Page 48 of You Only Live Once
‘I chose the restaurant!’ I shouted at him, roughly brushing away the tears with the side of my hand. ‘So it was my fault. If we’d been anywhere else, none of it would have happened. It was all my fault!’
‘You can’t think like that,’ Jack replied, his tone earnest. ‘It was nobody’s fault. It was just a horrible set of circumstances in which you were caught up. You can’t go through life blaming yourself. And no, I didn’t know Mike well, but I saw the way he looked at you, and having seen that, I know he wouldn’t want you to feel any of that either. You have to let it go, Lily. You have to let that guilt go.’
I walked up to Jack, tilted my head up until I could meet his eyes and addressed him quietly, but with cold steel in my voice. ‘You don’t get to tell me what to do.’
With that, I turned and walked out of the kitchen, headed straight up to my room, and locked the door.
* * *
Rolling over, I looked at the clock. Half past two. Having left the kitchen, I’d changed into my pyjamas and gone straight to bed, tears still streaming over the row with Jack plus all the memories it had unearthed. I hated arguing with him, but I stood by what I said. Deep down, I knew he had my best interests at heart, at least he thought he did. I’d spent a long time on my own, and maybe I was a little out of practise at the whole compromise thing. I’d had no one else to really consider for the past ten years and, until now, Jack had been pretty easy going. Until now, he hadn’t really dived into my private life. Nobody had. That had been locked away for so many years. I hadn’t even told my brother the things that I had shouted at Jack tonight. I’d known that, for Felix, hearing something like that at an already difficult time would have been painful for him, and they had done so much for me. Perhaps Jack had a point when he said that I put barriers up. I never used to. But things happen and people change. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to feel love, only that I couldn’t bear the loss of it ever again. In my heart, I knew this solitude wasn’t an ideal solution, but it was the only way I could see for getting through it at the time and over the years it had just become a habit.
I fidgeted in the bed and my stomach growled, reminding me that I’d stormed off before eating any of the dinner I’d prepared. Jack had called through the door at one point, suggesting that I should eat something, but I ignored him and he soon went away. However, as my stomach made another loud grumble, it appeared that the hunger pangs were less easily dismissed.
Pushing the duvet back, I shuffled my feet into slippers and grabbed my dressing gown, wrapping it tightly around me before padding downstairs, making sure to be quiet. From previous experience bustling about the kitchen, it seemed that Jack was normally a pretty heavy sleeper, but the last thing I wanted right now was to have another confrontation.
Moonlight streaked the limestone floor of the kitchen-diner and in the soft light, a golden head raised itself to look at me.
‘Oh, crikey, I’d forgotten about you,’ I whispered.
Clive’s ears twitched and he tilted his head to one side.
‘Just go back to sleep.’
He looked at me for a moment more, then rested back against the side of the clearly brand-new bed Jack must have bought him and let out a long sigh.
‘I know how you feel, boy.’
As quietly as I could, I made a sandwich and took it over to the sofa, together with a glass of milk.
Clive shuffled in his bed, so that his head was now resting on his paws and looking directly at me.
‘Please don’t look at me like that. I know you must think I’m horrible. This just isn’t the right place for you. You’re obviously a nice dog and you deserve a wonderful home. I can’t give you what you need. I don’t even know what you need, but I do know that I can’t give it to you.’
Clive blinked and carried on listening.
‘I don’t know what Jack was thinking, bringing you home. I’m sure he meant well, but he doesn’t really know me, he just thinks he does, and then we end up in a situation like this.’
Clive got up, did a stretch a top yogi would be proud of, made a squeaky little yawn noise and padded over to me, his toenails clicking on the tiles. When he got alongside me, he sat and gently laid his head on my thigh.
‘Did Jack teach you that one as well?’
Clive didn’t respond.
Letting out my own sigh, I lifted my hand and tentatively stroked the dog’s head. His fur was silky soft, and he made a contented sound as I did so.
‘Sorry, Clive. I’m not sure if I’m doing this right. I’ve never had much to do with dogs before.’
Clive shuffled his bum a bit closer to the sofa and my legs, so I guessed I must have been doing something right.
‘It’s not that I don’t want you, particularly. It’s just that I’ve never thought of getting a dog. I’ve never really been a doggy person, no offence.’
He didn’t appear to take any, so I continued.
‘People have suggested it before, of course, but you hear such horror stories of puppies chewing this, pooing here, weeing there. I just didn’t think I could deal with all that on top of everything else. I hear you had your own little chewing session? Although it does sound like that was more your old owners’ fault than yours. I do wonder why some people get dogs if they’re not prepared to put the work in and make a suitable home for them. I mean, you’re companion animals, aren’t you? So what’s the point of getting a dog if you’re then going to be out at work eight to ten hours at a time? I’m sure you’ll make somebody a lovely pet. I just don’t think it can be me. You wouldn’t like living here, anyway. I mean, I think you’d like the garden. I’m sure there’s lots of good sniffs out there and you seem to have taken to Jack. He’s here quite a lot, although after the hoo-ha tonight, I’m not sure how long that arrangement will last. But as for the rest of it, I’m pretty sure you’d find it quite boring. I don’t really do much. I’m not social at all.’
I bent my head in order to get a better look at the dog’s face in the moonlight. He was asleep. Great. I sat there for a while longer, reluctant to disturb Clive from what seemed a very peaceful rest, but eventually my leg went to sleep and I had to move him in order to get up and force some blood back into the system. He gave me a look, rested his nose upwards against my hip and, automatically, I reached down and scratched the top of his head. Content, he then plodded back to his bed, turned round three times and plopped down heavily before drifting back to sleep. I watched him for a moment, feeling calmness resonating from his furry body, the steady rhythm of his tummy going up and down in peaceful rest.
‘Oh, no,’ I whispered to myself suddenly. ‘No, no, no. Don’t go down that route, Lily.’ I took my glass and plate over to the dishwasher, loaded it in and headed back upstairs, determined not to dream of chocolate brown puppy dog eyes and silky fur.
