactly how you feel.’
