Page 56 of The Little Flower Shop By the Sea
Basil looks up at me with his mournful eyes.
‘It must be harder for you. I guess you don’t really know what happened to Rose; one day she’s here and the next… well, you’re living with someone else.’ I pretend to give him a nudge. ‘At least you saw a bit of action living with Lou, eh, fella? That’s got to be a bonus at your time of life?’
Basil just yawns.
‘But you obviously miss my grandmother, that’s why you wanted to come back in here, somewhere you’d feel close to her. Perhaps that’s what we all long for, Basil, the chance to feel close to the person we lost. Just that one last time.’
As Basil puts his head on my lap and closes his eyes, I reach out my hand to touch the heart that’s engraved under the desk.
Rebels together forever…
Nineteen
Pear Blossom – Comfort
Basil and I sit in the shop companionably together for some time, Basil snoring gently as he sleeps contentedly with his head on my lap, and me thinking about St Felix past and present. But eventually I decide we must go back to find Lou and see how Suzy is getting on with her puppies. So I wake Basil and encourage him to join me outside for further walkies.
When we return to Lou’s cottage, I let myself in the back gate, take off Basil’s lead and refill his water bowl, then I promise him I’ll be back when I’ve found him some food in Lou’s kitchen.
‘Back in a mo,’ I tell him as he curls up on his bed outside. ‘You might be a daddy by now, several times over!’
I hunt around Lou’s old-fashioned kitchen for some dog food, stupidly looking in cupboards for tins. Then as I stub my toe on a large sack of Bakers dog food standing on the floor, I realise that looking after two dogs as big as Basil and Suzy must require large quantities of food, not silly little tins of Caesar like my neighbour back in London fed her two pugs.
I fill a clean silver dog bowl that I find on the kitchen counter with food, then I take it outside to Basil. He looks up at me as I place the bowl down next to him, sniffs the contents, then allows me to leave it there for his perusal later.
‘So much for being desperate to see your offspring, Basil,’ I tell him. ‘How about I go investigate on your behalf while you take another nap?’
Basil seems to like this idea. So while he settles down with his head on his paws I go inside to see what’s happening with Suzy.
I pause as I arrive outside the sitting room door, unsure whether to knock. How much privacy does a dog need when it’s giving birth? And it’s as I do that I notice something hanging on Lou’s wall. That’s interesting, I think, looking at an embroidered picture of a sweet pea. It’s a bit like the one Amber and I found in the box with the flower journals. I look closer; it has the same initials, VR, sewn into the petals of the flower that ours had.
‘Poppy, is that you?’ Lou calls from the sitting room, so I leave the picture and head in.
Lou and Jake are sitting on the floor in front of Suzy’s basket.
‘Come in,’ Lou says, beckoning me across. ‘It’s all over.’
I walk to the basket and find Suzy looking tired but content with five miniature Suzys wriggling underneath her, all vying with each other to get to their mother’s teats first and latch on for the longest drink of milk.
‘They’re so tiny,’ I say, unable to take my eyes off them. ‘It must have happened very quickly.’
Lou glances at the clock on her mantelpiece. ‘You were gone over two hours,’ she says. ‘That’s plenty of time, and Suzy did really well.’ She reaches out to stroke her, and Suzy, too exhausted to do anything else, simply closes her eyes to acknowledge Lou’s touch. ‘Is Basil OK?’ Lou asks.
‘Yes, he’s fine. He was no trouble at all. We went to the shop.’
Both Lou and Jake look at me in surprise.
‘He wanted to,’ I tell them. ‘He was scratching at the door.’
‘And what happened?’ Jake asks.
‘We went in,’ I reply cautiously. ‘And… sat for a while. He seemed to like being in there.’
‘Poor Basil,’ Lou says. ‘I think he still misses Rose.’
‘I think so too,’ I agree.
Lou and Jake exchange a look.
