Walking Back to Happiness (45 page)

‘So
you’re
having a second honeymoon.’

‘Well, it’s our first. We only got a couple of nights in the New Forest, first time round.’ Eric sighed nostalgically and offered her some fudge from his pocket. ‘Have some of this excellent handmade fudge. It’s very exclusive.’

‘Thanks, I will,’ said Juliet. ‘None for you, Coco,’ she added, as she looked up at the rustle of the packet. ‘That’s why you had to have your teeth scraped.
Dad
.’

He stuffed the bag within easy reach and carried on. ‘To be honest with you, love, your mother’s been wanting to go since Bethan was born,’ he said. ‘But then Ben died, and you needed her, and when you started to rally Louise wanted to go back to work and then Toby needed her.’

‘You’re making me feel awful,’ said Juliet. ‘Like we’ve been stopping you from doing what you want.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ he said. ‘It’s what parents are for, looking after their young ’uns.’

He touched his hat and Juliet smiled as they passed Wild Dog Café Owner Natalie and her basset hound, Bertie, walking in the other direction. She was arm in arm with a tall, good-looking man – her husband, Juliet presumed; that was a new bit of information to discover for the new year.

‘Anyway,’ her father went on, ‘we’ve saved up a bit since then, and we’ll be able to make a decent holiday of it. Between you and me, I’ve always fancied seeing Australia properly. We’re not going to spend all the time there with Ian. Well, I’m not. We’re going to get a camper van and do some travelling.’

‘So
that
was why you didn’t sign up for a course this year.’

‘Rumbled.’ He sighed. ‘Nothing gets past you.’

It was all falling into place now, thought Juliet, much like an episode of
Murder She Wrote
. ‘And why Mum’s had her hair done and got new glasses and generally looks like she’s having a new lease of life, despite looking after Toby in the week.’

‘What did you think she was up to?’

Juliet opened her mouth, then closed it. Her dad didn’t need to know what she’d been thinking; not now there was no need to worry.

‘It’s nice to have a project,’ Eric went on. ‘It’s given us both something to talk about. Something to plan.’ He looked over at his daughter, his nose red with cold beneath the tweed cap. Juliet tried to imagine that nose on Bondi Beach, smeared with zinc cream, and failed. ‘We don’t just spend our days walking the dog and watching television, you know. We have a life.’

‘
I
walk your dog,’ Juliet pointed out. She tucked her arm into his, to show she didn’t mind. ‘And I suppose Coco be coming to live with me, will she? So you two can go off gallivanting. It’s OK. I understand. It’s like going to boarding school, isn’t it, Coco?’

Eric patted her hand, and they walked on, enjoying the crunch of the snow beneath their boots. When he spoke again, there was the slight catch in his voice that Juliet usually only heard when he’d had an extra glass of whisky at Christmas.

‘You two girls are the most important thing in our lives. And Ian, of course. But we’ve got to the stage where we’re thinking about doing things for the last time. We want to make the most of these years, your mother and me, before we’re too incontinent to get on the plane.’

‘You’re not
old
,’ Juliet started, but she knew what he meant. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘you don’t have to be old to worry about doing things for the last time, do you? It’s my New Year’s resolution – to
do
things, and not wait.’

‘Sounds interesting,’ he said. ‘What are you going to do? See the world? Change jobs?’

‘Well, I haven’t decided yet,’ admitted Juliet. ‘But I’m not going to say no to things. That’s my main resolution. Not saying no.’

‘It’s a good place to start,’ her father agreed. He paused. ‘Although I still say no boys with motorbikes.’

‘OK, Dad,’ said Juliet.

There were one or two other escapees from the Christmas table, using their dogs as an excuse to have a crafty cigarette, in the case of the Man with the Airedale, and sneaky phone conversation, in the case of Teenager with Scottie Dog. Juliet smiled and wished the owners happy Christmas, as Hector, Coco and Minton sniffed around the dogs and let them pass.

‘I’m guessing that dog belongs to his granny,’ Juliet muttered to her dad, as the teen shuffled past, the phone disappearing into his hood and the sooty Scottie nearly disappearing into a drift. ‘He’s called Hamish, and she has a tartan shopping trolley to match his coat – he sometimes rides in it. Minton thinks he’s a bit soft.’

‘Sounds like you and Minton have made some new friends,’ said Eric.

‘I suppose we have,’ said Juliet.

They walked round the perimeter path in easy silence as the sun faded and the dark pallor of winter afternoon began to shade the white banks of snow. When they reached the wrought-iron gates that led back into the main street, the coloured Christmas lights had started to glow against the leaden sky. Red and yellow starbursts, suspended above the road.

Eric stopped, and Juliet knew from the anxious knit of his forehead that he was about to deliver whatever it was he’d actually come out with her to say.

‘Juliet, love, please tell me the truth. If you think you’re going to struggle, we won’t—’ he began, but she stopped him.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I want you to go. I want you and Mum to fly out there and travel and stay out for as long as you like. Tears were forming in the back of her throat, thinking about her parents and their well-worn, comfortable love having its final glorious fling under the Australian sun. She could see them holding hands in a camper van, discovering new things together after so many years.

They’d been together since they were just fresh-faced, inexperienced kids at school too, like her and Ben. Would she and Ben have been setting off on an adventure at their age, after grandchildren, jobs, all the wear and tear of a life together? Would their love have struggled through the rough patches? Juliet wanted to believe it would, even if she knew, now, that door had closed for ever.

‘I wouldn’t have got through this last year if it hadn’t been for you,’ she said. ‘Mum making me eat and forcing me to get outside. You dealing with all that paperwork, keeping the garden under control. But I’m going to be fine. Louise is going to be fine. You brought us up to face our problems and we will. It’s time for you to put Mum first. You and Mum.’

‘Juliet . . .’

‘Haven’t finished.’ She gulped, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘And if you fall in love with the place when you’re out there, stay. Have an adventure together. Don’t come back for us. This is time for you two now. You’ve earned it.’

She looked up and saw that her father’s pale-blue eyes were swimming, his face twisted to try to hold in the tears.

‘Cold,’ he managed. ‘Making my eyes run.’

‘Daddy, don’t cry,’ she said, flinging her arms around his neck, and they stood in the middle of the park and hugged and hugged until Juliet felt the snow start to fall on her face again.

Chapter 29

The dull days between Christmas and New Year were always Juliet’s least favourite part of the holiday season, and this year each day seemed to drag on twice as long as normal.

The hours were unmarked by comforting chunks of weekday television, just floundering ‘what time is it now?’ Harry Potter films that merged into one wizardy mass, and the weather neither warmed up nor snowed again. It felt like Sunday afternoon for days at a stretch, with New Year looming up at the end, and she really wasn’t looking forward to that.

New Year had been her and Ben’s special night. They’d never gone in for Christmas as much as New Year; as teenagers, New Year’s Eve had been the night everyone planned for, making sneaky phone calls to arrange rendezvous during the Queen’s Speech, and buying glittery party outfits in the sales. After their friends went off to university or to jobs in the city, the old gang had met up again in the town centre for quite a few years, doing the same lap of the pubs and bars, ending up on the bandstand in the park for the bells.

Since they’d been married, Ben and Juliet had saved New Year’s Eve for themselves as a reward for shuttling back and forth between his parents, her parents, various relatives and social events. Juliet cooked something really special, and then they wrapped themselves up to sit outside to drink the bottle of champagne that Ben always got from the nice couple with the complicated lawn that only Ben could get to go into stripes.

This year, Juliet knew she’d have to face it on her own, and it filled her with dread and determination in equal measure.

Louise and Peter invited her to dinner, of course, but she turned them down as politely as she could. They were in some strange second-honeymoon phase, with lots of private smiling that Juliet was pleased to see, but still didn’t really want to partake in, as a bystander. The only place she’d have considered going for New Year was next door, to whatever out-of-control hooley the Kellys would have thrown, but they were still away, as proved by the reluctant presence of Smokey in her kitchen every night.

Other people’s pets were what got Juliet through the drab days to New Year’s Eve, as she trudged round the slushy paths with Hector, Minton, Coco and a couple of other regulars, temporarily ejected from their houses on account of allergic relatives. They were always pleased to see her, always happy to flail madly across the park in pursuit of a ball, and always happy to collapse in a heap when she got home.

Juliet let all three of them join her on the sofa for an afternoon doze. When she woke up, disorientated by the heavy breathing around her, Minton’s head was jammed up against her ear and Coco – now less tubby but still regrettably flatulent – had broken wind. Even so, Juliet felt a low-level happiness that she hadn’t felt in a very long time. Her first thought wasn’t sadness; it was an unambitious sort of contentment.

To ward off any last-minute invitations from Louise on New Year’s Eve itself, Juliet volunteered to drive her parents to Birmingham Airport to catch their afternoon flight.

‘You’re
sure
you don’t mind?’ Diane asked for the twelfth time, leaning forward from the back seat of their car. She was wearing her sunny Australia clothes underneath her snowbound Longhampton zip-up padded coat, ready to emerge like a sequinned Per Una butterfly on the plane. She’d never been one for colour before, but when Juliet had taken her shopping for holiday outfits, she’d picked up floral after head-spinning floral, and looked so happy while she tried them on that Juliet had to wipe away a tear when she wasn’t looking.

‘It’s a bit late now, Mum,’ said Juliet, glancing in the mirror. ‘We’re on the motorway, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

‘No, I mean about taking Coco. And looking after the house. You will check the electricity? They were saying at the book group that even if you turn everything off, there’s still a risk.’ The words were old-school Diane, but she wasn’t putting her whole back into the worry. Juliet noted that she hadn’t even mentioned the possibility of floods or squatting.

‘Stop it, Diane,’ said Eric, calmly. ’Louise is going to do her bit. And if the house burns down, Juliet, we’ll bring our camper van back and live on your back lawn.’

‘We will do . . . Oh, Eric. Don’t.’ She sat back down, then leaned forward again. ‘You’ve got Coco’s folder? With the vet’s details in? And you’ll carry on taking her to weigh-ins, won’t you? I don’t want her to miss out on her gold lead when George says she’s done so well.’

‘
Yes
, Mum.’

‘Good girl. Oh dear, I’ll miss my Coco.’ Juliet saw her mother’s lip wobbling in the rear view mirror. ‘Will you do Skype? So she can see me?’

‘And we’ll ring you too, love,’ said Eric, patting her knee.

Juliet grinned. It was sweet, the excitement buzzing from the pair of them. Even her dad had put his new ‘travelling trousers’ on, with pockets for all his bits and pieces. Yes, they were starting to look a bit old, with their grey hair and thicker glasses, but at the same time, Juliet had never seen them looking so young either.

She didn’t think she’d ever loved them with such intensity as when she waved them off from their boarding gate.

By the time she got home, it was too late to wander around the shops and too early to start making herself some supper.

After some desultory tidying up, Juliet found herself staring at the bedroom walls, with Lorcan’s paint-testers in her hands and Minton watching her from the doorway.

Now both the front and back sitting room, the hall and bathroom were done, and the kitchen was a project all on its own, the bedroom was the next obvious room to tackle, but they’d managed to avoid it, because even mentioning the word ‘bed’ felt weird.
Bed
space.
Waking up
to different colours. Silly, when they were so easy about everything else, but it had made Juliet feel awkward, and Lorcan had seemed a bit uncomfortable too.

Standing in the dying light of the year, though, Juliet was seized with a fizzing desire to get on with it. New Year, new start. She couldn’t do much about the wall with the crack, but she could take down the curtains and clear the surfaces ready for action. If half of it was done already, it would cut down the time they’d have to spend in here.

Lorcan had drilled her well in the importance of preparation in quality decorating, and she worked methodically through his list, carefully taking down her wall of photographs, cleaning the room, and shrouding her bedroom furniture in dust-sheets while the sun set outside, and the radio moved from afternoon show to drive-time to pre-party build-up.

It felt good to be doing something physical, wearing herself out like Minton racing after his ball. Juliet wanted to go to sleep tonight, to sleep and sleep, and then wake up in the new year, all the midnight regrets and agonising over while she dreamed. Whenever her brain slid sideways to her parents, napping on each other’s shoulders in premium economy, or loved-up Louise and Peter, getting dressed up to go out for a grown-up dinner, Juliet scrubbed harder and focused on cleaning all the cobwebs out of her room.