‘Three months… you’re going to be away for three entire months? I’m sorry but I still can’t take that in.’ Sophie shook her head and lifted another forkful to her mouth.
Tess and Sophie were having their usual last Friday of the month working lunch in the Italian restaurant round the corner from the office. This was when they enjoyed a lengthy and civilised meal with wine and discussed the month at work, talking through the gripes, problems or grievances, and occasionally patting themselves on the back for things well done. The work discussion was followed with talk about their families and more personal things. Tess’s sabbatical and her ‘holiday of a lifetime’ had been the hot topic of conversation for some time now, especially as she now had only three weeks left in the office. For Sophie, whose children were between the ages of ten and sixteen, the idea of such a long holiday, so far away, was unbelievably exotic.
‘I do know that it is completely outrageous,’ Tess agreed, still not quite daring to believe that it was all going to happen, the longed-for sabbatical, with the six weeks of carefully plotted travel round all the most beautiful places in Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand, plus a further six weeks back at home to recover and put together her ‘midlifer project’. This holiday, so long in the planning, was now really almost here. She could hardly believe it.
Sophie had helped with the heavy lifting at work – the rearranging of project dates and deadlines, and the organising of cover. Someone was even coming up from the London office for a month to help out. Then Tess had indulged fully in the planning of the trip itself – where to go, where to stay (from eco beach huts to luxurious spas), what to do, what not to miss.
For most of the spring, it had become almost a hobby, something she did in the evenings and at the weekends, something on the scale of a major work project that had required a whiteboard, post-it notes and its very own files and folders on her laptop. There was even a Pinterest board of beaches, each one more vibrantly turquoise-blue than the last.
Yes, it had taken quite some time to talk Dave fully round to the idea of the trip. She’d had to promise more beaches, relaxing breaks between the travelling stints, ‘safe’ food, and some kind of legal tranquilliser for the flights. And when he felt these things were being taken care of, he had finally begun to get enthusiastic. Alex and Natalie had started to get interested, too. They’d opened up email links and WhatsApp pictures, they’d told her which hotels, tourist attractions and areas they preferred over others, but no one had been quite as involved, as zealous even, about the whole thing as Tess. This was her thing, and it was her gift to her family. Not only had she organised everything, but she had paid for it too from her Hambold bonus.
She wanted this holiday to be something exciting, adventurous and unforgettable – something that took them completely away from themselves, from the ordinary everyday, an adventure they would all remember forever. So she’d relished the plotting and the planning and had even withdrawn some lifetime savings to make this very special dream trip come fully to life.
She knew that she was trying to recapture lost time with her children. She wished now that she’d spent so much more time with them during the seemingly endless days of the summer holidays. Instead, she’d usually managed three weeks at most. Two weeks on a family holiday and then a third week when they prepped for school, shopping for uniforms, shoes, new pencil cases and lunchboxes, visiting the dentist. At the time, she’d been grateful and only a little jealous to leave Dave at home running art projects, friend visits, bake-offs and day trips, but now that her children had left school, had, to be honest, left home, she regretted the unfettered summertime that she hadn’t spent with them.
Surely, somehow, she and her colleagues could have made a plan to have given them all much more of the summer off? Didn’t businesses in Scandinavia shut up shop for the whole of August so everyone could swim and fish at their lake hut? And those economies didn’t exactly come to a standstill.
What had seemed so important about work back then that she’d been able to suit up, pack her laptop bag and leave the house every morning to go and sift through some company’s accounts? And why had a senior accountant and a head of art between them not been able to salary sacrifice a few weeks of pay for some extra summer holiday time?
Because, looking back, there hadn’t been an unlimited number of summers. And, of course, she loved grown-up Alex and Natalie, loved them both fiercely, but when she allowed herself to think about it, she missed their childhoods very much and wished she’d wrung more out of the available time with them.
So this was an attempt to make up for it, before the children were fully grown up and gone. And she would spend the first three weeks of the holiday alone with her husband for the first time in years. She hoped this would give them time to take a fresh look at their worn and saggy relationship, their comfortable old pyjama-bottom of a marriage, and have a think about where they were and where they might be headed.
‘So what’s this American like, who’s renting Ambleside while you’re away?’ Sophie asked, bringing Tess back from her thoughts. ‘And why is one lone American renting your beautiful big house?’
‘She’s a screenwriter from Los Angeles…’ Tess said, pride and excitement in her voice. ‘Do you remember that film Spangled?’
‘Oh yes, I do. That was funny, and smart and really good,’ Sophie added.
‘So renting Ambleside for the summer is probably small change for her.’
Although their children were at different ages and at different schools, Tess and Sophie had shared long conversations about all kinds of critical childhood and parenting moments: secondary school choices, the pros and cons of braces, maths exam results, acne treatment, whether or not fifteen-year-olds should be allowed to visit their boyfriends’ homes, screen time, and other assorted parental minefields.
They never discussed their marriages though, it occurred to Tess. Work, of course, children, yes, homes, yes, wider families, yes, current TV viewing, naturally, but husbands and marriages were topics only mentioned in a superficial way.
Did Sophie suspect that Tess wasn’t happy with the state of her marriage? That was as much as Tess would admit to herself… that she wasn’t happy with the current ‘state’. She definitely thought of the situation as temporary. She hoped it was temporary and that one day soon, it would pass. But if she thought back to when she had last felt really proud and happy to be Dave’s wife, it seemed a very long time ago… years ago, in fact.
And sometimes she wondered if they could be heading towards a pivotal moment, a make-or-break decision.
‘Is it nearly four?’ Sophie exclaimed. ‘I’ve got to get back to my desk for an hour, then I’m on football taxi duty at five thirty.’
Sometimes these reminders of busy family life gave Tess a pang, but occasionally – like today – the thought of going home to a calm house completely free of all child taxi duties was really quite nice.
‘And who’s going to look after your old doggie while you’re away?’ Sophie asked as she tried to attract the waiter’s attention.
Even as Tess replied, talking in glowing terms about the pet sitter, who was going to take Bella into her home and look after her really carefully, she could feel her stomach clench slightly.
This was the glitch in the plan; the one poorly tied loose end. Bella. The old girl had lost so many teeth, her food was a senior dog paste that Tess sometimes spoon fed to her, if her appetite was poor. Bella needed a dose of painkiller for her arthritis twice a day, but she still whimpered when she squatted or got up from her bed because her hips were stiff and sore.
Tess knew that Bella wasn’t going to last forever, and the thought that Bella might die when they were away on the holiday was terrible.
Too much wine, she thought, in the back of the taxi home, speeding through a green blur of hedgerow and country lanes. Too much wine… she was sluggish and sleepy. She would take her duvet down to the sofa; get floppy old Bella snuggled up beside her, put the TV on and fall asleep for half an hour.
‘It’s this turn here,’ she told the taxi driver, because these twisty back roads were easily confused, ‘and then the first on the left.’
Several minutes later, the taxi rolled up the smooth reclaimed red brick slope of the driveway and came to a halt.
This was Ambleside.
This was home.
And she loved her house. Ambleside was one of the loves of her life and had been ever since she’d first set eyes on it. Such a handsome 1930s building, with a freshly painted white exterior, gloss black proper wood-framed windows and a shiny oak front door framed with trailing lilac wisteria flowers. This was her family’s home. And had been for eighteen years now.
They’d moved in when Alex was four and Natalie just a year and a half. They’d taken out a vast mortgage that had caused her panicked middle-of-the-night wake ups as she saw nothing but decades of poring over spreadsheets ahead to pay it off. And all that hard physical labour… stripping out mildewing woodchip, rotted bathroom panelling, ancient, stinking carpet. Uncovering rotted joists, patches of hidden damp, collapsed drains and even, on a particularly terrible Sunday evening, a nest of grey, furless baby rats in the low attic. They’d had to hit the leftover Christmas brandy after that discovery. Wine just hadn’t been enough.
For almost a year, buying the house had felt like a dreadful, ruinous mistake. But all that pain was long forgotten now, she thought, putting her sturdy metal key into the familiar lock. Room by room, the house had been re-made around them into their true family home.
There had been updates now and then since the first major renovation: the nursery wallpaper had been replaced with stark white for a teenaged Alex and pastel blue with flowers for Natalie. And in the last year or two, Tess’s attention had shifted from sourcing perfect curtains and kitchen tiles out into the garden.
Today, as soon as she stepped into the hallway, she could tell that something wasn’t right. It was the smell – the sharp back-of-the-throat tang of vomit. Dave was away on a school trip until tomorrow, so only Bella, the family dog, was home.
‘Bella,’ she called, ‘where are you, my lovely?’
She hurried into the sitting room where Bella’s big, comfortable bed and blankets were pulled up close to the radiator.
Tess’s eye travelled from the first pile of sick along to the second and third and finally to Bella in a heap in her basket.
She rushed over to the trembling dog and knelt down beside her.
‘What’s up, my darling?’ Tess said, running her fingers over the warm, velvety head, ‘are you not feeling well?’
Bella’s head lifted slightly, she managed a brief whimper, and her old, clouded eyes met Tess’s.
And Tess was instantly filled with dread.
‘No…’ she whispered, ‘oh no, Bella.’
‘Well, you’ll have to bring her in,’ the receptionist at the vet’s told her in a voice that sounded clipped and unsympathetic.
‘I can’t bring her in,’ Tess said, ‘she’s too ill. It will cause her too much pain.’ Plus, at the back of her mind was the realisation that she’d drunk the best part of a bottle of Chablis, so was in no fit state to drive the car.
‘Isn’t there anyone who can come out and see her… even later today? Any time really, I’ll be here with her.’
‘No, we’re closing at five thirty and we don’t do house visits,’ came the reply.
‘Right… okay… and is there anyone I can phone if things get worse?’
‘Yeah… we’ll put the answering machine on and it’ll give you the emergency number. But you’ll have to go to them. They don’t do house visits either.’
Tess ran her hand over the dog’s soft head and suddenly tears were spilling down her cheeks.
‘Right, fine,’ she said, ‘thank you.’ Then she hung up.
Bella was still trembling and whining softly in her basket. The cooling sick was congealing on the grey carpet. But vets didn’t do house visits any more. Despite the overwhelming sense of sadness, Tess knew she had to do something.
Okay, first things first. She went to the kitchen cupboard where she kept Bella’s arthritis pain relief. She took a teaspoon from the drawer and filled Bella’s bowl with fresh water. Then, for a few minutes, she ministered to the sick dog. She tenderly squeezed a double dose of medicine into her mouth. Then she dribbled teaspoons of the cool water over Bella’s parched-looking tongue.
She stroked the dog’s ears and after a while, Bella’s trembling and whimpering quietened and she seemed to fall asleep.
Tess went to the kitchen and put together a sponge, a towel and a bucket of soapy water. Back in the sitting room, she tucked one of Bella’s blankets over her, then scraped and scrubbed at the carpet.
When that was finished, she brought her duvet down, lay on the sofa and, just like Bella, fell asleep – only to wake with a start an hour or so later to a terrible deep, dark wail. She couldn’t understand for a moment what it was or where it was. A frightening, gutteral sound… like the cries women made in childbirth. She looked round the room and saw Bella lying on her side, close to her bed, her legs stiff and stretched out, wailing in pain.
Tess felt panicked. She turned first of all to her phone lying on the floor beside the sofa. She wondered if she should phone Dave, hundreds of miles away looking after school children on a trip to St Ives. Maybe she should phone her own children… but what would they do? What could they do? How could they help her or Bella?
This was going to be down to her. She would somehow have to step up and handle this. She would cope with this because mothers always find the strength to do these things – to give birth, to tend to the babies and the sick and to stay with the dying.
‘Hello, Bella, hello, darling,’ she said, kneeling beside the dog and running her hand gently, tenderly, comfortingly over the dog’s head and side.
For almost an hour, Tess tried to comfort the beloved dog, she fed her medicine, she ran water over her dry, panting tongue, and she listened to the harsh rasp in Bella’s throat.
Then she knew she had to get help. Surely she would be okay to drive to the vet now? And get the pain relief the dog needed.
She phoned the number, jotted down the emergency contact details, made the second call and that was how she came to be driving slowly down a series of narrow roads with poor, aching, groaning Bella in the flattened front seat, wrapped in Tess’s fluffy dressing gown. Tess had one hand on the steering wheel, one hand on the dog’s head. She was talking reassuringly and as kindly as she could. She wished and wished this wasn’t happening, and she felt the enormity of this trip.
This might be her last car ride with their dog.
How many thousands of car rides had she made before with this lovely, gentle soul? Trips to the park, trips to the forest, the children giggling in the back seat, and Bella barking happily from the boot. In all the joy of taking small children and a delightful doggie to the beach, how could you possibly imagine that there would be a journey like this in the future?
And just like that, very fond and funny memories rushed into her mind. The time Bella got lost on a country park walk and she and Natalie shouted so hard and for so long that they actually lost their voices for the rest of the day. And Alex had been so worried that he couldn’t go for a walk for months afterwards unless Bella was on the lead. The time Bella jumped up to the kitchen countertop and managed to wolf down an entire chicken just out of the oven. Tess had spent several minutes searching for that chicken, convinced she must have put it somewhere, before she’d finally realised what had happened. They’d had to go for fish and chips instead. For months, Natalie would mention it every time they had chicken: ‘Remember when Bella ate the whole chicken, Mummy. The whole chicken, in one big gulp.’
By the time Tess pulled up in the animal hospital’s car park, Bella was wailing again, stretching out in pain and retching. Tess wasn’t going to leave her here like this, so she tooted her horn a few times, hoping this would bring someone out.
Sure enough, a receptionist came to the doorway and asked: ‘Yes? Can I help you?’
‘I phoned… it’s my dog… she’s really ill. And I don’t think I can move her.’
She was told that the vet would be out as soon as he could. So Tess went back into the car and spent several long minutes holding the dog’s old head in her hands, talking to her and trying to soothe her. But the panting and whining made it clear that Bella was in deep pain.
The vet, when he arrived at the car door in pale blue scrubs, looked young and a little tired.
‘Hello there, I’m Stan,’ he said, ‘So… it’s not going so well here.’
Stan knelt down at the door and gave Bella an initial examination. He put his stethoscope against her heart and against her stomach. He listened long and carefully. Then he took time to ask Tess detailed questions and consider her answers. He asked how old Bella was.
‘So, what’s the matter with her?’ Tess asked when the questions seemed to have come to an end. She realised she was trembling, too, frightened of the answer.
‘I’m really sorry, but I’m pretty certain that she’s dying,’ came the reply. ‘I think her kidneys have failed. She’s in a lot of pain and I’m going to give her a sedative now to help.’
He picked up the scruff of Bella’s neck and injected deftly.
Surprisingly quickly, Bella’s body relaxed, her breathing deepened, and the whimpering quietened. This meant that Tess could shift her focus from Bella’s precious old head to what Stan was saying.
‘She needs to go to sleep now, doesn’t she?’ Tess asked, ‘I mean… it’s time… to let her go?’
She heard her voice break on the final words and, for several moments, she had to struggle hard to keep her face from crumpling.
‘Yes, I think that would be the kindest thing you could do for her now,’ Stan replied.
‘Do we need to bring her in to the surgery?’ Tess asked, her voice hoarse.
‘No, we’ll not move her now,’ Stan replied, ‘she looks comfortable. You get into the seat beside her and I’ll go and get what I need. I’ll be about ten minutes… would you like some more time, or does that sound okay?’
Oh, the kindness of that question.
Tess heard herself say, ‘Ten minutes is fine.’ But nothing about this was fine at all.
She put her hands around the old dog’s face and used every one of the last remaining minutes to hold Bella and tell her what a wonderful dog she was. How much she was loved and how much fun she’d brought to them all. She named every family member in turn and thought she could see Bella’s ears twitch at the mention of Alex, then Natalie and Dave. She smoothed Bella’s ears, ran her hand down the warm fur and tried not to think about anything other than keeping Bella comfortable.
And that was how Bella died, with her head in Tess’s lap, with Tess’s hands around her head and Tess holding back tears as she murmured gentle and comforting words of love.
For some time afterwards, Tess sat in the car beside Bella’s body, without the calming rise and fall of Bella’s breath, and she tried to imagine her home without Bella’s presence. It would all be so unbearably neat and organised and tidy… not even any dog hair. Tears streamed down her face as she considered the loss of Alex, Natalie and now even Bella from her daily life. No dog hair, no jumble of trainers to trip over in the hallway, no damp towels on the stairs, make-up stains on the sink, no dog lead hanging by the door. It was the end of an era, well before she was ready for it to end.
There was paperwork to sign and Bella was taken out of the car, still – at Tess’s request – wrapped in her dressing gown. Bella and the dressing gown would be cremated and Tess would have to come back on Wednesday to collect the ashes. In the reception area, in the dazed aftermath of this trauma, Tess drank down a bitter, gritty coffee from the vending machine.
The receptionist asked if she was okay to drive, or did she need a taxi?
Tess felt barely able to answer the question. But she nevertheless convinced herself that she would be fine to drive. And drive through those familiar country lanes she did, in the dark, through a blizzard of tears. Crying so hard she could feel water pooling in the hollow at the base of her neck, and snot streaming from her nose. She hardly noticed the journey, but she did feel the shock of arriving home, knowing there was no Bella there to greet her and never would be again.
This thought was so sad that she shut the front door and crumpled to the ground, where she keened her grief for many long minutes.
When she finally stood up, she saw that it was after 11 p.m. She had no idea how it had got so late. There was a text on her phone from Dave to say goodnight because he was going to bed early… or, more likely, sneaking to the hotel bar with the rest of his frazzled colleagues.
She couldn’t bear to call him or her children. Let them think that all was well and Bella was sleeping peacefully in her bed, for one more night, at least. Tess drank some water, then went through a half-baked version of her usual bedtime routine.
When she lay back on her pillow, she heard the quiet and felt intensely alone. No Dave breathing peacefully beside her, no footsteps in the corridor of a teenager going to bed late. No Bella on semi-watchful sentry duty downstairs. Her unhappiness lay like a weight on her chest.
‘I can’t go on like this…’ Tess told herself. ‘Something has to change.’