Never Alone (20 page)

Sarah reaches for the light switch. ‘Will! What the hell are you doing?’

‘I didn’t mean to wake you. I was just checking you were okay.’

She sits up in bed, clutching the duvet around her as if it might afford some sort of protection. Her heart is thumping, so hard that she fears that she is actually having a heart attack.

‘I didn’t mean to scare you,’ he says, his bright blue eyes wide. He looks so young, just for a moment, and she almost forgets that he is actually a fully grown man. He looks like a boy who has just woken up in the middle of a nightmare.

‘Well, you did,’ she says. Her voice sounds high and panicky. She tries to lower it, tries to sound authoritative. ‘Please get out of my bedroom, Will.’

He stands up, quickly. ‘Yes, of course. I’ll – I’ll wait downstairs, shall I?’

‘Yes,’ Sarah says. ‘You do that.’

She watches as he leaves the bedroom, head bowed like a kid who’s just been told off. When he shuts the door she breathes out, her hand clamped over her mouth in case she starts screaming. She wants to yell at him to get out of the house and not come back, but having him wait downstairs is better. She needs to make sure he’s gone.

She dresses in jeans and a jumper, all the while wondering why the dogs didn’t bark. What on earth possessed him to let himself in? In the middle of the night? Why didn’t she hear
him? Why didn’t she wake up? She pulls back the curtains. It’s still pitch-black outside.

Thick socks on, she pads down the stairs.

Will is in the kitchen and smiles brightly at her when she comes down. He is boiling the kettle.

‘I don’t want any tea,’ she says sharply. ‘I want you to leave.’

‘Oh,’ he says. ‘I’m really sorry, Sarah, I didn’t mean to – I didn’t want to scare you, I was just checking you were okay.’

‘I told you on the phone that I was fine. Why wouldn’t I be? What made you come out in the middle of the night, for heaven’s sake?’

His face crumples. He sits down at the kitchen table, puts his head in his hands.

‘It’s Sophie, I’m really worried about her.’

‘So am I, Will. But she’s a big girl. She’s probably just gone away with a friend for a few days and has forgotten to tell George. Or she’s told George a while ago, and he’s forgotten. I’m sure she’s fine.’

‘She didn’t tell you, then,’ he says. His voice is muffled by his sleeve.

‘Tell me what?’

He lifts his head, looks at her with dry eyes. ‘About Aiden. She’s been seeing him, behind your back, and mine.’

‘What do you mean?’ she asks.

‘I saw them. I was going round to see her, as a surprise, like, because she’d told me George was going away again. And he was there, with her, in the conservatory. They were all over each other.’

Sarah wants to explain. She wants to tell him that Aiden and Sophie get on well and she’s fine about that, but it’s the middle of the night and, besides, it isn’t something she wants to talk about.

‘Aren’t you angry?’

‘He’s not my boyfriend. We are just friends.’

Actually
, she thinks,
not even that
.

‘You should be fuming,’ he says, and there is something in his tone that feels dangerous.

‘Please, Will. It’s late.’

Abruptly the anger dissolves into misery. ‘I love her,’ he says; ‘it wasn’t just a bit of fun for me, it was serious. I felt like I belonged with her. I wanted her to leave George and she played along with it; she… she…’

‘All right,’ Sarah says. Perhaps she will make a cup of tea after all. ‘Come on. Take some deep breaths.’

‘She told me I was the right man at the wrong time…’

Will is sobbing so hard he is becoming incoherent, wiping his face with his sleeve. Sarah fetches him a pack of tissues from the kitchen drawer. ‘Here,’ she says. The kettle is taking a long time to boil. ‘Blow your nose.’

‘George was… he was going to kick her out…’

‘What? Why?’

‘’Cos he knew she was messing around,’ he says. ‘He said he was going to kill her.’

‘George wouldn’t say something like that!’ Sarah cannot help herself. It feels as though Will is making things up to justify his misery.

‘’Cos she was planning to leave him,’ he says. ‘She was going to come away with me.’

He is a fantasist, she thinks. He has invented this relationship that, if you’d paid any sort of attention to Sophie in the past few weeks, you would know bears no relation to the one Sophie thought she was having with Will.

‘She wants to have a baby,’ he says.

‘What?’

‘She always wanted to be a mum. But George has had the operation – he doesn’t want any more kids. Sophie said
she could have kids with me. We were going to go away together.’

As he speaks his voice rises into a wail and he lifts his head to the ceiling.

‘I told her I’d… take care of her… but she didn’t… she didn’t want me to… I can’t, oh, God, Sarah, I can’t…’

And then she can’t stand it any more, the pain in his face. She puts her arm around him and he turns in his seat and clutches at her in desperation, sobbing into her shoulder.

‘I was so happy… I thought… we were going to be… a proper family…’

‘I know, I know. It’s okay.’

She holds him gently while he cries, listening as his breathing gradually calms, until the sobs subside into the occasional shudder. His arms are around her back. One of his hands has found its way under her jumper, and when it moves Sarah realises he is touching her bare skin. He begins stroking her, as though it’s him comforting her, not the other way round.

She pulls away from him. ‘All right now?’ Her best ‘mum’ voice, full of authority.
We are coping with this. Everything is fine.

He nods, wiping his face. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I haven’t told anyone.’

‘No,’ she says. ‘Good for you.’

‘She told me she was going to leave him,’ he says again. ‘That she was going to tell George.’

‘So where has she gone?’

He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know.’ He looks as if he is going to start crying again.

‘You can’t stay here, Will. I know things are difficult for you, but I did tell you not to just let yourself into my house again. Didn’t I?’

‘I said I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I was worried about Sophie.’

‘I know, you said. But you could have phoned me if you wanted to talk. I don’t want you to just turn up again. Okay?’

He nods. And then stands up, abruptly, making the chair squeak against the tiled floor. ‘I’ll go now.’

She sees him to the back door, watching as he sets off across the yard. It is just starting to get light. She watches until he is out of sight behind the cottage, thinking about him walking down the hill on his own, hoping he will keep to the edge.

Oh, Sophie
, she thinks.
What the hell has been going on?

You are in the car on the motorway when your phone rings: it’s Sarah.

‘Hi,’ you say, activating the hands-free. ‘Can you hear me okay?’

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Where are you?’

‘On my way back home. Is everything okay?’

‘Sophie has gone missing.’

At first you think you can’t have heard her properly. ‘What?’

‘It’s Sophie. George says she’s gone, he doesn’t know where. I thought maybe you might know.’

‘Me?’ This isn’t the time for discretion, you tell yourself. It’s force of habit that makes you sound evasive. ‘I saw her on Monday. She was fine.’

‘She didn’t say anything about going away?’

‘No. She said she was going to meet you for lunch, yesterday.’

‘She didn’t call me, so I rang George and he said she had gone somewhere. It’s odd – it’s like he wants to be worried but he knows it’s quite likely she’s just gone off for a bit. I think they must have had a row about the car.’

‘He doesn’t think she did it, surely?’

‘No, of course not. But he has put two and two together and assumed it’s a friend of Sophie’s.’

‘Will?’

‘That’s my guess.’

‘Is Sophie not with Will?’

‘I don’t think so. He came round last night – he seemed really upset about her. He thinks George has done something to her. I don’t know what to think.’

‘Where is he now?’ you ask. Your heart has started to beat faster, and getting back to Sarah has suddenly become urgent.

‘I don’t know. He left first thing this morning, went off the way he always does. Why?’

‘Sarah. Did he stay the night?’

It’s the wrong way to phrase it, and you can hear by the tone in her voice that she has misunderstood.

‘Not in the way you mean. He turned up, we sat in the kitchen talking, he went off again. Not that it’s got anything to do with you.’

‘You’re right, I’m sorry. But please be careful with him. Don’t let him in when you’re there on your own…’

She sighs. ‘Not that it matters now, but I didn’t let him in; he just showed up. He doesn’t seem to be able to get that particular message, no matter how many times I ask him not to.’

‘Wait – he let himself into your house in the middle of the night?’

‘He says he didn’t want to wake me. Look, I know. I know it sounds really bad. But I’ve known him since he was a teenager. And it’s obvious he trusts me.’

She trusts him, but she is wrong. This isn’t the sort of thing you can tell her over the phone while you’re in a noisy car doing seventy.

‘I’ll be back in an hour, maybe two. I know things have been a bit awkward between us. Could we sit and have a coffee or something? Please?’

‘I’ve got to go and get some shopping,’ she says.

‘Later, then. Please?’

‘All right. Kitty’s coming home tonight.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll make sure I’m out of the way.’

‘It’s not that. She’s upset. I just – I think I need to spend some time with her.’

‘Sure. I’ll see you later, okay?’

She rings off.

You look down at your speedometer; without realising, you’ve been accelerating, and now you’re travelling at just a shade under a hundred miles an hour.

The night’s events feel very unreal. Speaking to Aiden has been little comfort; there is no message from Sophie; and George does not answer the phone when Sarah tries the number.

She takes the dogs for a half-hearted walk in the bitter wind, then goes into the village to pick up some groceries for Kitty’s visit.

An hour later, turning back into the driveway she sees a figure waiting on the doorstep. She takes a moment to realise it is Harry Button, hands on his hips, motionless. Of all the people. She could do without a social call right now.

‘Hello, Harry,’ she says.

‘Yer door’s locked,’ he says accusingly.

‘Yes,’ she says.

‘Thought summat had happened.’

‘Is everything all right, Harry? No more floods?’

He pushes his thick white hair out of his eyes. ‘Oh, aye. Not calling about that. Just that we’re going away for a few days.’

‘Oh, right. Are you going to your daughter’s?’

‘Aye. Going tomorrow, before the weather gets any worse. Snow’s coming, later.’

It certainly doesn’t look like it at the moment; there is bright sunshine, despite the cold wind, blue sky overhead. The field is almost all green. Glancing up at the hillside, Sarah catches sight of the grey stone of the croft, squatting like a
troll in the green tussocks. She makes a mental note to go up there again with the dogs again, have a proper look at it while it’s still light. Sophie won’t be there, though, will she?

‘Yes, it’s a long drive for you, isn’t it?’

‘We don’t mind that so much. We take a flask and sandwiches. None of that motorway service station muck. Takes about six or seven hours, thereabouts. Any road, do you think you could keep an eye on t’place for us again?’

‘Of course,’ Sarah says. ‘Anything in particular you want me to do? Just get the post in, check the pipes?’

‘Aye. We’ve got the lights set on a timer – not that it matters much up here, you know. You’ve got our Jenny’s number still, haven’t you?’

‘I saved it in my phone last year. She’s not changed it?’

‘No, no.’ He looks pointedly at the locked front door, at the scrabbling of claws behind it. She doesn’t want to invite him in for tea, he’ll be here ages.

‘You’re not going away or owt?’

‘No plans to. Kitty’s coming home later, just for a few days, I think.’

‘Oh, aye. And what about your friend?’ Harry points at the cottage.

‘I’m not sure what he’s doing,’ she answers.

In the end she unlocks the front door because the dogs are going berserk, but, while she stands there with Harry expecting them both to burst out and greet them, it’s only Tess who comes rushing towards her. ‘Where’s Basil?’ Sarah says, more to the dog than to Harry. ‘Basil?’

She whistles into the house, but Basil doesn’t appear. She gets an unexpected whiff of something foul. Forgetting about Harry Button for a moment, Sarah runs into the kitchen. Basil is lying in his bed. There is diarrhoea all over the kitchen floor, Tess’s footprints running through it, dog shit all over the back of the door where Tess has jumped up.

‘Basil!’

Sarah goes to him, trying to avoid the mess. As she approaches, he lifts his head and whines, then drops it again. He is drooling, his eyes rolling in his head.

‘Christ almighty,’ Harry Button says, holding his hand over his face. ‘He don’t look too bright, that ’un. Best get him to t’vet.’

Sarah can hardly see through her tears. ‘Basil,’ she is saying, ‘it’s all right, it’s okay…’

Harry finds an old rug and helps her carry the Labrador out to the car. She lays him down in the back. He barely moves.

‘Do you want me to go with you? I’ll need to go and tell Moira…’

‘No, really, Harry, it’s fine, thank you.’

Tess is sitting in the porch looking at her expectantly.

‘Oh – Tess…’

‘Now don’t you worry about t’other one. You take that ’un and I’ll make sure the other one’s indoors waiting for you.’

‘Thanks, Harry.’

She reverses slowly to turn the car around. Harry stands, his hand scratching the top of Tess’s head. Sarah gets to the gate and turns gently, trying to avoid the pot holes in the lane. She is crying, hard. ‘Don’t worry, Basil, hold on, old boy. Just hold on for me.’

Harry has called ahead for her, and so, when she pulls into the car park behind the veterinary surgery in Camp Lane the veterinary nurse has opened the back door to the surgery and is waiting to help her carry Basil inside.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Sarah is saying. ‘Thank you, thank you.’

Her face is red and puffy and wet with tears; she must look such a state. And yet all she can think of is her beautiful
boy, her lovely Basil, who lies like a dead weight in her arms, and just lets out a single low whine as she hands him over.

‘I just found him like that,’ she says. ‘He was fine this morning, when I went out. When I got back just now, there was diarrhoea everywhere and he was just lying there.’

‘Any chance he could have ingested something?’

Sarah stares at the vet, eyes wide. Trying to think about the kitchen, about something Basil might have eaten. ‘No, not that I can think of. I didn’t see him eating anything when we were out walking this morning, everything was normal…’

The vet is listening to Basil’s chest, which is rising and falling in shallow little breaths. Sarah stares at her as she palpates Basil’s stomach. Basil lets out a groan.

‘Okay, let’s do some bloods, get Basil on a drip. Have a seat in the waiting room, Mrs Carpenter, and I’ll be out to see you in a few minutes.’

Sarah lets the nurse lead her out into the waiting room. The hard plastic chairs surround a coffee table with a few magazines in a neat pile in the centre. An elderly woman is waiting with a cat in a basket; the cat is yowling. Sarah does not know the woman, tries not to make eye contact, suddenly aware of what a state she must look, but this is not enough of a deterrent to a conversation.

‘Bad news, is it?’ the old lady says hopefully, leaning across and patting Sarah’s knee.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You look a bit upset, my dear. Is it…?’

Sarah looks up, wipes under her eyes with a tissue that the nurse handed to her earlier. It’s sodden.

‘My dog,’ Sarah says. ‘Basil. I think he must have eaten something.’

‘Poison?’

Oh, God. Really?
‘I don’t know. I can’t think how he might have got it.’

‘It’s the farmers,’ the woman says, knowingly. ‘My dad were a farmer. He used to put down rat poison but one day our old dog got hold of some of it. Proper foaming at the mouth, he were. Terribly sad.’

‘Did he…?’

‘Oh, aye. Nowt the vet could do, by the time we got him down there.’

Sarah looks despairingly at the door behind which Basil’s life apparently hangs in the balance.

‘Mind you, that were thirty-odd year ago; they can do marvellous things now, these vets. Your’n’ll be right as rain, you mark my words. They’ll patch him up right enough.’

A second door opens and another nurse looks expectantly at the waiting room. ‘Tootsie Rowbotham?’

‘Aye, here she is,’ says the elderly lady, and stands, swinging the cat basket around as she does so. Sarah catches sight of an angry-looking black and white face, whiskers and a set of yellowing fangs.

The door shuts again and Sarah is left to wait in silence. She stares at the top magazine, a months-old copy of
Your Chickens
, trying to think of everything that has happened in the last twenty-four hours and at what point something might have happened to Basil. He was fine last night, she thinks. He was all right in the early hours, when she was sitting in the kitchen with Will – she remembers him lying with his head on her foot, the way he always does when she is at the kitchen table. She remembers him going back into his bed when she locked the door behind Will. And he’d been fine this morning, eating his breakfast as usual, going out with her around the garden and the top field – a bit reluctantly, because it was still freezing and Basil was never keen on the cold, not like Tess, who was racing around as fast as she could go – but he’d been
fine
, she was sure of it.

Now there’s no one to see, she breaks down again, sobbing quietly into the shreds of tissue, only stopping when her phone begins to buzz in her back pocket.

It’s Aiden.

‘Hello,’ she says.

‘Hi, Sarah. Just got back. Are you still in town? I could meet you there if you like.’

Sarah cannot reply. She is both intensely relieved and distressed to hear his voice, sounding so normal after everything that’s happened.

‘Sarah? What’s wrong?’

He can tell, even from the sound of her breathing.

‘It’s Basil,’ she says, taking in a deep, shuddering breath. ‘I’m at the vet’s with him…’

‘What’s happened?’

‘I don’t know, they’re doing tests… I think he might have eaten something, but I don’t know… Oh, Aiden, what am I going to do?’

‘Do you want me to meet you there?’

Sarah collects herself. ‘No, no, it’s okay. If you’re home, would you mind looking in on the house and checking on Tess? She looked all right when I left, but now I’m worried in case she’s eaten something too and it hasn’t affected her yet.’

‘Of course. I’ll phone you in a bit, okay? Or you can ring me if you have any news.’

‘Thank you, that sounds so good.’

‘You take care. Don’t worry about Tess. I’ll see you very soon.’

She is just putting the phone back in her pocket when the vet appears in the doorway. ‘Mrs Carpenter? Would you like to come in?’

Sarah gets to her feet, suddenly and inexplicably certain that Basil has just passed away on the vet’s table.